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Now the next step is - not analysis, observation only - is the mind capable of examining? You understand? Is my mind capable of examination, observation? Let's stick to observation, it is better than examination - examination has a different meaning and observation has another meaning. Is my mind capable, realising tha... |
That means, can thought end when I am observing? When the mind is observing can thought be silent? Then you will ask me: how is thought to be silent? Right? That's a wrong question. My concern now is to observe, and that observation is prevented when there is any movement, or flutter of thought, any wave of thought. So... |
Now what is thought? What is thought, the direction of thought - you follow? - what is thought moving to create, to destroy, what is this thing called thought? And can the mind be without thought, and what happens if it is without thought? We have seen examples, doctors and others, when there is no thought, the mind be... |
So what is thought? Why are all our actions based on thought? Love has become part of thought. You follow? I love you. I am attached to you. I love you, I want to sleep with you - pleasure. And the measurement of pleasure is thought. Right? Measurement of pleasure. So where there is measurement there is time. Right? I ... |
Need I translate that? Somebody do it, please. All right sir, I'll do it for you. Don't make it difficult, be simple about it. The fear is the impermanency of ourselves, and the attachment - I'm translating generally - the attachment then becomes the cause of fear. Now just a minute, sir. You see how my investigation i... |
I see around me, in India, in Europe, and in Asia, in America, the movement of thought, the movement of thought in relationship, the movement of thought in religion, all the inventions of their gods are the product of thought, and all the philosophies are based on thought - the philosophy of devotion, the philosophy of... |
And the western world has said, 'Thought is absolutely necessary, there is no immeasurable'. You can invent the immeasurable, all your gods are inventions - the serious investigators - they are all just your emotional reactions, the wish for your father, as the Christ and so on, they won't even accept all that. |
So thought has become the foundation. Right? So what am I to do? I am investigating with you, I hope you are sharing and not just going off to sleep and polishing your nails. |
The moment I say, the mind says, 'Thought must end', who is it that says it? You are following this? In observation thought is interfering therefore there is an assertive action taking place - which is, thought shall end. You follow this? Why do you come to that conclusion? Because it interferes with your observation? ... |
So is your observation without a single motive? It is not, because thought says, I want to go beyond it. And thought has a cause, the cause being the desire to go beyond it, therefore it is measurable and therefore you are still caught in thought. So what is the mind to do? It is not interested in observation at all - ... |
Why has man, right through the ages, given importance to thought? |
We have put several questions this morning: wanting to see the whole, war, education, thought, feeling, all that, what we have talked about. We said we'll take one question, which is, seeing the whole. To see the whole there must be no parts. And there is a part as long as thought interferes. Right? Seeing the whole me... |
I don't know how you listen to these talks, because what we are going to talk over together is quite serious. It is a grave matter and we ought to think over it together, go into it together, not interpreting according to our particular idiosyncrasies and fancies and likes and dislikes, but rather investigate together,... |
That is what we are going to talk over together during this week. And to talk this thing over together I think it becomes necessary to observe, not the description which the speaker is giving, but to observe what is going on. And to observe there is no need for interpretation, to observe there is no need for another to... |
So we have to observe obviously, not only our lives but also what is going on around us - the misery, the conflict, the violence, the extraordinary sense of despair, the sorrow, the meaningless existence that one leads. And to escape from that we resort to all kinds of fanciful, sectarian beliefs. The gurus are multipl... |
So the first thing, it seems to me, is the act of observation, to observe, to observe without the observer. We will go into this because it is quite a difficult problem. To observe, not as an Englishman, or a Hindu or a Buddhist, or a Catholic or a Protestant, or an American, or a Communist, or a Socialist, what you wi... |
That is what we are going to talk over together during this week: whether the human mind, so conditioned, through time, through evolution, through all the experiences, through a great deal of knowledge, whether such a mind, your mind, our mind, our consciousness can go beyond itself, not in theory, not in a fancy, not ... |
If I can change the content of my consciousness it will obviously affect the consciousness of others. And the content of my consciousness makes up my consciousness. The content is the consciousness; the content is not separate from consciousness. So is it possible for me, for a human being, living in this world, with a... |
So, as we said, our consciousness with its content is the consciousness of the world, because wherever you go people are suffering, there is poverty, there is misery, there is brutality, which is part of our daily life. There is social injustice, the tremendously wealthy and the poor and so on and on and on. Wherever o... |
So one must be very clear, it seems to me, about this question: who is the observer and is the observer different from the thing observed? I look at my consciousness - I don't know if you have ever tried to look at your consciousness. Look at it as though you were looking at yourself in the mirror. To look at all the a... |
And can the mind observe without the observer? This is not a conundrum, this is not a trick, this is not something to speculate about. You can see it for yourself, you have an insight into the reality. That is, the observer can never observe. He can observe what he wants to observe, he observes according to his desires... |
So one comes to the point: can the mind, your mind, observe without the observer? And that becomes extremely arduous because in that there is this whole question of fear. Right? There is not only the conscious fears but the deep-rooted fears. Now can the mind be free of fear? Not a few fears, or the fears that one is c... |
Now how do you investigate fear? I am afraid, suppose I am afraid, of a dozen things. How do I investigate and be free of that fear, bearing in mind that the observer is the observed. Right? Fear is not different from the observer. The observer is part of that fear, obviously. So how is the mind to be free of that fear... |
All right, let me put it differently: I am angry, is that anger different from me? Me, the observer, who says 'I am angry'. Or that anger is part of me. It seems so simple. No? And when I realise that, that the observer is the observed, that the anger which I recognise is part of me, not something apart, then what am I... |
Let us look at it a little more: when I am angry, each response which I call anger, is recognised, recognised because I have been angry before. So next time I am angry I recognise it and that makes that anger still stronger. Right? I wonder if you see this. Because I am looking at this new response with the recognition... |
We need energy, don't we, to do anything. I need energy to go beyond violence, and I have wasted that energy through suppression, through conformity, through escape, through rationalisation, through all kinds of forms of escapes and justifications. And when I see the observer is the observed and all that energy is conc... |
Questioner: There is interaction. |
Krishnamurti: Not only interaction sir, this is much more... No, let's stick to one thing, don't bring in interaction yet, we will come to that. |
That is sir, look, we have tried, human beings have tried right through the world, tried in the old traditional way of overcoming violence, overcoming anger, through rationalisation, justification, through escape, through all kinds of neurotic activity and we have not gone beyond violence, we have not gone beyond the a... |
That is, when you look at another - wife, husband, girl-friend, boy and so on - are you different from the thing you observe, from the person you observe? Maybe a man or a woman, the form may be different, the sex may be different, but psychologically is your consciousness different from hers or his? Do investigate thi... |
So can the mind observe fear? We are going back to that. Your fear - fear of death, fear of life, fear of loneliness, fear of darkness, fear of being nobody, fear of not becoming a great howling success, fear of not being a leader, a writer, this or that, ten different things. First of all, is one aware of it? Or one l... |
So how do you uncover this whole structure, the intricacies of fear? You know this is a tremendous problem, not just to be listened to for two or three minutes and then forget about it. To find out for oneself whether it is possible to expose all the fears, or there is only one central fear which has many branches, and... |
Suppose one is afraid - of what? |
Loneliness. |
Loneliness. Yes. One is afraid of loneliness. Now first of all have you looked at loneliness, or is that an idea of which you are frightened? Not the fact of loneliness but the idea of loneliness - you see the difference? Which is it? The idea frightens you, or the actuality frightens you. |
Not separate, is it? |
No sir, look. I have an idea of loneliness. The idea being the rationalisation of thought which says, 'I don't know what it is but I am frightened of it'. Or I know what loneliness is, which is not an idea, but an actuality. I know it when I am in with a crowd I suddenly feel that I am not related to anything, that I a... |
So if it is not an idea but an actuality, what is loneliness? Aren't we breeding it all the time - by our self-centred activity, by this tremendous concern about ourselves: our looks, our attitudes, our opinions, our judgements, our position, our status, our importance, all that, all that is a form of isolation. Throug... |
Surely it is a problem seeing... |
We are coming to that presently. |
So can you observe your fear? Through one fear trace the very root of all fear. That is, through this sense of loneliness haven't you traced the root of fear? I am lonely. I know what that means not as an idea but as an actuality. I know what hunger is, as an actuality, not somebody has told me what hunger is. There is... |
So can one live - please, this is a tremendously important and a very, very serious question, it is not just something to play around with - can one live without that 'me' in this monstrous world? That means can one live sanely in a world of insanity? And the world is insane, with all the make-believe of religions. You... |
Now who will answer you that question, except yourself obviously. So that means you have to see that your consciousness, with all its content, is the consciousness of the world. That is not a statement, that is a reality, that is something tremendously real. The content of your consciousness makes up your consciousness... |
Like Christ. |
Oh! Take your Christ, all right. You see how you escape? That's what I'm... You escape into your old traditions. You don't say, 'Look I have got to change, my consciousness must undergo a radical transformation' - not somebody else has done this, I was giving you an example. One hasn't got to expand the examples. |
So one comes to the central issue: can your consciousness undergo a radical change? And it can only undergo a radical change when this central fact is understood or seen, or the truth of it is seen that is, the observer is the observed. And when you see that all conflict inwardly comes to an end - bound to, because whe... |
Look, this leads to something extraordinary if you go into it. The experiencer is the experience. You understand? Therefore when you meditate your meditation is part of yourself, therefore you are not going away from yourself. I wonder if you see all this. When we talk about meditation - that is a different thing - tha... |
Would you like to ask questions about all this? |
What about the unconscious fears? |
I explained that sir. What about the unconscious fears? Now, all right. Can the conscious mind investigate the unconscious fears? The conscious mind can only investigate itself at its own level, it can't investigate something it doesn't know. Right? Science can only explain what it knows, not what it does not know. So ... |
So I can observe, the mind can observe without the least effort, because effort will not solve the problem. So when the superficial mind is quiet, really quiet, not saying, I will wait till... but absolutely quiet, then this other thing comes up. I don't know if you see the truth of it. It is like watching a child, if ... |
Now if you have ever attended, if you give your attention to something, there is no question of time, is there? Have you ever done this? When you give complete attention to something, are you listening now with complete attention to what is being said? If you are, at that moment of attention there is no time, is there?... |
I think we are confused because there are two different kinds of conflict that can exist. If we argue with ourselves and say 'should I do this?', and then we say, 'no, I won't do this, or I will do it' - we argue back and forth. That is one form of conflict. That is a cover-up. That is our means of avoidance. And that ... |
I understand. You are saying, are you, if I understand it rightly, conflict exists where there is choice. |
No, no. Where there is avoidance there are two different kinds of conflict. Do you understand what I am saying? |
Yes, yes, I understand, I think I understand. Which is, you are saying: there are two different kinds of conflict. But all conflicts are the same, there are not two different kinds. |
No. One is used to avoid the real conflict as a solution. |
Oh, I see. Through conflict you will find a solution. That is what the Arabs and the Jews are saying! (Laughter) |
No. Because they are using the kind of conflict which is a method of avoidance. |
No, please madame, you are not... If I may suggest you are repeating the same thing. You are not listening, if I may say so. We are saying all conflicts are the same, there are not different kinds of conflicts. Conflict is conflict, whether it is between a husband and a wife, or a girl and a boy, or between nations and... |
We have been talking over together whether it is possible to awaken the intelligence. That is our chief concern. And those who are serious will have followed the past four talks - or rather talking over things together. And morning I would like to go into something that I think is equally important. |
This awakening of intelligence implies having an insight into all our problems - psychological problems, crises, blockages and so on. The word 'intelligence', according to a good dictionary, means reading between the lines, partly. And also really, deeply, the significance of intelligence is to have deep true insight -... |
We are educated from childhood to exercise as deeply as possible every form of effort. If you observe yourself you will see what tremendous efforts we make to control ourselves, to suppress, to adjust, to modify ourselves to certain conclusions, pattern ourselves according to some patterns, or according to an objective... |
Is it possible - we are talking over together, I am not laying down the law, we are investigating, exploring into something that is really worthwhile if you go into it very, very deeply. Most of us fortunately, if you are at all alive to things, are discontented, and not to allow that discontent to be squashed, destroy... |
So as most of us here, and I hope it is a fact, that you who are here are dissatisfied. Right? Why are you governed? By whom are you governed, for what purpose are you governed? That is one question. Why do we accept religious patterns of any kind? - whether the religious patterns of the ancient Hindus, their tradition... |
So since you are here, and you must obviously, if I may point out, you must be dissatisfied, including with what we are saying - (laughs) right? And to be aware of this flame and not allow superficial temptations and be caught by them. Right? Are we doing this now as we are talking over together? Or having been caught ... |
So one is asking: is there an action, in daily life - the daily life which we know, what it means, what is involved in it - where action is always free? And this action is possible only when there is insight born of intelligence. Right? I wonder if you get it! Am I making it clear? Verbally perhaps, but dig deeply, hav... |
So our question then is: is it possible to live a daily life without any conflict whatsoever? Most people would say you must have conflict otherwise there is no growth. Part of life is conflict. A tree in a forest fights, struggles to reach the sun. That is a form of conflict. Every animal and so on makes conflict, but... |
We are educated to conflict - conflict implies comparison, imitation, conformity, adjustment to a pattern, modified continuity of what has been through the present to the future. Right? All this is a process of conflict. The deeper the conflict the more neurotic one becomes. And therefore not to have conflict at all. O... |
Thousands go to India, from America and from Europe, to find enlightenment, to find the real guru, because they realise their religion, their outlook is very limited, materialistic, and India is supposed to be tremendously spiritual - which it is not - and there people go and try to find out. And the guru, the pattern,... |
Conflict exists only when you try to do something with 'what is'. Right? May I go on? When you try to transform it, modify it, change it, or suppress it, run away from it, then conflict arises. But if you have an insight into 'what is' then conflict ceases. You understand my point? Are you doing it? When there is no co... |
One is greedy, or envious, or violent. The fact is that you are violent, greedy, envious - that is a fact. The non-fact is non-violence, you must not be greedy, you must be noble, etc., etc. So there is a movement away from 'what is' and therefore that is conflict. Come on, sirs! So when you do not move away from 'what... |
So how does one have an insight into this, into violence? Without analysis - you understand, you see the problem? Because if you analyse, as we went into it, if you escape from it, and so on, they are all forms of the activity of thought which avoids the solution of 'what is'. Right? You understand? For god's sake, com... |
We are not playing intellectual games, (laughs) or analytical games. We are concerned with the awakening of intelligence. As I said, intelligence means, according to the dictionary, reading between the lines. See what is implied in reading between the lines. That you must be so awakened so as not to be caught by words,... |
So we are pointing out it is possible to live, a daily life, in which there is not a shadow of conflict. You know what it means, to live a life without conflict? See for yourself what it means. Because conflict is the strengthening of the self, the 'me', and therefore there is separation - the 'me' and the 'you', we an... |
So from discontent not to allow that flame to be smothered in any trap, and to understand the nature and the structure of insight. And that can only happen when you are not caught in any trap. Right? |
Now we can move to something else. Quelle heure est-il? Ten past. Is this very clear? Can I go on to something else? Next week we are going to discuss, have a dialogue about all these questions - dialogue, a conversation between two friendly people. I hope you are friends. So we are going to have a dialogue. So if ther... |
The other thing that I would like to go into this morning is sorrow. We have talked about authority; we have talked over together about the desire for security, the nature and the structure of authority; we have talked about fear, pleasure, love. And if we may, we also should talk over together this enormous problem of... |
There is not only a particular human being with his suffering, there is the suffering of the world. Right? There is suffering through poverty, ignorance; there is suffering brought about through death; there is suffering out of great pity; there is suffering when you see animals tortured, killed, maimed; there is suffe... |
So there are these various kinds of suffering, not only personal but the suffering of the whole of humanity. You are aware of it, aren't you? And we have accepted it. We say love is part of suffering. When you love somebody it brings about suffering. Right? So we are going to question together whether it is possible to... |
So we are going to find out what suffering is. There is physical suffering. Right? Headaches, operations, malformed bodies, accidents that bring about amputation, or some form of ugly deformity. There is suffering from the various unfulfilled desires - I hope you are following all this. There is suffering from the loss... |
So suffering then is the expression of the 'me', which includes self-pity, loneliness, trying to escape, trying to be with the other who is gone - all that is implied which is the very me, which is the past. The image of the past which is me, the knowledge, the remembrance of the past, which is me. So what relationship... |
Is love put together by thought? - the experience, the memories, the remembrances, the pain, the delight, the pleasures, and the pursuit of pleasure, sexual or otherwise, the pleasures of possession, possessing somebody and the somebody liking being possessed - all that is the structure of thought, which we have gone i... |
So to have an insight - please follow this - to have an insight into suffering, which means what place has thought in relationship to love, and in relationship to suffering? Right? To have an insight into it, which means you are neither escaping, wanting comfort, frightened to be lonely, isolated, therefore your mind i... |
Then one discovers that action from suffering is a continued action of the 'me' modified, and therefore constant conflict. Right? You can see the logic of it all, the reason for it. So it is possible to love without a shadow of suffering. And what is the action of compassion? You understand? If love is not the result o... |
Is that enough for this morning? It is enough for me, (laughter) for the speaker. So see sirs, what is implied in all this: how important it is that there should be a radical revolution, psychological revolution, because no politics, no government, no Lenin, Marx, nobody is going to solve any of our problems - the huma... |
So. There is a nice story of a preacher, a teacher - perhaps some of you have heard it from me, if you have heard it please forgive me for repeating it - there was a teacher and his disciples. Every morning he used to talk to the disciples, give a sermon. And one morning he gets on the rostrum, on the pedestal, and as ... |
I would like to, if I may, this evening talk about many things. Perhaps they are interrelated. The speaker doesn't know where to begin. Most of us, the average person, is wasting his life. This awful climate. Most of us waste our lives. We have got a great deal of energy and we are wasting it. We spend our days in the ... |
And there seems to be so little justice in the world. Philosophers have talked a great deal about justice. The social workers are talking about justice. The average man wants justice. But is there justice in life at all? You are clever, well placed, good mind, nice looking, you have everything you want. And another has... |
And before law you are all equal, but some are more equal than others. Others have not sufficient money to employ good lawyers. So there is, apparently observing all this in the world, there is very little justice. Some are born high, others lowly, and where is justice then? It appears there is justice only when there ... |
And when you observe this consciousness with its content - the beliefs, the dogmas, the theories, the concepts, the fears, the pleasures, the agonies, the loneliness, the depression and despairs, all that is our consciousness. It is not your consciousness, it is not the individual that holds this consciousness. Please,... |
Please, as we said the other day, and if we may again repeat: this is not a lecture, where you are told what to do, what to think, how to think and so on. This, we are observing together. Not resisting each other, not clinging to our own particular opinions, knowledge and concepts but together looking at the world and ... |
And as we began, our life is broken up, fragmented, divided, it is never whole, we never have holistic observation. We observe from a particular point of view. We are, in ourselves we are broken up. Our life is a contradiction in itself, and therefore there is constant conflict. And we never look at life as a whole, co... |
Is it possible to observe the fragmentation and the identification with those fragments? To observe, not correct, not transcend, not run away from it or suppress it, to observe. Our life is so fragmented, broken up, divided - to look at it, not what to do about it because if you attempt to do 'what to do about it' you ... |
So can one observe the fragment, the many fragments that we have, which is our daily life, look at it? You are a professor, or you are a teacher, or you are merely a householder, a sannyasi who renounces the world and goes off - these are fragments of our daily life. And to observe the whole movement of these fragments... |
And, as we also said the other day, we are masters of time. We have created time. Not the time of the sun and the sunset, not the rising and the waning of the moon, but the psychological time, the inward time that man, that thought has put together. We are masters of that time. Please this is important to understand be... |
So we are the masters of time - that is really a great discovery if one realises the truth of that: that we are the past, the present and the future, which is time. Time as psychological knowledge. And we have divided life, the living and the dying. We have created a distance between life, that is, our living, the livi... |
We are saying: to observe holistically, as a whole movement of life, which is to live, the living and the dying, the whole of it, that is our life. And we cling to life and avoid, run away, don't even talk about it. So we have fragmented our life, not only superficially, physically, but also we have separated ourselves... |
One may be frightened, one may want to avoid it, one may want to prolong living, and they are doing it, perhaps another fifty years or hundred years you may add to your life but always at the end of it there is that, called death. So we must enquire together: what is living? What is living, which is our consciousness? ... |
And in examining our living, which we must, to comprehend what is living, we are asking what is living? Then we can ask what is dying? What is before is more important rather than what happens after death. What happens before, not the last minute. It may be an accident, a disease, old age and the end. Before the end, l... |
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