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AM67T3 - Is it possible to renew the mind?
Amsterdam - 24 May 1967
Public Talk 3



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s third public talk in Amsterdam, 1967.
0:10 Krishnamurti: We were talking the last two meetings about fear and how to meet it, and how to go beyond it completely.
0:36 I think we should also consider a wider and deeper issue, which is, whether it is at all possible to totally renew the mind, to make the mind, though it has lived forty million years, during that time gathered many kinds of experiences, knowledge, conditioned itself, whether it is at all possible for such a mind to totally become young, fresh.
1:54 And it seems to me this is an important issue that we should talk over together, because as one observes, through repetition, imitation, conformity, the mind begins to deteriorate, begins to weaken, has not got the same stamina, clarity, it gets more and more confused.
2:51 And as society begins to develop more and more, there are more and more conflicts and so the mind loses its elasticity, its freshness, its youthful capacity for decision.
3:26 And whether it is at all possible to renew the mind – for the mind to renew itself. Perhaps many of us have not asked such a question, and I think we should discuss it, we should go into it, this evening.
4:03 For us thought, the whole mechanism of thought, is very important.
4:16 And perhaps the very act of thinking may be the cause of deterioration, the cause of a mind losing its capacity to see very clearly, to act directly, and perhaps able to understand the nature of love.
4:57 So before we begin to go into this question of what is the central factor of deterioration of a mind, which is obviously the whole mechanism of thought, we should consider not only the nature of the mind but also the brain, and whether it is possible for the very brain cells themselves to function not self-protectively, not in a very self-centred action, but face a much wider, deeper issue.
6:22 So we have to ask what is thinking.
6:31 Because I feel thought is always very old – thought is always old, it’s never new. Thought is never free.
6:54 Thought can never bring about a radical revolution in the structure, in the nature of the mind.
7:06 And we have to examine closely what is the nature of thinking at all.
7:21 And as we said the other day, we are exploring together, taking a journey together, therefore there is no authority, there is no follower and the teacher.
7:41 Each one of us has to be the teacher and the follower.
7:48 That is, one has to learn, not from books, not from another, but rather in understanding the whole process of our own thinking.
8:07 And to understand that deeply, and to come upon the truth of it, we must put aside every form of authority, every form of agreement or disagreement, because when one examines something, this opinion of it, which is based on agreement or disagreement, must entirely cease.
8:47 We are dealing with facts, and not with opinion, which only leads to dialectical argument which has no value at all.
9:04 But whereas, if we could understand how we think, what is the nature of thinking.
9:21 Because, as I said, thought is always old, thought can never be free; thought is always limited and thought is always of the past.
9:50 And in understanding thought perhaps we shall understand the nature of time, and we may come upon that sense of love and beauty.
10:21 For without love and beauty obviously there is no truth.
10:33 But to understand the nature, to understand what love is and what beauty is we must obviously go into this question of thought.
10:58 What is thinking?
11:08 When one asks that question – what is thinking – what actually takes place?
11:25 Either one responds to it immediately, giving an answer, or there is an interval between the question and the answer.
11:47 In that interval, one is looking for an answer, looking in the storehouse of knowledge, trying to find out what is the answer.
12:11 So between the question and the answer there is an interval of time, and in that interval we are searching, asking, examining, hoping to find it.
12:37 When one asks a question which is utterly familiar, the response is immediate. When one asks a question that is a little more difficult, then there is a time interval.
12:57 And when one asks a question which cannot be answered by words, which is not to be found in any knowledge, then one says actually, ‘I don’t know’.
13:22 I hope that when you are hearing these statements you are listening not merely to words but actually going through the whole process of discovery for yourself, and you cannot discover through another.
13:56 One has to find it for oneself and then it’ll be authentic, it’ll be real.
14:09 You know, there is a great deal of difference between learning and accumulating knowledge.
14:24 It’s fairly easy to accumulate knowledge: you apply, repeat, and through that constant repetition and association you accumulate knowledge from which one acts.
14:52 But learning is something entirely different.
15:03 There is a learning when there is no sense of accumulation.
15:13 What we generally do is to accumulate and then act, which is, the idea, and approximating action to that idea.
15:38 Whereas learning is in the very act of doing.
15:51 It isn’t one has learnt and then acts but rather in the very movement of acting is the learning, and therefore there is all the time learning, because life is action, life is relationship in action.
16:29 And when one has accumulated knowledge, or having learnt acts, then the quality of learning changes completely.
16:49 So, when you are listening, which is quite an art, because as we said the other day, we never listen. We listen to the opinions that we have gathered, we interpret what is being said according to our memory, of our like and dislike, and inclination and tendency, which all prevents the actual listening.
17:44 So to find out what is thinking, not according to some philosopher, or according to the ancients, but actually to find it for oneself one has to observe how thought arises.
18:12 Because, please, this is important to understand, because we are going to go into this question not only of time, love and beauty, but also we are going to enquire, find out the truth about death.
18:34 And it’s a very complex thing, what we are attempting to do this evening.
18:43 But if we don’t understand the whole mechanism of thinking, when we deal with time we’ll find it much more difficult, much more complex, it’ll lead us to a great deal of misunderstanding.
19:08 As one observes closely, attentively, thought is the response of the past, response of memory, memory being the accumulation of experience, knowledge: acquired, inherited, conditioned, and from this background, which is memory, when that memory is challenged, it responds in thought – which is fairly simple, which is obvious.
20:08 And because we always respond from the past as thought and action, the mind is incapable of renewing itself, because we live, function and act from the past.
20:49 We are the result of the past.
21:00 Your thinking, your feeling is the outcome of this accumulated memory, and so we never know actually what the present moment is.
21:22 It’s only in the totality of the movement of the present there is the total renewal of the mind.
21:32 But when the mind is functioning, acting, living through imagination, through thought, through various forms of going back to the past, it is incapable of living in that complete fullness of the present.
21:54 In that present only there is a renewal.
22:05 So one observes thought must always be in the past, thought is always the old, and when the old controls, shapes action, then in that action there can never be anything new.
22:43 You understand what is happening in the world, the younger generation is revolting against the old established order, in various forms. It takes different forms in America, in England and in Europe, and in India, in different forms.
23:05 But that revolt is against the established order, and that revolt they hope to find a new way of living.
23:28 But as long as thought functions, however much it may revolt, it will still be the same pattern at a different level.
23:55 So thought is not the way to bring about order, order in the human being and in society.
24:18 As society now is, it is in disorder, it is anarchistic because it creates wars, it divides itself into nationalities, into classes, into various forms of religion, which brings about disorder.
24:50 And the social structure is put together by man, man who is in himself disorder because he’s in conflict, his life is a battlefield.
25:04 And to create order, he thinks only thought, intellect, reason can bring it about – reason being the clarity with which one thinks logically.
25:24 But thought in itself is everlastingly the old, therefore thought cannot possibly bring about a new order.
25:38 And I think this is very important to understand. Not because the speaker says so because the speaker has no value at all, but what has value is the truth of what he is saying.
26:09 And thought has created time, not the time by the watch, the chronological time, but the psychological time.
26:29 That is, I will be, I should be. Thought has created time, the future, the tomorrow.
26:49 Please, use the words of the speaker as a mirror to observe yourself.
27:06 There is not only time as the past, psychologically, there is also time in the present and the time of tomorrow: the past, the present and the future.
27:27 It’s a movement, divided by thought as yesterday, with all the accumulation of million yesterdays, moving into the present which is today, meeting different conditions, different experiences, and passing through the present to tomorrow, the future.
28:03 This movement of time, psychologically, is the movement of thought.
28:18 I was happy yesterday, I’m rather miserable today, and I hope tomorrow I’ll be happy again.
28:35 I have had a marvellous experience looking at that lovely sunset – perhaps not in Holland, at the time – and that lovely light on the water, and the trees with the birds singing, and that remains in my mind as a memory, and tomorrow I want that again, repeated.
29:18 So thought, through pleasure, creates the past, the present and the future.
29:35 One can see it oneself, very simply.
29:43 All the delights of youth, the pleasures that one has had, and the repetition of those pleasures in the present and the demand of it for the future – all based on thought.
30:11 So thought creates, breeds, puts together the psychological structure of time.
30:25 And so thought breeds sorrow, because thought is always pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain.
30:48 And thought not only engenders sorrow but sustains it.
31:09 And so one finds thought is time and sorrow.
31:24 And being in sorrow, we say to ourselves, we must find a way out of it, which is again the whole process of thinking set into motion.
31:46 I do not know if you have ever considered the nature of pleasure.
31:58 Very simply put, there has been a delightful experience yesterday, you think about it, and thought strengthens that delight and gives it nourishment and continuity.
32:27 Thought is doing this all the time.
32:38 So thought not only breeds psychological time but also sorrow.
32:48 And man has lived with sorrow, as with violence, for millions of years, and has always sought a way out of it, either to escape from the world through monasteries, through identification of himself with what he calls God, the Saviours, ideals, and so on, but has never been able to solve it, has never been able to go beyond it, because he is always functioning within the boundaries of thought.
33:43 So, when one asks oneself whether thought can end – thought must function at a certain level, obviously.
34:00 Technologically you must function when you are hearing the words spoken in English, it is the accumulation of the knowledge of the language of English and you repeat it, the way to your house, to your office, and so on, there thought must function rationally, sanely, healthily, logically, but that logical thinking is perverted by self-centred activity.
34:40 And we are asking whether it is at all possible for thought not to function at a different level altogether.
35:02 You know there is, in the human mind, the old brain and the new brain.
35:13 The brain that has been developed through millions of years, that’s the old, the animal, always self-protective, always on the defence.
35:39 And is it possible for that old brain to be quiet, give an interval between the old and the new.
36:04 It is – this interval is the timeless nature in which thought cannot possibly enter.
36:28 So, our question is, there is not only the daily living which we call life, with all its miseries, turmoil, anxiety, uncertainty, the sense of guilt, despair, the hopeless battle which we call life, without any meaning whatsoever.
37:05 What is the meaning of going to an office every day for the next forty years, and the utter boredom, the loneliness of existence, the repetitive nature of it.
37:31 And the intellectual people invent a significance to life, the more clever they are, the brighter the significance.
37:45 And that’s what we call living – a battlefield.
37:53 And there is death, death the unknown, something one doesn’t know anything about, but one is afraid of it.
38:15 And we cling to life as the known and are afraid of the unknown.
38:27 Being afraid, we invent various forms of theories, beliefs.
38:44 And the whole of the East believes in reincarnation, to be born anew next life.
38:55 It gives them a hope, as in the Christian world there is the resurrection, again a hope.
39:10 That is, between living and death there is time.
39:25 Time, that interval between what actually is and something which we call death, of which we are afraid.
39:45 This interval between life and death is brought about by thought.
40:01 Of course, there is actual dying, the physical organism, through disease, accident, through usage, dies, through old age, through various forms of illness.
40:27 But there is the fear of death and the sorrow of death which is a psychological ending.
40:46 So there is not only the fear of physical dying, the fear of it, but also all the things that one has learnt, the memories, the experiences, the affections, the family, the hopes, the works, the character, all that one has developed, cultivated, nourished, coming to an end.
41:24 And we cling to life, life being this extraordinary battle from the moment we are born till the moment you die.
41:44 That’s all we know of life, in which there are moments of great joy, but that joy is at rare intervals, and that becomes a memory. So our life as we live is total disorder.
42:15 All our relationship, human or otherwise, is a conflict.
42:26 And that’s all we know of life, and to that we cling desperately.
42:37 And we are afraid of something that we call death, of which we know nothing.
42:52 And can one find out what it means actually to die, not biologically, physiologically, but psychologically, that’s a much deeper issue.
43:15 Because it is only in dying there is a renewal, not in continuity.
43:29 That which has continuity is repetitive, which is time. It’s only when time comes to an end then there is something new taking place.
43:55 So the question is: the life as we know, which is a turmoil, disorder, anarchistic, can that life come to an end totally, because that’s what we call death, the ending.
44:36 That is, can one die, is there a dying to all one’s memories, not to the ugly memories but to the memories that one has cherished, that one keeps very carefully locked up.
45:07 To die every day to every problem, to every pleasure, and not carry over to tomorrow any problem at all; so the mind always remains tremendously attentive, active, clear.
45:46 And that’s only possible when one dies every day to all the psychological accumulations.
46:01 I do not know if you have ever tried to die to a pleasure, without any argument, without any sense of sacrifice, just to completely drop it.
46:26 If you have, then you will know what it feels like to die, to end a pleasure, before the next pleasure begins.
46:47 In that interval between the dying of the old and the beginning of thought demanding for a different kind of pleasure, in that interval, is the renewal of mind.
47:15 And this is very important to understand because society as it is, is in disintegration, always.
47:27 Because in society there is no order, there is no virtue, its morality is conditioned, changing, and we, as human beings, have created that social order, disorder, because in ourselves we are in disorder.
47:58 Order cannot be brought about by thought, through time, through gradual process.
48:10 Virtue is not a thing to be cultivated, is not a thing of habit. Such virtue is of time, is the product of thought and therefore such virtue is not virtue, it is merely cultivation of a habit, as a means of defence.
48:42 But when one understands the nature of thought and time, then out of that comes virtue with its own discipline.
48:59 For discipline is order, but not the discipline of imitation, conformity, obedient to certain sanctions of society, or of the priest.
49:24 Discipline comes when thought is understood.
49:32 You know there is a discipline which comes when you have to do the thing for itself.
49:44 And discipline which is merely conformity to any pattern, whether it is noble or otherwise, is no discipline at all, but it only breeds disorder, chaos.
50:00 But to understand order, which is virtue, one has to understand the nature of thinking. And the very understanding of thinking demands discipline.
50:20 To observe anything very closely, to give your attention, to watch something – a bird, an insect, to watch a leaf fluttering in a breeze, to watch it very closely, and that watching is only for an instant, that watching demands tremendous discipline otherwise you are incapable of looking.
50:58 So one sees that order within the skin, within the mind, within our being, can never be the product of thought.
51:23 Thought can create habits, conformity, obedience, and that, as one observes, only leads to greater disorder, to greater confusion and misery.
51:47 And order which is virtue is quite a different thing – as one cannot cultivate humility or love, and when it is cultivated, it ceases to be love and humility.
52:10 So it is necessary to understand this whole process of thought, how one thinks, why one thinks, just to observe.
52:22 And if you give your attention to it completely, not merely intellectually or emotionally, but totally, in that totality of attention there is immediate comprehension, and therefore immediate action.
52:45 And when one sees what the nature of thought is, then one begins to find out what love is.
53:07 Love is not desire or pleasure.
53:17 But for us, for most people, love is pleasure and desire.
53:32 So what is the truth of love?
53:40 What does it mean? Obviously the word is not the thing. Isn’t it?
53:51 The word is never the thing. The microphone, the word ‘microphone’ is not the microphone.
54:06 But we are caught in the word, in the symbol, in the imagination of what we think or what we are told what love is.
54:23 So one must be free of the word, of the symbol, to find out the nature of that extraordinary thing which we call love.
54:43 And it seems to me, since love is not desire or pleasure, then how does one come upon it?
55:07 Obviously one cannot cultivate it, that is too immature, too childish, or identify oneself with an image which is said to be love, as the Christians do, or in the Orient they do in their own way.
55:35 So how does one come upon that thing?
55:48 To come upon it, one has to find out what beauty is.
55:57 There are so many things involved in it, but we must make it very brief.
56:07 What is beauty? Does beauty lie in the object, in the architecture, in the tree, in the face of a beautiful person, the light on the water?
56:36 Does it lie outside, or is it something that is not dependent on the observer and the observed.
57:02 And how does that take place in which there is neither the observer nor the observed?
57:16 I do not know if you have ever looked at a mountain, or a tree in the spring, or the water flowing by, you must have observed it and you say, how beautiful it is, how lovely, and we think we have understood beauty.
57:49 Surely beauty is something when there is total abandonment of oneself, when there is no observer at all, when you completely abandon your old ideas, your old feelings, completely die to everything that you have known.
58:42 That is, total self-abandonment takes place, say for example, when you observe a mountain, with its extraordinary light and snow and depth and beauty and majesty, that very thing drives away all your thought.
59:15 For a moment, for a second, you are stunned by that sight and then the mind becomes completely quiet.
59:34 And in that state you feel something which cannot be put into words but which is the nature of beauty.
59:46 But there, the mountain, the river or the flower by the wayside drives away for a second all your thoughts, all your worries, all your impressions.
1:00:08 And can one die to everything that one has thought of oneself, or one’s pleasures, one’s worries, on the instant, which is the total abandonment of oneself.
1:00:31 And that demands great austerity.
1:00:40 Not the austerity of the priest, or of the monk, or of the saint, their austerity is very harsh, it is meaningless, it is an ugly thing because one can cultivate austerity by doing certain things every day, suppressing, not yielding, controlling, identifying oneself with some ideal which is always idiotic – all ideologies are idiotic anyhow – but that cultivates certain austerity.
1:01:39 We are not talking of such austerity. That austerity comes only when the mind understands that interval between – the nature of that interval between the observer and the observed and is no longer sustaining the observer through thought.
1:02:17 That brings about an extraordinary quality of sensitivity.
1:02:25 And a mind that is not sensitive, alert, can never know what love is.
1:02:45 And is there a moment when death is no longer a fear, when life is no longer a battle?
1:03:16 Is there such a moment when time has stopped, when thought is totally in abeyance?
1:03:31 There is such a moment, and that moment is love.
1:03:43 And without that love, do what you will, build marvellous buildings, go to the moon, wipe out poverty, do away with wars because they are not profitable, do what you will, without that love there can be no order.
1:04:23 But we don’t want order. We have lived in such disorder for so many centuries we are afraid of order.
1:04:37 If we want order, which is peace, we will live peacefully.
1:04:46 That means no nationality, no belief, no dogma, no competition, the division of people, but we don’t want all those things because we are so used to live a life of battle.
1:05:12 And we say, if there is no life of battle, we shan’t make progress, we shan’t be active. So we would rather cling to the thing known though it breeds disorder, chaos and misery, than bring about order and peace.
1:05:54 Perhaps some of you might like to ask questions.
1:06:14 To find out the right answer, you must know why you ask a question.
1:06:24 Why do we ask questions?
1:06:33 Is it to find an answer? Obviously we ask questions otherwise we wouldn’t ask questions.
1:06:43 What kind of answer do we want?
1:06:52 An answer which is very disturbing, we will reject.
1:07:02 An answer that cuts right across the way of your life, nobody wants.
1:07:16 We want an answer that’s comforting, satisfying, satisfying our self-pity, like in sorrow, there is a great deal of self-pity.
1:07:42 So when we ask a question, we must find out from where it springs.
1:07:54 And we must ask questions, we must doubt everything.
1:08:07 We cannot possibly accept, obey – psychologically we are talking about, I am not saying you mustn’t obey the policeman.
1:08:21 Psychologically we accept, we follow, we obey.
1:08:32 Therefore we never find what truth is.
1:08:39 Truth can only be found by asking the right question, not of another, but of ourselves.
1:08:54 If you put the right question, you will find the answer in it.
1:09:06 Which doesn’t mean, please, that we are trying to stop you from asking questions.
1:09:21 Questioner: Sir, is the feeling of responsibility a part of that order, that discipline you were talking about?

K: Yes, is part of responsibility...
1:09:36 Q: No, the feeling of responsibility, can that possibly be in part of that order?
1:09:45 K: Of that order of which we are talking. Yes. You have heard the question so I needn’t repeat it, need I?
1:09:54 The feeling that one has of responsibility, is that feeling part of that order which we have been talking about at this meeting.
1:10:08 Q: Can it be?

K: Can it be. Yes.
1:10:15 I wonder what we mean by that word ‘responsible’. Personally, that’s a very ugly word.
1:10:31 But what do we mean by that word ‘responsible’? Responsible for my husband, for my children, responsible to the country, responsible to the government, responsible to the god that man has invented.
1:10:55 And I wonder why we use that word at all. Are you responsible when you love?
1:11:03 Or you are only responsible and have duty, when you cease to love?
1:11:14 When do we use that word? Do investigate the meaning of that word.
1:11:24 I am responsible to my wife, to my husband, to my country, take those three. To my country, to my family, to my children or to my God.
1:11:40 What does that word mean when you say, I am responsible? To your family?
1:11:53 Q: Excuse me, please. I cannot understand why the statements that you have been making all the evening, doesn’t antagonize these people because when I say them, it always does. I can only imagine that the trappings of respectability with which you are surrounded is overawing them. I would rather that they become annoyed with what you are saying…
1:12:12 K: Sir, I don’t hear.

Q: Didn’t you hear all that?

K: No.
1:12:18 Q: Shall I come closer?

K: If you like, or you can speak a little louder.
1:12:27 Perhaps if you don’t disturb others, sir, just speak a little louder.
1:12:32 Q: I have no microphone.

K: I can hear that, sir, I’ll repeat it.
1:12:39 Q: I said that the things that you have been saying all the evening, when I say them, people become antagonized.
1:12:47 I cannot understand why you do not antagonize these people. I can only assume they are overawed by the respectability with which you are surrounded.

K: Right, sir.

Q: Is that all right?
1:13:02 K: Perfectly, I have heard it.

Q: Thank you.

K: But, sir, we are answering that lady’s question first.
1:13:09 Q: Oh, I thought that question was already forgotten.

K: No, I am sorry, we haven’t even answered it.
1:13:17 Q: It’s not a very important question.

K: Ah, sir, to that lady it’s important. It may not be important to you, sir, but to that person it is important.
1:13:35 The lady asks: what is responsibility, does that bring about order, is that part of that order that you are discussing. We’ll answer your question afterwards, sir.
1:13:58 We were saying responsibility is part of that respectability which we worship.
1:14:14 And it seems to me, where there is respectability, there is no order, you are only concerned with being a perfect bourgeois.
1:14:33 But – please, sir, just listen – but does love have responsibility and will it use that word, or duty?
1:14:54 When you say, I am responsible to God, whatever that may mean, that God is the projection of your own imagination, it’s a projection of yourself, identified, clothed in certain forms of respectability, of what you consider to be holy.
1:15:25 But it’s still your projection. And you are responsible to that God, which is responsible to yourself, to what you have projected.
1:15:38 And in that respectability – in that responsibility, is there any affection?
1:15:50 When you do something out of duty, is there any love in it?
1:15:58 When the soldier is sent abroad to kill because of the responsibility for his country, is there any love?
1:16:13 So order can only come about when there is love, when there is real affection, when there is compassion.
1:16:27 Your question, sir, was, if I understood it rightly: why do people get angry with me when I say...
1:16:40 Q: No, that was not my question.

K: Ah, I beg your pardon, sir.

Q: Shall I repeat it?

K: Yes, sir.
1:16:46 Q: I said, why is it that people do not in fact get angry with you. That is something quite different from what you were saying.
1:16:53 K: All right, sir, I’ll repeat it.

Q: It turns out that when I asked a question, I have already made a woman here angry and some people behind me angry.

K: All right, sir, but that’s...

Q: I make them angrier than you do.
1:17:06 K: Why do not people get angry with what you are saying.

Q: No – with what you are saying.

K: Yes, sir, with what I am saying.
1:17:18 Why do not those of you who are listening get angry with me for saying these things?
1:17:29 I am also surprised.
1:17:36 Please, sir, please, sir, this is not a meeting where you – please, let me continue, if you don’t mind.
1:17:50 Why, when a person hears that his gods are false, why don’t they get angry with the speaker.
1:18:09 When the speaker says, thought is very old, don’t depend on thought, it has no meaning – why don’t you get irritated? Why do you listen?
1:18:28 Because, you see, what we are saying denies everything that man has put together, it cuts at the very root of the social order that we worship, that we cling to.
1:18:56 Perhaps when you hear what is being said, you may, because you are sitting quietly, not because you respect the speaker, that has nothing whatever to do with it, perhaps you see the truth of what is being said.
1:19:20 And you can’t get angry with truth – it is so. It is raining, and you can’t get angry with rain!
1:19:34 In the same way, perhaps, when you listen, you see what the speaker is saying is truth, and there is no occasion for you to get angry – it is so.
1:19:58 One gets angry only when personalities, when harshness enters into the business. When there is a certain sense of compassion, attention and care then I don’t see why we should get angry with anything.
1:20:29 Right, sir.