Krishnamurti - How is conditioning to be understood?

AM69T2 - How is conditioning to be understood?
Amsterdam - 4 May 1969
Public Talk 2

0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public talk in Amsterdam, 1969.

0:08 Krishnamurti: We were saying how very important it is, seeing the state of the world and of ourselves, that it behoves each one of us to bring about a radical transformation within oneself. Because one is not different from the society in which we live. The world is us and we are the world. The division between the individual and the community, the ‘me’ and the ‘you’, the ‘we’ and ‘they’, have caused so much mischief in the world, so much misery and confusion. And any serious man – I do not mean by that an intellectual but a man who is involved in the whole process of living – must bring about this transformation within himself, who is the human being. 2:02 And we were saying that this change cannot be brought about unless there is total freedom from conditioning. And, in going into that question, whether it is at all possible for human beings, not only superficially but deeply, to bring about this change, to break through their conditioning. It would be a great pity and worthless effort on your part if we merely treated this whole thing as an intellectual amusement, or as an intellectual entertainment, or a philosophical excitement, or a religious entertainment.

3:37 What we are concerned with is very, very serious, for it is only the serious mind that can actually live without conflict, when he understands the nature and the structure of this conditioning. And in understanding this question, whether it is possible for human beings to radically undergo a change, which means freedom from conditioning, there are many things involved in it, not only the freeing of the unconscious, also who is the entity that is going to free it, and what kind of energy is needed to break through this conditioning?

5:18 I think most of us, perhaps superficially or deeply, have a feeling that one must be free. Because it is only in freedom that one can discover anything new. It is only in freedom, from all the bondage of time and the bondage of morality, that one can have a totally different kind of virtue and righteousness and behaviour. It is only in freedom that there can be peace, not only within but also outwardly, in the world. It is only when the mind is completely free that it can receive or come by that which is timeless, which is eternal. It is only in freedom that this thing can take place. And there is no freedom as long as we live in the prison of our own conditioning.

7:09 So, is it possible for the mind, which for convenience we shall divide into the unconscious and conscious, whether this unconscious, which is essentially the past, can be altogether released from its own burden. That is, we are the past. We are the result of many thousands and millions years. We are the result of racial, accumulated experience, knowledge. We are the result of tradition, influence. We are, deep down, the residue of everything involved in the past. That is the deep, hidden, secret, unexposed part of our mind. I think one can find this out for oneself very easily, without reading any book, any psychological treatise. 9:21 One can observe it in oneself, that we are the result of the past, and deep down in us all the motives, the urges, the various complicated demands. And whether such past can be put aside completely, so that the mind is fresh, new, innocent, capable of infinite perception without any distortion. Because if there is any form of distortion, perversion, obviously it cannot see very clearly, therefore must live always in an illusion.

10:51 So our first question is whether this unconscious – we are using that word not as a specialist, just using ordinary word, not in the Freudian, Jungian sense of that word, because we, the speaker has not read any of these books, but one can observe it in oneself how deeply prejudiced we are, how deeply habitual. And without reading any specialist or going to any analyst or reading any psychological books written by experts, one can observe it in oneself very simply. And I hope this morning, if I may suggest that you are going to do the same. Not that we are going to group analyse, but it is necessary to find out for each one of us, whether the past with all the experiences, intimations, all its burdens, travail, can be put aside completely.

13:04 How is this to be done, and who is the entity, the instrument who is going to examine it, who is going to expose the whole content? And is it to be understood, exposed and set aside through analysis? So, we are concerned with those two questions for the moment. Who is the entity that is going to look into the unconscious and understand it and be free from the burden of many thousand yesterdays? Is the conscious examiner, who is going to look into the unconscious, is he not also part of the unconscious? Is not the observer, who is going to examine the thing that he is going to observe, is he not part of that which he observes? 15:17 If that is so, and it is so, then what is he to do? Right? Is the question clear? If the observer, the analyser, is different from the thing he observes and analyses, then there is a possibility of understanding it, breaking through. But if the analyser and the observer is part of the analysed and the observed, then there is no action independent, but within the prison itself. Is that somewhat clear? Because unless this is very clear, we cannot proceed further. If the analyser, with all his knowledge, with his experiences, the centre of accumulated information, if he is going to observe, analyse, judge, and if he is entirely different, then there is a possibility of critical analysis, critical examination and understanding. 16:59 If he is not, then he cannot possibly examine properly. So the observer, the analyser, is the analysed, is the observed. That is a fact, it is not a theory, it is not a supposition.

17:37 Then what is he to do? That is one question. Then, is the analyser capable of analysing? Which is, the analyser, yourself, can you, or have you the capacity to analyse, the whole content of the past? You may be – at least they say so – you may be able to analyse it through dreams, through the intimation, at rare moments, of the contents of the unconscious. And if you analyse and have the capacity to analyse very carefully every layer, every movement, every thought, every motive, every movement of thought and feeling and hidden demands, urges, sexual compulsions, and so on, to do that you need a great deal of time, many years. 19:22 And if you analyse it very carefully, and if you have the capacity, if there is any distortion in that analysis, any misjudgement, any form of prejudice, then what you learn from analysis has no value. Right? Are we following all this? So, analysis implies time – many, many, many days – and you might be dead at the end of it. And it implies that the mind must be extraordinarily clear, without any prejudice, without any distortion, to observe the contents of the unconscious.

20:45 And it is said, officially, by the experts, that you begin to understand this unconscious through dreams, that you must dream, because through dreams, the unconscious, when the mind, the superficial mind is fairly quiet, during sleep, the unconscious intimates, gives hints, which become the dreams, and through dreams you begin to uncover, learn the contents. And the experts also say, dreams are necessary, otherwise you’ll go mad. 22:02 And, leaving the experts aside, one must ask, why should one dream at all? Is it possible to understand the unconscious, the deeper layers of the whole content of consciousness, without dreaming? Because if the mind is all the time active, when it is awake and when it is asleep, it has no rest, it cannot renew itself, it gets weary, there is great strain, all forms of neurosis take place.

23:22 So the question is whether the mind during sleep can be completely at rest, and therefore bring order within itself. Because it is the nature of the brain – which you can observe for oneself, not going to the experts and the special people – the brain demands order, not disorder, not contradiction. Then in that contradiction, in that disorder it gets very disturbed and therefore neurotic actions take place.

24:33 To have complete rest and therefore become fresh, new, and learn about... learn about things that the conscious or the unconscious can never find out, there must be a state in sleep when the mind is completely quiet, therefore completely in order. It is only when there is complete order there is complete peace. So the problem is – one of the problems; unfortunately we have got so many problems – one of the problems is, can the mind, without dreaming, discover the whole content of consciousness, both the unconscious, all the rest of it, can it be aware so completely, give complete attention to find out?

26:01 Surely one can find out during the waking hours how the conditioning... what the conditioning is. That is, to observe during the waking hours every movement of thought – the way you walk, you talk, the way you eat, the nervous twitches, your relationship with another, the motive, the sexual demands – during the waking hours you can watch this in operation all the time in relationship, whether you are sitting in a bus, washing dishes or wiping the floor, or in an office or anywhere, so completely attentive.

27:07 And that attentiveness becomes inattention the moment you judge, evaluate. Because judgment, evaluation is part of our conditioning. And therefore when you judge yourself in relationship, then the old conditioning operates. So when you are so tremendously attentive, watchful – the words you use, the gestures, the manner of your talk, the way you sit, the way you frown, the way you – you know, the whole of yourself, the thought and your feelings. Then when you go to sleep, your mind is completely at rest, because all during the day you’ve watched. We won’t go deeply into that because we haven’t time. Because it is really quite extraordinarily what takes place when you are so attentive during the day, because there is order.

29:03 You know, order is one of the most extraordinary things. To bring... for the brain to be completely in order, there is no blueprint. It is only in understanding the disorder in which one lives – the contradictions, the confusions, the struggles – in understanding disorder, order comes. And after all, order is virtue, is righteous behaviour, not according to society, which is immoral. And such mathematical order gives to the brain clarity without any prejudice. Therefore when the whole being goes to sleep, there is quite a different state. In that state there is a great deal to learn, understand, perceive.

30:51 So we must go back to the first part of this problem, which is, how is this conditioning, which is the past, to be examined, understood? Is the examiner, analyser, different from the thing he analyses? That is the first question one has to find out. You know, the difficulty is most of us are so terribly clever, we have read so much, we accept such a lot, we are so authority-bound. And so we never... we have made ourselves incapable to find out for ourselves. To find out you need to be greatly... you need have great sensitivity, 32:14 a sharpness, a clarity, an intensity. Not only the sensitivity of the body, because most of us indulge so... oh, you know what we do with our bodies – overeat, indulge, drink, smoke, kill animals for our pleasure and eat them – you know your own lives better than I do. The very way of our life is to bring about insensitivity. And that is part of our conditioning, because the moment we become very sensitive, we become dangerous to society, dangerous to established morality.

33:32 And, is the observer different from the thing he observes? This one must find out for oneself very deeply, because when that is understood very deeply, then we will have solved the problem of conflict altogether. If there is a separation, a division between the observer and the thing observed, then there is conflict. All division is conflict, not only outwardly but also inwardly. Then the observer begins to criticise, judge, evaluate, wants to change that which he observes in himself. 34:45 And then there is conflict between the observer and the thing observed. The space between the observer and the observed, in that space is all conflict. So as long as the observer is different from the thing observed, conflict is inevitable and therefore distortion. So is it possible to be free of all conflict? And that is only possible when there is an understanding of the observer being the observed, and not two separate states. Is this – right?

35:54 Because, you see, we live in opposites – the good and the bad, the heaven and the hell, frustration and fulfilment, hope and despair, loneliness and companionship, death and life, misery and happiness, must and must not, ‘what is’ and ‘what should not be’ – this division, this long corridor of the opposites, is conflict. And when there is conflict of any kind, there is distortion, and therefore the mind cannot possibly ever – do what it will – find reality. Mind must be without prejudice, not distorted, without any torture, clear. It is only such a mind can see the infinite.

37:37 You know, this question, whether the observer is the observed, is a very important thing to find out for ourselves. When you look at a tree, a flower, a cloud or a bird, there is always not only physical separation but there is the separation of prejudice, knowledge, thought, and so there is division. And to find out whether you can look at a cloud, your wife, your husband, your neighbour, and if you must look at the politician – I hope you don’t – the cloud, the tree, whether you can look at it without any barrier, want or dislike. 38:54 Then you will see there is immediate contact, then you will actually see things that you have never seen before. The colour becomes extraordinarily vital; the beauty of the cloud with its extraordinary light has quite a different meaning when there is no observer but only observation.

39:39 So in the same way, if you can look at yourself without the observer. Just to observe yourself in action. And to observe yourself is only possible in relationship, not theoretically – in relationship to your wife, to people, to ideas, to things, whether you can look at your wife or husband without the image that you have about her and she has about you. Then you actually are related. Then you actually perceive. But now the relationship is between two images, which is two concepts, formulas. In that there is no relationship at all, and therefore there is conflict in relationship. And this is very important to understand, because all our life is a series of conflicts and struggles.

41:25 We are never at any moment peaceful. We are never at any moment quiet deeply within ourselves. We are always struggling to become or not to become, which means there is a division between the observer and the observed, and the observer is always trying to change or become that which he has observed. And when this is understood very deeply – and it is not such an immensely difficult issue at all – then you will see that the observer is the whole content of conditioning.

42:37 The observer is the past and therefore is the conditioning. Right? Because when you observe, when you see what the observer is – his values, his judgments, his hopes, his fears, his despairs, his miseries, sorrows – he is the observer, sane or neurotic, and he is the past. And when he observes, he is bringing the whole of that conditioning to judge, to evaluate, to do something about that which he observes. And therefore there is contradiction. That is, the past and the present.

43:57 You know, this brings into question how to live totally in the now. That means, how to live without the past, without the future, without time – now. I do not know if you have ever gone into it or meditated or given serious intention to it. Because if you observe what we are is the past, and that past is operating through the present to the future. And that is our life. That is the cycle in which we live. And to find out whether it is possible to live so completely in a timeless state which is now, which is not a theory, a supposition or a principle, or going to somebody to learn how to live in the present. 45:32 Which means one must understand the observer, the centre, the censor, who is the total past; the ‘I’, the ‘me’, the ego, is the past. And as long as that division exists, there must be conflict, and therefore there must be sorrow, confusion, misery.

46:12 So this conditioning, not only outwardly but inwardly, is the ‘me’; the origin of this conditioning is the ‘me’, the centre. And the ‘me’, with all the content of thousand yesterdays, with its thoughts. And thought which creates the ‘me’, thought which is the response of memory, thought which is the result of accumulated experience, knowledge, again which is the past, that thought can never be new. Thought can never be new, it is always old. And we worship the old. All the intellectuals, all the clever people, 47:41 all the thinkers of the world worship thought, worship the past. If there is no experience of yesterday, you would think in... there would be quite a different state. But thought must be exercised rigorously, logically, sanely, when necessary in the technological, scientific world. But when thought tries to bring about psychological change, it can only bring about in the pattern of the past. And therefore no change at all.

48:38 From that arises a much more complicated, deeper question, whether thought, what thought... what is the place of thought, and must thought... must it always be in operation? That is, must the mind always live in the past? You know, that is one of the things that is happening in the modern world. The young people throughout the world are in revolt. They are in revolt against the established order, wanting different changes in the educational field, economic, and so on and on and on. 49:46 I’m not at all sure they are aware why they are deeply in revolt. They are in revolt against the obvious things, which any person can see and must change. But whether they are in revolt against the past, which is themselves, their whole way of thinking, whether they are in revolt against the whole past, which is thought. We won’t go into that now because that is a very... it’ll take us away from what our main thing is, which is, whether the mind, so heavily conditioned, can ever free itself. It can and must if it is not to live in prison. 51:13 Only when it becomes completely aware during the waking hours – aware without any choice of your activities, of your thoughts, of your feelings, of your movements, of your motives, of your ambitions, of your competition, the dependencies, the acquisitiveness – to be so completely aware during the day. Then you will find that conditioning breaks down.

52:11 But one cannot be so completely attentive all the time. If you say, ‘How am I to be attentive all the time?’ then you are back again into greed – you want to maintain a state and therefore it is just an idea and therefore it is a contradiction, and then begins the conflict. But to be aware when you are inattentive – you understand? – when you are completely attentive, that is giving your whole body, your mind, your heart, your nerves, every atom of your energy – watch it. 53:09 And you cannot maintain that unless you have become extraordinarily sensitive, alive – physically, morally, intellectually, so highly sensitive. But as few of us are that way, then what is important is to be aware of your inattention, when you are not attending. Just to be aware of it. Then you will see that very awareness of inattention brings about attention.

54:12 And when the mind is so attentive and sensitive, then there is a possibility of understanding what love is. For most of us, love is pleasure, desire, memory, jealousy, hate. But that is not love, surely. But to find out what love is – not to cultivate it. There is no such thing as cultivating love – horrors. But to find out, to come up on it and live with it, is to find out, is to be free of this conditioning of the past.

55:42 Can we now, if we are so inclined, ask questions, we can talk things over together.

56:03 Questioner: What is the difference, in your opinion, between the mind and the brain? And to what extent is the mind separate from the past?

56:28 K: What is the difference between the mind and the brain. The question is: what is the difference between the mind and the brain. And is the mind the past.

56:47 Q: Can the mind be separate from the past?

56:50 K: Ah – can the mind be separate from the past.

56:53 Q: Sorry. How far is the mind the past? Yes or no.

56:57 K: How far is the mind the past, or no.

57:02 Q: To what extent?

57:09 K: To what extent the mind is the past.

57:16 Sir, we are not dealing with opinion or with agreement or disagreement. We are examining, not according to what you have learnt from others, but examining your own mind, examining, watching your own brain. So we are not depending on opinion and authority, we are finding out for ourselves. It is much more important to find out for ourselves because it is our life, not somebody else’s life. We are not trying to find out according to Jung, Freud or all the philosophers, psychologists, the teachers, the gurus – we are trying to find out for ourselves. What is the brain? 58:26 Your brain, my brain – what is it? It is the result of time, of evolution, with all its memories, contradicting memories, contradicting desires, contradicting reactions. Basically it is the result of the urge to be secure, physically. It is like coming upon a precipice and knowing the danger of it and walking away from it. That is the function of the brain. The brain is the residue of all tradition, of danger, of learning, the accumulated memories from which thought comes. That is the brain. We can go into it much more, in detail.

59:51 Like what is the mind? Is not the mind the total understanding of the brain, of the physical responses, emotions, aspirations? The mind is... covers this whole thing. It is the whole, not the part. Brain is a fragment of the whole. Mind has the capacity to perceive the whole. And you are asking whether the mind – to what extent is the mind also the past. Obviously it is the past. So the mind, with all its perceptions, with the total capacity to see, the brain with its capacities to remember, to react, to... which is based essentially on physical security – all of that is the past.

1:01:41 So the question from that arises, inevitably is: can all that be quiet? Can the mind, the brain, the body be so quiet, without any response, in the old conditioned responses, so that there is quite a different dimension altogether? You understand my question?

1:02:31 Because we live rather a small life, petty life, shallow, meaningless life – quarrels, jealousies, and all the rest of it. And our life is very ordinary, bourgeois, though it may have great pretensions. Knowing that – please follow this – knowing that, we say, I must find out what truth is, I will join this group or that group, I will learn from somebody, the man who knows, each forming a little group round themselves or round their leader – you know what is happening in the world – hoping to enter into a different dimension. 1:03:47 Enter into a different dimension but living a shoddy little life of ambition, in different ways. Obeying authority because somebody says so, specially if they come from the East. When somebody promises you through Zen to have satori, and all the rest of it, you follow. Or you have your own particular little leader here who has learnt a few tricks and you form groups round them, and you go around doing propaganda for that teacher, for that group, for that idea, for that system. 1:04:41 Which is all very understandable, ugly, shallow, empty, because behind it all there is fear. And fear drives one for greater pleasure, to seek some enlightenment in a different world, have a different experience, a transcendental something or other.

1:05:21 But without changing our life in everyday relationship, without knowing what love means – not an idea but actually love, to love, one must always live in the past, and you cannot escape it. And one can only understand it, look at it, learn about it, be extraordinarily aware of it without any pretension, without any hypocrisy. You know, if you have ever asked yourself whether it is at all possible to help another. Is the speaker helping you?

1:06:46 Would you kindly...? Is he? Yes? Oh, I’m so sorry!

1:07:04 It is a form of vanity to say, ‘I’ll help somebody’. And it is a form of vanity to say, ‘Yes, you’re helping me’. What the speaker is doing is something entirely different. He is not helping you. If he is, then you depend on him. When you depend on him, you destroy him and yourself. You make him into an authority, you become his follower, which is a dreadful thing, a monstrous thing. But what the speaker is doing is putting a mirror in front of you so that you see yourself as you are. It is your mirror not his mirror. 1:08:09 So that you become a light to yourself, so that you are both a teacher and a disciple to yourself. Otherwise you are not free, otherwise you don’t know what it means to love, otherwise you will not know what it means to live. That’s why it is very important to find out for ourselves this whole business of conditioning, how we live, why we accept the way we live, why we are second-hand human beings, find out actually what our relationships are. It is only when there is a radical change in our mind and in our heart, that is, stepping out of the past, putting an end to time, then only you enter into a different world. 1:09:33 To that world, there is no teacher, no guru, no philosopher, there is no path. You have to find out and you have to walk alone, not out of bitterness, cynicism or despair, because it is only when you are alone you begin to see things very clearly, not when you are carrying the burden of others or of your own burden of the past.

1:10:18 Q: Sir, does purity of mind depend upon the... Do you mean to say they are complimentary to each other?

1:10:30 K: Compliment to what, sir? Authority?

1:10:34 Q: Does purity of mind depend on the recognition of impurity, and are these two complimentary to each other?

1:10:48 K: Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire? I mean, pardon. What does that mean? Is the purity – we never talked about the purity of the mind. You are asking a question, whether the purity of the mind is possible only when the impurity is recognised. Is that it?

1:11:19 Q: Yes.

1:11:24 K: Sir, how do you recognise impurity? Somebody has told you it is impure? How do you know, how do you feel what is impure? And, such a mind that knows impurity, can that mind become pure? You understand what I mean? Recognising the mind is corrupt, I recognise my mind is stupid, dull, insensitive. And how is that dull mind to become extraordinarily active, alive, beautiful? And who is the entity that recognises that it is corrupt, dull. 1:12:35 When you recognise it, the recogniser is part of that dullness. And when he says, ‘I must change that to that’, then the conflict begins, and therefore more dullness. Right? So, the corrupt can never become the incorruptible, but only by watching both the movement of corruption and the desire to lead a life which is not corrupt, watching the movement of both, without any choice, out of that comes a different kind of life.

1:13:56 Are you saying, sir, that thought conditions and thought is inevitable? Is that it?

1:14:18 Q: Yes.

1:14:18 K: Right: thought conditions and thought is inevitable.

1:14:28 It is fairly clear that thought does condition, because thought is the response of memory, experience, knowledge, past. And so when thought operates, it is always operating in the field of the known, and therefore thought is always conditioning. In the technological, in the scientific world, the scientist, the pure scientist, not the man who makes money out of it, but the pure scientist, if he wants to discover something new, must be free of all thinking so that he can – he’s quiet; something new can take place. But if he is all the time thinking hypothetically or urging, searching, pushing, obviously nothing new can take place. It is only when the mind is quiet then something new can take place.

1:15:44 And you say thought is inevitable. Is it? Why do you say it is inevitable? Thought must continue, therefore there is... that means there is no time interval at all, a continuous movement of thought. That is generally so with most people, isn’t it? When you are with family, you talk, when you are going by yourself for a walk, you are always thinking about something – your problem, or saying, ‘What a lovely tree, I wish that tree was in my garden’, or this or that – you know, talking, talking, talking to yourself. 1:16:39 And so you say thought is inevitable. So conditioning is inevitable, therefore there is no freeing from the prison of the past. If you accept that, that is the end of it. We are not trying to convert you to anything. If you say it is so, it is so for you.

1:17:03 But if you want to find out whether thought has... thought being time, time being yesterday, thousand yesterdays, whether time has a stop. Which is, thought has a stop. Sir, it has a stop. You can find out for yourself. When you say, ‘I understand something very much, I understand it very clearly’, what has taken place there? You have listened very keenly, attentively, and when you say you understand, it is not verbal or intellectual, emotional understanding. 1:18:06 But that understanding comes only when the mind is quiet, when you are listening very attentively, or speaking or talking very attentively. In that attention there is no distraction. In that attention there is... mind is completely silent. Then there is understanding. So time, thought has a stop. You can experiment with yourself, it is so simple all these things.

1:19:18 What do you mean when you say the inner and the outer are the same. Must I explain it? Don’t you know it?

1:19:43 I’ll show it to you, sir. One moment, I’ll show it to you.

1:20:08 Sir, the world, the society, the culture we live in – who has created it? Man. You and I have created this society, this culture, this tradition. We have created it out of our ambitions, out of our greeds, out of our despairs, out of our fears which invents gods, saviours, masters – we are afraid. So we create this world – it is part of our us, is the same movement, because we are in battle with ourselves, with our neighbours. We are so discontent, boiling over. And we create a society which is so disorderly, so immoral. So it is one movement, it is not a separate movement. 1:21:20 You are the world and the world is you. You might like to think you are separate, with your little family, with your little pleasures, with your furniture, and all the rest of it. And that ‘you’, is your neighbour, with his family, with his little furniture, with his little bathrooms. And this is the world all the world over. So what we are, we make the world. And we are caught in that trap, and when we are caught, we revolt and fall into another trap. But if we understood what it means, this whole movement in which we are caught, we shall have a revolution inwardly, and therefore not be caught in another trap. 1:22:37 You know, it’s like the sea, the salt water that has... that goes out and comes in, the constant movement of outward and inward, the tide. The tide never says to itself, what is this two movement, is it separate? It is one movement, like living, loving and dying is one movement. And when you know that one movement as one, not separate, not fragment, then you have become really virtuous. And it is only a mind that is completely in order that sees the beauty of the eternity.

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