Krishnamurti - What is a religious life?

AM69T5 - What is a religious life?
Amsterdam - 14 May 1969
Public Talk 5

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

0:07 Krishnamurti: I believe this is the last talk. We have talked about great many things, and I think we should consider this evening what is a religious life.

0:28 Man, I think throughout the world, has tried to find out something more than the everyday pains, sorrows, pleasures, and all the troubles that one has in daily life. He has tried to find out if there is something beyond all thought, beyond all transient things, and in his struggle, in his search for that, he has invented great many formulas, concepts, methods, systems by which to achieve that something which has been called God, heaven, and the great many names that have been given in the Orient, but one has struggled to find out if there is such thing as reality, a bliss which can never be contaminated. 2:33 And I’m sure each one of us in different ways have searched for this thing. We have joined this group or that group, this system or that, or joined or belonged to one organised religion or another, and if we discard them all, try to find out for ourselves through reading, through joining little groups, meditating, groping after, searching and searching.

3:37 Because most of us are so thoroughly dissatisfied with our own lives, we are so discontented with ourselves, with our petty little worries, our peculiar idiosyncrasies, our narrow little life, with our sorrows, and all the troubles that one has. And one wants to escape from them, one wants to run away from this tawdry, rather shoddy little life hoping thereby to find something that is not imagined, that is not put together by thought, by our feelings, but something that man has been seeking from time beyond measure. And I’m sure we’re all, in our own ways, want to discover this thing.

5:16 And is it possible for a mind that is seeking to find reality? Can reality, or something which is not measurable by time, is it possible to find it through seeking? If it is there at all. We think there is something of that kind, call it what you will, and we hope to find it and therefore we seek it. We don’t know if it actually exists. We have been told by many people including the saints, who are most unreliable – they’re the last people to assert any discovery of reality because they are utterly conditioned by the religion in which they are born, by the culture. And they’re recognised as saints by the society, therefore they’re not saints.

7:04 And people have written about it, experienced it, talked about it, and our own discontent, our own misery says there must be something like that. Or there is a whole group of people, like the communists and the atheists, who said there is no such thing, don’t bother about all that, it is stupid, it is bourgeois, live for the day, be involved, commit yourself to the social welfare, to a better society, to a utopia, and put all that vagueness, superstition aside. But even the most confirmed atheist who doesn’t believe is as the man who believes, because both are conditioned – they don’t know.

8:37 The believer and the non-believer are the same. The man who believes, he’s frightened, he wants something, he’s unhappy, his life is a torture, and so he wants desperately to find peace, a haven where reality may abide. And the non-believer, the so-called atheist, those who think all this mystic stuff is nonsense, he is committed to a particular way of life, which when you examine doesn’t mean very much. He may be extraordinarily self-sacrificing, socially moral, do a great deal of good, go to the office endlessly for the rest of his life and be responsible for his family, obey the law, and so on, but they both – the one who believes and the one who does not believe – have very little meaning. 10:30 Because life, which is such a burden, in which there is occasional flutter of joy, ecstasy and pleasure that brings pain, and they all try to give some significance, meaning to life. The more one is clever or in despair, one invents a significance, a meaning to a very sordid, narrow, shallow life.

11:25 And there are those who’re always seeking, joining this, following that teacher, this system, going from one book, one teacher, one guru to another, one master, all the time demanding to find out, searching, asking, disciplining.

12:01 So we are asking: what is a religious life? Is a religious life to be found by seeking reality? Does the religious life come through the search for the real? Or the religious life has nothing whatsoever to do with this seeking at all. So we have to find out what it means to seek. Is the search for this mysterious thing which man has always been seeking, is the search an escape? And is it to be found?

13:29 After all, when we seek something, we already know what we are seeking – we have a vague intimation of it or a knowledge or a tradition. And so the tradition, the knowledge tells that in seeking you will find. But is that so? Can the petty little mind, conditioned, shaped by culture, by society, whatever it may search will find according to its conditioning, to its pettiness. So is it possible not to seek at all? Because that thing is too immense, too vast, timeless, something extraordinary which man cannot possibly conceive, if it exists at all. And one must doubt it, one must be completely sceptical, 15:12 and therefore enquiring, free to find out. But if one is escaping – as most of us are I’m afraid, from our own narrow little life, with its pain, with its confusion, with its sorrow – we are escaping and therefore we are caught in illusion.

15:59 And is it possible for the mind, without seeking, without escaping, so completely alter one’s own life so that there is total freedom from all the distortions, so that a mind can really, without any illusion, without any previous knowledge or tradition which shapes thought, come upon this extraordinary thing that man has sought? One can see very clearly and logically that a mind that is seeking, unless it is free completely, what is seeks is prompted by its own fears, motives, pleasures, demands and urges. And therefore what it finds is its own projection and therefore it is caught in an illusion.

18:02 So first without establishing order in ourselves – order being virtue, not the social morality, which is not moral at all, but being virtuous in behaviour from moment to moment, not according to a pattern, not according to a certain formula laid down by religions or by society, or oneself. Then such a behaviour becomes mechanical, conforming and therefore ceases to be true behaviour.

19:15 So, order in the deepest sense of that word, without the blueprint of what order should be, must be established in conduct. Because after all, that’s what matters, doesn’t it, in life – conduct, behaviour. If behaviour, conduct is according to a pattern, then it is not virtue, it is not order. In that, there is suppression, conformity, a mechanical process, which one hopes will give security. But that, obviously that is not morality at all, that is not virtue, that doesn’t bring about deep, inward, complete, absolute order. And without this foundation, how can the mind ever come upon something that is totally new, that can only be found when the mind is completely free, so that it can look without any distortion?

21:36 One asks oneself, if one is at all very honest – and that’s rather difficult to be honest with oneself, because most of us like to pretend, most of us like to think we are honest. But to be honest implies not to a principle, to an idea, conforming to a pattern, but honesty implies seeing things exactly as they are in ourselves, without any distortion, whatever it is – anger, jealousy, brutality, violence, contempt, aggressiveness – to see it without judgment, actually as it is. 22:55 That demands a great deal of honesty. And honesty is much more worthwhile than sincerity. One can be sincere to an idea, to a pattern, but to be honest, so completely integral, to know exactly what has taken place, without any distortion, one needs a great deal of honesty and discipline.

23:58 Discipline, that very word implies learning, to learn and not to conform, not to imitate, but to learn. Not to conform to a social or a religious pattern, or to conform to a conclusion that you have had, that you have, or to a certain pattern of behaviour which you have established for yourself, doesn’t breed clarity, freedom. So, one must establish for oneself order within oneself, and that can only be done when there is self-knowing, to know oneself actually what one is, not according to any philosopher, analyst and psychologist, but to know, to discover for oneself what one is. 25:45 And that demands an astonishing enquiry, watchfulness and learning. Most of us learn to accumulate, and after having accumulated, we act. The accumulation of experience or knowledge is necessary in the technological field – we won’t go into that – but when we accumulate psychologically and observe ourselves through past understanding or through past knowledge, then we are not observing ourselves at all, actually – we are observing ourselves through the memory of yesterday. 26:52 So we are not learning. To learn implies watching without accumulating. And that is… and in this learning there is an extraordinary sense of discipline. Not the schoolboy discipline, not the discipline of the priest with his austerity, which is really harsh, but out of this watchfulness there comes an austerity which is not harsh, which is extraordinarily alive, vital.

28:01 This order, with its virtue, with its… with the beauty of austerity, when that is there with self-knowledge, then there is no possibility of illusion. Then the mind can’t deceive itself by any desire.

28:46 Because after all, illusion comes through wanting more, wanting to experience more. We have every day so many experiences – watching a cloud, the light on the water, a goose walking across the lawn, or seeing a face – there are so many experiences. And we become familiar with these habitual experiences and are rather bored with them, tired, and we want extraordinary experiences – the mystical experience, the experience of the so-called realised human being, the experience of satori, the Zen experience, or the experience which the Hindus with their yogis and with their gurus, with their masters, promise. 30:16 We want all those because our own life is shallow, and we want more. There begins illusion. Because to experience implies, the word ‘experience’ implies, to go through, to go through and finish, not carry it over. But most of us do not completely experience anything. Any challenge that one has is… inadequately one responds.

31:23 And any experience involves recognition and accumulation. We accumulate through experience, hoping thereby we shall enrich ourselves. What takes place when there is experiencing? First, there is recognition of what you are experiencing. If you recognise, it is already known and therefore it is not new. And to experience reality, you must recognise it. Please do follow this a little bit. Those of you who’re all craving for great experiences, especially religious experiences, mystical experiences, you must be able to recognise it, otherwise it has no value. And when you do recognise it as being through this or that, the very act of recognition is the act of the known, therefore it is not new.

33:16 Therefore the desire for more experience, wider, blissful experiences, does breed illusion. And along there, there is no truth, no reality. Or one has experienced on rare occasions, suddenly, something extraordinary. One wants it, one holds onto it, one wants to repeat it. One is so desperately attached to it, and therefore one lives in a dead memory and longing for something new, which also becomes the dead. So a mind that is demanding for greater experiences, religiously, is bound to be caught in illusion, in various forms of hypocrisies.

34:45 Now, when all that is clear, that is, all seeking, other than understanding of oneself, must inevitably lead to delusion. And in the understanding of oneself actually as one is, not only the superficial level but also the deep, hidden process of oneself, the understanding of all that, as one actually is, without any fear, without any distortion, out of that comes order, virtue, and the beauty of austerity with its clear, clean discipline, without any suppression or conformity. When one has laid that, deeply within oneself, completely, and therefore free, then one is in a position to find out. Otherwise you cannot possibly come upon that which is immense.

36:43 Now we are going to enter into something that demands attention. Not that we have not paid attention before, but this demands a great deal of attention. Because probably most of you have not heard the word or the significance of the word ‘meditation’. In India and in Asia, that word has extraordinary meaning – it is loaded, heavy with tradition. Because they say, through meditation, through control of thought, you make the mind quiet, and it is only in that quietness, the Supreme or the Nameless is seen, or comes. And there are various schools, not only in the Buddhist world but the Hindu, Zen and various schools, systems, which promise to make the mind quiet. 38:30 Because through a quiet mind you’re going to experience something incredible, transcendental. And to make that mind quiet, there are various systems, which we won’t go into for the moment, but you can observe that all systems – it doesn’t matter what they are – if you practice it, makes the mind mechanical, dull, stupid. It doesn’t sharpen the mind, it doesn’t make the mind and heart sensitive, alive, active.

39:26 They bring about, these systems, not only dullness, but they destroy intelligence. So one can put aside all systems. You know, lately there has been the fashion, a fad in the West, of repeating certain phrases, Sanskrit phrases, or Latin words – just as good enough – by repetition of certain words you make the mind quiet and therefore achieve some state. And it’s very easy to make the mind quiet – repeat something over and over again 10,000 times, your mind will inevitably become quiet because it becomes so weary, dull, stupid, it will be quiet. And this is what has been done throughout the Asiatic world. 40:50 And if you repeat the word ‘Coca-Cola’ or the another word, it’s just as good. No, please don’t laugh, because most of us want some kind of talisman to make our life quiet, beautiful, you know, lovely. So when you observe all this… A tranquillizer is just as good as any system. A stupid mind, a mind that is irrational, neurotic, can take a tranquilizer and be very quiet, and it will probably experience something according to its own stupidity. So we can brush all that aside with one observation, with one look.

42:15 So what is important in all this is, can the mind, in which the brain is included, be utterly quiet, completely silent? Because it’s only in freedom and silence you see. If I want to understand what you are saying, I must listen to you. I mustn’t interpret what you’re saying or compare what you are saying with what has been said. I must listen to you; I must be free to listen. And to listen my mind must be extraordinarily attentive and quiet, otherwise I can’t listen. If it is chattering, comparing, judging, evaluating, 43:27 offering its own opinions, then it’s not quiet to find out. It is as simple as that. That is, can the brain which has been conditioned to react for its own security, conditioned for thousands and millions of years to be secure, can that mind, can that brain which reacts so quickly, can that be quiet? And what is the point of being quiet? What is the necessity of being quiet?

44:25 The necessity of being quiet is very clear. When there is the act of seeing or listening, there must be quietness, otherwise you can’t listen. If you went to a museum and saw a picture, to look at it very attentively, you must look. But you cannot look if you’re comparing that painting with your own, with another painting, or enquiring who painted it, and so on – you must look out of silence to find out the beauty of it. Or if you look at a cloud, you must look at it with complete freedom and silence, then you see the extraordinary quality of it. So that is necessary, for the brain to be completely quiet. And is that possible? You understand the question?

45:39 The brain, which has been so heavily conditioned for millions of years, to react immediately, in order to survive, the brain which has accumulated memories, traditions for thousands of years, which is incessantly active – can that brain be quiet? I do not know if you have ever asked such a question. If you have and gone into it, you will find how extraordinarily difficult it is. Because if the brain, which is so heavily conditioned, is not quiet, that is, thought not completely still, it will project some hidden demand, wish, longing, and therefore bring about illusion, a neurotic state. 47:19 Therefore is it possible for the brain to be completely quiet? And here again there are various tricks, which man has learnt to make the brain quiet – breathing, you know, the more you… closing your eyes, sitting very quietly – these are all various forms of tricks to make the brain quiet, the mind quiet. And a shallow mind, a petty little mind can do all this and think it is in a marvellous state of meditation, but to find out for oneself whether the brain can be completely quiet – it can, and that demands a great deal of attention.

48:40 I do not know if you ever enquired into this question of attention, which is nothing whatsoever to do with concentration. Concentration implies resistance – thought wanders away and you try to control it in order to focus it on a particular thing, so there is a resistance. Whereas in attention there is no form of resistance. Therefore to be attentive, in that sense, completely, with your body, with your heart, with your mind, with your complete – everything that you have. You have to understand and be free of every form of resistance. Resistance arises when there is fear. Or the fear of not gaining, achieving, becoming, experiencing, which prevents attention. 50:34 Now, when you give attention, there is no entity who attends. It may be rather obtuse, rather unclear, but we will go into it a little bit. You’re listening now – are you attending? That is, giving attention without any form of resistance, not to what is being said but attending, giving your heart, your mind, your body, everything, so that you are completely attentive. Then if you are, you will see that there is no person or entity, a centre that is aware that it is attending. And we do this when we are profoundly interested in something.

52:29 So, the brain, which is capable of such extraordinary things – going to the moon, living under the sea, the miracle of a television, the telephone, the jet, the shell that goes to kill people – the brain is so astonishingly capable. And that brain, we have not been able to bring about such order. And brain demands order; it rebels against disorder. I do not know if you have gone into this. Lord, there are so many things... You know, when you go to sleep, before going to sleep, if your day has been disorderly, confused, the brain as it sleeps, quietens down, puts everything in order for itself, otherwise it becomes disturbed, uncertain, unclear. 54:12 I don’t know if you have done all these things, for the fun of it at least. Brain demands order, and that order can be brought about if you watch yourself in action throughout the day and take a stock of what has happened, or take stock as you are going along, so that at the moment of sleep the brain has order, and therefore the brain becomes more sensitive, alive. It’s a disorderly brain that makes for insensitivity. So, the brain is quiet, completely without any reaction, when there is attention.

55:26 And this attention is not a thing you practice. It isn’t a thing… you going to say, ‘Well, I’ll be more attentive tomorrow, I’ll practice it’. That’s our conditioning, to practice something which we don’t know, which we want to get, which we think will bring us happiness. What is important is not the duration of attention but the understanding and the observation of inattention. Right? Because when the mind, when the brain is aware how inattentive it is, then that very awareness of inattention becomes attention. 56:31 Are we all following all this thing? Because you see, we are trying to come upon something that man has sought. Even the most confirmed communist must have an occasional glance at the sky, at the cloud, at the tree to find out the beauty of it. And beauty is not in the thing itself, in the building, in the… so on. I mustn’t go into that – sorry. So, when the brain is still, which is to be completely attentive, the totality of the mind, in which the brain is, becomes extraordinarily still. 57:49 The quality of stillness matters. And that stillness can be brought about by superficial means or that stillness comes naturally, easily, without any effort, when you understand this whole process of knowing oneself so completely that there is no distortion. And there is distortion when there is any kind of effort. Then in that freedom, when the mind is completely still, then only is there a possibility of finding out, of – not ‘finding out’ – possibility of something other than time, thought, the past coming in and distorting. 59:10 It is only then there is a possibility of that immensity to be seen. That immensity cannot be invited – how can a little mind, however erudite, however scholarly, however austere with its harshness, brutality, how can such a mind receive that which is… has no frontier, which has no time.

59:52 So what matters is not to seek but to understand. Wisdom is greater than saintliness, for wisdom comes with the ending of sorrow. And the understanding of sorrow is to understand oneself. Then in the understanding of oneself so completely, there is quietness, there is beauty. And it is, after all, beauty is love, and without this, do what you will, that immensity, that nameless thing, cannot be.

1:01:03 Questioner: Is it possible to maintain this state of awareness, even in a state of sleep or even after the destruction of the brain?

1:01:18 K: Is it possible to maintain this awareness during sleep, and…?

1:01:24 Q: …or even after the destruction of the brain.

1:01:31 K: Even after the destruction of the brain? Qu’est-ce que vous voulez dire par ça? Is it possible to maintain this awareness during sleep, and is it possible that this awareness continue after death – is that it? When you say destruction of the brain – how? Disease? Dying?

1:02:10 Q: Yes, after the death of the physical body.

1:02:14 K: Ah. Is it possible to keep this awareness going during sleep, and can this awareness continue after the physical organism, in which the brain is, comes to an end.

1:02:45 Why do you want to keep aware, awareness during sleep, when you are not aware during the day? It is an extraordinary phenomenon, this. We want to be something somewhere else, but not here. We are not aware of what we are doing, of what we are thinking, feeling, how we talk, how we walk, what we do with our faces, with our gestures, with our words – we are not aware of all that, during the waking hours, when you’re alive. But you want to know what happens when you sleep. It is really quite strange, and in that there is great sorrow, and that’s a greater sorrow than the sorrow of limited individuality, the sorrow of ignorance – not of books and information, the sorrow of one’s own ignorance.

1:04:13 Sir, when you sleep, what takes place? You’re dreaming, and the dreams are mere intimation of the hidden, which need interpretation. And if the interpretation isn’t pure, clean, right, true, then the next dream that you have will be interpreted according to your prejudices, according to your conclusion of the previous dream. And that way there is no end to dreaming.

1:05:09 But if you’re aware during the day – please, try this and you will see extraordinary things take place in yourself – aware when you’re sitting in the bus, washing dishes, see what’s going on – your dislike of washing dishes, it is rather an unpleasant job but there it is, your envy – watching all that – aggressiveness, violence, your ideologies, your hopes, your despair – watching that throughout the day. Then at the end of the day when you go to bed, your brain has brought about order in itself. And then the brain has some quietness during sleep, and in that quietness, it can learn far more about itself.

1:06:36 And what happens to this awareness after death? Oh, my Lord! You know, as we said the other day, what happens to you after death? Right? That is what you’re talking about. You who are aware, if you are, during the day, or casually aware now and then, what happens to you after death? Right? Who is aware – what happens? All right, if you want to know, I’ll tell you. What are you? Have you found out what you are? You’re the house, the property, the bank account, the furniture, the carpet, the ideas, the quarrels, the pleasures, the despairs, the agony of one’s own life, the contradiction, the revolt, the discontent, the longing for something beautiful to happen, a life so lonely, isolated, in which there is no relationship at all, in which there is no love, no beauty, no vastness, no space – that’s what you are. And you want that to go on. 1:08:41 All that are mere memories, words. And probably when you want it to go on, you will go on, if you think it’s worthwhile.

1:09:01 And what is immortality then, and what is innocence? Can the mind that goes on in the routine, in weariness, in despair, in utter loneliness, with all the misery, confusion, can such a mind be innocent? Can such a mind be immortal? Or is mortality only in the field of memory? And the immortal is only a state of… a state in which time is not. And you… and we, you, is of time – youth, all the pleasures and the pains of youth, the memories of middle age and old age, and the agony of disease, pain – all that is you. And you want that to go on. 1:10:37 And that you want to be made immortal. Now if you see that, you see the sorrow of it, a mind that is wanting to go on. And it’s only when there is an ending, there is a new beginning. And to die every day to everything – and we mean to everything, to every pleasure, to every pain, to all the bitterness, cynicism. To put, to die freely, happily to the past every day, which means never to accumulate. Then the mind which is free, such a mind then know… is aware of the immortal.

1:11:47 Q: Perhaps… May I put it in another way?

1:11:50 K: Put it any way you like, sir.

1:11:54 Q: When the mind is quiet as a result of attentive awareness, what will happen when the brain is asleep? What happens in this state of awareness, this quietness of the brain?

1:12:18 K: I haven’t heard that clear, sir.

1:12:21 Q: When attentive awareness makes the brain quiet, in that quietness, what happens during sleep.

1:12:27 Q: When the brain is asleep, when the superficial mind becomes unconscious.

1:12:36 K: What, sir?

1:12:40 Q: The superficial mind becomes unconscious.

1:12:40 K: What happens during sleep?

1:12:44 Q: No, in this state of this awareness, the mind is quiet…

1:12:50 K: What happens when the mind is quiet – is that it?

1:12:55 Q: No. When the mind is quiet, there is some attentive awareness…

1:13:03 K: When the mind is quiet through awareness, what happens.

1:13:07 Q: What happens…?

1:13:07 K: That’s good enough, sir. What happens – you know, this is strange, isn’t it? You are asking me instead of finding out for yourself? What’s the point of asking me? I’ll tell you, sir, just a minute.

1:13:37 What happens when during the day you’re intensely aware and you go to sleep, what happens in that strange stillness. Right? Is that the – yes, that’s the question. What happens when the mind is still, quiet, whether you are asleep or waking or whatever it is – what happens?

1:14:16 Will words be sufficient? If I tell you what happens, if I’m foolish enough to tell you what happens, will that be sufficient? Knowing very well, what is described is not… what is described is not the thing described, the description is not the described, the word is not the thing. You know, we are all so lazy. We don’t want to find out.

1:14:57 Look, sir, what happens after silence? When you sit very quietly, without any movement of thought, completely attentive, there is no you – right? – as the experiencer. Therefore he cannot tell you what happens. And that’s the beauty of it, and that’s the greatness of it. Because we measure everything with words, and we get caught in descriptions, and the man who describes is the most foolish man. The man who says, ‘I know’, beware of that man because he doesn’t know. The man who says, ‘I have realised God’, then you may be quite sure he has not, because there is no entity to experience the reality. There is only reality, not the experiencer who experiences reality.

1:16:37 Q: Sir, could you tell me, what is the primordial cause that…? Is it the outcome of the delusional brain or somewhere…?

1:16:50 K: What is the primordial state of the mind before evolution began. Right? That is the question, isn’t it? At least that is what I have understood – please correct me.

1:17:12 Q: What is the primordial cause that mind exists, and how…? Is it the outcome of the evolutionary brain?

1:17:22 K: Yes: what is the original cause, why the brain, the mind, exists at all.

1:17:32 Q: Outcome of the evolution of the brain, or is it…?

1:17:34 K: Yes: what is the cause of it. Obviously to survive. Physically to survive, that is how it began, obviously – according to the anthropologists. And one can see that for oneself. And, psychologically, also we want to survive. And then all the mischief began, begins. Sir, what is much more interesting, if you will permit me to point out: what is the origin of thought? How did thought begin? Again, the same way you can see: self-protection. But what existed before thought? 1:18:42 Probably that is what the questioner means. What existed before thought? Have you ever considered it? You know, if you know what silence is, you will know what existed before thought. And that silence is the most extraordinary state, when all thought is not. And you can then see the beginning of thought, how thought begins. Well, sir… Any other questions?

1:19:49 Q: …what’s wrong with experiencing?

1:20:11 K: What is wrong with experiencing.

1:20:16 Q: When you recognise some aspect of…

1:20:22 Q: You say that the fact that an experience is recognition, this fact invalidates the experience. But why is recognition so bad? You invalidate experience because recognition...

1:20:40 K: I understand, sir. I understand, sir.

1:20:47 Are you all… are you not tired? Bene? Let’s go. You should be tired. Because what we have been talking about demands a great deal of attention, enquiry, and if you have done it, your brain is tired.

1:21:34 The gentleman asks, why do you repudiate all experience. And what is wrong with the recognition in experience.

1:21:54 First of all, we are not repudiating all experience. Experience is necessary in the technological field, in the scientific field, in the mathematical world. To go to the moon, you need great deal of experience – mechanical, electronic, and so on. Tremendous knowledge is necessary. Therefore experience is essential. All scientific knowledge is experience, enquiry, search.

1:22:38 But psychologically, inwardly, inside the skin, what is the significance of experience? And does experience free the mind, so that the mind is active, alive, rational, clear, unconfused, and therefore orderly? Does experience help us to bring that about? Because I was orderly yesterday through experience, through a form of pressure, and that experience going to teach me today to be orderly? Then if it is, then it is mechanical, therefore it’s not orderly. 1:23:57 Then experience, recognition. If I recognise experiences, as being beautiful, ugly, pleasurable, painful, and say, ‘What a marvellous experience it is’, there is always the experiencer who experiences. And the experiencer is the past, for him to recognise – otherwise he can’t recognise it as an experience. Therefore the experiencer, being the past, when he experiences, strengthens his own past. Obviously. Therefore experience does not free the experiencer. 1:25:03 Look, sir, you’ve had 15,000 wars in the last 5,000 years. That means a couple of wars every year, year and a half – doesn’t matter. What have you learnt? Have you learnt anything from it? Except to build better planes and to kill better? And if you depend on experience to keep the mind alert, awake, is that possible? Will experience keep you awake? After all, every challenge that one has – every challenge, small, great, immense – if it is at all new, you must respond according to the challenge. 1:26:04 If it is a new challenge, you must respond to it totally newly. There is this challenge in the world at present, the revolt of youth and the whole tradition going to pieces – that is the new challenge. Unless you respond completely newly – if it is inadequate, your response is bound to create more resistances. So what is the value of psychological experience at all? We say it has none whatever.

1:27:01 So out of that arises a question: how can the mind, which is constantly kept awake through challenge and response, through so-called experience and, you know, this back and forth movement, how can the mind live without experience at all and be totally awake? That is the real problem, not whether a particular experience is valid or not. You understand my question, sir? Look, I ask you a question – it is a challenge. You respond to that challenge, to that question 1:28:02 according to your belief, opinion, knowledge. And therefore if that response is inadequate to the challenge, to the question, what happens to you? You’re in conflict, therefore you’re in resistance. But if you respond to the challenge totally, then there is the… then such a mind need have no challenges at all, it’s so awake. Is that possible? Is it possible for the mind to be so completely awake that it doesn’t depend on any stimuli? And it is only possible when the mind isn’t asleep, when the mind isn’t drugged by opinions, by, you know, demands, by your own tendencies, all the rest of it. 1:29:21 So, it’s only self-knowing that breaks down all conditioning, and therefore the mind need not depend on any challenge to keep completely awake. So all this means a great deal of work inwardly – a great deal of work watching, everlastingly. And that means no laziness. And we are lazy. And when we are lazy, be lazy. But be aware that you are lazy. Then out of that awareness a different sense of meaning to that word comes. When you are lazy, you are lazy – completely. 1:30:37 And when you are aware that you are lazy, you allow yourself to be lazy, when it is necessary. But when it is aware of that laziness – and you are lazy because you went to sleep late last night, you overate, you did this or a dozen things that make you lazy – then that very awareness corrects the reasons for laziness. So what is important in all this, sirs, if I may point out, is to understand yourself, is to watch yourself as in a mirror. And you can only watch yourself in relationship, not in isolation, not as a hermit – in relationship with your boss, with your wife, husband, with your neighbour, with the ugly politician, and so on. Then in that awareness you come upon something that is indestructible, that is immense.

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