Krishnamurti - Can the mind be free?

BK69T1 - Can the mind be free?
Berkeley, California - 3 February 1969
Public Talk 1

Audio without subtitles on YouTube. Instead, the transcript from kfoundation.org is used.

0:13 Krishnamurti: Perhaps after I have talked a little you might care to ask questions, but first let me talk for a little while. What is important is to listen, not only to the speaker but also listen to our reactions, to what is being said. Because we are not going to deal with any particular philosophy, we are not in any way representing India or any of its philosophies, we are concerned with human problems not with philosophies and not with beliefs, we are concerned with the human sorrow, the sorrow that most of us have, the anxiety, the fears, the hopes and despairs, and the great disorder that exists throughout the world. 2:18 With that we are concerned, as human beings, because we are responsible for this colossal mess in the world. We are responsible for the disorder, we are responsible for the war that is going on in Vietnam, we are responsible for the riots, we are responsible as human beings living in this world, in different cultures and societies, we are responsible actually to everything that is going on, and I don’t thing we realise how serious this responsibility is. Some of us may feel this responsibility and so we want to do something, join a particular group or a particular sect, gather together round a belief, an ideology, and devote all our particular lives to that ideology or to that particular action. 4:11 But that doesn’t solve the problem nor absolve our particular responsibility as a human being living in this world.

4:30 So, we must be concerned, first, to understand what the problem is — not what to do, that will come much later. Most of us want to do something, we want to commit ourselves to a particular course of action, and that, unfortunately, leads to more chaos, more confusion, and more brutality. We must, I think, look at the problem as a whole, not a particular part of that problem, not a segment of it, not a fragment, but the whole problem of living, which includes going to the office, family, death, love, sex, conflict, ambition, and the understanding of what death is, what love is. 6:05 And also if there is something called God, or truth, or whatever name one might give to it. We must understand the totality of this problem, not, if I may suggest, one particular segment, fragment, or a part. And that is going to be our difficulty, because we are so used to act and react to a particular given problem and do not see that every problem, every human problem is interrelated. So it seems that to bring about a complete psychological revolution is far more important than economic or social revolution, upsetting a particular establishment, either in this country or in France or in India. 7:52 Because the problems are much deeper, must greater, more profound than merely becoming an activist or joining a particular group, or running off into a monastery to meditate, joining or learning Zen, or yoga, or any of these tricks that one indulges in.

8:37 So, before you ask the speaker questions, first let us look at the problem.

8:50 Questioner: We can’t hear.

8:52 K:I am so sorry you can’t hear. What am I to do?

8:55 Q:Louder!

8:57 K:What am I to do?

8:58 Q:Sit closer to the microphone.

9:02 K:[Moves chair] Does that help?

9:07 Q:What about the speakers? Can’t the technicians turn the speakers on?

9:16 K:What am I to do, sir?

9:25 Q:It isn’t your problem, the technicians have to turn the power on.

9:35 K:May I go on?

9:38 Q:Yes.

9:41 K:Look, please don’t clap, it is not worth it. Either before the talk or after the talk because we are concerned with serious things, this is not an entertainment, it is not something to come to listen for an hour or so and then forget it. We are concerned with human problems. You and I have to work very hard this evening. You are not here merely to gather a few ideas with which you agree or disagree, or try to find out what the speaker has to say. You will find out that he has to say very little, because both of us are going to examine the problems, not taking any decision but understand the problem. 10:59 And when we understand the problem, that very understanding brings about its own action. So please, first, if I may suggest, listen, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, without coming to any conclusion, listen, if I may suggest, without any prejudice, without preconceived ideas. Because we have through centuries played this kind of game, with words, with ideas, with ideologies, and they have led nowhere, because we still suffer, we are still in turmoil, we are still in despair, we are still seeking a bliss that is not pleasure. 12:16 And as this is not an entertainment we have to be very serious, because it is only the serious mind that lives, not the flippant mind, not the mind that wants entertainment or indulges in ideologies. And, as we said, we are concerned with the problem of living, not one particular part or a particular portion of the total living.

13:19 So, first let us see what our problems are — not how to solve them, not what to do about them, because the moment we understand what the problem is, that very understanding brings about its own action. And I think this is very important to understand. For most of us, we look at problems with a conclusion, with an assumption, we are not free to look, we are not free to observe what actually is. And when we are so free to look at the problem, to explore what the problem is, then out of that observation, exploration, there comes an understanding. 14:43 And that understanding itself is action, not a conclusion and then an action. We will go into it, perhaps we will understand each other as we go along.

15:09 You know, wherever one goes in the world, human beings are more or less the same — their manners and behaviour, outward pattern of behaviour may differ, but actually, psychologically, inwardly, their problems are the same. Man throughout the world is confused, that’s the first thing one observes — uncertain, insecure, he is groping, searching, asking, looking, a way out of this chaos, out of this confusion. So, he goes to teachers, to yogis, to gurus, to philosophers — everywhere he is looking for an answer. 16:33 And probably that is why most of you are here, because you want to find a way out, a way out of this trap in which one is caught, without realising that we, as human beings, have made this trap. It is our making and nobody else’s. The society in which we live is the result of our psychological state. The society is ourselves, the world is ourselves, the world is our different from us. What we are, we have made the world, because we are confused, we are ambitious, we are greedy, seeking power, position, prestige, and all the rest of it, we are aggressive, brutal, competitive, and we build a society which is equally competitive, brutal, violent. 18:12 And it seems to me our responsibility is to understand ourselves first, because we are the world. It isn’t an egotistic, narrow, limited point — as you will see when we begin to go into these problems.

18:51 So what is the problem? What is the problem when we observe the actual world around us and in us, what is our problem? Is it an economic problem, a racial problem — the black against the white, the Chinese, the communist against the capitalist, one religion opposed to another religion, the Catholic against the Protestant, the Hindu against the Muslim, and so on — is that the problem? Or is the problem much deeper, more profound — which is the psychological problem? Therefore it is not merely the outward problem, and much more inward problem. 20:17 As we said, man by nature is aggressive, brutal competitive, dominating. You can see this in yourself, if you observe yourself.

20:40 And please, if I may suggest, what we are going to talk over together this evening and the next three evenings is not a series of ideas which you are gong to listen to. What the speaker has to say, and what he is going to say, is the psychological fact which you can observe in yourself. So, if you will use the speaker to observe yourself, use the speaker as a mirror in which you see yourself actually as you are, without any distortion, and thereby learn actually what you are. Because we need great change in the world, not merely the social structure but primarily the psychological structure, and that you can observe as you are listening to the speaker. 22:46 So, what is important is to learn about ourselves, not according to any specialist, not according to Jung, Freud, and all the rest of the people, but actually what you are yourself. And in observing yourself, you will find that actually you are the world — the hatreds, the nationalist, the religious separatist, the man who thinks, believes in certain things and does not believe, the man who is afraid, and so on. So what we are going to do is, by observing the problem we are going to learn about ourselves.

24:10 So what is the problem that confronts each one of us? Is it a separate, particular problem, as an economic problem or a racial problem, or a problem of a particular fear, of a particular neurosis, or whether you believe in God or don’t believe in God, or you belong to a particular sect, religious or political or otherwise? So do you look at the problem of living as a whole, or take a particular problem and all give all your life to it, all your energy, thought to that particular problem? Do we take life as a whole, that is, life includes our conditioning, brought about by economic pressures, brought about by religious beliefs, dogmas, brought about by national divisions, racial prejudices, life is this fear, anxiety, uncertainty, the torture, the travail — life includes love, pleasure, sex, and life includes death, love, and also the question which man has been asking from everlasting to everlasting, which is if there is a reality, something beyond the hills, something which can be found through meditation. 26:58 Man has always been asking this question, and to merely brush that aside as having no validity, because we are only concerned with living from day to day and therefore if there is an eternal thing, a timeless reality. All this is the problem, not one particular problem. And when you observe this you will find that all problems are interrelated. So if you understand one problem completely then you have understood all the problems.

27:57 And one of our major problems, looking at this map of life, as human beings, one of our major problems is fear. Not a particular fear, but fear — fear of living, fear of dying, fear of not being able to fulfil and failure, fear of being dominated, suppressed, not fulfilling, fear of insecurity, fear of death, fear of loneliness, fear of not being loved at all. So where there is fear there is aggression. When one is afraid, one becomes very active, not only to escape from that fear, but that fear brings about this aggressive activity. 29:36 You can observe this in yourself if your care to. So fear is one of our major problems in life. Now, how is it to be solved? This is the problem, one of the major problems. Can man be forever free of fear, not only at the conscious level but also at the hidden, secret levels of his mind? Is that fear to be resolved through analysis? Is that fear to be wiped away by escaping? Will that fear go if you found the cause of the fear? So this is the question: how is a mind that is afraid of the past, of the present, of the future, which is time, afraid of living, how is such a mind to completely be free of this fear? 31:39 Will it take time? That is, gradually, bit by bit, be free of it. And if you take time, take may days, many years, by then you will be very old, and fear will still continue.

32:11 So, how is a mind to be free of fear? Not only physical fear but also all the structure of fear in the psyche, the psychological fears? You understand my question? Which is, is fear to be absolved completely, free, instantly, right away, or is it to be gradually understood and resolved, little by little? That’s the first question. Can the mind, which has been conditioned to think that it can gradually resolve fear, gradually, taking time, through analysis, through introspective observation, gradually — the mind is conditioned to that, that is the tradition. 33:58 It is like those people, who, being violent, have the ideology of non-violence. They say, ‘We will gradually be in a state of non-violence, when the mind will not be violent at all.

34:29 That will take time, perhaps ten years, perhaps a whole lifetime, and in the meantime you are violent, you are sowing the seed of violence. So there must a way — please do listen to this — there must be a way to completely end violence immediately, not through time, not through analysis — otherwise we are doomed as human beings to be violent for the rest of our life. So in the same way, can fear be ended completely? Can the mind be freed wholly from fear? Not at the end of one’s life but now.

35:55 I do not know if you have ever asked such a question of yourself. And if you have, probably you have said to yourself it cannot be done, I don’t know how to do it. And so you live with fear, you live with violence, and you cultivate either courage, resistance, or suppression, or escape, or pursue an ideology of non-violence — which is obviously most absurd. All ideologies are the greatest stupidity, because when you are pursuing an ideology, an ideal, you are escaping from ‘what is’. And when you are escaping you cannot possibly understand ‘what is’. 37:21 So the first thing in understanding fear is not to escape, and that is one of the most difficult things — escape through analysis, which takes time, or escape through drink, or going to church, God, getting… all kinds of activities, whether the escape is through a drink or through a drug, or through sex, or through God, is the same. So, can one cease to escape? That is the first problem in understanding what fear is and absolve it and being free from it entirely.

38:36 You know, for most of us freedom is something which we don’t want. We want to be free from a particular thing, from the immediate pressures or from immediate demands, but freedom is something entirely different. Freedom isn’t licentiousness, doing what you like, freedom demands tremendous discipline, not the discipline of the soldier, not the discipline of suppression, conformity. The word ‘discipline’ means to learn. The root meaning of that word is to learn. And to learn about something, doesn’t matter what, demands… the very learning is discipline. 40:05 Not you discipline yourself first and then learn but in the very act of learning is discipline, brings about this freedom from all suppression, from all imitation.

40:35 So, can you be free of fear, from which springs violence, from which there is all these divisions, linguistic, religious, national, divisions, as my family and your family? Fear, when one knows it, is a dreadful thing. It makes everything go dark, there is no clarity, and so a mind that is afraid cannot see what life is, what the real problems are. So the first thing, it seems to me, is to ask ourselves whether one can actually be free completely of fear, both physically and inwardly. When you meet a danger physically you react. 42:19 And that is intelligence, it is not fear — otherwise you would destroy yourself. And when there is psychological fear — fears of tomorrow, fears of what one has done, fear of the present — there intelligence doesn’t operate. Our whole social structure is based, if one goes into it deeply, psychologically, inwardly, you will find for yourself that it is based on pleasure principle, because most of us are seeking pleasure. And where there is the pursuit of pleasure there is also fear. So fear goes with pleasure. 43:34 This is fairly obvious if you examine it. So that is it.

43:41 Now, how is a mind to be free of fear so completely that the mind, when freed from fear, sees everything very clearly? Now we are going to find out whether a mind is capable of freeing itself from this altogether. You understand the question? We have accepted and lived with fear, as we have accepted violence as the way of life, we have accepted war as the way of live. We have had thousands and thousands of wars, and we are everlastingly talking about peace. But the way we live our daily life is a war, is a battlefield, is a conflict, and we accept that as inevitable. 45:38 We have never asked ourselves whether one can live a life of complete peace, which means no conflict of any kind. Conflict exists because there is contradiction in ourselves. Right? That’s fairly simple. In ourselves there is a contradiction, different contradictory desires, contradictory, opposing demands, and this contradiction beings conflict. So, we have accepted all these things as inevitable, as part of our existence. We have never questioned them, we have never questioned whether there is God. 47:03 And to question it, one must be free of all belief, which means all fear, to find out if there is such a thing as a reality, as a timeless state. To find that out there must be freedom. And freedom from fear, freedom from greed, envy, ambition, competition, brutality, only then the mild is very clear, without any complication, without any conflict. It is only such a mind then is still. And it is only the still mind that can find out if there is such thing as the eternal, the nameless. But you cannot come to that stillness through any practice, through any discipline. 48:23 That stillness comes only when there is freedom, freedom from all these anxieties, fears, brutalities, violence, jealousies. So can the mind be free? Not eventually, not in ten years or fifty years, but immediately.

49:06 I wonder if you ask that question of yourself what your answer is to yourself — whether you would say that it is impossible, or you would say it is possible. If you say it is impossible then you have blocked yourself, then you can’t proceed further. And if you say it is possible, that has also its danger. But whereas if your examine the possibility — and you can only examine the possibility if you know what is the impossible. Right? You know, we are asking of ourselves a tremendous question, which is: can the mind, which has been so conditioned through centuries, conditioned by political, economic, climate, by the church, by the various influences, can such a mind change immediately? 50:44 Or must it have time, endless days of analysis, of probing, exploring, searching, asking? And it is one of our conditionings that we accept time, that is, an interval in which a revolution, a mutation can take place. And we need to change completely. That is the greatest revolution, not throwing bombs and killing each other. The greatest revolution is whether the mind can transform itself immediately and be entirely different tomorrow. Perhaps you will say such a thing is not possible, it is impossible. 52:14 If you actually face the question without any escape and say it is impossible for a mind to transform itself so completely, it is not possible, it’s impossible, when you have come to that point when you say it is impossible, then you will find out what is possible. But you cannot possibly put that question ‘what is possible? without understanding what is impossible. Right? Are we meeting each other? It doesn’t matter, we will each other as we go along.

53:13 So, we are asking whether a mind, which has been conditioned to be violent, to be aggressive, a mind that is afraid, whether such a mind can transform itself immediately. And you can only ask that question — please follow this a little — when you understand the impossibility and the futility of analysis. Right? Analysis implies the analyser, the one who analyses, whether it is a professional analyst or yourself, analysing yourself. When you analyse yourself there are several things involved in it. 54:37 First, whether the analyser is different from the thing he analyses. Right? Is he different? Obviously, when you observe, the analyser is the analysed. There is no division between the analyser and the thing he is going to analyse. The analyser is this thing analysed. We miss that point, therefore we being to analyse. We say, ‘I am angry, I am jealous, and I begin to analyse why I am jealous, what are the causes of this jealously, anger, brutality. But the analyser is part of the thing he is analysing. 55:40 So the observer is the observed. And so one sees that and sees the futility of it, therefore that goes away, therefore you never again analyse. Please, this is very important to understand, because unless one really understands this or sees the truth of this — not verbally because verbal understanding is not understanding at all, it is like hearing a lot of words and saying, ‘Yes, I understood the words’ — but to actually to see this fact that the analyser, the observer, is the observed, is a tremendous fact, a tremendous reality, because in that there is no division between the analyser and the thing analysed and therefore no conflict. 57:02 Conflict exists only when the analyser is different from the things he analyses. In that division there is conflict. You are following all this? Perhaps you will ask questions afterwards, and if you don’t understood it, I am sorry but it doesn’t matter, we can go on. Because our life is a conflict, a battlefield, and a mind that is free has no conflict. And to be free of this conflict is to observe the fact between… the fact of the observer, the fact of the analyser, the thinker.

58:17 So, there is fear and the observer who says, ‘I am afraid.

58:26 Please do follow this a little bit, you will see the beauty of it. And so there is a division between the observer and the thing observed. Then the observer acts, he says, ‘I must be different, ‘fear must come to and end, he seeks the cause of the fear, and so on. But the observer is the observed, the analyser is the analysed. So when he realises that, non-verbally, then the fact of fear undergoes a complete change.

59:28 Sir, look, it is not mysterious. You are afraid, you are violent, you dominate your wife or your husband, your children, or God knows what else — all are dominated. Now, let’s take a much simpler thing. You are jealous, envious. Is the observer different from that feeling which he calls jealously? If he is different then he can act upon jealousy, and that action then becomes a conflict. If the entity that feels jealousy is the same as jealousy, then what can he do? You are following this? I am jealous. 1:00:44 As long as jealousy is different from me I am in a state of conflict, but if jealousy is me, not different from me, when what am I to do? I don’t accept it. I say, ‘I am jealous.

1:01:14 That is a fact. I don’t evade it, I don’t run away from it, I don’t try to suppress it. Whatever I do is still a form of jealousy. Therefore what happens? Inaction is total action. Inaction with regard to jealousy, on the part of the observer, as the observed, is the cessation of jealousy. Right? Are you getting all this? Am I alone working or are you also working? Are we working together? Are we communicating with each other?

1:02:16 Now go easy, sir, don’t say yes — it is quite difficult. Because if you understand this really, you are free of jealousy. You will never again be jealous. And that is why it is very important to understand this whole conflict, this struggle that is going on inwardly, which expresses itself outwardly as violence. So can the mind be free completely of envy, which is jealously? And it can be free only when there is the realisation that the observer is the observed, and therefore there is no division. 1:03:35 You understand?

1:03:36 Look, sir, look: there is conflict in relationship, what we call relationship — between husband, wife, person to person, between the neighbour, and so on. All relationship as it is now is conflict. Right? I think that is fairly obvious, that’s observable. And our relationship, between each other, between human beings right throughout the world, is based on an image which we have built about ourselves or about another. Right? Look, the husband builds an image about the wife and the wife builds an image about the husband, the image of pleasure, pain, insult, nagging, dominating, whatever it is, jealousy, irritability — gradually through many years has built an image about the wife, and the wife has built an image about the husband. 1:05:17 The two images have relationship. Relationship means actual contact. To be related means to be in touch with something. And you cannot be related to another if you have an image about another — obviously. So is it possible to live without an image and yet be related? Because we are not related, because our relationship is between the images, relationship brings conflict. So is it possible for a mind to be free of all image-making? You understand the question? I’ll show it to you how it is possible. 1:06:40 Don’t accept it verbally but do it, then you will see what relationship actually means. Then it is the most extraordinary thing, to be related. Then in that there is no pain, no conflict.

1:07:04 What is the machinery that builds these images, whether it is about the president or your wife or your neighbour, or about God, or whatever it is — what is the structure and the nature of this image which we have about ourselves or about another? If I am married — which I am not — I would build an image about my wife, what she has said, what she has done, the pleasure, sexually or otherwise, she has given me, the fears, the dominations, all the nagging, all that, gradually, day after day, day after day, I have built it, about her, and she has built an image about me. Right? 1:08:10 This is fact, not a supposition. Now I am asking myself whether I can be free of these images. I can only be free of the image when whatever is said, at the moment of what is said, in anger or in jealousy or in irritation, in flattery or in insult, to be completely aware at that moment so that when you are flattered or insulted you see the truth of it and you are free of it. Which means that the mind must be completely attentive so that it doesn’t keep the particular experience, pleasure or pain, which builds the image. 1:09:40 That is, to be attentive at the moment when the wife or the husband says something pleasure or unpleasant. That attention, that choiceless awareness gives freedom to look, to see the truth or the falseness of what is being said, and no longer the mind records it as memory. I do not know if you have ever tried it, probably you have not. The mind becomes extraordinary active, alert, sensitive. Then relationship, which is really one of the major problems of life, has quite a different meaning then. 1:10:59 Then relationship is the beauty of love, and no image — however much it may say, ‘I love you, love is not there. Love is something entirely different. Love is not pleasure, love is not desire, because then to understand love one must understand pleasure. And pleasure goes with fear, with pain. You cannot have one without the other.

1:11:53 So those are our problems. That’s the problem of every human being, whether he lives in an affluent society or in a society that is primitive, an economy that gives very little — man in suffering, man is in travail, and our problem is, our question is whether the mind can transform itself completely and totally, and therefore bring about a deep, psychological revolution, which is the only revolution. And then such a revolution can bring about a different society, a different relationship, a different way of living.

1:13:20 Would you like to ask any questions?

1:13:40 No questions? You know, it is one the most difficult things to ask a question. Just a minute, sir. We have got a thousand questions. We are always asking questions, and we must ask questions. We must doubt everything. We mustn’t accept, obey, anything. We must find out for ourselves. We must see the truth for ourselves and not through another. And to see that truth, one must be completely free. And to ask a question, and to find the right answer, one must ask the right question, not the false question. 1:14:52 Because if you ask the wrong question we will inevitably receive wrong answers — obviously. So to ask the right question is one of the most difficult things. Which doesn’t mean the speaker is preventing you from asking questions. Please, just a minute, sirs. To ask a question deeply, with great seriousness — which you must ask in all seriousness because life is dreadfully serious.

1:15:44 Q:Mr Krishnamurti?

1:15:46 K:Just a minute, sir. To ask such a question means that you have already explored your mind, already gone into yourself very deeply. So only the intelligent, self-knowing mind can ask the right question. And in the very asking of it is the very answering of it. Please don’t laugh, it is not an amusing thing, this is the most serious thing, what one is saying. Because, you see, we always look to another to help tell us what to do. We always want to light our lamp in the light of another. We are never a light to ourselves. 1:16:57 And to be a light to ourselves we must be free of all tradition and all authority, including that of the speaker, so that your own mind can look and observe and learn. And to learn is one of the most difficult things. So to put a question is fairly easy, but to put the right question and to receive the right answer is quite another.

1:17:44 Now, sir, what is the question?

1:17:50 Q:I am the one who spoke out. I come here tonight, Mr Krishnamurti, with a prepared question, which I gave up in the course of your talk. I was going to ask you about and Ghandi.

1:18:02 K:About?

1:18:03 Q:Excuse me. I said I had come with a prepared question but in the course of your talk I gave it up because I began to see some of what you were getting at least. I was going to ask about Gandhi and — I was going to ask your opinion.

1:18:17 K:About Gandhi and…?

1:18:18 Q:I was going to ask this, sir. Now I have another question.

1:18:20 K:Right, sir.

1:18:22 Q:And that question may seem harsh to some of audience…

1:18:27 K:Sir, ask anything you like, sir.

1:18:29 Q:I shall. And that was: when the equipment wasn’t functioning properly so the people in the back couldn’t hear, it seemed to me for a moment that a man of your experience would have known, you know, what to do in those circumstances. I wondered, were you feeling some residual fear yourself?

1:18:49 K: No. He is asking, when the loudspeakers didn’t — whatever they do — was I afraid? Why should I be afraid? It is a fault of the machinery. Why should I be concerned about myself? I am afraid there was no fear. You see, sir, the gentlemen asked: would you offer an opinion about Gandhi, or about X, Y, Z. Only fools offer opinions. Why should one have an opinion about another? It is such a waste of time and energy. Why should one clutter up one’s brain, mind, with opinions, judgments, conclusions? 1:20:01 They prevent clarity, and that clarity is denied when the mind observes with a conclusion.

1:20:22 Yes, sir?

1:20:25 Q:You speak of when our mind clear and still, do you mean a mind that’s not involved with thought, when it is perceiving almost from a feeling? It feels inside what is going on. It feels fear almost. And another person almost senses inside the person without thinking, what they are doing, what’s going on…

1:21:05 K: If I may request of you, sir, make the question brief, because I have to repeat the question. The questioner is asking, if I understand it rightly, he says: what is the mind, what is this mind that understands? Is mind… is thought that understands? That’s right, the question, sir?

1:21:37 Q:[Inaudible]

1:21:44 K:We'll explore it, you will see. When one says that one understands something, what is the state of the mind that says, ‘I understand’? You know, the word ‘understanding’ can be used in two different ways. Either I understand verbally what you are saying, that is, I hear the words and I understand the words, the meaning of the words. Because you and I both speak English, use certain words which have certain meaning, a referent — and we say we understand these words. Now, actually when understanding takes place, which is action, in which there is feeling, there is attention, everything is involved when you say, ‘I understood something very clearly.

1:22:49 What is that state of mind that says, ‘I have understood’?

1:22:57 Q:Total awareness.

1:22:59 K:The gentleman says total awareness. Now go into a little bit more, sirs. Doesn’t awareness, doesn’t understanding take place when the mind is not drawing a conclusion, when the mind has no opinion, when the mind is attentively listening? And when it says, ‘I have understood, we are asking what is the state of that mind that says, ‘I have understood, and therefore acts immediately. Surely such a state of mind is complete silence, in which there is no opinion, in which there is no judgment, evaluation. 1:24:08 It is actually listening out of silence. And it is only then that I understand something, in which thought is not involved at all — which we won’t go into now because thought, what is the whole process of thinking and what is thought is quite another problem. It will need a lot of time — now is not the occasion for it. So when we talk about understanding, and surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely. The mind being your heart, your mind, your nerves, your ears, when you give your complete attention. 1:25:06 I do not know if you have ever noticed that when you give total attention there is complete silence. And in that attention there is no frontier, there is no centre, the ‘me’ who is aware or attentive. That attention, that silence, is a state of meditation. Again, we can’t go into that, what is implied in that word and how to come about, and all that — we will go, if we have time, during the other evenings.

1:26:03 So, when we are listening to somebody, to listen completely attentively. Then you are listening not only to the words but to the feeling, to what is being conveyed. It is the whole of it, not part of it.

1:26:34 Yes, sir?

1:26:36 Q:You see, I find certain very amusing contradictions in what you have said. I think to begin with you said that only fools give opinions, and then you yourself said that all ideologies are stupid.

1:26:51 K:What, sir?

1:26:53 Q:And then… [inaudible] … I read this piece of paper, it talks about a Krishnamurti Foundation… [inaudible]

1:27:01 K:Sir, sir, sir, no, sorry. Sir, just a minute, sir, just let me correct you. The gentleman says that I am giving opinions, evaluations, which contradict what I am saying. Have I given an opinion, a conclusion, a judgment? I only have said: look at the facts. It is not my fact or your fact but the fact, that man is violent. That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact. Man is a frightened animal — that’s a fact. Man is jealous, man lives in conflict, his life is battlefield, and so on. These are not opinions, not judgment, this is actually what is going on inwardly, in each one of us. 1:28:32 How you translate it, what you do about it, and whether you bring to it certain prejudices, conclusions, that is offering opinions. But we are only concerned with facts.

1:28:57 Yes, madame?

1:28:59 Q:I have a question that I feel I must ask. What is the basis… learning as you say is difficult, you find yourself engaged in a specific task, as you must be, which is difficult, what is the basis for action if you don’t… when you dispense with will and faith? How do you endure…

1:29:36 K:I understand, sir. I thing I have understood. The questioner says: what is learning. Is learning different from action. Right, sir?

1:29:55 Q:No. The question is, why do you choose life over death? This is a matter of life and death, if you are engaged in this activity. Now, where do you find yourself a reservoir, to do a specific task?

1:30:09 K:Yes, that’s the same thing, sir.

1:30:11 Q:It’s a matter of staying alive.

1:30:13 K:Yes, I understand. I understand, sir. Where do you find the energy — I am putting it differently, sir — where do you find the energy to live rightly? Right?

1:30:36 Q:Yes, without it… [inaudible]

1:30:43 K:That’s right.

1:30:45 Q:[Inaudible]

1:30:51 K:I understand, sir — that’s just it. How do you live without will — right? — without contradiction, without the opposites. How do you live without conflict at all, and at the same time act? Right, sir?

1:31:27 Q:Yes. You can’t choose to die.

1:31:31 K:You can’t choose to die, you have to live…

1:31:35 Q:What I want to know is how.

1:31:42 K:Wait, sir. The questioner says: what is the method, what is the system, which, by learning about it, will help me to live, without contradiction, to live actively, to live in a state of constant learning? Right, sir? Is that the question? Right.

1:32:23 First of all, what do we mean by learning? I am not offering an opinion, I am looking at the fact. What do we mean by learning? Is learning a process of accumulation of knowledge, from that knowledge I act? That is, I have stored up experience, memory, knowledge, and from that I act. Or, is learning a constant process without accumulation? And therefore learning is acting.

1:33:19 Q:Yes.

1:33:20 K:Wait, go slowly. I’ll go into it. So it is not I first learn and then act according to what I have learnt, but learning is acting, the learning is not separate from acting. Now, one is going to learn about fear, or about what to do, how to live. But if you have a system that tells you how to live, or a method that says live this way — then you are conforming to the method, which is established by somebody, therefore you are not learning, you are conforming to a pattern. Therefore you are acting according to a pattern, which is not action at all. 1:34:27 Conformity to a pattern is not action, it is just imitation. So, if one learns what are the implications of methods, systems, then you will put away methods and systems, then you are learning about what you are going to do. And the very learning about life is the activity of life. Right? Have I…? So, living, learning and acting are not three separate things, they are indivisible.

1:35:18 Q:Excuse me, I missed the point on why it’s detrimental to self-analyse. I missed the significant point.

1:35:29 K:Oh — you did not get the point why one should not analyse — is that it, sir?

1:35:34 Q:Right. The main point.

1:35:38 K:Yes, yes.

1:35:44 Aren’t you tired after an hour and a half.

1:35:49 Q:No.

1:35:51 Q:Not at all.

1:35:52 K:Not at all? Why not? Wait a minute, sir — why not? If you had been listening attentively — I am not criticising you — you’d be tired, wouldn’t you?

1:36:14 Q:I don’t think so.

1:36:17 K:Sir, I… the speaker has been working, and to keep up with him you have to work too — we are taking a journey together. It is not he speaks and you listen, but we are taking the journey together, learning about ourselves, about the world, about what is happening in relation with the world. And to learn about all this, your mind must be, obviously, tired, after a long days work and sitting here, you must be tired. But is doesn’t matter — I’ll go into this question and after that we’ll stop.

1:37:13 I said, the speaker said, that in the process of analysis several things are implied — time — obviously to analyse implies day after day, day after day, day after day — that’s one thing. Second, the analyser, when he analyses, he must analyse very, very carefully, otherwise it will go wrong. Right? He must be free from prejudice, from conclusion, from fear, in order to analyse correctly. If he has any… in the process, any distortion takes place, that analysis will only further limit his process. Right? 1:38:27 And also he explained that the analyser is not different from the thing he has analysed. When you understand all this, not just one part of it — the time, the analysing process, the decisions, the conclusions which will prevent you from further analysing clearly, and seeing that the analyser is the analysed, when you see the totality of this you will never again analyse. Therefore when you don’t analyse you then see things directly, because then the problem becomes intense, urgent. It’s like a man who has an ideology of non-violence, therefore he is concerned how to become non-violent, but not how to be free now from all violence. And we are concerned with the freedom of violence now, not tomorrow.

1:40:06 So, when one observes this whole process of analysis — which has become the fashion — and seeing what is implied in it, not only verbally but deeply, then you reject it. Now when you deny something false you are free to look. Then you see what is true. But you must first deny what is false.

1:40:44 Right, sir.

1:40:45 Q:Mr Krishnamurti?

1:40:46 Q:It’s very clear. Thank you very much. [Applause]

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