Krishnamurti - Is it possible not to have conflict and not to have images?

LO82T1 - Is it possible not to have conflict and not to have images?
London - 5 June 1982
Public Talk 1

0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s first public talk in London, 1982.

0:09 Krishnamurti: I wonder what you are expecting. Not some miracle or some exotic philosophy or some new kind of ideas and beliefs, but rather this is a conversation between us, not a lecture as is commonly understood. We are going to talk over together the extraordinary things that are happening in the world, not from any particular bias or from a philosophical point of view, nor from a religious conditioning. We are going together freely examine why man has become what he is, after so many centuries and millennia. And, if I may, if one may point out, we are thinking over together, observing, concerned with the wars, the brutality of man and his violence, how chaotic his own life has become. 2:15 We are together going to observe and consider whether it is possible, radically, to bring about a mutation in the psyche. Technologically we have advanced so extraordinarily, but inwardly, inside the skin as it were, we remain more or less the same as we have been for millennia upon millennia. And whether it is possible for the human mind and the human brain, to bring about a totally different way of living, a way in which there isn’t this everlasting conflict between people. One cannot have peace in the world – am I talking too loudly?

3:45 Harsh Tanka: Here’s another microphone for you, sir.

4:09 K: As we were saying, one cannot have peace in the world if we do not understand the extraordinary complexity of our own life, and what it means to live peacefully, whether it is possible to have peace with nationalism, with separate individual States, each country holding on to its own traditions, to its own religious superstitions, beliefs and ideals and principles, whether it is possible to have peace where there is religious divisions – the Catholic, the Protestant, the Hindu, the Muslim, the Buddhist – whether it is possible to have peace in this world, which is, it seems so urgently necessary, if each individual is seeking his own particular fulfilment, identification, and his own pursuit of pleasure, and so on.

5:39 Can there be peace in isolation? That is what exactly is happening in the world: hoping for peace and each country isolating itself from all the rest of the world. And is a new leader necessary for bringing about peace, a new general, a new prime minister, new kings, and so on, or new gurus or new Messiahs? It is extraordinary how human beings trust politicians. We have elected them and we become their slaves, as we have become slaves to the organised hierarchy and religious saints. Peace requires a great deal of inward enquiry, great deal of energy and intelligence. 7:03 It is a very complex thing to live a life completely peaceful, inwardly, first, and outwardly afterwards. Not the other way round. If we don’t put our house in order, first, how can there be order outwardly? All of us seek order, security, outwardly, and we think there is security, safety when there is well organised society. When one particular country is protecting itself against other countries, how can there be peace when one country or the industrial countries are selling armaments to other countries? 8:24 You are selling, this country and other countries are selling armament to the so-called backward countries, making profit, trade, and so on; and how can there be peace in the world? One wonders whether human beings want peace at all. They talk a great deal about it. All the religious people, the politicians, the gurus, and the philosophers, that there must be peace in the world. Am I talking too loudly? One is not used to all this kind of stuff.

9:27 And to have order, we must begin not outwardly but inwardly. We want order and we hope in that order there will be security in the world outside of us. We are always trying to find safety outwardly. Is there protection, sanity, safety in isolation? British against the French, the French against Germans, and so on. Both religiously, economically, socially, is it not necessary to have a global relationship, global interrelationship in which there are no nationalities of any kind? No separate governments, separate economy, no selling of armaments and accumulating vast monies to spend more on armaments. This has been our way of living.

11:08 And very few people seem to be concerned; very few people give their minds, their heart to find out if it is possible, seriously, applying all their energy – a way of life in which there is no conflict whatsoever. When there is conflict in our relationship, our intimate or a relationship with our neighbour, whether it be far away or very near, if we don’t understand that relationship then we must have continuous, everlasting conflict between human beings, between black and white, between purple and yellow, and all the rest of it. 12:16 So relationship is extraordinarily important. All life is a relationship. One cannot possibly live without relationship, whether he be a monk or a hermit or a man who withdraws into isolation, or joins a community. Life is a movement in relationship. And as one observes throughout the world, whether it is in Asia, India, or in the Western world, there is great deal of conflict between man and woman – divorces are increased, and human beings have not been able to live with each other amicably, rationally, sanely. 13:40 Is it at all possible to live a life of a relationship in which there is no conflict whatsoever between man and woman, and therefore a society in which there... doesn’t bring about further conflict between human beings? So, please, let us talk over together, if you will, this question of relationship, not only with our neighbour, whether it be very, very far away, or with the most intimate person. If I may remind you again, we are talking over together, it is a conversation between you and the speaker. 14:55 Because it is such a large audience, it is not possible to have a dialogue. But it is possible if you, as a human being, and the speaker, are concerned with what is going on throughout the world – the bloodshed, destruction of human beings for various causes, for various principles, for ideologies – as long as these exist, and unless we bring about a radical change in them, our own life has very little meaning.

15:59 We are conditioned, are we not – to be British, French, German, American, Hindu, Buddhist, and the Islamic world – and as long as there is this division there must be conflict, there must be wars. One wonders whether one is, others, you, who are listening, are really concerned to end all wars, not a particular war, however righteous, however noble, however idealistic it be, to end all wars between human beings. Killing each other, destroying each other, welcoming them, after destroying other human beings, as heroes. 17:12 I wonder if you are all concerned about this. And when we are concerned, we ask ourselves what can one do – what can one individual, or a group of individuals, do? What is the right action? What is the highest – if you go on principles, which is also very destructive, what is the highest principle, which is never to kill a human being. Because we are all – our consciousness is common to all mankind.

18:09 Our consciousness is what we have made of it – the beliefs, the superstitions, the illusions, the fears, the desire on the part of each one to fulfil, to identify themselves with a particular group, with a particular country, with a particular religious attitude. Our consciousness is its content; its content are all these things: fears, pleasures, the ache, the innumerable experience that we have, the sorrow, the pain, the affection, the love and the compassion, if one has that. And the acceptance of authority in spiritual matters, and the fear of death. 19:27 And the endless suffering that man has sustained throughout his existence on this Earth. This is the content of our consciousness, of each one’s consciousness. And we think that our consciousness is our own, our particular individual consciousness with its limitations. But when you travel around, one observes, and are aware, you talk to thousands of people, you will find, whether they live in China, India, Asia, or in the West, or in Russia, or here, or in America, human beings are... the content of the consciousness is almost 20:33 similar. They all over the world, they suffer, there is poverty, humiliation, vast network of superstition, the gods that thought has invented, whether it is the Christian God or the Hindu God, or any other God which thought has brought about. This is the common ground on which all human beings stand. And when you examine more closely, which we hope we are doing together, the whole concept and illusion of individuality disappears altogether. We are conditioned to this idea of individual, separate. The religions throughout the world have sustained it, that you are a separate soul, with certain capacities, tendencies, totally different from another. 22:08 Is that so? And how easily we accept all these things, without never questioning. In the Asiatic religion, especially Buddhism and Hinduism, doubt, scepticism, is encouraged; never to accept the spiritual guru. But in the Western world, doubt is an anathema, heresy. And if one doubts, as one must, not only what the speaker is saying, but doubt your leaders, whether the political, religious, then that doubt clarifies the mind, the brain. Because our brain has become mechanical, which the speaker has been saying for many years; and now the scientists are saying the same thing, that our brains, being conditioned, have become mechanical, repeating the same reactions, the pursuit of the same memories, recording various incidents and transforming those incidents into memories, and those memories are the background of our knowledge, and so our thinking is mechanical.

24:20 There is no spiritual thinking. Thinking is not sacred. But the gods that thought has invented, all the extraordinary religious rituals, whether in the Western world or in the Eastern world, are invented by thought, and thought can never be sacred. Thought is a material process. And thought, having invented the various saviours, with their rituals, then thought worships them; the irony, the extraordinary illusory pursuit of the sacred. So we have to not only examine the nature of thought, if you are concerned about it, if you are serious, and also we should go into the question of relationship, as we shall. This is not a meeting to entertain you, either emotionally, romantically or sentimentally. We are concerned with very, very serious things. Life has become dangerous for all of us, and we have the urgency of change. It is so extraordinarily important.

26:52 So, first, let us talk over together this question of relationship. Why is there in this relationship conflict between human beings? The speaker may put the question but the question is being put by you, not by the speaker. The speaker is merely voicing what you must also ask: why we live in conflict with each other, why, between two human beings, however closely united they are, there is conflict, struggle, pain, hurt, jealousy, anxiety. Is it because each one thinks he is separate? Each one is pursuing his own particular ambition, his own fulfilment, identification – which each one of us is doing. 28:40 Therefore each one is pursuing a parallel line and never meeting actually, except perhaps in bed. Actually we never meet. Like two railway lines never meeting. And where there is this deep division psychologically there must be conflict; that is inevitable. And that conflict is expressed outwardly as competition, as self-centred activity, as the pursuit of one’s own fulfilment and happiness, and so on.

29:53 This brings about a question: why human beings throughout the world have images, self-created images, images created by the hand and by the mind. The images created by the hand we worship, because it’s first created by thought. Why do we have images? Between a man and a woman there are these, not only the man’s images which he has created about her, and she about him. I wonder if we are aware of this, if you are aware, know or recognise that, in this relationship with each other we have created images, memories, pictures, about her and she about him. 31:08 And the relationship is between these two images. So why do human beings have these images? Not only outward images, as the British, as the French, the American and the Indian, and so on, which also is disastrous – in these images we think there is security. If you are a British you feel very strong, a tribal sense of unity. It is the same in Asia and in Europe and America. And for those images we are willing to kill others. And in the same way we have created images about the wife or the husband, because when one has an image, in that image there is security. 32:30 And we are asking: is there security in any kind of image, in any belief, in any ideal, any principle? Or security is to be found in a realm totally different from all this. So is it possible not to have images between man and woman, each one creating the image about the other? This is really a very important question to put and to answer. We have got so many images, so many masks behind which we live or with which we live, and this divides us. And where there is division there must be struggle, conflict, war. 33:51 This is our condition, and we have been conditioned tribally for thousands of years. Each tribe has its own image, and human beings think that having these images there is security in them, safety, protection, which when you examine logically, rationally, sanely, these images are destroying each other, destroying human beings. So is it possible to live a life without a single image? That makes one ask a question – please, this is a conversation between the speaker and yourself. You are not merely listening to a lot of words and ideas, which are really meaningless, which have really no significance unless those very questions, those very ideas you are putting for yourself and finding the right answer. 35:35 So this is a conversation between you and me... and the speaker, perhaps walking down a beautiful lane, not in this beastly hall, with splendid light and green leaves, and the beauty about us, and talking about the world issues. And in the very talking about the world issues, which is the criterion from which one can judge oneself, to observe oneself, that is, to observe what we are, to observe the content of our consciousness; and the content makes up our consciousness. And in this cycle we live, never breaking down, going beyond our consciousness to find out if there is a totally different way of living. 37:09 Not mechanical but free, living in complete freedom.

37:19 Freedom is an extraordinary thing in life. We think freedom is the continuity of choice. If we can choose, we think we are free. It is like a man living in a field with hedges all round and moving from one corner of that field to another corner, choosing a corner to the north or to the south, and thinking that when he has that choice he is free. That is what we are doing. And so we must ask whether it is possible to be free from the images which thought has created in our relationship. Is one aware, if one may ask, that you have these images? And why do you have these images, the consequences of having them? 38:50 To be aware of the whole movement of it, not just one particular pattern, one particular picture but the whole movement of thought that brings about these images – the tribal image, the family image, the religious images, all put together by thought. And then thought worships that which is... it thinks is sacred, and disregards other images which are not important. We are questioning the movement of all images. When you have your own image and the other has another, there must be continuous conflict.

40:01 So how is it possible not to have conflict, not to have images? To find that out we must enquire what is the nature of thought, what is thinking? That is a common thing, you know, in all mankind, to think. Whether they are very, very, very poor, neglected, starving, or those who are living in affluent societies, whether they are living in totalitarian States or so called democratic States, thinking is common to all mankind. One may think very cleverly, very... with a great deal of knowledge, great deal of experience, 41:26 or live in a small little village, starving there too, there is thinking going on. So thinking is not personal, is not individual thinking. We can go into this very carefully. Please, don’t accept or deny, but enquire, doubt, not only what the speaker is saying, but doubt all the authorities, the experts, the specialists, because one has to find out for oneself, one has to be a light to oneself in a world of darkness, a world that is destroying itself. So thinking is not your particular way of thinking. 42:53 Thinking is common to all mankind. You may think with a great deal of knowledge, the other has very little knowledge but he thinks. So we must enquire, in our examination, why human beings have created all these destructive images between themselves and about the world, about God, and all the rest of it – why? And in enquiring into it, we must ask: what is thinking, why has thinking become so extraordinarily important. Is not thinking mechanical? Is not thinking repetitive? 44:06 Is not thinking... created the wars, the instruments of war? Has not thought put things in the cathedrals, called sacred, in all the religious places? Has not thought created all that? And then thought says one must worship those things which it has created. So one must be very clear the nature of thinking, the structure of it, why human beings give such meaning to it. Which is, thought is born of knowledge, experience, stored up in the brain, which becomes memory. So thought is a material process, and all our actions are based on thought. 45:48 That is, acquired knowledge, to be used skilfully, technologically, earning a livelihood, and also the psychological knowledge, of knowing another, of knowing oneself. And this knowledge has become extraordinarily important. We have acquired knowledge about all the heavens, knowledge about how to live under the sea, how to kill others, knowledge about ourselves – we have a great deal of knowledge, information. But we have very little knowledge of ourselves. If we do know ourselves, that very knowledge becomes mechanical. 46:59 Our reactions are mechanical – I hate the Germans and the Germans hate somebody else. And hate seems to bring us together, like war. We are all united when there is a war – as it has happened in this country, as it has happened million times before.

47:31 So what place has knowledge in our life? And whether knowledge can ever transform the human psyche. What place has knowledge in relationship? In our relationship, between man and woman, between distant neighbours, that very knowledge is keeping us apart. I wonder, if one asks, if I may ask whether you see this really deeply, that knowledge is keeping us apart. Knowledge that I am a Hindu or a Muslim, Arab or a Christian. The propaganda that has been done for two thousand years has conditioned the brain, as it has done in the East three to five thousand years. 49:09 That is knowledge. Knowledge about my wife, and she has knowledge about me. So we are asking, please, you are asking, it is very, very serious thing to ask, because scientists are saying the ascent of man is only through knowledge. We are questioning that. At least the speaker has been questioning that, whether knowledge is really helping man. Of course it is helping him in the technological world – knowledge is necessary to drive a car, knowledge is necessary to fly an airplane, and so on.

50:12 But psychological knowledge, when I say, ‘I know you,’ ‘I know what the totalitarian States are,’ or I say, ‘I know my wife.’ Because I know my wife, if I have one, because I have lived with her, she has lived with me, we have accumulated a great deal of emotional knowledge about each other. Knowledge is memory, remembrance, the hurts that we have given to each other, the wounds, the pain, the jealousy, the fear – all that is knowledge. And we are asking whether that knowledge is separating us.

51:37 Is love knowledge? Is love a remembrance? Is love pleasure? And it is so important to understand what place has knowledge, where it is necessary, and in our relationship to live a life in which one has seen the illusory nature of knowledge. So, images are created by thought. And can thought recognise its own place, and not interfere in relationship? Please ask this question of yourself. When thought interferes, love ceases. So we have to go into that question.

53:33 Every problem is related to all other problems. There is no single problem by itself. And the resolution of the problem can only take place when you approach the problem rightly. The approach to the problem is more important that the problem itself. Most of us from childhood we are hurt, wounded, and we carry that wound, that hurt for the rest of our life. And the consequences of that hurt, wound, is more fear, more isolation, warding off, building a wall around oneself, not to be hurt more, and any action from that isolation, because of not wanting to be hurt, breeds more fear. 55:16 So again we ask: what is it that is hurt? When you say, ‘I am hurt,’ the image you have built about yourself is hurt. The image is you, with all your capacities, with all the cleverness, professional activity, and so on – all that is you. The image that you have about yourself, and that is hurt. Again we must ask: is it possible to wipe away all the hurts and wounds that one has received and never to be hurt again? Because when there is that wound, conscious or hidden, then from that wound there are all kinds of neurotic activities.

56:38 So again one must go into the question of thought, as we did, and we also must enquire into the nature of fear, why human beings, who are so clever, all the things that they have invented, why they are frightened, why is there this constant burden of fear – fear of almost everything, fear of... ultimately the fear of death, fear of one’s neighbour, perhaps one’s wife or husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, fear of not becoming a success, which is a dreadful thing, want to be successful in this world. So we are afraid of many things; that is our condition – fear of living, fear of dying. 58:42 And can fear ever end? Not one type of fear or a particular fear but the whole network of fears. The speaker is saying that it is possible to be totally, completely free of all psychological fears. Please don’t accept it but let us together examine it very carefully. Because fear is one of the most destructive things. It is perhaps the basic cause of war, of killing somebody because you are afraid, because he is taking some of your possessions, earthly possessions, and so on – fear. Now, is it possible to be free of it completely?

1:00:23 What is fear? We are concerned not with the many branches of fear, and the trimming those branches now and then, but the root of fear, the nature and the structure of fear. What has a cause, the effect can be ended. That which has a beginning and an end, the beginning can be rooted out, and therefore the effect is not. So what is the cause of fear, what is the root of it? You are asking the question, please, not the speaker. When you ask this question are you expecting an answer? 1:01:49 Or the very question begins to unroll the whole nature and the consequences and the extraordinary vitality of fear. You are asking this question in our conversation. You have raised this question, and the root of it, the depth of it. So, is it... one of the factors desire? Is one of the factors time? And also, is it thought? Desire? Desire to become, to be, to achieve. The time – time as the remembrance of something and the longing for it and not finding it. 1:03:44 Is it thought? When one asks these questions they are all the same – desire, time and thought. We are asking, are these the major factors of fear? I don’t know if we have time. Good lord, I have already talked for an hour! Can we go on with it? You can stand this, this constant bombardment? If you can, the speaker can. We were saying that desire, time, thought are the root of fear.

1:05:16 To understand desire, not suppress it, not try to avoid it, not try to escape from it, as many monks, as many monks of the world are trying to suppress it because the religions say, ‘Have no desire, because if you want to serve God you must serve without any desire.’ And so they try to suppress it, they try to go beyond it, they try… they are tortured by it; it is there. So, to understand desire requires attention, examination, close observation, not analysis because analysis, in analysis there is the observer and the observed. 1:06:29 When one analyses desire, who is the analyser? Is the analyser different from the analysed? When you examine yourself, psychologically, your reactions for example, are you different from your reactions or you are the reactions? But we have separated them, as the ‘I’ separate, apart from the reaction. I must control the reaction, I must shape the reaction. So there is a division between the observer and the observed. And so there is conflict between the observer and the observed. 1:07:43 This is sane, rational. But is such a division illusory or actual? Is greed, envy, jealousy, ambition separate from you, or you are greed, you are ambitious, you are envious, and so on and so on – you are that. There is no separation. So could we look at it and see with clarity, not because the speaker is saying it. The observer is the observed. Desire is you. You are not separate from desire. But we have separated it, because we think thereby either to control it or escape from it or to transcend it. 1:09:01 We never ask ourselves who is the controller. Is the controller different from that which he controls? When there is no division, which we will go into if we have time, because this is very important to understand, because when there is no division, when there is only the observer, not the observer and the observed, when there is only pure observation, conflict ends. So we must, in the same way, we must understand desire, time and thought, because they are the root of fear. To observe, not to analyse. 1:10:03 Like when you observe a beautiful mountain, the majesty of it, the great vitality, the strength, the immobility of it against the blue sky. In the same way to observe the nature of these things. So we are observing, not telling what we think about desire but observing the movement of desire, how desire arises, and the consequences of desire, the structure of it. What is desire? And why human beings are so... have such great energy which desire gives. One must go into this very carefully. 1:11:38 Is desire the action of thought? Is desire the movement of the image which thought creates? I am going to go into this very carefully so that we understand each other. Have you ever noticed when you look into a shop window and see a beautiful cloth or robe or a suit, well made, you observe, you see optically, then you come, go into the shop, touch the material and the very touching gives you a sensation. There is the optical seeing, then there is contact, then there is sensation. 1:12:49 Then thought creates the image of you being in that robe, shirt or whatever it is. At that moment when thought creates the image of you in that shirt or robe, at that moment desire is born. Right? Are we together in this? That is, perception, seeing, contact, sensation. That is normal, healthy. Then the trouble begins when thought creates the image, you in that car, and wanting it, and all the problems arising out of it. That is, if you go into it very deeply, discipline, desire becomes totally unnecessary, because who is the person who disciplines desire? 1:14:10 You are; but you are desire. So, if we understand desire deeply, the movement of it, that when thought takes sensation over and creates the image, then thought... then desire begins. If we see that, then is it possible not for thought to interfere with sensation? Please do ask all these questions of yourself.

1:15:04 Then what is time? Not scientific fiction time – what is time in our life? We live by time. The past is our history, is the story of each one of us. The past is the story of mankind, of which you are – you are mankind. I wonder if we see the beauty of it. Because your consciousness is the consciousness of all mankind, because you suffer, you have pain, you have doubts, hope, wounded, like the rest of mankind. So you are mankind. Please understand this. If you are mankind how can you kill another, for whatever cause? 1:16:33 You are the enemy of mankind. If you do not recognise that you are the rest of mankind you become the enemy of mankind. This is a fact. So what is time? Time by the watch, time by sunrise, sunset, time to learn a language, time to learn a skill, time to become something. And is there psychological time at all? Is there a future for the psyche, for the ‘me’? I may become a good carpenter, a good computer expert, but what can I become? Which is, to become a computer expert I have to have time, many years or many days to learn all about it, the complexity of it, how to program it, and so on, so on, so on. 1:18:19 Or even to become an extraordinary good pilot I must have time. But do we have to have a time to become something? Is there a becoming at all? We accept we must become something, psychologically. So, this idea of time, of trying to become something may be one of the factors of fear. That is, I am violent. All human beings apparently have this terrible inheritance of being violent, not only physically, getting angry, brutalising others and so on, but also psychologically I want to become something. That is, I am violent and I have the concept, the ideal of non-violence. 1:19:59 One is a fact, which is violence – that is a fact, it is so – but the idea, the ideal of non-violence is a non-fact – it isn’t there. But thought has invented it, and I am trying to become non-violent, which means, ‘I am but I will be.’ The time interval between what I am and what I will be may be one of the factors of fear, because I may not ever achieve a state of non-violence, which is absurd. But if I understand the nature of violence and eradicate totally from my mind the ideal, completely out of my consciousness the ideal of something, the prototype, all that, completely wiped out, then I have only the fact that I am violent. 1:21:32 Therefore there is no duality. I wonder if you understand all this. There is no duality, only the fact of what one is, and when one observes it, that observation is not of time. To observe without a motive, without wanting to transcend it, without trying to avoid it, just to hold it to observe. That pure observation, which is the concentration of all your energy, dissipates totally the fact of violence. Please, you hear this, mere hearing of words is so useless, so meaningless, but when one sees the truth of it, goes into it, give all your energy to end something like that, because the ending is far more important than becoming. 1:22:52 When there is total ending of fear psychologically then there is quite a different mind.

1:23:11 And also we said thought may be one of the factors, and we went into the nature of thought, which is born of knowledge, experience, knowledge, memory stored in the brain and the reaction is thought, thinking. So these factors are the essence of fear. Now, just to observe these facts, not to do something about it – you can’t. You know, most of us want positive action, to do something about fear, but the negation of what causes fear, total negation of all that is the ending of fear, which is the positive action. Through negation you end that which is apparently positive. So there is a possibility, completely, of being free, not occasionally but free from this burden of fear.

1:24:58 As we have... we must stop. Tomorrow morning we will discuss together or have a conversation together about pleasure, whether it is possible to end sorrow, what it is to love, and compassion with its intelligence, and death, and also we will talk about meditation and all those things. Now, may I stop? [Applause]

1:25:47 If I may I ask, why do you clap? By your clapping you are not encouraging the speaker. If you are clapping for yourself, that is all right, but not for the speaker. So, please, if you are good enough, please don’t clap.

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