MA8586T2 - Fear destroys love home
Madras (Chennai), India - 1 January 1986
Public Talk 2

Text-only version

1:54 Alright sir. Sorry to take so much trouble.
2:34 On a week–day to see so many people seems rather absurd, doesn't it? I hope one hopes that you will all take the trouble to listen to each other.
2:58 Last time that we met here – it was on Saturday – we talked about what is love. You may remember it, if you were here. And we are going to enquire together, I mean together, into this whole problem, very, very complex. And so if you don't mind, you have to think, not just agree, not say, 'Yes, you are so right' and then go your own way. So we are going to enquire together into this problem of what is love. Together. Not that the speaker is the only talker but together we are going to examine. 4:21 This is not a lecture, not to instruct, or guide, or help. That would be too stupid because we have had all that kind of help for generations upon generations and we are what we are now. We must start with what we are now not what we have been in the past or what we shall be in the future. What we shall be in the future is what you are now. Right? What we are now, our greed, our envy, our jealousy, our great superstitions, our desire to worship somebody, to say, 'You are a holy man' and all that tommyrot. 5:23 So this is not a lecture, not an entertainment, not something you just accept, or deny but we are talking over like two friends if you like, two enemies across the border. But we are talking together. So you have to exercise your brain, drive it, force it, think it out.
5:59 So we are going to go into this question: what is love? And to enquire very deeply, profoundly into it we must also enquire first: what is energy? Energy. Every gesture you make is based on energy. While we are listening to the speaker you are exercising your energy. To come here from a long distance, from Benares or still further up, you have to use a great deal of energy. Right? To build a house, to plant a tree, to make a gesture, to talk. From childhood, from the baby, the first cry of a baby is based on energy supplied for the moment by the mother and so on. I won't go into it.
7:05 So we must enquire what is energy? Are you all right, can we go on? I can go on, the speaker can go on indefinitely because he has been at it for 60 years, or 70 years, putting the same thing in different words. So if you will kindly, seriously listen because hearing is a great art, perhaps one of the great arts. To listen to what the other person has to say, not to interrupt, not to say, 'Yes, I agree with you and let's talk about something else'. We have to enquire first if you can listen at all. This is not a lecture, or an instruction and all that stuff, we are together examining, questioning, doubting, never, never accepting what the speaker says. Never. Right? Don't say, 'Yes we agree' but then go on accepting. He has no authority.
8:40 So we will start. What is energy? This has been one of the questions of the scientist. And they said energy is matter. Right? But previous to that: what is energy? You understand? It may be matter. It may be every kind of thing. But what is energy? Primordial energy? Who brought this energy about? Are you understanding what I am talking about? I am not sure. Because this has been a very, very serious question. So we are together taking a long journey into this together – you and I are walking up the same stream. You are not just following the speaker. 9:56 You are not just saying, 'Yes, that sounds very good so the Upanishads, and the Gita and all that they have said, so we understand'. It isn't a bit like that. First of all, one has to have great doubt. Right? Great scepticism. Right, sirs? No, don't agree please, don't agree. You don't doubt anything, you accept everything. So doubt, scepticism of your own experience, of your own thoughts, of your own conclusions doubting, questioning, not accepting a thing from any book, including my own. I am just a passer–by, it's not important.
11:06 And we are going to enquire together it is very important, please, together. You know what that means. Co–operating together to build something, to inquire in something, to see what is clear, what is doubtful, what is not clear. You are doing it. And the speaker has done this but you have to do it. So we are together walking up a very long stream. You can make that stream a very, very very strong current that will wipe you away throw you on to the banks, or you can deal with it. So it requires your energy. Right? It requires your energy.
12:07 So we are asking: what is energy? That crow calling is part of energy. Right? The trees, the birds, the stars, the moon the rising of the sun, and setting of the sun, it's all energy. Right? Probably you doubt it but it doesn't matter. And whatever you speak requires energy. The first cry of the baby out of the womb, that cry is part of that energy. Right? To play a violin, to speak, to marry, sex everything on earth requires energy. 13:07 Right? So we are enquiring together what is this energy, what is the origin, what is the source how has it begun, who created this energy? Please, careful, don't say 'God' and run away with that. I don't accept God. The speaker has no gods. Is that all right? You accept that? You will accept anything so it doesn't matter, I will go on.
13:53 Please don't allow yourselves to accept what the speaker is saying at any moment in his books, in his talks, in his videos and all that business. So what is this energy? We cannot possibly exist without this energy. Right? There is no existence on earth without this energy: the trees, tremendous energy to pull up water right to the top, tons of it. That is tremendous energy. To build an aeroplane hundreds of people are responsible for it. To go to the moon and so on. So whatever we do, or don't do, is energy. Right? The dancer, the violinist, the painter the house–mother, the army general everything requires energy. Right? 15:08 That is a fact. Whether you accept it or not it doesn't matter. And we are enquiring: what is that energy? The origin of it, not just: 'yes, energy'. Or accept what the scientists say, which is energy is matter and so on. I won't go into all that because the speaker has talked to many of them about this matter. And the religious people say, 'God' and that ends it. Or some guru says it – that also ends it. They don't enquire, they don't doubt they don't question, they don't have scepticism. Right?
15:58 So here we are saying, if you can, abandon all that: your books, what the Sanskrit, ancient people have said, abandon all that and leave it at the roadside and we will take a journey together. If you can't put all that aside or leave it on the roadside, you can't follow the speaker, you can't understand the speaker. Right? Don't bother to understand him, it doesn't matter. But unfortunately you hear a lot of words and you say, 'Yes, that sounds reasonable', and so on and so on. We are not dealing with words. Words are not the mountain. 16:52 The word 'mountain' is not the mountain. Right? The word 'K' is not K. You understand all this? So your name is not you. But to recognise you, but your name is not you. I think this is important to understand. The word is not the actual. Right? Is that clear? The word is not the tree. The word 'tree' is not that. Right? So we have to be very careful now not to be entangled with words. I wonder if you follow all this. Right. I can go on because my friend has given me a signal, my old friend.
18:07 And we are going into something that requires all your energy, all your brain which is matter, which is the accumulated experience of million years. And all that evolution means energy. Right? So I am saying... I am asking myself, you are asking for yourself, so I begin to ask myself is there energy which is not contained, or stimulated or held within the field of knowledge? You understand? Within the field of knowledge. That is, within the field of thought. Please don't agree with it. I would like to blind myself because you agree with every damn thing that's going on.
19:27 So I ask myself: is there an energy which is not put together, stimulated, arranged by thought? You understand? Thought gives you great deal of energy. To go to the office every morning at 9 o'clock, or 8:30 thought makes you, gives you that energy. Right? I must earn more money, I have a better house. Right? Thought, thinking, gives you the energy. I believe it took two or three hundred people or 3000 people to build a rocket that went to the moon. Right? So all that requires energy. To shake hands with you, to say, 'How are you?', to recognise old friends sitting across there. 20:45 I am glad they have found a place we can see each other. So I ask myself, I know thought, thinking, thinking about the past, thinking about the future planning for the present, that gives a tremendous energy. Right? Right sir? Thinking. I must build a house so I go to the architect I agree with him, and so on and so on. And you require a great deal of energy to be educated. Right? From ignorance – as they call it, I am not saying it is ignorance – from not knowing mathematics you gradually learn and energy to go to college, university and then you become some kind of something or other. 21:53 And you have a job, to that every day of your life you go. Or you retire at an early age and die. So thought – please understand this it is very important if you will – thought creates this energy. To build an aeroplane. Think of what has gone into that. Hundreds of people have worked at it, step by step, by step, constructed it and they have produced 747, or whatever it is the most marvellous machine that can never go wrong – man can make it go wrong. And so on and so on. So thought is an extraordinary instrument of creating energy. Right? May I go on? Right.
23:08 If one doesn't see that as an actual fact then you are off the mark. Right? If you don't see it as an actual fact that thought creates tremendous energy. You want to become a rich man you work like blazes to get to be a rich man. Right? You want to do some kind of crazy propaganda and you work very hard you join groups, sects, gurus and all the rest of that business. So thought is an extraordinary instrument of engendering thought. Right? Thought engendering energy. Right? Don't agree.
24:07 So then we have to enquire into the very, very, very nature of thought. Right? Not say, well – all the excuses.
24:19 Don't bother about this. I fell yesterday and hurt myself, that's all that is over. You can give your attention to something else.
24:34 So thought, which has planned this society, which has divided the world into Asia and Europe, the communist, the socialist, the capitalist and the democratic republican – all that is created by thought. It is simple. The army, the navy, the airforce, to kill not only for transportation but also to kill. This is obvious, isn't it? So thought is very important in our life because without thought we can't do anything. Right? For you to come here from a distance required planning, adjusting, taking a train, aeroplane, taking a bus, etc., etc. all that is part of your thinking. 25:40 Right? So what is thinking? You work it out, don't listen to me. What is thinking? You can't live without a certain kind of thinking. Right? Planning, going back to your house, going back to do your work and so on, you are married sex and... Everything is contained in the process of thought. So what is thinking? The speaker has talked about it a lot so don't go back to his books. Don't say, 'Yes, I have heard that before'. But here you forget all the books, all the things you have read because we must approach this each time anew. So thinking is based on knowledge. Right? 26:48 If you had no knowledge, how to come here or take a bus or this or that, you wouldn't be here. So knowledge, memory, thought. Right? And we have accumulated tremendous knowledge: how to sell each other, how to exploit each other, how to build bridges, how to create gods and temples – we have done all that. The various ashramas where they're all... – you know all that business, concentration camps of a certain kind. So thought has done all this. Created the army, the navy, the aeroplane. Thought has also, through knowledge temples and all that business.
28:02 So without experience there is no knowledge. Right? Be logical sirs. Logic is necessary up to a certain point. But if you start without logic, clarity, then you can do – you become superstitious imaginative, coming to conclusions, building temples and all that kind of nonsense. So without experience there is no knowledge. The scientists are adding everyday something new. Please follow this carefully, if you don't mind. Experience is limited. Right? Because we are adding more and more to it through knowledge. Experience, knowledge stored in the brain as memory and then that is the beginning of thought. 29:10 Right? Am I right? Or are you right? What do you say? God, don't you feel anything? So experience is always limited. Right? Because you are adding more and more and more everyday in the scientific world in your own life you learn something more. So experience is limited, therefore knowledge is limited, memory is limited and therefore thought is limited. Right? Am I sane or insane? And we live by thought. So we never recognise, though thought can imagine the most extraordinary heaven and hell the Olympic gods of the Greeks, the Egyptian gods, do you know anything about all that? No, it doesn't matter.
30:28 So, your thought is always limited and your gods whom thought has created will always be limited. Right? I know you don't like this but –don't hear it. So your gods, your thinking, however wide it may be or however narrow it may be, all this is limited. And from this limitation we try to find the energy. You understand what I am saying? We try to find the origin, the beginning of creation.
31:29 So thought has created fear. Right? No? Hasn't it? Aren't you frightened of what may happen two years later? No? Aren't you frightened of losing your job, of not passing exams, of not climbing the ladder – you know what I mean by climbing the ladder: getting more and more and more successful. And you are frightened of not being able to fulfil. You are frightened of not being able to stand alone, being strong to yourself. Right? 32:23 You always depend on somebody. All that breeds tremendous fear. Right? Won't you wink at me? So it is one of our daily facts that we are frightened people. Right? Would you agree to that very simple fact that we are frightened people? And fear arises when we want security. Right? You just listen. All right, I'll go on. Don't bother, I'll go on.
33:18 Fear destroys love. You cannot have love without... Love cannot exist where fear is. Fear is a tremendous energy on its own. And love has no relationship with fear. They are totally divorced. Right? So what is the origin of fear? Right? All this is to understand to be alive to the nature of love. If you don't understand all this then go and carry on whatever you are doing. Be happy with it, enjoy yourself making money, positions and all the blah. But if you want to go into this very carefully you have not only to examine what is thinking and the machines, the computers are doing that marvellously you don't know anything – the latest. 34:46 I talked to some of the professors in England just before I came to India, before the speaker came to India. There are computers that can think backwards and forwards. You understand what that means? They can think what I have... One has to get up at six therefore it has to plan to get up at six. Right? And after six what it has to do. And I believe that is called... Forgotten, it will come back. So the machines – please understand this – the machines, which is the computer... You know that joke? 35:38 One is praying for God and there is a computer next door, at his knees and the computer says, 'Whom are you praying to? God is here' No sir, you don't know how serious it is. So... Architecture, that's the word. When – I only learnt this recently and it may be wrong, it may be right – a computer can think what has happened and plan what will happen and for the future. Which the brain is doing. You understand? You plan to come here, you spend so much money, so much time and then go back, go forward. 36:42 So the computers can think forward and backwards which is called architecture I believe they may have changed the name by now. I am going to ask one of the specialists here.
37:01 So, thinking has created fear. Right? Thinking about the future, thinking about the past and not being able to adjust quickly to the environment and so on, so on. So thought and time. Right? No, you don't understand. I will go on. Thought of tomorrow, what might happen my wife might leave me, or might die. I am a lonely man, then what am I to do? I have several children so I had better marry, remarry someone or other because at least they can look after my children. And so on. That is thinking of the future based upon the past, right? And so thinking and time are involved in this. Right? 38:13 Thinking about the future future being day after tomorrow, or tomorrow and thinking about that causes fear. Right? So time, thought, are the factors of fear. And we know, we have examined thought we have examined time. Time is the past, the present and the future, the rising of the sun and the setting of the sun, planting a seed and becoming a huge tree. That is time. And also we have got inward time: I am this but I will become a rich millionaire. I am greedy but, give me time, I won't be – next life perhaps. And so on and so on. So time and thought are the central factors of fear.
39:22 I am looking for a clock.
39:27 Audience: Ten past six.
39:44 K: Thank you. So I have talked for a hour and a quarter?
40:02 Audience: Forty minutes.
40:11 K: Is that all, too bad! So, let me finish this. Allow me another twenty minutes, if you don't mind. Do you mind? I won't keep you very long. It won't make any difference if you listen to me or not. You will carry on in exactly the same way as you have been living. You won't change, you won't do a thing because you are caught in a rut, in a groove, in a pattern. And you will go on and death is there. Right?
41:07 So we are enquiring into something which you may not understand but it doesn't matter. Time, thought are our principal factors of life. And both time inwardly – I am this but I will be that, or I have been, I shall be, I am, I shall be – all that involves time. And time is thought, they are not two separate things. They are both movements. Then what place has death? You understand sirs? What place in my life has death, suffering, pain, anxiety, loneliness all those terrible things I have gone through? Merci beaucoup.
42:15 Sir, I had better take your watch whoever will give it to me. I might lose it, or you might lose it.
42:26 You understand sir, please understand this very carefully. Time, thought, are central factors of life. And we are saying thought and time are the factors of fear. That is a fact whether you like it or not. So what has suffering to do with time? You are following all this? What has suffering, pain, anxiety, loneliness, despair and all the travail that man goes through, what has that... Is that all our life? You understand what I'm asking you? We are journeying together. You are not just sitting there and listening to a nonsensical speaker. I am asking you. This is your life, right sirs? Facts, not imagination. 43:37 You are born, educated and you fit into BAs, MAs and all the rest of it, PhDs, in order to get a job or you become a great Prime Minister or minister, for god's sake, you understand? This is your life. This is your consciousness, your consciousness is composed of your fears of your knowledge, of your time, you know, consciousness. Your knowledge, everything is in your consciousness. And in that consciousness, of which you are, that consciousness you have always thought is yours, mine, 'My consciousness'. You understand my question?
44:41 Don't cross your legs, just sit comfortably as you were I am looking at you – don't suddenly change.
44:51 Your consciousness, if you examine it very carefully not examine it through judgements, evaluations, what you know, but if you examine it very carefully your consciousness is made up of its content. Right? Do you understand what I am saying? What you think, what your tradition, what your education, how many fears, whether you want to exchange your wife for a new wife, or whether you go to a certain temple all that, loneliness, fear – is what you are! You may think you are divine inside but still you are thinking. 45:46 When you say, 'Yes, there is God in me' it is still the product of thought. So your consciousness, which is what you are not physically but psychologically, inwardly which is your consciousness is the consciousness of mankind. Listen carefully. Don't accept anything he says. Every human being on this earth goes through it: sorrow, pain, anxiety, uncertainty, insecurity, quarrels, coaxing, wanting this, not wanting. All that is what you are. If you imagine that you are a god incarnate that is part of thought. Right? 46:46 Thought – as we pointed out – that's limited. So your consciousness, what you are, is the rest of mankind. Every man goes through this. Or every woman. Every human being goes through this. Right? Every human being: your neighbour, your father, your grandfather and the past generations all over the world. So you are not individuals. This is a blow. Don't accept it. Examine it, don't say, 'It is rot' or, 'It is not a fact because the Gita says something' or the Upanishads say something, or the Bible says something. 47:42 It is a fact that you, your suffering, your pain, your anxiety, your loneliness, your knowledge is common to – I won't use 'common' – is shared by every human being. Right? So you are not a separate soul, a separate Atman. I know you don't like this because you were brought up to swallow anything that goes along.
48:32 So there must be freedom from fear, from hurts, from every kind of thing human beings have put together. There must be freedom, you understand, not just words. 'India must be free from the rest of the world'. That's just nonsense. Nobody can live by themselves they need a friend, they need somebody to help.
49:14 So we are trying to find out, enquire into what is love. Right? We are saying, as long as there is fear of any kind, biologically, fear of attachment, fear of loss, fear of any kind, the other cannot exist. If there is any kind of attachment the other cannot exist – the other being love. So we are going to inquire, if time allows. Then seeing all this, from the beginning from the baby to the grown man, seeing what the world is and inquiring into what is death. Why are we all so frightened of death? You understand? You know what it means to die? Haven't you seen dozens of people killed, or hurt or... Haven't you? 50:38 No? Are you strange people, or what? (Laughter) Belong to a different planet? We have seen death. We have never enquired very deeply into what is death. It is a very important question, as what is life. You understand? We said life is all this – rot. We have said life is knowledge, learning you know, all that stuff going to the office regularly every day at 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock, quarrelling, battling, wanting this and not wanting – you follow? We know what living is. Right? A series of actions produce a series of reactions and sorrow, pain – that is our life. Then if that is living which it is, don't say 'Yes, living is something extraordinary upstairs' this is living – quarrelling, divorcing, fighting. 52:10 But we have never enquired seriously into what is death. You understand what I am talking about? We know what is living, if you are honest and you can imagine anything you like but this is living. You can imagine heaven is there and God sort of nod to you, every prayer is answered and all that rot. At least for me, for the speaker. But we have never seriously enquired into what is dying. All right sir?
52:58 What is dying? It must be an extraordinary thing to die. No? Extraordinary thing. Everything has been taken away from you: your attachments, your money, your wife, your children, your country, your superstitions, your gurus, your gods, everything is gone. Right? You may wish to take it to the other world but you can't take your money, your bank account – right? – your attachments, your gurus, your temples. You can invent temples up there, not after your death but while living you can invent all the gods on earth. But when death comes it says, 'Look, you cannot take anything with you. 54:18 All your attachments, all your affections all your hurts, all the things that you have gathered in life you can't carry, there is no space for that'. Right? So death says, 'Be totally detached'. Right? That is what happens when death comes. You have no person to lean on, nothing. Right? You have understood this? You can believe that you will be reincarnated next life. That is a very comforting idea but it may not be a fact, it may be your imagination your longing, your 'I can't leave my wife' I have left so much for my son but I will meet him next life so I'll tell him off and so on.
55:26 So we are trying to find out what it means to die – while living, not committing suicide, I am not talking about that kind of nonsense. I want to find out what it means to die. Not jump in the river, I don't mean that or go off to the Himalayas and die there. But I want to find out for myself what it means to die. Which means, can I be totally free from everything that man has created, including myself? You know there is an Italian joke, sorry to repeat it: 'The whole world will die, perhaps including me.' So I want to find out what the actual fact when death says, enough. Right? Do you want to find out? No. Do you really want to find out?
57:07 What does it mean to die? Give up everything. Right? Not sacrifice, don't use those silly words. It cuts you off with a very, very, very sharp razor, from your attachments, from your gods, from your superstitions, from your desire for comfort next life and so on and so on, so on. So I am going to find out what death means because it is as important as living. So how can I find out, actually, not theoretically make evaluations about it and form societies and, you know, all that circus. But I actually want to find out, as you want to find out I am speaking for you, so don't go to sleep. 58:24 So what does it mean to die? One is very healthy, the body is functioning there is no disease, like K at ninety one, he has no disease, no pain etc., etc. because I have seen experts, doctors. So what does it mean to die? Put that question to yourself, don't listen to me. While you are young, or when you are very old this question is always there. Right? It is always asking, demanding what it means to die. Are you interested in this? Are you? Oh no, don't shake your head, sir. Do you know what it means? To be totally free, to be totally unattached to everything that man has put together or what you have put together – totally free. 59:53 No attachments, no gods, no future, no past. You don't know what it all means either. You don't see the beauty of it the greatness of it, the extraordinary strength of it. So while living, to be dying. You understand what that means? While you are living, every moment you are dying. So throughout life you are not attached to a thing, your wife, your father, your mother, your grandmother your country, your... Nothing. Because that is what death means. Right? You may wish for another life. That is all too easy, too simple, too idiotic.
1:01:06 So, living is dying. You understand? Living means every day you are abandoning everything that you are attached to. What you worship, what you think, what you don't think, your gods, your country – nothing! Can you do this? Can you do this? A very simple fact but it has got tremendous implications. So that each day is a new day. You understand? Each day you are dying and incarnating. Oh, you don't understand. There is tremendous vitality, energy there. You understand? Because there is nothing you are afraid of. There is nothing that can hurt, – being hurt doesn't exist. 1:02:36 Thought is limited, therefore it has no importance it has importance because I have to get up and go in five minutes, but time, thought, fear, attachment, and all the things that man has put together has to be totally abandoned. That's what it means to die. God may be waiting to save you in heaven it all sounds so ridiculous. So can you do it? Will you try it? Will you experiment with it? Not for just a day. Every day. No, sir, you can't do it. Your brains are not trained for this. Your brains have been conditioned so heavily by your education, by your tradition, by your books, by your professors, by your – all the rest of it. 1:03:54 This requires to find out what is love. Love and death go together. Because death says, 'Be free, non–attached, nothing you can carry with you.' And love says... There is no word for it. So love can exist only when there is freedom, not from your wife, for a new girl, or a new husband, but the feeling, the enormous strength the vitality, the energy of complete freedom.
1:05:09 Next time we meet we will talk about religion and meditation. I hope that's all right. I am sorry there are only three talks but the speaker cannot carry on. You understand? He is ninety one and that is good enough. It's over sir!
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