Krishnamurti - An attentive mind is without conflict, therefore free

SA61T7 - An attentive mind is without conflict, therefore free
Saanen, Switzerland - 8 August 1961
Public Talk 7

0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s seventh public talk in Saanen, 1961.

0:14 Krishnamurti: If we may, we shall continue with what we were talking about day before yesterday, which was the whole content of what is meditation. In the East, that’s a very important daily event to those people who have gone into the matter very deeply, and perhaps it’s not so urgent or serious in the Occident, but as it concerns the whole, total process of life, I think we should also consider what that question involves.

1:23 As I was saying, it would be utterly futile and empty if you merely followed the words or the phrases and merely remained at the verbal level. It’s like going with the coffin to the grave, following the coffin to the grave when you intellectually follow this question. But if you go into it very deeply, it does reveal most extraordinary things in life. And, as I said, we are dealing with the first chapter... it wasn’t the first chapter, there is no chapter or an end to the whole process of living. But we have to consider the issues as they arise.

2:30 Now, before I go into it more deeply and rather more complex, as you will see as one will go into it, I think it will be necessary to understand what is negative thinking and positive thinking. I am using those two words, ‘negative’ and ‘positive’, not in the opposing senses. Most of us think positively, that is, accumulate, add, and when it is convenient or profitable, subtract. Positive thinking is imitative, conformative, adjusting itself to the pattern of society, or to what it desires, and with that positive thinking most of us are satisfied. 3:53 To me, such positive thinking leads nowhere. Now, negative thinking is not the opposite of positive thinking; it’s quite a different state, quite a different process. And I think one has to understand that clearly before we go any further, that negative thinking is not the opposite of positive thinking. Negative thinking is to denude the mind totally; negative thinking is to make the brain, which is the repository of reactions, quiet.

4:59 You know, most of our brain is very active, constantly reacting, and it must react, otherwise it dies. And in its reaction it creates positive processes which it calls positive thinking, which are all defensive, mechanical. That is, if you have observed your own thinking, you will see it’s very simple what I’m talking about, it’s not very complicated. So the question is, primary question is, to be fully aware, the brain fully aware, sensitive, active, without reacting, and therefore it is necessary to think negatively. 6:09 Perhaps we shall discuss this at the end of my talk, what it involves, but if you grasp this, you will see that negative thinking implies no effort, whereas positive thinking does imply effort, effort being conflict in which is involved achievement, suppression, denial.

6:41 Please, watch your own minds in operation, your own brains at work; don’t merely listen to my words. Words have no meaning, no deep significance; words are merely used to convey, to communicate, but if you remain at the verbal level, you can’t go very far. So, as all of us, through education, through culture, through influence of society, religion, and so on, are very active, have very active brains, but the totality of the mind is very dull. And to make the brain quiet and yet fully sensitive, active, but quiet, so that it doesn’t cultivate any defences, which is quite an arduous task, if you have gone into it at all. 8:01 To be totally, as a brain, tremendously active, but quiet; which involves, as I was saying, no effort. But for most of us, effort seems to be part of existence. We can’t, apparently, live without effort: effort to get up in the morning when one feels lazy, effort to go to school, effort to go to the office, effort to sustain a continued activity, effort to love somebody.

8:58 Our whole life, from the moment we are born to the moment we enter the grave, it is a series of efforts. Effort means conflict. And there is no effort at all if you observe the thing as it is, the fact as it is. But we have never observed our self as it is, consciously or unconsciously, deeply. We always try to change, substitute, transform, suppress what we see in ourselves. All that implies conflict, and a mind... and a brain that is in conflict is never quiet. And we need, to think profoundly, to go very deeply a very quiet brain; not a dull brain, not a brain that has gone to sleep, not a brain that is drugged by belief, defence, but a brain that is intensely active, but quiet. 10:34 It is this conflict that makes the totality of the mind dull. So we have to understand from the beginning, if we are to go into this question of meditation, enter profoundly into life, we have to understand conflict and effort, because our effort is always to achieve, to become great, to be successful, to become something and therefore there is conflict and frustration with its misery, despair, hope.

11:27 So, what is in conflict all the time becomes dull. Don’t we know people who are in perpetual conflict, how dull they are? So to encompass, to travel very far and very deep, one has to understand completely the question of conflict and effort. Effort, conflict is when there is positive thinking; and when there is negative thinking, which is the highest form of thinking, negative thinking, then there is no conflict, no effort. Now, all thinking is mechanical; all thinking is a reaction; it is... thinking comes as a reaction from the background of experience, of memory. Thinking is mechanical; thinking can never be free. It can be reasonable, sane, logical, depending on its background, on its education, on its conditioning, but thinking can never be free.

13:23 I do not know if you know... if you have experimented with your own thinking. What is thinking? Not the dictionary meaning, or a philosophers idea, but if one observes, thinking is a reaction. Please follow this, because one has to go into this question. I ask you a familiar question, and you respond immediately because you are familiar with that answer, with what you know. If one asks a more complicated question, there is a time lag, time interval in which the brain is in operation, looking to memory to find the answer. And if one asks a still more complicated question, the time interval is longer, and during that time interval the mind is... 14:45 the brain is thinking, searching, wanting to find out. And if one asks a question with which you are not familiar, you say, ‘I don’t know’, but the state of ‘I don’t know’ is a state in which the brain is waiting to find an answer, either by looking through books, asking people, inquiring, but waiting for an answer. This whole process is thinking – which is quite simple, this is what we are all doing: reaction to the knowledge, to the experience which you have gathered, from which you respond.

15:52 Now, the state of mind that say, ‘I don’t know’, and is waiting for an answer is entirely different from a mind... from a brain that says, ‘I do not know’, and is not waiting for an answer. I hope you’re following all this, because if this is not clear, I’m afraid you won’t be able to follow the next thing. Because I’m still... we’re still talking about meditation; we are still probing into this whole problem of the brain and the mind, and if one doesn’t understand the root of all thought, to go beyond thought is not possible. 17:12 So there are two states: the mind... the brain that says, ‘I do not know’, and is expecting an answer, looking, searching, asking to find an answer, and there is another state, which is a state of not knowing, because there is no answer. Now, if one... keep that clear, then we can proceed. We can proceed and inquire into the question of attention and concentration.

18:29 Everyone knows what concentration is. The schoolboy knows it. When he wants to look out of the window, and the teacher says, ‘Look at the book’, and the boy forces his mind to look at the book when he really wants to look out of the window, there is conflict: wanting to look out of the window and being forced to look at the book. Forcing the mind... the brain to concentrate, with that most of us are familiar. This concentrative process is an exclusive process, isn’t it? 19:34 You shut out, you cut out anything that disturbs this concentration, therefore, where there is concentration, there is distraction. You understand? We say there is distraction; the mind is distracted because we have been trained to concentrate, which is a process of exclusion, cutting out. So a mind, a brain that is content, is satisfied, and has been trained to concentrate, it knows invariably distraction and therefore there is a conflict.

20:39 Now, there is attention. Attention is not distraction; attention is not the process of concentration. Attention is something entirely different. I’m going to go into that. Please, this is a very serious thing we are talking about; it’s not something to be... which you come here to be... with which you are entertained; it isn’t like going to a cinema, to a concert. This requires tremendous work on your part, a work without choice, a going within, without any sense of wanting or not wanting. It is a very serious thing that we are talking about. If you cannot follow seriously, just listen quietly, hear the words, and forget it. 22:03 But if you go into it very deeply, all these things are involved. Because you will see, as I go into it a little more, that freedom is necessary. Where a mind is in conflict, making effort, there is no freedom. Where there is concentration and resistance to distraction, there is no freedom. But perhaps if we understand what is attention, then we are beginning to understand also that all conflict has ceased and therefore there is a possibility of the mind being free totally; not only the superficial mind but also the unconscious, deep, hidden recesses in which the secret thoughts and desires are hidden.

23:24 Now, what is attention? We know what is concentration. Now, what is attention? I ask that question, and the instinctive response of each one is to find an answer, to give an explanation, to define it. And the more clever the definition, the more satisfactory it is. I am not giving a definition. We are inquiring, and therefore we are inquiring without words, which is quite an arduous thing, which is inquiring negatively, not positively. I have explained what is positive thinking and what is negative thinking. 24:37 The two are not opposed; the one has nothing to do with the other. If you are inquiring with positive thinking, you’ll not find the beauty of attention. But if you have comprehended what is negative thinking, which is not thinking in terms of reaction; which is, mind is... the brain is not asking for an answer, then you’ll find out what attention is. I’m going to go into it a little bit.

25:26 Attention is not concentration. In attention there is no distraction. Please follow this. I am proceeding negatively, not positively. As I said, in attention there is no distraction; in attention there is no conflict, no concentration, not seeking an end, therefore the brain is attentive, which means the brain has no frontiers; the brain is quiet. Now, attention is a state of mind when all knowledge has ceased, but only inquiry exists. You try sometime a simple thing: when you go out for a walk, be attentive; then you will see that you hear, see much more than the brain that is concentrated, because attention is a state of not-knowing, therefore inquiring; inquiring without a cause, inquiring without a motive, which is pure research, which is the really scientific mind. 27:47 It may have knowledge, but that knowledge doesn’t interfere with inquiry, therefore an attentive mind can concentrate, but that concentration is not a resistance, not an exclusion. You’re following, some of you, this?

28:29 So from that, when there is this attention, this attention which is a state of mind which is not crammed with information, knowledge, experience, a state of mind that does not... that lives in not-knowing. Which means that the brain and the mind have completely discarded every influence, edict, sanction; has understood authority; has dissolved ambition, envy, greed; and is totally opposed to society and all its morality. It does no longer follow anything. Such a mind then can proceed to inquire. Now, to inquire profoundly requires silence. 30:29 If I want to look at those mountains and listen to the stream as it rushes by, if I want to see, if I want to listen, not only the brain must be quiet but also the entire mind with all its unconscious and conscious, it must be entirely quiet to look, surely. But if the brain is chattering, if the mind wants to grasp, hold, become great, then it is not seeing, it’s not listening to the beauty of the sound of a stream as it rushes by. So inquiry implies freedom and silence.

32:03 You see, people have written about a silent mind through meditation and concentration; there are volumes written about it – not that I’ve read any of them. People have come and talked to me about it, how to train the mind to be silent, which is sheer double nonsense. You can’t train to be silent; then you’re dead, you’re conforming; then you are in a state of decay. Like everything that conforms through fear, through greed, through envy, through ambition, is a dead, dull, stupid mind. 33:06 And a dull, stupid mind can become very quiet, but it will never inquire, it will never discover, to it nothing can come new; it remains still a petty, small mind which is very quiet. So a mind that is attentive is without conflict, therefore free, and so a mind, such a mind is quiet, silent.

34:07 I do not know if any of you have gone so far. If you have, and what we have been talking about is meditation. If you have gone so far in self-knowing, then you will find that a silent mind is not a dead mind; it is extraordinarily active – not the activity of achievement, not the activity which is adding and subtracting, going, coming, becoming. Because it is still, it is intensely active, because in that activity... 35:34 that activity has come into being without any seeking, without any compulsion, without any effort, without denying anything, because all along it has understood everything, every phase of its being. There has been no suppression of any kind and therefore no fear, no imitation, no conformity. And if the mind has not done all these things, there can be no silent mind.

36:32 Now, what happens after? So far one has used words to communicate but the word is not the thing. The word ‘silence’ is not silence. So please understand this. So the word is not the thing. And the mind must be free of the word in order to... so that the mind is still. Now, when the mind is actually still and therefore intensely active and free, and isn’t concerned with communication, with expression, with achievement, then there is creation. 38:11 That creation is not vision. Christians have visions of Christ, the Hindus have visions of their own little gods or big gods. Those visions are the outcome of their conditioned life. All the Christian saints have always, everlastingly, had visions of Jesus and Virgin Mary; so do the Hindus. They are reacting to their conditioning; they are projecting their visions, and what they see is from their... born from their background; and what they see is not fact but their wishes, their desires, their longings, their hopes. 39:14 But a mind that is attentive and silent has no vision because it has freed itself from all the conditioning influences, from all churches, dogmas, religions, ideas, therefore such a mind knows what it is... what is creation – not the musician that plays, or the painter, or the man who has capacity to put words together into a poem – but creation is entirely different.

40:24 Then, if you have gone as far as that, then you will see that there is a state of mind which is without time, without space and therefore seeing or receiving something which is not measurable. And what is seen and felt and experiencing is of the moment and not to be stored away. So that reality, which is not measurable, which is unnameable, which has no word, comes into being only when the mind is completely free and silent... is in a state of creation. The state of creation is not just alcoholic or stimulated, but when one has understood and gone through this self-knowing and is free from all the reactions of envy, ambition and greed, then you will see that creation is always new and therefore always destructive. 42:46 And creation can never be within the framework of society, within the framework of a limited individuality, therefore the limited individuality seeking reality has no meaning. And when there is that creation, there is total destruction of everything that one has gathered and therefore there is always the new. And the new is always the true which is measureless.

43:59 Shall we discuss, ask questions of what we have talked about?

44:31 Questioner: The state of total attention and the state of desire without a motive seems to me to be the same. Are they?

44:51 K: The state of total attention and desire without a motive, are they the same? You know, sirs, desire is a most extraordinary thing, isn’t it? But we have wrapped desire with such torture; we know desire as conflict and therefore we have placed such limitation on desire. Our desires are so limited, so narrow, so petty, mediocre: wanting a car, wanting to be more beautiful, wanting to achieve. Good God, look at how small it all is. And I wonder if there is a desire without any torture, without any hope and despair. 46:27 There is, but that is not understood if desire breeds conflict. And the total comprehension of desire – the motive, the conflicts, the tortures, the self-denials, the disciplines, the travail that one desire goes through – when all that is understood, dissolved, understood, put... – you know? – disappears, then perhaps desire is something else. It may be love, and love may have its expression. Love has no tomorrow; it does not think of the past, which means the brain does not operate on love. 47:59 I don’t know if you have watched it, how brain interferes with love, that it must be respectable, that it is divine, love is sinful, love is this and love is that – always shaping it, always controlling it, guiding it, making it respectable, conform, fit into the pattern of society. If it doesn’t, it makes it fit into the pattern of its own experiences.

48:59 So there is a state of affection or love when the brain doesn’t interfere, and perhaps that love may be silent, but why compare, why say this is that, or is this like that? Why? You see, sirs, I do not know if you have watched a raindrop, have you, as it falls from the heavens. That raindrop contains all the rivers, all the oceans; it makes all the rivers and all the oceans and all the streams, the water that you drink, that one drop. But that one drop is not always thinking that it will be the river; it just drops, complete, total. 50:38 In the same way, when the mind has gone through all this self-knowing, it is complete. In that state there is no comparison. What is creation is not comparative, and because it is destructive, there is nothing of the old. So if one has, not verbally or intellectually, gone through this process of self-knowing from now to everlastingly to everlastingly, because self-knowing is not an end; there is no end to it, and therefore what has no ending has no beginning and therefore it is now, like the rain drop.

52:08 Oh, there’s another one thing I’d like to talk about, which is why one wants to worship. You know, we all want to worship a symbol, a Christ, a Buddha – worship. Why? I can give you a lot of explanations why: wanting to identify yourself with something greater; wanting to offer oneself to something which you think is true; wanting to be in the presence of something holy, and so on and so on, innumerable explanations. But a mind that worships is a mind that is dying, decaying. 53:31 Whether you worship the hero who is going to the moon, or the hero of the past, or of the present, sitting on the platform; if you worship, then that creation can never come into being, will never come near you. And a mind that does not know that extraordinary state is everlastingly suffering. So when one has understood this problem of worship, then it dies away, as a leaf in the autumn drops away. Then the mind can proceed without any barrier.

54:49 Isn’t it time? We meet again day after tomorrow.

🢁