SA62T4 - Conflict wears the mind home
Saanen, Switzerland - 29 July 1962
Public Talk 4

Text-only version

0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s fourth public talk in Saanen, 1962.
0:07 Krishnamurti: We were talking the other day about the vitality and the virility of virtue, and I would like to go much more into this question of energy, into the necessity of an energy that is not brought about through conflict and resistance. Because this energy is of the highest importance, because one needs this energy to penetrate very deeply beyond all experience into that state which is beyond all experience, but which is not faith.
1:45 And in order to go into it very deeply I think one ought to be very clear from the beginning what we are trying to do in these talks and discussions. We are not trying to do any propaganda, nor trying to persuade another to a particular form of thinking, to a particular course of action; nor are we trying to create an atmosphere or a right environment, a right field, in which the individual can bring about this total energy. 3:10 Because, you see, there is beyond all question of doubt and reason and intellection a state of mind which comes about when all conflict is removed, conflict of every kind. And this conflict, though it creates a certain form of energy, which is reaction, that form of energy which is the outcome of reaction, resistance, suppression, conflict, contradiction, that must totally and utterly disappear.
4:39 And it seems to me that before I go into that, before we go into the question of emptying the mind of all conflict, of all idea, of all concepts, I think one must be clear what is the role or what is the thing you who are listening to what is being said. What is your function, if I may so use that word?
5:30 Are you merely listening in order to adjust yourself to what is being said? Or are you merely listening to find out the flaws and the contradiction of the speaker? Or trying to create a pattern of your own from which action can take place by listening to what is being said? What is it that is actually taking place within the mind of each one of us as you listen? Because I’m going to discuss, I want to talk about something which is desperately serious, which, if understood, will totally, immediately bring about a revolution in one’s own mind. And as I would like to talk about it extensively and rather deeply, I do not know how far, if I’m not too presumptuous, you can go into it. 7:11 And that’s why it’s important to find out for yourself what is the state of your own mind as you’re listening. Are you merely listening to the word, to the symbol of words, to the meaning of words, trying to correlate or adjust what you already know to what is being said? Or are you trying to find out what the speaker is saying - which would again be utterly false - or are you observing your own mind, becoming conscious, becoming aware of all the hidden corners of one’s own mind, the dark recesses of an untrodden space in the mind? Or are you merely, lazily on a rather pleasant morning, listening to pass the time away just out of curiosity or of being… wishing to be entertained, so-called spiritually on a nice morning, religiously? 9:16 Or are you and I together, as two individuals, working out this thing of which I am going to talk about? So you have to exercise, if you are going to go into it as deeply as I’m going to talk about it, you have to exercise your complete awareness, attention.
9:46 You know, there is no attention if there is any form of resistance. There is no attention if there is any form of trying, grasping, wishing to understand. If you would understand something you must give your complete attention to it - your body, your mind, your emotions, your senses, everything must be there. Not partially, not intellectually nor emotionally, but everything must be given to be aware of all the thing that’s implied in what’s going to be said. And then you will see for yourself that there comes an energy in emptying the mind totally of all its content. It may sound absurd or impossible or a fanciful idea, but we’re not dealing with ideas. 11:27 We are dealing with facts, facts of what is exactly taking place in one’s own mind. And to be aware of these facts of what is actually going on in one’s own mind, one has to be aware, not try to correct them, not try to alter them, not try to change them, but just to be aware, to be conscious of every movement of thought. If that is taking place then we can proceed into the investigation of the conflict which exists within each one of us. Because conflict in any form, outwardly or inwardly, destroys clarity; and out of that clarity only can there be energy.
12:56 You know, there are two types of energy: energy brought about through contradiction, resistance, with which you are quite familiar, of our daily activity, daily relationship, daily existence, a conflict, a contradiction, and out of that contradiction, conflict, which is the very essence is resistance there is a certain form of energy and that energy produces certain activities with which we are all familiar. Then there is another energy which is not at all the outcome of resistance, contradiction. 13:57 But you cannot jump from one to the other without understanding this conflict, without this contradiction. It’s only when this contradiction, this resistance in any form subtly exists the other cannot be. This must be totally denied before the other can be. And you cannot deny this if you merely deny it with a motive in order to arrive at the other.
14:38 You know, most of us have a certain form of energy, physically and mentally. Physically, as most people in the West are well-fed, comfortable, have somewhat leisure, they have much more physical energy; unlike the East where there is less food, more discomfort, overpopulated land. And that physical energy is one thing and it is necessary, but we’re talking of mental energy, which is not the denial of the physical energy. You need mental energy, a sharp mind, a clear thinking, reasonable, sane, without any equivocation, without any fanciful, imaginative ideas, or romantic. You need a very sharp, clear mind. And that clarity of the mind can only come about when there is no conflict of any kind.
16:31 As you know, conflict wears the mind. Any problem at whatever level - physical problem, sexual problem, economic problem, a problem of relationship, a problem of virtue, a problem of death, whatever problem it be, every conflict which is a problem wastes this mental energy, this clarity. And is it possible to live in this world without a problem, without conflict? We’ll find that out for ourselves if we understand the essence of conflict.
17:38 Please, let me add here that you’re not listening to capture a certain state, a certain vitality with which you can approach your own problem. You’re not listening for that purpose. You are listening in order to discover your own problems, your own activities, your own contradictions.
18:36 What do we mean by contradiction? As long as there is an idea – idea being a concept, a pattern, a mode of action, a goal, the ideal – that creates a conflict because that is unreal, which is not factual. The fact is one thing and the idea about the fact is another. We approximate our activity according to the idea. We create an idea, we create a pattern, a concept of how to be good, what the state should be, whether there should be the banning of the bomb or not, the idea, the pattern, the prototype, the ideal, the hero, the example, the perfect state – as I’m sure you’re going to create the idea of no conflict, which becomes again the pattern.
20:28 So we create the pattern, which… We can see why we create the pattern because we want to escape from the fact, whatever that fact be. And being satisfied with what is, not understanding the fact and creating the idea then there is a division, then there is a contradiction. Throughout the world this ideational pursuit exists, the contradiction between what is and ‘what should be’. The ‘should be’ is the idea, is the pattern, is the prototype. And so between the fact and the idea there is a contradiction. And then we try to bring about an approximation between the fact and the idea and hence the conflict.
21:48 All our actions, if one observes, is based on idea, all our actions: that ‘I should/I should not’, motive, desire. Everything, every action, has in its root… for its root an idea, and we’re always trying to approximate the idea with action or action with the idea. What I am going to talk about is the total elimination of idea and therefore the cessation completely of conflict. Which does not mean that you go to sleep in your own comfortable, non-ideational world. On the contrary, this demands complete awareness. I hope you don’t mind if I take my coat off.
23:02 I hope you’re following… I hope I’m making myself clear.
23:20 Because to me every form of conflict in relationship, in study, in love, in any form of human relationship, all conflict is detrimental, dulls the mind, makes the mind insensitive. And it is only the highest form of sensitivity, when all the senses, when everything in your being is totally alive, and it can be alive totally only when there is complete understanding of the whole process of conflict has come to an end. Then only the mind can be totally awake, and it is only such a mind has an astonishing energy and therefore can meet every problem without continuing with that particular problem.
24:41 I stop between sentences because I do not know how far you’re going with me - not that you’re following me, not that I’m your authority - how far one has understood. Because this is a very complicated issue: to live without idea. That means entirely different thing from what one is accustomed to. Because we live with ideas, we live with… thought, we live with our concept, habits, formulations. And a person comes along and tells you, ‘Look, that isn’t the way to live; that only creates conflict, misery, confusion.’ 25:48 To live implies totally, completely, a mind that is empty of all ideation and therefore is capable of facing fact from moment to moment without interpreting the fact. Because we are conditioned so heavily, so deeply, with this concept of struggle: to live in this world ideologically, to live in this world with ideas, with heroes, with examples, with patterns, the ‘what should be’.
26:46 And I am proposing the wiping away of all that. What I am talking about is reasonable; it is not a fanciful idea. Because one can see for oneself very clearly where there is conflict there is confusion, there is lack of clarity, there is suffering, there is misery, every form of travail. And is it possible to live and act? Because one has to act, not only in the outer world but inwardly; one has to go to the office; one has to do so many things. 27:57 Is it possible to live in this world without conflict and therefore without idea, which idea, action… – sorry - an activity which is not approximating itself to the idea? You don’t know if it is possible or not. I say it is, and that’s the only way to live. But that requires a great deal of understanding, and to understand you must have tremendous energy, not just blank, vague, aspirational hope. So idea is brought about through thought, concept, patterns, is the outcome of our thinking, which is based upon our conditioning. 29:34 All our thinking, however noble, however refined, however subtle, is the outcome of our memory, of our experience, of our knowledge. There is no thinking without the past. There is no thinking if thought is not the reaction of memory. What we are talking about is action without reaction, which means living without thought as reaction.
31:00 In this world there is war, there is the atom bomb, and the so-called people who are inclined to pacifism who do not want war, they talk about banning the atom, and to them that is the ideal. The bomb is only the result of an historical process of our nationalities, of our prejudices, of our class differences, of our particular religious inclinations. All these have produced the bomb. And it’s no good fiddling with the bomb. You have to change totally our way of life, our way of thinking. And nobody wants to do that. 32:03 Nobody wants a complete revolution. And that’s what we are talking about: a revolution which is not a reaction, as communism is the revolution as a reaction to capitalism. We are seeing the facts, that as long as there are nationalities, as long as there are class differences, as long as there is patriotism and recognition and identification with a particular group, sect, religious or economic, there must be war. And to end war one must uproot all these conditioned thinking.
33:12 And so what we are talking about is not a reaction. Do you understand what I mean, a reaction? You insult me and I react; you say something which I don’t like or like, I react. But to listen to what you say without reacting. To find out the truth or the falseness of what you’re saying without reacting. And from that perception, from that seeing, from that listening, there is an action which is not reaction.
33:57 All reaction is based on an idea, on a pattern, so if one is to remove… if one is to be free totally from conflict one must go into this question of thought, thinking, which is really quite mechanical. Thought can never be free. It can aspire, it can create, it can imagine, but it’s never free because it is the outcome of our conditioning, of our memory, of our knowledge of the past. And to look at facts inwardly as well as outwardly without reaction implies to look without thought.
35:08 You may say, ‘What nonsense are you talking about?’ It is nonsense if you haven’t followed from the beginning of what we have been talking about. Just to pick up a phrase and to say ‘To live without thought’ is obviously moronic, obviously absurd. But if you understand the whole implication of thought and if you have observed in yourself of every movement of thought, not just the pleasant or… every movement, of every movement of feeling, if you have watched yourself, you have listened to yourself without reaction to this whole complex movement of the mind then you will see for yourself that you can live, function, do things without thought. That requires an enormous awareness.
36:44 Do you know what I mean by being aware? To be aware; to be aware of the flutter of those leaves in the wind; to be aware when you listen to that stream rushing by; to be aware of the clouds and the light on the clouds and the deepening effect of shadows; to be aware of all the people sitting here in different dresses and colours, different opinions, different faces, smiles, tears, sorrows. To be aware of all that and to be aware of your reactions to all that - reactions of your like and dislike, your prejudices, and to go beyond; which is, to observe without choice, to be aware without translating, without comparing, without justifying, just to be watchful, just to see the movement of those leaves in the wind and to listen to another without interpretation, without condemning. 38:20 To listen without condemning, without judging, implies that you have understood your own background, your own conditioning.
38:29 After all, that’s what we are educated on, to condemn, to agree or disagree, to compare, to justify, to resist. That’s all we know, and that’s our background - the background created by education at school as well as education through… by society. That’s all we know, to say that I’m a German, English, French, all the rest of it, that I’m Catholic or non-Catholic, I believe and don’t believe. That’s our background, and that background reacts. But to be aware of that background and to understand the whole process of that background, not only conscious… as well as unconscious, because that creates the idea, the background. That becomes the authority.
39:37 And a person who is concerned with the understanding of conflict has no idea and therefore no frustration. Most of us are in a state of frustration: I want to be a great politician, musician; I want to be this and that, and I can’t and I’m not capable or deceptive or cunning or whatever it is to be that. And so there is a contradiction: I want to fulfil and I can’t. Circumstances, ideas, opportunity prevent. And even if I do fulfil there is always in the shadow of fulfilment frustration.
40:42 I hope you are not merely following my words; you’re watching yourself.
40:50 You know, to live without a goal, to live without wanting to fulfil, that demands a great deal of understanding because then you are dealing with facts, of what is actually taking place. Then you will see from this there is no… the mind having understood itself, having observed itself, knowing itself, all conflict has been emptied from itself, from the mind. And out of that emptiness there comes the energy; there comes that energy which is absolutely necessary for it to proceed further.
42:20 Because most of us have very little mental energy because we are in conflict, we are in misery, we are in confusion. And when you have understood conflict and emptied the… when the mind has emptied itself of all conflict because it’s understood the whole process of thinking and ideation and concepts and prototypes and all the rest of it, then out of that comes an energy which lives from moment to moment, from day to day. It does everything without conflict. And if one has gone that far, and it’s only then that there is real peace within oneself. It’s not an induced peace. Induced peace, a disciplined peace is no longer the real thing; it is a dead thing. That’s why most so-called religious people are dead people.
43:55 And that is the foundation in which there is no conflict of any kind and out of that comes energy. And that energy is necessary; it is there. Then you will see with that energy, that energy is no longer seeking experience; it’s beyond all experience. We talked about it the other day. And you will see that the mind, being totally empty, is completely aware; there are no dark corners, no untrodden space; everything is alive, awake. And then you will find for yourselves, if you’ve gone that far, that time, distance, has lost its meaning. And then only such a mind can understand that which is beyond words, beyond name, beyond symbol, beyond all thought.
46:06 (Pause) Shall we talk about or question what we have been talking about this morning?
46:33 Questioner: Sir, as one sees the nonsense of thought, so that… (inaudible) dissolving, disappearing, is it surprising to find that one is leaving the world of preference, the world of, ‘I like this sort of a day but I don’t like that sort of a day’?
47:27 K: I don’t quite get the question, sir.
47:35 Q: I find, sir, that I have left all forms of preference, that there is no like or dislike. Is that surprising?
47:39 K: Not at all, sir. Sir, isn’t there a great danger - I’m not saying with regard to you – isn’t there a great danger of a withdrawal from existence, from life, and therefore becoming utterly insensitive? Do you understand what I mean by sensitivity? You know, we want to be sensitive to the beautiful, to lovely music, to fine pictures, but we don’t want to be sensitive to the ugly, to the noisy, to the dirty, foul things of the streets. If you are sensitive in one direction you must be sensitive in all directions. 48:39 There is no sensitivity in one direction and callousness with regard to the other. If one is callous with regard to the other one is not sensitive totally. And it seems to me there is a danger of this saying, ‘I’m rather indifferent, indifferent to my preferences, indifferent to what is taking place, indifferent to my own quarrels and anxieties, guilts and conflicts.’ I’m not saying you are, sir, but there is the danger of that.
49:38 Q: I find that my… (inaudible) contains a contradiction… (inaudible).
49:45 K: I am afraid I don’t quite hear. If somebody has heard her, would they please repeat it to me?
49:57 Q: I find that my wish of understanding contains itself contradiction.
50:04 K: Ah; ‘My wish to understand you, what you are saying, in that… in itself there is a contradiction.’ Is that what…?
50:13 Q: (Inaudible).
50:15 K: ‘My wish to understand you, what you are saying, what you are talking about, that itself is a contradiction.’ Surely, you’re not understanding what is being said; you’re not trying to understand the speaker; you are trying to understand… – no, I won’t use the word try - you are understanding yourself, not the speaker, and therefore there cannot be contradiction. If you are trying to follow what the speaker is saying, if you are trying to approximate your activities, your thoughts, your aspirations with what the speaker is saying then there is contradiction. 51:18 Sirs, I thought I made it perfectly clear from the very beginning that I am not marketing ideas. I am not propagating new system, new thought, new ways of activity. What we are trying to say is: be totally aware of yourself; not according to my awareness, not ‘What is awareness? ’ but I’m explaining to you what it is to be aware. And that explanation is reasonable, logical, sane, healthy, and you can see for yourself, if you’re so aware to find out about your own ways of activity. 52:32 You’re not following me; there is no authority. Moment you are following, moment there is an authority, moment when you say, ‘I’m trying to understand you’, then you are in a state of contradiction, conflict, and all the wretchedness begins.
52:49 Q: Can you repeat what you just said now, please, sir, because what you said now seems much clearer… (inaudible)? May I ask... (inaudible) to repeat what you just said now.
53:05 K: You’re asking me to repeat what I said, sir?
53:09 Q: Just now; yes, sir.
53:10 K: I’m afraid I can’t repeat.
53:11 (Laughter)
53:12 K: I’ll tell… I will put it in different words because I can’t… - you understand, sir? - I can’t repeat.
53:23 You see, sir, we are so accustomed to somebody tell us what to do. We are so used to following somebody. Our habit is to approximate ourselves to what is being said: the preacher, the teacher, the saviour is the… supposed to know all that he’s talking about and you and I don’t know, therefore we say, ‘I must look up to him; I must follow him.’ So we set up that authority and hence there is a contradiction between the ideal and what I am. Here there is no ideal, no authority. 54:28 On the contrary, we are concerned with the understanding of ourselves. Ourselves are such complex entities; we are the result of centuries of human endeavour, the repository of all thought, all conflict; we are the totality of life. And if we don’t understand ourselves… you’re not trying to understand the speaker. What the speaker says: understand yourself; use me as a mirror in which you’re watching yourself.
55:17 Un momento, sir. No, I haven’t finished yet. Please, sir, I know you have questions but, you see, the difficulty is you’re not listening to what… to the previous question; you’re already so concerned with your own question that you’re not listening. Do please pay a little attention.
55:51 The world is bound by authority - of the priests, of the Popes, of the politicians, of the specialists - but they do not help us to understand ourselves. And without understanding ourselves you cannot go very far. You can go to all the temples in the world, you can meditate, you can stand on your head for the rest of your life…
56:21 (Laughter)
56:24 K: …but you will never go very far if you don’t understand yourself, if you don’t begin with yourself. Because yourself is the society, is the world; you are the result of centuries of historical processes; you are the result of your environment. And without understanding and breaking through all that, shattering, destroying all that, you cannot go very far. And you have to go very far. And to go very far you must begin very near, which is yourself. And to take this journey very far there must be a total ending of all conflict. I hope I have repeated, sir.
57:27 (Laughter)
57:28 Q: Partly, yes, sir.
57:28 K: Right, sir.
57:29 Q: Thank you.
57:30 Q: When I see a feeling or a thought with full attention, I see that that feeling or thought disappears and what remains is energy… (inaudible) and that energy is something alive that feeds our action at any moment.
58:01 K: The gentleman says, if I understand him correctly: ‘When I observe a feeling, that feeling ends.’ Right, sir?
58:06 Q: Yes sir.
58:08 K: Then what next?
58:09 Q: And what remains isn’t anything… (inaudible) and that energy is something alive that feeds our action at any moment.
58:25 K: I’m afraid I don’t catch the words, sir. Is this what you mean? ‘When I observe a particular feeling that feeling comes to an end; and when that feeling comes to an end there is an attention.’
58:38 Q: An energy.
58:41 K: An energy.
58:42 Q: And that energy feeds our action at any moment… (inaudible) in any moment.
58:55 K: Look, sir, when you observe a particular feeling, a particular thought, what is important is to find out how you observe that feeling and how you consider that thought. Please follow this. Do you see the feeling or the thought as something separate from you? Obviously you do.
59:31 I do not know if you have not experimented with this, that when you observe a feeling the feeling comes to an end. And see why it comes to an end: because you have focused your attention on that feeling. When you bring your attention to a particular feeling that feeling ends, obviously – wait - but in the ending of that feeling or the particular thought or that particular problem, if the observer remains as a spectator, as a censor, as a thinker apart from the thought and the feeling, in that state, though the feeling or the thought comes to an end, there is still a contradiction. So it is very important to understand how we look at a feeling.
1:00:39 Take, for instance, a very simple, common feeling which we all have – perhaps one or two may not have it – which is: to be jealous or envious. I won’t go into the whole question of envy and jealousy, all the implications of…; that’s not the problem. We know what it is to be jealous. Now, how do we look at your jealousy? When you look at it you are the observer; jealousy is something apart from you. You are trying to change that jealousy, you’re trying to modify it, you’re trying to find explanations why you are justified in having… in being jealous and so on and so on. 1:01:37 So there is an entity, a censor, a being which observes. For the moment that jealousy may disappear, but it’ll come back again. It’ll come back because you have… you do not see that jealousy is part of you. You are jealous, not that the… you are… there is jealousy outside of you. You are jealous; your whole being is jealous, as your whole being is envious, acquisitive, whatever you will. Don’t say, ‘Oh, is there not part of me which is heavenly, which is lovely, which is not jealous?’ When you are actually in a state of jealousy there is nothing else but that.
1:02:44 So it’s very important to find out how to look, how to listen. I’ll go into it a little bit.
1:02:57 When one is jealous, see what is taking place: there’s a feeling. My wife, my husband, looks at somebody else - and all that tommyrot which we call love - looks at somebody else. Or somebody else is cleverer than me; I’m not such a beautiful figure and all that. I’m jealous; I have that feeling. The moment that feeling arises I give it a label, I call it a name. See what is taking place; follow it, please, step by step.
1:03:32 I have a feeling; I give it a name. I give it a name because I want to know what it is and so I… the word jealousy is the outcome of my memory, of the past. Please follow this. Jealousy is something new; it has come into being immediately, spontaneously, but I’ve identified it by giving it a name. Now, why do I give it a name? Either to strengthen it or to identify it or to justify it. And what has happened? I have strengthened jealousy by giving it a name. Please follow this. It’s a fairly simple psychological process, if you have observed it for yourself, in yourself.
1:04:41 And by giving it a name I think I have understood it. So what has happened? The word has interfered with my looking at the fact. So I think I have understood it completely by calling it jealousy; I have put it in the old framework of words, of memory, of all the impressions, of explanations, why I should/should not. But that feeling of jealousy, that feeling is something new; it is not something of yesterday. It is something of yesterday when I put a name to it. You’re following all this? If I don’t name it then it is something new which I can look. When I do look without naming it there is no centre from which I’m looking.
1:05:59 Please see this. Are you working as hard as I’m doing?
1:06:14 (Laughter)
1:06:19 K: What I’m saying is – just a minute, sir – what I’m saying is, the moment you give a name, a label, you have brought the feeling into the pattern, into the framework of the old; and the old is the observer, with his words, with his opinions, with his ideas. And therefore the naming is very important, to understand the naming, and how quickly, how instantaneously the word comes into being: that it is jealous, that it’s angry, that it’s sexual, that it’s right, this is wrong. 1:07:12 But if you don’t name it - which demands tremendous awareness, a great deal of understanding immediately - then you will see that there being no observer, no thinker, no centre from which you are judging, then you will see that the feeling is not different from you. And there is no you who will… who feels that.
1:08:06 And jealousy, like any other habit, continues. It has become a habit for most of us, and to break the habit is to be merely aware of the habit. Please listen to me. Merely to be aware of it, not to say, ‘I must change it; I must transform it; it is terrible to have this habit,’ and so on and so on and so on, or say it is necessary to change the habit, but just to be aware of it. To be aware of it is not to condemn it; to look at it. You know, when you love a thing, you look at it. And when we don’t love then begins the problem of how to get rid of it. 1:09:22 But if we are… if I may I use that word, love jealousy - you understand what I mean? - love, in quotes, jealousy, that feeling, which does not deny that feeling, then there is no separation between the feeling and the observer. And therefore out of this total awareness, if you go into it very, very deeply without word, then you will see you have totally wiped away that feeling which is identified with that word called jealousy.
1:10:06 Well, sir, it’s time to stop. This morning we talked about something very serious. To live in a world which is full of ideas, ambitions, competition, worship of success, in a world that is crowded with people who want to be famous, who want to be known as writers, painters, scientists, great people. They are the outcome of conflict, outcome of contradiction. Greater the contradiction, greater the tension; and that tension produces certain activities. If one has capacity it produces a writer, a painter, a scientist, a politician or what you will. 1:11:34 But that tension of contradiction does not bring about clarity; that tension brings more misery. That tension… you may go to the church, worship God, but it has no meaning whatsoever. God is not found through tension, through contradiction. The mind must be totally empty of every form of ideation, imagination, contradiction and conflict. And in that there is great beauty, an astonishing sense of vitality.
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