SA65T3 - Change can take place only when there is no conscious effort home
Saanen, Switzerland - 15 July 1965
Public Talk 3

Text-only version

0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s third public talk in Saanen, 1965.
0:09 Krishnamurti: We were talking the day before yesterday about the approach to a problem. The problem ceases to exist, as we said, when the image, the formula, the concept is no longer the centre from which you look at a crisis. And we said that the image that each one creates for himself depends on his own temperament, circumstances and the various pressures as experiences that shape thought. That’s what we were discussing the day before yesterday.
1:43 I would like this morning, if I may, talk about something that, though it is more or less the same issue, perhaps we can approach that question differently.
2:11 Where there is greater outward security as a social entity – as in the Western world, there is security for practically everyone – the greater demand – isn’t there? – to have inner security; and the search for inner security is sought through religions, through various forms of escapes, entertainments, political dogmatism, either of the extreme left or of the extreme right; and in that we take shelter; in that we want certain… and create certain security; and having created that security in ourselves, we resist every form of change. And I would like this morning to talk about that question, that word and the implication of that word change.
4:01 Most of us resist change, outwardly and inwardly. Outwardly, there are extraordinary changes going on, of which you’re probably not aware, even; in the scientific, mechanical, in the field of cybernetics, extraordinary changes are going on. And inwardly there is hardly any change; we are what we have been and strengthen that which we have been.
4:43 Please, again, let me repeat that you and I are in communication with each other. Communication is not one-sided; it is a movement in which both of us [are] taking part. You’re not merely listening to a series of words with which you agree or disagree, a series of ideas which you can refute or accept. Then, if you merely thus listen, then there is no possibility of communication with each other.
5:41 We are going to talk about something that demands a great deal of insight, intelligence and inquiry. And therefore, it seems to me, that one has to be conscious, aware of one’s own desire to be secure, seeking something permanent, which is the image which most of us create. And when we are shaken from that image or that sense of being secure in that image, there is a revolt; and that revolt has very little meaning because that response only creates another form of image. And so we go from one conclusion to another, one belief and one dogma to another, one system of philosophy or one’s own experience, and there we settle, crystallise. 7:11 And either it becomes neurotic – because most of us are quite unbalanced – when we have these mythical, unreal images, or we do not even want to regard, look at those images; we don’t want even to be aware of what actually is going on. And when we do become aware, it becomes a great conflict and we try to escape from that conflict and we resist every form of change. Now, I would like this morning, if I may, to talk about this thing called change.
8:07 I think it is very important that we should change. Not outwardly, because outwardly there are a great many pressures, influences – political, scientific, economic pressures – going on all the time, and to which we are responding consciously or unconsciously, resisting, or flowing with it. That I do not call change at all. Mere outward adjustment to a social pattern – however revolutionary, however changeable it is – mere adjustment to a social, outward pattern is not change because one has to adjust oneself or otherwise you are destroyed; so we are compelled, either to conform or adjust or accept the situation, the outward changes and live with them. 9:40 All such forms of pressure to change outwardly has no deep, significant change inwardly; it may… superficially influence but fundamentally it does not bring about a change in oneself. That’s obvious; we don’t have to labour that point.
10:08 So we have to consider what it is that changes, and what we mean, what does that word imply fundamentally. As we said, we each one of us has an image of oneself: pleasurable or painful, flattering or neurotic. Please, follow through with me; observe your own image and become conscious of it. Don’t say, ‘My image is perfect. It is my nature to have such a marvellous image. I was born with it. I cannot change; it’s part of me’ — which is all sheer nonsense. Human nature can be changed radically, deeply, fundamentally. There is no such thing as an image which is natural. So please be aware of it.
11:43 Then the next step is choice. From that image you choose; you choose what you will be or what you will not be, according to that image; that image dictates your activities, inwardly; though outwardly you may conform, going to the office and family and all the rest of it, but inwardly that image dictates what your activities are: your way of thinking, your way of feeling, your motives, your energy, your drive. And where there is the exercise of choice, there is the will in action. Isn’t there? I have an image about myself, and that image helps to bring about various forms of choice; and to carry out that choice in action is will. Bene? You are following this?
13:15 Because, for us, will in action is necessary. We don’t know any other action. We only know action as will: ‘I will,’ and, ‘I will not.’ ‘This is pleasurable and I will pursue; this is not pleasurable and I will avoid it.’ Please, observe yourself; don’t merely listen to me; because I want to go into this very deeply if I can.
14:07 So we know only action as will, and from that will there is so-called virtue. ‘I will be this and I will not be that.’ Our virtue, our morality, our ethics are based on choice of will in action.
14:52 Right so far? Please don’t agree with me. Don’t accept what I’m saying, or deny, but see what is actually taking place in each one of us.
15:11 So our morality is action of will based on choice behind which there is the image. Right? Now, any change is within that pattern; any change that we consciously bring about is within that pattern. And so our action is always in contradiction, isn’t it? When action is based on choice and will, it must be in contradiction; because behind it there is the image of ourselves as we should like to be – either neurotic or fanciful or pleasurable or painful – and according to that we act, and that action must constantly vary, contradict. You cannot follow one steady action because life won’t admit it; so there is always action in contradiction. If that’s not clear, we’ll discuss it a little further, a little later on.
17:45 And we see that order is necessary – order – not only outwardly but inwardly. Not only order in the room in which you live, outwardly, but also order inwardly. And order is virtue, obviously. But that order cannot be brought about by will, because will in action is immoral because in it there is contradiction, there is disorder.
18:50 Look, let me put it round the other way. I see it’s rather not clear.
19:05 I see I must have order in myself. As I have outwardly in the room I live, I must have some cleanliness, order, neatness, tidiness, so that it doesn’t disturb. I have not only to be sensitive to the outward things, also I must be sensitive inwardly. If there is disorder, confusion outwardly, then sensitivity is not possible. In the same way, inwardly I must have great order, to be greatly sensitive. 20:09 Disorder inwardly creates confusion, contradiction; makes the mind constantly agonising, in travail, in misery. So I must have order. But I see that order cannot be brought about by will, because will is resistance. If I say, ‘I will create order,’ that order I create is according to the pattern which thought has established, according to the image which it has. Right?
21:10 But I must have order; and order is virtue. Not the virtue of society, morality of social behaviour and all that; I’m not talking of that; that’s no virtue at all; that’s immoral; the social morality is no morality at all. But I’m talking of an order inwardly. And how am I to bring it about?
21:52 Please see the problem. I have an image and I choose what kind of order I want, and according to that choice, I exercise my will to bring about that order. Right? But I see that is not order; that’s merely creating in myself a fortress of resistance, and therefore it’s not order. So I must find out a way to bring about order in which there is no choice. Right? Because I see choice in any form is the action of will; or choice brings about will, depending on the image, the background, the conclusion, the experience, the ideas that I have. Am I making myself clear? Making myself clear; not that you understand what I am saying. Because if you understand what I am saying and it is very clear, then it’ll be clear to you.
23:38 So I see there must be order which is not resistance, which is not isolation, which is not an escape, and I see that order must come about through a choiceless state in which no will as resistance operates. Because the order I have created before, in me and outwardly, is disorder. Outwardly I may conform to all the social pattern and norm; that is, outwardly I’m ambitious, greedy, envious, competitive, and that creates terrible disorder in the world. And inwardly I want peace, I want quiet, I want serenity, security; and there too – because my desire is to find pleasure, and that creates disorder too. 25:29 So I see all my action, inwardly as well as outwardly, is productive of disorder. Though outwardly it may be moral, ethical and all the rest of that nonsense, but it is disorder. So I see this very clearly: that any form of choice and the exercise of will does breed resistance and therefore disorder based on pleasure.
26:30 So is there another action which is not derived from choice or will? Don’t say, ‘How am I to act without will? How am I to live in this world without choice? Everything I do is based on choice, whether I choose this colour of trousers or do some… everything is based on choice. And if there is to be no choice and therefore no exercise of will, then I shall just float; there’ll be no stability, there’ll be no anchorage.’ Right? So that’s our natural reaction, isn’t it? 27:35 ‘If I don’t exercise will, what shall I do?’ You will put that question only when you don’t see the implication of the whole of the activity of will. Once you understand this whole question of will – which is essentially based on pleasure and resistance, however much it may bring about order, which is essentially disorder – when once you understand this whole process of will, then you won’t touch it, you won’t go near it, because essentially you want order.
28:26 So when we understand the nature of will, which is based on pleasure and resistance of pain; not on fact but on pleasure. I wonder if you’re…? Are you following me? Please, you’re not my disciples; don’t follow me that way. But we are moving together in the discovery of something; because we’re together trying to find a new way of living. There is a new way of living. You must… I mean, that’s a natural, essential demand of every intelligent human being: to find a new way of life; not to be tortured, not to be in agony, not to have this dreadful fears, anxieties, confusion and misery. 29:40 There must be a new way. And to find the new way, you must discard the old completely, reject the whole; and you cannot reject it without understanding it. You can’t just say, ‘Well, I won’t have it that way’ — it has no meaning. But if you understand what is implied in the whole pattern of the old system of thought, action and will and choice, then naturally it drops away.
30:14 But, you see, unfortunately most of us are very lazy, physically as well as inwardly. Inwardly we are lazy – inside the skin – because all this demands a great deal of going into, searching out, breaking down, not accepting, not… living with a tremendous energy to find out; and most of don’t want to do that; we’d rather live happily in a neurotic state of our image, or unhappily, hoping that the image will be changed by some circumstances to bring about a happy, new image.
31:31 So having rejected this whole structure of image, choice, will based on pleasure and discarding pain – please understand what we are talking about, pleasure and pain. One must resist physical pain, but the fear of being painful inside. You understand? Therefore, we’re not facing facts but only looking at everything through the eyes of pleasure, or wanting pleasure – so when one understands this whole thing, then what is action without will? You understand?
32:40 Then what is change? I do not know if you have not noticed that when you consciously change – consciously; say, ‘I will change. I will not smoke, I will not drink, I will not do this, I will not do that,’ deliberately set about to bring about a change in yourself – don’t you find that in that deliberate change there is a great deal of resistance and waste of energy? Because you’re battling, battling with the old habits, with the old patterns of thought, resisting, hoping to find a new way. This is quite a familiar pattern, isn’t it; that where there is a deliberate choice, deliberate intention to bring about a change, there is not only resistance but a waste of energy, and therefore there is no change at all.
34:00 I wonder if you’re getting all this. Is this somewhat clear so far?
34:14 So I see that in myself, that where there is a deliberate action to bring about a change, I see it is no change at all but waste of energy. Therefore, I see that change can only take place when there is no conscious effort to change. My gosh! Change must take place without your deliberately wanting change; and that comes about when you understand the whole picture: the whole picture of the image, how it has been created, image based on pleasure and the avoidance of pain inwardly, and from that image, choosing, exercising the will and action. 35:57 This pattern we repeat over and over again, and within that field of that pattern we want change; and any change is still a resistance, still a waste of energy, and therefore it is not change at all. Change means explosion, and to explode you need energy, and therefore to have energy there must be no resistance. And that means a change in which thought has not entered at all as will. Right? Are you following? So, like virtue that is cultivated ceases to be virtue. 37:18 Right? When I deliberately set about to be humble when I’m full of vanity and I practice virtue of humility every day, it has no meaning. But to explode vanity without the exercise of will, therefore unconsciously, which means complete energy with which I look at that quality which I call vanity, in that there is humility. I wonder if you’re getting all this.
38:12 So virtue is order, brought about without a deliberate thought or intention; and there is great beauty in that.
38:37 And that order is not of time. Time breeds disorder. So I have to be aware of this whole cycle, and to be aware of it as fact, choiceless. To be aware of that microphone... is a fact, isn’t it? I can’t alter it; it is so; it’s there in front of me. I can push it away or run away from it or do something about it, but to be aware of it choicelessly. To be aware of this whole process of thinking, which so far has brought about such immense disorder and misery to man, to each one of us. And when one is aware of it, choicelessly, you will see that there is action in which time and will does not enter.
40:22 Because I do not want to go, this morning, into the question of time. I said time breeds disorder. We’ll go into it another day, because one has to spend a great deal of time in that; time, in the sense, by the watch; and perhaps this is not the occasion for that. But when one understands that immense order inwardly is necessary, then outwardly, in all relationships, there’ll be order — with regard to your property, with regard to your family and friends and with regard to ideas.
41:43 Order – which is essentially the beginning and the end of virtue – does not come about through any form of deliberate act. Any deliberate act is immoral. Because that’s what we see in the world. The social order which we try to establish in various parts of the world is based, as you observe, on competition, greed, envy, brutality; and on Sunday or Saturday or whatever day it be, you talk about brotherly love. The two can’t go together. So essentially society is disorder and therefore immoral. Not that I’m condemning society; just see the facts.
43:13 So to bring about order in myself as a human being – not as an individual in isolation, but as a human being who is part of the rest of the humanity – to bring about that order I must understand this extraordinary complex and subtle process of will, choice and the image.
43:38 Questioner: (Inaudible) ...one sees the image, realises, perceives... (inaudible) ...in that moment, the thought ceases. Now, simultaneously the cessation of thought brings pain... (inaudible) Would you say something with regards to... (inaudible)?
44:11 K: Yes sir. The gentleman asks: one becomes conscious of the image that one has built up, and the moment you become conscious of it, it causes pain, a disturbance, and the thought that looks at it, stops. Is that it right, sir? Now, just let me proceed with it. First of all, are we conscious of the image at all, or somebody has told you of that image and you become conscious of that image? You see the difference? Am I conscious of the image that I have in me without anybody telling me? 45:38 Or am I conscious of the image because you have told it to me? Right? I wonder if… Are you following this? There is a difference. I know when I am hungry; nobody need tell me. But if you tell me, ‘You are hungry,’ and I react to that and say, ‘Yes, by Jove, I’m hungry,’ the two things are entirely different. Right? I wonder if you get that; that’s fairly simple.
46:18 So are you aware of the image that you have built up during many years, and society has given to you and so on, so on? Are you aware of it without being told, or you aware of it because somebody has told you? Please find out. If it is your discovery, then it has vitality behind that discovery – right? – but if you are told about it, and you say, ‘Yes, I have an image,’ then it has not the same vitality, the same energy.
47:07 Q: What happens when it’s neither?
47:10 K: What happens if it is neither; that is, you have not discovered it yourself or somebody has pointed out to you and you have discovered it; and you say you don’t belong to either. I don’t see what the either is. Either I have an image which I know I have an image about myself, or you have told me and I recognise that image because you have told me; there is no something else, surely.
47:45 Q: If you don’t discover it and you don’t feel when it’s been told; you can’t...
47:50 (inaudible)
47:51 K: Ah! Oh, I beg your pardon. You haven’t discovered it for yourself and you have not found it because somebody has told it to you, then what happens? Is that it? I’m afraid then one is either asleep or one doesn’t want to discover it, or one says, ‘It’s part of my sublime, supreme...’ — whatever that is. Please, this is fairly simple; why do we complicate this thing?
48:31 If I don’t want to discover, any amount of your telling me there is an image, I don’t see it. And most of us don’t want to discover it, because it is such a safe, satisfying, gratifying image, and no… you don’t want to be questioned about it, and you turn a deaf… you turn your eyes, your ears away from it. But if you discover it for yourself, it has much more vitality than being told. That’s one. Now, let’s proceed. Now, I’ve discovered I have an image. 49:16 I’ve suddenly become conscious that I have an image about myself, the image which is built through my vanity, through my pleasure, pain, conclusions – you know? – an image, put together by thought, by experience, by life, by my relationship, by my activities, pain, disgrace — everything has put this together in me. I become aware of it. Then what happens? Am I aware of it choicelessly as a fact – you understand what I mean? – as a fact which 50:07 I can’t alter? It is a fact that the sun rises and the sun sets — I can’t do a thing about it. Similarly, this is a fact. And I see it as a fact; not I want to get rid of it or I want to change it or I must do something about it. Isn’t that it? You’re following this? Do you see it in the same way? That you observe this thing, this image that you have built up through centuries, as a fact, and not according to your pleasure and pain – you understand…? – not look at 50:53 it according to your pleasure and pain; are you looking at it choicelessly? Right? Then if you look at it without any choice, then it is a fact, isn’t it? Right? Right? It’s a fact; the image is so. Then are you looking at it as an outsider looking, observing it, or are you the image? You follow? Oh, come on, sirs. You understand what I mean? I hope I’m making myself clear.
51:58 I have discovered this image. I’m conscious of it. Am I looking at it as an observer and the thing observed? Am I separate from that thing which is observed? Isn’t it? That is, there is a space between the observer and the thing observed. But the observer is the image. The two are not separate. And that’s where our difficulty is going to come in, because I have treated the image as something outside, to be observed, to be altered, to be… added something to it or taken away something away from. 53:41 I have never seen it as me, as part… me; as the observer itself and not the thing observed. And that is extraordinarily... demands great attention; because when you are merely the observer and the thing is observed, then it is a form of escape from the fact. So one has to become aware of that. That is, that there is only the image, not the observer.
54:28 Sir, look, take a flower and look at it – a flower, a tree, a face; it doesn’t matter what it is; look at it – when you look at the flower, you are looking at it not only biologically, botanically – that is, with all the knowledge that you have about that flower – but also you’re looking at that flower non-botanically. Right? Isn’t that so? Do you look at that flower non-botanically, or does all the information you have about that flower interfere with your look? When that knowledge interferes with that look, then you’re merely the observer looking at that flower. 55:36 That’s fairly simple; you have probably have never done this, so it’s rather difficult if you have not. So there is only the image and not the observer; therefore there is no question you can get rid of it or add to it or deny it. Right? It is a fact. But if you are the observer looking at that fact, you are dissipating the energy which is necessary to completely understand or be or see that fact without the observer.
56:27 I don’t know... (inaudible) So what happens when there is only the image and not the censor which says, ‘I will,’ and, ‘I will not…’ ‘I like,’ ‘I do not like that image’; when there is only the fact, and there is no escape from the fact? Then it is neither pleasurable nor painful; it is so. And to look at it so completely, with all your energy – you understand? – and that energy is dissipated when there is an observer, a censor; when there is only that fact, which demands complete energy, all your energy and attention, then you will see that image explodes; it has no validity at all, it has no substance; it’s gone. 57:43 Then you start a new life. Then there is no censor dictating what you should and what you should not. Then there is complete revolution, a change, and therefore great order.
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