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MA72T4 - What is religion, what is truth?
Madras (Chennai), India - 17 December 1972
Public Talk 4



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s the fourth public talk in Madras, 1972.
0:11 Krishnamurti: This is the last talk, and I believe we were going to talk over together the question of meditation.
0:30 I think we should approach it in a totally different manner.
0:42 We were talking about, yesterday also, about culture, how the ancient culture of this country has almost vanished, and every form of culture throughout the world is undergoing a very deep and radical change.
1:10 Consumerism is taking the place… is becoming the new culture – industrialism, mechanisation.
1:28 And apparently, as one observes, commercialism and consumerism is being formed as a basis of a new culture – which is also taking place in this country.
2:03 Any form of culture must have, not mythology, a myth, but a basic, fundamental, religious foundation, otherwise it becomes merely mechanical, superficial, and man will create a myth which you’ll call religion.
2:40 All our religions throughout the world, as they are now, when you observe it quite objectively, they are fictitious, legendary, invented by thought – a myth, a romantic, legendary story – and that is not religion at all.
3:15 And myth, which is the telling of a story, the inventing a legend, has held people together.
3:34 I do not know if you have noticed, a myth – Christian myth or a Hindu myth or Buddhist, whatever you will – has held groups of people together.
3:52 And when that myth is exploded, going, disappearing, then people are breaking up, there is no unity.
4:04 And the only unity that can last, that has deep significance, that has truth, validity and a great significance in life, is religion – not myth, not a legend, not something invented by man, but real religion.
4:38 And as we were saying yesterday, we have to form a new culture, and it is our responsibility, those who are serious.
4:54 And unless we discover for ourselves what is religion, the true meaning of that word, we are apt to be caught in a myth, in a legend, in a story that has very little significance.
5:23 So we must begin enquiring together, and in this enquiry therefore sharing together: what is religion, what is truth?
5:39 It is a lovely evening, isn’t it?
5:52 Look at the clouds.
6:00 There is a marvellous cloud up there, full of light, with the setting sun, and the beauty of it, the colour of it, the waving leaves and the moon, and seeing the beauty of it is truth.
6:25 But if you have not eyes to see it, if you are merely concerned with your own petty little life and miss the beauty of that sunset, you will miss truth.
6:48 So we are going together, this evening, those of us who are really serious – though we have made mistakes, though we have said things and done things which we should not have – together we are going to investigate, trace out, what is truth, if there is such thing as that.
7:25 Is it the awareness of a lie, and that awareness of a lie is the truth?
7:37 You are following this?
7:45 First of all, we can put aside the various paths to truth.
7:59 A path implies a fixed end – you take a certain path to a certain goal, you take a certain road to a certain house, to a garden, to the beach.
8:20 So ‘path’ implies a fixed end.
8:31 And in India there are several paths to truth – at least they say so.
8:43 These paths are again invented by the mind, by thought, hoping to find that ultimate reality, if there is, through thought, or the silencing of thought.
9:11 But it is always in the mind, an end – a path implies an end.
9:26 So when you see that every path that man has invented – and you know the various paths in India – is the result of a mind in search of something beyond itself, but to find that, they have laid down certain systems, methods, practices, and therefore paths – the devotional path, the... you know all of it, don’t you, better than I do.
10:19 We say there is no path at all – there is no devotional path, knowledge, and so on – there is no path at all.
10:32 Because truth is not something to be found through any system, through any method, through any logical, consequential intention or purpose.
10:53 And so we can set aside – really, if you have understood this – that there is no path.
11:03 Path implies time – from here to there.
11:10 And is truth, if there is such thing, a result of time?
11:26 That is, if one is seeking truth, does it lie through time, through a path from here to there?
11:41 To cover that distance you need time. And therefore is truth, if it exists – I must emphasise all the time if it exists, because we are so gullible, we are so eager to get something for nothing – and if it exists at all, is it to come by through time?
12:17 Therefore time implies thought; thought is time. You’ve understood? We have gone into that. I won’t go into it. If you haven’t heard it before, so much the worse. Thought is time, because thought is memory, the response of memory, experience, knowledge, which is always in the past, and the response of the past, which is memory stored up in the brain, is thought.
12:53 So thought is time. Through thought, through a particular path, thought has established a point, which it calls truth, and through that path it hopes to attain.
13:15 When you see the fallacy of this, the falseness of it – though it is traditional, though everybody accepts it – it is utterly false, it has no validity at all, logically – even logically.
13:37 So, one has to put aside this division – your path, my path, his path, their paths, the man of action, the man of business, the man of devotion, the man of knowledge, and so on – the various fragmentations of a mind which is already fragmented.
14:00 And if one is really, deeply seeking the reality, then this whole idea of paths leading to truth is an abomination.
14:16 Which is not intolerance, it is mere statement of fact. It does not exist. So the mind, investigating, must set aside this concept of paths.
14:40 Please do it as we are discussing. Not that you are accepting what the speaker is saying, but you yourself see the truth of it, that there is no path.
15:01 And when you go through a path and say: at last I have attained, found it, what have you found?
15:14 When you say: I have found it, I have realised, I have attained, how do know what you have attained unless you recognise it?
15:29 If you recognise it, it’s already in the past – you’re following all this? – and therefore it is the old, there is nothing new.
15:44 So those people who say they have achieved enlightenment, they have had the experience of truth, they know what truth is, they must have the capacity to recognise it.
16:00 Recognition implies memory, otherwise you can’t recognise it.
16:07 I recognise you because you were here yesterday. The memory of meeting you yesterday is held in the cells of my brain and that says: I recognise.
16:24 So recognition implies always the movement of the past, otherwise there is no recognition.
16:32 So when they say: truth, you have attained, self-realised, enlightened, I have got it, then you are living in the past and the past is dictating your experience.
16:54 Therefore it is not true, it is of time. So we can put aside that, because we are enquiring into what is the true religious mind, the mind that is capable of seeing the false as the false, the true as the truth, and moving from there.
17:23 You are following this? So the whole idea of path, this division, is utterly meaningless – doesn’t matter who said it.
17:44 Then we must enquire whether the mind that chooses is capable of ever discovering what is truth.
18:12 A mind that is capable of choosing and thinks it is free because it can choose, whether such a mind is capable ever of seeing the false as the false, truth as the truth.
18:40 Right? You are following my question? The mind that chooses, discriminates between this and that – the essential, non-essential, and all the rest of it – whether such a mind is ever capable of coming upon this thing which we may call truth, which may exist or may not exist – so we have to enquire into this question of choice.
19:22 Why do you choose at all? You choose between two cars, between two pieces of cloth, you choose a particular tree if you want to plant it in your garden, a particular dress – that is natural, inevitable, depending on one’s choice, and so on.
19:54 But why does the mind choose psychologically, inwardly?
20:05 What is the necessity of choice? When a mind sees clearly, is there choice? So, a mind that is confused is always caught in choice.
20:28 Right? You are following all this? Please look at your own minds, not at the speaker’s description of what he is talking about – at your own mind: why do you choose?
20:53 Please, this is really important. You choose only when there is confusion.
21:06 There is no choice when you see things very clearly. Right? So out of confusion you choose, not out of clarity.
21:27 So can your mind be free of choice? Come on, sir – you understand? Choice implies resistance – I will choose this and I won’t choose that.
21:51 And then when there is resistance then there is conflict. So the mind must be free of all conflict.
22:09 Conflict exists when there is division between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’.
22:21 That division, that separation, that fragmentation, brings conflict.
22:31 And where there is conflict there is an indication of choice and division. Right? May I proceed? We’re going together? Can we gallop along, because we have to cover a lot this evening.
22:55 And a mind that is seeking experience is a mind that is tired of the world’s experiences, the daily experiences, and wishes something more – the supernatural, the transcendental, the vast, immeasurable experience, whatever you like to call it.
23:35 Which is, the mind being bored with your daily experiences – sexual, business, every kind of experience that one has in daily life – being tired, exhausted by them, says: I would like to find an experience which is something far greater, all inclusive, which is enlightenment, which is God, which is nirvana – whatever you like to call it.
24:12 So we must examine this demand for experience. Don’t you want experiences? Some of you have come from far countries to this country to find some guru or some teacher, some phoney person who will give you a tremendous kick in experience.
24:43 You want experiences. The word ‘experience’ means to go through, to go through and not to retain the memory of that experience.
25:02 You’re following all this? Now, again, a mind that seeks experience beyond is concerned with a wider, deeper, sensation, and it must be able to recognise it, otherwise it is not an experience.
25:46 You’re following all this? You understand this don’t you? Unless you recognise an experience, it is not an experience, is it?
26:01 Oh, come on, sir. Right? You hit me or you flatter me, that is an experience, it gives me pain or pleasure.
26:17 I recognise it as pain or pleasure. So the mind must recognise that experience.
26:30 When you recognise that experience, it is already in the past, therefore there is nothing new.
26:38 And experience generally is necessary for people who are asleep.
26:45 Right? Aren’t you? When a man is asleep, he must be awakened, whether economic society, economic incident, a job, it doesn’t matter what it is – an experience to a mind which is asleep is necessary.
27:15 But a mind that is awake, what need be there of any experience?
27:27 So, the mind that seeks experience in truth is caught in the illusion that it has created that it is true.
27:45 So, the myth is not religion, the tradition is not religion, all your putting ashes and all that business is nothing whatever to do with religion, it is to do with superstition, prejudice, class division, all in the name of phoney religion.
28:23 And in India as well as elsewhere, religion has become a form of hysteria.
28:38 No? Are you uncomfortable?
28:55 All the circus that goes on in the name of religion – the temples, the priests, all the ugliness – some of it is beautiful, the rest is ugly, superstitions, legendary, a myth that has no validity whatsoever.
29:28 And the hysteria that is so prevalent in every country where religion is concerned, shows that a mind is so tired, worn out by the daily misery, daily conflict, daily insults, daily suppression – escapes through hysteria.
30:01 Have you noticed what the gurus are doing in this country and elsewhere?
30:13 They have their own ashramas and they have become a kind of concentration camps, where freedom, which is so essential, is totally denied.
30:33 Right? Can your mind, if you are really seriously enquiring into this question of enquiring to see what is truth – because this is part of meditation, this is real meditation – can your mind put away all desire for experience, put away all myths – and all religions are myths, as they are now, legends, stories that have no validity whatsoever – and can you put away the authority of another completely, including that of the speaker?
31:41 Because when you have authority it implies you are following, you are obeying, accepting, imitating, and therefore you create a personal cult, and that is not religion at all.
32:07 The person has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.
32:17 Can you put away all this easily, sweetly, without conflict, because that is the fact, that is ‘what is’.
32:32 That means a mind is free to observe, unprejudiced, not distorted, not wanting to achieve some kind of delight, glory, happiness, ecstasy.
32:56 So such a mind is a free mind. And therefore it can then proceed to investigate. You are following all this? Is your mind like that? Now, not tomorrow or day after tomorrow or whatever it is – is your mind capable of doing this now?
33:21 Because we are sharing this together, we are not playing with words.
33:28 You know, sirs, to share something together, especially something very, very serious, there need be certain attention in which there is affection, care, responsibility, because it is our responsibility to create a new culture – the old one is dead, gone.
34:03 And the commercial culture that is coming, the consumerism culture, is mechanical, becomes more and more superficial, and man cannot live on superficiality.
34:22 Therefore those of us who are really serious in their enquiry must be free to find out – free from all the things that we have said just now.
34:40 Then we can proceed – you understand? – then we can share this thing together – not verbally but much deeper.
34:58 There are several things one must talk about.
35:06 Oh Lord, there is so much, and time is so little.
35:21 Can the mind, your mind, be free to observe?
35:30 Free not only consciously but at the deeper levels.
35:43 The deeper levels of consciousness, your mind, contains the racial prejudices, superstitions, experiences, beliefs, warnings, dangers, and all the rest of it – deep down, it is held there – and the conscious mind may not be aware of it.
36:06 Please, I’m doing... we are doing it together. And the conscious mind cannot possibly investigate the hidden layers, except perhaps through dreams.
36:29 You are interested in all this? Shall I go on? Questioner: [Inaudible] K: Please, sir. What, sir?
36:40 Q: Freudian psychology…
36:42 K: Please, sir, this is not the moment to question.
36:49 You’ll question a little later, sir, if you wish to.
36:57 Through dreams one hopes to understand the unconscious, and it is said by psychologists and others that if you don’t dream you go mad.
37:10 So dream, apparently, is necessary to uncover. And we are asking: are dreams necessary at all?
37:35 What is dream? It is the continuation of our daily movement of life, in symbolic form or in picture form.
37:52 The daily movement of life, the daily relationship, the daily activity, the unfathomed, un-understood, the disordered life that one leads, continues when you are asleep, and in that state of sleep, the brain tries to brings order.
38:28 Haven’t you noticed all this, instead of reading books? You know, haven’t you noticed, just before you go to sleep, that you try to put something in order, don’t you?
38:40 You say: I shouldn’t have done that, I should have said this – you go over the day’s activity and try to understand, correct, bring about certain order.
38:55 Haven’t you done it? No? Yes or no?
39:02 Q: Yes.
39:03 K: Of course you have done it. That is, the mind is trying to put order, and when you don’t put order during the day, the brain and its activity tries to bring order, because the brain can only function completely, efficiently, in order, in security – and security means order.
39:37 And we are saying dreams are totally unnecessary, it is a wastage of energy, and they become utterly unnecessary when you watch what you are doing, thinking, feeling, observing without correction what is actually going on.
40:05 Then when you sleep, then the brain is totally at rest.
40:13 You can try this. So, we are enquiring together into finding out what is religion, what is meditation, and whether the mind is capable of understanding or realising or coming upon that thing called truth, which is not an experience.
40:51 And we are trying to find out, also, what is the quality of mind, your mind, that can observe without distortion.
41:10 Now, this, for me, is meditation, not the systems, not a path, not a practice, not the daily grind of drill which is called discipline.
41:38 Why do we have to control at all? You understand? – control. Control – please, this is a very dangerous subject, if you don’t understand it completely, disregard it – because all our education, all the religious precepts, sanctions, all the books as far as we’ve been told, maintain that you must control your body, your mind, your feelings, and all the rest of it.
42:24 Why do you control at all? And who is the controller who controls his desires, his various activities – who is the controller?
42:48 Is it not one of the fragments of the many fragments of which you are?
42:57 One fragment says: I am going to control. He assumes the authority of controlling the rest of the fragments.
43:08 Right? And apparently that is necessary in meditation – to control your body, to control your feelings, to control your thoughts.
43:25 And we have accepted it. That is our conditioning from childhood. Control implies not only a controller but also suppression, imitation, conformity, and therefore conflict.
43:45 So is there a way of action in which there is no control at all?
43:59 You are following? Is there a way of living daily life in which control doesn’t exist at all?
44:27 What is the need of control when – please listen to this, if you will – when there is only ‘what is’ and not its opposite?
44:43 When there is only greed and not its opposite as non-greed.
44:54 The opposite has its root in its own opposite. Right? Being greedy, not being able to go away from it, thought invents or perhaps sustains an idea of non-greed, which is an abstraction, which has no validity, but what has validity is greed.
45:26 It is only when there is the opposite that this whole idea of control comes into being.
45:34 When there is no opposite then there is only ‘what is’.
45:43 And can the mind go beyond it? That is the point, not how to control.
45:56 Can you observe ‘what is’ – greed, anger, what you will – observe with a mind that is free from the idea that it must control – look, observe, see, actually ‘what is’?
46:21 When you do that, when you observe actually ‘what is’, you have the energy which has been dissipated in the conflict of the opposite.
46:32 You’re following all this? So, the mind must be free from all distortion.
46:47 And a distortion takes place when there is any form of suppression, control, drill, and so on.
47:00 Right. Then the next question is: What is the mind which is free of this whole cultural idea of paths, systems, gurus, authority, and so on, what is such a mind in relation to the outer world, the world of everyday activity, and its relation to itself?
48:00 Which means one has to find what harmony is. The word ‘harmony’ means to join – join the soul to the body, join the body to the heart, bring that, by joining, bring about harmony – that word means that.
48:34 And can the mind be harmonious, not separated from the body, from the heart, and so on – whole?
48:51 What is whole is harmonious, healthy, holy.
49:02 This comes about only when you allow the body to have its own intelligence.
49:11 And the body has its own intelligence, which we have destroyed through the pleasure of taste and through austerity.
49:28 That word ‘austere’ means dry, harsh.
49:38 And we are conditioned, if we are at all religious, to be dry, to be harsh, treat the body ruthlessly – an idea imposed on the body by thought which says: I want to reach God, or whatever it is.
49:59 Right? So a mind can only be harmonious, totally, whole, when this whole idea of control, imposing a certain pattern by thought upon thought itself and upon the body, when there is not that imposition, drill, then out of that comes harmony.
50:40 Now, let’s us proceed. Then what is meditation? We say all this is meditation – not going off into a corner, remaining ten minutes quiet and thinking about something, controlling and, you know, thought wanders off, pulling it back – that’s not… to me that has no validity.
51:10 Meditation implies the establishment of right relationship with human beings – relationship between you, another, between me and my wife, child – between people.
51:32 Unless that relationship is established in the sense in that relationship no conflict at all – and there will be conflict as long as there is an image which you have about the other and the other has an image about you.
51:54 It is the relationship between these two separate images that causes conflict, and therefore these images are the memory, the accumulated incidents, experiences.
52:11 And these prevent actual relationship.
52:18 And therefore no love. So a mind that is religious must establish, must bring about a relationship in which there is no conflict whatsoever, on your part – the other may have conflict – on your part, no conflict, no image.
52:54 And therefore what’s that thing called love? Love is not jealousy, love is not dependency, love is not possession of a person, and so on – we went into it the other day.
53:17 All that implies a mind that is completely harmonious, in which there is no distortion whatsoever.
53:28 Which means what? A mind that is completely still.
53:39 A mind that is still is not distorted. But if you make the mind still, control the mind to be still, if there is a controller then this product which he calls silent, quiet, mind, is a distorted mind.
54:05 Right, sirs? So, silence is completely necessary.
54:21 Not induced silence or silence brought about through self-hypnosis but silence that comes naturally, easily, when you have understood or lived this whole existence without conflict.
54:46 And conflict exists only when there is division – as nationalism, as religious divisions, caste divisions, you and me and they and we.
55:02 You may say: all this is excellent but it is not practical, you can’t do this, it is impossible.
55:14 Why is it impossible? If you see something as dangerous don’t you move away from it? You don’t say: it is impossible, and remain with the danger – you move away.
55:34 So when you see all that we have gone into this evening, clearly, without any distortion, it is gone from you.
55:46 So what is important out of this is a mind that can observe without distortion, which means no prejudice, no conclusion.
56:05 But we live with conclusion, our life is based on conclusions – that we are Hindus, that we are Brahmins, non-Brahmins, that we are liberal, non-liberal – you follow?
56:19 – dozens of conclusions we have. And on that our whole life is based.
56:32 Conclusions mean the past, and our lives are lived in the past, our whole existence is the past.
56:45 And the past going through the present, modifies the future – and that is how we live.
56:54 So a mind… silence, quietness, is absolutely necessary.
57:09 There is no relative silence – either it is silent or not silent at all.
57:16 So out of that comes a problem, which is: can the brain which has stored all the memories, which is responding all the time to every noise – the crows, the memory of those crows – the brain is responding, acting, alive, all the time.
57:44 The more sensitive, the more active, the more it is responding to everything – everything within the limits of its contact.
57:55 Now, can those brain cells be quiet?
58:03 You understand my question? Am I asking an illogical question? Otherwise you are not quiet, the brain is not quiet, there is no silence.
58:22 And silence is necessary to observe.
58:30 When you want to listen to somebody, if you are chattering, if you are comparing what he said to what you already know, or you are paying half attention, you are not listening at all, are you?
58:48 When you want to listen, you listen with attention, because you are interested. So in the same way, silence means attention – not the practice of being attentive.
59:14 Only when you are aware that you are inattentive, not attentive, then attention comes.
59:26 You can’t make inattention into attention. Right? All that you can do is to observe, watch that you are not being attentive.
59:42 And out of that watchfulness, casually – don’t practise it for God’s sake – out of that awareness of inattention comes attention.
59:54 So, a mind is silent only when it has become… when it has established itself in relationship in which there is no conflict, when the mind is free from all control.
1:00:27 Which means that the mind is learning all the time. It is the mind that is not learning that brings about the desire to control.
1:00:38 But when there is learning, the movement, then there is no control necessary at all.
1:00:45 You are learning about ‘what is’. So, a religious mind is a mind that is attentive to ‘what is’, not attentive to ‘what should be’.
1:01:08 The ‘what should be’ is an abstraction and has no validity. What has validity is ‘what is’. And to go beyond ‘what is’ you need the energy which is being now dissipated in the conflict of the opposites.
1:01:29 And the opposite doesn’t exist at all. What exists is ‘what is’. Now, when the mind has come to that point then what lies beyond cannot be measured or put into words, because the description is not the described, the word is not the thing, the symbol is not the reality.
1:01:58 So can the mind, your mind, that is so conditioned by the past, by the dead culture in which it has lived and has survived, in which it has nurtured, can that mind uncondition itself – not through analysis, we went into all that – but be aware of that conditioning and not try to go beyond it, just to be aware of it.
1:02:34 Because when you try to break your conditioning you are wasting the energy – you want to go beyond it, which is a wastage of energy.
1:02:44 When you don’t waste that energy but when the mind is confronted with ‘what is’ then you have the tremendous energy to go beyond.
1:02:58 So, that silence comes when you have love.
1:03:07 That is, when there is no jealousy, no attachment, no dependency, when you are not ambitious in your daily life – how can an ambitious man who says: I’m going to be the best doctor in Madras – how can he love?
1:03:30 Or when he is comparing himself with his hero, or whatever he is comparing himself with, how can he love?
1:03:38 So love is not pleasure, love is not the product of thought or time.
1:03:48 So all this makes, brings about a total harmony.
1:03:57 And it is this harmonious living in daily life – which is not an abstraction, in daily life – brings about a quality of mind that can function where knowledge is necessary as technological knowledge, but always remain with that quality of silence.
1:04:21 The whole of this is meditation, not just one word, but the whole content of what we have talked about this evening is meditation.
1:04:36 And when you do meditate in this way, you will find if you have gone that far, that there is a totally different dimension of action and movement in that silence, which cannot possibly be put into words.
1:04:57 And if anybody puts it into words, he does not know what he is saying.
1:05:06 [Pause] Do you want to ask any questions, or is that enough for this evening?
1:05:25 Sirs and ladies, you have listened to the four talks, and where is your mind after these four talks?
1:05:46 We have discussed, we have shared together, we have journeyed together, not an authority leading you on a voyage – we have shared the thing together.
1:06:05 That means when you share, sharing implies at the same time, with the same intensity, with the same level.
1:06:19 And if you have shared then what you have shared you must share with others too.
1:06:31 Because this world in which we live is disintegrating.
1:06:40 There is disorder, our minds are second-hand minds, we have read a lot – you have, I haven’t – read a lot, therefore our minds are second-hand, third-hand, and we need to create a new culture, a totally different quality of mind.
1:07:15 And it is our responsibility, though we’ll make mistakes, though we may say things we do not mean, knowing at that moment that you are telling a lie and therefore at that very moment, the learning of that lie is the truth – at the moment.
1:07:41 And those of us who are serious, it behoves us to be the centres of a new culture, broken away from all traditions, from all religious organisations, following nobody, observing, knowing the quality of love and silence, then out of that will come a totally different mind.
1:08:27 Q: Can I ask one question, sir?
1:08:29 K: Yes, sir, anything you like.
1:08:32 Q: To uncondition the conditioned mind… [inaudible] …control or pranayama.
1:08:45 K: Can you uncondition the mind through breathing?
1:08:58 You can sit and breathe for the next ten thousand years – you won’t uncondition your mind.
1:09:08 You know, there is that lovely story of a teacher sitting quietly under a tree, and a disciple comes to him and takes the posture of meditation, you know, sitting cross-legged and sitting very quiet, and closes his eyes.
1:09:33 And the teacher asks him: my friend, what are you doing? Oh, he says, I’m trying to reach the Buddhic consciousness, the highest consciousness.
1:09:46 So he closes his eyes and goes on, and the teacher picks up two pieces of rock and keeps on rubbing, one against the other.
1:09:58 And the disciple opens his eyes and says: master, what are you doing?
1:10:06 I am rubbing two pieces of stone to see if I can make one of them into a mirror.
1:10:13 And the disciple says: master, you can do that for ten thousand years, you will never do it.
1:10:22 And the master says: you can sit like that, breathe like that, hold yourself erect like that for the next ten thousand years, but you won’t get it.
1:10:39 Right? To understand your own conditioning, cannot come through any breathing – obviously, it’s so…
1:10:51 You have to be aware, you have to be aware of your tradition, why you put on ashes, why you call yourself a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, and all the various names that you have given to yourself.
1:11:14 Why you believe – watch it, watch your own consciousness, watch your own ways of life, the way you talk.
1:11:28 Then you will discover how deeply you are conditioned.
1:11:37 And if you can observe that conditioning without any conclusion, without wanting to go beyond it, without judging, just to watch it.
1:11:50 Sir, watch the moon, the tree, a leaf, a bird, a face – watch it without naming it, without judging it, without saying it is beautiful, ugly – just to watch it.
1:12:08 And you will find how extraordinarily your mind is conditioned, because you cannot watch anything without distorting it.
1:12:24 And to watch yourself, the totality of yourself, the totality of yourself which invents the super-consciousness, that invents the Atman, all the rest of the thing that thought has put together, just to watch your whole movement of thought, without any distortion.
1:12:50 You will find, when you watch, your conditioning is going to prevent you from… prevent the mind from watching itself.
1:13:02 Then watch why, what is the movement that is preventing it.
1:13:12 Because you are prejudiced, your belief, your fear, your prejudice – then follow that, watch that fear.
1:13:19 Fear comes only when there is the whole movement of thought. We went into that. So by watching without any distortion – and distortion will exist where there is prejudice in any form, or any conclusion.
1:13:43 And if you have conclusions, which you have, just watch those conclusions. Any questions?
1:13:51 Q: Can we learn without conditioning, sir?
1:14:00 And are you not conditioning us by your talk?
1:14:03 K: Are you not conditioning us by your talk, talks. Am I? Wait, don’t say no, sir. He is asking a question. He says: are you not conditioning us by your talks?
1:14:28 Why am I talking? Right, sir? And why are you listening? Both are implied – not only why the speaker is talking, but also why are you all listening?
1:14:51 Are you listening because the speaker has a reputation, an image and all the rest of it?
1:14:58 And am I talking – please listen – is the speaker talking because he wants to impress you, he wants to – don’t say no, sir, go into it – he wants to tell you something?
1:15:17 He wants to convey a series of ideas? Is the speaker setting himself as an authority and therefore you become the follower?
1:15:30 Why is he talking at all? And why are you listening at all? I know why you are listening – which is fairly obvious. But for you it is not obvious why the speaker is talking. The speaker is talking, not to influence you, not to do propaganda, not to convince you of anything, because he has said to you over and over and over again: there is no authority, don’t follow, we are sharing this thing together.
1:16:19 And when you are sharing something, it is yours, not the speaker’s. When you share food together, it is the food – it is not your food or my food, it is food.
1:16:37 And if you say why, beyond that, do you talk at all? There are several things in it. It may be compassion. That word ‘compassion’ means passion for all. Passion exists only when there is suffering and you do not escape from that suffering.
1:17:08 Watch that suffering completely, without any movement of trying to go beyond or suppress, and all the rest of it, then that sorrow which the mind is confronting becomes passion.
1:17:22 So compassion, it may be out of compassion.
1:17:29 It may be he sees such disorder in the world, maybe that he sees so much sorrow, anxiety, despair.
1:17:46 Also it may be because like a flower that lives by its – lives – you don’t say: why do you live, why do you talk, why do you have perfume – the flower is.
1:18:06 Right? Any more questions or is that enough?
1:18:13 Q: [Inaudible] Is it absolute harmony or perfection driving and pulling us towards that higher state?
1:18:26 [Inaudible] K: How do you know, sir, that there is something that is pulling you?
1:18:41 Q: [Inaudible] K: Is there sustained harmony guiding the whole world.
1:19:00 I do not know. But what is more important is not what is sustaining the universe – ask an astronomer – but what is sustaining you.
1:19:14 We are not talking about something outside of ourselves. We are talking about ourselves, because you are the world and the world is you.
1:19:27 The world is not separate from you. What is sustaining you? Apart from food and all that, what is sustaining you? Fear, pleasure, anxiety, your belief in some outside agency?
1:19:52 What is holding you? I am not asking you to tell me, I am not asking for confession. But you have to ask yourself, haven’t you, what is it that you are living for?
1:20:09 A purpose? What is your purpose? If you have a purpose, you have invented it. What is sustaining you? One has to go into all this, and that is only possible when you know yourself as you are, not as you want to be, as you are in your daily life, your despairs, your sorrows, your anxieties, your desire for power.
1:20:47 When you know yourself, sir, then sorrow comes to an end.
1:20:56 Then you have wisdom. That is not taught in books – wisdom is not second-hand. There is no school that can teach you wisdom.
1:21:11 It comes naturally when you are aware of yourself, know what you are thinking, feeling, whether you are double-crossing somebody, when you tell a lie, when you betray somebody – to know all that, all the content of yourself.
1:21:39 Then out of that understanding of yourself comes… is there an end to sorrow and the beginning of wisdom.
1:21:54 Q: [Inaudible] K: Sir, would you make the question short?
1:22:28 I don’t quite understand the whole of it. If you’ll forgive me to tell you to make it short.
1:22:36 Q: You were talking about the subject of how to deal with insult.
1:22:43 And you said to look at oneself, by observing himself, or trying moment to moment… [inaudible] K: Yes, I understand.
1:23:02 We said yesterday, if I remember rightly – and please correct me – that when you receive an insult, your brain cells register that insult.
1:23:19 And we asked: is it possible not to register that insult at all – that’s right, sir?
1:23:32 And is that possible at all, the questioner says. I insult you. What takes place? Or rather, you insult me – much better. You insult me – what takes place? I react to it because I have an image about myself. I think I am a great, wise, old fool. And you say something that hurts. The hurt is registered in the mind, in the brain, as memory.
1:24:17 And when I meet you next time, I say: you have hurt me.
1:24:25 And all our life, from childhood till we die, we have various forms of insults, flatteries, hurts, sorrows and anxieties.
1:24:38 Now, is it possible to listen to that hurt, to that insult, and the brain never registers the insult?
1:24:56 Listens to the words, listens to the implications of those words – please do it as I am talking – listens to the words, listens to the implications of the words, seeing the falseness or the truth of those words, and yet not register.
1:25:16 Because the moment you have… the mind or the brain has registered it, then the whole problem arises that you must forgive the one who has hurt you – forgive or condone or tolerate or look upon him as another poor fool.
1:25:40 So, is it possible not to register at all?
1:25:47 Because a mind that is hurt can never be innocent.
1:25:57 Innocence, that very word means not being able to be hurt.
1:26:08 You have hurt, you have called me a fool, and I listen.
1:26:19 The quality of listening matters, how I listen to the word ‘fool’.
1:26:28 Am I listening with the image I have about myself?
1:26:35 The image has been put together by my thought, which says: you are a great man, you are a wise man, you are this or that, and when you call me a fool the image is hurt.
1:26:53 You are following all this? As long as I have an image, I will be hurt. Right? Now, can the mind listen to you, to the word you have used – impolite or polite word, insult or flattery – can it listen to you without any image?
1:27:26 Which means, can it listen to you with attention? At the moment you use that word, can the mind listen to that word attentively?
1:27:38 It is only when the mind is not attentive, the images are formed.
1:27:52 Then after forming the image, through inattention, then the whole problem of getting hurt arises.
1:28:04 But if you at the moment of that word – of that insult or flattery, or your own not telling the truth – listen to that word with attention.
1:28:20 Then you will see the brain doesn’t register at all.
1:28:28 Then you ask: can that be maintained? That sense of attention, can it be maintained?
1:28:41 All that can be maintained is not attention. Do you understand? Not attention. When you are attentive, you are attentive. But when you say: may I keep it up, tell me how to sustain it, nourish it, then you are asking a method, a system, and all the rest of that nonsense.
1:29:08 Therefore be aware that your mind is not attentive.
1:29:14 Q: One question, sir.
1:29:17 K: You haven’t finished my question, my darling sir. Please, sir, you have not listened to what is being said – you are full of your own question. [Laughter] All of you are that way – you are full of your own question, your own selves, your own problems, your own fears, sorrows – you don’t listen to somebody else.
1:29:44 If you listen to somebody you will understand your sorrow.
1:29:54 So what is important is to listen, to observe with care, with affection, with love – just to have the flower of attention, let it bloom.
1:30:14 You can’t artificially bring about the flowering of that bloom of attention.
1:30:22 It will, of its own sweet accord, flower.
1:30:26 Q: Here is the question, sir.
1:30:29 Q: One question, sir. After all, awareness is the mind watching all the things that happen in daily life…
1:30:55 [inaudible]… therefore is it possible to uncondition the mind?
1:31:01 K: Is it possible to uncondition the mind.
1:31:05 Q: [Inaudible] K: Yes, sir. I understand, sir. Are you different from your environment? Is your mind different from the environment in which you live?
1:31:18 Your culture, your tradition, your religion, your beliefs, your jobs – are you different from all that?
1:31:27 Are you different from your culture? Your culture has said to you: you are a Hindu. Your culture has said to you: you are a Brahmin, non-Brahmin, fighting each other, and all the rest of it. Your culture has said to you: sit this way, don’t sit that way, meditate. You are the product of your culture. Right? That is a fact, whether you accept it or not. And so you are the culture. Listen to this, please. I must stop. I can go on talking and you will get tired. Just listen to this. You are the product of the culture in which you have lived. If you are a Catholic, you are the product of that Catholic culture, Protestant culture, Hindu, Buddhist, or the Muslim culture.
1:32:24 Your mind, the mind which is operating, is functioning in that culture – ambitiously, and all the rest of it.
1:32:35 Now, can that mind be aware of itself?
1:32:44 Or some outside agency has to force you to be aware of the culture – which is a challenge and response according to your conditioning.
1:33:04 You are following this? My God – you’re not. Right. You are the product of your culture. I’ll make it terribly simple, keep it simple, much better. You are the product of your culture and your mind is the result of your culture.
1:33:28 The mind is that. And the mind says to itself: I have been told I am conditioned and I must…
1:33:41 I’ve been told I must be free of it. That is one fact. Or does the mind realise for itself that it is conditioned? Realise, see, that it is conditioned? See the difference between the two. You are told and you become aware that you are conditioned, or you yourself, being watchful, know that it is conditioned.
1:34:10 They are two things, aren’t they? When you are told by someone that you are hungry, that is one thing. And you know for yourself when you are hungry. Right? The two are different facts. Do you know for yourself that your minds are conditioned by the culture in which you live?
1:34:35 Obviously. Do you know it, are you aware of it? Are you conscious that you think as a Hindu, as a Brahmin, non-Brahmin, that your economic conditioning makes you think that way or this way, you know, all that?
1:34:49 Are you aware of it? Or has somebody pointed out to you, and you then say: yes, I am aware of it.
1:35:01 If somebody pointed out to you and you become aware of it, then it is merely a stimulation. That has very little value. But if you yourself become aware: yes, I am thinking, working, acting, feeling, according to the culture I have lived, then that has validity, that has depth.
1:35:26 Then can the mind watch itself, its conditioning, without any movement of not wanting to uncondition, just to watch it?
1:35:41 You can’t do anything about that moon, can you? You perhaps can go to it, but you can’t do anything about it – you just watch it – watch the beauty, the light, the shape and the shadows it casts, the light on the water, the beauty of the light – you watch it.
1:36:01 So in the same way, just to watch your own mind conditioned.
1:36:10 Not as an observer watching.