Krishnamurti - Living in the past prevents action in the present

Krishnamurti Subtitles

MA73T2 - Living in the past prevents action in the present
Madras (Chennai), India - 22 December 1973
Public Talk 2

0:01	This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public talk in Madras, 1973.
0:10	Shall we continue with what we were talking about the last time that we met here?
0:24	We were talking, or rather we were saying that considering what is happening in the world, of which we are a part, it becomes absolutely necessary that the human mind undergoes a fundamental transformation, a deep psychological revolution.
0:56	And we were saying that the human survival – not mechanically progressing but actual human survival- has become one of the most important things.
1:31	And within that survival a different kind of energy is required.
1:51	So we are going to examine together the need of survival and the transformation of the human mind that will give a different kind of energy which will build a totally different kind of social structure.
2:21	This is what we are going to discuss, talk over together.
2:32	Each one will interpret that word ‘survival’ according to his particular education, intellectual capacity, or mere self-interest.
2:54	Survival demands a different kind of action than the traditional action in which we are caught.
3:10	Now before we go into all that, will you please bear in mind that we are sharing this thing together, that you are not merely listening to a talk given by the speaker but both verbally and non-verbally we are going to share the thing together, our problems.
3:51	Sharing implies a mutual interest, you must be interested vitally, as the speaker is, otherwise there is no sharing possible.
4:10	Sharing implies responsibility on your part, that you share fully, not partially.
4:23	Therefore we have to understand the meaning of words also.
4:33	Not the meaning you give to it or the speaker gives to it but the meaning that is generally understood according to the dictionary.
4:46	So if that is clear, that we are mutually investigating together into this question whether the human mind can be transformed, whether there can be psychological revolution.
5:09	And the urgency of human survival, because we are killing each other off, traditionally, in wars, in the division of nationalities, religious divisions, theological divisions, philosophical divisions and so on.
5:47	Each is seeking his own survival at different levels, not only economically, socially, but also inwardly.
6:00	And whether this survival of human beings is possible the way we are living.
6:15	The way we are living now is destructive.
6:24	Look at your own life, not according to the picture I describe, but at your own life, how wasteful it is, how meaningless it is, though you perform rituals, puja and innumerable – all the rubbish that goes on.
6:53	As a human being our lives are destructive, meaningless. You can give a meaning to it, which is part of our intellectual equipment, but when you look deeply into it, into our life, we see how we are wasting it, how we are dissipating the energy that is necessary for transformation of the human mind.
7:23	So you are not merely listening to a series of words, agreeing or disagreeing, concluding some inferences, or coming to an opinion, because opinion has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding.
7:52	Opinion is merely prejudice, through prejudice you can’t find the truth, whether your prejudice is traditional, rational, educated and so on, it is still a prejudice.
8:10	And we think through prejudice, in opposition to various forms of prejudices we will find a synthetic truth.
8:24	So if we are clear that we are sharing together these problems, that means you are listening, not merely to a series of words, listening to your own reactions, listening to what the speaker has to say.
8:50	If you disagree then you are not listening, or if you agree you are not listening.
8:59	If you want to listen to those crows who are going to bed tonight, you have to pay attention to what those crows are saying.
9:10	In the same way you have to pay attention to find out, to listen.
9:18	So listening becomes an art.
9:26	And that is absolutely necessary when two people are in conversation, two people who have got the same problem, the same intention to resolve that problem completely, the same sense of affection, diligent care, a sense of mutual responsibility, all that is involved in listening, and not in agreeing or disagreeing, because we are not dealing with ideas, theories, beliefs, concepts.
10:15	As we pointed out the other day, idea means, the root meaning of that word is to see, to perceive, not an abstraction of a fact.
10:36	So we need a new kind of energy to transform society.
10:46	And to transform society in which we live there must be a transformation of our whole being, that is the issue.
11:01	That’s what we are going to talk about in the next three talks.
11:08	There is intellectual energy and physical energy, and emotional, sentimental energy.
11:23	We will discard sentimental, emotional, devotional energy as nonsensical energy, it is a wasteful energy totally.
11:36	So there is physical and intellectual energy.
11:43	In that we are not including the energy which is compassion. That’s totally different. The energy of love is totally different from the intellectual and physical energy, which we will go into presently, perhaps not today, tomorrow.
12:10	The intellectual energy is mechanical. Please listen to this, you may not agree, don’t agree or disagree, but listen, have the courtesy of listening to find out what the speaker has to say.
12:31	Don’t translate it, what you think the speaker should or is saying, just listen; don’t compare what he is saying to what already you know, then you are not listening, you are dissipating the attention that is required in listening.
13:10	We have got a problem. Our problem is we need an energy that is not mechanical, we need energy, not the intellectual or physical energy because we have tried all those methods; the intellectual energy has produced a technological world, a world of materialism, a world of commercialism, industrial world which is the Western world, which the Eastern world is being sucked into, the so-called undeveloped countries.
14:10	I do not know if you are aware of this, you are just following the West.
14:19	Not that it is right or wrong, we are just looking. You are as materialistic as the West, you may have pretensions of religiosity, of theoretical appreciation of what god or what this or that is, which has no significance whatsoever when we are confronted with a very, very serious problem.
14:57	So physical energy and the intellectual energy has not solved our problems.
15:05	Intellectual energy is the capacity to think logically, to understand logically, rationally, sanely, objectively, a scientific way of looking at life.
15:27	We have tried that, the intellect has made a world of tradition, tradition is the result of thought which is part of the intellect, and that tradition has been handed over from generation to generation.
15:58	And the mind is caught in that, so it is a mechanical mind, and it has got a great deal of energy for going to the temples, reading books, everlasting rituals, prayers, building temples, talking endlessly about the Gita, the Upanishads, the gods and the interpretations of it, and you think that is religion.
16:40	And that certainly gives you a mechanical energy. I hope this is clear. Mechanical energy based on the past and the continuity of that past through the present, modifying the future.
17:01	That’s the whole movement of tradition.
17:09	And that movement creates a great deal of energy, and that energy has not solved our human problems.
17:19	It hasn’t solved our relationship with each other. It has not brought about an explosive, creative life.
17:35	So the intellectual energy is mechanical because it is based on experience, knowledge, and the response to knowledge is thought.
17:57	Right? So thought is essentially mechanical.
18:09	And all our structure is based on thought – social, moral, religious, all the temples, all the mosques, all the churches are built on thought, and your gurus too, don’t forget them.
18:32	And that has produced an extraordinary world of confusion, of division, quarrels, fights, you know what is happening in the world.
18:43	And we are still trying to solve all our problems through thought.
18:51	Right? Are we together in this? We are not agreeing, we are observing, we are sharing, we are sharing the same food.
19:16	You will not share the food if you don’t like the food.
19:25	So we are going to find out what is the energy that is entirely different, which is not intellectual, which is not physical.
19:49	Energy means work, energy means acting, the doing.
20:06	There are two different kinds of action: action, ideological action and action which is not based on ideas.
20:19	We are going to find out what that means.
20:29	Action based on ideas, on conclusions, on theories, is no action at all.
20:46	It is a limited action, a fragmentary action, a contradictory action which is what is happening in the world.
20:56	Human beings live probably at several levels – intellectual level, emotional level, physical level and the psychological levels are divided, divided in themselves; you think one thing, say another, do another.
21:25	Right? And all are based on this division of ideas. Are you following all this? We are going together? The ideological action is mechanical action.
21:49	In that there is a certain security, a repetitive action gives comfort, security, a sense of safety.
22:00	Right? You are following this? We are together in this? Please, it’s your life, not my life, we are dealing with our lives which have become so utterly mechanical.
22:28	The communists, the socialists, every person who wants to transform society, and society must be transformed because society as it is is totally immoral, totally unfair, economically, socially, in every way, and society needs to be transformed and to transform that society we have concepts, conclusions, either Marx or Mao or your own particular psychologists or philosopher, all are dealing with ideas, theories, conclusions, and carry the conclusions out, if it is possible, either through dictatorship or through democracy – these concepts which are the action based on ideologies.
23:48	Is this clear?
23:57	And ideas, theories, are always dividing people: the Indian theory that you are an Indian, that’s a theory, that’s a concept, a verbal conclusion, and there is the Pakistani on the other side who is equally conditioned by words.
24:28	Right? So ideological action is always divisive and therefore in essence it is rooted in conflict.
24:51	Please do realise this, don’t go to sleep.
24:59	And on that we have lived, that’s our life. Ideological actions and therefore dividing, me and you, we and they, national divisions, religious divisions, spiritual divisions, communist, you know, all that is going on in the world.
25:26	And when you see that, what’s going on actually in the world you inevitably ask – if you are serious, if you are really concerned with human suffering, with human endeavour, human survival – is there a different kind of action altogether?
25:50	You are following? Am I making myself clear?
25:59	Is there an action which is not based on ideals, on conclusions, on planning, government planning or your own planning?
26:17	Is there an action entirely free of the dividing, the dissipation of that division in energy?
26:30	We are going to find out – find out in the sense not theoretically but actually, that you find that action now in your life, not as a theory but actually.
26:53	I hope you are working as hard as the speaker is working, not merely listening.
27:04	Your responsibility is to share, therefore you have to be active, not just go to sleep.
27:20	Is there an action which is not based on ideas, on ideologies, on traditions, on books, on the say-so of a guru, or the say-so of a saviour?
27:48	That means, is there an action which is universal, not mine or yours?
28:08	Is there an action which is essentially based on freedom?
28:26	Is there an action which is non-mechanical because the mind, the brain is mechanical?
28:46	Right? The brain is the result of evolution, centuries upon centuries of growth, accumulation, all that is mechanical.
29:05	So the mind and the brain have become mechanical.
29:14	We are asking, is there an action which is non-mechanical, non-ideological, non-routine, repetitive, non-traditional – and the word ‘traditional’ also means betrayal.
29:35	Now we are going to find out.
29:46	I am not going to find out, you are going to find out, and you can only find out if you listen.
29:58	First of all diligent negation of the mechanical – diligent negation of the mechanical gives a certain quality of energy.
30:28	Right? Are we meeting each other?
30:41	I deny diligently – the word ‘diligent’ means with care, with attention, with a deep sense of responsibility, diligence implies an investigation, looking into with care – looking into the mechanical way of living, which we do now, to negate that.
31:26	That means you see for yourself how destructive a mechanical way of living is.
31:35	You see it as you see the danger of a snake, equally you see the danger of a mechanical way of living.
31:46	Right? Do you see that? Or do you see it because I have pointed out to you?
31:59	Or do you see that fact in your own life?
32:09	I don’t have to tell you you are hungry, you know when you are hungry.
32:18	Nobody needs to tell you how hungry you are, it has no meaning, but if you accept or look at this mechanical way of living through the eyes of the speaker it is not your understanding, it is not your perception.
32:41	And to negate that with care, with understanding, with exploration – with exploration, investigation, looking at all the tradition, the prayers, the rituals, the ideologies, the theories, the philosophies that we have invented, which are all mechanical – to see that is to deny it.
33:14	Now is your mind capable of doing that?
33:30	Your mind is not capable if you are frightened.
33:37	Right? So we have to investigate fear. I hope you are following all this.
33:56	Look, sir, all our thinking, however subtle, however noble, is based on the past.
34:21	Thought is matter, memory is stored in the brain and the response of that memory is thought, and all our structure is based on it.
34:45	Please. Now can my mind see how it has become mechanical, repeating something which I don’t know but repeat – there is god, there is no god, Stalin is the greatest dictator, whatever it was – repeat, repeat, repeat.
35:19	Now can my mind see the mechanical way of its action?
35:27	Do you see it? And you may not see it because you are frightened. What will happen if I don’t live mechanically, as I am living now, which has given me money, position, power, whatever it is, a sense of insular security, to deny, negate a mechanical way of living is to evoke fear, and which may prevent you from looking.
36:07	Therefore we have to investigate together what fear is. Right? We are moving together? Are we? Oh, for god’s sake. So we have to go into this question of fear. Can the mind – please listen to it – can the mind ever be free of fear?
36:39	Not only at the conscious level but at the deeper levels of our being, totally free of fear?
36:48	Otherwise if you are afraid you cannot possibly see directly ‘what is’.
37:00	Right? So what is fear? What are you afraid of? Aren’t you afraid? Go on, sirs, it’s obvious. You are afraid – losing a job, afraid of death, afraid of public opinion, afraid of old age, afraid of not being somebody, afraid that you will be punished, afraid that you will never get your reward, afraid of darkness, afraid of your wife or husband, afraid of your guru, afraid of the gods – multiplication of fears.
38:01	Right? Now can the mind be free of that?
38:19	Because fear destroys any kind of affection, any kind of compassion, love.
38:39	Fear distorts, fear of being alone, fear of not being loved.
38:54	Don’t you know all these fears? Fear of not being attached to something, it doesn’t matter what it is, it might be a tree, a house, a person.
39:21	So there is fear, both physical and psychological fears.
39:32	Now how you will solve it? How will the mind – your mind, if you have got a mind – how will your mind resolve this problem?
39:48	Have you ever applied your mind to this, or do you accept fear as part of life?
39:56	Fear of death, that’s the ultimate fear.
40:03	Now let’s investigate it together, which means that you are taking the responsibility of looking into it, not verbally or intellectually but actually so that when you get up you are free of fear.
40:30	Not only physical fears, fear of a disease that you may have had, pain that you may have had, and not be afraid of that pain repeating itself.
40:43	We are talking of the whole tree of fear, not one particular branch of that fear, of that tree, or a particular tender leaf but the whole structure of fear, the whole tree of fear, both at the deep unconscious level as well as the conscious level.
41:16	Now please follow this. Are you going to analyse it?
41:28	Investigate, analyse, each fear?
41:39	Analysis implies, the very word ‘analysis’ means break up.
41:48	In analysis there is the analyser and the analysed. Right? Come on, sirs, move with me. And that implies a division. And who is the analyser? Who is the analyser investigating, analysing the whole structure of fear which is in you, who is the analyser?
42:18	A part of yourself, isn’t it, right?
42:28	One fragment of yourself is analysing the other fragments. Go into it, please. One entity, the analyser, assumes he knows more than the other fragments.
42:48	He has accumulated knowledge and with that knowledge he is going to analyse.
42:58	So there is division between the analyser and the analysed, that means endless time you need.
43:16	And it may take a lifetime, and in the meantime the house is burning.
43:27	So are you going to analyse fear, or is there a way of looking at fear without analysis?
43:46	Are we moving together?
43:55	It is part of our tradition to analyse, and we are saying analysis is paralysis.
44:08	I know you laugh, it sounds rather good but you will go on analysing, and you have done that all your life and all your tradition is analysis, therefore you are paralysed.
44:24	Your society, your human beings are totally paralysed because you are repeating like a machine.
44:33	So is there a way of looking at fear without analysis?
44:47	Please, you must understand this because when we are talking about action which is not ideational, to understand that you must understand a way of looking at fear without the observer who is the analytical entity.
45:19	Is this all too difficult? Too abstract? Probably you have never thought about these things in this way.
45:34	So if something new is put before you don’t discard it, look at it.
45:49	We are asking, a mind that is used to analysis and therefore avoiding action – that has become our habit, to postpone, avoid, run away from the fact of fear.
46:20	Now is there a way of looking at fear which is not an observation with a conclusion?
46:43	That is, to observe fear without wanting to get rid of it, without wanting to suppress it, to control it, to search a way of becoming courageous, and so on, all those are factors of dissipation of energy, avoiding the fact and running away from the fact.
47:14	Right? Do you follow this? So can you look at that fear without any movement of thought?
47:31	Right?
47:38	Can you look at this tree of fear, which is part of you without the analyser coming into being and just to observe it?
47:57	Is not fear the product of thought?
48:09	I am afraid of the pain that I had and it might happen again tomorrow, I am afraid of tomorrow, losing a job, or not fulfilling, not having capacity and so on and so on.
48:38	So thought sustains fear.
48:45	Right? Now thought also sustains pleasure, doesn’t it?
49:04	The repetition of an experience however pleasurable, however gratifying is sustained by thought, thought saying, I must have it again, the repetition.
49:22	There is no ending of a particular incident however pleasurable, thought is always sustaining it, chewing the cud.
49:32	Are you following all this? Right, sir? Somebody follow this, for god’s sake. I must have some relation with somebody. So thought is responsible for the continuity and the pursuit of pleasure, as also sustaining and nourishing fear.
50:01	So the problem then is, can thought when it meets pleasure or fear not give it a continuity?
50:25	Well, sirs, what do you say, sirs? I must go on. Right. You see that means one has to understand very deeply the structure and nature of thought.
50:46	Until you do that you won’t solve the problem of fear and pleasure.
50:54	Pleasure has become again mechanical, sexual pleasure, mechanical, every form of pleasure becomes eventually mechanical: you see a lovely sunset and the brain experiences it and the repetition of it.
51:21	So can thought observe its own movement and can thought observe itself at all?
51:38	You are following? If it observes itself it creates an entity who becomes the observer, therefore there is a division in that and therefore conflict.
51:57	So can you observe fear without any movement of thought?
52:09	Not control thought, not suppress thought, but to observe without any movement of thought.
52:23	To come back to our point, which is: is there an action which is not ideational?
52:37	We said, action based on an idea must inevitably bring about conflict, wars, and all the misery that’s going on.
53:00	Action which is non-ideational is to perceive and the very perception is the action.
53:23	I perceive – listen to this – I perceive the snake and there is immediate action.
53:35	My action is based on my conditioning about the snake, because generations of people have said, ‘Be careful, if they are poisonous don’t go near them’, and the brain has been conditioned to the snake, to danger and therefore there is instant action.
54:07	You are conditioned to an action based on ideology, therefore there is no action.
54:25	You are paralysed, you bring conflict, therefore one is conditioned to the snake and there is instant action, you are conditioned to non-action, the non-action being action according to an ideology, to a concept, to a formula, and you are educated, conditioned to postpone action.
55:02	Now we are asking something entirely different: an action which takes place when there is observation.
55:14	Now we will have to look into that word and see what it means, and see whether the mind can observe without the movement of thought which is the past.
55:34	Right? Are you all paralysed?
55:44	You know that awakens a very interesting question: what is action?
56:02	Action means the doing, the acting in the present, the doing, not having done or will do.
56:14	The doing, action is in the present always.
56:21	Therefore what is the present? You are following all this? Please this is tremendously important to understand if you want to change your society, tremendously if you want to change, totally transform yourself, then you must understand the whole problem of time.
56:49	Can the mind, the brain, the mind and the brain, the whole movement of the activity of the brain which is thought, experience, knowledge, can that brain understand what the present is?
57:17	The present is not the past or the future, the present is not this second.
57:38	So what is the present?
57:48	And can action take place in the present, as you do when there is a danger, there is instant action, that action is totally in the present.
58:12	So can the mind which is mechanical, which is conditioned, which has been trained in reward and punishment, fear and pleasure, can that mind which is the result of time, can that mind understand what is the present?
58:42	And if it does not, then action is ideological and therefore conflicting, and all the rest of it.
58:53	Therefore it is immensely important to understand the present. And therefore action is always in the present, not in the future or in the past.
59:06	Are we meeting this? So I am going to find out what is the present.
59:19	Apart from the chronological time, by the watch as yesterday, today and tomorrow, the sun setting and sun rising, which is all time, why is my mind, psychologically, concerned with time?
59:48	You understand my question? Why are you concerned with time, apart from going to the office and all that, yesterday, tomorrow and today, why are you are concerned about time?
1:00:07	Aren’t you concerned about time? Time to achieve enlightenment, time to practise in order to have the glory of whatever it is, time you must have because you are going to meet your girl friend or your husband tomorrow, time to fulfil your gratifications, time to achieve, time to become, time to die – time.
1:00:46	Why are you concerned with time? Which means you really are not concerned with the present at all.
1:01:03	So why this tremendous importance to time?
1:01:14	Do please share this with me, not agree, you are concerned, that’s a fact, why?
1:01:30	Which means you are living in the past, that’s why time has become important to you, isn’t it?
1:01:47	Aren’t you living in the past?
1:01:54	What you were, what you have been, your hurts, your desires, all that is the past.
1:02:05	Knowledge is time. I don’t know if you see this.
1:02:17	Knowledge is tradition, knowledge is the very essence of time, all the scientific world is based on knowledge, accumulated, which is time: I need time to investigate, I need time to find out what the distance is between here and the moon, I need immense time.
1:02:46	That means time is knowledge, which is the past.
1:02:55	So we live in the past, in memories, pleasant memories, the remembrance of things past, painful, pleasurable, memories that have hurt very deeply, all that is our daily life.
1:03:15	Therefore we are concerned tremendously with time.
1:03:24	And therefore action is the postponement of the present: I will be better tomorrow, I will be good, give me time to be good, I will practise control, thought.
1:03:57	Do you follow? So living in the past prevents you from action in the present.
1:04:11	Now can you see – please listen – can you see the truth of this, not verbal truth, but the actuality of your life?
1:04:23	You know what philosophy means? The love of truth, the love of wisdom, not the speculative philosophy, not the ideational philosophy, but philosophy which means the love of truth and wisdom in your daily life now.
1:04:50	Now can you see the truth of this, that you live in the past – your sex, your pleasures, your fears – all the remembrance that you have is your life, which is the past, which projects through the present to the future.
1:05:19	So essentially the movement is from the past, and your life is that. Now can you see the truth of it, the actuality of it, as actual as that tree?
1:05:37	That means can you see an action, for action is always in the present, which is non-ideational?
1:06:05	The idea, the ideational, the concepts are either in the future or the result of the past that will be in the future.
1:06:19	You know, sirs, all the sociologists, all the intellectual people want to create a different world.
1:06:32	Obviously everybody wants that. And they have conclusions what society should be, they plan according to what society should be, therefore they are not acting now.
1:06:54	So can your mind – please do listen – can your mind, your whole being see the truth of this, this simple truth that action is in the present, not in the future or in the past, is now.
1:07:20	And the ‘now’ is not possible, the present action in the present is not possible if you are living in the past, if you are carrying out a tradition, if you are still a Brahmin, a Buddhist, all that.
1:07:52	Can you see the truth of it? So perception means the seeing without the observer.
1:08:10	And the seeing without the observer is the action in the present.
1:08:17	Look sir: there is poverty in this country, untold poverty, with all the degradation and the horror, the brutality, the violence that poverty breeds, that is going on in this country, you know it is just round the corner, everywhere it is.
1:08:47	The governments are concerned, the sociologists, the human beings are concerned, and what do you do?
1:09:03	You have plans how to resolve the poverty – the communist plan, the congress plan or your particular bureaucratic plan and so on and so on – plans.
1:09:18	That is, that you will carry it out in the future, given the opportunity, through democracy or through tyranny.
1:09:30	Which means you are not concerned with poverty now, in the present, therefore you are not acting, you are theorising, and in the meantime the poor man goes hungry.
1:09:53	This is the way we have lived, and probably we will go on living that way because you don’t want to live differently.
1:10:07	You don’t want to be a light to yourself, you would rather accept the light of another.
1:10:19	To be a light to yourself you have to stand completely alone, not isolated.
1:10:27	That means perception is action in the present, which means you are free of the past and the future, you are completely committed to the present, you are living there.
1:10:43	Therefore there is an action which is non-ideational, and that action is the total revolution of the mind, which is not based on the past.
1:11:14	That’s enough.
1:11:25	Would you like to ask questions? Questioner: Sir, you are asking us to observe without the observer. How can there be an observation without the observer?
1:11:37	K: All right, sir. You are asking us to observe without the observer, is that possible?
1:11:52	Have you observed your wife, your friend, your guru, your minister, have you observed anybody?
1:12:03	Please, I am asking a serious question. Have you observed anybody? Have you observed the speaker? Or you have an image about the speaker, you have an image about the speaker, haven’t you?
1:12:30	Unfortunately. His reputation, all that bilge. So you observe the speaker through the image you have built about the speaker, therefore you do not observe the speaker.
1:12:52	You observe your friend, or your girl, your boy, your husband, whatever it is, wife, through the image you have built.
1:13:08	Right? For god’s sake be honest to yourselves.
1:13:16	So you are looking at the world, looking at your neighbour, looking at your wife, husband, your guru, everything you look at through an image that you have built.
1:13:35	That image is the observer.
1:13:44	And the machinery that builds the observer is thought.
1:13:54	Now can you look at the speaker, at your wife, husband, boy, whatever it is, father, parents, government, everything without an image?
1:14:08	To look at a tree.
1:14:20	Do please consider this seriously, to look at a tree without the image that you have, the image being the knowledge, the like and the dislike, the prejudice, to look at it.
1:14:35	Can you look at the speaker without the image that you have about him?
1:14:45	The image that you have about him has been put together by your like and dislike, by the words that you have read, by his sitting on a platform and assuming an authority, which he has not got, but you have assumed an authority.
1:15:18	Can you look at him? Can you look at your wife, your husband without a single image, the image that you have built through pleasure, sex, through dependency, oh, a dozen ways, through nagging, bullying, dominating?
1:15:38	All that is the image you have about another, can you look without that image?
1:15:47	That requires tremendous attention, care, to know somebody.
1:15:54	Sir, if you say you know somebody, you don’t love somebody.
1:16:05	You understand what I am saying? No, you don’t. Love is not an image, love is not knowledge, love is not pleasure, thought.
1:16:30	And when you live in an image and you have dozens and dozens of images, the gods whom you worship, the image made by hand or by the mind is the image in your mind.
1:16:51	The image you have of the politicians, the businessman, the priest, the guru, the images you have about yourself primarily, can you live without any of those images?
1:17:09	Such a mind is a free mind.
1:17:16	Such a mind is a holy mind, not the mind filled with dirty little images.
1:17:28	Now can the mind having an image, having images, resolve them, put them away, and why does the mind build images?
1:17:42	It’s much safer to have images, it gives you a certain sense of security – it’s my wife, I know her, in that, when you say, I know her, you are safe, you are secure, but you don’t know her or him.
1:18:13	So when you live without an image you live with great humility.
1:18:20	Oh, don’t shake your head, sir, you don’t know what it means. To live without a single image means that a mind is completely free of the ‘me’, the ego, the self.
1:18:48	And because the mind, the brain wants to live in security, in the repetition, in the images it knows, in the tradition it has acquired, in that there is great safety, and that safety is its own destruction.
1:19:13	When you say that you are a Hindu you feel terribly safe.
1:19:23	And when you call yourself a Hindu you cease to be a human being, you are merely a label.
1:19:32	You know you listen to all this, I am surprised you don’t throw stones at me!
1:19:44	Probably you just accept what he is saying and go on with your old pleasant, ugly ways.
1:19:54	Q: Can I ask a question sir?
1:20:01	K: Right, sir.
1:20:06	Q: As you very rightly pointed out that the gathering here doesn’t throw stones on you when you told them that they should be ashamed of calling themselves Hindu.
1:20:24	I have been listening and very frequently you say, even this evening, that prayer, ritual, following the Gita, or Upanishads and all that is rubbish – does it equally apply to the Koran and the holy Bible?
1:20:45	K: Oh, sir, all books.
1:20:46	Q: All books.
1:20:47	K: Including my own books.
1:20:49	Q: One more question, please.
1:20:50	K: No, sir, sit down.
1:20:52	Q: If you don’t want me to listen.
1:20:53	K: I will, sir, go ahead.
1:20:54	Q: One more question: you said that it is a mechanical mind which we are going on repeating, repeating which has resulted in the present chaos.
1:21:01	And you said, you gave the snake example if we had not been taught that it is very dangerous to go near a snake, I think all the audience here would be going experimenting with a very deadly and poisonous snake.
1:21:12	I don’t know what the result will be. And also if there has not been the mechanical tuition that when we come here and assemble we should all take our chair and seats, I am sure that there would be only chaos left.
1:21:25	So it is a great advantage that there is a tradition set up to be followed, and you know what has happened when you break out of tradition, you can see from the present condition of the students who do not know ...
1:21:38	K: Sir, I think – I have understood sir.
1:21:46	The gentleman says you have great respect to the old age and having command of good English and there it ends.
1:21:56	I am afraid he hasn’t listened to what we have been talking about.
1:22:05	He said, tradition is important, the whole world is bucking against tradition, it had perhaps many centuries ago some importance, a tribal tradition is necessary for the tribe to survive, but we are no longer tribal.
1:22:34	At least, if you are nationalist you are tribal. And tradition also means, as I pointed out, betrayal: betrayal of the present.
1:22:54	I have explained all that. And if you have not understood I am sorry, perhaps we will talk about it again another day.
1:23:08	Q: Krishnamurti, excuse me sir, suppose we are paralysed, suppose that this evening...
1:23:23	K: No, no sir. Just a minute, sir, don’t let’s suppose anything.
1:23:29	Q: We are then.
1:23:31	K: Either we are or we are not.
1:23:32	Q: We are. Otherwise we would be not here listening to you. The question then is does each one of us then find for oneself the way not to become paralysed?
1:24:04	Or is there a system that you have come to understand that you can pass on to us that we can use as a technique to become unparalysed? That is my question.
1:24:09	K: Make it simple, sir, I can’t hear.
1:24:10	Q: You have a technique for us sir? Do you have a technique for salvation, sir?
1:24:12	K: Ah, have you got a technique for salvation – is that it, sir?
1:24:15	Q: Not salvation in the sense that we have come to understand it.
1:24:21	K: Yes, have you a technique to free the mind to live differently – is that it?
1:24:28	Q: Exactly, sir.
1:24:32	K: Right, sir. Have you a technique to free the mind so that it lives in the present.
1:24:49	Technique means a system, a method, a way of living, pointed out by the speaker and you will live according to that.
1:25:10	That’s the new tradition. And that’s what is so deadly in following somebody.
1:25:23	We are saying, sirs, please do listen with your heart, with your mind, with everything that you have, that anyone who practises, follows, is destroying himself and destroying the world.
1:25:45	We need a different mind, a free mind, not a mind trained in a particular technique, a mind that is free to observe and to act instantly, from moment to moment.
1:26:01	That doesn’t need a technique, that’s a mechanical mind. A mind that is free is the mind that observes the present and acts in the present.
1:26:16	Right, sirs.