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MA8384Q2 - 2nd Question & Answer Meeting
Madras (Chennai), India - 5 January 1984
Public Question & Answer 2



0:10 Krishnamurti: I nearly forgot. In investigating these questions we are going to have a dialogue. A dialogue is a conversation between two people. You ask the question, the speaker answers it then you respond to that answer, and when you respond to that answer then the speaker answers your response. So in this process of questioning, answering, answering, and the very answering is being questioned, so this keeps going till both the questioner and the speaker disappear altogether, only the question remains. You understand? I wonder if I can make this clear. It is very important that the question remains suspended as it were. And when you ask a question and the speaker answers that question, and you respond to that question through that answer – you are following this? No, I am afraid not. Please, this is rather complicated. I don't know how to put it across so that we really understand this problem, this question. Because in questioning and answering, from each one of us, till you and the speaker are no longer important but only the question remains. And as the question remains, it gains vitality, energy. You understand this? We are going to try this morning. Have you finished with your waving, sir? This is a rather serious question that we are putting before you, that what is important is we must ask questions if you are at all serious. And in questioning, the answer may be correct or incorrect but you must respond to that answer, and then when you respond, the speaker then questions what you have responded, so in this process you as the questioner and I who responds disappear altogether so that only the question remains. You understand it? Do we meet this at all, some of us at least? Because we never ask questions, which is, we want the answer to be comfortable, suitable, convenient, hopeful. But in questioning and answering, all that disappears. We are trying to find out what is the true, what is factual, what is the correct answer, correct response, precisely. So, to find that out you and I must totally disappear, only the question and answer remains. You get it? I hope some of you get it.
6:00 It is a lovely morning, a few drops of rain, and the earth is rich and beautiful, and to have a relationship with these trees, with nature, with those marvellous clouds you perhaps saw this morning, full of beauty, full of light and astonishing shapes. And we never look at these things, we are too much concerned with ourselves. And to go beyond ourselves requires a great deal of thought, enquiry and so on. We are not dealing with theories or principles or ideas, we are dealing with our daily life. Not corresponding our daily life to some theory, some teaching, whether it is the teachings of the Buddha or the teachings of somebody else. We are not concerned with the teaching of others, we are concerned to find out for ourselves how to live without conflict, without pain. And that doesn't depend on any theory. And especially in this country, you live on words, phrases, tremendous knowledge of what other people have said, you are full of commentaries. And you never discover for yourself when you depend or follow other people's concepts and principles and teachings. So please, let's find out if we can live without comparison and therefore without conflict, to see if we can really fundamentally change our way of living. Because the world is in a great crisis – I don't know if you know all about it – tremendous crisis, not only physical crisis but crisis in consciousness of human beings. So please, let's be serious, in spite of the beauty and the light among the trees.
9:54 Question 1: For the last seven years, whatever work I have attempted to undertake whether inwardly, psychologically, or externally in the fields of business, finance, education, family and so on, has ended in failure. Anything that I have touched has turned to ashes. What is the cause of this state of affairs and what is the remedy?
10:35 For the last seven years, whatever work I have attempted to undertake whether inwardly, psychologically, or externally in the fields of business, finance, education, family and so on, has ended in failure. Anything that I have touched has turned to ashes. What is the cause of this state of affairs and what is the remedy? Are you interested in this question? Are you interested in this question, or is it somebody else's question in which you are not interested, and only interested in your own question? The questioner asks why everything he has touched outwardly, inwardly, has turned into ashes, and what is the cause of it and what is the remedy? It is a rather interesting question if you go into it carefully.
12:08 We all want to succeed. We worship the god of success or the goddess of success, politically, religiously and in the field of business, science, you all want to be recognised, rewarded, famous. I do not know if you have watched among the scientists the in-fighting that goes on amongst themselves, among the professors, amongst the business people. My family is better than your family – you know, the whole process of the desire to succeed. What is success? Please, I am asking you the question, you have to reply to it. You can't all reply, then too much noise, we wouldn't understand each other, but you must respond to that. Why is it that we all seek to be successful? What does successful mean? Answer it inwardly for yourself. To fulfil your desires, to have more money, to be famous, to have the Nobel Prize, and if you can't you are jealous, angry, fighting? So what does success mean? And you are a disciple of some guru – I hope you aren't – if you are, you want to attain, whatever that may mean, you want enlightenment, whatever that may mean. It is the same process in the business world, in the psychological world, in the so-called spiritual world, we all want to be successful, to achieve something – why? Why this tremendous urge in the affluent society and in society that is not so? What is the human urge that propels us, drives us to seek success? Please, answer it.
15:30 Is it that through power, through money, you have freedom and you can enjoy that freedom? Money has become very important, and having no money also becomes important. Power, political power, religious power, the idols that are in the temple with their priests, all that is a form of power. You all want that, power over somebody or other, and all this you call success. You are not so beautiful, you want to be beautiful, and so on and on and on.
16:49 Does success depend on comparison? On competition? You are answering, please. In business, every boy wants to be successful in examinations, and so on. What does all that mean, this tremendous urge to be successful, to achieve, to become? Please answer that – to become. I am not this but I will become that. I am poor, I am going to work like blazes and get powerful, money, better position, which is this everlasting struggle to become something. You are an apprentice to a barrister and then you want to be the barrister, you know the game that we all play to become something. What is it that is becoming? Please answer this question to yourselves: what is it that is becoming? Your desire to achieve your goal, to achieve a better position, a status – what is it that is becoming, the thing that is becoming? You understand my question? I am nothing but I will become something. What is it that says, I am nothing but I will become something? You understand my question? I am angry, violent, I will become non-violent. That is your game you play. But in the meantime you are sowing the seeds of violence.
20:15 Please, this is important to find out for oneself, what is it that is becoming? Is it desire? If it is desire, to have a car, to have a better house, to have a better wife, more beautiful, more subservient, domestic – so is desire the root of becoming? I am not saying anything against desire so don't withhold it. We are just questioning each other. Is it that desire, seeing a beautiful house, a lovely garden, if you want, if you have ever seen a beautiful house with a lovely garden, a lawn that is kept beautifully without a single weed, and you see it, and you say, 'My God, I wish I had it!' That is becoming. Right? So what is desire? You answer that question, please. So I desire to become successful in various fields or in the career I have chosen. I have an object I must have at the end of so many years, of whatever target you have, and you strive after it. If you have not had children, you want children. It is the same thing – desire. Right? The desire to achieve nirvana, desire to achieve illumination, desire to go to America or become a great scientist so that you can win a Nobel Prize, it is the same movement, the becoming. So we must enquire not only into one of the facets of becoming, which is desire, and what is desire? Now, I have asked that question, the speaker has asked that question. It remains there. It is in the air. How do you respond to that question? Or do you leave that question to flower, grow, see all the implications of it? You understand?
24:19 You have a map in front of you, a map of this country. If you have a certain spot or certain town you want to go to, you disregard the rest of the map. You have a direction to go to and you pursue that in the map. You never look at the whole of the map because you have only one pursuit, because you want to be successful, you want to achieve. If you don't achieve you are nobody, you are frightened. If you call yourself Ph.D., your family purrs, delighted. If you have a Nobel Prize, all the papers throughout the world – except perhaps behind the Iron Curtain – publish your name, you become famous, rich. But it is the same movement whether your desire is for illumination, enlightenment, or for the Nobel Prize, or to be a rich man in a potty little town. Right, sir? So we are asking, what is desire? If one can understand that, not suppress it, not control it, not try to transcend it, like a monk who has a desire only for God, whatever God that may be, and it is the desire to achieve that kingdom that drives him. He still has the fire of desire as you have. So what is desire? Find out, sir. I have put the question. How do you respond to that question? Probably you have never even thought about it, you probably never even – I am saying this most respectfully – you never even investigated it. If you have desire you want to fulfil it, with all the problems involved in it. If you are a slightly moral person, you say, I mustn't have that desire, you suppress it. The monks throughout the world have suppressed desires but only identified that desire with a figure, a symbol, an idea, a principle. But it is still desire. So let us ask, the speaker is asking you: what is desire? Don't quote me, because then you haven't understood if you quote somebody else. The speaker has talked a great deal about desire and some of you may have read those books, and the word is not the fact, what you read is not what you are. So what is more important is what you are. So, to come back, what is desire? And why is it it has become so extraordinarily vital in our life?
29:27 Questioner: Is it I want a meaning to my life?
29:30 K: Beg your pardon?

Q: Is it that I want a meaning to my life that I have a desire?
29:39 Q: She said that, I want a meaning to my life.
29:42 K: So you want a meaning to life. Which means you have no meaning to life. Right? You have no meaning, life has no meaning, therefore you try to give, intellectually or another way, to give a meaning to life. So, if you give a meaning to life, it is not life. If you want to give a significance to that tree then you don't know the beauty of the tree. If you want to give significance to your empty life – you may be married, children, all the rest of the business, and you find when you are about forty, fifty, sixty, life has no meaning, then you try to give meaning to it, by going to the temple, literature, playing the violin, painting, anything to escape from what you are. Right, sirs? You are talking about your life, not theories, not what other people have said. So what is desire? Come on, sir, look at it. We live by sensation, and sensations are the responses of our senses, and we use only one or two senses, eyesight or hearing. Sensation is our way. One must have sensations otherwise you are paralysed, as most of you are. Paralysed in a country that is going down the hill, paralysed by your gods, by your philosophy, by your way of life. I am not criticising, these are facts. So unless you are totally paralysed you have the movement of sensation, senses are operating. When you look at that tree and the beauty of light among the leaves, there is a response, there is a sensation. Right? When you see a beautiful woman you have sensations. When you see a very, very clever man, as most of you are – you are a very clever people, too clever by half, you have explanation for everything, you are good at analysis, explanations. Those analyses, explanations, quotations have nothing to do with your daily life, so there is a wide gap between your theories, religious concepts, philosophical knowledge, has nothing whatever to do with your daily living, and that is why you are all living a life that has no meaning. So let's proceed. What is desire? How does desire arise? What is the relationship between desire and thought? Go slowly. I am asking all these questions. Who is the controller who controls desire? And why all religions say you mustn't have desire – more or less, in different terminologies. So unless we understand very deeply the activity of desire, not the objects of desire, not the objects of desire but desire itself. A child may want to be an engine driver or he may want to be a first-class pianist, but it is still desire, and so on. We are not concerned with the objects of desire but desire itself. Right?
36:38 Q: Desire and survival are inseparable.
36:43 K: Desire and survival are inseparable. What is it to survive? What does it mean to survive? Survive physically? If you want to survive physically and be secure physically you must have no nationalities, because tribalism, which is glorified nationalism, is destroying the world. Right? Ideals, ideologies of Russia and the ideologies of the democratic world are destroying humanity. So there is no security. You are not surviving. The danger is there but you are blind to it because you say nationalism is security. So security, survival, has a meaning only when you don't belong to any country, to any group, to any religion. Then you are a strong person both biologically as well as psychologically. You are a free human being and you might help to prevent the stupidities of politicians and the voters. So let's proceed. What is desire? What is the origin, the beginning of desire? I see you. There is the seeing of the colour of that sari or that shirt, the seeing with the eye, visual perception, and there is a sensation, which is: I don't like that colour but I like that colour. You are following this? Seeing, from which arises a sensation, then I contact the sari or the shirt, contact in the sense touch it, sensation, contact, and from that contact greater sensation. Which is, I see a beautiful shirt in the window or a sari or whatever you want, seeing then going inside and touching the material and from that touching greater sensation. Right? You are following this? Don't you do this ordinarily in your daily life?
40:40 Q: Yes.
40:41 K: That is what you are doing – seeing, contact and greater sensation. Now, what happens after that? No, I am asking you the question – think it out. Sir, think it out, go into it carefully. I see that beautiful house. The seeing creates a sensation. If I am a friend of that house I go inside, look at the walls, look at the shape of the windows. All that is a sensation. Then what takes place?
41:47 Q: I want to have it.

K: Yes, that is sensation.
41:54 K: I am asking – please do pay a little attention if you are interested in it. We must have sensations, otherwise you are biologically, physically paralysed. If your arm doesn't feel then that arm is paralysed. So there must be sensation. That is a natural, healthy state. If I ask you a question and if you are actively mentally aware you respond to it. But if you are tired, sleepy, lazy, or burdened with philosophy, burdened with other people's sayings, then you can't respond. You will say what other people have said. So there is the seeing, contact, sensation. This is natural, healthy. Then what takes place? It is all so rapid, so instantaneous, so we are slowing it down. Then what takes place?
43:35 Q: The sensation is registered in the brain.
43:41 K: Yes sir, Of course. Then what? Don't go into great explanations. We have made a very simple statement.
43:54 Q: But after, that brain is refreshed.
43:56 K: No sir, just look at it before you answer it. I must go on otherwise you will throw lots of words at me. I see that house, the seeing, touching the marble, looking at the pillars, looking at the good windows, and that is sensation. Then what takes place? Then thought comes in and says, 'How nice it would be if I had that house.' See what takes place. Then thought uses the sensation. And thought is also another sensation. Thought creates the image, my image that I must have that house. That is, sensation, then thought instantly creates the image of me living in that house. Have you understood it? Have you understood something? That is, thought takes charge of the sensation and out of that sensation create the image, and the image is owning that house or that car or that something or other. You have followed this? So, watch it carefully. Sensation is healthy, normal, then thought comes along and says, out of that sensation creates the image. And when thought shapes the sensation, at that second desire is born. Don't agree, don't say, yes, that is a good explanation. Now, if you don't shake your head in agreement then why are you a slave to desires? Right? You are too quick to agree with anything that is said. But I am pointing out most respectfully that we are always trained to control, suppress, transcend, escape in various forms from desire. Have you noticed the sannyasis in this country and the monks in Europe, especially in Italy? They are walking down the street and they have the Bible and never look around because of temptation. So, book. And the sannyasis in this country, I have followed many of them, behind them, they are chanting something or other, never look at the beauty of the earth, the flowers, the streams, the sky, the passing woman – but, 'don't be tempted.' Right? So, I am asking you a question: sensation is right, natural, healthy. Can thought not interfere? When thought takes charge of sensation, at that second desire is born. You understand this? Sensation is natural, and a gap when thought doesn't interfere. You understand what I am saying? So can thought abstain for a few seconds? That means tremendous awareness, great attention. Don't say: what is attention, what is awareness, go off into some explanation.
50:10 To see sensation is natural, and discover for yourself that the moment thought takes charge of the sensation, at that second desire is born – I want that house or that woman or that something or other. Right? To be aware, to pay attention so that thought doesn't take charge of sensation. That is timeless. I won't go into all that. You have never thought about all this. you are all grown-up people. You have ashes on your head, go to temples, and all kinds of childish stuff, and you haven't even gone into yourself, you have never even thought to ask these questions. So, discipline is not the end of desire. Discipline itself becomes desire. Right? But if you learn what is desire, learn, not from the speaker, from yourself, understand, investigate, go into it, then it is yours, you are learning. There was a great Spanish painter. He was 95 or more or less – Goya – he said, 'I am still learning.' You understand? So learning is everlasting but knowledge is not, knowledge is limited, finite. But you are learning. So if one learns, not learn about desire but if you are learning the meaning of desire, what is involved in it, how it arises, keep on learning, then that very learning brings its own discipline. If you want to be a good chemist, good biologist, that very subject becomes the means of training, of discipline. You don't know any of these things. Where do you all live? Not in Triplicane, Madras or around here – where do you live? If life has no meaning and all the temples are full of things made by hand and by the mind, which you are worshipping, all this has no meaning at all anymore. So please ask this question of yourself: why life, which is an extraordinary thing, great complexity, great depth and great beauty, why that life has become so shoddy.
54:38 Question 2: We are unable to see the crises in our lives with all our senses – as you put it. Consequently we are in endless misery. How can we gather our entire energy and see 'what is'?
54:58 We are unable to see the crises in our lives with all our senses – as you put it. Consequently we are in endless misery, and how can we gather our entire energy to see 'what is'? This is the question. You have understood the question? Why do you say, 'as you put it'? Why are you concerned what the speaker has said? You understand? What is important is what you think, what you feel. Burn all the books including the speaker's, and look. The question is: we have crises in our lives and we are unable to solve them or meet them correctly and so we are in endless misery. How can we gather this tremendous energy necessary to meet this crisis? That is the question. Where is the crisis? Crisis economically, socially, politically, religiously – is it out there or in us? Where is the crisis? Tell me. We like to think crisis is out there.
57:30 Q: The crisis is only in our mind – I think so.
57:34 K: Yes sir, that is in your own consciousness, in your own being, first. Is that so? You understand? We say no, it is not out there – so where is it? If it isn't out there it must be in you. Therefore you are the crisis. Right? Do you accept that? You as a human being are the real crisis, not politics, not war, not the crisis in business or in technology or in chemistry, but you as a human being are the crisis.
58:42 Q: There is a crisis that existed, sir.
58:47 K: Have you listened to what I said, sir? I am not trying to suppress you, sir. I asked you a question, which is: is the crisis in you or in the world outside there? If it is in you, you are the crisis. See that, for God's sake. Human beings are the crisis. What, sir?
59:35 Q: The absence of human beings will solve the crisis.
59:39 K: Absence of human beings. It is a clever remark. You are not facing the fact. What am I to do, sirs? The crisis is both in the world and in us. The crisis in the world, we have created it. So it is a crisis outwardly and inwardly. And the outer crisis is the product of human beings, the result of politicians who represent the voters. Not in the communist world, totalitarian world, in the democratic world the crisis is created by every human being in electing their presidents, their prime ministers, their chief ministers, and so on, so on, so on. So you as a human being are responsible for the immense crisis that we are facing. You may not want to look at it. You say, 'No, no, it is happening somehow, I am not responsible for it.' But each one of us is responsible for it. Right? Do you see the fact of it? Do you see the truth of it? Do you? If you don't, the speaker can't do anything about it. But if you do, let's talk about it, let us investigate it, not taking sides. Which means, to investigate it you cannot have any prejudice, any bias, any opinion.
1:02:32 A brain must be free of its prejudices to understand, to investigate. If the scientist is exploring matter he cannot have preconceptions about it, he cannot have some conclusions about it. If he has, then his conclusions interfere with his investigation. Right? So he must be free from conclusion to find out what is matter.
1:03:18 So we must see the crisis is in us. We have made this world, not the nature, not the tree, thank God, not the tiger, not the deer, but we have made the social world, the world in which we live, competition, all that is going on in the world. So the society in which we live is created by us. That society cannot be changed by legislation, by more and more and more laws, more and more lawyers, more and more better politicians. That society can be changed only by each one of us radically changing. That is a fact. If you don't want to change society, if you want to remain as you are, you are perfectly welcome. I am not inviting you. That is what you are going to do when you leave this place. You may all shake your head and agree and say how marvellous everything is, but moment you step out of the gate you are back in your old world.
1:04:57 So the question is: what will make you change? You have suffered endlessly, you have had problems upon problems, pain upon pain, conflict, endless – what will make you change all that? More reward, more punishment, more hell and more heaven? All that has been offered before but you haven't changed. I know you smile, I know you say, 'Yes, that is so.' So what will you do to change? So you ask: tell me, how am I to change? Which means what? You want a system to help you to change. Right? Have you noticed that all systems, all systems, whether democratic system, communist system, a religious system, the system of meditation, inherently contain in themselves degeneration? Right? Have you noticed this? All systems – don't say, my system is different – all systems contain in themselves a wastage of energy, which is entropy. We are using a scientific word.
1:06:55 So the question is: how to gather – not how – is it possible to gather all your energy and face something? You aren't getting tired? I see people yawning – sorry. If you are tired, I'll stop. I don't mind. I am not insulted. If you are interested we will go on, go on with your questioning, not just let me talk and you just shake your head, question back and forth. In what manner can I gather this energy which I am wasting, not sexually only, energy which I need to face this crisis which I have created? You understand? And the questioner quotes the speaker, saying that we must use all our senses. Now we are going to discuss that a little. Question and answer, I don't tell you and you don't tell me, we are questioning each other. So there is no authority, there is no disciple, there is no follower, we are questioning each other. We use only partially our senses. Right? That is a fact. Either you hear only with your ears, but you don't listen. See the difference? I hear what you are saying but I don't listen to the depth of what you are saying. Which is, I listen and the very listening is bringing a change. But if I merely hear, it is passing wind, words. So we use partially our senses, we never use all our senses at the same moment. Right? Have you noticed this? Oh, for God's sake. We never use all our senses, which means we are never completely attentive, completely giving all our attention – which I am doing now and you are not doing it. You understand? That is, when I use all my senses, when I look at something, there is that marvellous sea, wave upon wave, the blue waters. If you look at that sea with all your senses, there is no centre as the 'me' looking. I wonder if you understand. It is only when partial senses are operating there is the sense of the 'me'. Have you noticed that?
1:11:21 Q: Sir, can all your senses listen to the birds' noise, the birds' sound, can all your senses listen to it?
1:11:29 K: I am. I am listening to you with all my senses.
1:11:33 Q: Can you see the sound? You said all the senses.
1:11:38 K: You have said something: Can you listen to that bird attentively? Are you listening to that crow attentively?
1:11:48 Q: Yes, sir.

K: What does that mean?

Q: What should it mean?
1:11:57 K: I must go on. You see, you get dissipated. I am just asking you, most respectfully, have you ever looked at anything with all your senses? You have never done it. What, sir?
1:12:31 Q: They seem to think, when we are looking at something we are also hearing it and feeling it and all that.
1:12:38 K: Sir, please, just listen. I have put a question, which is, have you listened or seen or felt with all your senses? Find out. I am not saying you have or you have not. I say discover for yourself what it means to listen to that crow, to listen to your wife, which is much more important than the crow, listen to your husband, and listen with all your energy, which means all your senses alert. Not sexual senses, not merely the sensory responses but the whole totality of your energy. One has probably never done it. I am not criticising, I am not telling you you have not done it, but probably you have not done it. And if you do it then you will discover something extraordinary for yourself, that for that moment there is completely no problem, no conflict, because you are so tremendously alive, tremendously attentive. It is only not being able to attend that creates the problem. But if you are attentive to what you say, to what you think and see the division between your thinking and your action – say one thing and do another, which you are all so beautifully trained.
1:15:12 Q: A man has been starving for many days. Is it possible for him to put all his senses?
1:15:19 K: Of course not, sir. Don't bother about the man who has not had enough food. That is a wastage of energy, this is talk about a man who has had no food for three days, whereas you are the crisis, not that poor chap. So, first discover for yourself how we waste our energy, chattering, endless chattering, talking endlessly about Gita, philosophy, what the Buddha said, and the counter, chattering, chattering, chattering, quarrelling, conflict, struggling – all that is wastage of energy. When all that stops you have a tremendous energy, and the brain becomes extraordinarily alive, not dead. And so to have this tremendous energy, which is to have passion, not lust, passion, you require a great deal of enquiry, not separate action from what you think and what you feel, so that we live a life that is healthy, sane, normal, and go beyond that. Sorry.