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ND67T3 - Love is not mechanical
New Delhi - 26 November 1967
Public Talk 3



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s third public talk in New Dehli, 1967.
0:09 If we may, we will continue with what we were talking about the last time that we met here.
0:22 We were saying how essential it is to be completely free from fear.
0:36 Fear, conscious or unconscious, does dissipate energy, and we need a great deal of energy, not only to live with all the innumerable problems that one has, but also to go beyond these problems.
1:15 And most of us have very little energy because we dissipate it in so many ways: we don’t eat properly, we are confused, we are in struggle, constant battle with ourselves and also with the world.
1:42 And we need an abundance of energy to penetrate through all these conflicting problems and come to a state of mind that is not at all distorted, that is not tortured, that is in balance and capable of clarity and penetration.
2:29 And for that energy is wholly necessary.
2:40 But unfortunately we waste our energy in effort.
2:51 We are going to go into this question of effort: what is involved in it, the nature of it, the structure of it and whether it is possible for the mind never to be in conflict, not ultimately, but every day, in everything that we do.
3:22 Is it possible for the mind, which is the result of time, of experience, of accumulated knowledge, to live without any struggle, without any conflict and therefore without any effort?
3:57 I am sure it must have happened to you in your daily life, there are rare moments when you function as though you were in complete abandonment, complete harmony with yourself, with the world, with everything about you, so that there is no struggle, there is no effort, there is no striving after something.
4:44 When you see the clarity of an evening or of the morning very clearly, when you are completely one with nature, when every tree says something to you, and every flower is a delight – you must have had that, rarely, when the mind is not disturbed.
5:18 And is it possible to live like that and functioning efficiently, technologically, almost like a computer, without a battle within oneself?
5:44 Because I feel we human beings are tortured entities, driven by innumerable desires, contradictory desires, driven by our demand to fulfil, to achieve, to succeed, to compete – we are always comparing ‘what is’ with ‘what should be’.
6:24 And this comparison is one of the factors of conflict.
6:33 Please, as we said the other day, which I hope you will not mind being repeated, that this is not a talk to which you listen and go home with a few set of ideas, agreeing or disagreeing.
6:59 We are listening, thinking out together our problems, we are taking a journey together into ourselves, into our lives, into our conflicts, into our miseries, into our unutterable loneliness and despair.
7:27 You are not merely listening to a few words but listening so that you really hear your own mind working, operating, functioning, so that you see yourself very clearly, not what is good or what is bad but actually see ‘what is’.
8:03 And if one could listen in such a manner, not only to what the speaker is saying but also to the birds, to what your neighbour says, to your boss in the office, to yourselves when you are soliloquising, when you are talking to yourself – listen so that you find out, so that you learn.
8:46 And I hope you will listen that way, because we are not doing any propaganda, we are not telling you what to do.
8:59 That is one of the most terrible things, to be told what to do.
9:06 We are grown-up people – at least supposed to be – and to rely on another, to be told the way of life, how to behave, what is righteousness, what is not, seems to me a state of immaturity.
9:27 And no one can make you mature – all that one can do is to listen and learn.
9:43 But learning is a very difficult art.
9:51 Most of us know how to accumulate knowledge, and from that knowledge act.
10:03 Please observe what we are talking about in yourself. We learn, we accumulate knowledge, experience, a great many memories and from those memories, knowledge, experience, we act and from that acting learn more and add to what has already been accumulated.
10:34 This is our daily life. But is that learning? Is not learning something from moment to moment? Not accumulating and then from that accumulation add more. One doesn’t know a particular language, then one learns the grammar, reads and gradually accumulates words, phrases, how to use verbs and so on, and from that accumulation you begin to speak that language, adding more words.
11:28 And that’s generally what we do in daily life: accumulate and then act, and then from that action, learn, to add more or to take away.
11:48 But one must question whether such an act, process is actually learning.
11:57 To learn means – does it not? – that you are learning about something you don’t know.
12:13 Not, having learnt, act.
12:20 But you are learning about something which you don’t know and from that state of learning you are acting.
12:30 So learning is always in the constant, in the present, it’s an active present, not a thing which you have accumulated from which you act.
12:45 I think there is a great deal of difference between these two. One is mechanical, that is, having accumulated knowledge and acting from that, and the other is non-mechanical, is an active present, which is always learning not accumulating – and that is the only way to live, in the present, which we will, perhaps, if there is time, we can go into.
13:22 As we were saying, we need energy to learn, to look, to listen but that energy is limited when I look or listen from a particular knowledge, with an accumulated burden.
13:58 And this energy is surely dissipated through effort.
14:11 Now what does effort mean? – not according to the dictionary or the definition but actually, when do we make an effort?
14:27 When we do something that is pleasurable there is no effort, you do it easily; and when there is something which you are obliged to do, which is rather a strain, which is not pleasurable – please observe this in yourself- which is not pleasurable, which is rather painful, which is not satisfying, then there is an effort to do it.
15:08 Effort implies – does it not?
15:16 – a state of mind in which there is duality: wanting something and not wanting it, a contradiction in ourselves.
15:37 When there is a contradiction in ourselves then this contradiction creates a dual activity and this dual activity to understand it, to go beyond it, is effort.
16:11 As we said just now, when we do something which is pleasurable, there is no effort involved at all in it, we do it easily because it’s very satisfactory, it gives you a great deal of pleasure, there is no effort involved – effort in the sense, struggle – you do it easily.
16:42 But pleasure, in pleasure there is always pain – isn’t there?
16:53 Pleasure doesn’t exist by itself, it brings with it a certain movement which is the contradictory of what is pleasurable.
17:10 Right? And this contradiction in pleasure itself brings about this battle of the opposites.
17:27 Right? Look, one is violent and the opposite of it is non-violence, and there is a contradiction in it – violence and non-violence.
17:58 This contradiction is the cause of conflict, which means effort.
18:09 Now if one could remain with violence and not with its opposite then there is no contradiction.
18:19 Please, this is very important to understand. Why do we have duality at all? There is duality – man, woman, light and shade and all the rest of it – but inwardly, psychologically, why do we have duality at all?
18:44 Please, think it out with me, don’t wait for me to tell you, we are examining it together, because there is no authority here at all.
19:01 I am not an authority, therefore you need to exercise your mind as much as the speaker to find out why we have this duality, psychologically.
19:19 Is it our conditioning? Is it that we have been brought up to compare ‘what is’ with ‘what should be’?
19:36 We have been conditioned in what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, this is, this should be and that should not be, this is moral and that is not moral – is that one of the many reasons?
20:00 And why? Why has this duality come into being at all? Is it because we think by thinking about the opposite – opposite of hate, opposite of violence, opposite of envy – the opposite will help us to get rid of ‘what is’?
20:31 You are following all this? Do we use the opposite as a lever to get rid of ‘what is’? Or is it an escape from ‘what is’?
20:56 You understand? That is, human beings are violent, that violence is shown in many, many different ways.
21:10 The opposite of that is non-violence. We think through practising non-violence or thinking about non-violence we’ll be rid of violence.
21:28 But is that a fact? That is the ideal, that is what has been preached, that is one of the commodities of India which you export abroad, which nobody believes in.
21:43 So, is the opposite an escape from the actual, which is violence?
21:56 Please examine it – it’s your life, it’s not my life.
22:03 So we use the opposite as a means of avoidance of the actual about which we don’t know what to do.
22:16 Right? If I know what to do about violence I will not think about its opposite.
22:28 If I know, if I have the capacity, the energy, the clarity, the passion, to understand actually violence, then there is no need for the ideal.
22:44 Right? So, is it that we have the opposite in order to escape from ‘what is’, because we don’t know how to deal with ‘what is’ and also it is because we have been told by thousands of years of propaganda that the opposite – you must have the ideal, the opposite, in order to deal with the present.
23:28 So can the mind be free of the opposite when you are dealing with violence.
23:37 Right? Because one sees, obviously, you may preach non-violence for the rest of your life and practise and all the rest of it, but you are sowing the seeds of violence all the time.
23:57 So if one could, if the mind could remain actually with ‘what is’, then there is no opposite.
24:12 And can the mind never compare? Compare ‘what is’ with ‘what should be’, compare your own state of stupidity, ignorance or brightness or whatever it is with somebody else so that you are dealing always with ‘what is’, never with ‘what should be’, so that you have no ideal at all because it’s the ideal that is creating the opposite.
25:10 If I know how to deal with ‘what is’ then the opposite is not necessary. So one has removed the fundamental cause of effort – duality – and therefore one has the energy to face actually ‘what is’.
25:38 Right? Can one do that? Not theoretically, not verbally, not intellectually say, ‘That’s perfectly true’ but carry on with your daily opposites – can one actually cease to compare?
25:58 You know it’s one of the most difficult things to do, not to compare yourself with somebody.
26:15 This comparison has been taught from childhood, in every school: ‘You are not as clever as the other’.
26:28 So when you compare what actually takes place?
26:37 When A compares himself with B, the hero, the saint, and so on, what happens?
26:49 When there is this comparison taking place, what actually happens to A?
26:56 A is destroying himself in order to be like B – no?
27:04 Do observe this, sirs, in your own life. So you are becoming like somebody else and that’s one of the causes of contradiction and hence waste of energy.
27:22 And if you do not compare would you vegetate, would you go to sleep?
27:31 That’s what we are afraid of. So, is it possible to remain actually with ‘what is’ without bringing in the ideal or the opposite or comparing?
27:55 When you do not compare at all, when there is no ideal, no opposite, then is ‘what is’, the actual, does it exist at all?
28:14 Please this is…
28:28 Is my question fairly clear? I am violent and I see that the opposite does not help me to get rid of this violence; or compare myself, this violence, with somebody who has no violence at all.
29:02 And I see very clearly that in comparison there is conflict, I introduce a factor of duality, which is a waste of energy – so what have I actually left?
29:23 Is it violence? Or a state of mind – please follow this – or a state of mind that has become highly sensitive, highly intelligent, capable of immense passion because then there is… effort is a dissipation of passion, which is vital energy.
30:00 You can’t do anything without passion. And if that is so, when that actually takes place because there are no ideals, no opposite, then is the thing that I have called violence, does it exist at all?
30:24 So you have to go into yourself, examine it, you have to find out.
30:35 Look, let’s put it differently: my mind is dull, I am insensitive and so on and I compare myself with somebody who is very clever, intelligent, bright, alive.
31:05 And I strive to be like him, or brighten myself, sharpen my mind through comparison. Now, if I don’t compare at all, if I don’t struggle to be different from my dullness, will my dullness remain?
31:37 Because what have I done? I have ceased to compare, which is an act of intelligence, I have ceased to create the opposite and therefore no effort and therefore no contradiction, therefore what has happened to my mind?
32:02 My mind has become extraordinarily alive, sharp, clear.
32:12 It is only the dull mind that is violent, it is only the mind that is not capable of dealing with ‘what is’ that becomes violent, ugly, stupid and all the rest of it.
32:36 So as long as there is a duality in any way, psychologically, there must be conflict; and conflict is violence.
32:53 Now, one sees very clearly that one can live – not ideologically, we are not discussing ideologically or as a principle, but actually – that as long as one is seeking pleasure there must be duality.
33:28 Right? Because love is not pleasure, love is not desire.
33:39 Wait. Please, don’t agree with this.
33:50 One has to find out what is pleasure and what is desire, because we said we are concerned with freedom and that strange thing called love.
34:08 We went into, somewhat, into the question of freedom.
34:17 And perhaps we can devote a little of the time that is left this evening to this enquiry into what is love.
34:37 And how do you enquire? What is – please, follow this – what is the state of the mind that enquires?
34:52 You cannot possibly enquire if you are not free, that is, if you are not free from saying love is not this or it that or should be this, it should not be that.
35:10 That is, to examine, explore anything there must be the quality of freedom, from all your prejudices, conditioning and so on, and even from your own experience, and then only you can begin to explore, to enquire, to find out.
35:43 Otherwise you are merely examining from your own conditioning and you can’t go very far.
35:52 And this word is heavily loaded. We say, Love is divine and not profane, it is sacred, it is this, it is that – love of God, love of the country, love of the flag, I love my family, I love my wife, my husband – is that love?
36:27 And we say when there is love, you must love everybody, and not one, a particular.
36:41 But to enquire into this is really quite an immense problem, one must approach it really very freely.
36:54 Right? Free, not from anything but freedom to look.
37:09 That is, to look without any image.
37:19 Can you look at your neighbour, at your wife or husband without the image?
37:26 And if you have no image, are you then related?
37:33 Or, there is relationship only because you have images?
37:44 And can one put an end to the machinery that builds images?
38:00 Image about yourself, what you are, what you should be and as long as you have an image you cannot possibly see what you are.
38:16 If you think you are Paramātman or some other word – an image which has been handed down to you through generations, obviously such an image prevents you from finding out what is the real.
38:33 It’s only the free mind, not a mind that is loaded with images, that can find whatever there is to be found.
38:47 So in enquiring into this question of – unfortunately one must use that word ‘love’, it is such a hackneyed, brutal word, when the politician uses it, when the husband says, ‘I love you’ or the love of the family, it becomes an ugly word – and can one look at, explore to find out what that state of that word indicates and go beyond the word?
39:39 We are going to try and find out. To find out what it is, there must be dying.
39:55 Love is something that is not mechanical.
40:04 What is mechanical is pleasurable: a sexual experience you want it to be repeated over and over and over again because thought has created images, symbols, ideas, and thinking about it you increase, strengthen pleasure.
40:26 This is what actually takes place. I have had an experience of the sunset yesterday, a lovely streak across the sky, full of light and beauty, and the birds were flying into it, there is that momentary pleasure, delight, a great enjoyment of beauty.
41:00 Then thought accepts it and begins to think about it, compare, judge, and say, ‘I must have it again tomorrow’.
41:18 The continuity of an experience which has given, for a second, a great delight is sustained by thought, nourished by thought.
41:35 When you look at that streak of light across the sky, at that moment there is no pleasure, no joy, there is absolute sense of beauty; but the moment thought comes in, then you begin to enjoy it, you begin to say, ‘How lovely, I wish I could have more of it’.
42:02 So thought – please follow this – so thought, which is always the old, thought is never new, because thought is the response of memory, memory, experience, knowledge and so on – so thought, because it is old, makes the thing which you have looked at and tremendously felt for the moment, old and from the old you derive pleasure, never from the new.
42:41 Oh, you understand this? There is no time in the new, the instant there is something new there is no time to enjoy or to take delight, only when thought comes in, which is old, then it gives it a continuity.
43:12 Right? So, is love pleasure? Please think it out, don’t say, ‘Yes’ or, ‘No’.
43:28 That is, is love the product of thought?
43:43 Can love be cultivated by thought? Thought can cultivate pleasure.
43:57 Thought can strengthen desire and when I, when the mind through sensation and sensuality seeks pleasure by thinking about it – is that love?
44:30 And is love desire?
44:39 That is, I see something very beautiful, a lovely house, a nice face.
44:49 Then thought comes in and says, ‘What…’, then thought captures it, makes it the old and out of that comes desire.
45:04 You can see this in oneself if you observe, if you can see a car, a highly polished and beautiful car, you see it, there is the visual perception, there is sensation, touch and thought comes and says, ‘How nice to have it’.
45:28 And is love desire and pleasure? One has to find out, one has to work very hard to find out.
45:45 And you cannot work passionately to find out if it becomes an effort, because then you are trying to find out because you are in sorrow, and then your effort is an escape from sorrow.
46:12 So to find out what love is, one must die to the past, to past memories.
46:29 You know, there is something extraordinary about living and dying – they are very close together, though thought separates them miles apart.
46:53 You are following all this? Living is one thing, we consider, and dying is another.
47:07 Living is always in the present, we think, and dying is something that awaits at a distant time.
47:18 But is not living – not the battle, not the battle of everyday life we have, that’s not living at all, that is, oh, destruction, the way we live.
47:43 The way we live is all that we know: the daily battle, the daily despair, the agony of life, the loneliness, the anxiety, the immeasurable sorrow that one has, this is what we call living.
48:07 We have never questioned whether it is living at all, we have accepted it and when you accept anything you get used to it, as one gets used to a lovely sunset, you can see it a thousand times because you have seen it everyday; you can get used to loveliness, and also to something which is not lovely.
48:42 So what we call living is a battlefield and death is something to be carefully avoided.
48:58 But surely in our life, living and dying are always close together, you cannot live without dying.
49:16 This is not an intellectual or paradoxical statement but actual fact.
49:25 To live so completely, wholly, everyday as though it was a new loveliness, there must be dying of everything of yesterday, otherwise you live mechanically.
49:49 And a mechanical mind can never know what love is or what freedom is.
49:58 So dying, which most of us are afraid of, we are afraid of it because we don’t know what it means, we don’t know what it means because we don’t know what it means to live – please do follow this – because we don’t know how to live, therefore we don’t know how to die.
50:32 And because we are afraid of death we have all the innumerable beliefs, which again is an escape from the actual.
50:48 So is it possible for the mind, which is the result of all time, experience and knowledge, to die to itself?
51:05 Just to empty itself completely?
51:12 It’s only the innocent mind that knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in a world which is not innocent.
51:35 Right, sirs.
51:46 Perhaps some of you might like to ask questions about what we have talked about.
52:03 Questioner: Sir, what is the function of thought in everyday life?
52:11 Krishnamurti: What is the function of thought in everyday life. The function of thought – isn’t it? – is to be reasonable, to think very clearly, objectively, efficiently, precisely and you cannot think precisely, clearly, efficiently if you are tethered to your own personal vanity, to your own success, to your own fulfilment.
52:41 Q: Sir, you have said we do not know what dying is – could you explain what dying is actually, for our benefit?
53:03 K: What time is it?
53:04 Q: Dying.
53:05 K: You see, sir, I haven’t finished answering that question. Too bad, we are always so eager with our own questions, we have no respect for other people’s questions.
53:26 Q: I apologise.
53:28 K: Just a minute, sir. I haven’t finished. No, sir, don’t. Please, sir, you are not apologising to me. Please sir, you are not apologising to me. I am nobody. All that we are saying is, when there is love there is no respect.
53:59 It’s only the disrespectful people who have respect.
54:12 You have no respect for your servant, for your neighbour, for anybody, and therefore you are full of disrespect.
54:26 But when there is love there is neither respect nor disrespect, there is only that quality of mind that loves.
54:38 Now that gentleman asked a question about – you see, sir? – that gentleman asked a question about thought: what is its function in daily life.
54:59 Either we can use thought mechanically or thought can become extraordinarily active and it cannot be active if it’s merely functioning from a memory.
55:24 I learn a technique, as an engineer or whatever you will, and that technique has given me certain qualities of efficiency, of clarity, and I keep on functioning with that technique.
55:45 I soon live in a mechanical world, but if I understand the whole mechanism of thought, the structure of it, how thought begins – please do listen to this – how thought begins, not come upon it after it has begun, how thought begins, whether it begins from a memory, or does thought begin out of total silence?
56:28 And if it begins from memory, it’s always old and that’s how we function in daily life.
56:39 Thought is old and mind becomes old with it because we function mechanically in the family, in the office, when we walk, when we talk, it’s always mechanical.
56:59 So can the mechanical habit be freed so that thought functions actively all the time, every day, in your office, in your home, when you look at your wife, husband, children?
57:20 And the question is, as that gentleman asked: would you please go into this question of what is death.
57:28 Isn’t that right, sir? Again, it’s a vast, complex problem, which doesn’t mean we want to avoid it.
57:52 But there are several factors in it: there is the actual physical dying, when the heart stops beating, either through accident, through disease and normal old age.
58:13 We don’t die normal old age, most of us die through accident or we have lived such a stupid life, with so much strain and pressure that emotionally we are worn out and the heart is worn out.
58:36 So there is the physical actual dying, coming to an end, that one knows by observing, that doesn’t demand a great deal of thought.
58:52 And what one is afraid of, more, is the psychological dying, dying to everything I know: my family, my children, my house, my furniture, my knowledge, my gods, my character, my ‘what I have done’, ‘what I have not done’, the book I have not finished, the things I wanted to do and I have not done.
59:30 That is, we are frightened of the things, not of the unknown but of leaving, dying to things that we know.
59:43 Right?
59:44 Q: Let me try again. My point is: what I am after this physical dissolution and in passing…
1:00:01 K: Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir (laughs). This is really quite funny, isn’t it?
1:00:15 So please, sir, we are going into that, but we can’t go into it if you don’t understand this: we are frightened of leaving things which we know, not of the unknown.
1:00:37 You cannot be frightened of the unknown because you don’t know what the unknown is – so there is nothing to be frightened about.
1:00:48 If I don’t know about something, how can I be frightened about it? If I don’t know the danger, how can I be frightened about danger?
1:01:01 I only am frightened of leaving the things which I know: of daily life, daily associations, daily contacts, daily sensations, daily pleasures, daily pains.
1:01:30 And we say, ‘When I die, will not all these daily pains, agonies, brutalities, violence, despairs go over to next life?’ Right?
1:01:44 Or do you say, ‘In all this turmoil, chaos, misery, confusion, sorrow, there is a spiritual entity, which will go over’?
1:02:02 I don’t know what you believe – I don’t know why you should believe in anything.
1:02:15 If you believe that there is a spiritual entity in you which is timeless, which you call by various names – soul, Atman, or God, what else name you like to give to it – if it is in you and if you have thought about it, then it is thought that has created it and therefore it is not new, therefore it is not spiritual, it’s the product of thought, it’s the product of tradition, knowledge, experience, fear.
1:02:58 What you actually know is your daily unhappy, tortured life – you don’t want to face it.
1:03:15 And you hope that living, that of which you know, you want to take it to next life.
1:03:27 But if you died to everything you know, including to your family, to your memories, to everything that you have felt, then the death is a purification, death then is a rejuvenating process, then death brings innocency and it is only the innocent that are passionate, not the people who believe, or want to find out what happens after death.
1:04:15 What can happen is, probably, and I think it is so more or less – one mustn’t be dogmatic about anything or assert about anything – thought goes on, if I am attached to my house, just think of that!
1:04:40 Ah? – attached to your house, attached to your family, attached to your office, to your books, which is your life, then that attachment which is the result of thought, that thought may go on, like any other wave of vibration, but it has very little validity.
1:05:14 What has validity is to die to all the things of one’s petty life, petty demands, security, position, power, prestige, die to it so that your mind is cleansed and is fresh and is made new, so it remains young and therefore timeless.
1:05:48 What creates time is thought rooted in the past.
1:05:57 Q: Sir, my point is whether this body is the end of everything or as yourself says, is there a spiritual entity, or soul, which goes beyond it.
1:06:30 In short, whether there is a soul…
1:06:31 K: Sir, wait a minute. Who is going to tell you? Me? As I said at the beginning, I am not an authority. Ah no, no, (laughs) you have misunderstood!
1:06:38 Q: Your belief.
1:06:40 K: Ah, the gentleman wants to know my beliefs.
1:06:49 The gentleman wants to know my beliefs. I have no beliefs about anything.
1:06:59 Q: You are pointing.
1:07:09 K: What, sir?
1:07:16 Q: You are pointing, sir.
1:07:22 Q: When you die, what will happen?
1:07:23 K: The gentleman wants to know when I die what will happen. (Laughter) I really don’t care. (Laughter) Sir, how easily you laugh.
1:07:41 What will happen to you when you die, will you laugh? (Laughter) When you leave your family, when you leave your tortured life, when you have lived a shoddy, petty little life, when you die will you laugh and say, ‘I really don’t care’ – because you do care, otherwise you wouldn’t live like this.
1:08:21 If you really didn’t care you would be revolutionaries – not in the economic, stupid sense but inwardly, tremendously caught in a movement that is limitless.
1:08:39 So sirs, to find out ‘what is’, what actually takes place when you die, you must die.
1:08:56 (Laughter) No sir, don’t laugh, don’t laugh because this is…
1:09:04 You must die – die means not physically but psychologically, inwardly, to die to the things that you have cherished, to the things that you are bitter about, to die to your pleasure – have you ever tried to die to one pleasure, not reasoned out, but actually die?
1:09:40 Then you will find out if you have died to one pleasure, naturally, without any enforcement, what it means to die.
1:09:51 But you see sir, to die means to be completely made new, which is to have a mind that is totally empty of itself, empty of your daily longings, pleasures and agonies.