Krishnamurti - Why do we seek?

Krishnamurti Subtitles

OJ49T14 - Why do we seek?
Ojai, California - 28 August 1949
Public Talk 14

0:01	This is J. Krishnamurti’s 14th public talk in Ojai, California, 1949.
0:09	Krishnamurti: This morning I shall answer some of the questions first and then wind it up with a talk.
0:24	Many questions have been sent in, and unfortunately it has not been possible to answer all of them, and so we have chosen those which are representative and have tried to answer as many of them as possible.
0:43	Of course, it’s not possible to answer all of them. And also, in answering questions, naturally, one cannot go into the full detail because that would take too long, and so we have only dealt with the fundamental… in answering it fundamentally and rightly, and the details have to be filled in by yourself.
1:16	And they can be filled in only when we live them.
1:24	Those of you who have been coming here regularly will find that if they merely carry away a memory of the words and the pleasant sensations of listening under the trees, being distracted by birds, cameras, and notes, and various things that take the mind away, if they do not merely live in words but are really living, actually experiencing those things that we have discussed, then they will find that the answers which we have dealt somewhat briefly and succinctly, will find that having understood the outline, they can fill in the details.
2:28	1ST QUESTIO N: Ideas do separate, but ideas also bring people together.
2:35	Is this not the expression of love which makes communal life possible?
2:43	Ideas do separate, but ideas also bring people together. Is this not the expression of love which makes communal life possible?
2:57	I wonder when you ask such a question whether we realize that ideas, beliefs, opinions do separate people, that ideologies break up, that ideas inevitably always disrupt.
3:23	Ideas do not bring people together. You may bring one group of people belonging to that particular idea, or an ideology, in opposition to other ideas, and therefore ideas can never bring people together; which is obvious, because ideas can always be opposed and destroyed by another set of ideas.
3:54	After all, ideas are images, sensations, words.
4:03	Can words, sensations, thought, bring people together, or does one require quite a different thing to bring people together?
4:16	One sees hate and fear, nationalism, bring people together.
4:26	Fear brings people together; hate brings people together, in opposition, as nationalism brings people together in opposing another group.
4:46	Surely these are ideas.
4:54	And is love an idea? Can you think about love? You may be able to think about the person whom you love, or the group of people whom you love, but is that love?
5:16	Is thought, which is capable of thinking, which can think about love, is that love?
5:26	Is thought love?
5:34	And surely only love can bring people together, not thought, not one group of people in opposition to another group of people.
5:49	When there is love there is no group of people, no class, no nationalities.
5:59	So one has to find out what we mean by love.
6:08	We know what we mean by ideas, opinions, beliefs, which we have sufficiently discussed during the past seven weeks.
6:20	So what do we mean by love? Is it a thing of the mind?
6:34	And it is a thing of the mind when the things of the mind fill the heart.
6:42	And with most of us it is so. We have filled our heart with the things of the mind, which are opinions, ideas, sensations, beliefs, and around that and in that we live and love.
7:00	But is that love?
7:07	Can you think about love?
7:15	When you love, is thought functioning? Not in opposition - do not let us divide as an opposite: love and thought.
7:35	When one loves, is there a sense of separateness, of bringing people together, or disbanding the people, pushing them away?
7:52	Surely that state can be experienced only when the process of thought is not functioning, which does not mean that one must become crazy, unbalanced; on the contrary, it requires the highest form of thought to go beyond.
8:23	So love is not a thing of the mind.
8:31	It’s only when the mind is really quiet, when it’s no longer expecting, asking, demanding, seeking, possessing, being jealous, fearful, anxious; when the mind is really silent, then there is a possibility of love.
8:55	When the mind is no longer projecting itself, pursuing its particular sensations, demands, urges, hidden fears, seeking self-fulfilment, held in bondage to belief, then there is a possibility of love.
9:26	But most of us think love can go with jealousy, with ambition, with pursuit of personal desires and ambition.
9:43	Surely when these things exist, love is not.
9:50	So we must be concerned not with love, which comes into being spontaneously without your particularly seeking it, but we must be concerned with the things that are hindering, with the things of the mind which projects itself and creates a barrier.
10:17	And that’s why it’s important, before we can know what love is, to know what the process of the mind is, which is the seat of the self.
10:28	And that’s why it’s important to go ever deeply into the question of self-knowledge; not merely say, ‘I must love,’ or, ‘Love brings people together,’ or, ‘Ideas disrupt,’ which will be mere repetition of what you have heard, and therefore utterly useless.
10:59	Words entangle. But if one can understand the whole significance of the way of one’s thought, the way of our desires and their pursuits and ambitions, then there is a possibility of having or understanding that which is love.
11:31	But that requires an extraordinary understanding of oneself. Where there is self-abnegation, where there is self-forgetfulness - not intentionally, but spontaneously - that self-forgetfulness, self-denial, which is not the outcome of a series of practices, discipline, which only limit; that self-denial comes into being when the whole process of the self is understood, consciously as well as unconsciously, in the waking hours as well as in dreaming.
12:19	Then the whole total process as is understood actually taking place in relationship, in every incident, in every response to every challenge that one has, in understanding that, and therefore freeing the mind from its own self-arresting, self-limiting processes, then there is a possibility of love.
12:51	Love is not sentiment, not romanticism, not dependent on something.
13:03	And that state is extremely arduous and difficult to understand, or be in that state, because our minds are always interfering, limiting, encroaching upon its function; and therefore it’s important to understand first the mind and its ways, because otherwise we shall be caught in illusion, caught in words and sensations that have very little significance.
13:44	And as ideas merely act as a refuge, as an escape for most people, ideas which have become beliefs, they naturally prevent complete living, complete action, right thinking.
14:12	It’s only possible to live, to think rightly, to live freely and intelligently, only when there is deeper and wider self-knowledge.
14:31	2ND QUESTIO N: Would you kindly explain the distinction you make between factual and psychological memory?
14:40	Would you kindly explain the distinction you make between factual and psychological memory?
14:49	Do not let us bother for the moment the distinction between factual and psychological memories.
15:01	Let us consider memory: Why do we live in memory?
15:13	Are memories separate from us? Are you different from memory?
15:26	What do we mean by memories? The residue of certain incidents, experiences, sensations, are they not? You had an experience yesterday; it has left certain mark, certain sensation.
15:43	That sensation we call memories, verbalized or not. The sum total of all these memories, residues, we are; surely.
16:00	You are not different from your memories, the conscious memories as well as the unconscious.
16:13	The conscious memories that respond easily, spontaneously, and the unconscious memories that are very deep, hidden, quiet, waiting, watchful; the whole of that, surely, is you and I.
16:35	The racial, the group, the particular, all that… all those memories are you and me.
16:46	You are not different from the memory. Remove your memories, where are you? If you do, you’ll end up in an asylum.
17:03	But why do we… why does the mind, which is the result of memories, of the past, why does the mind cling to the past?
17:15	That is the question, is it not? Why does the mind, which is the result of the past; thought which is the outcome of yesterday, of many yesterdays, why does the thinker cling to that yesterday?
17:36	Memories without any emotional content have their significance, but the moment we bring, give to them emotional content, as like and dislike, this I’ll keep, that I won’t keep, this I will think about, and this I will go back and ponder in my old age, or consider in my future - why do we do that?
18:06	Surely that is the problem, is it not? Not that we must forget factual or psychological memories, because all the impressions, all the responses, everything is there, unconsciously - every incident, every thought, every sensation which we have lived through is there, hidden, covered up, but still there.
18:53	And as we grow older we return to those memories, to live in the past or in the future - the pleasant times we had when we were youthful, or the future, what we are going to be according to our conditioning.
19:19	So we live in these memories - why? - as though you were different from those memories.
19:28	Surely that is the problem, is it not?
19:35	We mean by memories words, don’t we, images, symbols, which are merely a series of sensations, and on those sensations we live.
19:52	Therefore we separate ourselves from the sensations and say, ‘I want those sensations,’ which means the I, having separated itself from memories, gives to itself permanency.
20:09	But it is not permanent. It is a fictitious permanency. And hence the I, the me is different from memory.
20:25	Now, when this whole process of the I separating itself from memory and giving life to that memory in response to the present, that total process hinders, obviously, the meeting the present.
20:57	Surely, does it not? If I would understand something, actually, not theoretically, verbally, abstractly, I must give my full attention to it.
21:10	I cannot give my full attention to it if I’m distracted by my memories, or by my beliefs, by my opinion, experiences of yesterday.
21:20	Therefore I must respond fully, adequately, to the challenge.
21:37	And the I, which has separated itself from memory, giving itself permanency, that I regards the present, looks at the incident, the experience, and draws from it according to its conditioning of the past, which is all very simple and obvious if you examine it.
22:06	It is the memory of yesterday, of possessions, of jealousies, of anger, of contradiction, of ambition, of what one ought to be and should be - it is all these things that make up the I.
22:26	And the I is not different from memory. The quality cannot be separated from the thing, from the self.
22:42	So memory is the self.
22:56	Memory is the word, the word which symbolizes sensation, physical as well as psychological sensation, and it is to that we cling.
23:11	It is to the sensations we cling, not to the experience, because in the moment of experience, there is neither the experiencer nor the experience, there is only the experiencing.
23:32	When we are not experiencing, then we cling to memory, like so many people do, especially as one grows older.
23:43	Watch yourself and you will see.
23:50	We live in the past or in the future, and use the present as merely a passage from the past to the future, and therefore the present has no significance, which all the politicians indulge in, all the ideologists and the idealists: always the future - or those who live in the past.
24:17	So if one understands this whole significance of memory, not that one must put it away or destroy them or be free from them, but how the mind is attached to memory, and thereby strengthens the me.
24:47	The me is, after all, sensation, a bundle of sensations, a bundle of memory; it is the known.
25:02	And from the known we want to understand the unknown. And the known must be an impediment to the unknown, because if one would understand reality, there must be a newness of the mind, a freshness, not the burden of the known.
25:40	God or reality, or what you will, cannot be imagined, cannot be described, cannot be put into words.
25:58	And if you do, that which you put into words is not reality; it’s merely the sensation of a memory, the reaction to a condition, and therefore it’s not real.
26:14	Therefore if one would understand that which is eternal, timeless, the memories as the mind must come to an end.
26:29	Mind must no longer cling to the known, therefore it must be capable of receiving the unknown.
26:37	You cannot receive the unknown if the mind is burdened with memories, with the known, with the past.
26:47	Therefore the mind must be entirely silent, which is very difficult because the mind is always projecting, always wandering, always creating, breeding, self-projecting.
27:04	And it is this process that must be understood in relationship to memory, and then the distinction between psychological and factual is quite obvious and simple.
27:33	So in understanding memory one understands the process of thinking, which is, after all, self-knowledge.
27:49	To go beyond the limits of the mind there must be freedom from the desire to be, to achieve, to gain.
28:04	3RD QUESTIO N: Is not life true creation?
28:22	Are we not seeking, really, happiness, and is there not serenity in life, that true being of which you speak?
28:32	Is not life true creation? Are we not seeking, really, happiness, and is there not serenity in life, that true being of which you speak?
28:46	Perhaps in answering this question, to understand it fully and significantly, should we not understand this idea of seeking?
29:14	Why are we seeking happiness?
29:24	Why this incessant pursuit to be happy, to be joyous, to be something? Why is there this search, this immense effort made to find?
29:40	If we can understand that and go into it fully, which I will presently, perhaps we shall know what happiness is, without seeking it, because, after all, happiness is a by-product, a secondary importance.
30:06	It is not an end in itself; it has no meaning if it is an end in itself. What does it mean to be happy? The man who takes a drink is happy; the man who throws a bomb over a great number of people feels elated and says he’s happy, or God is with him.
30:35	Momentary sensations which disappear give that sense of being happy. Surely there is some other quality that is essential for happiness.
30:49	For happiness is not an end, any more than virtue. Virtue is not an end in itself; it gives freedom, and in that freedom, there is discovery.
31:10	Therefore virtue is essential; whereas an un-virtuous person is slavish, is disorderly, all over the place, lost, confused.
31:27	But to treat virtue as an end in itself, or happiness as an end in itself, has very little meaning.
31:36	So happiness is not an end, it is a secondary issue, a by-product which will come into being if we understand something else.
31:50	It is this understanding of something else, and not merely the search for happiness, that is important.
32:04	Now, why do we seek? What does it mean to make effort? Isn’t it? We are making effort. Why are we making effort? What is the significance of effort? We say we are making effort in order to find, in order to change, in order to be something. If we did not make effort, we… disintegrate or retard, go back. Is that so? Please, this is really important to go into very fully, and I will try as much as I can this morning to go into it.
32:50	If we did not make effort, what would happen?
32:57	Would we stagnate? But we are making effort, and why?
33:11	Effort to change, effort to be different in ourselves, to be more happy, to be more beautiful, to be more virtuous - this constant striving, constant effort.
33:25	If we can understand that, then perhaps we will understand more deeply other issues.
33:40	Why do you seek? Is the search prompted by disease, by ill-health, by moods?
33:52	Because you are unhappy, you want to be happy, therefore you make an effort.
33:59	Do you seek because you are going to die and therefore you want to find?
34:06	Do you seek because you have not fulfilled yourself in the world, therefore you want to fulfil here?
34:15	Do you seek because you are unhappy, and therefore you hope for happiness, and therefore you search and find out?
34:24	So you must… one must understand the motive for your search, mustn’t you?
34:36	So what is the motive for your eternal search - if you are really searching, which I question?
34:47	You want substitution: this is not profitable, perhaps this will be; this hasn’t given me happiness, this will.
35:01	So one is really seeking not truth, not happiness, but a substitution that will give you happiness, a thing that will be profitable, that will be safe, that will give you gratification.
35:17	Surely that’s what we are seeking, if we were very honest and clear to ourselves.
35:27	And we clothe our gratification with words like God, love, and so on.
35:41	Now, why do we not approach it differently? Why don’t we understand what is?
35:56	Why are we not capable of looking exactly at the thing as is, which is, if we are in pain, let us live with it, look at it, and not try to transform it into something else?
36:14	If I am in misery, not only physically but psychologically - especially psychologically - how would I understand it?
36:32	By not wishing it to be different, surely. First I must look at it, I must live with it, I must go into it, I mustn’t condemn it, I mustn’t compare it, wish it something else; I must be entirely with that thing, must I not, which is extremely arduous, because the mind refuses to look at it.
37:02	It wants to go off at a tangent; it says, ‘Let me seek an answer, a solution. There must be.’ In other words, it is escaping from what is.
37:18	And this escape with most of us is what we all search: search for the master, search for truth, search for love, search for God - you know?
37:30	- various terms to escape from what exactly is taking place.
37:46	And do we have to make an effort to understand what is taking place?
37:56	We have to make an effort to escape when we don’t want it. But when it is there, and to understand it, do we have to make an effort?
38:09	Obviously, we have made effort to escape, to avoid, to cover up what is, and with that same mentality, which is to make an effort in order to avoid, in order to escape, we approach the what is.
38:37	Do you understand something - what is - with an effort, or there must be no effort to understand what is?
38:48	So that’s one of the problems, is it not, that this constant effort to avoid the understanding of what is has become so habitual with most of us.
39:17	And with that same mentality of making an effort in order to escape, we say, ‘All right, I will drop all escapes and make an effort to understand what is.’ Do we understand anything really significantly, deeply, that has meaning, through effort?
39:45	To understand something, obviously, must there not be a passivity of the mind, an alertness, but yet passive?
40:06	You cannot arrive at that passivity of the mind, which is alert, through effort, can you?
40:13	If you make an effort to be passive, you’re no longer passive. If one really understands that, the significance of that, and sees the truth of it, then you will be passive.
40:27	You don’t have to make an effort. So when we seek, we are seeking from either with the motive of escape or trying to be something more than what is, or from a diseased mind that says, ‘I am all these things, I must run away,’ which is unbalanced, insanity.
41:04	Surely the search for truth, for the master, is a state of insanity when the thing is there, which must be understood before you can go further.
41:22	That breeds illusion, ignorance.
41:30	So first one must find out what one is seeking, and why.
41:40	Most of us know what we are seeking, and therefore it’s self projection, therefore unreal.
41:51	It’s merely a home-made thing, therefore it’s not truth, it’s not the real.
42:03	And in understanding this process of search, this constant making effort to be, to discipline, to deny, to assert, one must inquire into this question of what is the thinker.
42:24	Surely the one who makes the effort is separate from the thing which he wants to be.
42:38	Sorry, it may be a little difficult to pursue this, but I hope you don’t mind.
42:48	You’ve asked the question, therefore I’m trying to answer it.
42:59	Is the maker of effort different from the object towards which he is making effort?
43:10	This is really very important, because if we can find the truth of this, you will see that there comes immediate transformation, which is essential for understanding… which is understanding, rather.
43:38	Because as long as there is a separate entity which makes the effort, as long as there is a separate entity as the experiencer, the thinker different from the thought, from the object, from the experience, then we have all this problem of seeking, disciplining, bridging the thought with the thinker, and so on; whereas if we can look at… find the truth of this matter, whether the thinker is separate from the thought, and see the real truth of it, then there is quite a different process at work.
44:30	Therefore you have to find out before you seek, before you find the object of your search - whether it’s a master or a cinema or any other excitement; they’re all on the same level - whether the seeker is different.
44:55	Why is he different?
45:06	Why is the maker of effort different from the thing which he wants to be, and is he different?
45:14	Now, put it differently: you have thoughts, and you have also the thinker.
45:27	You say, ‘I think. I’m this, and I must be that. I am greedy or mean or envious or angry; I have certain habits, and I must break away from them.’ Now, is the thinker different from the thought?
45:52	If it is different, then the whole process must exist of making an effort to bridge, of the thinker trying to alter his thought, the thinker trying to concentrate and avoid, resist encroachments of other thoughts.
46:11	But if it is not, then there is a complete transformation of the way of… one live.
46:24	So, we’ll have to go into that very carefully and discover - not at the verbal level at all, but experience it directly as we go along this morning, if we can; which is, not to be mesmerized or accept what I say, because that has no meaning, but actually experience for oneself whether this division is true, and why it exists.
47:03	As I said earlier, memories are not, surely, different from the me which thinks about them; I am those memories.
47:22	The memory of the way to the place where I live, the memory of my youth, the memory of inexperienced, unfulfilled desires - and fulfilled - the memories of injuries, resentment, ambition: all that is me; I am not separate from those.
47:52	Surely that’s an obvious fact, isn’t it? The me is not separate. Even if the me is separate, and if you think about it, it is still part of thought, and thought is the result of the past.
48:08	Therefore it’s still within the net of thought, which is memory.
48:21	So the division between the thinker, the maker of effort, the seeker, and the thought, is artificial, fictitious.
48:38	And it has been separated because we see that thoughts are transient, they come and go; they have no substance in themselves.
48:52	And so the thinker separates himself and gives himself permanency; and he exists where thoughts vary.
49:05	It’s a false security.
49:14	And if one sees the falseness of it, actually experience it, then there are only thoughts, and not the thinker and the thought.
49:35	Then you will see, if it is an actual experience, not merely a verbal assertion or just amusement, a hobby, then you will find, if it is a real experiencing, not just a verbal statement, that there is a complete revolution in our thinking.
50:08	Then there is real transformation because then there is no longer seeking, no longer seeking quietude or silence or aloneness.
50:24	Then there is only the concern with what is thinking, what is thought.
50:46	Then you will see, if there is this transformation take place, there is no longer an effort, but an extraordinary, alert passivity, in which there is understanding of every relationship, of every incident as it arises, and therefore the mind is always fresh to meet things anew.
51:27	And hence that silence which is so essential is not a thing to be cultivated, but comes into being naturally when you understand this fundamental thing, that the thinker is the thought, and therefore the I is transient.
51:48	Therefore the I has no permanency; the I is not a spiritual entity.
51:59	If you are able to think that the I is God, or something spiritual, everlasting, it is still the product of thought, and therefore of the known, therefore not true.
52:22	Therefore it is really important, essential to understand this, this sense of complete integration, which cannot be forced -integration between the thinker and the thought.
52:49	It’s like a deep experience which cannot be invited, which cannot… you cannot lay awake thinking about it.
53:05	It must be seen immediately. And you do not see it because you are clinging to your past beliefs, conditions, what you have learned: that the I is something spiritual, more than all the thoughts.
53:25	Surely it’s so obvious: whatever you think is the product of the past, of your memories, of words, sensations, your conditioning.
53:41	If you can think about the unknown… surely you cannot know the unknown, therefore you cannot think about it.
53:51	What you can think about is the known, therefore it’s a projection from the past.
54:02	And one must see all the significance of all this, and then there will be the experiencing of that integration between the thought and the thinker, which has been artificially created for self-protection, therefore unreal.
54:20	When once there is the experiencing of that, then there is complete transformation with regard to our thinking, feeling, and outlook on life.
54:41	Then there is only a state of experiencing, and not the experiencer and the experienced, which has to be altered, modified, changed.
54:52	There is only a state of constantly experiencing. Not the core experiencing, not the centre, the me, the memory, experiencing, but only a state of experiencing, which we do occasionally when we are completely absent, when the self is absent.
55:19	I do not know if you have not noticed when there is a deep experiencing of anything, there is neither the sensation, neither the experiencer nor the experience, but only a state of experiencing, a complete integration.
55:37	When you are violently angry, you’re not conscious of yourself as the experiencer.
55:44	Later on, as that experience of anger fades, then you become conscious of you being angry; then you do something about that anger - to deny it or justify it or to condone with it, and, you know, various forms of trying to pass it away.
56:15	But if there is not the entity who is angry but only that state of experiencing, then there is a complete transformation.
56:28	If you will experiment with this, you will see. Then you will see, when there is this radical experiencing, this radical transformation, which is a revolution, then the mind becomes quiet; not made quiet, not compelled, disciplined - such quietness is death, is stagnation.
57:10	A mind that is made quiet through discipline is a dead mind, through compulsion, through fear.
57:22	But when there is the experiencing of this, which is vital, which is essential, which is real, which is the beginning of transformation, then the mind is quiet without any compulsion.
57:47	And when the mind is quiet, then it is capable of receiving, because you are not spending any more your efforts in resisting, in building barriers between yourself and reality - whatever that reality be.
58:19	All that you have read about reality is not reality.
58:27	Reality cannot be described; and if it is described, it’s not the real.
58:42	And for the mind to be new, for the mind to be capable of receiving the unknown, the mind must be empty.
58:58	And that mind can be empty only when the whole contents of the mind are understood.
59:07	To understand the contents of the mind, one must be watchful, ever aware of every movement, every incident, every sensation, therefore self-knowledge is essential.
59:25	But if one is seeking through self-knowledge an achievement, again then self-knowledge leads to self-consciousness, and there one is stuck.
59:45	And it’s extraordinarily difficult to withdraw from that net when once you’re caught.
59:56	But not to be caught in it we must understand the process of desire, the craving to be something.
1:00:07	Not the desire for food, clothes and shelter - that’s quite different - but the psychological craving to be something, to achieve a result, to have a name, to have a position, to be powerful, or to be humble.
1:00:32	Surely only when the mind is empty, then only it can be useful.
1:00:44	But a crowded mind of fear, of memories of what it has been in the past, the sensations of past experiences, such a mind is utterly useless, is it not?
1:00:58	Such a mind is incapable of knowing what is creation.
1:01:10	Surely we must have had experiences of those moments when the mind is absent, and then suddenly there is a flash of joy, a flash of an idea, a light, a great bliss.
1:01:25	How does that happen? It happens when the self is absent, when the processes of thought, worry, memories, pursuits, are still.
1:01:48	Therefore creation can take place only when the mind through self-knowledge has come to that state when it is completely naked.
1:02:04	All this means arduous attention, not merely indulging in verbal sensation, seeking, going from one guru to another, from teacher to teacher, doing absurd and vain rituals, repeating words, seeking masters.
1:02:23	All these are illusions, they have no meaning; they are hobbies.
1:02:33	But to go into this question of self-knowledge, and not be caught in self-consciousness, and go ever deeply, more profoundly, so that the mind becomes completely quiet - that is true religion.
1:02:50	Then such a mind is capable of receiving that which is eternal.