Krishnamurti Subtitles
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OJ66D2 - Love and suffering
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| 0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public discussion in Ojai, California, 1966. |
| 0:08 Krishnamurti: To ask questions is not to find an answer but to discover, to find out for oneself; and so the questioning becomes important when this is understood. The question itself makes the mind sharp; but if one is expecting an answer to that particular question, the mind becomes, naturally, expectant, awaiting, and therefore not clear, decisive and capable of discovery. So I think when we ask questions – as I hope we will, and go into them together – we are asking questions so as to discover the state of our own mind, the activity, conscious or… – I don’t like to use the word ‘unconscious’, but we’ll use it for the time being. 1:48 Not only, in asking questions, is the conscious mind deliberately aware what it is asking, and also it is aware that any answer must always be verbal and therefore non-direct. And when one asks questions, one has also to find out why one asks it. I feel one should ask questions about everything, but it matters very much why one is asking those questions; what is the background, what is the state of the mind that is asking those questions? Is it awaiting an answer or expecting to be told? If it is waiting for an answer, who is going to answer it? And a mind that is waiting to find the answer is not an active mind; it’s just waiting, expecting. 3:41 So let... If one asks any question, one must not only be aware the content of that question, but also the… why that question is being asked. And who is going to answer it? I think then, when we do put a question, it becomes very important. Then such questions… those such questions have a catalystic effect; such questions do produce an answer in themselves. So let’s proceed and find out what questions we’re asking. Yes, sir? |
| 4:49 Questioner: Are not hate and violence, as well as love and understanding, all forms of the same energy which lives inside each one of us, as well as outside and everywhere? And can we perhaps... |
| 5:02 K: Sir... |
| 5:02 Q:...by deeply observing this inner energy, rather than by observing its innumerable forms, go beyond the me’ and beyond all opposites? |
| 5:14 K: If I understand the question rightly – and please make the question brief, because I have to repeat it; and if I repeat what I’ve heard, if it is not accurate, please correct it – the questioner asks: is not hate and other forms of violence an expression of an energy which... |
| 5:47 Q: The same energy which is expressed in love and understanding. |
| 5:52 K: Ah, I see. Is not hate and aggression, violence, the same energy, same type of energy as love and affection. |
| 6:12 Q: And can we go beyond our ‘me’ in inquiring into this energy, rather than in innumerable forms? |
| 6:19 K: Yes. Can we go beyond all this. |
| 6:21 Q: Yes. |
| 6:21 K: Quite. I wonder what we mean by energy. Energy is brought about through friction, as most of us know; through wrangles, quarrels, hatred, jealousies, every form of violence, aggression, and so on. The more the tension of the contradiction, the more that energy is called upon. I think one knows this. And the questioner wants to know if that energy is not the same as love. So to find out if there is a total difference or a similarity between hate and that form of energy which we call love, to find out this, one must also find out what love is. 7:54 We know what aggression is, we know what violence is, jealousy, and all the rest of it – which is again a form of energy, an expression of energy – and we must also find out, mustn’t we, what love is. Now, how does one find out? Not if the energies are similar, but what love is. Is love pleasure, desire? Are you waiting for me to answer it? So how does one find out? Or is love an energy of a different… in a different field altogether? Of a different quality, a different dimension? 9:24 And how does one find out what love is? Not intellectually, not argumentatively, not splitting it up, saying it’s divine, physical, and, you know, all the rest of it. How does one find out the nature of that thing? Will the conscious mind find it out? The conscious mind being the educated, sophisticated, the mind that has so many experiences, memories, stored-up resentments, hatreds. |
| 10:30 Q: No. |
| 10:34 K: Ah, don’t say, ‘No’. |
| 10:34 Q: Love is a surplus. Love is a surplus when your own problems have been solved. |
| 10:42 K: Love is a surplus when one’s own problems are solved. We are trying to find that out, sir. Don’t… please, don’t let us speculate what love is. That becomes childish. How does a mind come upon that thing without conscious effort? You...? Am I making...? If I make a conscious effort to find it out, then my conscious effort must have a recognition of what it is. You...? I must have already known it; I must already smelt it, tasted it, known the quality of it; and if I know it, it’s merely a memory. 11:51 And is memory, which is of time, and has that memory and time anything to do with... love? So how does one find it out, come upon it? You understand my...? Am I making myself clear, the question? It’s like inquiring into if there is such thing as God – I put it in quotes; that word ‘God’ is so heavily loaded that it has almost lost all its meaning – if one wants to discover it, if there is or if there is not, how does one proceed? Obviously to find out, all types of belief must come to an end; and therefore, which means all form of fear must come to an end. Surely; no? |
| 13:33 Belief is a form of hope, and I hope because I’m in despair; and I invent a belief, a security, a state of mind which says, ‘There is something which is permanent’, and I believe in that. And that belief obviously not only conditions all examination, all perception, but it prevents the total inaction. You understand? Well, I’d better go into it. I must not only be free of every form of belief, and therefore fear, and also my mind must be so sharp, so sensitive – the sensitivity brought about by right eating and, you know, behaviour and physical condition and all that. And then only there is a possibility of discovering something. |
| 15:19 So it seems to me, in the same way, to find out or come upon this thing called love, which is so heavily loaded, one must inquire into this question of pleasure and desire. Which again, desire is an enormous energy, demanding fulfilment. If it is not fulfilled, there is frustration, conflict, anxiety, neurosis… – you know? – all the rest of it. So one must find out the nature of desire, and also of pleasure; otherwise one cannot deeply come upon this thing called love. And shall we go into this question of desire and pleasure? We talked about it the other day, and is it necessary to go into it again? Is it? No? Yes? |
| 16:53 Q: Some of us were not here. |
| 16:56 K: All right. Some of us were not here. And those who say it is not necessary have understood the nature of desire? Have understood what is implied in the complex question of pleasure? And is there a possibility of not suppressing pleasure, and understanding and therefore bringing about a different quality of perception? So either we ask, we say, ‘Yes, I understand it; let’s get on with it’, because we are impatient to go into it; we think we have intellectually or verbally understood; or one has delved into it most profoundly, examined the structure of desire and pleasure, enjoyment and joy. 18:21 Is joy the same as pleasure? And joy, is there joy without a motive? And if there is no motive, is joy not similar… – no – has not the quality of love? So all these issues are involved in it. And to say, ‘Yes, I’ve understood very quickly what you mean by pleasure and desire’… So can we go into it again a little bit? |
| 19:08 Q: Yes. |
| 19:14 K: You know, we’re not trying to suppress desire. The monks throughout the world have tried that. And those so-called religious people have attempted to control desire, because some authority, religious authority, have said, ‘Be free of desire, because desire leads to bondage’? So so-called spiritual people – whatever that word may mean – those people have tried either to suppress, eliminate, or sublimate it by identifying themselves with a greater desire; but it’s still within the pattern, within the area of desire. 20:29 And what’s wrong with desire? I see something nice, pleasant, striking; by the very looking of it, looking it, there is a sensation, there is desire out of that. Isn’t that so? Please, this is not a talk; we must... And thought comes and gives that desire a continuity and vitality, and from that, there is this seeking of pleasure. I think this is fairly simple, isn’t it? The verbal explanation. But the explanation is not the fact, is not what you discover. If you discovered it, it’ll become tremendously vital. 21:39 If I discover how thought strengthens desire, by thinking about something which has pleased me sensually or intellectually, or a sunset or anything, by thinking about it, it has strengthened the nature of desire and has given it a continuity, and that continuity becomes pleasure. Right? Now, to discover it – you understand? – to say, ‘By Jove, how true that is. I’ve discovered it’. Which doesn’t mean that you agree with what has been said; it’s an actual self-discovery; and that discovery gives tremendous energy. 22:54 And as most of our values, moral, and all the rest of it, is based on pleasure – pleasure being entertainment, amusement, and all that, including the religious amusements as in a church, and entertainment – all our attitudes and values and demands are based on this search for comfort and pleasure. And how does... and is it possible for thought not to interfere – you understand? – with desire? I don’t know if you’re... Are we following each other? Yes? |
| 23:58 Q: Yes. |
| 24:01 K: You understand? I see something very beautiful, and there is immediate sensation, and a desire to touch it, to hold it, to own it, to possess it. Then thought comes in. Now, is it possible to look at something extraordinarily beautiful – a man, woman, child, tree, a house, a picture, whatever it is – and merely observe without the interference of thought? And when thought interferes, there is a totally different kind of action as when thought doesn’t interfere with desire. You understand? I wonder... Right? 25:19 You understand… when thought interferes with desire, which becomes pleasure, then activity has a different meaning altogether… action. And when thought doesn’t interfere with desire, there is again a totally different action which is not time-binding. |
| 25:55 Q: Can we separate the feeling of joy or delight in seeing something pleasant...? |
| 26:07 K: What, sir? |
| 26:12 Q: I wonder if we can distinguish the seeing something pleasant or delightful, and... |
| 26:22 K: I… You know, I think… Sorry, just a minute, sir; we’ll come back perhaps... This is a very important thing, what we are discussing now, just now; don’t break it up, please. You understand? The activity of pleasure, the motive, the demand and the values based on pleasure, that produces a totally different kind of action, doesn’t it? No? That produces anxiety, fear, guilt; and in those activities, the mind is caught. So to free the mind from all this self-enclosing activity, one has to find out if there is a possibility of an activity which is not the product of thought, and yet not the product of desire. You understand? Yes, sir? |
| 28:00 Q: You’re describing a visual activity. |
| 28:04 K: I don’t quite understand what you mean, sir. |
| 28:07 Q: You said neither thought nor desire. You are describing a visual activity. |
| 28:13 K: Yes, yes; and also an activity which is not visual. I wonder... So all this is, we are inquiring, aren’t we, into the nature, or come upon that thing which we call love. And we are asking if that love is something not of the same energy as hate. We must bear that in mind, otherwise we will wander away from the central question. And to answer that question, really, one has to – hasn’t one? – to free the mind from desire and pleasure, to find out. Am I...? Are we all getting paralysed, hypnotised, or whatever it is? |
| 29:21 Q: How? |
| 29:25 K: The gentleman asks, ‘How?’ Is there a ‘how’? Is there a method – listen to the question, sir – is there a method to free the mind from pleasure? And the following of a method in order to achieve the result is again based on pleasure. No? So there is no ‘how’, there is only a state of listening; and when one listens so totally, this question is answered. |
| 30:24 Q: If one listens to the quality of energy instead of the different forms of energy, then the mind is free from the desire and pleasure and... |
| 30:37 K: Sir, no, no, no… |
| 30:41 Q: Everything is energy. |
| 30:41 K: Of course, everything is energy: hate, and so on; everything is energy. But what we’re trying to find out, sir, is an energy which is not time-binding, an energy which is not conditioning itself, an energy which is not producing suffering. Though we know everything is energy, is there an activity of this energy which doesn’t produce sorrow? Right? |
| 31:32 Q: Yes. Energy is a total… |
| 31:36 K: Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir; yes, of course. How do you get to that total energy? Obviously not by putting all the parts together; and not by trying to integrate all of the things together. Again, we come back to the same problem in a different way, which is: how does one perceive the totality of anything? How does one perceive the totality of your friend? |
| 32:35 Q: You can’t. |
| 32:39 K: One can’t. The gentleman says it cannot be done. All right, it can’t be done – finished. |
| 32:43 Q: Perhaps with no separation. |
| 32:49 K: No… Perhaps... You see? First of all, sir, how do you look at anything totally? You say it is not possible, and when you say it is not possible, you have already blocked yourself from finding out. So to find out, you have to look at your own mind looking at your friend, or somebody, or at a tree – how you look at it. |
| 33:23 Q: When you call it a totality, it’s not a totality. |
| 33:31 K: No; how do you look at any... at your friend? Do you look at that friend with the image that you have about that friend? Obviously. No? No? Oh, Lord. So you have an image about me and I have an image about you; because we are friends, we have been together, we have seen each other, we have quarrelled, we have done all kinds of things. So we have… I have an image of you and you have an image of me; and these two images meet. Right? You may break your image, but I have still my image about you. 34:25 Unless both of us may break the image and the machinery that makes the images, it will be a one-sided relationship. And one has to go into this question again: why do we create an image of another, and hold it? And is it not possible, at the moment of experience, to live it so completely, or let it go through you so that no image remains, no mark remains? Please, these are all questions that are really… have to be answered not by words, but by actual, direct perception and discovery. Yes, madame? |
| 35:33 Q: Does love require an object in order to be experienced? |
| 35:36 K: Does love require an object? Madame... All right. I’m sorry, I can’t answer that question. You see, sirs, most of us are second-hand people. We are the product of the society in which we live, the experience, the knowledge, and all the rest of it; and there is nothing original: we repeat, repeat, repeat. And to find out anything new requires tremendous inquiry, meditation. You don’t just get it by just coming to a meeting for an hour and thinking... 36:55 one has to work tremendously hard. You do work very hard to earn a livelihood, go to the office every day; but this requires much more alertness, much more careful examination. And one is not… one doesn’t have the energy, the patience or the interest, because this is non-profitable; it doesn’t bring you any profit, financial or any other way. |
| 37:34 Q: When a human being dies, a certain quality is gone. Has that quality been impressed in any way with its association with the organism? |
| 37:51 K: All right… Would you mind putting the question a little more simply? It’s too complex for me. |
| 38:00 Q: When a human being dies, there is something that leaves the body, the human body… |
| 38:06 K: Oh, oh! Now we are going off to death. You see, we haven’t… we don’t seem to finish any particular question. We want to know immediately about death. Oh, for the love of Pete, let’s get… |
| 38:26 Q: Has thought already interfered when desire for possession arises? |
| 38:32 K: Obviously, sir. And also there is a question why we’re always acquiring. Ah, that’s too large a question, but doesn’t matter. Yes, madame? |
| 38:55 Q: May I ask, is it not important to remain with the feeling alone and let the words and symbols go? If you have a desire, feel deeply and let the symbol, the word, go. |
| 39:22 K: May I ask, what are we all talking about? Yes, sir? |
| 39:36 Q: I said the answer to your question, for me, would be that we’re talking to… about ourselves. |
| 39:46 K: Right. Yes, madame? |
| 39:57 Q: Is the action of love a permanent escape from suffering? |
| 40:01 K: Is the action of love an escape, permanent escape from suffering? Do we know what suffering is? Do you really know what suffering is? Only we know it when we remain with it. Right? We don’t remain with anything. Oh, Lord... Do we? |
| 40:35 Q: Only if we think about it. |
| 40:39 K: We think about it. Look. All right, let’s... I’m sorry, I must go into it. Let us take the question of suffering. Is it, first of all, is it possible to end it – totally, without becoming hard, brutal, brittle, and all the rest of it – and to go to the very end of it and find out? Can we do that one thing this afternoon? Shall we? |
| 41:35 Q: Yes. |
| 41:41 K: I suffer. Why do I suffer? And what is this nature of suffering? I suffer because I’ve lost my son, my brother, sister, or somebody doesn’t love me, or I cannot fulfil or I’m thwarted; I haven’t got a good brain and somebody else has a good brain. And I know what it means to suffer. In suffering there is a great deal of self-pity. There is a great deal of self-examination, but that self-examination is merely an introspective, self-enclosing process. Are you following all this? Am I going too quickly or…? |
| 42:32 Q: No, no. |
| 42:35 K: And suffering, I want to escape from it, because I don’t know how to resolve it. And so I have a network of escapes through every form of amusement, identification, and so on. Now, can I stop from escaping? And it’s very difficult, because escaping is so subtle. I can escape by turning on the radio, a magazine, talking to somebody, and so on, so on, but the thing remains, and I don’t want to get in touch with it; it’s too painful, too agonising; I push it away. So can I stop from escaping altogether, and just look at it, live with it, know it? Not suppress it, not control it, not sublimate it, not do all that kind of idiotic stuff, but get to know it, live with it… go into it. What do you say, sirs? |
| 44:12 Q: Sadness is as much worth tasting as any other thing… as much as pleasure. |
| 44:18 K: What did you say? I can’t hear, sir. |
| 44:21 Q: Sadness is as much worth tasting as pleasure or happiness. Any emotion you feel is worth tasting. |
| 44:33 K: Tasting. That’s what we... Here is the question: I suffer, physically, psychologically. And I can do something physically; psychologically, I don’t know what to do. And not knowing what to do, I escape, or I go to somebody who will tell me what to do; or I put up with it, getting more and more and more bitter, dull, stupid, full of animosity, and all the rest of it. Without doing any of those things, can one look at that thing, neither enjoying it nor pushing it away? Which means, can I look at it without any demand for a… to overcome it, to justify it, to control it – just to observe it. |
| 46:03 Q: How is it possible to do what you say, even for a few seconds? For instance… |
| 46:17 K: Oh, is it possible to do it for a few seconds? Why do you…? What, sir? |
| 46:25 Q: I said it would seem that I would have to start by doing it for a few seconds, to see… |
| 46:31 K: Do it! Do it, do it, for a second; do it! |
| 46:38 Q: How? |
| 46:42 Q: Oh… |
| 46:46 K: You know, as I said the other day, the word ‘how’ is the most mischievous word, because you want somebody else to tell you how to do it. |
| 47:03 Q: Do we have to be willing to continue to suffer first? |
| 47:10 K: Sir, we suffer; not ‘willing to suffer’, there is suffering. And we are asking: can you look at it and remain with it, be quiet with it? Neither accepting nor rejecting; just be quiet with it. |
| 47:39 Q: Doesn’t this too require a tremendous meditation? |
| 47:50 K: Please... Doesn’t this require great meditation? No, please do it. If one does it, you will find that you derive from that very observation a great energy, don’t you? You are not dissipating any energy – it is there. You flatter me. I like it, and I store it up. Next time I meet you, I say… we’ve become friends. You insult me, and I don’t like it, and I put you away. Now, can I look at that flattery and the insult as it takes place, at the moment of its happening, without any storing up of the experience? You understand? That requires attention; not ‘how’ to attend, but if you see how extraordinarily important it is not to store up. |
| 49:36 Q: …you say, when someone asks you, ‘How?’ you say, ‘Be quiet’ – you do give an answer. And yet why just be quiet? Why not speak, why not see, why not hear, why not do, why not think? |
| 49:57 K: Sir, we went into that. We have thought a great deal about suffering. Volumes have been written by religious people and... all the rest of it. And yet we suffer. Suffering, apparently, is our daily affair. And a man asks, ‘Is it possible to end it?’ And when he says, ‘Please tell me how to end it? ’ then is that thinking? Is that examining? Or you’re merely wanting a result which will be greatly pleasurable; when the suffering ends, obviously you think it’ll be tremendous... there will be great pleasure; 50:58 so one follows the method in order to have that pleasure. But there’s no understanding of suffering; and so, when there is no understanding of suffering, it comes in another form. So what we are trying to do is to find out for oneself whether it is possible to end this thing that we call suffering, in which is involved self-pity, loneliness, all that. |
| 51:43 Q: Is the word ‘where’ as mischievous as the word ‘how’? |
| 51:56 K: Is the word ‘where’ as mischievous as ‘how’. I don’t quite see... |
| 52:08 Q: You seem to be saying, ‘Feel and experience without clinging, or without thought’. Is this correct? |
| 52:17 K: A little bit, sir, yes. Little bit. Therefore it’s not total, therefore it’s not quite. |
| 52:28 Q: Could you elaborate? |
| 52:31 Q: Is it necessary to suffer in order to understand something? |
| 52:35 K: Is it necessary to suffer in order to understand? I think Christianity has made suffering into something holy. By suffering, we say we are going to… oh, you know, reach heaven. I think a mind that suffers is the most stupid mind. It doesn’t end it. So, please sir, I’ll come back. What is it we are asking about? What is it we are all wanting to find out? |
| 53:27 Q: Would you describe a mind that is quiet, or describe the mind that… what it is when it isn’t quiet? Either way, I don’t know. |
| 53:38 K: What is the mind when it is not quiet? |
| 53:42 Q: Yes. |
| 53:45 K: All right. Most of our minds are not quiet, are they? Ceaselessly agitated, active, thinking about something, or soliloquising, talking to itself, imagining – it is endlessly restless, isn’t it? And how do we know any quiet when a mind is so restless? And it may be the nature of the mind never to be quiet. And why are we so restless? Especially the modern world, why is the mind so restless? |
| 54:34 Q: Because it’s full of fear. |
| 54:40 K: ‘Because’, the questioner says, ‘it’s full of fear’? Or is it…? |
| 54:47 Q: It’s also a form of escape. |
| 54:53 K: Escape. Have you… has one really inquired why the mind is restless? Why am I restless? Maybe that I’m not physically fit; I’ve got too many nervous strains. My tendency, my demand for a particular satisfaction has not been satisfied, and I’m always seeking something which will give me immense satisfaction, and I know there isn’t any. So the restless mind may be the result of a neurological state, or restless because there is… we haven’t found an answer to anything – an answer, in the deep sense of the word, to fundamental issues – therefore it has nothing to do; it’s like a leaf driven all over the place. 56:21 And without understanding the nature of one’s own thinking, which is self-knowing, quietness of the mind is not possible. And to know oneself is the beginning of wisdom. Not in a book, not in psychology... all that, wisdom is in knowing oneself. It comes out of the soil of self-knowing. Right, sirs. |
| 57:06 Q: Why do you pick the negative aspect of a restless mind? Isn’t an active mind, such as yours right now, a creative mind? |
| 57:13 K: Is not your mind, the speaker’s mind, which is active now, is it not restless, in that sense. |
| 57:22 Q: Creative. |
| 57:22 K: Creative. Again, this is a very difficult word, ‘creative’. And does one – this is, again, a rather difficult question – does one, as one is now, talking together, is there a thinking process at all? Ah, I mustn’t go into that. Sir, what do we mean by ‘creative’? One goes to college to learn creative writing, or creative painting, creative music. Everybody talks about creative, creative, being creative. The word ‘creative’ is not the state of the mind that is creative. Right? 58:24 And what is that mind that’s creative? A mind that is creative must die each moment to the thing which it has learnt, which it has known; otherwise it’s not new. One can paint an objective picture, non-objective picture, and think that’s creative. Is it? Or creativeness may be a state of mind in which there is no fulfilment at all, no demand for expression. Right, sirs. That’s enough, I think, don’t you? |
