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RA65TS4 - To understand death we must understand living
Rajghat, India - 10 December 1965
School Talk 4



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s fourth talk with students at Rajghat, 1965.
0:13 Krishnamurti: Do you want me to talk about anything specially?
0:40 I think it is very important to know the whole content of life.
1:03 Life isn’t just one segment or one fragment, one little part which we like or dislike, which we feel attracted to, or gives us a pleasure, but life is a tremendous movement.
1:32 It is like the ocean, like the sea—always in movement.
1:43 The deeper you go the more quiet it becomes, the more weighty.
1:56 But to merely live in a little harbour of our own making, a little port of our own pleasure, of our own little conduct and little work, does not bring about a freedom, a sense of well-being.
2:39 So, unless one knows the extraordinary nature of life, the beauty, the ugliness, the sorrow, the misery, the anxiety, the fever and poverty and the immense sorrow, we shall not know life.
3:13 We must be acquainted with all of these things.
3:20 How to earn a right livelihood—not just become an engineer or a politician or a scientist or a school-teacher or a housewife, but to find out for ourselves what is our right vocation, how to earn everyday bread and butter rightly.
3:55 And that is an immense problem which you must understand and work towards from now on, not when it is too late.
4:07 You may have to go against your parents, against the orthodoxy of what you should do and should not do, because that way, when you are forced, compelled to conform, you lose all initiative, all sense of freedom.
4:33 So from now on, in a school of this kind, one should know for oneself, or help to know, help you to know what is your vocation, how to earn a right livelihood, not because society, circumstances, over-population, the idiosyncrasies, the absurdities that exist around you force you into a certain way of life, into a certain activity, force you to accept certain livelihood.
5:22 But unless you yourself find out for yourself what you really want to do in life—life, not just a little corner of it, but the whole vast field of it—you will always be frustrated, miserable, unhappy, frightened.
5:54 And when you love something what you do—you know what I mean by loving something?
6:03 If you love to be a mathematician, love to be a good engineer, not because it gives you a reward, a success—that doesn’t matter, when you really love something, then you put your whole heart, your mind, your body, everything, into that and in that there is no frustration, no anxiety.
6:31 It doesn’t matter whether you are a success or a failure, whether you have money or no money, that thing fills your being.
6:41 So you have to find out. You can’t ask somebody else to tell you what you should do. They can help you, they can give you a sketch of life, but it is you, you have to find out, you have to work, you have to think out from now on.
7:05 Otherwise you will be just like the rest of the thoughtless generation, like people who have made this mad, ugly world with all the wars, hates and nationalities, divisions of religions.
7:29 So, you must also know not only what you should do for the rest of your life, but also you should be acquainted with what is love, what it means.
7:53 You know, very few of us love anything—love a bird, love the earth, love your neighbour, your parents or the parents love their children, because, for most of us, love is a kind of emotional security, emotional, sentimental, aggressive assertion of oneself.
8:45 We don’t know what love is because when we do love somebody—at least when we say we do—we are generally jealous of anybody, of others who might also share that affection with that person.
9:01 We want it all to ourselves—my family, my house, my god, my this, and my that—and we don’t want anybody to encroach upon that.
9:16 So, we don’t know what love is.
9:23 And if you don’t know what love is in life, it is like a tree that has no fruit, no flower, no scent, that has not very deep roots, that is blown over by a strong wind.
9:41 And you must have that, you must find out, not just say, well, I love my children, my father, my mother—it means nothing.
9:58 And when you love, you will not have wars. There will be no Pakistani or India, Russia or America or England or China.
10:13 You will love human beings, not the labels. So, we must also get acquainted, learn, about what it means to love and what it means to have a family.
10:31 Because, generally family—this exclusive, possessive, limited relationship between people—father, mother, children—that exclusive, narrow, relationship is generally against the whole of society, against neighbours, against anybody outside that.
11:01 You know, French Revolution and probably the greatest revolution, the Russian Revolution, tried to get rid of families because they saw family as a danger to the State and they thought the State was the supreme thing and yet they couldn’t get rid of it.
11:28 They tried different ways to abolish the sense of family—not the sense of having children, having a husband, a wife, but this narrow, exclusive, possessive, dominating, assertive, aggressive relationship of a few people against the rest.
11:56 So you must know about it, what it means—not, just well, I have a family and I am going to work for that family and I am going to work for my nephew, niece or whatever it is to get him a better job, and that way lies corruption, real corruption is that, when the family becomes more important than human beings.
12:30 And also you must know, get acquainted, understand, what is sorrow.
12:44 Not run away from it, not become a sanyasi and renounce the world.
12:55 Such people are still full of sorrow, they are burning inside.
13:02 But to understand sorrow living in this world, living—going to the office, bearing children, the anxiety, the fear, the uncertainty of life—knowing that and also understanding sorrow.
13:24 You know what sorrow means?
13:31 The very little part of it is when you have a headache, when you have pain, physical pain.
13:42 That is the beginning of it. And sorrow, when you can’t become a very clever person, a beautiful person, when you like to be rich, prosperous, have nice house, garden and you can’t have it.
14:06 Then you are eating your heart out. Then there is the sorrow of not being able to do something for others.
14:23 You can’t do anything for others by merely joining a group of social activity, a group of people who are concerned with social welfare.
14:35 Then such a group are concerned with ideas, not with really helping people.
14:44 To them ideas, ideologies, formulas are much more important than really the love of people and helping them.
14:56 So you have to understand all this. And you have to understand also the sorrow that human beings have had for millennia, suffering with physical pain, old age, death, not being able to find out what is real, what is false, not being able to search out in their own hearts a quiet abode, a quiet resting place.
15:46 So as they have not found peace for themselves, they try to find peace in God, in ideas, in temples, in churches, in some kind of activity.
16:01 So they are always in sorrow. And man has never said: let me find out if I can end sorrow, put an end to it, not in the next life, not some future time or by saying, well, if I do these things, I’ll end sorrow.
16:22 Sorrow can’t be ended that way. You have to understand it and to understand something you must love it.
16:39 You must care for it. So when you care for sorrow, you begin to understand what it is made up of.
16:51 And if you are not free of sorrow, your life is always in darkness, like fear.
17:01 A person is frightened—what parents, what society, frightened of one’s health, frightened of being nobody, frightened of not becoming successful.
17:15 So like fear it darkens one’s mind.
17:23 Sorrow is like fear. It makes the mind dull, stupid, heavy. So you have to understand that also. And also you have to understand what death is. I know you are too young. But you see death—people dying, dead, people who are dead being carried to the river or to the burial-ground or to be cremated.
17:59 You have seen it, you have seen these dead bodies, bodies that have no longer life, bodies that have diseased.
18:15 And you have to understand death and not be frightened of it.
18:23 And, that is, to understand death, you must understand living.
18:34 You see, we have separated living and death. They are two different things for most people. Death we say that is the end. Or, there is the hope that we will be reborn next life or have some kind of immortality.
18:57 So we say, death is the last thing, that is the finality, the end.
19:08 So we put it as far away from us as possible, never think about it, never look at it, never try to find out what it means; or, when we do, we are so frightened we try to escape through beliefs, through every form of escape.
19:29 And to understand death we must understand living—living with its sorrow, with its misery, with its anxieties, despairs; the family and the hatred of the family against another family; the fear of gods and the uncertainty of knowing truth.
20:00 That is all we know as life—ache, despair, anxiety, fear.
20:07 And that is what we call life, the living of every day, the office, the family, the sex, the pleasure and the multitudinous worries.
20:29 And that is what we call life and to that we cling desperately. So without understanding this living, you can never understand what is dying, what is death.
20:46 So you have to understand living. Is there a living without pain, without anxiety, without fear?
20:56 And there is, if you go into it very, very deeply. So you will find, when you know how to live clearly, that living and dying are both the same.
21:13 But that requires a great deal of intelligence and enquiry and action.
21:24 And also, you have to know for yourself, not as an idea, what it is to have peace, what it means to be peaceful, because you know, if there are too many winds, storms, tremendous rains, a plant can’t grow.
21:56 It must have peace—little wind, a great deal of sunshine and the darkness of a night; it needs little wind, little rain, it must have peace around it, otherwise it is broken.
22:17 So you must find out what peace means.
22:24 That is, how to live peacefully—not going to sleep, not vegetate, not saying: Well, I belong to this group or to this country, which will look after me, being a welfare state and all the rest of it and gradually become dull, stupid, heavy; indifferent.
22:46 That’s not peace. Peace is something enormous, something you have to understand, go into.
22:56 And to understand peace, you must also understand what meditation is.
23:07 You know, this country and the Asian countries, are supposed to know a great deal about meditation.
23:21 To them, meditation is a form of repetition of words. You know muttering a few words, mantras, and mesmerizing oneself by repeating words into a state of dull, indifferent, sluggish mind—put themselves to sleep.
23:46 That is not meditation. Nor sitting very quietly, breathing rightly and going off into some kind of mystical, hypnotic, self-deceptive vision, is not meditation.
24:04 And you must know what meditation is. That is to sit quietly, to watch your mind wandering, to know what the mind is doing—every thought, every feeling—to watch it so clearly.
24:30 Out of that watching your mind becomes extraordinarily sharp, clear.
24:40 And without knowing what meditation is, there will be no peace.
24:50 You may have peace between two wars, you may have one day which is peaceful, in the sense that there are no troubles, but that doesn’t mean peace.
25:05 Peace is something that is like a tremendous jewel, a precious jewel and you have to come to it and you can only come to it if you know, if you understand what meditation is.
25:27 And when we understand what meditation is, then you will know what creation is.
25:37 I know these are all difficult things for you, but you must know all this, like hearing first class music, not second-rate tawdry music.
25:53 Always hearing something, the very best—music, language, literature, meeting the very best minds, not the minds that please you or you are attracted to, but the mind that thinks very clearly, sharply, is aware of the whole process of living.
26:25 You must know it. And you must, as children, you must be exposed to all this. You know being exposed, what it means? To be open, so that you hear the best music, best poetry, see the very best...
26:52 So in the same way, to know meditation, to know what it means to be inwardly at great, tremendously peaceful, to be free from sorrow, from fear, not to be crushed by the family, by society, by tradition.
27:21 Unless you know all this you will be merely a little human being, in a little town or in a little village, fighting, struggling, miserable and dying.
27:44 And it is the part of education to unfold and expose you to all this so that you mature, flower, in goodness, you have a sense of beauty.
28:02 And otherwise education has very little meaning.
28:09 Now let’s proceed. Student (S): When a man improves, why do other people feel jealous of him?
28:30 K: The little boy asks: Why are people jealous of those who are trying to be little better than they are.
28:45 Isn’t that it? Why are people jealous, the boy says. Don’t you know? Don’t you know why you are jealous? You know what jealousy is, isn’t it, don’t you?
29:10 Envy, jealousy. You look nice, you have got good brains, you’ve got a good body, you feel strongly, you are intelligent, bright-eyed and I am not.
29:30 And I would like to be like you and I can’t. Lady: No, sir, we are not jealous for these things.
29:39 K: Just a minute, lady, I am coming to it. Perfectly right we are not jealous for these things. We are jealous for other things also. Lady: Yes, we are jealous.
30:06 And we should be jealous I think to be a human being, isn’t it? Why do you want us to be superhuman? Can’t we be human beings, I mean, with some faults? Why should we try to be divine? We can’t be gods.
30:11 K: Just a minute. The little boy asked a very serious question. To him it is important. I am not saying that you must be superhuman, that you must be gods or that it is human to be jealous.
30:26 Monkeys are jealous, dogs are jealous. [Laughter] Lady: How do you know they are jealous, sir?
30:32 K: You watch them. Have you had monkeys? Have you had dogs? Lady: ...they are also jealous.
30:39 K: You watch them. Monkeys, animals, birds, pets. When you give more attention to one and not to the other, they are jealous.
30:53 They are animals. I know. Listen to me. Listen. They are animals, and we are supposed to be human beings.
31:07 We are supposed to have more brains, we are supposed to be more intelligent, we are supposed to be educated—educated to live with one another, not as gods and superhumans.
31:29 We are educated to live with each other, not like animals, tearing at each other, jealous of each other.
31:42 We are educated. We are capable of great things mentally, like going to the moon, inventing great things, but we are jealous.
32:01 Therefore there is a great deal of the animal in us.
32:09 And isn’t it normal, healthy, sane, to live as a human being, not as animals—to be not jealous, not to be angry, which doesn’t mean you become godly, superhuman.
32:28 Lady: But is it possible to conquer this anger and this sense of jealousy?
32:38 K: You haven’t thought about it madam. Lady says, is it possible to conquer jealousy. Lady: Then we will be gods, isn’t it, if we could conquer...
32:47 K: Oh, my Lady! Then don’t conquer it. Be jealous, be angry, be envious and wallow in your own little misery. It’s all right.
33:05 Q: Because we are just being human beings.
33:24 To be what we are isn’t it? I don’t say we should be jealous, we should be angry. But we are, isn’t it? And that is the... because we are human beings.
33:28 K: You haven’t listened to what I’ve said. You keep on repeating. Lady: .No, sir, I am listening. You said we are better off than animals.
33:32 K: I did not say we are better off. Lady: We suppose so.
33:36 K: Listen carefully what I said. The animals are jealous and there is a great deal of the animal in us and if you want to live like an animal, you are perfectly welcome and we do live like animals, tearing at each other, wars, hating each other.
34:03 Lady: We are worse than what animals are, human beings, isn’t it? Because at least they are not hypocritical about what they do.
34:14 K: Madam, you are not listening to what I am saying. Not that you should, but you have asked a question and I am trying to answer it and to find out what the speaker is saying, you have to listen to him.
34:33 First, we are jealous.
34:40 We are jealous because we compare ourselves with another. The other receives more affection, more prestige, a bigger car, powerful and so on and I am not.
34:57 So I am jealous of that man. So jealousy comes through comparison. And is it possible to live without comparison?
35:14 And is it possible to live non-animalistically?
35:22 Can one be free from anger, jealousy, envy, greed?
35:30 If you say, I don’t want to be, that is my nature, that is how I would like to live, that is how my fathers, forefathers, human beings, have lived for the last two million years, if you say that is the way human beings have lived, will live and I am living that way, it is perfectly all right, live it that way.
35:55 But if you don’t want to live that way, you have to find out.
36:06 We don’t accept and say, well it is normal for me to be jealous. I want to find out how to live differently. Good God, you don’t mean to say you want to live in this wretched, miserable way like animals?
36:23 So you have to find out how to live without jealousy, how to live without fear, which doesn’t mean you become super god.
36:32 You may, that is unimportant. So, how to live without envy, without fear, without anger, is very important.
36:48 Otherwise, if you live with anger and hate, you have wars.
36:58 And if you say, war is the way of our life, perfectly, you’ve a right to accept war as your way of life, which shows that you haven’t used your mind, your intelligence, your affection, to solve this problem.
37:20 And to understand jealousy, you have to go into it.
37:28 You have to go into it, understand it, what the word means, what lies behind the word and you have to understand what is the nature and the structure of jealousy or envy or greed or fear, who is afraid, and whether you can look at it non-subjectively, dispassionately.
38:01 It is an enormous question and you don’t want to go into it.
38:08 All that you say, I can’t conquer my fears, my jealousy. I don’t think you can. Anything that you conquer will have to be re-conquered over and over and over again.
38:23 But if you understand it, if you watch it—you know, to understand somebody or something, you have to watch it.
38:36 To understand a little child you have to watch it, haven’t you?, when it is sleeping, when it is playing, when it is naughty, when it is crying, when it is eating, how it reacts—you have to watch it.
38:54 And then you begin to understand it. And when you understand something, you don’t have to conquer it. When you understand why Pakistan and you are fighting, understand it, which is, the national, linguistic, religious, different sovereign states, and all economic barriers, and all that.
39:21 When you begin to understand this whole business of nationalism, then, as you begin to understand it, you are free of it.
39:31 You don’t have to conquer anger. A man who has conquered anger is not at peace.
39:42 Now, may I ask you a question?
39:58 Did you listen to what the speaker was saying?
40:07 Listen. Did you listen? Don’t look at somebody else.
40:23 I wasn’t asking that lady if she listened. But I am asking you and her if you listened.
40:35 You know what it means to listen?
40:43 To listen you must give attention. Whether what is being said you like or not, that is not the point. You want to find out what the speaker is saying. So you listen. You may agree or disagree, that is not the point. But you have to find out what he says, find out for yourself whether what he says is true or false.
41:14 To find out you have to listen, give ear, which means give attention.
41:22 Did you attend? Or, you say, well, let him go on talking, I know what I think.
41:35 And behind that what you think, behind your words, behind your mask you say—you are not listening.
41:44 So to listen you have to come out of your mask, to put aside for a moment, or forever, your opinions, your judgments and listen.
42:01 Then only you begin to understand. So, may I ask: Did you listen?
42:16 Because you see, if we know how to listen rightly, it is the greatest miracle.
42:33 Because in that listening, not only to what the speaker is saying, but to everything, to that screech of that little bird just now.
42:54 If you are listening, then because your mind, your heart, your body, everything is heightened and in that heightened sensitivity you see things very clearly.
43:12 And when you see clearly, you are free, not momentarily, but that state of mind that sees clearly can only come about when you are listening, watching, the little things of life, little birds, the trees, the dirt, the squalor, how people talk, what they say—listen, observe.
43:51 And to observe, to listen, you have to come out of your own little shell of opinions, judgements, saying, we are human, therefore we remain this way, you know, cut away all that and listen and you will find that you learn infinitely, more than any book can teach you.
44:19 S: Sir, and how long will it take to disappear?
44:44 K: What? How long will it take to disappear from this - what?
44:47 S: ... Teacher: Boundary disputes.
44:50 K: What, sir? Teacher: National frontiers. Teacher: How long will it take for national frontiers to disappear.
45:03 K: How long will it take for national frontiers to disappear.
45:20 Depends on you. [Laughter] Don’t laugh, see the truth of it, listen to the truth of it or to the falseness of it.
45:33 I said it depends on you. If you say, I am a Hindu and you are a Muslim, or the Muslim says, I am a Muslim and you are a Hindu, I am Catholic, and you are a Protestant, you are a Buddhist, you are Communist, you are a Socialist, you are this and that, and you maintain it, keep on asserting, as you all do—that you are a Hindu.
46:03 India, patriotism, we are the greatest, all that stuff. As long as you cultivate that, you will have frontiers forever.
46:19 You will have wars, as I told you the other day, they have had wars for the last five thousand years and more, because of frontiers, because of religions, because of your family, because of your community, for economic reasons and so on, so on.
46:42 So as long as you worship the flag, as long as you are a nationalist, patriotic, as long as there are sovereign governments as your government and my government, my political party and your political party, as long as there are racial, national, religious differences, there will be wars and there will be no end to frontiers.
47:18 And if you say, that is the way we have lived for the last five thousand and more years, we will go on, why should we change, because it is all right to get my children killed and myself killed and kill others, then live that way.
47:38 Nobody is going to change you. No politicians, no propaganda, no religious doctrines are going to change you.
47:48 You have to change yourself because it is right in itself, because you love and that’s why you will not kill.
48:03 Not because you have certain ideologies, not because you believe.
48:12 Because you love, because your heart tells you not to kill somebody, not to kill animals for your food.
48:26 Then you say, but how am I to live?
48:34 Is not killing a vegetable the same as killing an animal? I know all the clever arguments. So you kill the least little thing, the vegetable. So as long as you feel patriotic, national, the South against the North or the East against the West, or the West against the East, you are going to have frontiers and your life will be a misery.
49:18 Have you listened to what I have said? Does it mean anything to you, what we have just now said? Or, you are all bored and sleepy.
49:37 Because you say, I can’t do anything. It is for the politicians. What can I do against society? It is so strong. It will destroy us if we stand up against it.
49:54 Be destroyed. Swim against the current, don’t follow. That’s what has been the curse of this country—following people, your leaders, your saints, your gurus, your teachers, so that you have lost all sense of your own clarity, because you are not a light to yourself now.
50:23 You are the light of somebody else who is dead and gone.
50:32 So you have to find out how to live a different kind of life, and you will, if you are educated properly, if you are acquainted with all the things of life.
51:02 S: Sir, when man knows death is necessary, why doesn’t he love it?
51:20 K: When man knows death is inevitable, why doesn’t he love it. Do you love something because it is inevitable?
51:40 You know, people have worshipped death.
51:48 Egypt you know, five thousand, three thousand years ago, life was a way which led to death.
52:01 So they worshipped death. There are others who said, death is a beginning.
52:10 There are others who said, death is the furtherance of immortality—the mortal becoming immortal.
52:24 So there have been dozens and dozens of ways and beliefs to understand and go beyond death, to overcome death.
52:34 They never said, look, let’s find out.
52:42 You understand? Let’s find out what it means to die, not till the last moment when you are unconscious, when you are knocked on the head or when the aeroplane crashes, or when you have disease and old age and corruption has set in and then you can’t think.
53:04 Your brain is gone. So it is from now on that we have to think about it, when you are vigorous, strong, healthy to find out.
53:14 But that requires a tremendous inquiry.
53:24 And love is in inquiry, not about death. You understand? When you love to find out, when you love to find out how a bird makes a nest.
53:40 S: Sir, how can we know death when we have not realized it?
53:45 K: I am telling you. How can you know death when you have not realised it. I will explain to you. Just listen to what I am saying. When you love to know, you observe. That is, you watch a nest being built, how the bird brings little sticks, puts them together and then the egg and then they hatch, watch it.
54:15 Then the watching, inquiring, is the love. There is a little bit more. I won’t go too abstractly. So you have to know about death. And the question is, how can I know, realize what death is, when I am living?
54:40 Right? You see the dead body being carried. And you say, how can I experience or know or realize, feel that state when there is death, right?
54:52 Now, I will explain to you. You know, explanation is not the real thing. Right? You understand what I am saying? I said just now, I will tell you about it. The telling, the explaining, the description, is not the fact.
55:23 That is, I can describe to you this microphone, describe it verbally.
55:31 The description of the microphone is not the fact of the microphone. Right? Got it?
55:40 S: Yes.
55:41 K: To see the microphone, you have to look in spite of the description.
55:49 Right? You understand? Right. So, the explanation is not the fact. Right? So the word is not the actuality. Right? Got it? So you have to be careful not to be caught in explanations.
56:21 Right? Not to be caught in words because those are not the fact. Right? So, that must be clearly understood. The description is not the fact. Love is not the word.
56:49 To realize what love is you have to be free of the word to feel it.
56:57 Right? Right. So the question is, how can I, living, realize that state of death which is when a body has gone, the body has disintegrated, no longer living?
57:27 How can I experience death? Right? Now, I am going to tell you, I am going to explain it to you. But the explanation is not the fact.
57:43 I can describe to you, sympathize with you about your pain, but you are feeling the pain, not I.
57:54 Right? So listen to this.
58:03 I will try to make it as simple as possible. First of all, to understand anything, one mustn’t be frightened of it.
58:16 Right? If I am frightened of death, I can’t understand it.
58:29 Right? If I am frightened of you, I run away from you. And to understand you, I must look at you. I mustn’t run away. I mustn’t run away through my beliefs, through my dogmas, through my reincarnation.
58:51 I must come into contact with death while living.
58:58 Right? So, what does it mean to die? That is, to die organically, you understand, bodily, and also, perhaps die in a different way also.
59:26 I will go into it. Now, first I said, you mustn’t be frightened. You mustn’t run away. And that is one of the most difficult things to do—not to escape, not to be frightened.
59:55 Not to escape, you understand? Stop escaping. Stop being afraid. Then let’s find out what death means. Death means, the body coming to an end, you know. Now, is it possible to realize or experience or understand death while living?
1:00:25 I say, yes. It means that when you die, what is involved in it?
1:00:37 You are leaving your family, you are leaving your house, you are leaving your qualities, what you started out, you are ending.
1:00:48 Suddenly all that comes to an end. Right?
1:00:51 S: Yes.
1:00:52 K: Right. So, why not die while living. That is, not be attached to the family, not say, this is my house, my father, my mother, my country, my god, my pleasure.
1:01:14 That is, to die to that, die to your particular little pleasures and vanities, to your knowledge, to your search, seeking, die every day to everything that you have gathered inwardly, because it is only when you die there is a new thing born.
1:01:48 There is no new thing which has a continuity.
1:01:59 It is only the thing that ends every day, which dies every day, that knows a thing that is new.
1:02:11 This requires a great deal of talking over together—you and I together, because it is an enormously important problem.
1:02:27 Because a group of people or a community, which does not know the meaning and the significance of death, or escapes from death in belief, and dogma, does not know what living is.
1:02:46 And that is why our life becomes very superficial even though you may believe in reincarnation or immortality and so on, so on, so on.
1:03:10 S: Sir, what is the definition of life?
1:03:23 K: What is...?
1:03:24 S: ...definition of life?
1:03:25 S: What is the meaning of life?
1:03:26 S: What is the definition of life.
1:03:27 K: What is the definition of life. You understand? What is the definition of life. I suggest that you look up the dictionary.
1:03:39 [Laughter] But if you say to me, not a definition, because then you can look up in the dictionary.
1:03:46 That will tell you what it means. But if you say to me, let’s talk over together what life means, that is quite different.
1:04:00 Right? Life means, generally, struggle, constant conflict, constant comparison, jealousy, envy, greed, pain, frustration, misery, sorrow.
1:04:21 That is all you know. And that is what we call life and to that life we cling. We’d rather cling to things that we know rather than face the unknown.
1:04:41 That is what causes us fear. So don’t be satisfied with definitions.
1:04:53 Or say, what is the purpose of life?
1:05:01 You invent one purpose, and a socialist will invent another, and a communist will invent another and so on and on and on—opinions.
1:05:12 Opinions are not true. To find out what life is, you have to see life as it is, not as it should be, as it is.
1:05:28 Then when you see it as it is, then you can understand it and break through.
1:05:37 S: Sir, sometimes we want to die, to commit suicide—why is it?
1:05:52 K: Sometimes we want to...
1:05:54 S: ...die, commit suicide. Teacher: Commit suicide.
1:05:56 K: Ah! Sometimes we want to commit suicide, why is it. Good Lord, is it so very difficult. Don’t you know, when you feel utter despair, when you feel nobody cares, loves you, when you are not a tremendous success in life, when you find you are not loved, when you find you love somebody and that somebody doesn’t love you, when you are deeply frustrated, when you have reached the end of things, then you want to jump into the lake, or jump off a building, or take some poison.
1:06:55 Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. You may not face it now, you are just young, you may say, I’ve got plenty of time, but you are going to face this sometime.
1:07:07 S: But, sir, our courage fails when we plan to commit suicide.
1:07:27 Our courage fails when we try to convert the idea into action. Teacher: Courage fails when you want to commit suicide.
1:07:31 K: Courage fails when you want to commit suicide. Is that it?
1:07:33 S: Yes, sir.
1:07:36 K: It is very simple, isn’t it? Shut your eyes, take a pill. [laughter] Where is the courage needed in this? If that is what you want to do, why do you bring in courage?
1:07:55 If the despair is real, not phoney, when you have really reached the end of things, there is no courage or, you know, that’s the end.
1:08:14 But it’s the people who are pretending, you follow?
1:08:25 And why should you commit suicide? There may be a different way of living. But if you say, I must live that way, that man must love me, I must become successful and you can’t, then you accept the status quo of a society and if that society doesn’t give you what it wants, you’re ready to commit suicide.
1:08:49 It all seems so absurd, doesn’t it? It is like blackmailing people, blackmailing life. You understand what I am saying?
1:09:10 [Laughs] If you don’t do this, I will stop. That used to be one of the favourite games in this country. If I don’t get my language I am going to burn myself.
1:09:29 It is a form of blackmail and so your committing suicide is a form of blackmail.
1:09:36 You are not deceiving life, you are deceiving yourself. But you see, all this is too much for you, you know.
1:09:51 S: Sir, it is said that the soul is immortal.
1:10:05 When there was nothing in this world, where was it?
1:10:06 K: It is said that the soul is immortal, and...? Teacher: When there was nothing in this world, where was it?
1:10:12 K: When there was nothing in the world where was it. My Lord! [Laughs] [Laughter] It is said that soul is immortal.
1:10:25 Where was it when there was nothing. Now how do you know soul is immortal?
1:10:36 Who says it is immortal? Your grandfather, your grandmother, your books? [Laughter] Who says it is immortal?
1:10:45 S: It is said in religious books.
1:10:51 K: Why do you believe in religious books?
1:10:53 S: We have to believe.
1:10:55 K: What for?
1:10:56 S: That is the tradition...
1:11:04 K: So, tradition, your grandmother, your sacred books, tell you to believe and you say, all right, I will believe.
1:11:14 Is that it? So you don’t, you are just, you do what you are told, is that it?
1:11:28 Slaves. I am afraid that is a fact. You are slaves—to your tradition, to the idea that there is a soul, that your books, your grandmother, your father, all tell you, therefore it is all right, there is a soul.
1:11:45 But you don’t inquire. You don’t want to find out if there is a soul which is permanent. Right? Is there anything permanent in life? Anything? Even the Himalayas are growing. [Laughs] You understand? There has been no rains in this country for some time. There is death, there are wars. Your own organism, body, is undergoing change all the time.
1:12:26 And your thinking is rapidly changing. So thought invents the idea that there is a soul which is permanent, because it gives a tremendous comfort to it.
1:12:38 But you don’t find out. And to find out, you have to tear all tradition. Yes, sir, you can laugh. [Laughs] You put that question and you don’t take it very seriously, do you? Teacher: Sir, I have seen many cases reported in the papers and magazines about rebirth.
1:13:10 K: About? Teacher: Rebirth.
1:13:13 K: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. This becomes a circus now, you see.
1:13:30 I am telling you something very serious and you laugh, because you don’t want to face these facts.
1:13:42 Life has nothing permanent. Your family, yourself, your father, your society, is not permanent. Or your insurance isn’t permanent either.
1:13:59 Certainly not your gods and your sacred books. So if you will look into yourself, you will find that there is nothing permanent.
1:14:13 And your idea is that the soul is permanent, because you believe in that, because it gives you a tremendous sense of comfort.
1:14:26 And a man who is seeking light has no comfort at any time, at any level.
1:14:40 And this idea that you have read in magazines and all the rest of it that there is rebirth, this is hardly the occasion to discuss that.