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SA61T6 - Time does not wipe away sorrow
Saanen, Switzerland - 6 August 1961
Public Talk 6



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti's sixth public talk in Saanen, 1961.
0:12 We have been talking a great deal about facing the fact, observing without condemnation or justification, to approach a fact without an opinion.
0:41 Especially where psychological facts are concerned we are apt to bring our prejudices, our desires, our urges, which distort what is and thereby develop a certain guilt, a sense of contradiction, a denial.
1:21 And we have been talking [about] that, about the importance of complete destruction of all the things that we have built up as a refuge, as a defence.
1:54 Because life is much too vast and too fast, and our sluggish minds, our slow way of thinking, our accustomed habits invariably create a contradiction within, and we dictate terms to life; and so gradually this contradiction and conflict increases, and our minds become more and more dull.
2:39 And I would like this morning, if I may, to talk about the simple austerity of the mind, and suffering.
3:02 It is very difficult to be simple, to think directly, to see things clearly, to pursue what we see to the very end, logically, reasonably, sanely.
3:32 It is very difficult to be clear and therefore simple.
3:47 I mean by simplicity not merely what one puts on or what one takes off; I do not mean the simplicity of outward garment, having few possessions, which are probably necessary, but I mean much more psychologically, inwardly, because I think simplicity of approach to a very complex problem, as suffering, is essential.
4:33 But before we can approach sorrow, I think we have to be very clear what we mean by that word simple.
4:57 I feel that a mind which is already so complex, a mind that is so infinitely cunning, subtle, which has so many experiences, a consciousness which has within it the residue of all time and of the race, to reduce all this vast complexity to simplicity is very, very difficult.
5:43 And I think it has to be done, otherwise we shall not go beyond conflict and sorrow.
5:56 So, the question is—given all this complexity with knowledge, with considerable experience, with various types of memories and experiences—how to look at sorrow and to be free of sorrow, if that is at all possible.
6:50 First of all, I think, definition and explanation are really detrimental to find out for oneself how to think simply and directly.
7:14 Definition in words does not make the mind simple.
7:26 Explanations do not bring about the clarity of perception.
7:33 So it seems to me one must be greatly aware of the slavery to words; and one also has to be aware, hasn’t one, that it is necessary to have words to communicate.
8:10 But what is communicated is not the word. The communication is beyond the word—it’s the feeling which cannot be put into words.
8:28 A really simple mind, which does not mean an ignorant mind, a mind that is free to follow, to follow the subtle facts, all the nuances, the movements of a given fact: and to do that the mind must, surely, be free from the slavery of words.
9:10 And I think such freedom brings about an austerity of simplicity.
9:22 When there is that simplicity, then I think we can look and try to understand what is sorrow.
9:35 I think simplicity of approach, simplicity of mind, and sorrow, are related.
9:50 Because to live in sorrow throughout our time for years, is surely, to put it very mildly, the most foolish thing to do.
10:09 To live in conflict, to live in sorrow, to live in frustration, always entangled in fear, in ambition, and the urge to fulfil and to be a success, with all its conflicts, fears, sorrows—to live a whole life in that state seems to me so utterly foolish, unnecessary.
10:45 And to be free of sorrow, one must approach this complex problem very simply.
10:55 Now, there are various kinds of sorrows: physical pain, and psychological frustrations, the physical disease, toothache, losing a limb, having poor eyesight, and so on; and the sorrow that comes into being when one loses somebody whom you love; when you have no capacity and you see people who have capacity; when you have no talent and you see people with talent, who have success, money, position, prestige, power.
11:51 There is the urge to fulfil, and in the shadow of fulfilment, there is always frustration, and with it comes sorrow.
12:00 So, there are these two types of sorrow: the physical and the psychological.
12:12 One may lose one’s arm, and then the whole problem comes, the sorrow comes, when the mind goes back into the past, that it is no longer able to play tennis, no longer able to do certain things.
12:38 It goes back into the past, remembers what it has done, and compares; and in that process sorrow is engendered.
12:54 We are familiar with that. The fact is, I have lost my arm. That’s a fact. No amount of theorizing, no amount of explanation, no amount of self pity will bring that arm back.
13:20 But the mind indulges in self pity, going back to the past: how I enjoyed playing tennis, doing certain things, and now it is not capable.
13:39 So, the fact of the present in contradiction with what has been—this comparison invariably brings conflict, and out of that conflict is sorrow.
14:06 That’s one kind of sorrow. Then there is the psychological thing. My brother, my son is dead, he’s gone; no amount of theorizing, explaining, believing, hoping will ever bring him back.
14:33 He’s gone—that’s a fact, a ruthless, uncompromising reality: he’s gone.
14:47 And the other fact is, I am very lonely because he’s gone: lonely, no companion.
14:58 We played together, we watched together, we laughed together, we said things, we knew each other; and the companionship is gone and I’m left.
15:18 And I know what that loneliness is. Loneliness is a fact, and the death is a fact.
15:31 I may accept the fact of his death: I have to. But I do not accept the fact of being alone, of being lonely in this world.
15:48 Then, as I do not accept the fact of being alone, lonely; as I do not accept it, then I begin to invent theories, hopes, explanations, escapes from the fact.
16:27 So these escapes, explanations, beliefs, hopes, bring about sorrow—not the fact that I’m lonely, not the fact that my brother is dead.
16:46 The fact can never bring sorrow, and I think that is important to understand if the mind is to be really, totally, completely free from sorrow.
17:07 And I think it is possible to be totally free from sorrow when the mind no longer seeks explanations, no longer escapes, but faces the fact.
17:36 I do not know if you have ever tried this.
17:48 We know what death is—I am not talking about death in the large sense; we will, another day—we know what death is, and the extraordinary fear that it invokes.
18:15 And it is a fact that we will die, each one of us, whether we like it or not.
18:24 Either we rationalize death, or escape in beliefs and therefore sustain fear; and if a mind really is concerned to go to the very end to discover if it is possible to be totally, completely free of sorrow, not in time, in the present, now.
19:21 Because we have theories: of karma, reincarnation, resurrection, and innumerable ways, ideas, beliefs which help us to escape from the fact.
19:41 Now, can each one of us intelligently, sanely face the fact that my son, brother, sister, wife, husband, whatever it is, is dead, and I am lonely—and not escape from that loneliness, not seek explanations, not have cunning beliefs in which we take shelter.
20:47 To really accept the fact of everything—that I have no talent, that I am a dull, stupid person, that I’m lonely, that my beliefs, my religious structures, spiritual values are so many defences—can I look at these facts and not seek out ways and means to escape?
21:37 Is it possible?
21:49 I think it is possible only when we are not concerned with time, with tomorrow.
22:17 We are lazy, our minds are lazy, and so we say, “We’ll get over it, give me time.” Time doesn’t wipe away sorrow.
22:44 We forget, but sorrow is there all the time, deep down.
22:57 And to wipe away sorrow in its entirety, completely, so that the mind is no longer in the shadow of sorrow—I think it is possible, so that there is no suffering, not tomorrow, not in the course of time, but to see the reality in the present and to go beyond it.
23:46 After all, why should we suffer?
24:05 Suffering is a disease.
24:12 And as you go to a doctor or to someone to rid you of that disease, why should we bear sorrow of any kind?
24:26 Please, I’m not talking rhetorically, which would be too stupid.
24:34 Why should we, each one of us, have any sorrow?
24:47 And is it possible to be rid of it completely?
24:56 You see, that question implies, why should we be in conflict?
25:08 Sorrow is conflict.
25:15 Why should there be conflict at all? We say conflict is necessary, it is part of existence; everything around us is in conflict: nature, all human beings are in conflict.
25:32 And to be, to have no conflict is not possible. We accept conflict as inevitable, within and without, inside the skin and in the world.
25:54 To me, conflict is not necessary, of any kind.
26:07 You may say, “That is a peculiar idea of your own, it has no value. It is very nice for you who are alone, unmarried, and all the rest of the bilge.
26:20 We have to live in the world; we must be in conflict with our neighbours; we are in conflict with our jobs; everything that we touch and do breeds conflict.” I think it has to do with right education—not to think in competition, not to compare.
27:07 I wonder if one understands through comparison, if one really sees directly by comparing?
27:20 Or, you see directly, simply, only when comparison has ceased, which means, when the mind is no longer trying to be ambitious, to be, become something—which does not mean that we must be satisfied with what we are.
28:01 I think to live without comparison, comparing yourself with another, comparing what you are with what should be, but being, facing what is all the time, wipes away totally all comparative values—actually seeing what is— thereby, I think, we can eliminate sorrow.
28:53 And I think it is very important for a mind to be free from sorrow, because then life has a totally different meaning.
29:14 You see, another unfortunate thing that we do is to seek comfort—not physical comfort but psychological comfort.
29:36 We went to take shelter in an idea. When that idea fails, we are in despair, which again breeds sorrow.
29:53 So, can the mind not live, function, be, without any shelter, without any refuge, and live from day to day, facing every fact as it arises and never seeking an escape, facing what is all the time, every minute of the day?
30:34 Then I think we’ll find that not only there is the ending of sorrow, but also the mind becomes astonishingly simple and clear.
30:50 It is able to perceive directly, without words, without the symbol.
31:15 I do not know if you have ever thought without words. Is there any thinking with¬out verbalizing?
31:29 Or is all thinking merely words—not only words, but symbols, pictures, imagination?
31:46 You see, all these, like words, symbols, ideas, are detrimental to clear sight, to see things.
32:27 And a mind that would go to the very end of sorrow to find out if it is possible to be totally free—not eventually—but living every day to be free from sorrow, one has to go very deeply into oneself to rid of all these explanations, words, ideas, beliefs, so that the mind is cleansed and is capable of seeing what is.
33:13 Shall we... Perhaps we can ask questions and discuss this, what we have been talking about this morning.
33:43 Questioner: (inaudible) KRISHNAMURT

I: The gentleman asks, when there is sorrow one wants to do something about it, and still one is afraid to do what one wants to do.
34:23 Sir, as we were saying the other day, we want to live with pleasure, don’t we?
34:41 We don’t want to change it, do we? We want it to continue all day and all night and everlastingly.
34:51 We don’t want to alter it, we don’t want even to touch it, to breathe upon it, because we want to hold it, don’t we?
35:00 The thing that delights us, that gives us joy, pleasure, sensation, like going to church, sitting everlastingly, day after day at mass—it gives a great deal of excitement, sensation.
35:12 You don’t want to alter that feeling. You feel that you are very near to the source of things.
35:26 We want to do that, don’t we? Why can’t we live equally, with the same intensity, with the same urgency, with sorrow, not wanting to do a thing about it?
35:45 Have you ever tried it? Have you ever tried to live with a physical pain? Have you ever tried to live with noise? Let’s begin much more simply. When the dog is barking of a night when you want to go to sleep in the country, and it keeps on barking, barking, what do you do?
36:11 You resist it, you throw, you curse it, you do all kinds of things.
36:21 But if you went with the noise, listened to the barking without any resistance.
36:33 I don’t know if you have ever tried this. You should try it sometime: never to resist. And you don’t resist where pleasure is concerned. On the contrary, you want more of it.
36:57 In the same way, to live without resistance, without choice, with sorrow, never seeking escape, never [having an] explanation, never any hope and thereby despair—to live with it.
37:21 You know what it means to live with something? It’s to love it. When you love someone, you want to live with that person, don’t you? In the same way, to live with sorrow—I don’t mean sadistically—but to live with sorrow, never trying to avoid it, see the whole picture of it, the source of it, the intensity of it, the utter superficiality of it also, which means that you can’t do anything about it as you don’t want to do anything about that which gives you intense pleasure.
38:49 You don’t want to alter the shape of pleasure; you don’t want to put it in a frame, you want to let it flow: in the same way to live with sorrow, which means, really, to love sorrow.
39:25 And that requires a great deal of energy, a great deal of understanding, watching all the time to see whether the mind is escaping from the fact.
39:42 And it’s terribly easy to escape: a drug, a drink, turning on the radio, books, chatter, knowledge.
40:04 And to live with something entirely, totally—whether it’s pleasure or pain—requires a mind that is intensely alert.
40:23 And, when the mind is so alert, it creates its own action, or rather, the action comes from the fact, and the mind hasn’t to do anything about the fact.
40:44 Questioner: In case of physical pain, do you mean to say that we do not go to see the doctor?
41:03 KRISHNAMURT

I: The gentleman asks, if I have physical pain, as toothache, shouldn’t I go to the dentist?
41:12 I think that would be rather silly, wouldn’t it, if you couldn’t go to the dentist. If you had some kind of physical ailment, shouldn’t you go to the doctor?
41:26 Questioner: (inaudible) KRISHNAMURT

I: That’s right, sir. The gentleman. says, when you have a toothache, you don’t argue about it. Sir, aren’t we being rather superficial when we ask such a question?
41:57 I am, we are, talking of both the physical pain and suffering as well as [the] psychological, inward, emotional—you know, all that suffering, mental suffering, the tortures that one goes through for some idea, for some belief, for some person, wanting to hold that person.
42:27 We all know these things.
42:35 We are talking about, we are asking ourselves, whether it is possible to be totally free from inward sorrow.
42:51 Sir, our organism, physical organism is a machine and it does go out of order—you have to do something about it.
42:59 You do the best thing you can and get on with it.
43:11 But to see that the mechanical organism doesn’t interfere with the mind, pervert the mind, twist the mind, and the mind remains healthy in spite of physical diseases.
43:46 And whether the mind, which is the source of all enlightenment, and of all conflict, misery and sorrow, whether the mind can be free from sorrow, uncontaminated by physical diseases and all the rest of it—whether it is possible.
44:18 After all, we’re all growing old, every day.
44:32 And whether it is possible to keep the mind young, fresh, innocent, not weighed down by tremendous experiences and knowledge and misery.
44:48 I feel a young mind, an innocent mind is absolutely necessary to discover what is true, if there is something as God, as truth, or what name you may like to give to it.
45:08 An old mind, a mind that is tortured, full of suffering, can never find the other.
45:29 And to make sorrow into something extraordinary, something that will eventually lead you to heaven, I think that’s absurd.
45:49 And in Christianity, suffering is extolled as the way to enlightenment.
46:02 One must be free from suffering, from the darkness, and then only the light can be.
46:13 Questioner: (inaudible) KRISHNAMURT

I: “Is it possible to be free from sorrow when I see so much sorrow around me?” What do you think?
46:43 You go to the East, to India, Asia, and you will see a great deal of sorrow, physical sorrow, starvation, lack of food, degradation, poverty.
47:00 That’s one type of sorrow. You come to the modern world, where everybody is so actively busy decorating the outward prison, and they also are very poor, inwardly empty, but outwardly enormously rich, prosperous.
47:20 There is also sorrow. What can you, as an individual, do about it? What can you do about my sorrow?
47:34 Can you help me? Do think it out, sirs. Can you help me? Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. I talked this morning for about half an hour about sorrow and how to be free of sorrow. Do I help you?
47:59 Actually help you in the sense, rid of it, not carry it with you for another day, to be totally free of sorrow.
48:08 Can I help you? Do I help you? I don’t think so. Questioner: In a sense, surely. KRISHNAMURT

I: The lady says, in a sense, yes. But please, just a minute. When I said I don’t think so, I mean by that, you have to do all the work, I’m only pointing out.
48:45 Therefore, the sign is of no value, in the sense you don’t sit there and go on reading the sign everlastingly.
49:10 To face loneliness and go to the very end of it—what is implied in it.
49:33 Can I help the sorrow of the world? We know the anguish that one goes through, the despairs, not only one’s own but [that which] you see in the faces of others.
49:55 You can point out, you can tell them that’s the door through which to go to be free, but most people want to be carried through the door.
50:10 They worship the carrier, or make one a saviour, a master, which is all sheer nonsense.
50:28 Questioner: You spoke of the barking of a dog in the night.
50:48 Do you think that provokes physical pain or psychological sorrow? KRISHNAMURT

I: Both. The barking of a dog at night, surely, is both physical pain (laughing), isn’t it?
51:01 Sir, one must take certain things very seriously, and other things you must play with it.
51:15 To take things seriously, as I pointed out, is to go to the very end of it, the capacity to pursue sorrow to the very end and see if the mind can be utterly free from the darkness of it.
51:40 And that requires a great deal of alertness, watchfulness—that one has to take seriously, but to take... one has to take seriously also physical pain, but that’s at a different level.
52:06 Questioner: (inaudible) KRISHNAMURT

I: I beg your pardon?
52:20 Questioner: (inaudible) KRISHNAMURT

I: Ah. “What use is a free person to another, what use is a free person to another, if he can’t help him?” How terribly utilitarian we are, aren’t we?
52:45 We want to use everything to our benefit or to somebody else’s benefit.
52:58 What use is a flower on the roadside?
53:09 What use is a cloud beyond the mountain? What’s the use of love?
53:22 Can you use love? Has charity any use? Has humility any use? To be without ambition in a world that’s full of ambition—has that any use?
53:42 To be kind, to be gentle, to be generous—these have no uses to a man who is not generous.
54:02 A free person is utterly useless to a man who is ridden with ambition.
54:10 And as most of us are caught in ambition, in success, he is of very little significance.
54:18 He may talk about freedom, but what we are concerned [with] is success.
54:27 All that he can tell you is to come over to the other bank of the river and see the beauty of the sky, the loveliness of being simple, to love, to be kind, to be generous, to be without ambition.
54:49 And very few people want to come to the other shore. And, therefore, the man who is on the other shore is of very little use.
55:00 Probably you’ll put him in a church and worship him—that’s about all. Questioner: To live with sorrow seems to imply the prolongation of sorrow which...
55:25 (inaudible) KRISHNAMURT

I: ‘To live with sorrow implies prolongation of sorrow, and we shrink from the prolongation of sorrow.” I didn’t mean that, surely.
55:43 To live with something—whether ugliness or beauty—one has to be very intense, hasn’t one, otherwise it corrupts you.
55:51 To live with these mountains day after day, day after day, if you’re not alive to them, if you don’t see them, if you don’t love them, if you don’t see the beauty of them all the time, their changing colours, shadows, you become like these peasants who have seen it and have become dull.
56:20 That beauty also corrupts, as something ugly corrodes the mind.
56:32 When I said to live with sorrow, it’s to live with the mountains, because sorrow makes the mind dull, stupid.
56:49 But to live with sorrow implies watching endlessly; and that doesn’t prolong sorrow, the moment you understand the whole thing.
57:14 You see, I feel when we see something totally, it’s finished.
57:25 When we see the totality of sorrow, the whole construction, the anatomy, the inwardness of it, see it—I don’t mean theorize about it—actually see the fact of it, the totality of it, then it drops away.
58:00 And the rapidity, the swiftness of perception depends on the mind. And if the mind is cluttered up, not simple, direct—cluttered up with beliefs, hopes, fears, despairs, wanting to change the fact, the what is—then you prolong sorrow.
58:42 Questioner: (inaudible) KRISHNAMURT

I: Yes.
59:00 Yes, sir.
59:09 Now, will you take time to experiment with it?
59:28 Questioner: (inaudible) KRISHNAMURT

I: Sir, I...
59:38 Sir, just a minute.
59:46 The gentleman says, it will take time to see the totality of something, the totality of sorrow.
1:00:00 Questioner: That is not my meaning.
1:00:08 To get rid of preconceptions may take time, but seeing the totality of something is continuous. KRISHNAMURT

I: Yes, sir. Questioner: But our preconceptions are in the way. We have to tackle them. That may take time. KRISHNAMURT

I: Sir, I understand.
1:00:20 To see that one is lonely, and also to be aware that one wants to escape from it, are both instantaneous.
1:00:41 They are instantaneous, aren’t they? I am lonely for various... I am lonely, and I don’t like that state, and I want to escape from it.
1:01:04 Now, the fact that I’m lonely, and the fact that I want to escape, I can perceive immediately, can’t I?
1:01:17 Instantly I can see that. And I can also see instantly that any form of escape is an avoidance of the fact of loneliness, which I must understand.
1:01:32 I can’t push it aside. Now, when I’m not escaping in any form, then I can face the fact, can’t I, instantly.
1:01:50 You see, our difficulty, I think, is we are so attached to the things which we have escaped to, they have become so important to us, they have become so extraordinarily respectable; and if we cease to be respectable—God knows what would happen!
1:02:38 Therefore, our attachment to respectability, to the things that we have escaped to, becomes all-important and not the fact that I want to understand totally what is loneliness, or any other thing.
1:02:54 Questioner: If we don’t have that intensity in us, what can we do about it?
1:03:19 KRISHNAMURT

I: The lady asks, If we do not have the intensity, what can we do about it?
1:03:35 I wonder if we want that intensity?
1:03:46 Because to be intense implies destruction, doesn’t it?
1:03:54 Shattering everything that we have considered so important in life. And, we are afraid; and perhaps fear prevents us from being intense.
1:04:08 You know, we all want to be terribly respectable, don’t we, the young as well as the old.
1:04:26 Respectability means recognition by society; and society only recognizes that which is successful: the important, the famous.
1:04:38 The rest society isn’t concerned with. So we worship success and respectability.
1:04:51 And when you don’t seek success, when you no longer care whether you’re respectable or not, whether you succeed, whether you are somebody or not, then there is intensity, which means, there is no fear, which means, there is no conflict, no contradiction within and, therefore, you have all the abundant energy that is necessary to pursue the fact to the very end.
1:05:33 I think we had better stop, it’s twelve.