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SA62T1 - We can listen only when there is no motive
Saanen, Switzerland - 22 July 1962
Public Talk 1



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s first public talk in Saanen, 1962.
0:10 I think from the very beginning of these talks we should be somewhat very clear what the intention of these gatherings are.
0:36 It seems to me, when there is so much change in the world outwardly, when there are so many pressures, so many demands, with innumerable problems, we should be very clear how to meet them.
1:10 And perhaps to meet them, there must be a complete transformation of the psyche.
1:26 I mean by that word the mind, the whole process of our thinking - the attitudes, the values, the habits, the innumerable beliefs and dogmas that we have cultivated for so many centuries.
1:54 All this, must be - at least it seems to me - completely transformed, to meet the innumerable problems of life.
2:11 And that is what I propose to talk: how to bring about this radical change, this transformation in the mind during these talks.
2:26 And so these talks are very serious. They are not mere… an amusement of a Sunday morning or any other morning.
2:42 Either you listen to it completely, not taking a little part here and there, but listening to the totality of what is being said, not at one meeting, not during one speech, but if you are serious at all, and I hope you are, then we shall be able together to explore how to bring about this radical revolution in ourselves.
3:33 And I mean by that word serious, the capacity, the intention, to pursue, whether you like it or not, to go to the very end of a particular subject, to explore totally a particular aspect of life.
4:10 We are not dealing… the mechanical problems of life as with regard to the Common Market, how to stop the atom bomb, how we can go to the moon, all those outward problems, but I think those outward problems will be understood if we can understand the inward problems.
5:03 And it seems to me also that the outward problem is not so very different from the inward problems.
5:13 Really, if one comes to think of it, there is no differentiation, no demarcation between the outer and the inner.
5:30 It’s like an ebb, like a tide that goes out and then comes in, and to merely concentrate on the inward process of one’s own being, becomes… will have very little meaning if we do not understand the outward process of the mind also, the outward activities as well as the inward activities.
6:03 The outward activities correspond to the inward activities, and to merely concentrate on the inward and neglect the outward will have very little meaning and also will lead not very far.
6:23 So as I said, this is a very serious gathering, not an entertainment, and certainly not exchange of ideas, because ideas, which are organized thought, concepts, will have very little significance in bringing about a radical revolution.
7:08 Ideas don’t change a human being, they merely alter the pattern of existence.
7:22 Most of us indulge in ideas, or exchange one belief for another belief, but such exchange, such substitution, or accepting ideas and discarding old ideas merely bring about a superficial adjustment, a superficial appointment of different words, thoughts and ideas, but such exchange, such substitutions do not bring about radical transformation, therefore we are not indulging in ideas, in formulas, in concepts.
8:24 We are going to deal as we go along, three times a week, with facts, with psychological facts; not psychological myths or fears, hopes, despairs –though which are also part of facts - but we are going to deal with psychological facts, and the mind is only capable of meeting them, those facts without interpretation, without condemnation, only when we know how to listen to those facts, how to observe those facts.
9:19 I think it is important to understand what we mean by listening, by observing.
9:30 Those two words, observing and listening, listening or seeing have very particular, deep meaning, and I would like to go into it a little bit this morning.
9:53 Because transformation is not brought about by the action of will, by desire, which is another form of will.
10:17 This transformation cannot come about through effort, which is again the urge of a motive, of a compulsion, of a necessity.
10:30 Nor can this transformation, this revolution come about by any influence, by any pressure, by mere adjustment.
10:57 It can only come about effortlessly, and I will go into that later on.
11:08 But as this is the first talk, it must obviously be an introductory affair, so it is important to understand what we mean by listening.
11:24 I do not know if you have ever listened to anything - actually listened - to listen to that stream that is going by; not give it a name, not let it interfere with your attention, not give it a name, not give it a significance but merely to listen to it.
12:00 You can only listen when there is no motive.
12:11 If you have a motive which makes you listen, then what is important is the motive but not the act of listening.
12:25 You then listen in order to get something, in order to achieve something, in order to arrive somewhere, so your attention then is divided, because your attention then is concerned with achievement, gaining, arriving somewhere, therefore you’re not listening.
12:54 Please do pay a little attention to this because if we don’t fully comprehend this issue, I’m afraid you will miss totally the whole meaning of these talks.
13:19 But to me, every form of effort to bring about a revolution is to pervert, to deny that very revolution.
13:45 Transformation can come about only when there is no effort of any kind, and that’s why it is very important to understand what it is to listen.
14:03 You cannot listen if you’re comparing with what you already know.
14:11 Then you’re merely interpreting, and where there is interpretation, then there is no act of listening.
14:30 If you are condemning what you hear because you think it should be different, or you have certain opinions, then you’re not listening.
14:43 You certainly are not listening if you are merely following one set of authority or a series of authorities, or books.
15:04 So the act of listening is extraordinarily difficult because we are so conditioned when we listen to anything either to accept it or to deny it, to condemn it, or to compare what we know with what we hear.
15:33 So there is no unconditioned listening, because if I say something, the natural, the conditioned response is to accept or to deny, or to say, ‘Oh, I know that already.
15:59 Such-and-such a book, or such a person has said that.’ When the activity of the mind is going on, then you’re not listening.
16:11 Surely, this is all very logical, rational, and sane; it is not something mysterious of which we are talking about.
16:26 So the very act of listening completely to something that is factual, without your opinion, without your judgement, without your condemnation, without the interference of a word is extremely arduous, needs complete attention.
17:03 And similarly, the act of seeing.
17:12 I wonder if we see anything at all - a tree, the mountain, a river, the face of your wife or your husband or a child, or the passer-by.
17:32 I question it because words, ideas, formulas, interfere with what we are seeing.
17:47 We say, ‘That’s a lovely mountain’ - that very expression, that very word prevents you from looking, which is again a psychological fact.
18:07 To see something, your mind must be completely quiet, without the interference of idea.
18:21 When next you observe a flower, see how difficult it is to see, to see it non-botanically.
18:31 Though you may be a botanist, you may know all the colour, the species, and the varieties and the beauty of that flower, to look at it without the interference of the word, without the interference of your particular like and dislike.
18:55 And, again, that’s very arduous, because we are so sloppy, we are so distracted; our mind is constantly chattering, never seeing and never listening.
19:24 But to listen and to see does not require effort.
19:33 But if you are listening, actually listening to what is being said now, and therefore understanding of what is being said, then you will listen and then you will see without effort.
19:56 Because a revolution, not only the outward upheaval of a particular society, but the complete inward psychological revolution implies not only the conscious as well as the unconscious revolution, One can easily change outwardly the pattern of one’s existence, the way you think.
20:35 You may not belong to a particular church, or join another church. You may belong to a particular group - you can change all that very easily by circumstances, by your fear, by wanting greater reward, and all the rest of that.
20:57 Outwardly superficial consciousness, superficial mind can easily be changed, but it’s much more difficult to bring about a change in the unconscious, and that’s where our difficulty lies.
21:22 And the unconscious cannot be changed through volition, through desire, through will.
21:34 It must be approached negatively. We shall go into all this later.
21:46 And to approach the total consciousness negatively implies the act of listening; implies seeing facts without any interference of opinion, judgment, condemnation, and that’s why it’s also very important to understand what is negative thinking.
22:20 Because most of us are accustomed through experience to conform, to obey, to have established moral, ethical, ideological authorities.
22:47 What we are discussing, what we are going into demands no authority of any kind, because the moment you are beginning to explore, there is no authority.
23:07 Each moment is a discovery. And how can a mind discover if it is bound by authority, by its own previous experience?
23:26 So negative thinking as listening, as seeing, implies the uncovering of one’s own assertive, dogmatic beliefs, experiences, hopes and fears.
23:58 And to see these fears, anxieties, desires negatively - not with the desire to alter them, not with the desire to go beyond them, but merely to observe, merely to see them without evaluation.
24:23 Therefore that brings us to another issue: which is, to observe without the word.
24:33 You know, I do not know if you have ever tried to look at something without word.
24:58 The word, the symbol, the relationship of words, constitutes thought, which is the response of memory, and to look at something without word implies to look at something without thought.
25:34 And you try sometime as you go out this morning, look at those mountains, and listen to that river and to the green valley and the snow-capped hills, look at it without a thought.
25:57 Which doesn’t mean that you are asleep. It doesn’t mean that you look at them with a blank mind.
26:10 On the contrary, when you so look at them, you have to be so totally, completely aware.
26:21 And, again, that’s an arduous task because we are so conditioned - from childhood; we are conditioned by words: ‘Oh, he’s a communist, he’s a Catholic, he’s an Englishman, an American, a Swiss or… the rest of it, and through that screen of words we look and we listen, and so we never see, we never listen.
27:11 And to be free of the slavery to words.
27:23 The word God - to be free of that word, especially for those people who think they are religious or spiritual.
27:43 They are slaves to that word and the word is not the thing.
27:51 The word God is not God, obviously, but to understand what that extraordinary thing is, one must be free of the word, which means being free of all the influence of that word inwardly.
28:15 Which implies neither believing nor disbelieving; which implies not belonging to any religion, to any organized thought.
28:27 Only then, perhaps, you will be able to find out for yourself if there is such a thing which is beyond the word, beyond the measure of the mind.
28:46 So these talks are a grave matter; they need your attention; they need your discovery of yourself - not tomorrow, not the next minute, but as you are listening, in the immediate present, because without understanding the whole process and the mechanism of one’s own mind, you cannot go very far.
29:44 And we have to take a journey into the infinite, to the timeless.
29:51 And to do that one must begin very near, which is yourself, and that’s why it is very important to be aware of one’s own operations of the mind, which is the beginning of self-knowledge.
30:08 Because without knowing yourself, you have no basis for any thought, you have no basis for any inquiry and to know oneself demands, not the accumulative process of knowledge, but the knowing of oneself from moment to moment; to see yourself as you are from moment to moment, not interpreting what you see but to observe.
31:01 That again needs a choiceless awareness.
31:09 So these talks demand a gravity of purpose.
31:24 They demand, if I may request you, that you should come regularly or not at all because you cannot understand by one talk the whole thing.
31:41 It’s like going to a mathematical professor and asking him to tell you the whole universe of mathematics in a few minutes.
31:48 It would be too absurd, too immature.
32:03 So if you are serious in all this, you have to attend regularly, and you have to pay attention, an effortless attention; an attention in which you are discovering not what the speaker is saying, which is not at all important, but through the words of the speaker, to discover your own process of thinking, and to come upon the facts within yourself.
32:50 And a serious person is one who goes to the very end of the matter, because, you see, there are so many problems, not only outwardly with the increase of prosperity which denies freedom, with the increase of more superficial information which scatters the mind.
33:36 The more outwardly turned we are, the more there is going to be misery, confusion.
33:53 The outward events are not going to bring greater happiness. They may bring about a superficial comfort - more bathrooms, better clothes, more cars, and I hope you will have them.
34:12 But they do not solve the problem; the problems are much deeper, much more imminent within oneself.
34:25 And in attending these talks we are going to explore together, because here there is no authority.
34:38 I am not trying to influence you to think in one way or the other, which would be too childish and immature, which becomes merely propaganda.
34:58 So I suggest that when you are listening you do not take notes but you actually listen, and that you are fairly quiet before and after these gatherings.
35:15 At the first meeting, we meet each other and talk, and all…that’s all right, but afterwards, not to everlastingly sit here and talk, talk, which indicates the restlessness of one’s own mind.
35:39 To be aware of all this without effort - to listen to the facts that you chatter, to listen to the fact that you’re jealous, to listen to the fact that you are frustrated and want more fame, to express yourself in pictures and poems, in talks.
36:08 To be aware of all that, factually, and being aware choicelessly, and therefore to listen to it without effort.
36:22 It is in that state of effortlessness there is a total revolution.
36:32 And it is only in the mind that is in total revolution, not achieving a total revolution but which is in constant revolution, it’s only such a mind that can discover if there is or if there is not something which is immeasurable.
37:01 Perhaps some of us can ask questions, and we’ll see what comes out of it.
37:19 You know, it’s one of the most difficult things to ask a question.
37:41 It’s very easy to ask wrong questions, but to put the right question demands an active mind.
38:04 It must be a problem, an actual problem which you have, with which you are battling.
38:19 And if you put the right question, you will have the right answer. Then we two can join together to find out the right answer.
38:32 And really every problem has no answer at all.
38:40 Mechanical problems have answers - a car goes wrong, an engine misfires, then you can find a mechanical answer to it, but most of our human problems have no issue at all, no answer.
39:05 But unfortunately, most of us, when we have a problem, want an answer, which is, we want to escape from it.
39:18 When we ask a question about a problem, what we really want is we want to escape from them, we want to say, ‘Well, give me the right answer which will help me to escape from the problem.’ So if you want to escape from the problem, don’t put the question.
39:47 But if you want to understand the problem, whatever it is, whatever human problem - of relationship, of time, of death, of any human, psychological problem, then we can study it together; we can explore together the subtleties, the variations, the nuances, the complexity.
40:18 And in exploration of the problem, you will begin to understand the problem, so the understanding of the problem is far more significant and is the only way to resolve the problem than try to find an answer to the problem.
40:43 So I am afraid I have made it rather difficult for you to put the question.
40:50 (Laughter) That was not my intention. But, surely, to really explore, we must both meet together, not only verbally, not only psychologically but at the same level, at the same time, which is, after all, what is called love.
41:34 Surely there is no love when you meet another at a different level.
41:46 There is love when you meet another at the same level, at the same time, totally, completely.
41:55 To explore our human problem, we must meet together, psychologically.
42:15 If you are thinking you want an answer and I’m thinking there is no answer but understanding the problem, we don’t meet, then you will go away saying, ‘Oh, that man is so silly; he can’t answer a straight question; he avoids.’ So what is important during these talks is, it seems to me, if we can look together - which doesn’t mean agree or disagree; that is too immature, too schoolboy-ish to agree or not to agree.
43:08 This is not a political meeting in which you agree or disagree. We are trying to see facts; we are trying to see what things are actually within ourselves, and therefore it doesn’t demand agreement or disagreement, but observation.
43:28 So, please, if you care to, after this, care to ask a question, perhaps we can explore it together.
43:43 Yes, sir? Questioner: (Inaudible).
43:50 K: I’m afraid I don’t quite… Sir, if you put a question, please be very brief because I have to repeat that question to you.
44:04 Q: Can I… (inaudible)?
44:06 K: Yes sir.
44:07 Q: How can this mental exploration… (inaudible) superficial have anything to do with understanding, which is immediate, instant… (inaudible)?
44:23 K: Right, sir. How can this superficial exploration – please correct me if I’m wrong…
44:32 Q: Mental exploration.
44:34 K: How can this mental exploration bring about an understanding, a deep understanding, which cannot be merely intellection.
44:46 Is that right, sir?
44:49 Q: It is something instant… (inaudible).
44:51 K: Yes; now, wait a minute. It must be something else, so let’s explore that. Let us explore the mental process of examination/exploration, what we mean by that and what we mean by understanding.
45:12 Will mental exploration bring about understanding?
45:19 Please don’t agree or disagree. Let us examine. Will exchange of ideas, opinions, formulas - will that bring about understanding?
45:40 What do we mean by understanding and what do we mean by mental exploration? Now, what do we mean by understanding? When do you understand something? When you say, ‘Yes, I understand him’ - what do we mean by that?
46:01 What is the process or how does that state of understanding come into being?
46:13 When you say, ‘I’ve understood something.
46:21 I’ll go into it, if I may, a little bit, and you’ll… perhaps we’ll meet.
46:32 When I say understand, in that state there is no barrier between the fact and yourself.
46:50 When you say, ‘I understand something,’ your whole attention is given to it.
47:04 Attention is not fragmentary, as the mental process is.
47:12 When you examine mentally, it’s a fragmentary process, it’s a separative process, but when you say, ‘I understand’, in that your whole being is involved - your mind, your emotion, your body, your eye, your… everything is involved and quiet, and out of that you say, ‘I understand.’ So understanding comes only, not through fragmentation.
47:59 And as most of us think in fragmentation, all our relationship with life is in fragmentation.
48:09 We are politicians, we are religious people, we are business people - one part of us is business, one part of us is religious, one part of us is political, one part of us is sexual – French - I mean, you know, we are all so broken up, and with these fragments, we examine.
48:34 And we say, ‘Yes, intellectually I understand, but I cannot act, I can’t do anything.’ So mental examination or exploration or inspection is fragmentary and superficial.
49:01 You obviously know how absurd it is to have the world broken up into nationalities, into religious groups - Catholic, Protestant, Hindu… the absurdity of all that.
49:19 Intellectually we agree that it is immature, but at heart we are English, at heart we are German, and so on.
49:33 And to bring about an emotional contact with the fact is our difficulty, and that demands an approach to the fact negatively, to approach it without any obsession of opinion, concept.
50:21 So there is a vast difference between mental, superficial examination of a fact and the understanding of a fact.
50:39 The one, the mental examination leads nowhere, but the understanding of the fact without interpretation - which is, understanding of the fact - gives tremendous energy to deal with the fact.
51:02 I will go into it during these talks much more because probably what most of us do lack is this energy.
51:15 We have plenty of physical energy, at least I hope, but to deal with a psychological fact requires an astonishing energy, and that energy is denied when you approach the fact habitually, which is, to approach it through habit - habit of association, habit of word, habit of thought.
51:58 So the fact remains, and the word or the intellect is separated from the fact, which creates a contradiction in which there is conflict and therefore dissipation of energy.
52:25 Isn’t that enough for the first morning? Enough? Right, sir.