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SA62T6 - Emptying the mind of fear
Saanen, Switzerland - 2 August 1962
Public Talk 6



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s sixth public talk in Saanen, 1962.
0:09 K: I would like this morning to talk about something with which perhaps some of you are not very familiar, and I would like to go into it rather deeply, not in too many details because one can supply the details oneself.
0:53 I would like to talk about emptying the mind of fear, the mind emptying itself of fear.
1:06 But before we go into that, one has to be acquainted with learning, maturity and self-knowing.
1:31 These are not mere words, like learning, maturity and self-knowing, they are not just concepts, are not words that can be glossed over and the meaning captured.
2:07 It requires a great deal of understanding.
2:14 I mean by understanding, that state of mind which is totally aware without any impediments, without any direction, without trying to understand what the speaker is saying.
2:47 What the speaker is saying is very little important… importance. What is important is to be so effortlessly aware so that there is a state of understanding all the time.
3:11 Because if we don’t understand, if we merely listen to words, what generally happens is we go away with words and concepts and ideas and try to adjust ourselves and our lives daily or so-called spiritual life to that pattern which we have established through words.
3:45 What I would like us to do this morning is something entirely different.
4:02 I would like, if I may, from the very beginning to be in that state of awareness immediately so that we can proceed very, very deeply into the feeling, into the meaning, into the depth of these words.
4:31 There is no learning when there is the acquisition of knowledge.
4:47 The two, knowledge and learning, are incompatible; they are contradictory.
4:59 Learning implies a state of mind which has had no previous experience as knowledge.
5:17 Learning, which is a constant movement, which is not an additive, acquisitive movement, whereas knowledge is.
5:30 Learning implies a state of mind which has no authority because all knowledge assumes authority, and a mind that is entrenched in authority, in knowledge, cannot possibly learn.
5:56 It can learn only when there is no additive process.
6:05 Please, this is rather difficult to differentiate between learning and acquiring knowledge.
6:30 Most of us acquire knowledge through experience, through reading, through listening, and that additive process, that acquiring process, that process of gathering and adding to what has already been acquired, that’s what we call knowledge, and from that knowledge we function.
7:11 And what we call learning is acquiring a new information and adding to what we already know.
7:23 That’s what we call learning, generally.
7:32 I learn a language bit by bit, gradually; that is, to acquire more words, more syntax, the phrases, the colloquial set of words and so on, adding to what I already know.
7:51 That is what we call acquiring knowledge.
7:58 That is what we most of us do. That’s probably what you’re doing now. But what we are talking about is something entirely different.
8:11 Learning is not adding to what you already know.
8:25 I can learn only if there is no attachment to what I… to the past as knowledge.
8:33 I can learn only if I can see something new.
8:40 And the seeing the new and learning about it is not to translate what I already know and apply what I know to something new.
8:52 Please, we’ll discuss this later if we have not understood it.
9:03 And I think it’s important to differentiate between learning and acquiring knowledge because the mind that is learning is an innocent mind, and the mind that is acquiring knowledge is an old mind, a dead mind, a stagnant mind, a mind that is in corruption.
9:34 And a mind that is learning incessantly, all the time learning, such a mind alone is an innocent mind.
9:50 And to learn about maturity is to be mature.
10:18 For most of us maturity is either ripening in experience, in knowledge, in age and having reached a certain point and from there decline.
10:39 That’s what we call maturity, a mature person, a person who’s had a great deal of experience, who is wise in years, who knows how to adjust himself to all the given and unforeseen circumstances, capable, having a very clear, sharp mind.
11:18 For most of us maturity is that, which is, moving in time and arriving at a full, ripened state.
11:39 Isn’t it terribly hot? (Laughter)

K: Can’t be helped; we must get… let’s get going.
12:09 To us maturity implies a gradual process in time.
12:19 In time the mature mind is free of ignorance – that’s what we consider - ignorance being not having knowledge of worldly affairs, of little experience, of being incapable to deal with life, with all the complexities.
12:57 So we need time. Like a young person who’s just venturing upon life, he needs time to mature.
13:09 By the end of… when he is sixty then perhaps he will be mature because he has gathered experience, knowledge, suffered all the travails and the pressures and the strains of life.
13:22 And maturity to me is something entirely different.
13:32 Is it possible to be mature without going through all the process and the travails of time?
14:00 To find oneself completely mature, whatever the age is, which admits of no time, to be in that state of maturity; implying that whatever problems arise he can deal with it immediately and not carry it over for the next day, which is the very essence of immaturity.
14:46 It’s the immature mind that is riven by problems and lives in problems and continues in problems from day to day to day.
15:04 And a mature mind can deal with the problems, whenever they arise, immediately, and not give soil to the mind, which is a state of innocency.
15:19 Now, to find oneself in that state of maturity is to learn, and not to acquire knowledge.
15:38 Acquisition of knowledge is essential, mechanical, when you deal with how to drive a car, how to learn a language, electronics, engineering and all the rest of it - mechanical knowledge.
15:56 But to learn about maturity, that is, not acquire or be in the state of maturity which is generally conceived of, but to be in that state is to learn because that maturity implies breaking away from the past, which is essentially the piling up of knowledge.
17:00 And to learn about oneself, to learn, which is self-knowing, to know about oneself.
17:25 What is oneself? Really, if you look at… if one looks at oneself, one is a mass of accumulated experiences, wounds, pleasures, ideas, concepts, words.
17:52 That’s what we are: a bundle of memories.
18:07 To learn about the essence of oneself is to learn the essence of not being, the essence of no self.
18:29 Please, this is rather complex thing so if I may go into it a little bit perhaps it’ll become clear for oneself.
18:58 We are, each one of us, the result of our environment, educational, psychologically the pressures of the society with its moralities, with its contradictions, with its wars, with its conflicts, with its ambitions, greeds, envies and all the rest of it, beliefs and dogmas.
19:33 That’s what we are. We say we are the essence of the spirit, essence of God, the soul - all given to us through propaganda by the church or by society or by the parents who have been brought up in a particular culture.
19:56 That’s what we essentially are: a bundle of memories, a bundle of words, identified with property, with family, with name, all based on memory.
20:23 That’s what each one of us is. You may not like to discover that for yourself; it may be most unpleasant because we think we are most extraordinary entities.
20:38 But we are not. We have little capacities, probably, to write a poem, to paint a picture, to be a rather clever, cunning businessman or be very clever in the interpretation of a particular theology.
21:00 But what we actually are: the wounds, the memories, the pains, the things that are remembered, the vanities and the frustrations, and all that what we are, consciously or unconsciously.
21:20 Mostly, if you are at all aware, somewhat intellectual and intelligent, we are aware of it superficially; we’re not aware unconsciously of all this residue.
21:41 Now, one has to learn about it, not acquire knowledge about it.
21:57 Please see the difference. The moment you acquire knowledge about yourself you are strengthening yourself in knowledge about yourself.
22:22 So to learn about yourself is to be innocent about yourself and see actually the fact about yourself.
22:34 I don’t know if you’re capturing what I’m talking about, if I’m making myself clear.
22:42 I have knowledge about myself: I’ve been insulted; I’ve been flattered.
22:49 That remains in my mind, in my memory, and with those wounds and with those pleasures I look and so I translate everything I see in terms of those reactions.
23:10 And there is nothing to learn; in that state there is no learning because there is no spontaneity.
23:20 But if I understand, if I have really listened and learnt that to see oneself as one is and not translate what one is in terms of the past, interpret what one is in terms of the past, which depresses one or which elates one, but to learn the fact of what is about yourself every minute.
23:59 And that is the only state in which you can learn about yourself.
24:06 And there is not much to learn. Really, there isn’t much to learn about you, is there? You know what we are absolutely and clearly without any hesitation.
24:17 One can know oneself one is a liar, if one is sexually lustful, greedy, envious - one can easily find that out.
24:38 But when we discover what we are we interpret or translate what we are in terms of what we have already known, experienced, and therefore we don’t learn about what we are.
24:56 I don’t know if I’m making this clear. If we interpret what we are, what we discover in ourselves, we’re adding to what we already know and therefore strengthen the memory of ourselves.
25:34 And that process does not bring freedom at all. And you can only learn in freedom.
25:46 So instead of going through all the complex states of the conscious/unconscious, of all the divisions, the layers, the cunning divisions, fragmentations of the mind, if you can learn immediately, which is the state of maturity, that the essence of the self is the non-self.
26:16 There is no essence, there is no entity, a centre but memory, words, a thing that is past, which is always interpreting, translating, condemning, judging that which is actually.
26:44 So if you… if one can do that then there is a state of immediate maturity.
26:58 Because, as I said, the emptying of the mind of fear is important.
27:09 Fear, which is the danger to oneself.
27:20 That is the very essence of fear, isn’t it? The danger of ill-health, of not having a job, of growing old, of suffering, of what people might say, public opinion, of not reaching heaven - you know?
27:49 - fear which is the essence… which is essentially being aware, being… knowing through experience the danger.
28:06 Please, I hope you are listening and learning; learning not the words, not the special meanings that the speaker may give to those words, but learning or seeing directly for oneself beyond the words; to be actually in a state where you are aware for yourselves of all the danger, the total danger which breeds fear.
29:16 And to find out, to learn if it is possible to totally empty… for the mind to totally empty itself of fear, because fear breeds illusion; fear of any kind makes life dull, shallow.
29:56 There is no free movement and there is obviously no love at all.
30:11 And most of us have some form of fear: fear of death, fear of old age, fear of physical pain, fear of snakes, fear of darkness, fear of public opinion – dozens and dozens of fears.
30:34 Because, you see, if one is not totally free from fear, that freedom is not a reaction from fear or the desire to be free from fear, therefore seek freedom.
31:11 One sees what fear does: it makes one tell lies, it makes one… – you know all it does - corrupts one, makes the mind so empty, shallow, makes... there are dark shadows in the mind which can never be investigated, which can never be exposed because one is afraid.
31:54 Vanity - the essence of fear is vanity.
32:09 So self-protection, the unconscious urge of self-protection against a snake, against a precipice, against the tramcar, this and that, physical self-protection is sane, normal, healthy.
32:37 But the psychological self-protection: to protect psychologically oneself against disease – psychologically – against death, against an enemy.
33:04 When psychologically we seek fulfilment through painting, through music, through relationship, through every form of fulfilment – and through that fulfilment there is always fear.
33:28 So to be aware of all this, to learn about fear; not how to get rid of fear, because when you want to get rid of fear then you are escaping from that state of fear.
33:51 Again, when you consider what fear is and how to approach it, you will see that for most of us the word is much more important than the fact – the word.
34:14 Take the word loneliness. I’m going to go into it a little bit. I mean by that word a state of isolation, suddenly one finding oneself, though you may be surrounded by your family, by your neighbours, in a crowded bus or walking with friends in the woods, suddenly finding yourself completely isolated.
34:49 And from that isolation there is fear to be lonely. Lonely when someone whom you think you like dies and you find yourself left alone, isolated.
35:09 The word loneliness is different from aloneness – I’m not discussing the word aloneness now; we are talking about being lonely, the sense of isolation.
35:24 And being… feeling that sense of isolation one escapes from it: radio, cinema, drinks, sex, church, God – all those escapes are all the same, whether you go to church or take a drink.
35:46 And the word loneliness prevents us from entering into the complete understanding of that state.
36:05 The word creates the fear; the word associated with the past creates that feeling of danger and therefore we try to run away from it.
36:23 Please watch yourself. You’re not listening to me.
36:33 One is looking at oneself in the mirror.
36:41 And the word has extraordinary significance for most of us.
36:52 The word God, the word communist, the word hell, the word heaven, the word loneliness.
37:02 We are slave to words: ‘my wife’, ‘my family’ – what an extraordinary meaning those words have.
37:16 And we’re a slave to words, and therefore a mind which is a slave to words and therefore is never free of word and therefore never free of fear.
37:40 Now, to be aware and learn about fear is not to translate or interpret that feeling in terms of words, for words are associated with the past, with knowledge.
37:58 And when one is learning about fear – learning, not acquiring knowledge about fear - then you will see there is an emptying of the mind totally of all fear.
38:21 That means one has to go very deeply into oneself, putting aside words.
38:36 Because out of this emptying of the mind of fear, when the mind understands the whole context of fear and therefore is empty of fear, both consciously as well as unconsciously, then out of that emptying there comes innocency.
39:15 That word innocency is not a symbol.
39:25 For most Christians that word innocency is represented by a symbol, but to be actually in a state of innocency, which means no fear and therefore a mind learning, and therefore a mind which is completely mature, instantly, not going through the passage of time.
40:01 And that is only possible when there is attention, an awareness; awareness of every thought, of every word, awareness of your gestures; attentive without the barrier of words, barrier of interpretation or translation or condemning – just to be aware and attentive.
40:47 Then one is a light to oneself; and a mind that is completely a light to itself has no fear.
41:14 Questioner: Is there no cause… (inaudible)?
41:30 Can learning, understanding come from mercy? When I’m understanding, it’s something happening inside me… (inaudible). Can that come from mercy? What’s the nature of understanding? Is it… (inaudible)?
41:48 K: Sir, may I? Will you kindly put your question or what you want to say very, very briefly, because what you say is not very clear and I have to repeat it; and if I repeat it wrongly please correct me.
42:14 The gentleman asks: ‘Is learning and understanding without a motive?
42:24 And a mind which has no motive is in a state of emptiness.
42:33 And one can learn or understand out of emptiness.’ That’s right, sir?
42:38 Q: But is there no cause… (inaudible)?
42:42 K: Yes… (inaudible) motive, cause, a reason.
42:49 Look, sir, I want to know myself because if I don’t know about myself I have no basis, no foundation for anything I do, anything I think, anything I feel.
43:08 Right? I must know about myself, the myself which is so complex, which is so swift, so subtle, so cunning.
43:19 I must know the whole of myself, conscious as well as unconscious. That’s right, isn’t it? If I want to find out if there is something real beyond my imagination, beyond my longing, beyond my desires, beyond the propaganda of church or society, if I want to find out for myself, my mind must be clear.
43:50 My mind must not be in a state of conflict; it must have no fear of any kind, or authority.
44:02 That’s so obvious, isn’t it? No church, no dependence, no longing, no frustration - I must be completely empty of all that, mustn’t I, sirs?
44:19 Now, how do I learn about myself - learn?
44:26 If I say I am the result of a society, of a culture, I am the soul, the eternal, the spiritual entity… how can I assert any of these things?
44:39 These are all what people have told me. But I have to find out about myself. So I have to deny everything society has told me, all the religious nonsense, to find out.
44:56 That means I have to come to that state when I have no fear of public opinion, when I can be… when I know what it means to be completely alone.
45:14 I have to learn.
45:21 And if I merely add to what I already know, which is, that there is a God, that there is no God, that there is this or that, then I’m not learning; I’m merely adding or subtracting to what I know.
45:41 Please do see this very simple fact. But if I begin to learn about myself - not because I want to escape, not because I want to become the most extraordinary saint, which is utter nonsense.
46:02 You can become a saint by conforming, by disciplining, by denying, by eating one meal a day and all of it, you can become a saint but you can never find what is true.
46:14 To find truth you must be free of being a saint.
46:33 So I have to learn about myself; I can’t assume anything about myself.
46:41 I can’t be depressed or elated about myself. I must learn. Sir, if you love a child, your child, you learn about it, don’t you?
46:58 You don’t tell that child, ‘You must be like your elder brother who is so clever, who is so capable.’ You are destroying that child when you compare.
47:10 But to understand that child, if you love that child, you have to watch him, you have to study him, you have to know all about him.
47:23 You don’t assume anything about him. In the same way, to learn about yourself you can’t assume anything, for assumption is based on authority, and the denial of authority is the beginning of learning.
47:51 You know, to be curious about oneself - not intellectually curious, not verbally stimulated to be curious because you will get at the end of it some ugly result, but to be curious, to see all the twists and turns, all the stresses and strains, all the extraordinary hidden things about yourself.
48:20 And a mind that is tethered to knowledge cannot swiftly follow the movement of the self which is always changing. So to learn is to be without motive, and that is the beauty of learning.
48:48 Not because you want to become a great person or a great painter, a great writer, an ugly saint, but to learn about yourself is like learning about the most extraordinary flower that you find in a desert.
49:08 And we are in a desert, and we are the most extraordinary flowers in that desert.
49:22 And to look at it, to understand it, to smell it, you must love that flower.
49:29 Q: Isn’t immaturity a bundle of habits?
49:37 K: Isn’t immaturity a bundle of habits. Let the train go by… (inaudible.
50:10 I wonder if you are exercising all your attention or merely waiting upon me to awaken your intelligence, your awareness, whether you are working in spite of this heat intensely or merely being rather slack.
50:46 The question is, is not a mind caught in habits immature.
51:04 Now, I wonder why you put that question.
51:11 Please follow it, what I’m saying. I’m not saying… I’m going to answer it, but wonder why you put that question.
51:27 Either you put it to be aware… either you are aware that you caught in habits are immature and therefore asking how to break those habits and therefore find yourself immediately in maturity, or you are merely explaining what has already been explained?
52:01 Please, I’m not speaking derogatorily of the questioner.
52:14 If it is that you want to find out how… if you want to learn that a mind caught in habits is an immature mind, as most people are, then the further question is: how to be immediately mature?
52:34 That is, to break immediately habit. Right? Is that the question? I’m caught in habits, in a particular way of thinking politically, religiously, as a writer, as a painter, as a man, woman; I’m caught in a habit.
53:00 I am an Englishman with a certain tradition, with an attitude towards life, with a certain tie and all the rest of it; I’m English, trained in Catholicism.
53:19 It’s a habit. Now, how to break it instantly?
53:34 First of all, can it be broken immediately, or must it be done gradually over the years?
53:47 When I say it must be done over years, what is the state of my mind that says, ‘I will take time’?
54:02 Obviously it is a lethargic, dull, unthoughtful, unaware… a mind that is not aware.
54:15 Like nationalism is a habit, and you can break it instantly.
54:24 But it gives you pleasure, it gives you a sense of being united with a particular country, with a particular colour and a particular government and flag and all the rest of that nonsense - then you don’t want to break that habit; then there’s no problem.
54:44 But if you want to break it - and it can only break immediately, instantly; not over the years; that has no meaning.
54:55 Now, how is it to be done? Is there a method - please follow this - is there a method to break something, to break a habit immediately - method?
55:10 A method implies time; a system implies time as from a beginning to an end.
55:22 So if you understand that there is no method, no system, that there is no time that will make you free from a particular habit or all habits, then you are faced, actually faced with the fact that your mind is in a habit.
55:46 Faced with it, not through words, not through ideas, but the fact that your mind functions in habit; inescapable; it is so.
56:08 Then either you say, ‘I accept that as inevitable. I am too slack; I don’t want to do anything about it’ – that’s perfectly right. But if you say, ‘Look, I’m faced with the fact that I am... my mind is crippled in habit,’ then what happens?
56:31 You understand? Then what happens? If you are faced with the fact that your mind functions, abides in habits, then what takes place?
56:47 You’re not trying to change the habit; you’re not trying to break down the habit; you’re faced with a simple fact.
57:01 Then what happens if are faced with a fact? What happens if you’re faced with the fact that one is a liar or one is jealous?
57:16 If you don’t try to change it then the fact gives you an enormous energy to break that fact completely.
57:32 You understand? When you’re faced with the fact, your mind is not dissipating itself through escapes, through denials, through time and all the rest of it; it is faced with a fact, and therefore all your energy, all attention is there; and therefore that attention which has been gathered, when there is no escape, no denial, no comparing, no time involved, then that energy breaks that fact totally.
58:11 Q: May I ask, sir, do you suggest that one can dissolve fear if you know they are the subject of the fear?
58:35 K: The lady asks: Can one dissolve fear completely if you know the cause of fear?
59:05 (Pause) I’ll answer it. I’m taking a rest; it’s too hot. You know, at the end of an hour of this kind of talk your mind must be tired; probably your body is tired too.
59:36 One has to listen, to give your complete attention, probably which you have never done in your life before.
59:48 It’s a great deal of exertion. The lady asks: Can fear be dissolved if the cause of fear is found?
1:00:03 No. One knows the cause of fear: a public opinion, the things that one has done that one doesn’t want to be discovered.
1:00:20 One may know the cause of fear, as most people do, but that doesn’t end fear.
1:00:36 So mere analytical discovery of what the cause of fear is does not free the mind from fear.
1:00:48 But what brings completest freedom from fear - and I assure you it completely does – when you are aware of the word, of not trying to escape from it, not trying to deny it, not trying to get back to some state, but actually completely… attention, you’re aware of the fact that there is fear.
1:01:27 Then you will see the observer and the observed are one; there is no thinker, the observer who says, ‘I am afraid.’ There is only fear, or that word which indicates that state of feeling.
1:01:51 Then you will see, when the mind is no longer escaping, no longer seeking to get rid of fear, no longer trying to find out the cause, but actually in that state of fear in which there is no division between the observer and the thing observed, and therefore no longer a slave to words, then you will see for yourself that there is a learning which is the outcome of innocency, and a mind that is innocent has no fear.