Krishnamurti - What does it mean to live in the now?

Krishnamurti Subtitles

SA65D4 - What does it mean to live in the now?
Saanen, Switzerland - 7 August 1965
Public Discussion 4

0:01	This is J. Krishnamurti’s fourth public discussion in Saanen, 1965.
0:11	Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about or talk together about this morning?
0:19	Questioner: Krishnaji, we started out to see if the thinker could actually be known.
0:28	Is there anything more that we can do… (inaudible)?
0:29	Q: Can you not speak about the now?
0:38	K: The questioner wants to know shall we talk about the now.
1:01	Q: Sir, you have spoken during these talks about the nature and the structure of the centre, of the psychological I, the image.
2:00	I wonder why… (inaudible) don’t see this thing what it is. It seems to me that part of our hesitancy is with us that this thing is justifying itself while it’s in action. Perhaps it might be worthwhile… (inaudible) this thing of self-justification.
2:04	K: The question is: is it possible to see ourselves as we are without condemnation and justification? Is that it, sir?
2:13	Q: That’s the point, sir.
2:22	K: That’s the point.
2:30	Q: Sir, yesterday you said that on the moment that the positive and the negative meet there is an explosion.
2:43	Does this mean that in that moment the whole positive is exploded?
2:44	K: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, we were talking of something completely different. Let us leave the yesterday what we discussed to yesterday. A questioner wants to know what is the now; and also another question is: why do we always, without actually observing what is, why do we always condemn or justify?
3:29	So shall we talk, or rather talk over the thing… that question, the now, and then perhaps, sir, we‘ll answer your question too, and probably yours too?
4:05	That really involves, doesn’t it, what is time.
4:16	The now, the present, the active movement of the present involves the understanding of time, doesn’t it?
4:29	Q: Isn’t time a movement of the mind?
4:40	K: Is time a movement of the mind. We are going to go into that.
4:53	What is time? Not only the chronological time but the other areas where thought creates or breeds or put together this thing called time?
5:25	As we were… ah, I was going to say, ‘As we were saying yesterday’ - I won’t. (Laughter) K: Time also involves, doesn’t it, distance, a movement…
5:41	Q: Pardon me, but… (inaudible) I’m speaking about the now; the now is here now.
6:11	K: Ah?
6:12	Q: You see, if we keep on using the mind we are constantly leaving the now. Every mind movement is out of the now.
6:14	K: I’m afraid I can’t hear here. The acoustics are pretty bad here.
6:16	Q: Every thought you have takes you out of the now.
6:20	K: Ah, yes. Every thought one has is a movement away from the now.
6:34	But to understand the now, whatever that is, mustn’t we regard the whole area where time is employed?
6:53	Mustn’t we consider the time as the past, the present which is the now and the future which are all one movement?
7:11	So can we separate the now as something distinct and apart from the past or from the future?
7:25	Q: But actually the now holds in itself all the parts. The now holds in itself all the parts.
7:33	K: Ah, that is…. Yes, I understand all that. We can discuss… Wait a minute, let’s come back again. Are we talking things over verbally, intellectually, argumentatively and dialectically, or we trying to find out actually how to live in a state where time doesn’t breed disorder?
8:04	Q: Well, you see, if you are living in the now, the very moment that you have a thought then there is disorder.
8:21	K: My lady, how am I to live in the now? What does it mean?
8:24	Q: Well, you are already in the now.
8:25	K: Oh…
8:26	Q: It is the mind that keeps us… (inaudible).
8:27	K: All right, if you say I’m really living in the now but only the mind interferes with that, how am I to stop the mind from interfering with it?
8:46	Q: By being aware and seeing that every movement is taking you out of the now.
8:52	K: By being aware that every movement of thought is taking away from the now. That’s the questioner says. Why does the mind move away from the now? If the now is so extraordinarily important and all-significant, why does the mind or thought or desire move away from the now?
9:19	If… to understand the now or to live in the now I must understand the whole area of time - mustn’t I?
9:30	- the whole field of the movement of thought, the movement of the mind, the movement of desire and all that.
9:37	Q: But isn’t it going back to the old way?
9:41	K: I’m not going back the old or the new way. I want…
9:45	Q: (Inaudible).
9:47	K: Look, madame, I don’t… one doesn’t understand - does one?
9:54	- what it means to live completely in the now.
9:57	Q: You don’t have to understand it. It doesn’t need any understanding, only constant looking and awareness.
10:11	K: But unfortunately one has not this constant awareness. How is one to cultivate it? How is one to get at it?
10:23	Q: Well, you see, if you’re very… (inaudible) and you are aware… (inaudible) and you constantly watch your thoughts, you are always knowing in the now.
10:49	You see, it’s only the mind that distracts you and takes you out of it. Actually, you are never out of the now. But, I mean, your mind has created an illusion and… (inaudible) the past and the future but… (inaudible).
10:53	K: All right, all right. But if I live in the now what does that mean to live in the now?
10:56	Q: It means not to have a problem.
11:03	There is no problem because any problem that you do have is the mind’s creation.
11:15	I have listened to you and I have practised this in my life.
11:17	K: I understand, madame. I’m on… Perhaps we are… Practising is not living.
11:21	Q: But you are caught in words.
11:25	K: I know. That’s why we are trying to clarify the meaning of words that we are using. I want to find out what it means to live in the now.
11:36	Q: You don’t have to find out – you live it… (inaudible) live it.
11:43	And if you are aware… (inaudible) thought moves, you are out of the now.
11:50	K: Please, look, let’s all have a little patience about this. Don’t please get irritated with that lady or amused by that lady. Let’s all find out together what it means to live in the now.
12:16	What does it mean?
12:17	Q: Are you asking a question?
12:18	K: I am asking everybody.
12:19	Q: It means we have no problems. All the problems are created by the mind getting out of the now.
12:31	K: Then if I have no problems either my… I might be totally asleep or totally awake. Which is it?
12:39	Q: Totally awake.
12:40	K: Now, what does that mean, totally awake? Don’t say ‘no problems.’ Don’t say ‘you will know that state when you arrive’ and all the rest of it.
12:55	What does it mean to have a mind that is living in the present which has no problem?
13:04	Does it mean that it is totally asleep or totally awake? Wait a minute. What does it mean to be totally awake?
13:16	Q: You only have one moment at a time in life.
13:42	Only the mind lets you think that you’ve got years ahead or years past. You’ve only got this one moment to live. If you can live this one moment properly, you are more capable of living than ever.
13:45	K: I understand, madame. I’m afraid I’ve talked a great deal about all that kind of stuff but...
13:47	Q: (Inaudible)… you have to live it.
13:52	K: Ah, wait, wait, I don’t... I may or I may not live it.
13:57	Q: I’m not saying that you are not living it.
13:59	K: I don’t know. I may. I’m saying to myself: I may live it, I may not live it, I don’t know. But I’m saying to myself: what does it imply to live in a single moment totally?
14:17	What does it imply?
14:18	Q: But why do you want to know what it implies?
14:22	K: Ah, wait…
14:24	Q: (Inaudible).
14:25	K: My lady… I want to find out whether I’m deceiving myself.
14:37	I want to find out whether my living is so verbal, so… just say, ‘Well, I’ll just live so completely in the moment’ that this may be a form of self-hypnosis.
14:57	I may be creating an illusion that I’m living totally in the now, in the moment, but actually I may be so dull, so… have no sensitivity to everything that is happening, not only within the moment, but round it.
15:16	Q: What instrument are you using to assess that… (inaudible)?
15:27	What instrument are you using to assess that… (inaudible)?
15:30	K: What…?
15:31	Q: What is the instrument you are using with which to find out if you are… (inaudible)?
15:33	K: That’s… - wait a minute - that’s right. What instrument am I using to find out? Generally we are using the instrument that has been created through reaction, through condemnation, through justification; the instrument which is the censor, the intellectual background of… which has been cultivated along a certain culture and all the rest of it.
16:06	So that’s the only instrument one has. Do we use that instrument to find out what actually the moment is, or is there another movement…
16:19	another instrument totally different which is not born of time?
16:31	I don’t quite see how one can live so completely in the present, so totally, without being free, both consciously as well as unconsciously, of the psychological social structure of greed and envy and all the rest of it.
17:00	I don’t know what it means to live so completely in the moment.
17:09	If you say to me ‘Live’, I say I do live, but I don’t know, I can’t...
17:17	I don’t know what it means. I may be deceiving myself. I may be fooling myself about something which is not actual.
17:36	(Pause) Perhaps, if you will kindly permit me, we will be able to come upon this now without trying or twisting the whole of life into that one moment.
18:25	Q: You are this whole life at that moment.
18:33	K: Oh, my…
18:34	Q: It’s your mind that is making you not aware of it.
18:38	K: My lady, I understand.
18:45	How am I to stop this dreadful mind that is wandering, twisting, creating illusion, that is battling with itself?
18:57	How am I to put an end…?
19:00	Q: (Inaudible)… to be aware of it… (inaudible).
19:05	K: So to be aware of all that, in being aware of all that I am not living in the present.
19:16	That present has gone away because I’m living… I’m being aware of something…
19:21	Q: No, you’re watching every movement of the mind. You’re paying attention and watching how the movement is trying to take you out of the now.
19:32	K: (Laughs) I understand all that because I’ve talked… We… If you will permit me, as you have said, you have read about all this. Please don’t come to any conclusion, if I may suggest, don’t come to any conclusion.
19:52	Let us start all over again because perhaps that way we will come upon it anew.
20:02	Let us start again to find out what it means to live in the now, in a moment which is the total.
20:14	Let’s find out again. Don’t tell me, ‘Be aware of the past, be aware of the movement of the mind’ and so on and on.
20:23	That I know. We have done all that during the last - how many? - ten, fifteen talks we have been here. Leave all that aside. Let’s find out a different approach to this. There may be a new… there may be a different movement which we’ll come naturally to that.
20:54	(Pause) What is the essence of time?
21:15	Q: A succession of events.
21:31	K: Succession of events, someone says.
21:33	Q: (Inaudible)… it’s merely a movement.
21:34	Q: Its nature is duration… (inaudible).
21:40	K: Look, I have asked that question.
21:49	I don’t know. I really don’t know. You say it is movement, a succession of events; another says duration.
22:04	I have listened to it and I…
22:09	Q: Distance.
22:13	K: Distance. Right. But you… but is that the essence of time? I’m not saying you’re not… that is not. I want to find out. Don’t you? You have given opinions; you have verbalised it. It may be telling the truth… I mean, the fact, which is really the essence and you may have found it, but I want also to find it.
22:46	Right? And another may also want to find it so give us a chance.
22:55	Right? Give another and me a little space between the question and the answer - right?
23:07	- a little space. Not what you wish to think and what I think, what is your opinion, what you find to be the fact. All right, but give that person and me a little space to discover for ourselves.
23:26	Right? Now, what do you mean by that space?
23:39	Why do I demand space? And what do I mean by that space? An interval, don’t I? Don’t push me. Don’t give more and more ideas, more words. Give me a little peace; give me a little sense of time in which I can probe, I can investigate, I can ask myself, look.
24:13	Right? That is, a question has been asked: what is the essence of time?
24:22	You have given the answers. Perhaps you’re much quicker than I am, you see much more quickly than I do - right - but I also want to see.
24:37	So I say to myself: what is the essence of time and how do I find it?
24:50	But if you are pressing in all the time with your opinions, with your ideas, with your knowledge, with your facts, I have no… - we are coming to it - I have no space or freedom in which I can discover myself.
25:16	Right? So I need freedom - right? - freedom from your opinion, from your knowledge, from your facts, from your truth, which may be true or maybe not be true, and which are trying to influence me, push me into a corner where I’ll say, ‘Yes, you’re right,’ and I accept it.
25:49	I don’t want to do that. I want to be free. There must be freedom not only from your opinions, your judgments, your truths, but also freedom from my own prejudices and conclusions - right? - from what I’ve understood, what I’ve read.
26:09	I must be free also of that. So I’m beginning to find out that to answer that question, ‘What is the essence of time?’ there must be freedom.
26:28	And also I must have space, not cluttered up with noise.
26:50	I must have freedom and I also must have space which is silent, because it’s a new question to me.
27:09	So there must be freedom, there must be a sense of silence in which there is no demand, no impingement of immediate answer, no pushing, no asking.
27:31	Which means what?
27:43	I must have freedom and there must be space in the mind which is completely quiet, not expecting, not waiting, but completely quiet.
28:05	Then one may find out for oneself the truth - not opinion - the truth of what is the essence of time.
28:17	Right? That is, to find out there must be freedom, the mind must be completely quiet and not expect an answer.
28:40	Right? I may… it may take tomorrow, I may find it next year, but that doesn’t matter.
28:54	What matters is that the field must be right, the foundation must be laid.
29:02	Q: (Inaudible)… the notion of time is the non-existent notion of our image.
29:18	K: Sir…
29:21	Q: For instance, after this discussion… (inaudible) because you have a certain image to do this and that… (inaudible).
29:44	Time exists only in the… (inaudible).
29:52	That’s all, because… (inaudible).
29:57	K: Sir, sir, we are not asking what is time.
30:06	We are trying to find out the essence of time - you know? - the essence of the pine tree, the essence of a flower.
30:22	Q: Is time a quality or a quantity?
30:33	K: The gentleman wants to know if time is the quantity or the quality.
30:46	Somebody suggested yesterday the questioner should be taxed. (Laughter) K: And the reply to that suggestion was, ‘You are a fascist.’ (Laughter) K: Not that we are taxing here, not that there is a Mussolini or a Hitler (laughs), but I think that was an amusing idea.
31:28	(Pause) All right, I’ve got it.
32:02	Have you?
32:09	Any movement in any direction involves a centre and an object towards which it is moving.
32:26	Right? I go from here to the chalet, to the rooms I live in.
32:39	There is a movement from here to there. Right? That involves time, not only physiological time but also the time that says, ‘I’m hungry; I want to get there.’ So any movement in any direction from a centre to the periphery is… the movement is of time, surely.
33:21	So the essence of time is non-movement.
33:31	What do you say?
33:35	Q: (Inaudible).
33:37	K: Have I gone cuckoo? (Laughter) K: No, it’s very interesting.
33:55	Please listen. I only know time as movement, as thought, as the movement of an idea in action.
34:14	I don’t know any other time: time as the past with all the memories, knowledge, experience and all that, through the present, through the now, which we call action, which creates the tomorrow.
34:36	So time is that, is this movement, endless movement from the past to the future, from the centre to a particular object, from the object to the centre as a reaction.
34:55	So, all that we know is only a movement within the field of time, and if there is no movement at all, is there time?
35:27	So the essence of time is the cessation of all movement and therefore of no time.
35:42	The essence of time is no time. Bene, now I’ve got it. I think that’ll hold right through.
36:05	And the lady means the now is that no time in which there is no movement.
36:24	So this movement which is put together, which has been bred through time, which is the whole of me, not only the physical, but the unconscious, conscious, all the… the whole structure of me, which is the movement in the field of time, how is that movement to end - not in sleep, not in an illusion, not in an ideological formula - how is that movement to end without any kind of effort from the mind?
37:35	Right? Look, sir, let’s put it round the other way.
37:55	Each one of us, each human being is the result of time, two million years or more or less; and he’s got a lot of history behind him, not only the factual history but the fictitious history, the communal history, the story of his fathers, his mothers, his traditions, his… all that he is.
38:36	And that story has a life of its own, tremendous life: the unconscious, the past.
38:54	And also the conscious mind has its own activity: going to the office every day, following a certain routine, certain pattern and all the rest of it.
39:08	So there is a hiatus, a division between that immense, unexplored past and the casual living of daily conscious life.
39:25	This is what is taking place in each one of us.
39:33	Each has a movement of its own. Each has its own life, drive, purpose, fear, anxiety, despair and all the rest of it.
39:50	Can this division be united so that it is one movement and not a contradictory movement?
40:02	Which means a total consciousness of the past and the present, not a fragmentary past and a fragmentary present.
40:15	Ah? Wait, wait, wait. I see, the mind is aware, perceives or listens to the history of the past that has a life of its own, moving, living, and also the mind is aware of the daily life.
40:45	The two are not completely divided. They have a certain relationship, but rather tenuous relationship.
41:00	And one has to be totally aware of these two processes, the conscious process as well as the unconscious process.
41:19	Is it possible to be aware of this whole structure without introducing time?
41:31	Right? Are you interested in what we are talking about?
41:43	Many: Yes.
41:47	K: Why? We are interested… one is interested because that’s the only life we have.
42:04	All other life is merely speculation, a field in which the theologians can have a thundering good time.
42:16	But this is the only life one has and in this life there is such misery, such confusion, anxiety… - you know? - all that is going on in each one of us, ill-health, disease, death, wanting to be well and all that is going on and on and on, a mind that is so tormented.
42:43	And being tormented one wants to find naturally a way out of all this.
43:02	But to find a way out of all this may be an escape, therefore one has to be exceedingly careful not to escape, therefore one has to find out what escape means.
43:23	Right? I may say, ‘I don’t want to escape’, but I may be escaping all the time.
43:32	Are you…? So I have to find out what… how… the mind has to find out how it is escaping.
43:48	One sees the first escape is to verbalise.
43:57	The first escape is to be aware of this movement of the total consciousness and the escape comes when you say, ‘I like it; I don’t like it,’ or say, ‘That is jealousy; this is anger; this is greed; this is the observer; this is condemnation; this is justification.’ Any movement away from the fact, verbal movement, a movement of condemnation, justification or interpretation is an escape and that’s what we are doing all the time.
44:58	So escape is degeneration of the energy that is needed to face the fact - right?
45:23	- whether I deliberately escape through amusement, through sex, through drink, through marijuana or this or that, a deliberate escape is an avoidance of the fact, and I see that escape is dissipating energy.
45:45	And I need that complete energy to face the fact. So the… I… to understand the fact there must be no escape, therefore I don’t escape. Right? There is no escape. I don’t know if I... Not, ‘How am I to stop escaping?’, but I… one realises, one understands - it doesn’t matter how… what word you use - that any form of escape as condemnation, as verbalisation, as justification, as saying, ‘I don’t like it; I like it; it is pleasure; it is pain; I want to…’ - all that form of escapism is the dissipation of energy.
46:41	So the mind realises the dissipation of energy and therefore… through escape and therefore there is no escape.
46:58	So you don’t condemn. You don’t justify. You are concerned with the fact of what is. Because there is no interpretation and therefore no trying to say, ‘Well, I don’t like it.’ Because condemnation, justification and all the rest of it is based on pleasure, on the idea that it will give you pain and not… that it will give you pleasure.
47:34	Therefore all that… the seeing of all that is naturally focussing all energy to observe the fact alone, the fact is what is.
47:56	Now - just a minute, just a minute - to observe the fact, the what is, is there a distance between the observer and the thing which is?
48:21	You’re following? I am escaping - right? - through worship, through reading, through God knows what.
48:37	I’m escaping and I suddenly… because I have… you have talked to me and I suddenly realise how absurd it is and so my energy is centred, focused.
48:50	I’m going to show you… Please listen. And is there another form of dissipation of energy?
49:04	And I discover there is, much more than mere escape into something infantile as fame, success and all that.
49:22	I discover, the mind discovers that between the what is and the observer there is a space, there is a distance.
49:37	That distance is a dissipation because that involves time.
49:49	So to… when there is a total cessation naturally, voluntarily, easily, without denying and all the rest of it, then there is not the space but only the fact, not as the observer looking at the fact.
50:17	If there is an observer looking at what is then there is a distance.
50:25	Then that distance is a waste of energy which involves time.
50:33	So I discover, mind discovers how extraordinarily subtle these forms of escapes are.
50:52	And in discovering the subtle escapes the mind itself has become extremely subtle and sensitive.
51:07	Right? So an extreme sensitivity and subtleness is necessary to… - ah, not… - is… there must be that to observe the fact.
51:31	Now, proceed a little further. Then the fact becomes unimportant.
51:46	What is important is the mind that is looking at the what is, not the fact.
51:54	Right? No… Look, look at that tree. What is important? The mind that looks at that tree.
52:23	The tree has its own importance, but when you are looking at that tree, when there is no movement of any kind therefore complete energy, which means highest form of sensitivity and extremely swift in its movement, then you will see that facts have very little meaning.
53:05	What… I’m angry - all right, finished. I won’t be... It’s the end of it. Not that I must end anger - that is too silly, but in understanding this whole process the mind has become extraordinarily alive, sensitive, subtle and…
53:31	Now, it is not partially sensitive, fragmentarily sensitive as an artist, as a poet, as a writer, as a… whatever it is, but it is sensitive all… totally.
53:52	And a mind that is sensitive has no movement at all.
54:03	So such a mind has no time. It is the essence of time, but no time.
54:13	Right? Now, that is the now.
54:23	That means living in complete emptiness, an emptiness that is tremendously active because the mind is not just gone to sleep and empty like a cup, but a mind that is empty because it has no movement and from there… or, rather, that functions.
55:19	You follow? Then the question arises: is it possible to live a daily life of going to the office, all the rest of the business, with that state?
55:50	You’re following? Because that is the now, that is the very essence of time which is of no time.
56:04	And is it possible to live a daily life with that mind?
56:11	That, I’m afraid, you have got to find out for yourself.
56:29	Q: When there is distress, is it always caused by self-pity?
56:50	K: When there is distress, is it always caused by self-pity. I wonder, madame, if you have listened to what has been said - not that… we’re not avoiding your question, but if you have remained with your problem and not listened to the thing that has been said before.
57:24	If you have followed that which has been said, distress is nonexistent because you meet it and don’t translate it as pleasure which breeds pain as distress.
57:48	Right? No, you see, that’s why one has to understand this question of pleasure, which is not easy because all our image of ourselves and of our attitudes and of our work is based on this demand for pleasure.
58:23	Not the demand to face facts as facts, but translating the facts as pleasure according to the image which I have built or to the idea as organised pleasure which is going to translate what I meet.
58:44	Surely. So is it possible to live a life, the daily, boring, strenuous, apparently a life that has no meaning at all, is it possible to live a life which is not based on pleasure?
59:27	Again you have to find that out. So that opens the whole field of what is love.
59:46	Because without knowing that - not ‘knowing’ - without that being or whatever word you like to use, pleasure will continue and therefore the mind becomes the breeding ground of pain.
1:00:27	So one has a lot of work to do, not only within this tent, but all the time there is a tremendous work to do.
1:00:43	And that needs great energy and therefore no escaping.