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SA65T1 - How is the mind to see the totality of existence?
Saanen, Switzerland - 11 July 1965
Public Talk 1



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s first public talk in Saanen, 1965.
0:09 Krishnamurti: As there are going to be several talks here – ten – I think it would be good to begin with the understanding of what is communication.
0:43 I feel it is very important to see the nature and the structure of verbal communication.
0:59 We have to use words, but unfortunately each word is interpreted – by you as well as by the speaker – according to a certain reference or a memory or an incident or an experience; and so we’re always using words and translating them according to our pleasure and like and dislike, and so communication becomes extremely difficult.
1:55 And if we don’t commune or communicate with each other, then there is no point in meeting at all, getting together in a talk like this.
2:11 So it seems to me that it is vitally important to understand each other.
2:22 For communication is not one-sided. It’s not that you are merely listening to the speaker and trying to understand what he’s talking about, but rather communication is a two-way process: both you have to communicate with the speaker and the speaker has to communicate with you.
2:51 And communication can only exist when both of us are intense, sufficiently serious with our intention, and capable of an intensity at the same time, at the same level; otherwise communication is not possible.
3:22 Unless we both are looking in the same direction, you and I can’t see the same thing.
3:35 So we must be quite sure that we are looking together in the same direction, and then when we talk about something, then it is communicable.
3:54 Otherwise it becomes extremely difficult to convey what one wants to.
4:04 So, from the very beginning, we must be very clear in what direction we are looking; whether we are looking, both of us, in the same direction.
4:26 You may be looking south and I may be looking north, and then communication is not possible.
4:37 So to communicate with each other, we must find out what it is that we are seeking, what it is that we are both looking for; if we are looking, if we are searching.
5:01 You may be searching because life has so many problems – individual, collective, conscious, unconscious – so many tortures, such despair, anxiety; and you might be seeking a way out of them: a conflict in the family, in relationship, uncertainty of a job, trying to adjust oneself to a particular relationship; or, being tortured, being in despair, uncertain, one seeks a certainty, a hope, a something that’ll give comfort.
6:05 Perhaps that’s what most of us are doing – perhaps that’s what you’re doing – and the speaker, perhaps, is not doing anything of that kind at all.
6:38 This is the season for flying. You’re going to have a lot of aeroplanes overhead and trains going by; so each time, I’m afraid, we’ll have to stop.
6:55 So you may be seeking and the speaker may be saying, ‘Don’t seek at all.’ So when you are seeking and the speaker says, ‘Don’t seek,’ there is no communication.
7:21 Either you have to understand what the speaker is saying, or the speaker has to understand what you’re trying to do; so that’s what we are both going to do this morning: we’re going to… you are going to find out what the speaker wants to convey when he means, ‘Don’t seek at all; don’t inquire; don’t grope around; don’t go to this and to that group, to that teacher, to that book, to that organisation, to a particular teacher, to a particular system of thought; don’t go to any analyst; don’t seek any help from outside.’ And you have to understand what he means by that, why he says it.
8:37 Is it irrational, unreasonable, stupid, has no meaning?
8:44 Then when we both of us have established a relationship – that is, that we’re, both of us are looking in the same direction – then communication becomes extraordinarily simple, easy and vital.
9:05 And another difficulty in communication is that we don’t listen.
9:24 To listen to that aeroplane that’s coming back, without any resistance, without any annoyance and irritation; just to listen to it.
9:54 And it is very difficult to listen to somebody who is saying something entirely the opposite of what you’re thinking about, what you want.
10:14 To listen without any judgment, evaluation, acceptance or denial; just to listen; and that’s one of the most difficult things to do, because how can one listen when one is tortured, when one is caught in the net of uncertainties, when one is angry, furious with himself, with society, with the environment in which he lives?
11:02 And it is extremely difficult to listen quietly; and it is only, it seems to me, that one can learn really deeply and profoundly when one listens without any demand, without asking a question and an answer; just to listen.
11:38 So we have several things to do together; we have to work together.
11:45 Though it’s hot in the tent, we have to work together this morning, hard, not casually, but seriously, with full intent.
12:06 And very few people are serious – personal, limited problems, but that is a very trivial affair, that seriousness.
12:21 But there is a seriousness which is not individual, particular, which arises when you have a certain anxious problem.
12:40 It is that quality of seriousness that is required to find out, to communicate; not the serious mind that says, ‘I must tackle my problem and resolve it,’ or, ‘I must find the truth; I must do this and that’; that seems to me such a trivial affair when there is a tremendous issue involved.
13:21 So this morning, and every morning that we meet here, we are going to work together; not only the speaker but you also, because, as I said, communication is a two-way issue.
13:49 The speaker is not conveying something to you, or you are trying to understand the speaker; we are trying to understand together the extraordinary problem of living; a total living, as a human being caught in a particular society, in a particular environment, entrapped in religious organisations, caught in a family with all its problems, its jealousies, its fears, its acceptance, its dominations; a life in which there is apparently no meaning at all to existence, a life that has become a routine, a habit.
15:06 Caught in all that, we try to solve our problems within the limitation of our own thoughts, our own conditioning.
15:22 So there is this whole problem, or a movement of life.
15:39 And in understanding this whole question, perhaps then we shall be able to resolve our own particular little problems.
15:51 That is, one has to understand the total rather than the particular.
15:59 The understanding of the particular will not lead to that total.
16:07 After all, our life is broken-up into various fragments: the fragment of a nationalist; the fragment of a mind that is seeking peace outside of society, outside the family; the fragment that goes to church, that follows a particular philosophy, a doctrine; a fragment that believes; a fragment that has tremendous hope in some fantastic, mystical affair.
17:09 So we approach the total through the fragment; we look at the whole from the periphery, and we are saying, the speaker is saying, that it’s not possible ever to understand this totality of living – which includes all the fragments – from a fragmentary, peripheral outlook.
17:59 So how is one, caught in the fragment of a particular problem, of a particular issue, of a particular torture, despair – as most of us are – how is one to look at the total, at the whole of life, though being caught in a fragment?
18:38 It is only if one can look at the whole, then you can understand the particular.
18:46 But to understand the particular, and try to grasp the whole through the particular has no meaning at all; and it can never be done.
18:59 I mean, when you look at these marvellous mountains, the trees, the river, the extraordinary light of an evening, the moon over the snow, as there was last night, clarity, you see it as a whole; and if you don’t see it as a whole, you don’t see it at all.
19:32 If only you’re concentrating on a particular pine tree, then you miss the whole beauty of this scene, this extraordinary vitality of the mountain, of the moon, of the light, of the trees, of the river.
19:59 So it becomes extremely difficult for a mind which is caught in the network of the particular problem of a particular individual to see the whole.
20:37 And how is one – I am using the word how, not to offer a method, but we are using that word how as merely a question – how is it possible for a fragment, for a mind that is caught in a particular issue, how is it possible for that mind to see the whole and therefore act not from the particular but as the whole?
21:26 I hope I am making the issue clear. Because, you see, until I see the whole map of life, the whole of it: the absurdities, the chicanery, the brutality, the appalling wars, the peace, the death, the uncertainty, the fears, the beliefs, the gods, the saviours, the whole of it, not from a particular point of view – as a Christian or a Hindu or a Zen or a Buddhist or God knows what else – but to see the whole of it.
22:29 If you see the whole of it, then you’ll be able to answer the particular; if you have the whole picture, not intellectually, not verbally, not as an idea, not as a concept.
22:51 You can’t have a concept about these mountains; you either look and see or you don’t see.
22:58 You can’t have a concept about the beauty of the light of the moon on the snow.
23:09 If you have a concept, you don’t see it; you’re not directly in communion with that light, with that beauty.
23:22 So to see the whole picture, and in the seeing of the whole picture, you will then be able to answer the particular: the individual personal issues, problems, tortures, miseries, all the rest of it.
23:55 So that is the thing I’m going to talk about this morning: how is it possible for a mind that is very personal, concerned about itself, its problems, its tortures, its beliefs, its vanities, its despairs, its beliefs, its experiences, its pettiness, which is glorified; that little mind cannot possibly see the whole.
24:43 Unless you see the whole, you can’t answer your particular problems; you’ll only create more misery, more confusion, more torture, more misery.
24:57 I think that’s fairly obvious, that unless one sees the totality of existence, there is no way out of our confusion, do what you will.
25:26 Like a nationalist; he is a stupid entity; he’s trying to solve his particular problem in a little thing called nationalism; or a man who is caught in a particular system of philosophy or religion, trying to find truth through that particular system.
25:57 It’s impossible. He may become very clever, cunning, philosophical within the limited space of his own intellect, but to find out, to be out of the confusion, the misery, he must understand the whole of life, non-verbally, non-conceptually, non-ideationally.
26:34 Now, I have stated something, the speaker has stated something, which may have some meaning to you.
27:00 He has communicated; he has established, through certain words, a fact.
27:13 Now, how you respond to that fact or whether you deny it, whether you accept it, whether you see it, whether you disagree with it establishes a communication between you and the speaker.
27:40 So is it possible to see the whole of life?
27:55 Not through analysis, not through intellectual concepts and intellectual… breaking up the various parts and then joining them together, but see the whole of it at once — is it possible?
28:33 Now, to understand the possibility of it, one has to go through the various states of mind which says, ‘I understand; I see.’ That is, you can only see the totality of something non-intellectually, non-consciously.
29:29 Now, when you make an effort to listen, you miss half of it; but if you listen unconsciously, as it were, then you have taken in much more than the conscious listening.
30:04 Am I conveying anything at all?
30:21 If I consciously make an effort to listen to what you’re saying, all my energy has gone into the conscious effort, into paying tremendous concentrated effort; but if I am listening to you very casually – which is, attentive but easily, casually – what you’re saying enters much more into the unconscious and it has taken root.
31:05 I don’t know if you have not experimented with this; you must have.
31:22 So we are trying to find out whether it is possible to see the totality of life, though caught in the particular, because it’s only when we understand the totality, the whole picture of life, then the particular issues and problems will then be resolved.
32:04 That seems so true, so factual. Then the question is: how is the mind to see the totality of existence?
32:29 Conscious mind can never see the totality.
32:41 Conscious mind is the individual mind; not the unconscious mind, that is never individual.
32:51 The unconscious mind is the race, is the collective experience of man; it may have different colours but in essence; you may live in America, Russia or in India but the unconscious is still the same, therefore there is no individuality there.
33:35 It may be limited, because it has the racial, the collective tendency, the vast inheritance of man, hidden; and therefore it is not an individual, in the sense, separate.
34:06 Please, this requires a great deal of thinking, going into; don’t accept it or deny it, look into it.
34:22 If we look at the whole of life through the conscious mind… – now, listen to that aeroplane; do listen.
34:33 If you listen to it consciously, then you’re limiting it; then you’re irritated, bothered; if you listen to it totally, with all your being.
35:03 So the conscious mind is the educated, modern, technical, trained mind.
35:21 Listen to it; don’t agree, just listen! For goodness sake, I’m telling you or… somebody is shaking their head, saying, ‘No, it cannot be; it is, or it is not,’ then you’re not listening.
35:33 It may be wrong, what is being said may be totally wrong, but you’ve got to listen to find out; but without finding out, you say, ‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t agree with you’ — it’s so stupid.
35:59 But to find out you have to listen, and to listen you can’t have an opinion, you can’t have a concept; and that’s where our trouble is going to be from now on; because you have a concept – that the conscious mind is this or that or the unconscious is something else – and that concept is guiding you, is shaping you, and therefore you’re not listening, and hence you say, ‘Well, I agree with what you’re talking about,’ or disagree.
36:46 But it’s not a matter of agreement or disagreement. We are trying to find out the fact. And when there is the fact, there is no question of agreement; it is so, or it is not so.
37:06 But to start right off saying, ‘Well, I disagree,’ well, then it becomes too juvenile.
37:21 You see, we are trying to look at the totality of life, which is immense.
37:31 It is not just the superficial layers of our daily life, it is something immense, extraordinarily subtle, fluid, moving, ever… it has no static position; and to understand the totality, this extraordinary movement of life, through the conscious mind, with all its beliefs, concepts, idiosyncrasies, fragmentary outlook, such a look does not give you a total perception.
38:18 That’s all I’m saying. So if you understand that – that the conscious mind, making an effort to look at the whole picture of life, has no value at all – then you stop looking that way; which means you no longer have concepts, no longer beliefs; you’re just looking, not through a concept, through a philosophy, through a system, through a particular hope.
39:02 But that’s up to you. Then, if you don’t look through the conscious mind, then how will you look?
39:19 Then you have only the unconscious; but the unconscious is still the reservoir of the past, isn’t it?
39:43 It is no longer my reservoir, my storehouse, it is the storehouse of man.
39:53 I may interpret that collective experience of man through two million years and more or less, I may interpret it differently through my conscious mind, and that interpretation may give me pleasure or pain; but with that content of that unconscious, obviously I can’t see the whole.
40:29 Right? You’re understanding…? Am I making something clear? That is, you cannot see the totality of life or the whole picture of life, either consciously or unconsciously.
40:57 You understand what I’m saying?
41:17 That is, you… to look at the totality of life, the whole immense, marvellous picture of life, there must be no platform from which you look; no belief, experience, knowledge, conscious or unconscious.
42:09 You know, how do you look at somebody? How do you look at a person sitting next to you?
42:27 You look at him, generally, either you don’t like it – he’s hot, bothering, fat, ugly, smelly – or you like him or her, and so you look through pleasure or dislike; and so your pleasure and dislike prevents you from looking.
42:59 The pleasure and the dislike is conscious, isn’t it? Or you’re totally unaware that you are sitting next to a person because you’re so consumed with your own ideas.
43:18 So to look at a person next to you or opposite to you, you can only look when there is no pleasure or dislike; obviously.
43:33 The pleasure may be conscious or unconscious; the dislike may be positive or negative, of which you may not be aware; and hence to look at somebody, there must be the freedom from all this.
44:00 Then you’re capable of looking. Therefore, looking is neither conscious nor unconscious.
44:17 If you make an effort to look, then it becomes conscious; then you say, ‘Well, I don’t like him but I must treat him as my brother.’ What nonsense that is.
44:33 So you’re making a positive effort based on a conclusion, a concept, and therefore you have no relationship with him at all, except as an idea.
44:51 And if you’re not conscious of it, but unconsciously feel away from him – because you’re intellectually, emotionally more refined or God knows what else – you, again, have no relationship with that person.
45:11 So to look, to listen is an act which is beyond the conscious as well as the unconscious.
45:31 So when the mind is capable of looking that way, then it’s finished.
45:38 Then, from there, you can look; from there, you can act about your particular problem.
45:48 I hope we are both of us communicating with each other; that you’re actually doing this, not listening, hearing, understanding verbally and then putting it into action.
46:14 There is only action, which is the act of listening.
46:37 So the personal problems of every human being cannot be resolved totally unless he completely understands the immensity, the complete picture of life; and one can see the totality, the immensity of life, only when you have no… when you see the futility of every belief, every dogma, every experience, every philosophy.
47:41 Then, from there, or in… through that, you look at life. Right sirs; perhaps we’ll talk… we can discuss this or talk about it, ask questions.
47:59 Questioner: Are you saying, sir, in the complete act of listening you become the speaking?
48:27 K: I beg your pardon?
48:55 Q: Are you saying that, in the complete act of listening, you become the speaking?
49:26 K: (French)

Q: You are listening... you are the complete act of listening to the speaker; in that, you are really becoming the speaker.
49:28 K: Ah no! The question is: in the complete listening to the speaker, you become the speaker. That’s what the lady asks.
49:42 The speaker is not important.
49:49 What is important is that one understands this immensity of life.
50:01 And if you listen to the speaker rightly – all that he has said this morning, really listen to it – you have seen the totality; from there you will act.
50:21 That’s why we said how important it is to communicate.
50:29 I believe they are making a great study of communication.
50:45 Because communication is sanity; because if we don’t know how to communicate to you…
51:05 I don’t know how to communicate with you or you how to communicate to me, or your husband or your child, we live in a world of confusion; and a world of confusion leads to various forms of action and inaction which lead to more misery.
51:26 So communication becomes extraordinarily important; doesn’t matter, about the most tiniest little thing: where the salt is.
51:35 If you don’t give me the exact directions where the salt is, I shall wander around looking for it; whereas, if you told me exactly, clearly where it is, it’s finished.
51:58 So please, it’s very important, because that’s the basis of sanity, to be able to communicate with each other clearly.
52:15 It may take time; we may have to use different words, deny one thing and assert another, and then deny what is asserted, keep on; and moving together.
52:30 So communication is not a static process, it is a movement; and in that movement, both of us must be capable of moving with it.
52:44 Therefore, there is no… at any time, there is no agreement or disagreement; and that’s the beauty of listening.
52:50 Q: In seeing, in understanding the totality, must there not be somehow a totality of attention? Is attention in the subconscious? Or would you say something about the nature and the function of attention?
53:07 K: Yes sir; yes sir.
53:24 The gentleman asks: to see – wait a minute – to see the totality of life, mustn’t there be attention.
53:46 You know, there is… when you see, what takes place actually?
53:57 There is the observer and the thing observed, isn’t there?
54:09 You see the speaker sitting here. You are looking, seeing, so you are the observer and the thing observed, isn’t it?
54:24 So there is, in what we call seeing, a division between the seer and the thing seen.
54:33 Isn’t it? Right? So, is that seeing?
54:44 Now, I look at a tree. There is the tree and me who is looking at that tree; we are two separate facts.
55:03 I look at that tree; I, as the observer, with all my memories, my misfortunes, my… etc., all the human business; and that tree is there; and I look at that tree as an observer and the thing as observed.
55:30 So: I and the tree. I don’t call that... personally, for myself, I wouldn’t call that seeing the tree; that’s a visual fact.
55:49 But to actually see the tree, in the sense we are talking about, the observer must come to an end in order to see the tree.
56:01 Now, wait a minute.
56:09 What is communion? When you, a husband and wife, or friend or… when you are communing together, is there the two separate entities?
56:21 When you love somebody – if you do – is there you and that person?
56:30 If there is, it ceases to be love. Oh, for God’s sake.
56:44 As long as I am conscious that I’m looking at that tree, I am not looking at that tree; I am not that…
56:51 I don’t say, ‘I’m not that tree,’ then that’s a trick; I identify myself with that tree and I think I am that tree — which is too silly.
57:04 So it requires tremendous attention, a tremendous understanding of oneself, of the totality of life, to look at a tree or a mountain or a person.
57:23 Then communication is possible.
57:30 You, this afternoon, if I may suggest something – I’m just suggesting; please don’t do it – look at a tree, be quiet with a tree; don’t take a novel, radio and go and sit under a tree; go to it alone; be quiet with it, without thought, without anxiety, without fear, without loneliness — just sit and watch.
58:21 And when you do watch, you will see how disturbed you are, how restless, how city-sophisticated mind you are.
58:37 But when you have put all that aside, sitting quietly – not dreamily, not in a state of ecstasy about some nonsense, but just to look – then you will begin to see... then you will see for yourself that there is neither the observer nor the thing observed; and it is only then that there is beauty.
59:15 Beauty is not subjective or objective; beauty it is not that thing which is made by man or by nature.
59:27 It is only… that exists only when the mind is completely quiet, neither personal nor impersonal; then out of that silence and immensity comes whatever will come.
59:56 Is that enough this morning?