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SA65T2 - Problems exist as long as there is self-image
Saanen, Switzerland - 13 July 1965
Public Talk 2



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public talk in Saanen, 1965.
0:11 Krishnamurti: Shall we continue with what we were talking about the other day?
0:23 We were saying that individual problems have no meaning in themselves except in relationship to the total process of life; and it is only when we understand the whole structure, the meaning of life, the whole picture of life, then only does individual problems have significance and can be resolved.
1:08 That’s what we were saying the other day that we met here.
1:20 It is one of the most arduous and rather difficult thing to perceive the total picture of life.
1:36 And, as life is a continuous movement in relationship, unless we understand that relationship as a whole – not as a fragmentary relationship but as a whole – then perhaps we shall be able to resolve the individual particular problems.
2:22 I mean by problem the difficulties, the lack of understanding, the innumerable doubts and questions, the maladjustment, the imbalance, the constant struggle to adjust oneself to a particular pattern of belief or an experience or to a particular norm.
2:51 All these create – do they not? – problems, difficulties; and as we know life only as a series of not only structural but emotional, psychological, factual difficulties, we are never able totally to resolve them.
3:23 We rather – if we are at all aware – we rather run away from it; we are never capable of looking at it with clear-eyed insight; we are never able to look at the pattern of our existence totally.
3:47 It’s only when these problems become acute, when there is a crisis, then only we become aware of the innumerable, hidden, subtle problems; and even then we do not know how to resolve them; we haven’t got the intensity or the clarity or the knowledge of how to resolve them.
4:23 So what we are going to talk about this morning, if I may, is whether it is at all possible in our daily life to be free of these problems.
4:47 Because a mind that is caught in any problem, whether… of which one is conscious or unconscious, does affect the clarity of thought, does affect the daily activity.
5:17 So it seems to me that it is very important to understand these problems and to be free of them; not escape from them, not to find a particular definite answer, but to be aware of them first, to know what our problems are.
5:55 And even that requires an attention, an awareness; one must know what one’s own problems are to resolve them.
6:09 It’s no good going to an analyst, to a confession, to this or to that, which all indicate an escape from the actual, from one’s own actual problem.
6:28 So, as we are going into it, I hope you are listening to what is being said, not as an objective, verbal statement, but actually become aware of one’s own problems.
6:54 You know what a problem is? Something I haven’t understood, something that gnaws in my heart and my mind, that goes on repeating, repeating, repeating; something of which I am afraid, some torture, some constant dream of a night which is repeated, which influences my activity during the day, from which I am trying to escape or from which I’m trying to find an answer, an interpretation; or I’m afraid of death, of poverty, of lack of love, of relationship; the feeling that I’ve never fulfilled; driven by ambition, by vanity.
8:02 So many problems one has, of which one has… one is not conscious or aware or even know the limits of these problems.
8:20 And one has to understand – surely, mustn’t one? – that a mind that is ridden by problems – however small, however petty or however intense, vital, significant – whatever the problem be, that does influence thought, influence our activity, shape our life; and unless one is extraordinarily free from problems, one cannot go very far.
9:19 Our problems are concerned with daily living, everyday activity: sex, love, job, fear of not being loved, loneliness, the sense of utter despair, the boredom of life which has no meaning at all.
10:02 Surely, one has to be aware of all this, because they do influence the course of our action.
10:22 We cannot possibly escape from them. You cannot have worldly problems, the daily problems, and yet try to find a deep inner life, spiritual life or whatever you call it.
10:43 The two – the worldly life and the so-called inner life – are not two separate strata; they are both related to each other, intimately.
11:00 And without understanding, being free from the daily problems of life, however petty, however small, tyrannical, ugly, if one is not free, then your search for a spiritual, inner life has no meaning whatsoever.
11:36 You can see the rationality of it. It is logical; it’s not just my statement, which you have to accept or deny, but it is so.
11:53 Unless my mind is free from the worries of money, whether I am loved or not loved, whether I make a name in the world or not, all the temptations and the ugliness and the brutality and the passing… unless I understands all that superficial problem of daily living, my mind is utterly incapable – utterly incapable – of penetrating deeply into something that demands complete energy, that is not to be sought after, that has no cause, no motive.
12:54 So one has to be aware of our daily problems, of our daily activities.
13:13 Now, if one becomes aware of them – and I hope you’re doing it with me; because, you know, we can’t go very far, as I would like to at the end of these talks, or even this morning; I’d like to go very far, very deeply; but you cannot go very deeply if your problems are choking you, blinding you.
13:54 If you do, it’s mere escape; it’s a verbal pursuit of some myth which has no reality whatsoever.
14:09 So if one is aware of these problems, what is one to do?
14:23 First of all, what do we mean by awareness, being aware of my problem?
14:35 Please, take your own particular problem with which you are tortured.
14:44 When you say, ‘I know I have a problem,’ what do you mean by that?
14:57 You mean, don’t you, that you have a difficulty, a pain or a pleasure; the avoidance of that pain or the continuity of that pleasure.
15:18 You say, ‘I’m aware of it.’ Now, what do we mean being aware?
15:32 Are you aware of it as you are aware of that microphone: something outside of you, which you are looking at?
15:44 Or are you aware of it without the space between you and the thing which you are looking at, without the division as the observer and the thing observed?
16:13 If you are the observer, then you are trying to do something about the thing which you observe; then you want to alter it, then you want to find a way to bring about a situation in which that thing doesn’t give you any more pain, or that thing will give you continuity of pleasure.
16:39 Isn’t it? It depends a great deal how you look on that problem, how you are aware of that problem, or conscious; how do you know.
16:53 Either you know it as an outsider looking in, which means what you look at is different from the image which you have built for yourself about yourself.
17:20 Right? Each one of us has an image of himself – whatever it is; generally rather a pleasurable image – and from that image you look at the thing that gives you pain or pleasure.
17:56 Please do this as I am talking, because it’ll become very interesting if you go into it afterwards, as we shall this morning, I hope.
18:08 So there is the image of yourself as you should be, or you are, or you must be, and from that image you look at the thing which you call a problem.
18:29 So there is the image and the problem.
18:36 Then you try to approximate the problem to that image, or alter the problem according to that pattern which the image has established.
18:54 Isn’t that so?
19:02 So you, who have a particular image of yourself, look at that problem which is not you; so there is a division, so there is a contradiction between what you think you are and the problem, and hence a constant conflict between what you think you should be or what you are, what your image represents, and the problem which contradicts that image.
19:41 May I proceed now?
19:48 Is it so far clear? Right. So the problem can never be resolved as long as the image exists.
20:17 The image of what you should be or the image which you have… which the mind has created through experience, through knowledge, through story, through history, through family, through every form of experience.
20:39 So what you are aware of is not the image but the problem.
20:49 Now, what we are trying to do is not deny the problem but understand the structure of the image.
21:04 You…? Because if you have no image, then you can deal with the problem.
21:19 If I have no image of myself as an extraordinary human being, or as a man that has failed, that is miserable, that must fulfil, that is vain, that is ambitious – you know, the image which I have of myself, as most people have: that they are God, no God, that they are merely environment, that they are this, that they are that; they are the result of...
21:48 – you know? – a dozen images of themselves, or one predominant image.
22:01 If I have that image, then that image will contradict the fact of daily existence; I am incapable of looking at the daily fact, except through the eyes of that image; therefore, the problem is created by the image but not by the fact itself.
22:33 Right? Questioner: (Inaudible)

K: Ah wait... Un instant, je vous en prie.
22:48 You are going to discuss with me afterwards, but first listen to what I am saying; don’t deny it, don’t accept it, just take it in; look at it.
23:06 So then, why do I build an image about myself?
23:14 We are not dealing with the problem. You understand? I say as long as the image, an idea, a concept… as long as there is a concept, an image, a conclusion about myself... exists, problems will always exist.
24:00 So I’m not concerned with the problem, with the difficulty; but I am concerned now in understanding why I have these images about myself, these conclusions, these concepts.
24:19 If you go to the East, they have their idea that they are God, that they are… – you know?
24:30 – innumerable…; and you come here, you have also your concepts, your images. Go to the communist world, they have their image.
24:42 Now, why do we build these images, these concepts?
24:54 Please, I am putting the question; try to find out.
25:02 We are asking a fundamental question, not a superficial, question.
25:09 We never ask ourselves a fundamental question, and this is a fundamental question.
25:18 Why do I, who have lived forty, fifty, sixty or whatever number of years one has lived, why have I gathered this storehouse of what I think, what I feel, what I am, what I should be, my experience, my knowledge?
25:52 And if I have not that, what would happen?
25:59 You understand what…? If I have no concept about myself, what’ll happen to me? I should be lost, won’t I? I’ll become so uncertain, so terribly frightened of life.
26:22 So I build an image, a myth, a concept, a conclusion about myself, because, without a centre, life becomes utterly meaningless, uncertain, fearful; there is no security.
26:51 There is… I may seek outwardly to be secure – a better job, a house and all the rest of it – but inwardly, also, I want to be completely secure; therefore security compels me… the desire to be secure compels me to build this structure, which is verbal – you understand? – it has no reality at all; it’s merely a concept, a memory, an idea, a conclusion.
27:39 Now, I see that; that is, I’m aware of it.
27:55 Please, proceed with me. Come along… let’s do it together. I know why I’ve built it, whether it’s conscious effort, consciously through effort I have built it, or unconsciously, through the innumerable influences of society, of religions, of books, of… – you know? – all that; I’ve built it up.
28:24 And I see why I have built it up. Society demands it; and also, apart from society, I want also to be completely sure in myself.
28:44 So society helps me and I help myself to be that image, that idea, that conclusion.
28:55 Now, I am aware of it. I want to know what I mean by being aware of it.
29:08 I am aware that I’m hungry – you understand? – I’m hungry; I’m aware. Nobody need tell me; it is not a second-hand experience; it is not something I have learned from a book; no teacher has taught me that I’m hungry; no philosophy, no method, nothing.
29:37 I know I want some… there is a reaction inside which I call hunger; it’s a first-hand experience.
29:47 Am I aware of this structure and the meaning and the nature of this image, as I am aware of my hunger?
30:04 You understand what I mean? It is something which I have realised, discovered for myself; nobody need tell me.
30:23 So it is yours and not my description of it which you have accepted, and therefore you say, ‘Yes, I have it.’ You know, when you have a toothache or any kind of pain, nobody… it is yours.
30:59 So I am aware of that image as something I have discovered for myself, and which nobody can take it away, dissipate it or add to it; it is so.
31:33 They can describe it, they can give… they might add more detail to it, but the fact is so.
31:47 Right? Can I… can we proceed?
31:59 Now, what happens when I am aware – as I’m aware of hunger – of a fact that I have built an image about myself?
32:46 You know, we are so used to make effort.
33:01 From childhood, we are encouraged to make effort, struggle, because we must be better than somebody else, do better than my uncle… you know, all the rest of the stupid stuff.
33:23 We worship success, so we make effort.
33:32 Here there is no effort needed at all because there’s nothing to make effort about.
33:41 You’re following?
33:49 So I’m just observing the fact that I have an image about myself; and any effort to dissolve or encourage or dissipate that image is to conform to another image which I have about myself.
34:24 Right?
34:31 Am I…? Is that clear? If I make an effort to dissipate or destroy the image which I have built, the effort springs from another image which I have about myself that, ‘This must not be.’ Right?
34:59 Am I mesmerising you all? (Laughter) Or are we actually doing this?
35:12 Because, as we said at the beginning, there must be freedom; total freedom, not freedom from some stupid, little anxieties and all the rest of it, but complete freedom.
35:38 And freedom is not a reaction. If it is a reaction, it’s merely a revolt; it’s not freedom.
35:49 And a mind that is crippled with problems can never be free. Whether it’s the problem of death, problem of your dreams — whatever the problem be, there is no freedom.
36:06 And the problem is not important at all, but what is important is the image which you have about yourself.
36:23 If you have no image at all, if you’re completely… if the mind is completely free from any image, then you can deal with any issue that arises; then it is no problem at all.
36:45 You are following?
37:03 So I see, the mind is aware that it has created an image about itself, and to dissipate or to resolve or try to do anything about that image springs from another image which is much deeper, which says, ‘I must not create that image.’ So any effort to alter the image is the outcome of a deeper image, a deeper conclusion.
37:55 I see that, therefore I won’t make any effort, mind won’t make any effort to dispel that image.
38:06 Right? Are you following with me? Are you coming? So the mind is completely aware, without any desire, without any effort, without any alteration; just to be aware of it, just to look at it.
38:35 I look at that microphone; I can’t do anything about it; it’s there, it has been put together.
38:46 So I look... the mind looks at the image, at the conclusion without any form of effort; and that is real attention; and that demands… in that observation you will discover there is tremendous discipline, not the silly discipline of conformity.
39:34 That is, because there is no effort to alter it, the mind itself is that image.
39:46 Right? It is not the mind and the image, but the image is the mind.
39:56 Right? I don’t know...
40:13 So any movement on the part of the mind to identify itself with that image or to destroy that image is the creation or the urge of another image.
40:32 Therefore the mind is completely aware that it is the image, the creator of the image itself.
40:48 Right? So if you... one is so aware of it, then the image loses its significance altogether.
41:19 Then the mind is capable of dealing with any issue, any crisis that arises, without a previous conclusion or the image from which it tries to answer.
41:38 Right? Therefore, the mind is now clear of all image.
42:04 And therefore it has no static position, no platform from which it observes, no belief, no dogma, no experience as knowledge from which it is directing the issue.
42:34 So now the mind can deal with any issue that arises, and doesn’t treat it as a problem.
42:46 You understand? Problem exists only when there is a contradiction. But there’s no contradiction because I have no image, I have no centre, I have no conclusion from which I look, therefore there is no contradiction and therefore it’s not a problem.
43:21 I wonder if you… And as I said, as we said at the beginning, life is a movement in relationship, not only between people, relationship with everything — with nature, with people, with money, with ideas; it’s a movement, and when there is a movement and you are moving with life, there is no problem; it’s only when there is a static state from which you are trying to understand.
44:14 So the worldly life is the only life you have to understand, not the spiritual life.
44:37 When that is clear, when you’re no longer driven by ambition, greed, envy, search for fame, notoriety… you know, all those things that we call worldly life – la vie moderne – then when that is completely in order – and that must be in order – then there is totally a different movement of which the mind cannot previously imagine or believe or come to a conclusion; because all our movement is a worldly movement; and we have separated the two, the worldly movement and the spiritual movement, the inner movement, the inner life and all the rest of it – la vie intérieure; you know?
46:10 – something apart; because we are tired of this worldly life, with its ugliness, brutality, impossibly... – you know what’s going on – and we try to escape from that, try to establish in ourselves inner life, which is so silly.
46:32 You can’t establish a spiritual life for yourself without having complete order; and order means freedom.
46:50 Then you will find that there is a totally different kind of life, not created by the mind; a life that has no cause, no end, no beginning; it is a movement.
47:15 But you cannot possibly come to it, do what you will – sit in any posture, do all the tricks that you will – you will never understand it unless there is complete order and freedom from the outward, everyday struggle, pain, sorrow, greed, ambition.
47:49 Now sir, let’s proceed.
47:58 Q: May I ask a question?
48:10 K: Surely sir.
48:16 Q: There are problems which are not created by me, not by myself, by many; those problems exist whether I’m alive or whether I’m dead.
48:32 I mean the world problems... (inaudible) problems, problem between whites and black, economic problems…
48:34 K: I don’t quite understand, sir. Make it brief, sir; sorry.
48:37 Q: I mean to say there are problems which I have not created.
48:46 K: There are problems…
48:47 Q: Which I have not created.
48:49 K: ...the gentleman has not created.
48:51 Q: Economic problems...
48:52 K: Yes sir; there are the economic problems, social problems, national problems which I am not responsible for — that’s what the gentleman says.
49:00 Right. There is starvation in Asia; misery, poverty, disease, of which you know nothing here.
49:21 Something terrible there. Now, who is responsible for it?
49:36 You know, science can free man from drudgery of work, through automation, through the science of computer and so on, cybernetics; science can give man food, clothes and shelter, feed the world.
50:13 But why isn’t it being done? Just look at it; don’t agree with me, for God’s sake – just look at it – or deny.
50:26 Because we are nationalistic: la gloire de France, the way of life of the America, the Indian nationalism, the African nationalism, the imperialism of the communists, as well as the capitalist — all these are separating man economically.
50:53 Also religiously man is separated by his belief: he believes in Catholicism, in the particular saviour and, in the whole of Asia, they don’t believe a thing about all that.
51:08 They have their own beliefs. So man is divided by nationalism, by racism, by economic pressures, by religion.
51:21 And we are all responsible for it, aren’t we? Because you are a national; you’re very proud of being an Englishman, with your tradition, or a Frenchman and God knows what else.
51:39 It is this that is separating people, isn’t it? Oh, for… So you and I will cease to be responsible when we are free from nationalism, from racialism, when there is order in ourselves.
52:15 That is, we are human beings; we are not individuals.
52:28 Individuality is an old-fashioned idea, a stupid idea.
52:35 We are human beings, with all the problems of every other human being, whether he’s in Asia or in Europe or in America or in Russia.
52:49 And as a human being, if I understand the whole structure of my society, my way of life, the way I live, the problems and everything, and I am… there is freedom from that image; and therefore, I bring about… order is brought about.
53:11 Then I am no longer responsible and therefore I am outside society and therefore I can help society.
53:28 (Pause) I don’t want to help society – you understand?
53:45 – I am not a social reformer. One must extricate, be free from society so that a new group of human beings will grow…
54:00 will come into being and therefore a new structure of society can be formed.
54:07 You can’t reform the old society; that’s merely retrogression. Well sir?
54:13 Q: (Inaudible) ...if you look at the image that you have built of yourself and you are satisfied with it...
54:22 K: Ah! The gentleman says if you are… you have built up an image about yourself and you’re jolly satisfied with it.
54:31 (Laughter) And you’re happy with it. Well, there’s nothing more to be said. (Laughter) And that’s what most of us are, sir. Most of us are happy with the images that we have, and therefore we are happy with the problems that we have; and therefore our minds are dull, heavy, stupid.
55:04 And therefore, when we revolt, we become beatniks or the other kind. That’s all. (Laughter)

Q: Pardon me. Is the gentleman speaking for himself? Because he can only speak for himself. The gentleman, is he speaking for himself?
55:22 K: I can’t hear; I’m sorry. If somebody heard it…
55:25 Q: Is the gentleman speaking only for himself?
55:29 Q: Because he dare only speak for himself; he cannot speak for another.
55:32 K: Oh, I don’t know; he may be speaking for himself or for others. I mean, it’s all part of our daily life. We’re all satisfied with our own images.
55:40 Q: If I have no image of myself... (inaudible) ...then I’m nothing.
55:58 K: Ah! The lady says, ‘If I have no image of myself, then I am nothing.’ But are you anything anyhow?
56:14 (Laughter) No, don’t… Please don’t laugh; this is much too serious. Are you anything in yourself? Strip yourself of your name, title, money, position, a little capacity to write a book and be flattered or flattered.
56:37 What are you? So why not realise and be that?
56:52 Because, you see, we have an image of what it is to be nothing.
57:08 And we don’t like that image to be nothing. But the actual fact, when you have no image, may be entirely different; and it is entirely different.
57:23 It is not in terms of nothing or being something, but it’s entirely different when there is no image about yourself.
57:38 And to have no image about yourself demands tremendous attention, tremendous seriousness.
57:51 And it is only the attentive, the serious that live, not the people who have images about themselves.
57:59 Right sir.