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SA65T9 - Why do we deteriorate?
Saanen, Switzerland - 29 July 1965
Public Talk 9



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s ninth public talk in Saanen, 1965.
0:09 We have had about eight talks, I think, here in this tent this year, and we have touched upon most subjects concerned with human thought and feeling and action, and the necessity of total mutation of the human mind.
0:47 Most of us, I feel, do not realise how extraordinarily it is important to feel our way, rather than a determined pursuit of a certain type of activity, to feel our way hesitantly, persistently and seriously into this question of a total mutation.
1:28 Whether the mind, which has been so heavily conditioned for so many million years, whether it is at all possible to break through this conditioning and come upon a life totally different, a way of living in which there is no sorrow, no conflict, and all the travail that human beings are heir to.
2:13 Whether it is possible to have a fresh mind, a new mind, a mind that is good, strong, healthy, reasonable, a mind that can function in our daily activity, in our daily pursuits – going to the office, the family life and the various aspects of our life – as a whole, not as a fragmentary problem.
2:55 We have gone into all this, more or less, taking each morning different points; and I would like this morning, if I may, to consider with you and… this question of deterioration.
3:32 We see in the world, artistically, politically, morally and as a family, everything is going down the hill.
3:51 Not because we are getting old, that we compare it to a condition when we were younger and therefore deplore the present because of something that one has enjoyed in the past, but if one observes right through the world, not only in any particular sphere but in all the areas there is a great deal of deterioration, both as a human being and as a collective society.
4:37 And whether it is at all possible for a human being who is totally related to all other human beings – he may separate himself consciously, but unconsciously, deeply, he is totally related: your sorrow, your misery, your anxiety is the same as that man living far away.
5:15 And being so totally related and being so influence-able through propaganda, through suggestion, through literature, through every form of persuasion and dissuasion, whether it is at all possible for us as a human being to find out the fact of deterioration and put an end to it.
5:55 There is not only the physical deterioration, getting old – the organism being used or misused or used rightly is wearing itself out naturally – but need the mind, need the heart, the inwardness of man, need that deteriorate?
6:30 And is it possible to find or put an end to that deterioration?
6:38 Even revolt against society, mere revolt, is another form of deterioration.
6:55 Or the acceptance of the norm of society, the pattern laid down by society, whether it is of the extreme left or of the right or of the centre, such a life, accepting it, living, conforming, adjusting to that pattern is also a form of deterioration, obviously.
7:31 And one asks oneself, if one is at all aware of the… not only the human incidents but also what is happening in the world, in literature, in aesthetics, in morality.
8:02 In all the various expressions of man, except probably scientifically, there is a great deterioration taking place.
8:20 And as we are a part of this whole structure, whether it is possible to end the deterioration and therefore be free.
8:45 I would like to talk about that this morning. Now, there are two ways of listening to what is being said.
9:02 Either you hear words and translate those words according to your particular conditioning, to your particular image which you have built up or society has built up, interpret what you hear and therefore translate and, if it pleases you, act; or you listen totally, neither accepting nor rejecting.
9:42 Because when you listen to something totally – as you would listen to that river that’s going by, that’s murmuring – there is neither acceptance nor denial; it is a fact; it’s there.
10:08 And to listen that way, you must listen through your ears, not through your eyes.
10:20 Because if you observe, when you close your eyes and listen – please, don’t do it; just listen to what I’m saying – when you listen with your eyes closed then you listen much more intently.
10:42 You listen to that river going by or to those voices of the boys behind the tent, if you listen with your ears and not with your eyes then you listen much more intently.
10:59 Your whole nervous organism is not under a strain; you listen.
11:07 So I would suggest this morning – as I’ve suggested almost every morning – that the act of listening in itself is the… is a total action.
11:26 And that’s what is required, not fragmentary action, not an action of a formula carried out by will, but action which is non-fragmentary but total.
11:44 And it is such a total action that puts an end to all deterioration.
11:55 So we are going to, this morning, if we may, consider this question: why do we deteriorate – you know, decline, grow dull, insensitive, unaware, not perceptive, ridden by formulas, ideas, dogmas, creeds, patterns of long-established thought – why do we decline?
12:37 When you are very young there is a brightness, a clarity, a freshness; you see things differently; there is a sense of revolt; there is a sense of not accepting.
12:50 But as we grow older the mind becomes more dull, the heart becomes more weary, and altogether – not only physically but emotionally, mentally, inwardly, totally – there is a quality which is no longer clear, innocent, fresh, active, alive.
13:26 Why? I do not know if we have asked ourselves that question.
13:41 If we have asked, probably we have not gone into the question fully or asked superficially and one has no time nor the inclination nor the energy to tackle that problem.
14:03 But this morning we are going to go into it rather deeply.
14:12 And to go into anything rather earnestly, one needs energy, an intensity, a passion; not sitting down and accepting and saying… arguing about something, which is so blatantly obvious, but to grapple with it non-verbally, not intellectually but actually, as a vital problem that each one of us has to solve.
14:55 As when you are hungry, when you have no job, when you have… when there is an immediate intense crisis, you can’t escape from it; one has to grapple with it.
15:09 And to enter into it you need energy, you need passion.
15:20 And that seems to me one of the difficult things: passion and energy.
15:31 You don’t get passion or energy by merely analysing the issue.
15:46 You get energy by acting, by doing. Not that you have energy first and then do, act, but you do have passion, you do have clarity of energy when you are acting, not when you are speculating, not when you’re merely investigating the cause of deterioration, analysing it, examining it.
16:27 But when the mind is in the pursuit to discover for itself the cause of deterioration, then you have energy.
16:49 Now, what is the cause of this deterioration, not only in every human being but in a collective group, in the family and so on, so on, so on?
17:07 Why? How does one find out the cause of something without too much investigation, too much analysis, which again is a waste of time and therefore a waste of energy?
17:31 I hope I am making myself clear. I want to find out, for myself, why there is deterioration in oneself.
17:49 Why? Is it possible to see the whole structure at one glance, or must I go through a series of analyses and examinations, probing, asking, studying, investigating?
18:17 If I investigate, ask, study, inquire, that’s a waste of energy.
18:27 But is it possible to see for oneself the nature of deterioration?
18:41 See it totally, not partially, not intellectually and then create an idea, a pattern why you decline and that idea becomes dominant and trying to fulfil that idea in action prevents or deteriorates energy.
19:08 I don’t know if you are following all this.
19:29 (Pause) Is it possible, we are asking, to see the total cause of human deterioration, not only physically, but totally – not fragmentarily, but completely – without analysis, without taking time over it?
20:07 Because, as we said, time breeds disorder.
20:17 I think that’s clear; I won’t go in it. If you are here for the first time, I’m sorry; I can’t help that.
20:28 Anything that involves psychological time breeds disorder.
20:37 And one of the factors of deterioration is disorder, whether it is moral disorder, physical disorder or conceptual disorder.
20:54 All concepts are disorderly. So I must see the total structure of deterioration, and I must see it immediately, otherwise, if I have time… if I allow time to perceive, then time depletes energy.
21:25 Now, what is it that breeds in me and in you disorder… deterioration – which is also disorder.
21:45 Right, that’s a good word, sorry – what is it that breeds in you and in me disorder and therefore deterioration?
22:02 And having put that question, I must see the total answer immediately.
22:11 I have no tomorrow, because tomorrow or the… to find out an hour later breeds disorder, other forms of wasteful energy.
22:25 So I must discover it instantly that I put the question.
22:32 You follow? The moment I have put that question to myself, I must find…
22:42 I must see the total answer of that question immediately.
22:50 The immediacy of the answer, the urgency of the answer, is energy and therefore passion.
23:12 So I put that question to myself. I am putting that question to you as a fundamental issue, not something which you can escape.
23:23 You’ve got to answer it.
23:32 The total structure of deterioration is the self-centred activity of a human being.
23:49 He may expand that activity widely, deeply, through knowledge, through social service, through every form of activity, consciously or unconsciously: seeking fame, prestige, status, and expanding that prestige, that status, trying to create a good society.
24:20 But if there is in that any form of activity which is self-centred, that breeds disorder and therefore deterioration.
24:34 Please, as I said, you are listening, listening with your ears, not with your eyes.
24:50 Therefore you are listening to see if what the speaker says is true or false, not agreement or disagreement.
25:06 You are listening to that… to the murmur of that river going down. You’re not listening with your eyes. You’re not listening with your… partially or indifferently, you are listening actively with your ears, with your whole being.
25:29 Therefore, in the same way, you are listening to what is being said. The speaker is saying that deterioration takes place, disorder comes into being, when there is either self-improvement, which is self-centred activity, or self-centred expansion through good work, through knowledge, through identification with something greater than himself, as a nation, as a community, as a family or as an organised belief which is religion.
26:26 Every form of self-identification with something which he considers greater, is still the pursuit of pleasure and therefore disorder and therefore deterioration.
26:51 I see that. Now, I ask myself: how is that to come to an end?
27:01 You understand? My demand is that the mind should be young, fresh, alive, innocent, active, without creating disorder.
27:23 And how is it to come to an end?
27:32 And it can only come to an end if I… if the self-centred activity, because it is based on pleasure, says, ‘I must end it,’ because it wants greater pleasure.
27:48 You see what I mean? Because I want to end disorder, I identify myself with greater order, which is greater pleasure, and therefore I want to put an end to disorder, and therefore create greater disorder; and in that pursuit there is effort involved, struggle, pain, determination and all the rest of it.
28:26 So I must find a way – you know, these are words; not a way.
28:34 A way doesn’t mean a method, because method means a continuity and therefore disorder – I must… there must be a catalyst.
29:00 There must be a catalyst that will put an end to this self-centred activity which breeds disorder and deterioration.
29:11 And that self-centred activity is based on pleasure.
29:19 And pleasure, as we said the other day, does breed sorrow, pain.
29:27 Enjoyment is one thing and pleasure is another. Yesterday was a lovely day: clear skies, blue, intense, and every tree and every blade of grass and every buttercup in the field was full of life and delight.
29:54 And you see that and it is an enjoyment; it is a pulsating feeling.
30:03 But when that is translated as pleasure and today I say, ‘I wish it was a good… another day like that, so I can enjoy more and have more… greater pleasure,’ then the pain begins.
30:20 So where there is an enjoyment, which is natural, healthy and immediate, but that enjoyment is translated into memory which becomes pleasure and the demand for its continuity, then it breeds sorrow; then it breeds the avoidance of pain.
30:44 Right? So I see this, and it must end.
30:58 And it must end not because I want something more, nor because I want greater pleasure, but it must end because it is natural to have a very good, healthy, reasonable, sane, strong mind and young.
31:22 I see that and what is to take place?
31:33 Thought is of time.
31:45 Thought, as we use it, is based on an idea and idea being the continuity of organised pleasure, and so thought says, ‘I must end it,’ or if thought interferes with the ending of the deterioration then it adds more confusion to it.
32:23 I do not know if this is clear. This requires a great deal of looking at it, because I don’t know if I have time to go on with this.
32:41 You see, we have only thought as a means of giving a continuity or ending something.
33:04 Right? That’s clear. And thought is the response of the past: thought as memory, as experience.
33:26 And if thought interferes with the ending of deterioration, it only intensifies deterioration.
33:38 Please, do listen very carefully to this. It’s not a question of your agreement with the speaker.
33:50 And we have used thought, because that’s the only thing we have.
34:02 And I see that thought, with its cunning... with its ideas, pursuits, determinations, avoidance, resistance, escapes – all that – thought, as a means of ending deterioration, only creates more disorder and more deterioration.
34:36 Therefore there must be a way of stopping thought.
34:43 You are following? Please, I am… we are talking very objectively.
34:55 It is not an oriental, some mystical nonsense. We are talking very objectively. It is not some fancy of the speaker which he wants to impose on you.
35:14 There are two facts: the fact of deterioration and the necessity of putting an end to that deterioration, and using thought as a means to put an end to that deterioration.
35:33 That’s all we have. And we have exercised thought in so many cunning ways to put an end to this: by escaping, by saying, ‘I am God; I am the soul; I am the Atman; I am super structure’ – you know, all the rest... that stuff – or escaping through thought identifying itself with an idea, with a belief which it calls God, which it calls community, a party ideology and so on, so on, so on.
36:11 So thought we have used as putting an end to deterioration.
36:18 And I see clearly, non-argumentatively, as a fact, as that river running down murmuring with delight.
36:27 I see it as a fact that thought, if it interferes in any way, adds to more deterioration.
36:37 Therefore, is there… can thought, which must function when it is demanded, as clearly, as reasonably, as logically, sanely, non-neurotically.
36:57 But there is an essential fact of human deterioration, and thought cannot interfere with it.
37:11 And if it does, it adds more deterioration. Right? Is it clear? Clear, in the sense, you are hearing the words, the logical reasoning of it.
37:32 Then I must find out, mind must discover how to end thought.
37:46 Not become vague, not become blank, not say, ‘Well, I’ll get into some deep, mystical, nonsensical fancy.’ Because I see: thought is the past, thought is essentially the response of the past based on pleasure and the avoidance of a pain and based on an image which is essentially pleasure.
38:23 And if that pleasure principle tries to put an end to deterioration, it only adds to more deterioration.
38:35 So I must come… the mind must come upon a… the mind must discover for itself the total ending of a thought with regard to deterioration.
38:59 But it must… but mind must have... full of energy as thought when you go to the office, function – you know, all the rest of it – so we are not trying to say you must end thought totally.
39:13 We are saying that thought must end totally when you are faced with an essential problem.
39:21 I’ll go a little later into it, further on.
39:35 So I must find out, the mind must find out what it is to be silent.
39:45 Right? It is only when thought comes to an end there is silence.
39:59 You know, when you are listening to that stream and those boys playing football, when there is no resistance, when there is no… when there is not the principle of pleasure as thought, then you are listening to those boys and to that river out of silence, aren’t you?
40:34 Please, do it as we are talking: listen to that river completely, not resisting it, not because you want to find out what the speaker is saying – that is irrelevant, for the moment – you’re listening to that river, and therefore you’re attentive completely, attentive with all your being, in which there is no concentration as forcing the mind to listen to that river.
41:09 Then, if you are totally attentive, not resisting, not forcing, then are you not listening out of total silence?
41:26 And to be silent, there must be freedom.
41:40 And to have freedom, you must have space.
41:50 So there is this fact of deterioration and there is the fact, which man has established through centuries upon centuries, using thought as a means – thought being will, resisting, avoiding, escaping – using thought as a means to put an end to this deterioration.
42:19 And one discovers thought does not put an end to this deterioration, and… so one says, ‘Is it possible to be totally quiet, to be totally silent?’ because silence means a total renewal.
42:47 Is the mind being completely quiet, totally still?
43:00 Not through determination, not through wish, not through pleasure, not through avoidance, not... all the rest of it.
43:11 It is this complete, total stillness in which thought is absent.
43:20 And therefore this stillness is not of time, because thought is of time.
43:34 And when the mind is totally still and it’s completely free and therefore it has got, in itself, without a centre making space, it is in itself immense in space.
43:56 Now, all this demands this clarity of pursuit, clarity of perception, hearing, a discipline.
44:20 Now, you listen to that stream, attentively, completely, not resisting noises, not resisting the football, those boys shouting, not resisting anything, but totally listening to that stream.
44:48 To so intensely listen to that stream, that itself is discipline, not conformity, because your mind then is completely alert, your whole being is intensely alive.
45:06 That is discipline in which there is no conformity, no adjustment.
45:19 Because the discipline that we generally have is based on conformity and therefore total disorder.
45:31 But whereas there is this quality of silence.
45:39 And to come upon this silence, the mind must be extraordinarily sensitive, alive, active.
45:54 And therefore, when there is this silence there is no deterioration at all.
46:09 And one has to understand this... once when you have... when there is this silence, the mind craves for more of it.
46:30 You know, the mind is used to pleasure and it wants more pleasure and therefore it subjugates itself to control itself.
46:47 You’re following all this? To me, to the speaker, control concentration is another factor of deterioration.
47:20 Which doesn’t mean you must do what you like, lie down on the floor, smoking, kicking off your shoes in a drawing room.
47:33 One has to understand this whole nature of control, why the mind constantly demands to control and being controlled.
47:47 Or why it demands to be absorbed, to commit itself to an activity which will absorb it, be occupied with something so totally.
48:09 One has to understand all that, to understand the nature of control, of concentration.
48:22 Because the mind demands that when you have felt – in a moment in which you’re not totally aware, totally awake – a moment of silence, and then you want to continue that, you will discipline yourself to death to get it back.
48:45 Every experience of pleasure, we want it back intensified, and to get it back we’ll do anything: from taking a drug, to marihuana, to intense, austere discipline of harshness.
49:14 So this silence has no continuity, because that which has continuity is self-centred activity, as pleasure dictated by thought.
49:43 So this silence is not to be cultivated.
49:51 It has no method. It cannot be come by through any meditation, through any formula. You can sit cross-legged, breathe in different ways or stand on your big toe, do anything you like, you will never have it, because this demands a great understanding of life, not escaping from life.
50:23 It demands tremendous sensitivity of all your being, your heart, your mind, your body.
50:32 Therefore, the way you live matters immensely, what you eat, everything becomes intensely important.
50:52 And as long as one is a slave to a society – that is greedy, envious, ambitious, pursuing pleasure, prestige through function, status through function, all that; as long as one is not free of all that – there is no renewal, no freshness, no rejuvenation, no silence and no freedom, and therefore no space in which creation can take place.
51:38 Right sirs. (Pause) Questioner: While listening to you, I think, I hope, that I understand you.
52:01 But when I try to apply it, I find myself nowhere.
52:17 Why is that?
52:22 K: The gentleman says – I don’t know if you have heard the question, so I’ll repeat it – the gentleman says, ‘While I’m listening to you, I think I understand.
52:38 When I’m away, I don’t understand; I try to apply and I can’t succeed.’ I hope you will not think I’m rude, but you’re not listening.
52:56 You’re not listening to me; that’s where the mistake is.
53:11 What is the speaker saying? He’s just pointing out. Which is, the speaker is yourself speaking aloud. You’re listening to yourself and not to the speaker.
53:33 For God’s sake, get that simple fact: you are listening to yourself and not to the speaker.
53:43 If you are listening to the speaker, he becomes your leader, your authority, your way to understanding, which is a horror!
53:53 Because you have then established the hierarchy of authority, which is an abomination.
54:06 So what you are doing is listening to yourself, seeing the picture the speaker is painting, which is your own painting, not the speaker’s painting.
54:21 If that is clear, that you are listening to yourself, then you say, ‘Well, I like to,’ or, ‘I don’t like to,’ that is the end of it.
54:34 ‘I want... I see myself as I am, and there must be a change,’ and you begin to work, not apply what the speaker is saying.
54:47 If you want to work hard, go to it; if you don’t, it’s all right.
55:00 Because one has to create a new world, a new society, a new group of people, and you cannot create a new group of people, a new society, by saying, ‘I have listened to you and I don’t know how to apply what you’re talking about.’ You are listening to yourself, and you can listen to yourself as you listen to that stream: either casually, indifferently, curiously or attentively.
55:45 Being attentive, you have the energy, and having energy you have passion to listen to yourself.
55:55 And that’s all you have to do. And to listen to yourself means no resistance to what you’re listening to, no comparison, saying, ‘This is good.
56:10 I must not be, I must be,’ all that silly, stupid, petty nonsense.
56:20 Then out of that passion and energy is action; the total thing is action, not: ‘Having listened, I want to apply.’ You cannot apply what you’re listening to.
56:46 Then it becomes tawdry, juvenile, but if you are listening to yourself as the speaker is speaking – which is yourself – then, out of that listening, you have clarity.
57:08 Out of that listening there is sensitivity. Out of that listening the mind becomes healthy, strong, not obeying, resisting; it becomes alive, intense.
57:25 And it is only such a human being that can create a new world, a new generation.
57:30 Q: You can’t apply it but you want us to understand it, and to understand you and to see the connection of... (inaudible) Is that true?
57:40 K: Madame, I don’t want you to understand anything.
58:16 I want… I am just saying, understand yourself.
58:27 Understand yourself. You know, yourself is a living thing, a moving thing.
58:36 It’s never the same. It’s active, pushing, driving, changing. It’s never constant. And to understand that, to look at it, to go into it, your mind also must be fluid, and it cannot be fluid if there is a pattern according to which it is functioning.
59:00 And you see jealousy, envy, greed, ambition, the desire to become great, fulfil, avoid despair — they are all interrelated.
59:17 And this interrelation is brought about by the centre.
59:24 The centre, as the memory with its conformities, with its images, the centre which is pleasure.
59:38 And that centre is always, consciously or unconsciously, seeking pleasure and therefore breeding pain.
59:49 This is what we are doing, actually. You’re not understanding me. This is what is taking place in each one of us.
1:00:02 And the speaker is only a sounding-board; he’s not important at all.
1:00:12 What he is saying is pointing out how to listen to yourself.
1:00:20 And if you know how to listen to yourself, you can go on a journey that has no end and no beginning – it is further and deeper than Mars – and in that there is intense beauty, and out of that comes order, virtue, and in that there is no conflict, and in that state there is great beauty.
1:00:54 Enough, sirs?