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SA68D3 - Why have we neglected the world of mind and spirit?
Saanen, Switzerland - 2 August 1968
Public Discussion 3



0:00 This is J Krishnamurti’s third public discussion in Saanen, 1968.
0:10 Krishnamurti: Shall we go on with what we were talking over together yesterday?
0:23 Shall we? Audience: Yes.

K: Or would you like to start something else?
1:00 I think we have lost the high quality, high level of curiosity.
1:13 Man has been very curious, wanting to find out the phenomenal world, the world which is outside him, and he has been extraordinarily successful – going to the moon, doing most astonishing things.
1:41 And inwardly, we are, though we have evolved from the ape, we are very little…
2:02 we have not made much advance.
2:09 There is a contradiction between the outer and the inner: the enormous outward advance and almost no advance at all inwardly, and so there is in our life a vast contradiction.
2:53 And is there such a division as the outer and the inner?
3:09 Is there an activity ever advancing, ever progressing, ever evolving outwardly?
3:25 And inwardly there is hardly any movement, except for very modified, small, little changes.
3:40 There is this division between the outer and the inner.
3:49 And why is there such division? We live outwardly a very full life, and inwardly we are poverty-stricken.
4:08 Inwardly, we are very shallow, petty-minded, self-centred, unaware of our own activities.
4:34 So one asks oneself – I don’t know if you are interested in this; we are coming to a point where we left off yesterday, I think – one asks what is an inward life?
4:48 What is – if I may use that word which is so hackneyed and which is so spoilt – spiritual life?
5:06 What is a life which contains both the outer and the inner?
5:29 What is a life that is not merely circumscribed by outer events, by outer pressures – economic, social, and so on?
5:47 Is there a life apart from this outward demand and environment?
6:03 And does the outer environment dictate the inward state of the mind?
6:20 Or does the inward confusion – shallowness, inward misery, despair, arrogance – that dictates the outer structure and nature of society.
6:45 I am sure we have asked this question many times of ourselves.
6:56 And can we this morning spend some time talking over together to find out if there is really a limit to human understanding and to find out for ourselves where that limit ends or begins?
7:47 I don’t know if I… We will go into that presently.
8:06 If we are, I may ask, if we are interested in this, can we go into this question: what is a life which is not divided into the outer and the inner?
8:33 We know this division as the outer and the inner, and the so-called spiritual people, so-called theologians, and all the rest of that crowd think there are greater values inwardly, greater heights to be achieved inwardly.
9:06 And the monks, the saints, and all that group reject the outer because they say that is worldly, that is mundane, the real life lies inwardly, deep within oneself.
9:34 Can there be such a division? Though man has divided it as the outer and the inner, is that a valid division? Or is it very artificial?
9:50 Because we think the inner values are much more important, much more sacred, and the outer is of very little significance.
10:13 So can we ask ourselves – if you are interested in it and if you don’t want to discuss something else – what is a life that is not an outer, an inner?
10:55 A life that is not limited by these two words: ‘outer’ and ‘inner’.
11:05 Can one find out what is an inner, true inner life which includes the outer?
11:18 Can we… Is that a valid question? Attendez. Oui. It is said, yes.
11:27 Am I imposing – just a minute, sir – am I imposing this question on you?
11:42 Q: …no sense if we don’t relate the inner with the outer.
11:59 They are related to…

K: Sir, when you make a statement like that – they have no reality, this or that – you have already come to a conclusion.
12:13 We were saying to explore you need a high level of curiosity.
12:33 And man has been very curious to find out the external world, the objective world, all the things that are there – he has conquered almost everything outwardly.
12:54 And he has not been as eager, as intensely curious to find the inward world, if there is such thing.
13:14 If one has this quality of high curiosity, it must be applicable both outwardly and inwardly.
13:32 I can’t just examine the outward phenomena.
13:43 So, can we this morning have this quality of high curiosity – high level, not just the curiosity of how others live or what people say or don’t say, all that stuff – I don’t mean that kind of absurd childish curiosity – but this quality of curiosity that explores inwardly?
14:32 First of all, why is it that most of us have neglected to explore the world of the mind, of the spirit, of the deep inward unknown?
15:05 We have said man’s understanding is limited.
15:14 What is beyond that limitation is mysterious, is God, is something which we can’t explore.
15:21 ‘Don’t ask, that’s a mystery’ – that has been the pet jargon of the religious people.
15:34 So they have drawn a line beyond which lies mystery.
15:41 But a mind that is curious knows the limitation of human understanding and never draws… does not know where that limit is.
16:02 Right? So, can we start with this high level of curiosity and explore?
16:31 Explore this world, this world which we have divided as the inner and the outer.
16:45 The outer we know more or less what is taking place – there are a few selective, specialised brains that have gone into this, the examination of the outer and conquering the outer.
17:04 And those who have examined the inner, explored, have approached it always with a mind that has already concluded – apriori.
17:22 It started with a belief, with a conclusion, with an ideology, and so it never explored.
17:37 It said, ‘There is God and that’s the end of it’. Or as the Hindus said, ‘There is the Atman and that’s the end of it’.
17:54 And he drew a line beyond which he said you can’t go; only the few can reach.
18:05 And the few who are recognised by society as the saints.
18:15 And because society recognises them as saints, obviously they are not saints.
18:26 They fit into the pattern of what society thinks saints should be, and they conform to that pattern and they are accepted as saints.
18:39 So what we are trying to do this morning, if we can, and it will be very interesting if we could do it together – you being as intensely curious, not starting with any conclusion, as the speaker – no conclusion, no belief, no dogma, no hope – nothing, just curious.
19:19 And if you have a motive, you cease to be curious. And that curiosity becomes rather shallow, empty, superficial.
19:35 So can we explore together this world which man has never really gone into – except the behaviourists, the psychologists, and so on?
20:18 Again, very superficial – they haven’t gone into themselves.
20:25 They have described or explained how the aggression one has inherited from the animal, and so on, so on, but they have never explored inwardly to find out where there is no limitation.
21:10 Right. Let’s start.
21:19 First of all, what do we mean by being curious?
21:33 What do you think? Please, I don’t want to give a speech.
21:41 Q: The mind is very sensitive.
21:47 K: Curiosity, he has suggested, a mind that is highly sensitive.
22:01 Right? Which means what? Highly sensitive, pliable, sharp, not hindered by whatever it discovers.
22:26 It doesn’t say, ‘I don’t like this, I am frightened, I won’t go beyond it’.
22:40 Curiosity in that sense can only be when there is freedom to enquire, not a withdrawal, not saying, ‘Well, I mustn’t’.
23:06 You see, I want to know, live with great curiosity; I want to find out. Don’t say, ‘Who is the ‘I’?’ – leave that for the moment.
23:22 I am using ‘the I’ merely to explain.
23:30 After putting aside, having understood and gone beyond the aggressive nature of the human animal – the anger, the brutality, the despair, the desire for power, position, prestige – those are so very obvious – and putting those aside, not verbally but actually, they might say, ‘What more?’ Can we start from there? Yes?
24:19 Q: Yes.

K: Are you sure?
24:29 Are you sure you are not caught in opinions of like and dislike?
24:45 Because to be highly curious in that sense we are using that word, there must be great balance, otherwise curiosity becomes another instrument of distortion.
25:00 I don’t know if you’re following all this.
25:08 It’s like, I am curious about my neighbour so I am peeping over the wall. Which is, you know…
25:19 But there is always the wall over which I am looking.
25:36 So, is it possible – this is really quite worthwhile asking – is it possible to observe without any distortion?
26:19 To observe with effort is a distorting process.
26:28 If I say to myself, ‘I must be curious, I must observe’, I’ve already given a shape to that curiosity, to that movement of exploration. Because my motive is something quite different, because I want to get something, I want to use it, I want to improve society, I want to get happiness out of it – or whatever it is.
27:01 So can I observe without any distortion?
27:19 And there is a distortion if I am ambitious?
27:27 Or if I have a sexual complex?
27:34 Or if I am driven by pleasure?
27:47 Or if there is any form of fear? All these obviously distort the perceptive quality.
28:09 So unless the mind is free of all this, exploration becomes merely another form of superficial scratching of something you think is the real.
28:26 I don’t know if I... That’s why we ought to be very clear in ourselves whether the curiosity of exploration is born out of freedom, or out of some compulsion, some inward void, fear, anxiety, and therefore an escape.
29:17 You know when you have this quality of high-level curiosity, that very intense curiosity pushes all the other – like ambition, greed, envy – all that aside.
29:35 I don’t know if you are following this. Right?
29:47 Are we communicating with each other?
29:54 Verbally – I am not talking of a different dimension.
30:03 Am I, the speaker, making himself clear, at least verbally, that to explore there must be no distorting element in that exploration?
30:26 And there will be a distortion as long as there is an effort to explore – that effort being a motive, an escape, a fear, a desire to use what you discover for yourself and society, in order to gain God or whatever one has.
31:35 What do you say?
31:47 Q: Is not curiosity a motive?

K: Is not curiosity a motive.
31:55 Is it?
32:03 I want to know just for the fun of it, just to see what there is – there is no motive.
32:22 I want to know what there is, if… when there is the freedom from all the things I have known, what there is more. In that there is no motive.

Q: There’s ambition.
32:45 K: Is there ambition in that?

Q: Yes.

K: No. Ambition in the sense I want to succeed in my discovery, I want to achieve, I want to gain an end.
33:07 Q: You want to learn.

K: I want to learn. Now, wait a minute here. Is learning ambition?
33:21 Q: Pleasure.

K: Pleasure – what?

Q: Learning is pleasure.

K: Learning is pleasure. Is it?
33:32 Have you learnt a language? And do you know what a painful business it is?
33:47 I don’t quite see why you bring in all this, why you bring in ambition and pleasure. I said at the beginning, if there is any form of distortion, exploration has no meaning.
34:09 I said, too, ambition is a distortion, because I want to succeed, I want to learn, I want to be more powerful, I want to gain, I want to use what I have gained, what I have experienced, to exploit others, to tell others what marvellous entity I am.
34:32 All that excludes what we’re talking about.
34:39 Don’t you… haven’t you this sense of delighted curiosity in something?
34:51 Or is it always accompanied with ambition, pain, anxiety?
35:01 Q: Sir, is it then just to see and to teach?
35:09 K: No, sir, no, no. Look: I am angry. I say to myself, ‘Why am I angry? What about?’ I know I’m angry. I don’t escape from that.
35:28 It’s a fact. I want to know why I’m angry. I don’t want to escape from it.
35:36 I don’t want merely to verbalise it, rationalise it. I want to know what is the cause of the anger.
35:44 The causal approach to find out. And I see I haven’t slept properly or I have been – well, you know, I don’t have to explain what the causes of anger are.
36:02 But if I say, ‘I must not be angry’ and with that motive examine the cause of anger, well, you may discover the cause of anger but it will not bring about an end to anger.
36:20 You follow? Is this so very difficult?
36:31 What we are saying is: to explore, you need a scientific mind, a mind that is not personally involved.
36:54 Like the scientist in the laboratory, or so on, when he is examining, he is not personally involved.
37:02 But take him outside, he becomes an American, Russian, whatever it is – his own fears of the family, and so on. Now, we are saying, can we have a scientific mind which has understood anger, fear, ambition, pleasure, and says, ‘I know all of that. I see the limitation of it.
37:35 I see the dangers of it. And I’m not going to let it interfere. I am going to watch very carefully the motive. I am going to be intensely aware whether any pleasure enters’.
38:04 No, sir, no, sir, no, sir.
38:14 I see you have never done it. I’m sorry.

Q: Sir, a scientific mind involves not only observation but plotting hypotheses and testing them studiously.
38:36 K: Yes, sir, yes. A scientific mind not only is capable of observing but needs a hypothesis.
38:44 But, sir, why can’t one talk simply?
38:53 Let’s forget the scientific mind. For God’s sake, if you don’t like it, let’s drop it.
38:59 Q: Sir, I say what you are trying to do is impossible.
39:06 K: Ah – the gentleman says what you are trying to do is impossible.

Q: Because we are very limited.
39:13 K: Yes – because we are very limited.

Q: And we only have a short period of life and our minds are not able to understand.

K: Yes, yes, sir. That is, we are very limited and it’s impossible.
39:27 Just look. You say, ‘We are very limited and it’s impossible’. Then it is finished. There is nothing more to explore.

Q: I haven’t said that. I said you must move… I didn’t say…
39:44 K: Yes, sir, I understand. I understand, sir. I understand your question now. It is impossible not to distort – is it?
39:59 If it is impossible, then is it not possible to go beyond the impossible?
40:10 Don’t always say, ‘Well, it’s impossible. I cannot but help to distort. I am limited, I am this, it is so’. But I say for God’s sake, go beyond the impossible, see what happens.
40:27 I am sorry, the thunder has the voice.
40:35 Just a minute, sir, give it a chance. Madame, just a minute.
40:48 Q: How can you go beyond the impossible if you are limited?
40:58 K: How can we go beyond the impossible.
41:21 You know what the possibility is, do you?
41:34 Why do you say impossible?
41:41 When you say the mind is limited, of course it is limited. Why do you draw the line and say it can’t go beyond that?
41:52 And therefore you draw the line of the impossibility.
42:01 Don’t draw the line.
42:16 Don’t say, ‘It’s impossible’. I know.

Q: There are things we will never understand. Our minds are finite…
42:27 Our minds can only go so far.

K: Man can go only so far.
42:37 But he hasn’t said that when he says, ‘I’ll go to the moon’.
42:49 Man said, ‘I’ll find out how to reach the moon, and go beyond’. And he has done it. He never said, ‘It’s impossible, I can’t do it’. But you see what we are doing? Outwardly, we are willing but inwardly we say, ‘Well, sorry’.
43:12 So I say why do you make the inward approach, the inward enquiry, impossible? Knowing our minds are limited but being aware that you don’t know where the limitation ends.
43:34 Don’t draw the limitation just in a narrow… within a very short distance. You understand, sir?
43:47 Q: Isn’t there different kinds of impossibilities and possibilities?

K: Isn’t there different possibilities and impossibilities.
44:00 Q: But it is impossible to speak when the thunder is…

K: Of course. It’s impossible to speak when the thunder is going on.
44:14 You see? Now watch. Communication between us is becoming impossible.
44:28 You reduce possibility and impossibility in terms of noise.
44:39 I say, ‘Don’t say it’s impossible’. That’s all.
44:46 I know it’s impossible to be heard when there is thunder going on. I know the impossible, therefore, I stop. I don’t battle with it. But this is...
45:02 Q: Sir, you talked about curiosity. And it seems to me that the curiosity which a child has or maybe a scientist has is different in some ways from the curiosity of you and me.
45:15 K: Right.
45:23 It won’t last very long, let’s... Now, shall we try something? Just keep quiet.
45:31 Just really keep quiet. See what happens. (Pause. Sound of rain and thunder for approximately five minutes) When you are really silent like this, which means very sensitive, didn’t you feel all the drops coming into you, entering you?
50:57 You were completely open, weren’t you? And you received everything – the rain, the noise, the thunder, the beauty of that sound.
51:10 You were part of it, weren’t you?
51:20 And if you hadn’t done it, you’d say it is impossible.
51:32 You know, to be silent means to be vulnerable. And that means to be completely with your heart and mind totally open without any resistance.
51:50 Then you hear the rain with a delight.
51:57 Now let’s proceed.
52:04 I wonder why we say that it’s impossible to find out beyond the limitations, beyond the thing that we have said is impossible.
52:24 And yet we are eager to accept what others have said that lies beyond the impossible.
52:31 Right?
52:38 A potty little guru comes along or a saint or somebody who has had a little experience and says, ‘There is something beyond’.
52:54 And we all lap it up.
53:02 Now why don’t we find out for ourselves?
53:11 Why do we accept others?
53:20 So, knowing the limitation of our minds, the limited understanding, because our minds are
53:41 because our minds are rather shallow, empty, dull, we repeat phrases, platitudes and think we have understood everything.
54:01 Knowing all that, is it possible to explore even the very limited mind, the limited understanding? To explore, to dig under it, to go below it, above it, so that you find out.
54:27 But if say, ‘Well, my mind is very limited; my understanding is conditioned’, and that’s the end of that.
54:38 But knowing the mind is conditioned, shaped, twisted, tortured, ugly – being aware of it, knowing all the structure of it, the nature of it, what are the causes of it – surely that is to go beyond the limitation.
55:09 No?
55:17 Comment, Madame?

Q: (In French) K: Is not astonishment the beginning of curiosity. My Lordy, don’t you know what it is to be curious?
55:47 Then why do you read newspapers?
55:56 Why are you listening to the speaker if you aren’t curious?
56:05 Not how curiosity begins – well, one can go into it: the squirrel has to be curious to find out where its safety is, and so on – this can all be observed.
56:20 But aren’t you curious? Just curious.
56:36 Q: (In Italian) K: He is asking is it possible – again the same question – now, is it possible to go beyond the limited, now, as we are sitting here.
57:05 Yes, sir?
57:14 Yes, sir. Sir, look, we each one of us can give a dozen explanations.
57:23 But the fact remains at the end of these explorations that you are not curious.
57:31 Or your curiosity has a slight twist in it, a bias which makes it into a distorting instrument.
57:47 Right. Look: I want to find out if I have an image about myself.
58:00 The image which has been built up by the parents, by the environment in which I was born, in the circumstances, the influences, the pressures of various cultures, and so on, and my own inclination, tendency.
58:23 All that has brought up, put together, an image about myself: I am this.
58:32 Right? I am a great man, I am – whatever it is – I am an inferior man, I have got so many fears, I want to be ambitious, and so on and so on.
58:48 I have image, have an image about myself. And I know how it has come into being – that’s fairly simple: through fear, through the demand for security, through an idea, an ideology, a philosophy, that says ideologies are so important, not ‘what is’ but ‘what should be’, and so on, so on. There it is: I have an image about myself, and I say, ‘By Jove, that image is going to prevent me from looking’. Right?
59:33 That image is going to distort anything I say. I shan’t be able to hear what another is saying if I have an image.
59:46 The image may be an opinion. I say, ‘I have an opinion that you are this or that’. And when I look at you, that opinion distorts.
1:00:00 So I say to myself, is it possible to go beyond this image? I am curious. What happens? Just curious – I don’t want to succeed or achieve something or gain something or use what I gain to smother other people.
1:00:22 I just want to find out what lies beyond this limited image that I surround myself with. That is, don’t you want to know?
1:00:36 Q: Yes.
1:00:48 K: You mean to say we are all so dead as that?
1:00:57 Well, I’ll go on. I see this image, how it is formed, what are the causes of it?
1:01:12 I have explained what the causes of it are: security, and therefore fear, the influence of society which says you must be different from what you are, and so on, so on.
1:01:30 I see the cause of this image.
1:01:37 And I want to know what lies beyond. So I must first break the image, because the image is going to prevent me. There is no motive in that because I see if I want to see beyond, I must go beyond the wall. So I must pull down the wall.
1:02:02 And how do I pull down this image which has taken through years?
1:02:15 That’s the first thing I have to do: to look beyond the image. I must break it down. And in the very breaking down of that image, I mustn’t create another image. So I have got a very complex problem here.
1:02:36 The breaking down of the image, the cause of that image, and in the very breaking of that image, not to form another image. Right?
1:02:49 Are we communicating with each other? I think we are, aren’t we? Yes? Bene. At least with a few.
1:03:02 Now, what am I to do? Knowing – I know very well – listen – if I make an effort, in the very breaking of that image, I will distort – division – the perception.
1:03:26 Right? So I must… there must be no effort.
1:03:33 Effort implies motive and the habit which has been cultivated through millions of years, make an effort to do something.
1:03:51 Wait, wait. Which is the same, sir: can I leave it?
1:03:59 Look at it. Can I leave it? And who is the entity that is going to leave it?
1:04:09 The entity is the image-maker. No?
1:04:23 The observer is the machinery that is always making the images.
1:04:37 So I know all this. I see all this taking place in me. The observer who is the observed, from the one point, and becomes the observer, and it is the machinery – the ‘me’ is the machinery that is always resisting, protecting itself.
1:05:05 And I know that. And I also know the dangers of the images.
1:05:16 I also know if there is any single image, it will be a distortion, it will act as a distortion. Right? So I say to myself, what do I mean when I say I know?
1:05:34 I hope… we are communicating? When I say to myself, ‘I know this whole structure of this.
1:05:42 I am very familiar, I know the nature of it’. And when I say, ‘I know’, what do I mean by that, the word ‘know’?
1:06:01 When do I use that word I ‘know’?
1:06:19 And I stop. You see, you see, I asked a question: when do I say I know; what do I mean by that word. You are ready to answer.

Q: I remember.

K: Ah!
1:06:35 You are ready to answer. Quick! There is no silent listening to that word, to that question.
1:07:04 If you listened quietly to that question: what do we mean by ‘know’, ‘I know’, when I say, ‘I know’ – I want to find out, I want to feel it, I want to smell it, taste it, go into it, that word.
1:07:23 Therefore I must be very sensitive to that word.
1:07:30 I must be in contact with that word, be familiar with all the meaning of that word.
1:07:40 And to be familiar, to be in contact, the feeling of that word, there must be a sensitive enquiry. But if I say, ‘Yes, it is remembrance, it is something in the past, it is memory, it is a reaction’, and so on – we all know that.
1:08:08 But to find out – please listen – to find out where the limitation of that word is.
1:08:21 Right? The moment I use the word ‘I know’, I have limited it.
1:08:28 I wonder if you get it? Have you got it?
1:08:40 It’s like a man who says, ‘I know what is truth’, ‘I know my wife’ – there it is, finished.
1:08:58 ‘I know I have experienced something immense’.
1:09:10 So when I use the word ‘know’, I have already limited it.
1:09:18 The very word limits. Therefore I am going to be very cautious – you understand?
1:09:26 I am going to be extraordinary watchful of that word, that it doesn’t block me. Right?
1:09:38 You know, it’s like saying, ‘Man is nothing but...’ The ‘nothing but’ means limitation.
1:09:51 So when I use the word ‘I know’ the nature and the structure of this image – listen carefully, please – when I say I know it, I know the machinery of it, I know the causes of it, what has happened?
1:10:23 Q: Thought stops investigating.

K: Do, please listen. Be quiet.
1:10:31 Feel your way into it. When I say I know the maker of the image, the nature of the image, the cause of the image, what have I done?
1:11:26 Right? You’ve got it? When I say, ‘I know’, the entity that says, ‘I know’ is the image that is creating the image. Right?
1:11:59 When you say, ‘I know’, know that you don’t know.
1:12:08 Right? Do see the importance of this. Listen quietly. When I say, ‘I know’, I have already blocked it, I have fixed it, I have limited it.
1:12:31 When I say, ‘I know the cause, and all that’. But when I say, ‘I really don’t know that I know’, then I am open. Right?
1:12:49 When I say, ‘I know my wife’, that’s the end of it.
1:12:59 Because it means I really don’t want to know, I’m too frightened to know what she is. Therefore when I use the word ‘I know’ that finishes it – I don’t have to look any further.
1:13:15 But if I say, ‘I really don’t know I know’ – you follow? – I am open, I am much more subtle, I am sensitive. I can look.
1:13:34 So, in using the word ‘know’, I am going to be extremely careful. Right?
1:13:43 So knowledge becomes a hindrance. Right?
1:13:51 Not in the scientific world but in the world of exploration within.
1:13:58 So I will never say, ‘I know’.
1:14:11 Therefore the mind is in a state of enquiry already. I wonder if you are meeting this. It is only the mind that says, ‘I know’ that is full of pride.
1:14:39 So I don’t know. I know, of course, the image, the maker of the image, the cause of it I am well aware of it.
1:14:54 Yes, it’s there. And I want to find out if there is an end to the image-making.
1:15:11 I won’t say that it’s impossible or possible. When you say, ‘It is impossible’, you have blocked it. Or when you say, ‘Oh, yes, it is possible’, then you are just theorising.
1:15:36 So, my mind now is very alert, sensitive, isn’t going to accept quick answers.
1:15:54 Doesn’t matter who is going to answer it, it will hesitate, it will look.
1:16:03 Therefore no authority. Right? We are communicating?
1:16:10 So I have discovered something: to explore into myself, never come to a conclusion.
1:16:23 Because the conclusion becomes the authority. Never say to myself, ‘I know this is so’, but be – you know – open to find out.
1:16:40 So I have found something: there is no such thing as the impossible.
1:16:47 Right?
1:17:04 So when the mind sees there is no such thing as the impossible, it’s beyond the impossible. Right?