Krishnamurti - Can man go beyond his own limitation?

Krishnamurti Subtitles

SA68D4 - Can man go beyond his own limitation?
Saanen, Switzerland - 3 August 1968
Public Discussion 4

0:00	This is J Krishnamurti’s fourth public discussion in Saanen, 1968.
0:10	Krishnamurti: What shall we talk over together this morning?
0:21	Questioner: I was just thinking, we are all happily conditioned. The condition, which is the distance between the observer and the observed, makes us exaggerate…
0:45	My question is: how is it possible to break through this vicious circle?
0:58	K: How is it possible to break through this vicious circle of conditioning.
1:07	Both the observer and the entity that wants to break through are both conditioned – how does one get out of this.
1:27	Perhaps this question might be answered in a different way, or the same question put differently.
1:42	As we were saying the other day, technologically, man has advanced most extraordinarily; his advancement is incalculable.
2:04	And inwardly, psychologically, we are almost at a standstill.
2:15	The disparity between this world of technology and this world of psychological state in which man lives most of the time are almost contradictory.
2:51	And, man being what he is – as we said, heavily conditioned, aggressive, wanting to express himself at any cost, dividing himself into nationalities, into political parties, religious divisions, and so on – he is willing to kill, destroy, using those deadly weapons man has invented.
3:35	And it is very important, it seems to me, to find out whether man can go beyond his own limitation and not use this appalling destructive machinery.
4:18	I don’t know if you have thought about it or, if you have, how you would grapple with this question.
4:31	Man is obviously heavily conditioned, limited, aggressive, and so on, and technologically there is great advance.
4:53	And is it possible for us to break this barrier, this limitation?
5:14	In that question is involved, at least it seems to me, the whole question of will.
5:35	Our will, the will that we human beings use, has been developed through attraction and repulsion, through temptation and resistance, and that will has created its own law.
6:10	And this law psychologically governs most of us.
6:18	If you observe, you can watch it in yourself how this attraction and repulsion, temptation and resistance, is what we are used to – of like and dislike.
6:43	And on that principle, the way of life is the way of will and resistance. ‘I will do this and I will not do that’.
7:06	‘I dislike so and so, I do like this one’.
7:13	So in us there is this quality of will which we exercise to break down every form of those things that we do not like.
7:38	A resist. And resist temptation.
7:54	This law, this will, has created this division between human beings, nationally, racially, religiously, and so on.
8:19	And we rely on this will, which has become our law, to break down the barrier, break down the human limitation.
8:46	And one sees for oneself that the operation of will, as we know it, is very destructive.
9:07	Is this clear – can we go along?
9:16	And is there any other form of law?
9:27	Which is the universal law, the law of the universe.
9:40	Please, just a minute, don’t get sentimental about this.
9:47	Don’t nod your head or agree or disagree, this is...
9:59	Perhaps the Western mind is not used to this.
10:06	The ancient Hindus and some of the mystics, I have been told, sought this will, which is not the will of resistance.
10:46	And can human beings, knowing how they have…
10:54	knowing what they are – it is not of very great importance how it has come into being this aggression – we know.
11:06	We don’t have to go very far to find out why we are aggressive, why we are brutal, why we are angry, demanding our own importance, and so on, as one can observe it in the animal, in the higher form of apes, and so on.
11:31	As we said, we are used to this kind of will, and therefore it must be in contradiction to every other form of will – my will as opposed to your will; my will opposed to the community; the will of the nation; the religious person with his dogma, with his belief to which he holds onto and resists every other form of belief and dogma.
12:21	And therefore in that resistance there is aggression – he is willing to kill for what he calls God, peace.
12:34	And that will does bring about great discord, great disharmony in all relationship of man – which is observable.
12:56	And such a will cannot possibly break down man’s limitation.
13:13	And if there is no such will, how is then man to act? I don’t know if you’re… if I am making the issue clear.
13:30	As a human being, we have this will which has come into being through resistance, temptation, attraction, and not opposed to that, and so on.
13:53	And that is operating all the time – ‘I will’. ‘I must’. ‘I must not’.
14:09	And that creates great disharmony not only in oneself but in all relationships.
14:25	And if one understands this nature of this will, and therefore the structure of it, is it possible to find a law which is not born of resistance and attraction and temptation?
14:58	Am I making this clear?
15:10	Would you like to discuss this? We are putting the same thing in different words, when that question was asked: how to break through our conditioning.
15:32	The observer himself, who is the will, is conditioned – how can one get out of this vicious circle.
15:52	One realises as one observes within oneself – and I hope you are doing this, not merely listening to a lot of words – one realises this will can never be free.
16:20	This will must always create antagonism.
16:28	This will must always divide, as mine and yours.
16:35	Not that there is not my coat and your coat – that’s very simple. This will must beget division and therefore war. Not war of destruction only but war within oneself.
17:00	Right? And so not being able to get out of this dilemma, one says, ‘I’ll wait for the grace of God, for some miracle to take place, for some outer agency that will by chance open the window’.
17:53	And obviously, when one waits upon an outside agency, you know, that brings great calamity. Then you must have the priest, the authority, the church, all that.
18:20	So as this will cannot operate, except within its own limitation and therefore breed more antagonism, more aggression, battle, and all the rest of it, one begins to ask is there a law, a universal law, which... finding it may solve all these problems?
19:15	Is this…? Am I...? Don’t please translate the universal law as God, as super-Atman, or the higher soul, and all that – this is much too serious, much too extraordinarily important, not to cover it up with a lot of silly words.
19:57	You see, we are in disharmony with ourselves, within ourselves.
20:06	And the society which human beings have created is a society of great disharmony, great conflict, great contradiction.
20:25	This contradiction has created its own will.
20:33	It has bred its own laws. And if one pursues that to its ultimate end, there is no answer, no way out.
20:52	So one asks if there is a universal law, how is the mind to come upon it?
21:19	You can see when you look at the stars of an evening there is great order, great beauty.
21:36	And that very beauty of an evening is its own law; there is no disorder.
21:56	And that order is the very essence of beauty.
22:09	But we live in disorder.
22:16	The whole nature and structure of our society and of ourselves is the nature of disorder – do one thing with one hand and contradict it with the other hand.
22:39	And this disorder is part of this will.
22:51	And how can a human being, how can I – when I use the word ‘I’, I am not being personal or egotistic, all the rest of it, but as a human being I am asking how can this disorder be transformed into that great order of beauty, great harmony in which there is no contradiction, no struggle, no disarray?
23:27	And therefore an existence in which there is no operation of a will which is not the law of the universe. I don’t know if you are following all this.
23:50	Are you all becoming mystical?
23:58	Closing your eyes and going off into some fantasy? I hope not.
24:17	Bene – how can I have that energy which is not born of resistance and temptation, which is will. You understand?
24:38	That is the question just now asked.
24:46	I think that’s a wrong question, if you’ll forgive me.
24:54	We have abundance of energy.
25:10	That energy we dissipate in temptation and resistance, in attraction and repulsion, in aggression, and so on – we’ve got energy.
25:41	And this energy, the religious people – especially the monks and the sannyasis and all those people – say you can canalise this energy by living a non-worldly life – don’t marry, take a vow of chastity, poverty and obedience, obedience to the higher abbot, higher, you know, the hierarchical system of obedience.
26:39	Obviously, such abstraction from the world is just an idea but not an actual reality. You may shut yourself behind a wall in a monastery but you’re still a human being – sexual, ambitious, imitative, fearful, greedy, jealous, and all the rest of it, which you can see in any monk or in any sannyasi.
27:24	‘Sannyasi’ is a Sanskrit word; it will mean the same thing as a monk, who has renounced the world.
27:34	We have enough energy. What we do with it is that we dissipate it, as we were saying, when we endlessly chatter, verbally and nonverbally.
28:03	Obvious – I don’t have to go into details of how we waste our energy. But I don’t think that is the real question.
28:12	Here is a problem of real, great significance, meaning if we could go into it.
28:26	The will has created this disorder in society, which is ourselves.
28:39	And one can observe an order that exists beyond the limitations of man.
28:53	How can this disorder end and enter into another order?
29:00	I don’t know if you are following all of this. An order that is a tremendous harmony, beauty, love, you know, of something incalculable, which has its own law.
29:21	That is the question – right?
29:29	One sees this and one says, ‘Well, I will do certain things, follow certain ideas, follow certain concepts, formulas’, and hope thereby to enter into the other dimension.
29:53	So we say, let me struggle, let me torture myself, let me have one supreme will so that I resist everything.
30:15	Or, I will learn to concentrate, give total attention so that by some trick of silence, enter into the other dimension.
30:40	I don’t think any of those work. It’s like those systems which give you an insoluble problem and mind cannot solve it, therefore becomes stunned and in that perhaps you will see something.
31:06	But all that is tricks, various forms of self-deception and struggle.
31:15	So let’s discard all that. I don’t know, I hope you’re doing this as we go along.
31:22	So I as a human being have a problem. The world I live in both inwardly and outwardly is disorder.
31:37	A world of great disharmony.
31:45	And this disharmony, disorder, is created by every human being, and therefore he has built a society which is also disorder.
31:59	Right. And, as when you look at the stars, at a tree that grows splendidly, this vast nature and the sky above it, the splendour of an evening, the movement of the stars, there is there great order, a law.
32:49	Which is the very essence of beauty.
32:56	And how is a mind that is so caught in disorder to enter into that order in which there is no disharmony at all?
33:14	Is the question clear now? Bene.
33:22	Now, you answer it.
33:30	Q: Sir... K: Wait a minute, sir, just a minute, sir, if you don’t mind. Bearing in mind every form of effort is a distortion.
33:46	Effort implies resistance, attraction.
33:56	To pursue that which is attractive and resist that which is not, is a form of effort. That is, we said we are in disorder and we see the order of a life in which there is no conflict; everything has its place.
34:33	And I say to myself, I see this, and how can this total order come into my existence?
34:45	How can I live it? And also I realise every form of will with its resistance, and so on has no place in it.
35:02	The will, the disorder, is the observer, the entity, the ‘me’, the ego; he is the very essence of disorder.
35:23	So what am I to do?
35:30	And man has tried every way – you understand?
35:38	worshipped gods, waited upon gods, followed a formula, became a monk, took various forms of vows.
35:56	All of them entailed conflict and that conflict produced immense disorder.
36:17	So I see all that and I say to myself there must be a way – no, not a way but an approach which must be entirely different.
36:39	Right?
36:46	How will you answer this question? This is your challenge, you understand?
37:02	Otherwise, if you don’t reply to it, if you don’t answer it, you are going to… man is going to destroy himself – the atom bomb, the hydrogen bomb, war, conflict within oneself and outwardly, the revolts, the endless economic wars, the division of people.
37:33	That’s going on, so you must answer this challenge.
37:42	How will you do it? What will you do with it?
37:57	Q: Is it sufficient to be free of will? K: Is it sufficient to be free of will.
38:11	Now, how will you be free of will? Who is the entity that’s going to free you from will?
38:21	No. Please, see. Don’t put it into such a small frame, the question.
38:41	Q: Sir, in the nature there are also many conflicts: in the animals, the cataclysms, and between the stars and the galaxies there are also conflicts… K: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I know all that. I know all that.
38:57	We know all that. Q: Is there such a harmony? K: Oh, there is. You see, for you and me looking at the galaxies, we call that disorder. It may be order.
39:21	Don’t bother. You see, you all… you don’t get the essence of the question.
39:39	Sir, have you known a day, or an hour, when everything went smoothly, when there was no friction, when there was immense delight of bliss in your heart?
40:08	There was no ‘I’ and ‘you’ and the conflict and the black and the white and the man, the big car, and you walking, the poor, the rich – nothing.
40:23	Have you had a day like that?
40:30	Oh!
40:44	Have you had a day when there was no space at all, no time?
40:55	Don’t you know all these things? Tant pis.
41:06	Sir, let’s put the problem differently.
41:13	Oh, you’re missing an awful lot.
41:20	Q: Sir. K: Yes, sir? Q: We can know bliss just for two minutes as we cannot keep it.
41:27	K: We know the state of bliss for a few minutes but we cannot keep it.
41:34	You can’t keep it. If you keep it, it rots.
41:48	When you want to keep it, it is greed. Then it’s yours opposed to mine, and you’ll battle for that to possess it.
42:04	So we’re back again in the same old circle. You can’t keep it. Q: Sir, it seems to me that if mankind does destroy itself, then this is also part of the law which you mentioned is part of the beauty of the stars.
42:27	K: Yes. Q: Now… K: May I just explain it, sir? Don’t make the question too long. What were you going to say, sir? Q: I wanted to say I’m not interested in saving mankind. But it seems to me that the direct solution is for a person to do what he wants to do and to really know what he wants to do by having his desires communicated, understand each other.
42:58	K: He says, ‘I am not interested in saving mankind’.
43:08	What I am concerned, the questioner says, is to live a life in which there are no opposing desires but only one desire. Right? Q: Right.
43:29	Communication between the desires. K: Communication between opposing desires – can you communicate with opposing desires?
43:47	Q: Yes. K: Or – wait, sir – or the very nature of desire is to create its own opposite: ‘I want this house’, and the very wanting of that house is the creation, the breeding, a desire opposed to having not that house.
44:26	I don’t know if you’re following all this – doesn’t matter. So, sir, is that the question?
44:42	If we are not interested in saving mankind – I don’t think anybody wants to save mankind. We want to save man, which is you, which is myself – man, human being.
45:04	And perhaps in bringing order within myself I’ll bring in order around me.
45:12	Perhaps. So the question really is, knowing there is disorder brought about by opposing, contradictory desires, how is this disorder to be transformed into order?
45:38	We’ll keep it to its very simplest possible question.
45:56	Q: How do you discriminate between order and organisation? K: How do you discriminate between order and organisation.
46:08	Disorder and organisation? Q: No, order. K: Order and organisation.
46:17	Will organisation bring about order? To organise, spread out more bureaucracy to see the institutions are working properly.
46:44	Will organisations – organise everything – bring about order?
47:05	Q: Sir, what do you call order? K: Ah – what do you call order.
47:12	Q: Because my order is not yours! Yours is not… K: What do you call order, what is order to you – the questioner says.
47:32	Order, regularity? Wait, wait, wait – now we’re off.
47:47	Then we’re going to substitute order for harmony, substitute order for love, beauty. You follow? It doesn’t matter. Now, what do you mean by order? What do you mean by order?
48:06	To have everything go like clockwork – repeat, repeat, repeat so that you’re never disturbed?
48:20	Habits that you have cultivated and never to be shaken again?
48:27	Order of going to the office every day and coming back home, breeding, and so on, so on, so on?
48:37	And therefore avoid any form of disturbance, students’ revolt, revolution, communism – you follow? – anything to avoid disorder and to hold on to what you have? And that you’ll call order?
49:02	Q: To revert to the original question, I think, it seems to me, that the desire to have order is itself disorderly.
49:13	K: I quite agree, sir. That’s what we are saying. Q: It shows a dissatisfaction with things the way they are.
49:18	K: Yes, sir, that’s just it. He says, ‘To desire order is to be disorderly’ – obviously.
49:32	Oh, you don’t see all this.
49:37	Q: Our thoughts are stopping. K: When thoughts stop, there is order – you see, that is supposition.
49:49	Look, don’t you know what disorder is in your own life?
49:59	Not an organised house which runs beautifully. But I’m not talking of such organised entity who has no trouble at all, who goes, functions like clockwork, does everything automatically, never disturbed – that’s not order. But don’t you know what disorder is in your life? No? Si?
50:25	Q: Conflict. K: Don’t you know what disorder is? No? Sir, I am asking…
50:38	I am asking if you know what disorder in your life is. Don’t say, conflict – don’t you know what disorder is?
50:47	When you get up in the morning, you dislike somebody and at the same time say, ‘By Jove, I mustn’t dislike’. Or you have contradictory desires, you want to fulfil, you want to write beautifully and nobody recognises your work; you’re in conflict, despair, struggle; you love somebody and that person doesn’t love you; you want to sleep with somebody, that person doesn’t want to sleep with you, and so on – don’t you know all this?
51:23	No? Q: Yes. K: You must be marvellous saints.
51:33	And I hope you’re not saints.
51:41	So you know disorder, don’t you? Q: Yes. K: Let’s be, sir, humble about this.
51:51	Now, knowing disorder, what will you do? How will you bring order in it? Order in the sense not opposed to disorder.
52:05	You follow? If I say, ‘I will be orderly’, then you have set a pattern, a formula, and according to that formula you are going to live. Which breeds disorder. Right?
52:26	So how will you bring about order in this chaos?
52:37	Q: You function within the natural, universal laws. K: Function naturally within the universal laws.
52:46	Which is what? Don’t hate? The universal law says, be kind, don’t kill.
53:01	And certain species of animals don’t kill each other; they kill other species but we kill our own species.
53:13	There are these universal laws – love, be kind, but apparently we can’t.
53:31	Q: Sir, first, I must see the pattern of my existence. K: Ah – first, mustn’t you see the pattern of one’s own existence.
53:40	Q: Yes; drop it. K: And then drop it. First of all, he says, look at yourself and then drop it.
53:51	This is just a game. These theories we all talk so easily.
54:06	Q: We return to the question of the impossible.
54:13	K: Ah – we return to the question of the impossible. Oh, we dropped it yesterday; don’t let’s go back to yesterday.
54:25	We’re going to find out, sir. Do you see, if you say, ‘Impossible; go back’, we’re caught again. We’ll start anew. There is disorder, we know what disorder is, and if I like to live in that kind of state, there is no problem. There’s no saying, ‘Well, I must be orderly’.
54:47	I like disorder, I like to hate, I like to be aggressive I like to be competitive, I like to say I’m bigger than you and my guru is much more tranquil than your guru, and so on and so on.
55:08	Right? Q: Sir… K: Wait, sir. Wait, sir, wait, sir. That’s quite… Yes?
55:14	Q: All this stuff implies I like and I dislike – we have got to go out of this.
55:22	K: Yes, sir. How am I…? I live in a world of like and dislike; I just have to step out of it.
55:31	Easy. I give it up! I don’t know what you will do with it!
56:06	Yes, madame. Madame, that’s what we have been saying.
56:13	Oh, lord, must we all begin all over again?
56:44	The question is: I am very well aware of my disorder, I know what disorder is, it’s in my life, and how am I to move from this to that – to that, being order. Right? Now, how will you do it, sir?
57:11	That’s your challenge. Don’t ask me! What will you do with it?
57:24	Wouldn’t you say, ‘Well, what are the causes of this disorder?’ Work it out very carefully what causes disorder in one’s life – vanity, pride, etc., and so on, so on.
57:47	And, as it’s suggested, step out of it. Will you?
58:01	Q: You can’t step out of it. K: Oh, madame, of course not. But that is what has been suggested: step out of it, somehow do some trick to get out of it.
58:17	Sir, you see, what will you do? You are going to leave in four or five days, and you have this problem: the society is in disorder; you are in disorder, and you know the causes of this disorder.
58:40	That’s fairly clear. And what will you do?
58:48	Go back and carry on?
59:00	Q: You cannot do anything…
59:08	K: You cannot do anything. Madame, I understand that.
59:17	Yes, yes, I understand that, madame. The questioner says, just look at it, don’t do anything, just look and you enter into a different dimension.
59:33	Yes, yes, madame. Really – yes, I understand all that, but that doesn’t solve the problem.
59:40	I don’t know how to look.
59:49	But I am not in that state. I am in disorder. I am messy.
59:55	Q: Yes. But if you are messy... K: Ah, wait! No ‘if’.
1:00:01	Q: All right. Here is this disorder and I see… I see the whole structure.
1:00:16	K: Yes, madame, I understand. Q: The whole structure. I am jealous, I am…
1:00:28	K: Ah, I see. Madame, I am not interested in ‘it may happen’. I am hungry. I am very hungry.
1:00:35	I say you come and tell me, ‘Well, look at it and you may have food’.
1:00:42	But that is too old. I am sorry. I am in disorder.
1:00:50	Don’t tell me if you do this, this will happen – that has no reason.
1:00:57	Here is an actual state. What am I to do? Q: We don’t know the answer. Let’s just do nothing.
1:01:18	K: We don’t know the answer, therefore do nothing. Q: There is nothing to do. No way out.
1:01:26	K: There is no way out. Sorry.
1:01:32	Q: Just see what comes from moment to moment.
1:01:38	K: Is this the way you would answer if you are ill? Very seriously have pain of some kind? You would do something, wouldn’t you? Right? Q: Yes…
1:02:02	K: Madame, that…
1:02:10	Look, sirs, our difficulty is: if we accept disorder, as we do, most of us do, and live in that disorder, there is no problem. Say, ‘There is no way out’.
1:02:32	Napoleon tried it, the churches have tried it, to bring a universal government. They have not succeeded. Therefore it’s impossible.
1:02:49	If you accept that formula, then it is impossible.
1:02:58	But to me that doesn’t mean anything. I want to find out. I want to live differently.
1:03:09	I am not saying you should. I want to live without any disorder in my being, because disorder means unhappiness, misery, confusion, lack of insight, and I don’t want to live that way.
1:03:40	I must find out. I’m curious. I want to go beyond the limits.
1:03:52	I am not satisfied by phrases – if I do this, you will get that; you should; you must not – all those mean nothing to me, they are too childish, too immature.
1:04:10	So I say to myself, what am I to do? Is there anything that can be done at all?
1:04:18	Because I realise any action on my part will breed disorder.
1:04:30	So I must find a way of acting with equal energy, with equal vitality, with equal intensity – which has created disorder – I must find out a way of living entirely differently from this.
1:05:00	If there is no way, I might just as well commit suicide. Which most of us do unconsciously – not physically. We say, ‘It’s impossible’, and withdraw.
1:05:14	I don’t want to do that. So, I realise very clearly what causes disorder.
1:05:38	The disorder is caused by these contradictory desires, resistance and acceptance, and so on, so on, so on.
1:05:54	So my eyes are very clear now because I watch this. My eyes are not spotted. I see everything as they are, not as they should be – all that, I am not interested. I see exactly what is happening in me and in society.
1:06:23	Then...
1:06:34	You’re waiting?
1:06:43	Sir, when you look at the stars of an evening, how do you look?
1:06:57	Through a telescope or with your heart?
1:07:08	Not sentimentally, emotionally, God created order, and all those intellectual ideas, but how do you look at those stars?
1:07:26	Out of disorder? Out of a disordered mind? Or you merely look. And to look you must have a full heart and a full mind, not a chattering mind.
1:07:52	A full mind is a silent mind. And a heart that is full only can see the order and the beauty of that order. Right, sirs.
1:08:31	Q: Nature is… …and so there cannot be fear for it
1:08:41	and so step by step perhaps you can discover that human being is a part of nature.
1:09:00	K: Sir, we have answered this question, sir. We are part of nature.
1:09:10	Nature, that is the animals, they are very aggressive and they are aggressive in order to protect themselves.
1:09:23	They are aggressive not to their own species but aggressive to other species, and so on and on and on.
1:09:40	Sir, may I suggest something? Perhaps you will go out for a walk this afternoon or this evening – find out. If you are alone in your room, find out.
1:10:02	Spend a little time over it. What it means to look, to look with a full mind and a full heart.
1:10:16	Not with a cunning, petty little mind which is always reasoning, fighting, chattering, but a mind that is full, therefore it’s very quiet, like a full, rich river, there’s great volume of depth behind it, of water.
1:10:45	Find out, and perhaps you will know how to answer or how to be out of this disorder.