Krishnamurti - Why do we seek and what is there to seek?

Krishnamurti Subtitles

SA68D5 - Why do we seek and what is there to seek?
Saanen, Switzerland - 4 August 1968
Public Discussion 5

0:00	This is J Krishnamurti’s fifth public discussion in Saanen, 1968.
0:25	Krishnamurti: We have, including this morning, altogether three more discussions or talking over together, a kind of dialogue.
0:39	Now, what shall we during these three mornings go into?
0:47	What do you think would be worthwhile to explore and find out something for ourselves?
1:02	Questioner: May I make a suggestion, sir? K: Yes, sir. Q: The first time we met, in Calcutta, 34 years ago, the first question you asked me was: what is it you are seeking.
1:21	K: Shall we talk over that together, what is it that we are seeking?
1:30	Q: Yes. K: Yes? Yes?
1:38	There are several written questions – space and silence, yes – there are several questions written. Perhaps they can be answered in considering what is it that we are seeking.
2:01	If you will, can we go into that?
2:12	First of all, when you say, ‘What is we are seeking?’ I would like to put a question in the other way up, which is: why do we seek at all?
2:32	Not what we are seeking – we shall talk over that too – but why should we seek, and what is there to seek, to search out, find out?
2:54	I think the two questions are closely related, don’t you?
3:08	Why should I seek anything at all, except perhaps physical necessities – food, clothes and shelter – but beyond that, why should I seek anything?
3:30	Is this a wrong way of putting it? Q: Because we are unhappy.
3:37	K: Ah, no. Please, just… I can give the answers too but I am just putting it.
3:46	I say to… you ask, what is it we are seeking?
3:53	That is a valid question and also it might be another valid question: why should one seek at all? Q: We are discontent.
4:06	We have curiosity and we are discontent. K: No, you’re…
4:21	Please, sir, these two questions are quite important if you go into it.
4:35	What is it we are all seeking and why should we seek at all?
4:49	Perhaps in answering what you are seeking you might answer also the other question, why should one seek at all.
5:01	All right, let’s begin the other way. You see… Let’s begin the other way. What is it each one of us is searching, seeking, exploring, reaching out, longing?
5:29	Not only intellectually but with our hearts, what is it we are all wanting, secretly, not obviously only, but deep down in the very recesses of our own mind?
5:53	What is it we want?
6:01	The word ‘search’ implies – doesn’t it? – something very, very serious, something on the verge of the impossible, on the feeling that it is something sacred, the truth, the ultimate, the beyond the reach of man, and so on and on and on – that’s what is implied, isn’t it, in that word ‘search’, ‘seek’?
6:48	If I am unhealthy, ill, perhaps I might seek a doctor and get to be well.
6:59	If I am unhappy psychologically, torn, because my wife has left me or I don’t fit into a society or I am not getting on well with my job, and so on and on, I am also seeking.
7:21	And if all these things are granted, they are fairly secure, I am also seeking something beyond the limits of thought.
7:42	So when we talk about seeking we have to be more or less clear.
7:50	The scientist is seeking in his laboratory a certain – seeking, searching, exploring, inquiring.
8:03	So what category of search are we talking about?
8:30	It was suggested, ‘I am unhappy, I want to be happy and I seek, search, long for somebody, some situation, some condition that will give me this sense of wellbeing, the sense of contentment’.
9:05	Or, I see the what the world is – the chaos, the confusion and the misery there, and I want to find an answer to all that, not merely an answer found through the discovery of the causes and their explanation and going beyond or controlling them, but also I want to find out what is all this about, if there is anything permanent, something that cannot be corrupt, made corrupt by man, by thought.
9:59	I may seek because there is… one is crowded with so many experiences, with so much knowledge, one may seek that state of innocency, and so on and on and on. So, what is it each one of us is seeking?
10:35	Q: A state of everlasting bliss. K: State of everlasting bliss.
10:48	Can bliss be everlasting? Those two words ‘everlasting’ and ‘bliss’ may not go together.
11:01	We will go into it, we’ll… Is that what you are seeking, everlasting bliss?
11:09	Wouldn’t you get rather bored with that everlasting bliss?
11:24	Or is bliss something that you cannot seek? It is like seeking happiness. Happiness is, after all, a byproduct, it is something that comes.
11:45	So I think before we begin to say, or rather begin to define what we are seeking, let us find out for ourselves, each one of us if we can, if there is such… if we are really seeking, or driven by circumstances to seek.
12:15	I don’t know if you see the difference.
12:23	Am I…? I say I am seeking, because my wife or husband or a job or something has forced me to seek; because I am unhappy, because my job is not satisfying, I don’t get enough money and my boss is cruel, and so on, so on.
12:43	So I am seeking; circumstances, environment is pushing me.
12:55	Would you call that seeking? Q: It may be to start with.
13:04	K: It may be that one has to start that way.
13:10	Q: It may be escape. K: I don’t know what it is – I am asking you. What is it you – you, not somebody else.
13:23	Q: If I understand you right, that maybe we all can experience there is something, something within us which is not shaped by our surrounding, which has no cause, but which asks us to go forward…
13:42	K: Before we come to that, sir, the question is – I don’t know if you have all heard it, so I’d better repeat it: are you saying that there is something in us that is pushing us forward – not circumstance, not environment, not incidents, not particular crisis, and so on, but there is something in each one of us, it is asked, that makes us go forward.
14:22	Look, before we go into this question, we know what that word means, to search, to seek, to find out, to grope after, to reach out in the dark and come upon something that is extraordinary, which will be a great satisfaction, and so on; and what is it each one of us – not what somebody else or what one should, but what each one of us is really seeking.
15:17	Q: Unconsciously we are seeking something which is beyond, but we don’t realise that we are seeking, through money, through different things. K: I see. We are seeking something beyond.
15:35	Sir, wouldn’t you give a – to answer that question, wouldn’t you take a minute or two to find out?
15:47	Instead of immediately responding, wouldn’t you take a little time to find out for yourself what it is each one of us is really seeking?
16:02	Or you may not be seeking at all. So, please give two minutes to find out, be silent to find out.
17:50	Right?
17:58	Beg your pardon? Q: The inner peace. K: You are seeking inner peace? You – are you?
18:10	Q: Some people do. K: Something to do? Q: Some people. K: Ah! Don’t…
18:18	don’t bother about what some people do. You see, this is…
18:27	You know, there is a tremendous lot in that question.
18:40	What is implied in that question? I am seeking, I want to find, and how do I know when I have found it?
18:59	To find something after which I have been groping, and say, ‘This is it’, I must have already experienced it, mustn’t I?
19:14	No? I must be able to recognise it, mustn’t I?
19:25	One more minute, signore, one moment, signore, one moment.
19:33	I must able to recognise when I find it, and process of recognition implies that I have already known it.
19:44	Right? Therefore I have… there is nothing to seek. When we say, ‘I am seeking’, it means something that I have experienced in the past and I want that resuscitated, brought about, I want that experience or that state of mind or that joy to come back.
20:16	That word ‘seeking’ and ‘finding’ implies that, doesn’t it?
20:29	So when we say, ‘I am seeking peace’, if one is really seeking it, which I question very much, I must know what it means. I must know the beauty of it, I must know the taste of it, I must know the way it functions in daily life, and to go bed with it, to live with it, to take delight in it.
21:02	And that peace, for me to recognise, I must have a feeling of it, I must have had an experience of it. Which means really I am seeking something which I have known and which has escaped me.
21:33	That is what is implied in seeking and finding. No? Comment?
22:01	Bene. Bene. Ho capito.
22:09	Bene.
22:18	He says, I understand that first part of that, what you have just now said: seeking and finding is a process or a continuation of something I have already known, modified.
22:35	That is very clear. But is there seeking and finding without the process of recognition coming into being?
23:00	That is the question. It gets a little complex, doesn’t it?
23:09	Let’s begin simply. What is it each one of us is seeking?
23:16	Do please stick to it.
23:26	[In French] What, sir? Q: One is seeking what one wants, what one needs.
23:48	K: Ah – you are seeking what one wants, what one needs. What does one need? Clothes, food, shelter, comfort, both physical and psychological, security, both physical and inward, a sense of certainty, seeking to be free from fear, and so on – is that we want?
24:15	Q: Yes, I think so.
24:20	K: Would you call that searching? Q: Perhaps not a search; it’s a seeking, yes.
24:27	K: Yes. Yes, sir? Q: …doesn’t know exactly what we are seeking, but there is a feeling there is something… …and wonder if what we are seeking, that is something that we don’t really know…
24:52	K: Yes. He says, a scientist in his research feels there is something to be discovered. He gropes after, doesn’t know quite what it is.
25:08	In the same way perhaps most of us feel there is something we must find, something intangible, it cannot be put into words.
25:29	Q: Seeking truth. K: Seeking truth.
25:43	How do you know when you find it? How do you say, ‘This is truth’? Q: Because it gives us security or pleasure or something like that.
25:56	K: Ah – so it gives… truth gives you security, pleasure, satisfaction, certainty – does it?
26:10	That is what you think truth should give you. But it may give us a kick in the pants. Sorry to be vulgar. It may drive you out, it may make you… well, you know.
26:36	Q: Sir, I think we are seeking a large area of comprehension to push back the self-imposed limitations and horizons which we had – you know – eventually it’ll eliminate such limitations.
26:57	K: You have heard that question I am sure. Q: No. K: Ah.
27:04	We are – this is too vast a field – we are limited.
27:14	And we are most of us seeking. It is suggested that we break down this limitation, go beyond.
27:29	May I explore a little bit loudly, in words. May I?
27:41	Q: Please do. K: Quite. You will sit there and listen and I’ll explore.
27:50	Q: Sir, how is what you are going to do different from seeking, searching?
27:57	K: How is it that what you are going to do is something different, seeking.
28:02	Q: Different from seeking. K: Different from seeking. I don’t know.
28:12	Would we put it this way: there are moments of total self-forgetfulness – right? – total absence of the ‘me’ and mine and my worries, my despairs, loneliness, and all the rest of it, where the self is not always active.
28:50	There are those moments – clear, bright, a sense of freedom, a sense of clarity, and it is maybe that one… that is what one is seeking.
29:16	You know, when one is very angry, at the moment of anger there is no ‘me’ operating at all.
29:25	Right? At the moment of great crisis there is not this confusion of the ‘me’, the struggle, the pain, the anxiety, the – all that disappears.
29:39	Right? Do we… Is this right?
29:47	And at the height of sexual experience there is complete self-forgetfulness.
29:54	Right? And perhaps this is what most of us are seeking, a sense of not the pressure, the anxiety, the strain, the constant activity of the ‘me’ with all its anxieties, fears, drama, tragedy, and so on.
30:26	Is that what we are seeking?
30:46	Q: Sir, is that knowing what you are after, also? Aren’t you also knowing what you are after, in that case?
30:52	Q: Isn’t that also knowing what you’re after, chasing after. K: No, I am just – that may be it, sir – I am just looking at it, because we tried the other way and I am going, taking the other.
31:15	Can you put your finger and say, ‘This is what I am seeking’. You can’t, can you? Life is much too complex.
31:30	Say, ‘This is what I want out of it’, I mean, if you say, ‘This is what I want out of it’, you will pick up something very small. No?
31:50	Q: Sir…
32:00	K: Yes, sir, I understand, sir. Q: Sometimes the… …communion with my wife.
32:13	The communion with my wife… K: Ah, ah. Q: Because I am in love, then I…
32:28	K: Yes.
32:36	He says: for the last few days I have been worried about to establish real communion with my wife.
32:46	This has been occupying my mind, that’s what I am… for the time being, I am seeking that.
33:01	Look, we human beings want food, clothes and shelter – that’s obvious, that’s what we want. That’s what… there is that – the whole complex, social, economic, relationship between man and man that may produce clothes, food and shelter for each other – there is that whole complex. Then there is a complex, this vast field of psychological struggle, the inward struggle with all its contradictions, with its constant battles, with an occasional flash of joy, the psychological feeling of loneliness, emptiness, not being loved.
34:10	And to love somebody with all your heart so that in that there is no quality of jealousy or hate.
34:20	And also we want peace. Not the peace of the politician but a peace that’s beyond understanding.
34:40	And also we want to find out what happens after death, or what it means to die, and why one is so everlastingly afraid of it.
34:57	And also one wants to find out if there is anything permanent, timeless.
35:09	And also one wants to see if one can go beyond the known, and if there is such thing as truth, God, bliss, innocency, a law which will operate right through life without any action on my part, if there is a divinity, something sacred which is not the invention of man.
35:48	This is the whole complex of existence. And how can I say, ‘Out of this vast field, I want that’?
36:01	You follow what I mean? ‘I am just going to pick up a little bit of all this, and that’s what I want’.
36:09	Right?
36:17	Can one say that? We do.
36:24	I want health, I want to feel close to my wife, I don’t want any image between her and me; I want to appreciate the beauty of nature, of relations, and so on.
36:41	Out of all this vast field, I am going to choose a little bit and say, ‘This is what I want’.
37:02	One moment... [In Italian] Pardon. We two are talking in Italian; the others are left out.
37:27	One moment, signore, just hold on a minute, sir. Let me see the problem first.
37:36	He is saying – I must repeat the question – ‘I understand all this, but is there a search without a motive?’ I am putting briefly. Sir, do see the first question, which is: there is this vast field of existence, different dimensions, different levels, different nuances, different feeling, different states, moods, all the rest of it, and can I, caught in all this vast field of activity, hope, despair, pain, anxiety, peace, hate, love and jealousy, peace, you know, all that, say, ‘Well, out of all that I want one blade, one blade of grass, one petal of this vast flowering beauty of life’.
39:00	Is it logical to say that, even?
39:07	Therefore we may be approaching the problem entirely wrongly. I don’t know if you follow what I mean. Q: …we are seeking the excitement of life.
39:21	K: We are seeking the enlightenment of life. Q: Excitement. K: We are seeking the excitement of life.
39:28	My God, must you seek it? It is just round… it is there, sir – go there. Q: There’s one thing, sir, all these people, obviously forgotten by all those seeking and vastness: there is oneself. K: That’s what I am coming to, sir. The oneself is le terrain.
39:59	No, you are missing… Sir, do look at it, please. Take time, do have a little patience.
40:07	There is this vast field I am living in – contradictory, the demand for fulfilment, the painters, the scientists, the military people, the politicians with their – it is there.
40:30	And that vast expanse is me. Right?
40:38	Q: But it seems that this searching is the very movement of life. K: Madame, you are not even… Please do listen to it. All this is me. Right? This whole field is brought about through me. And I say, ‘Well, I will pick that one part which pleases me most, which will give me greatest comfort – call it truth, call it happiness, call it peace, call it whatever you like.
41:11	And I see how absurd that is. No?
41:23	No, sir. Do please look at it.
41:29	Q: [In Italian] K: No, signore… [In Italian] It is not like that.
41:36	He says, ‘We are seeking what we already have found’. But, sir, do look at it first. How absurd it has become when I say, ‘I am seeking truth’, or, ‘I am seeking peace’, ‘I want harmony, I want God, truth’, you know?
42:04	And all this vast field is exposed in front of me. Right? And I am that field. No?
42:15	Q: Yes.
42:20	Q: I don’t understand when you say, sir, I am that field.
42:28	K: He says, I don’t understand when you say, ‘I am that field’. Aren’t you that field? I am at one moment peaceful, next moment angry, I want happiness, my wife has gone, I have no job, I want to fulfil, I want to express myself, I fight with others, I am aggressive, I am brutal, I am ready to kill somebody for my country, and I want God, I want – that is me. No?
43:04	And I say, ‘I must, I am seeking’.
43:13	And when I say, ‘I am seeking’, that becomes rather absurd, doesn’t it? No? Seeking something out of this vast field which will give me complete safety, complete freedom, complete happiness. No?
43:44	So my petty mind, which has created this terrible mess, says, ‘I want that’.
43:55	No? Look, sir, I’ll put it round the other way: I am confused; I don’t know what to do.
44:08	I see this in front of me. I see this is my life – going to church on Sunday morning and cussing the world Monday morning.
44:19	I go… you know, I am all that. I am literally confused, and out of this confusion I say, ‘I am going to seek’. Right?
44:32	And what I seek must also be confused. So, will a man who sees very clearly ever seek?
44:48	Q: We just don’t know what to do. K: Ah, no…
44:55	You don’t… Q: If a man sees very clearly, he will not seek.
45:01	K: Therefore, don’t start with the idea of seeking.
45:09	First acknowledge to ourselves and with real humility, not with pride, with humility that we are confused.
45:28	And what does a confused man do? If I really, truly, with all my heart and brain feel I am terribly confused, what do I do? I don’t go and elect a politician.
45:50	I don’t go to church to find out. I don’t ask a guru to tell me what to do, because out of my confusion I’ll choose a guru who will be equally confused.
46:05	No? Oh, my… So what do I do when I am confused? I don’t seek. Right? No? No, sir, when I am confused I don’t…
46:30	Need I labour this point?
46:36	Q: [In Spanish] K: No, first see, sir. Q: [In Spanish] K: No. Q: Excuse me. The question for me is, if I am in this position to die for all this confusion…
47:06	K: Die, die. Morire.
47:21	Sir, do please, just listen to, for two minutes just listen, don’t accept it, but just listen.
47:34	As we said, there is this field, and I am part of that field; it is not something apart from me. I have created this field. I know the causes of this confusion.
47:51	I know this contradiction, writing a book and inwardly hating the world – all kinds of things are going on here, which shows to me I am literally confused.
48:09	Right? I admit it to myself in all humility. I don’t say part of me is not confused, there is a higher part of me, the soul, the atman, the whatever it is, is not confused; the atman, the soul which has been created by man out of his confusion is also the result of that confusion.
48:36	Right? Oh my... So I am confused, and out of that confusion any action will produce further confusion.
48:51	Right? Going to the guru, the best of them, if there is such thing, and say, ‘Please, enlighten me’.
49:08	And I will accept him because out of confusion I don’t know what to do. He will tell me what to do, and I will get more and more confused.
49:22	So, I see any action, any search, any reaching out of this confusion is to further the confusion. Is that clear? Q: Yes.
49:41	K: This is logical, sane, rational. So, I won’t seek.
49:54	What I will do now is to find out why I am confused. Right? Why?
50:16	Q: Sir, why must we take that fact and not another? Why can’t we stay in it and wait to see…?
50:26	Why can’t we take the action of finding out why we’re confused? Why can’t we accept the statement of fact
50:34	and literally stay there? K: That’s what I am proposing, madame, that’s what I am saying. When I am confused, stay with that confusion, because if I reach out, it is an escape.
50:57	If I don’t know what to do, what do I do? I don’t go around doing all kinds of things, I say, ‘Wait, let me look’.
51:10	I stay saying I am confused. Right? I don’t escape from it. I don’t find somebody who is going to tell me what to do about it. I literally stay in that confusion.
51:30	Can you? And not say, ‘There is God who will help me, there is the politician who bring about the order in the world, there is the…’ – nobody – they are all confused like you and anybody else. Have you talked to any of the politicians?
51:51	Yes? You know.
52:00	Have you talked to any of the priests? Unless they are dogmatic and absolutely say, ‘Well, this is so’, there is always a question mark. There is always an uncertainty.
52:13	There is a doubt – the more intelligent of them.
52:21	So why can’t I, being confused, stay there? Do you know what it means to stay with confusion? Do you?
52:43	Q: Yes. K: Yes?
52:50	Q: Yes, sir. K: What does it mean, sir? Q: You don’t know what is what.
52:57	K: When, he says, when you don’t know what is what. Oh, lord, no.
53:06	Q: A state of conflict. K: A state of conflict?
53:21	Wait, wait, wait… un momento, signore, un momento. I am in pain.
53:29	I have got a very bad toothache. Can I just remain with it for a few seconds before I lift up the telephone and make an appointment with the doctor?
53:51	Right? Q: Yes.
53:58	K: My brother, son is dead, gone.
54:06	Can I remain with that fact consciously, not in a state of shock, but remain with it.
54:15	See what happens inside you. Not rush off and say, ‘Well, there is reincarnation, there is resurrection, there is mediums who say my brother is living, or he says this is a marvellous world, where you live is perfect health, come over here’.
54:35	Right? And all that kind of stuff. Can’t I remain quietly with the fact?
55:06	Sir, don’t do anything. I know this is what happens. Here is a great fact – do look at it, sir – great truth.
55:17	We are confused and any action out of that confusion will only breed further confusion.
55:25	That is a fact. That is a reality. Remain with that reality.
55:33	Don’t say, ‘Well, I must do this, I must do that’. Don’t do anything, just look at that reality.
55:51	Find out what happens. So, all this indicates, doesn’t it, that you have never remained or been with something you don’t like.
56:13	You would like to keep and hold onto something that you like.
56:20	Here, this word ‘confusion’ is rather terrifying and we don’t like it. The word awakens an image.
56:34	The word has its own frame, content; it communicates something to you and you don’t like that idea that you are confused – it is the most humiliating thing.
56:53	You, who are money, possession, knowledge, professor, a doctor and to say, ‘My God, I am confused’, is a horrible idea.
57:08	And if we honestly, I mean without any sense of hypocrisy say, ‘Yes that is a fact’.
57:20	If you say, ‘That is a fact’, remain with the fact.
57:31	And to remain with the fact implies great sensitivity of your approach to that fact.
57:42	No? I want to know. I just look, then I begin to discover: is the confusion which I see around me, in me, different from the observer, from the entity that is looking at that confusion. No?
58:14	So I am going to discover. Now I am really in a state of… I am really prepared to enquire, knowing all the time I am confused.
58:28	I won’t come to any conclusion. I won’t say this is right, this is wrong, this must be the – I am going to investigate. And to investigate, I must have a great sense of feeling, sensitivity of… a quality of freedom. And this will come if I remain with that fact.
58:57	Q: You said before, a confused person should stop seeking, and now you start seeking again, in a different way.
59:13	Q: You said, a confused person should stop seeking, and now in a different way you are seeking again.
59:22	K: A confused person should stop seeking and you are seeking in another way.
59:32	Would you like to know what I really think? Would you? I don’t seek at all. Full stop. Anything.
1:00:05	Q: In that case you don’t really care if anybody understands you or not...
1:00:10	K: Then – wait, sir – then you don’t care if anybody understands you or not. What am I to do?
1:00:19	I point it out, if you say, ‘Well, I can’t understand you’, I’ll explain and if you still say, ‘I can’t’, I’ll go into it again, and if you say, ‘Go to hell’, I go to hell – that’s the end of it.
1:00:33	Q: But it comes back to what I said yesterday: there is no way out. Any effort is…
1:00:38	K: Ah! He says there is no way out. Q: Anything you do is wrong. K: No.
1:00:45	Q: Anything I do is wrong.
1:00:59	K: Look, sir, there is this fact I am confused; one is confused.
1:01:10	I look at… there is an awareness of that confusion, and to remain with it, not twist it, not try to go beyond it, is to be silent with that confusion.
1:03:01	Don’t you find, when you are silent with that confusion, not trying to do something about it, the confusion then – if I may use that word without being misunderstood – flowers?
1:03:30	To flower. You know, when you plant a seed and it is growing, and one day it will put out the flower. And as you watch it, it grows, it becomes full of light and beauty and colour and scent.
1:03:58	There is this seed of truth, which is, that man as he is, he’s a very confused entity.
1:04:14	And he is responsible; he has made this confusion. That is a fact. That is the truth.
1:04:25	And let the truth flower. The truth of that fact that human beings are confused, it will flower, it will show everything if you are quiet.
1:04:40	But if you keep on digging, say, ‘I must find out, there must be a cause’, or, ‘I will ask somebody to tell me what to do about it’, you know, it is like after you have put a seed in the earth, to pick it up, to shovel it up every day and look at it, if it is growing.
1:05:09	Right? So when you plant a seed, leave it alone.
1:05:18	So in the same way, if you see this truth of this, that you, man is confused, and remain with it in silence. Let it tell you. You are part of it; be open, be sensitive, be silent, it will… it will flower.
1:05:44	And out of that comes clarity.
1:05:56	Domani – tomorrow.