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SA68T1 - What is the essential issue in life?
Saanen, Switzerland - 7 July 1968
Public Talk 1



0:00 This is J Krishnamurti’s first public talk in Saanen, 1968.
0:09 Krishnamurti: From the very first day during all these seventeen gatherings that we are going to have in this tent – no, it isn’t a tent, it’s something else – I think we ought to be very serious, not only while we are here gathered in this place, but throughout these coming days.
0:51 Most of us, I am afraid, may have come with a sense of holiday spirit, to be among the hills and mountains and green valleys and the flowing stream, to be quiet, to make friends, to gossip, to have a little fun – which is all right, but if we are to get any worthwhile meaning out of these gatherings we ought, it seems to me, to be very, very serious from the very beginning.
1:46 Because there are tremendous problems confronting all of us, not only as human beings, but living in this mad, stupid world we have to be serious, because it seems to me, those people who are really serious in their heart, in their very being – not neurotically, not according to any particular principle or commitment, but that quality of seriousness which is necessary.
2:49 Because as one observes in this world what is going on, with the students’ revolt right through the world for various purposes, the anxiety of war, the extreme poverty, the racial hatreds and riots, the deplorable satisfaction of those small countries like this who are well satisfied with their money, with their position, and so on. In spite of all this, there is a great deal of disturbance.
3:40 One doesn’t know what it is all about. One has listened to many, many explanations from the philosophers, from the intellectuals, from the theologians, from the priests, from all the organised bureaucracies, sociologists, and so on.
4:08 But explanations are not good enough, or even to know the cause of these disturbances does not solve the issue.
4:24 And what we are going to do during these seventeen gatherings here is to be individually and humanly responsible.
4:48 To see if we can, during these coming days, understand this problem of existence with its turmoil, with its chaos and misery and enormous amount of sorrow, which is both in us as well as outside.
5:20 And, this obviously behoves us to dispel the darkness which we individually have created in ourselves and about us.
5:36 And that’s why, it seems to me, that we ought to be terribly serious.
5:46 You know, there are those people who are serious, rather neurotically, they think if they follow a certain principle and keep practising that principle, or that belief, or that dogma, or that ideology – they are serious. They are not serious – such people!
6:17 A mental case in a hospital is also very, very serious.
6:24 He believes and that breeds an extraordinary state of imbalance.
6:33 So one has to be extremely alert to find out what it means to be serious.
6:47 One can see throughout the world that politically ideologies play a tremendous part in the world.
7:13 And these ideologies do separate man into groups – the republican, the democratic, the Labour, the Tory, and so on, so on, so on – they divide people, by their very nature these ideologies become the authority.
7:40 And those who assume the power of these ideologies then tyrannise democratically or ruthlessly – which is observable throughout the world.
8:00 Ideologies, principles and beliefs not only separate man into groups, they actually prevent cooperation, and that’s what we need in this world – to cooperate, to work together, to act together.
8:30 Not you acting in one way, belonging to one group, and I another, and this division will inevitably come about if you believe in a particular ideology, whether it is be the communist or the sociologist or the capitalist, and so on.
8:53 Whatever that ideology be, it must separate and breed conflict.
9:06 And, such an ideologist is not a serious man – because he doesn’t see the deep consequences of such an ideology.
9:19 So, to be really serious during these coming days, one has to put away completely, totally, these nationalistic, religious divisions.
9:46 And perhaps out of that the denial of that which is utterly false.
9:54 Then there might be a possibility of being really, truly serious.
10:04 Because as we are saying just now we need to cooperate, because we have to build – at least I feel this very, very strongly – a totally different world, not only sociologically but inwardly.
10:29 A world that has nothing whatsoever to do with the present world of mania, of conflict, battle, competition, ruthlessness, brutality and violence.
10:48 And it is only the religious mind that is a truly revolutionary mind.
10:55 There is no other revolutionary mind. Whether it is the extreme left from the centre, and calling itself revolutionary, it’s not revolutionary. They are only dealing with a fragment of the total, and the breaking of that fragment into various other parts is not a revolutionary mind at all.
11:28 I feel it’s only the really religious mind in the deep sense of that word is more revolutionary than any other revolutionary, because it’s beyond the left and the right and the centre.
11:52 And to understand this, and to cooperate with each other to bring about a different social order is our responsibility. I feel we are the salt of the earth if we could put away all these immature, childish things – and that’s the only reason that we have come together.
12:28 There is no other reason. You’re not going to get something from me, or I from you.
12:48 So to cooperate, which is absolutely essential is not possible round an ideology.
13:01 I think that is fairly obvious, historically and factually.
13:08 What is going on in the world indicates this division, this conflict of ideologies, and you know, an ideology however superior, however great, however noble, cannot possibly bring about cooperation. Perhaps it can bring about a destructive tyranny, left or right, but it cannot possibly bring this cooperation of understanding and love.
13:57 And, cooperation is only possible when there is no authority.
14:07 You know, that’s one of the most dangerous things in the world – authority.
14:17 One assumes authority in the name of an ideology or in the name of an idea, as god, as truth, and such an individual, or such a group of people who have assumed that authority cannot possibly bring about a world order.
14:46 I do hope you are listening to all this, not mesmerised by words, by perhaps the speaker’s intensity, but I hope you are sharing this thing with the speaker.
15:16 And authority gives a great deal of satisfaction to a man who exercises authority, in the name of whatever it is, he derives immense pleasure, and therefore he’s the most – one has to be tremendously aware of such a person or such groups.
15:53 And from the beginning of these talks let us be very clear on this one point, at least – seriousness which entails non-acceptance of any authority, including the speaker’s.
16:26 And, there are those who come from the East, unfortunately, who maintain that they have the most extraordinary experiences, that they can show the path to another, they know how to give you some word which will help you to meditate most excellently.
16:56 I don’t know if you are caught in those kind of traps. And many people are, many thousands, millions are.
17:23 And, such authority prevents each human being from being a light to oneself.
17:39 When each one of us is a light to himself then only we can cooperate, then only we can love, then only there is a sense of communion with each other.
17:55 But if you have your particular authority, that authority be an individual or an experience which you yourself have felt, known, then that experience, that authority, that conclusion, that definite position prevents communication with each other.
18:31 It’s only a mind that is really free that can commune, that can cooperate.
18:38 Not a mind that has authority.
18:50 And during these days, please do be very wise and not accept anyone’s authority, neither your own authority which you have cultivated through experience, through knowledge, through various conclusions, nor the authority of the speaker, or the authority of anybody.
19:23 Because it’s only then when the mind is free – really free – then it can learn.
19:35 Then it is only such a mind is both the teacher and the pupil.
19:42 Do please understand this. This is vital because that’s what we are going to go into in all these discussions and talks. One has to be, for oneself, both the teacher and the taught.
20:09 And, that is only possible when there is a sense of observation, of seeing things in oneself as they are.
20:25 You know, most of us are so unconscious of ourselves.
20:33 I do not know if you have observed those people who are all the time talking about themselves, about their position, about their values, about their position in life – you know – ‘me first and everything else second’.
21:00 And, if there is to be cooperation between us, communication and communion with each other, this barrier of ‘me first and everything else second’ must obviously disappear.
21:19 You know, ‘the me’ takes such tremendous – it expresses itself in so many ways.
21:36 And that’s why organisations become a danger.
21:50 But we have to have organisation. But those who are at the head of that organisation or who assume the power of that organisation gradually become the source of authority.
22:12 And with such people, one cannot possibly cooperate, commune.
22:20 And, as we have to create a new world, not just – these aren’t just words, they aren’t just an idea, but actually one has to create a totally different kind of world where we are human beings not battling with each other, destroying each other, where one doesn’t dominate the other, with ideas or with knowledge, where each human being is actually free, not theoretically.
23:07 And in this freedom alone, we can bring about order in the world.
23:18 So that is what we are going to do: to unravel the net that we have woven round ourselves which prevents cooperation, which divides us, which brings about such intense anxiety, sorrow, isolation.
23:53 If we can, we are going to break down all those – during these seventeen days of talks and discussions. That’s the only thing that we are here for – and nothing else.
24:11 It would be really marvellous if at the end of these gatherings we could go out and say, look I’ve got it – not you ‘possess’ something, that you for yourself see that you are completely free, and become a human being with vitality, with energy, with clarity, with intensity.
24:44 So, there it is. Perhaps that’s a great deal.
24:53 But unless we do it we do create in the world a great deal of misery.
25:08 The wars that are going on – we are responsible for it, not the Americans, not the North Vietnamese, but each human being is responsible for it, even though we may live in this marvellous safe country, we are also responsible.
25:35 And also we are responsible for the division that’s going on in the world, not only ideologically, but religiously.
25:57 So please, if we can, let us put our mind and heart into this.
26:12 This doesn’t demand a great deal of intellectual effort.
26:20 Intellect hasn’t solved anything. It can invent theories, it can explain, it can see the fragmentation and create more fragments, but the intellect, being a fragment, cannot solve the whole problem of man’s existence.
26:48 Nor can emotionalism, sentimentality do anything.
26:59 It also is the response of a fragment. So it is only possible to act totally, not in fragments, when we see the whole problem, the whole human problem as a total thing – not in fragments.
27:28 So, what is the total problem?
27:36 What is the total, essential problem of the human being, which, having been understood, having been seen – as you would see a tree, a lovely cloud – when you see the totality of that then all the other fragments can be resolved.
28:05 From there you can act. So what is this total perception, the total seeing?
28:19 I am asking, therefore you have to find the answer.
28:29 If you wait for me to answer it and accept it, then it won’t be yours, then I become the authority – which I abhor.
28:49 So, what to you as a human being, living in this world with all the turmoil, with all the disturbances, revolutions, this terrible division between man and man, the society, the immoral society, the religious immorality of the priests, all that – when you see all this spread out before you, and see the agony of man, what is your response? How do you act to it?
29:38 Either you belong to a part, to a fragment, and try to convert all the fragments to your particular fragment – which is obviously so immature, so meaningless.
29:53 Or you see this whole fragment and the very seeing gives you a total perception.
30:07 So, what is to you the essential problem, the essential issue, or the one challenge, which if you can answer completely, all the other problems are dissolved, or understood, or can be tackled.
30:57 It’s quite interesting, isn’t it, to find out for oneself what is the essential issue in life, not according to the psychologist, the philosopher, theologians, or Krishnamurti – nobody – for yourself.
31:35 How will you find out? Do listen.
31:42 You may not have thought about it, or if you have thought about it, how will you find that essential demand or the issue?
32:01 Will you ask another?
32:08 Will the answer from Rome satisfy you?
32:15 Of course not. If you’re a Protestant, you will say, how terrible. But if you’re a Catholic, you probably will say, well, they might supply me a little answer, an indication.
32:30 Or if you are waiting, if you’re a communist, you might look to Moscow or Mao Zedong or for some philosopher. Therefore, when you look in any direction you’re looking to authority.
32:54 And what the authority says has no reality, and you are concerned with the highest issue which you must find out for yourself.
33:17 If you are not looking for another to help you to discover what is the central, true issue, then what will you do? How will you find out?
33:39 Please, this is a very serious question.
33:54 First of all, has one ever put such a question to oneself?
34:05 Asking oneself, is there one issue, one essential thing that in the very understanding of it all other minor issues will be answered?
34:30 If you have not put it to yourself, I am putting it to you.
34:37 If you listen to it – as I hope you are listening – then how will you find out?
35:21 How will you find out? Will you find out by thought? By thinking about it a great deal, each problem, each issue, each fragment, getting more and more involved, more and more informed and then coming to a conclusion, and say, ‘this is the essential question’?
35:46 Will thought help you?
35:57 Will an indication, however subtle, will that help? And if you depend on it, you’re lost again.
36:17 So thinking about it is not the answer, is it?
36:24 Is it?
36:34 Look at it.
36:41 What is the nature of thought?
36:49 Thought, as one observes, springs from accumulated memory.
36:59 Do watch it in yourself. And you are being challenged, and challenge being something new you have to respond to that newly.
37:15 The challenge being – what is the essential issue in life?
37:25 And the challenge is new, and if you respond to it in terms of thought, you are responding from an accumulated memory. Right?
37:39 And therefore your response will be old. That’s fairly clear, isn’t it? No?
37:55 If I cling to my Hinduism with all its superstitions, beliefs, dogmas, traditions, and all that nonsense, and something new appears in front of me or a new challenge, I can only respond from the old.
38:26 And therefore I see the response of the old is not the way to find out.
38:33 Right? So I will not depend on thought, whether it’s the thought of the most clever, erudite, famous person, or on my own thought. Right?
38:53 So I put away that. Please do it as we are talking – put that away completely as I am putting it away – the use of thought to find out.
39:13 Can one do it? It sounds easy, but actually can one do it?
39:25 Which means here is a totally new challenge, and I must look at it with fresh eyes, with clarity.
39:40 And thought doesn’t bring clarity – thought however reasonable, however reasoned, astute, clear.
40:01 So I see thought is not the way to discover what is the essential question, and so thought doesn’t play any part in this search, in this enquiry.
40:23 Can you do it?
40:37 That means when thought, which is old, which is constantly interfering, no longer imposes or dominates, then what takes place? Do pursue this in yourself, please.
41:09 That is, when you are no longer thinking in terms of your conditioning – as a wealthy person or as an ill person, or as a clever person, or belonging to this group or that group, that nationality or this nationality – when you have put all that silly stuff aside, then you have denied, haven’t you, all the burden of yesterday. Right?
42:08 You know, what I’m trying to say is quite simple, really.
42:15 One must find a new way of living, new way of acting, must find out what love means.
42:31 And to find that out, you can’t use the old instruments that we have.
42:43 The intellect, the emotion, the tradition, the accumulated knowledge – those are all old instruments.
43:01 And we have exercised those instruments, used them so endlessly and they have not brought about a different world, a different state of mind.
43:18 So they are utterly useless. They have their values at certain levels of existence but they have no value when we are asking, when we are trying to find out a way of living which is totally new.
43:38 That is, to put it differently, our crisis is not in the world but in consciousness itself.
44:01 Not how to stop a war, or reform the universities, or give more work or less work and more pay – all that – on that level there is no answer.
44:26 Any reform gives more complications, more reforms, but the crisis is in the mind itself of man, in your mind, in your consciousness. That’s where the crisis is.
44:50 And unless you respond to that crisis, to that challenge, you will be adding consciously or unconsciously, to the confusion, to misery, to this immense piling up of sorrow.
45:20 So, our crisis is in the mind, in our consciousness, and we have to respond to it totally.
45:34 And so our question is – what is the true response, what is the essential issue?
45:52 And obviously thought cannot help us there – which doesn’t mean we become vague, dreamy, dull.
46:17 When you don’t use thought to find out for yourself what is the essential issue in life, then what has taken place in the mind? Do you understand my question, are we communicating with each other? Do say, yes or no.

Q: Yes.
46:46 K: Wait.
46:59 To communicate, to commune with each other, we must be at the same level at the same time with the same intensity.
47:12 Right? It’s like love.
47:26 And, if you say, yes, it means that you have put away for the time being, thought as an instrument of discovery.
47:41 Then you and the speaker are on the same level. We both are intense to find out. And you are not waiting for me to tell you.
48:03 When you tell somebody ‘I love you’ either you say it casually, and don’t mean it, or when you say it with intensity, with a depth and with a quality of urgency, and the other person is rather indifferent, is looking in another direction, then communion between the two people ceases.
48:43 This communion is only possible when both are intense, not casual, not holding back. You know, when you are both generous – you understand? – it does produce an extraordinary intensity.
49:08 The giver and the receiver cease to exist.
49:16 So, what do you think, what do you feel, what do you sense is the essential issue in life?
50:02 Shall we leave this question until Tuesday morning? It’s quarter past eleven.
50:18 Do you want time to think over it, to discuss it with other people, to sit under a tree or in your room and let it come to you?
50:41 Do listen to all this, please.
50:49 If you are looking to time to help you, time isn’t going to help you.
51:00 Time is the most destructive thing.
51:14 So that’s why we are asking, shall we postpone it until Tuesday when we meet again?
51:28 Or, as we have ten minutes or five minutes left, talk it over together?
51:46 Yes, sir? Questioner: You said that thought is a product of memory.
51:53 Now I quite realise that most of my thoughts are very much conditioned, but I’m not quite sure there is no possibility for other thought which might not be conditioned by memory.
52:13 K: The question is – one realises all thought is conditioned.
52:22 Is there any thought which is not conditioned? That’s what he is asking.
52:31 Is there any thought which is not conditioned? Is there? Or, all thought is conditioned.
52:46 Obviously, sir, all thought is the response of memory, response of accumulated tradition, knowledge, experience.
53:13 Let’s talk it over for a few minutes together. What do you feel is the essential issue in life?
53:40 Q: To create harmony.
53:47 K: To create harmony.
53:54 Where? Outside or inside?

Q: Both.

K: Both.
54:02 How can one create harmony outside if you are not harmonious inside.
54:11 The harmony inside is the first thing, not harmony outside.
54:19 Is that the essential issue? Or, harmony is a result and not an end in itself.
54:30 Right? It is, it happens.
54:38 It’s like being very healthy, and going out for a walk.
54:45 But to seek harmony as an end in itself – is that possible? One has to find harmony in oneself, one has to go into tremendous enquiry into oneself – the contradictions, the efforts, the discipline, all that is involved in it.
55:16 Is that the essential question? If you say the essential question may be harmony or it may be pleasure.
55:34 Right? Do please listen to what we have just now said.
55:42 We’ve said the essential question for most people may be the urge and the continuity and the strengthening of pleasure – pleasure being pleasure derived from security, from sexual experience, from fame, and all the rest of it, you know.
56:08 It’s deliberate, not a thing in itself.
56:15 I don’t know if you are following all this.
56:22 I derive pleasure in doing something. The doing gives me pleasure, and therefore the doing is important, from which I derive pleasure. Therefore pleasure is not in itself, but in the act of something.
56:46 So is that the challenge, is that the essential question?
57:01 Look, sir, we’ll stop now because it’s nearly time. It is time. Look, please, look at the world, look at all the things that are going on: the extraordinary technological advancement, the war, the affluent society, poverty, one nation fighting another nation for its security, for its glory, and so on, so on, religious divisions, individual divisions – all that is going on, it’s there in front of you.
57:43 If you look at it objectively, as you would look at a map, you would have the answer.
57:52 Which is, to look!
58:23 Q: The essential issue is the responsibility of relationship.

K: The essential challenge or essential issue, the questioner says, is the responsibility of relationship.
58:39 The responsibility of relationship.
58:46 Is that it?
59:08 Q: It’s only part of it.

K: Yes, again it’s a fragment.
59:18 Look – relationship, what does that mean, to be related to people, to individuals, to be related to the world, to be related to nature, to be related to everything that is happening.
59:40 How can one be related to everything that’s happening – not your wife or husband only – but to everything that is happening in the world, how is that possible if you are isolated, if all your thought, your activity, your business, your words, is isolating you – which is to say, ‘me first and to hell with everything else’ – sorry!
1:00:30 Sir, I’m afraid we will have to stop today and we’ll continue on Tuesday.
1:00:37 But do be with this question. Give your mind and heart to see the world as it is, not as you think it should be, but actually ‘what is’.
1:00:57 When you see it very clearly, the very seeing will give you the answer.