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SA82Q2 - 2nd Question & Answer Meeting
Saanen, Switzerland - 26 July 1982
Public Question & Answer 2



1:23 Krishnamurti: It is not possible to have a discussion with a large group like this. So, it is a dialogue, a conversation with two people. And we will, if you do not mind, treat it as such. Two friends are talking over together about their problems. They are real friends, not convenient friends, but friends who have known each other for some time, and they are walking, perhaps, in a wood, sitting on a bench, and talking over their intimate problems, as friends do. So, this is not only a conversation between two people, you and the speaker, it is a dialogue, a friendly conversation, each one trying to penetrate into the problem as deeply as possible, and trying to find an answer to all their innumerable struggles, pain, anxieties and so on. So that is what we are going to do this morning, two people talking over together and not asserting anything, neither one nor the other, two people who are concerned deeply with life, with all its complexities, with all its subtleties, its varieties, the craziness that goes on in themselves and outwardly. So we are together, like two people who have known each other for some time, friendly, going to have a conversation together. The first question they ask each other –
4:28 Question 1: My son died three years ago, my husband four months later. I find it extremely hard to let go of the memory of their utter desperation. There must be a way, and perhaps you will know. I have come a long distance and found help and so on. Could you speak about death and attachment, please.
5:17 My son died three years ago, and so did my husband. I find it extremely hard to let go of the memory of their utter desperation. There must be a way, perhaps you may know it. I have come a long distance, and found help in listening to your talks. Could you speak about death and detachment, please.
6:06 First of all, let us talk over together what does it mean to be attached and what is the difference between attachment and dependence. What is attachment? Why is one attached to a country, to a person, to some experience they have had, to some ideology, to some definite conclusion? Why do people do this throughout the world, depending upon their circumstances, upon their environment, social, moral and so on. This is the pattern man has repeated over and over and over again. I have had an experience, something that stirs me deeply, brings a colour to my life, gives a meaning, and that experience, which has gone, dead, and I hold on to the memory of it. Why do we do this, my friend asks me, and I am talking over with my friend, why human beings wherever they live, cling to this in some form or another, to their land, their property, their wealth, their wives, their husbands and so on. Why? Please, we are talking over together, my friend and I – you are the audience who is listening. Why do we cling, be attached? The word attachment comes from Latin 'attaccare', Italian, which means to put your grips into something and hold.
9:10 Is it because in ourselves we are insufficient, inwardly? Is it because there is loneliness, there is a sense of to possess something, whether it is a piece of furniture or a house or a person, to possess something, to say, it's mine. gives a great deal of pleasure. Is it that we human beings, you and I, have nothing deeper, more vital, and therefore we hold on to something very, very superficial, something that may pass away. We know it unconsciously, something is passing away – but we hold on. We may hold onto an illusion. The word 'illusion' means to play – the root meaning of that word is to play. And we play with illusions, they are very, very satisfactory. Or we invent a subtle form of ourselves at a different level. So we create all these things and hold on. Why? Is it that one is afraid to be nothing, to have nothing to hold on to? Is it because in possessing, holding, clinging to something, it gives us a great sense of security, a sense of well-being, because life is very uncertain, dangerous, incredibly brutal. You see, the world is becoming more and more like a concentration camp.
12:29 So, why are we attached, each one of us, to something? And when we look at the different forms of attachment, see the consequences of it, that is, fear, anxiety, pain – to see it, and not allow time to end it. That is, I am attached to my wife, and I see both intellectually and deeply that this attachment has many consequences, painful, desperate, and I see it all logically, I see it intellectually, rationally, and I can't let it go because I am afraid to be alone, lonely. And I see all this, because my friend and I are fairly intelligent, we are both looking at it. And we say time will allow me to be free of this attachment, gradually I will understand, gradually I will let it go. That attitude of graduality is stupidity, because either I see the whole thing and end it immediately or I am foolish, because I like to cling to something, to a memory that is dead, gone. Right? So intelligence is to see the whole movement of attachment, the whole process of it, both the inward and outward, and the very perception of it is to end it, that is intelligence. Not to postpone, not to allow time to dullen the mind, the brain, because if one postpones, neglects, accepts, you are living in a pattern that is already over, that is in the memory of the past – memory, it is dead. And so the brain is living with something that is finished, with something that is past. And living in the past always dulls the quality, the vitality of the brain. Right?
16:24 So we have examined, you and I, sitting on that bench in the forest, and now let's examine what is detachment. Is detachment the opposite of attachment? If one pursues detachment and makes that another form of attachment, you are exactly the same thing as before. I hope this is clear. That is, if detachment from my attachment is its opposite, then there is conflict. There is conflict between attachment and 'I should be detached'. And then my whole attention or my energy is trying to be detached, and yet I know I am attached. So there is conflict going on. So, we have to find out what is the relationship, if there is any, between attachment and detachment. Or there is no relationship whatsoever. When there is an ending of attachment, there is no need to use the word 'detachment'. There is the ending of it. But for most of us, our brain is conditioned to this process of the opposites.
18:52 And one has to question if there is an opposite at all. At the physical level there are the opposites: tall, short, wide, broad, ugly, beautiful and so on. But psychologically, inwardly, is there an opposite at all, or only what is? And we invent the opposite in order to lever or get rid of what is. I hope you and I sitting on that bench, are talking about this, and we understand each other. There is no authority between two friends. There is no assertion between two friends who have gone into this matter. So it is a mutual, cooperative understanding. It is not one is telling the other, they both are travelling together along the same path with the same intensity, with the same depth. So if that is clear between us two, that there is no relationship between attachment and detachment, there is only the ending of attachment and nothing else.
20:51 Now, is love attachment? I love my friend, I am attached to sitting on the bench with him every evening, talk over my problems. And I miss when we don't meet the same, every day on the bench, sit down. So we are asking each other: is love attachment, to possess somebody, to hold onto somebody, whether it is the idea of God, whether it is the idea of liberation, freedom, whether it is the idea, concept, that in possession love grows. So we are questioning what is the relationship between attachment and love.
22:21 My friend who is married and has had several marriages, and he is rather wounded by all that. He is rather unhappy. And he thinks that he still loves his present wife. And he says to me in our conversation, 'I can't lose her, I must hold on, because my life is empty without her.' You know all this, don't you? I can't let her go. She wants to do something totally different from me, and it may lead her away from me. So I yield to her, I will suppress my desire, my wanting something else, but I'll accept her and follow her. But inwardly there is conflict all the time between her and me. Right? You know all this, don't you? This is not a new story, is it?
24:01 So I have reduced the whole immensity of love, which is extraordinary, which I don't understand, to something so trivial. That is, I am attached, possessive, I don't want to lose. If I lose I am unhappy. And this I call love. So is it love? Please, don't agree. Don't say it is not. If it is not, that is the end. But my friend is afraid to look at it, look at the complexity of it. My friend wants to move away from the subject, because if he really sees that attachment is not love, then can he go to his wife and say, I love you, but I am not attached to you'? What would happen? She might throw a brick at me. Walk away, because her whole life is to be attached – to the furniture, to ideas, to children, to the husband. You follow? So then what is my relationship, who has seen that love is not attachment, is not jealousy, not ambition, competition. Then to me that is a reality, not just a verbal structure. And what is my relationship to her who is quite different? Go on, sir, it is your problem, not mine.
26:38 She will not accept what to me is truth. And see, sir, see what is involved in this. How painful it all is. It is nothing superficial. It touches the very core of one's being. And what shall I do? Have patience? Patience, to be patient, doesn't require time. Patience is not time. Whereas impatience has the quality of time in it. Think it over. Right? When I realise my wife is different from me, everything which I think is totally wrong, and I have to live in the same house and so on, do I have patience, knowing for myself that patience is not a process of time? Do I realise that, that patience, which is putting up, allowing, time to resolve? I can't do anything but perhaps another day, another week, another year, we will settle everything. So I tolerate the situation. And is tolerance love? Go on, think it out. To put up with something knowing it is 'wrong' – wrong in quotes – and say, well, time will gradually eliminate it, which is, I am really impatient to find a result. So I put up with it. So what shall I do? Go on, sir. Divorce? Run away? Leave her my house, my goods, etc., and say goodbye, and disappear altogether?
29:53 Or I am asking: can my love, intense, can that bring about a change in her? Please, you are asking these questions. Can I, who have understood this whole phenomena with all its depth, will that quality of love, compassion, intelligence, bring about a change in her? That is, if she is at all sensitive, if she is at all observant, listening to what I am saying, wants to understand each other, then there is a possibility of her changing. If she puts a wall, as most people do, then what am I to do? Go on, sir. Don't look at me, look at yourselves.
31:28 One of our peculiarities is that we want a definite answer, we want something settled, because then I am free, then I can do what I want. So, as there is no definite answer to this question, it depends on the quality of your attention, your intelligence, your love.
32:06 And the question my friend asks: my son and husband are dead. I am attached to their memory. I am getting more and more desperate, more and more depressed. I am living in the past, and the present is always coloured by the past, so what am I to do? And the question my friend asks: let us talk over the problem of death. You and the speaker sitting on that bench, with birds singing all around them, with a thousand shadows and the river running down, swiftly, making a sweet sound, and he raises this question. He says, I am quite young, any moment an accident can happen, and there may be death, not only of my son and my husband, but also my own death. He says, let's talk about it.
34:00 We have spent half an hour on half a question. You don't mind? Let's talk about death.
34:19 From the ancient of times, historically, culturally, from all the paintings and statuary, man has always asked what happens after death? One has gathered a lot of experience, struggled to be moral, aesthetic, collected a lot of knowledge, gone into the depths of oneself. If death is the end, then what is the point of all this? What is the point of all this struggle, pain, experience, knowledge, wealth? And death is always waiting at the end of it. I may belong to one sect, accept certain costume because I belong to that sect, which is again an isolating process. And death is the common factor for all of us. For the guru, for the Pope, or the innumerable popes in the world. So that is a fact. We all want to understand the significance, the depth of that extraordinary event, which is extraordinary. And what is the relationship between death and living? Please, I hope you are following, I am asking my friend, I hope you are following what I am saying. He says, go ahead, I follow verbally, I understand this.
36:53 Various civilisations throughout the world have tried to overcome death. They have said, life after is more important than now. So they are prepared for death. And at present now people say, we must help our patients, our friends, to die happily. We never asked, what is important before death, of the many years before death, or after death – which is important, which is essential. I am asking my friend. Naturally he says, 'Before dying', the long years one has lived, maybe 10, 15, 30, 50, 80, 90 – those long years before the ending. That is the period of living. That is far more significant than the ending of it. Why is it – we are always asking, he and I – why don't we ask this question? Not what is after, or help me to die happily, but what is my life that I have lived for 80 years? It has been one constant battle, with the occasional lapse where there has been no pain, no struggle – something occasionally rarely happens. But the rest of my life has been struggle, struggle. And I have called that living. Right? That is what we are all doing, not only my friend and I, but all human beings are that – struggling to have work, being unemployed, wanting more wealth, being oppressed, the tyranny of totalitarian states, and so on – it has been a vast jungle. That has been my life. And I cling to that, to the struggle, to the pain, to the anxiety, to the loneliness – that is all I have. Right? That has become all important.
40:40 So I am asking, we are asking each other, what is it that dies? Now this becomes a rather complex question. My friend and I have time, it is Sunday morning and no work, so we can sit down and go into it. Is it the individual that dies? Please enquire as a friend, who is it that dies? Apart from the biological ending of an organism, which has been ill-treated, it has had several diseases, illnesses. That inevitably comes to an end. You may find a new drug that will help man to live 150 years, but always at the end of 150 years, that extraordinary thing is there, waiting.
42:17 Is my consciousness, the whole of it, with all its content – is it mine? That is, my consciousness is its content. The content is my belief, my dogmas, my superstitions, my attachment to my country, patriotism, fear, pain, pleasure, sorrow and so on, is the content of my consciousness, and yours. So both of us sitting on that bench, recognise this fact that the content makes up consciousness, without the content, consciousness as we know it doesn't exist. Right? So my friend and we see the logic of it, the rationality of it, and so on. We agree to that. Then, is this consciousness which I have clung to as mine, and my friend also clings to it, calling ourselves individuals, is that consciousness unlike other consciousness? Right? Please be clear on this point. That is, if you are lucky to travel, observe, talk over with other people, you will find that they are similar to yours. They suffer, they are lonely, they have a thousand gods though you may have one god, they believe, they don't believe, and so on. All most similar to yours, though on the periphery there may be varieties, on the outskirts of our consciousness. You may be tall, you may be short, you may be very clever, you may be scholarly, you have read a great deal, you are capable, you have a certain technique, efficiency – it is all on the periphery, on the outside, but inwardly we are similar. Right? This is a fact. Therefore our conditioning which says we are individual separate souls, is not a fact. This is where my friend begins to squirm, because he doesn't like the idea that he is not an individual. He can't face the fact, because all his conditioning has been that. So, I say to my friend, look at it, old chap, don't run away from it, don't resist it, look at it. Use your brains not your sentiment, not your desire, just look at it, is that a fact or not? And he accepts it, vaguely.
46:58 So, if our consciousness is similar to all mankind, then I am mankind. You understand? Please understand the depth and the beauty of this. If I am the mankind, the entire mankind, then what is it that dies? You understand? Either I move away from that entire consciousness, which is me, I cleanse the whole of my being from that – that I am not individual, that I am the whole of humanity. Then is there emptying of the consciousness, which is my belief, my anxiety, my pain, my blah, blah – all that? Is there ending to all that? If I end it, what importance is it? You follow? What importance is it or what value to humanity is it? I am the humanity, I am asking this question. What value, what significance has this when, after a great deal of intelligence, love, I observe this and in that observation there is the total ending of those contents. Has it any value? Value in the sense of moving humanity from it is present condition. Right? You understand? Surely it has, has it not? One drop of clarity in a bucket of dirt, confusion, messy, that one drop begins to act.
50:13 And the questioner, my friend says, I am beginning to understand the nature of death. I see that the things I am attached to, if I hold onto them, death has a grip on me. If I let them go, each day as they arise, I am living with death. You understand? Death is the ending, so I am ending while living everything that I will lose when I die. Right? So, the question my friend asks: can I let my accumulation go every day, end it, so that I am living with death and therefore a freshness, not living in the past, in memories. Right? So from this arises a very complex question, what is immortality? One question, we are still going on, sorry! What is immortality? That is, beyond mortality, beyond death.
52:02 As we said the other day, where there is a cause, there is an end. There is an end to the effect and if the cause remains it creates another effect. It is a constant chain. And we are asking, is there a life without any causation? You understand? I am asking my friend, do you understand what I am saying? We live with causes – you know, I don't have to go into that. All our life is based on many, many causes. I love you because you give me something. I love you because you comfort me. I love you because I am sexually fulfilling, and so on, so on, so on. That is a cause, and the effect is – the word I use is 'love' which it is not, and any motive I have is a causation. So I am asking my friend, is it possible to live without any cause? Not belong to any cause in the sense, organised cause or in myself, to have no cause. Knowing if there is a causation there is an ending, which is time. Now, we are going to find out together if there is a life, daily living, in our daily relationship, in our daily activity, not some theoretical activity, actual – can one live without a cause? Look into it, my friend, don't look to me but look at it, look at the question first. Knowing, when I say I love you because in return you give me something, in that relationship of causation there is always ending of that relationship. So we are asking each other, is there a life without cause? See the beauty of it first, see the depth, see the vitality of that question, not the mere words. We said, love has no cause, obviously. If I love you because you give me something, it is a merchandise, a thing of the market. So can I love you, can there be love, without wanting, nothing physically, nothing psychologically, inwardly, nothing in any form? So that is love, which has no cause, therefore it is infinite. You understand? Like intelligence, which has no cause, it is endless, timeless, so is compassion. Now, if there is that quality in our life, the whole activity changes completely.
57:09 Is that enough of that question? I hope our friend who put this question has understood.
57:38 Question 2: How do you pose a fundamental question? Is holding, looking, observing a question in the mind... Is holding, observing a question, a thought, is it a thought process?
58:11 I'll read that question. How do you pose a fundamental question? That is what the questioner asks. And looking at it, observing it, holding it as a jewel in your hand, will that lead to a fundamental understanding of the problem, of the question? Or is the understanding, the looking, a thought process? Right? Is that question clear?
59:00 Sir, I have a problem. The problem is my death. What is the fundamental question I can put about death? Fundamental, deep question that is reality, not just superficial reaction. My wife is dead, I am unhappy, please answer how to get over my unhappiness – that is a very, very superficial question. Tell me how to be detached. That is very simple. But to put a fundamental question, which we rarely do. And does the fundamental question come out, happen, when there is an observation, listening to the question without any bias, without any direction? Or can thought find, discover the fundamental question? You understand now? My friend, I say, do you follow what I am saying? He says, 'Quite, go on.'
1:00:36 Have we ever observed without the word? Look at it, go into it. Because the word has become all important to us – the capitalist, the dictatorship, the German, the French – the word. And do we observe, do he and I observe that our brain is caught in a network of words? Right? Are we aware of this? The word being time, thought, memory. Right? The word is the symbol, the word is the effect of a cause, and we live with words, which is, the movement of thought, expressing itself in symbols, words, but it is movement of a thought which lives with words. Right? Look at it.
1:02:35 So the question is, can thought with its words and time, can it put a fundamental question? You understand? Thought being limited, broken up, and can such thought ask a fundamental question? Or, the questioner wants to know, my friend wants to know: fundamental question is not related to thought. Then my friend asks, how does this fundamental question arise? You are following all this? Please look at it, exercise your brain, your energy, find this out, not go off to sleep or all that.
1:04:02 Does the fundamental question arise through pure observation? That is, to observe. To observe means not only with the optical eye, but observe means also listening, not only with the sensory ear but the inward ear, to listen, and to look, not translate what you look at into your own terminology, into your own words. If you translate it to suit you or look at it for your convenience, your observation then is limited. Therefore can you observe your wife, the tree, that extraordinary movement of water, those mountains – observe without the word, and listen without the word, and observe without any direction, that is, without any motive? Can you do that? That is, are you listening, I am asking my friend, are you listening to what I am saying? Or you can't sustain a state of attention for some time, because then only you listen.
1:06:22 So can you listen without the accompaniment of thought? Which is verbalising, making an abstraction of what you hear, what you see into an idea and pursue the idea. You understand? Can you observe so totally, completely? And if you so observe, what is the need for a fundamental question? What is the need of a question at all? Look sir, it is like understanding envy. Let's take envy. Look at envy, which most of us are envious. I am sure you would all like to sit on the platform. And you know, this quality of envy, wanting more and more and more, power, position, reputation, well-known. Now envy: to look at the reaction called envy without the word. When you say, I am envious, you are merely associating the present reaction to past memories of envy. Right? Past memory. Therefore you are not looking, observing that movement of envy in the present. Can you observe envy without any movement of the past, which is thought? And when you do so observe, it is a totally new reaction and therefore it is something new which we have to observe. And when you observe, the fundamental question may be, is there an end to it? Of course. Where there is a cause for your observation, there is an end to your observation. When you observe without a cause – you understand?
1:09:31 Shall we do one more?
1:09:37 Question 3: I have lived in the forest, close to nature. There is no violence there, but the outer world is the real jungle. How am I to live in it without becoming part of its competition, brutality, violence and cruelty?
1:10:03 I have lived in a forest, close to nature. There is no violence there, but the outer world is the real jungle. How am I to live in it without becoming part of its competition, brutality, violence and cruelty?
1:10:38 First, how easy it is to live by yourself in a wood. I tell my friend I have done it, without any boast or anything, it is natural. I have done it, it is very easy, because you are not related to anybody, you look at the trees, the rivers, the plant, they invite you to look at them. The more you look at a tree, the more beautiful it becomes. The shadow, the leaves fluttering in the wind. It doesn't demand anything of you. You are enjoying yourself, listening to the birds, to the sound of water, to the lovely clear morning. And one is tempted to live like that forever. But you can't. Even there, if you live in a forest, you are related to somebody or something. You are related to the man who brings you milk. So there is always – even though one is a hermit – you are always living in a certain kind of relationship with another. And if you are a neurotic saint, then it becomes very easy. Most saints are neurotic. And then they give you food, clothes and all the rest of it.
1:13:01 So, when one enters the world, the trouble begins. The world which human beings have created, not only the past generation upon generation, which has created this society, but also, all of us are contributing to it. When you buy a stamp, when you post a letter, you are contributing to war. When you take the train, you are contributing to war. So you might say, I won't take a train, I won't post a letter, I won't telephone, I won't pay taxes, and so on. Taxes are rather difficult – the government will be after you, if you have money. So what will you do? Withdraw completely, not write a letter, not travel? You understand, sir, this question has been put to the speaker, often. Say you are against war, peace and so on, but you are contributing to it by travelling all over the world. So where shall I stop? You understand? Not write a letter, not travel, not do all the things that are contributory, that help war? Or do you ask a much more fundamental question, which is, why does war exist at all? Why has man, who is so-called civilised – so-called – educated, why does he support killing another, another human being. So what is the fundamental question there? Is it nationality? Is it this whole idea of isolation? National isolation, individual isolation, communal isolation. When I put on a monk's robe or a different kind of robe, I am isolating myself. So is isolation the cause of war? Obviously. When I say I am British, you are French, you are this, you are that, I am isolating myself. I have a long tradition as a British or an Indian. If I am an Indian, I have a much more ancient tradition, which is isolating me. So any form of isolation must contribute to war, which war being not only killing each other but the conflict with each other. Right?
1:17:05 Now, seeing all that – which requires intelligence, not just a vague utopian idea – seeing that, the very perception of this fact that where there is isolation of any kind, belonging to one group against another group, one sect against another, one uniform of purple, yellow – isolated. These contribute to isolation and therefore inevitable conflict. To perceive that, to see the truth of it, requires intelligence, not say, I agree with it and do nothing about it. But when I see the truth of it, that very perception is the action of intelligence. Right? So with that intelligence, I enter the world. Which is, that intelligence which has no cause, that love that has no cause, compassion obviously cannot have a cause, with that beauty, with that clarity, with that energy, I meet, I meet the world which is brutal. I act from that love. Or rather, that love that has no cause, acts. I may be a beggar, or a very good technician, but the quality of that can never enter the world of ambition, brutality, violence.
1:19:24 Now, my friend says, I understand. I understand very clearly what you say, I have grasped intellectually what you have said, superficially. Now, how am I to capture it, how am I to hold it, as I hold breath, as I breathe, hold something so enormous? What is the method, what is the system that will help me? Of course, obviously when you follow a system, you are gone, finished. Because you want to achieve that state of real love, and you want to achieve because you are unhappy, therefore you have a motive, therefore it is not intelligence, therefore it is not love. So when you have this perfume, then you can go through the world, that perfume never losing its beauty.