1928, The Pilgrim and his Holy Pilgrimage

The Pilgrim and his Holy Pilgrimage

The Pilgrim and his Holy Pilgrimage is a very rare selection of Krishnamurti writings. It gives an overview of the Krishnamurti teachings, portrait it as a journey towards attainment and perfection and finally entering into that sea of liberation and happiness which is the fulfilment of life.

Contents

1928, The Pilgrim and his Holy Pilgrimage

Foreword & Contents

PART 1. The Pilgrim and his Holy Pilgrimage

Chapter 1
Krishnamurti describes his long journey towards attainment and perfection and of finally entering into that sea of liberation and happiness which is the fulfilment of life.

Chapter 2
Krishnaji describes his perception of the indescribable, timeless reality, God, Life.

Chapter 3
Krishnaji tells us why and for whom he speaks.

Chapter 4
Krishnaji cautions about the influence of his personality.

Chapter 5
Krishnaji answers common criticisms about the teachings.

PART 2. The Eternal Teachings

Chapter 1
Do you want to understand life as a whole?

Chapter 2
Go beyond the limitations of the language.

Chapter 3
Understand the vicious circle of ignorance.

Chapter 4
Live a religious life - A life of inquiry and discovery.

 

 

Part 1. The Pilgrim and his Holy Pilgrimage

Chapter 1. Krishnamurti describes his long journey towards attainment and perfection and of finally entering into that sea of liberation and happiness which is the fulfilment of life.

I would show you how I have found my beloved, how the beloved is established in me, how the beloved is the Beloved of all, and how the Beloved and I are one so that there can be no separation either now or at any time. Naturally, I did not think of all these things while I was young. They grew in me unconsciously. But now I can place all the events in my life in their proper order and see in what manner I have developed to attain my goal and have become my goal.
Ever since I was a boy I have been, as most young people are, or should be, in revolt. Nothing satisfied me. I listened; I observed; I wanted something beyond the mere phrases, the maya of words. I wanted to discover and to establish for myself a goal. I did not want to rely on anyone. I do not remember the time when I was being moulded in my boyhood, but I can look back and see how nothing satisfied me.

EUROPE

When I went to Europe for the first time I lived among people who were wealthy and well-educated, who held positions of social authority, but whatever their dignities or distinctions, they could not satisfy me. I was in revolt also against Theosophists with all their jargon, their theories, their meetings, and their explanations of life. When I went to a meeting, the lecturers repeated the same ideas which did not satisfy me or make me happy. I went to fewer and fewer meetings; I saw less and less of the people who merely repeated the ideas of Theosophy. I questioned everything because I wanted to find out for myself.
I walked about the streets, watching the faces of people who perhaps watched me with even greater interest. I went to theatres. I saw how people amused themselves trying to forget their unhappiness, thinking that they were solving their problems by drugging their hearts and minds with superficial excitement. I saw people with political, social or religious power, and yet they did not have that one essential thing in their lives, which is happiness.
I attended labour meetings, Communist meetings, and listened to what their leaders had to say. They were generally protesting against something. I was interested, but they did not give me satisfaction. By observation of one type and another I gathered experience vicariously. Within everyone there was a latent volcano of unhappiness and discontent.
I passed from one pleasure to another, from one amusement to another, in search of happiness, but found it not. I watched the amusements of the young people, their dances, their dresses, their extravagances, and saw they were not happy.
I watched people who had very little in life, who wanted to tear down those things which others had built up. They thought that they were solving life by destroying and building differently and yet they were unhappy. I saw people who desired to serve going into those quarters where the poor and the degraded live. They desired to help but were themselves helpless. How can you cure another of disease if you are yourself a victim of that disease?
I saw people satisfied with the stagnation which is unproductive, uncreative -the bourgeois type who never struggles to be above the surface or falls below it and so feels its weight. I read books on philosophy, religion, biographies of great people, and yet they could not give me what I wanted.

INDIA

Then I came to India and I saw that the people there were deluding themselves equally, carrying on the same old traditions, treating women cruelly. At the same time they called themselves very religious and painted their faces with ashes. In India they may have the most sacred books in the world; they may have the greatest philosophies; they may have constructed wonderful temples in the past, but none of these were able to give me what I wanted. Neither in Europe nor in India could I find happiness.

USA

Still lacking the fixed purpose from which comes the delight of living, I went to California. Circumstances forced me there because my brother was ill. There among the hills we lived in a small house in complete retirement, doing everything for ourselves. If you would discover Truth, you must for a time withdraw from the world. In that retired spot my brother and I talked much together. We meditated, trying to understand, for meditation of the heart is understanding.
There I was naturally driven within myself, and I learned that as long as I had no definite goal or purpose in life, I was, like the rest of mankind, tossed about as a ship on a stormy sea. With that in my mind, after rejecting all lesser things, I established for myself my goal. I wanted to enter into eternal happiness. I wanted to become the very goal. I wanted to drink from the very source of life. I wanted to unite the beginning and the end. I fixed that goal as my Beloved and that Beloved is life, the life of all things. I wanted to destroy the separation that exists between man and his goal. I said to myself that as long as there is this void of separation between myself and my goal there is bound to be misery, disturbance and doubt. There will be authority which I must obey, to which I must yield. As long as there is separation between you and me there is unhappiness for us both. So I set about destroying all the barriers that I had previously erected.
I began to reject, to renounce, to set aside what I had gathered and little by little I approached my goal. When my brother died, the experience it brought me was great -not the sorrow- sorrow is momentary and passes away, but the joy of experience remains. If you understand life rightly then death becomes an experience out of which you can build your house of perfection, your house of delight. When my brother died, that gap of separation still existed in me. I saw him once or twice after death but that did not satisfy me. How can you be satisfied alone?
You may invent phrases; you may have great knowledge of books, but as long as there is within you separation and loneliness, there is sorrow. So I have walked and struggled towards that light which is my goal, which is the goal of all humanity because it is humanity itself.
You cannot separate life from any expression of life and yet you must be able to distinguish between life and its expressions.
Before I began to think for myself, I took it for granted that I, Krishnamurti, was the vehicle of the World Teacher because many people maintained that it was so. But when I began to think, I wanted to find out what was meant by the World-Teacher, what was meant by the taking of a vehicle by the World-Teacher, and what was meant by His manifestation in the world. When I was a small boy, I used to see Shri Krishna, with the flute, as He is pictured by the Hindus, because my mother was a devotee of Shri Krishna. When I grew older and met with Bishop Leadbeater and the Theosophical Society, I began to see the Master K. H. -again in the form which was put before me, the reality from their point of view- and hence the Master K. H. was to me the end. Later on, as I grew, I began to see the Lord Maitreya. That was two years ago, and I saw Him then constantly in the form put before me. Now lately, it has been the Buddha whom I have been seeing, and it has been my delight and my glory to be with Him.
To me 'the Beloved' is all -it is Shri Krishna, it is the Master K. H., it is the Lord Maitreya, it is the Buddha, and yet it is beyond all these forms. What does it matter what name you give? You are fighting over the World Teacher as a name. My Beloved is the open skies, the flower, every human being. I said to myself: until I become one with all the Teachers, whether They are the same is not of great importance; whether Shri Krishna, Christ, the Lord Maitreya are one is again a matter of no great importance. I said to myself: as long as I see Them outside as in a picture, an objective thing, I am separate, I am away from the centre; but when I have the capacity, the strength, the determination, when I am purified and ennobled, then that barrier, that separation, will disappear. I was not satisfied till that barrier was broken down, till that separateness was destroyed. Till I was able to say with certainty that I was one with my Beloved, I never spoke... I never said: I am the World-Teacher; but now that I feel I am one with the Beloved, I say it, not in order to impress my authority to you, not to convince you of my greatness, nor of the greatness of the World Teacher... but merely to awaken the desire in your own hearts and in your own minds to seek out the Truth.
If I say, and I will say that I am one with the Beloved, it is because I feel and know it. I have found what I longed for. I have become united, so that henceforth there will be no separation, because my thoughts, my desires, my longings -those of the individual self- have been destroyed. Hence I am able to say that I am one with the Beloved -whether you interpret it as the Buddha, the Lord Maitreya, Shri Krishna, the Christ, or any other name... I have always in this life, and perhaps in past lives, desired one thing; to escape, to be beyond sorrow, beyond limitations, to discover my Guru, my Beloved -which is your Guru and your Beloved, the Guru, the Beloved who exists in everybody, who exists under every common stone, in every blade of grass that is trodden upon. It has been my desire, my longing, to become united with Him so that I should no longer feel that I was separate, no longer be a different entity with a separate self. When I was able to destroy that self utterly, I was able to unite myself with my Beloved. Hence, because I have found my Beloved, my Truth, I want to give it to you... My purpose is not to create discussions on authority, on manifestations in the personality of Krishnamurti, but to give the waters that shall wash away your sorrows, your petty tyrannies, your limitations, so that you will be free, so that you will eventually join that ocean where there is no limitation, where there is the Beloved.

World Teacher

The term World Teacher is only a name and as a label it has no value. But it has great value to those who are held in bondage by labels, by the maya, the illusion of words. For the creation or the coming into being of the flower of humanity, for the attainment of that fullness of life everyone is responsible. By that I mean that for the creation of the individual who attains the life eternal, without beginning or end, in which the source and the goal have their being, all conditioned life has helped. By its longing to be free, conditioned life has helped to produce this Flower. As the lotus makes the waters beautiful and as the waters are necessary for the beauty of the lotus, so the bondage of every individual and the cry of every individual in bondage helps to create the one who is eternally free. Hence when that being, individual or life -do not make it concrete and personal- when that life which has been separate, held in bondage, attains to that life which is as the ocean without limitation, then that conditioned life becomes the World Teacher. I am using words that you can twist and utilize according to your belief or non-belief, but Truth has nothing to do with belief or with non-belief. The fragrance of the flower of the lotus does not depend upon the passer-by. The beauty of the Flower is created by the tears of the world.
Life is eternal and when after many centuries there is a being who attains and fulfils that life, it is his delight and glory to make that unconditioned life understood by those who have not yet attained.
Whether you call that being the World Teacher, the Buddha, the Christ or anything else, is not of importance. To give waters to the thirsty, to open the eyes of the blind, to call out the prisoners from their prison and to give light to those who sit in the shadow of their own creation, is the delight of the one who has attained. And whether the waters that shall quench that thirst are contained in a particular vessel or the voice of him who calls is sweet or musical is of very little importance. So long as there is the awakening desire within each one to answer, to take to their lips the waters that shall quench their thirst, to tear away the covering from their eyes, and to hear the cry in their prison -that is of value. Life is the fulfilment of all things, and in the freedom of that life is the attainment of Truth. And the individuals who have attained that life are life themselves. It is humanity that places a limitation on that life, and looks at that life through its limitations.
This life which is the flower of humanity, which is the freedom of humanity, which is the attainment of humanity, which is the beginning and the end of humanity, this life which is the eternal Truth, cannot be described in words. This world has no words, it is and it is not. And from the point of view of limitation from which every one of you is looking, there cannot be an understanding of the immensity which is without limitation. When a being enters into that life, he is life, he is the flower of humanity. I hope I have made it as vague as possible because if I made it clear for you, I should have placed a limitation on truth, I should have betrayed truth.

Chapter 2. Krishnaji describes his perception of the indescribable, timeless reality, God, Life.

Destiny and function of nature

Life is creation, is movement and in it there is manifestation and non-manifestation, phenomenon and non-phenomenon. So do not approach the understanding of life with any qualitative relations, special circumstances or attributes... Nature conceals Life, that is, everything that is in manifestation conceals Life in itself. When that Life in Nature develops and becomes concentrated in the individual, then Nature has fulfilled itself: The whole destiny and function of Nature is to create the individual who is self-conscious, who knows the pairs of opposites, who knows that he is an entity in himself, conscious and separate.
Every young animal, everything in nature is unconsciously perfect, but man is consciously imperfect and that is where glory lies. To grow out of that imperfection into conscious perfection is the purpose of man's life and that everyone has to do for himself.

Life has no law, manifestation has law

There is manifestation and in manifestation there must be law, but not for that which manifests. To life there must be an expression, and in the expression there must be law, but for that life which expresses itself there cannot be law. I maintain that for that which is life in freedom, which is spirituality in consummation, there cannot be law, because if it is under law, it is in limitation.
Life is stronger than form; that is why life destroys and reconstructs form incessantly. There are no forms you can wisely call stable. They alter from second to second, even if you do not see it. They are never exactly the same because they are but the changing receptacle of life. Life does not change except in the forms which it adapts to its needs. Life explains itself in every individual and in every form. Words are forms of thoughts and thoughts are forms of truths, but certainly not Truth itself.
There is no separation of form and life, of spirit and matter. They are all one. The form is the expression of life. If the life is not strong, vital, pliable, energetic, completely and wholly free, your forms are limitation. So, you must concern yourself with life, and then forms will look after themselves.

Life has no plans

Life which is unconditioned, free, whole, is entirely delivered from all plans. The moment you have a plan, you are bringing that life into limitation. And as you cannot bring down that which is unconditioned and which can never be controlled, your plan cannot then correspond to life which is free.
In Life, there is no life or death, it is all a continual process, never ceasing, ever changing. In life, there cannot be at one moment birth and at another moment death. It is only the physical expression that changes.
Life is not to be approached through the past, nor through the mirage of the future. Life cannot be approached through intermediaries, nor conquered for another.
No one will ever pierce the infinite mystery of the future, impenetrable in its evanescent illusion...
That discovery can only be made in the immediate present -by the individual for himself and not for others.

Life has no voice

Life has no voice, that inner voice is the result of your experience. Life leaves you alone to progress towards life -the whole. It does not concern itself with individuals.
Life itself has no system, for it is always in movement, always growing and striving. To systematize it, therefore, is to bind it and so negate its vital quality.
Life creates man and leaves him absolutely independent, corruptible, limited, a slave to circumstances. Being independent, being free, he is able to choose for himself. But through his lack of capacity, his ignorance of the essential, he chooses those things around him which are trivial.
Life converts life, makes you straight if you are crooked. If you are not suffering, life makes you suffer; if you are not thoughtful, life makes you thoughtful, and if you have no emotions that stir and nourish you, life will awake your emotions, your affections, your love...
I have often described to you what is the ultimate fulfilment of life, namely that pure life in which there is no separation. That life both Buddha and the Christ have realized but it belongs to every human being potentially. When it is realized all separation ceases, and so in it there can be no distinction of names. In entering into it each one becomes the All, he becomes Life itself. The Christ and the Buddha are life... it is that life I say that I have realized.

Go beyond the limitations

I am trying to make it clear, trying to build a bridge for others to come over, not away from life, but to have more abundantly of life...
All this is so badly expressed and, by constantly expressing and talking about it, one hopes to make it clearer and clearer...
The more I think of what I have 'realised', the clearer I can put it and help to build a bridge, but that takes time and continual change of phrases, so as to give true... You have no idea how difficult it is to express the inexpressible, and what is expressed is not truth.

Chapter 3. Krishnaji tells us why and for whom he speaks

Why Krishnamurti speaks?

It is the delight and glory of the being who attains and fulfils that Life, to make that unconditioned life understood by those who have not yet attained.

To destroy all old traditions...

My function, if I have one, is to make you realise that you are creating illusions and so stimulate you into breaking them. The moment you are conscious of your illusions, you will cease to create them. This is the kind of help I am trying to give you and it is, after all, what anyone might do. But it is difficult and it is you who create the difficulties. You have not suffered enough to feel dissatisfaction. You are content with your little gods, with your little lives, with your little ceremonies, with your authorities. You are afraid to step off the beaten path and seek. You would rather seclude yourselves and be certain in your illusions claiming these to be knowledge. It is because you do not know the Real that these illusions are realities for you.
All that I can do is to point out your illusions. You must destroy them for yourselves. It would be an easy matter if by the attainment of one, all could attain. But life and its beauty would then be lost. The understanding and happiness of another cannot be transmitted.
The true teacher does not lead you, control you or say, 'through me you will realise Truth'. He shows you the false creations of your own intimate cravings and it is for you to see their illusory nature and through your own effort, free the mind and heart of them. Thus there can be no following to realise Truth. How can you follow another when that which you are seeking is within yourself? But in the gratification of craving you set up another, you carve the image of supposed divinity and that image you worship in the hope of wisdom. Thus you are following your own craving.

To make you certain of yourself

Don't you want to be free and happy? It is not my mission. It is your mission. It is what you are seeking... It is because you make it mine, that is the reason you don't understand. Because you are not aware of your own suffering, of your own narrowness; of your limitations, of your corruption of life, you give to another the authority to lead you. And as I am not accepting that authority, it is useless to say it is my teaching or my message.
It is the message and teaching of life, which is in everything and everyone, and the moment you understand it, it is yours and not mine. As it is yours, my purpose is only to awaken that knowledge, that desire to discover for yourself. And as it is yours, you must struggle to understand...

For whom he speaks?

We are all seeking to live without confusion and sorrow and to free ourselves from the struggle, not only with our neighbours, family and friends, but especially with ourselves, with the conceptions of right and wrong, false and true, good and evil. There is not only the conflict of our relationship with environment, but also the conflict within us which inevitably reflects itself in social morality.
Of course, there are those brutal and stupid exceptions, who are wholly at ease; or, fearful of their own personal safety, live without thought and consideration. Their minds are so padded, so invulnerable, that they refuse to be shaken by doubt or inquiry. They do not allow themselves to think; or if they do, their thoughts run along traditional lines. They have their own reward.
We are concerned, however, with those who are seriously attempting to comprehend life, with its miseries and apparently ceaseless conflict. We are concerned with those who, deeply realizing their environment, seek its true significance, and the cause of their suffering, of their transient joys. In their search they have become entangled, either in the mechanistic explanation of life or in the explanations of faith, of belief.

Chapter 4. Krishnaji cautions about the influence of his personality.

If my personality can sway your emotions...

If your search for that understanding which is based not on the charm or the grand phrases or the light of another individual, but on your own desire, then it will last, otherwise it withers away... If you are really following your understanding of the Truth, you are following me, you are understanding me.
If my authority or personality can sway your emotions and your thoughts so the authority or charm of another may upset your whole understanding...
Do not be carried away by my words but think deeply of the Truth I put before you. If you understand and are really living that understanding in your daily life, then there will be no corruption or limitation of the Truth.
You will spoil everything if you base your understanding on individuals, even on Krishnamurti. There is a much greater thing than this form which you call Krishnamurti, which is life, and of that Life I speak, and of that life I urge you to become disciples and with that life I would urge you to be in love.
Do not worship me, but worship truth. Those who worship truth will worship everyone, and have respect for everyone, including myself. Truth cannot be conditioned by a being, though that being may have attained to the fullness of truth, as I have.
If you merely worship the form which holds the truth, truth in its fullness, in its magnitude, in its greatness will vanish and you will be left with an empty shell. It is because you imagine that Truth is far away, conditioned in one being, that while looking up towards that which is far away you tread on those who lie across your path.
In the heart of everyone is the desire for happiness and liberation. If you follow that desire, you steel your heart against all petty, unessential things, you will attain your goal...
If you follow me, a time will come when you will be bound by me and you will have to liberate yourself from me. So it will be much easier if, from the very beginning, you follow yourself, because you and I are one.

To follow another is the utter denial of that which you are trying to realise

I have insisted over and over again that you cannot accept what I say. You cannot follow Krishnamurti, because there is no Krishnamurti. You can understand the significance of what I am saying and you can, if you will translate that for yourself in practical life. But do not say 'Krishnamurti says this', 'Krishnamurti says that'. Do you not see that you are setting up another standard? You have thrown away other standards, put away other teachers and you are setting up Krishnamurti as another guide and another saviour. I wish you would see the vital importance of this, that to follow another is the utter denial of that which you are trying to realise.
You are caught up in your own creations, in your own half-truths, in your own gods. And a man who would show you how to be free, how to be in love with the eternal, you reject, because you say, 'That is too difficult.' I hold that when you have devotion for mediators and interpreters, it becomes more difficult and more complicated for you to have the simple understanding of life.
Do not be held in these shelters whose decorations invite you to easy stagnation and easy comfort. Stay rather outside in the open air and be in love with Life.

Concern yourself with what is said, not with the mouthpiece

Please bear it in mind even while I am speaking that you should not accept anything that I say on authority, but rather examine it, analyse it with intelligence and balance.
I am speaking of the whole, the unconditioned, and if you would approach that totality of life, that fulfilment of life, you must not concern yourself with the mouthpiece, the instrument, but with what is said.
You are bound by your old traditions of teacher and disciple, the idea that the teacher gives and the pupil must accept. A true teacher never gives; he explains, he points the way. If a person of little understanding stops and worships at the shrine or a sign post, he will remain there for many lives until suffering urges him onward.

Chapter 5. Krishnaji answers common criticisms about the teachings.

Krishnamurti does not speak anything new

There is nothing new under the sun. Everything has been thought out, every manner of expression has been given to thought, every point of view has been shown. What has been said will always be said and therefore there can never be anything new from the ordinary point of view -you can only vary the expressions, using different words, different connotations and so on.
But to a man who desires to test anything, any idea for himself, everything becomes new. If there is a desire to get beyond the mere illusions of words, beyond the expressions of thought, beyond all philosophies, and all sacred books, then, in that experiment, everything becomes new, clear, vital.

Krishnamurti gives no positive instruction

Now you will say that I have given you no constructive or positive instruction. Beware of the man who offers you positive methods, for he is giving you merely his pattern, his mould. If you really live, if you try to free the mind and heart from all limitation -not through self-analysis and introspection, but through awareness in action- then the obstacles that now hinder you from the completeness of life will fall away. This awareness is the joy of meditation -meditation that is not the effort of an hour, but which is action, which is life itself.

Krishnamurti is difficult to understand

It is not a question of understanding me. Why should you understand me? Truth is not mine, that you should understand me. You find my words difficult to understand because your minds are suffocated with ideas. What I say is very simple. It is not for the select few. It is for anyone who is willing to try. I say that if you would free yourselves from ideas, from beliefs, from all the securities that people have built up through centuries, then you would understand life.
You can free yourselves only by questioning, and you can question only when you are in revolt -not when you are stagnant with satisfying ideas. When your minds are suffocated with beliefs, when they are heavy with knowledge acquired from books, then it is impossible to understand life.
But most of us do not want to be free; we want to keep what we have gained, either in virtue or in knowledge or in possessions; we want to keep all these. Thus burdened we try to meet life, and hence the utter impossibility of understanding it completely.
So the difficulty lies not in understanding me, but in understanding life itself.
I am afraid that it is not the learned who will understand... What I am saying is not only applicable to the leisured class, to the people who are supposed to be intelligent, well-educated -but also to the so-called masses. Who are keeping the masses in daily toil? The intelligent, those who are supposedly learned. Isn't that so? But if they were really intelligent they would find a way to free the masses from daily toil. What I am saying is applicable not only to the learned, but to all human beings. The man in the street is you...
What is there in what I am saying that is so difficult or dangerous for the average man? I say that to know love, kindliness, considerateness, there cannot be egotism. There must not be subtle escapes from the actual through idealism. I say that authority is pernicious, not only the authority imposed by another, but also that which is unconsciously developed through the accumulation of self-protective memories, the authority of the ego. I say that you cannot follow another to comprehend reality. Surely, all this is not dangerous to the individual, but it is dangerous to the man who is committed to an organization and desires to maintain it, to the man who desires adulation, popularity and power. What I say about nationalism and class distinction is dangerous to the man who benefits by their cruelties and degradation.
Comprehension, enlightenment, is dangerous to the man who subtly or grossly enjoys the benefits of exploitation, authority, fear.

Krishnamurti is not practical in actual life

What is it that we call actual life? Earning money, exploiting others and being exploited ourselves, marriage, children, seeking friends, experiencing jealousies, quarrels, fear of death, the inquiry into the hereafter, laying up money for old age -all these we call daily life.
Now to me, truth or the eternal becoming of life cannot be found apart from these. In the transient lies the eternal -not apart from the transient.
When we look to life as a means to acquisition, whether of things or of ideas, when we look to life as a school in which to learn, in which to grow, then we are dependent upon that self-consciousness, upon that limitation... But if we become utterly individual, completely self-sufficient, alone in our understanding, then we do not differentiate between actual living and truth, or God.
You know, because we find life difficult, because we do not understand all the intricacies of daily action, because we want to escape from that confusion, we turn to the idea of an objective principle (Truth), and so we differentiate, we distinguish truth as being impractical, as having nothing to do with daily life. Thus Truth or God becomes an escape to which we turn in days of conflict and trouble. But if, in our daily life, we would find out why we act, if we would meet the incidents, the experiences, the sufferings of life wholly, then we would not differentiate practical life from impractical truth.
This part of the book contains bits of reports of spontaneous discourses about life and reality, given at different times, and is not intended, therefore, to be read consecutively or hurriedly as a novel or as a systematised philosophical treatise.

PART 2. The Eternal Teachings

Why should you know someone else's teachings? You know, there is only one truth and therefore there is only one way which is not distant from that truth; there is only one method to that truth, because the means are not distinct from the end.
Why do you want to be students of books instead of students of Life? Find out what is true and false in your environment with all its oppressions and its cruelties and then you will find out what is true.

J. Krishnamurti, 31st March, 1934 New Zealand

What makes a place religious?

A religious brain has no shelter, it is not scattered; it is unshackled; it has no schedule; it is utterly free of all ritual, dogma, faith; it is wholly free in its own independence, and it is that quality of love and compassion which has intelligence.
If you have such a brain... then wherever you are, that would be the religious centre.

20th November, 1984 Varanasi

Chapter 1. Do you want to understand life as a whole? Then...

You must be one thing or the other; you cannot be neutral

The majority of you have been listening to me... and yet you cannot maintain your certainty against anybody. You are uncertain, you do not know what I say is the real... I don't want people who merely agree. But if you agree, you must agree so entirely that you will oppose everything else. You must be one thing or the other, you cannot be neutral. If you are this flame, then your whole being, your countenance, your attitude, your affection, your thoughts, your physical environment, everything must be the expression of that.
You must be either one thing or the other, be hot or be cold. If you are hot, then you must burn out all external things, destroy all the weeds, fears, gods, superstitions, unrealities. If you are cold, then leave aside what I am saying, be selfish, narrow, fearful. It is no good all the time trying to grasp one thing and after grasping it twisting it to suit the other. You can't twist it, you can't reconcile the two, the old and the new... It does not matter whether you agree with me or not -you will eventually. If you don't now, you will in a hundred million years.

You must come with the intention of climbing to great heights; not of bringing the truth down...

Do not think that liberation, happiness, life, can be twisted and utilised to suit your old ideas... The Truth I set before you is much too lovely to be rejected and much too great to be accepted without thought. If you would understand, you must come with the intention, not of bringing the truth down to your understanding, but rather of climbing to the great heights where it is to be found.
I tell you that Truth is much too serious to play with; it is much too dangerous to have one part of your heart in the temple of truth and another part in the temple of unrealities and half-truths. For that is the way of sorrow, is the way of contention, is the way of vain beliefs which shall decay... Either you want the loveliness, the perfection of life or you do not want it. If you do not want it, leave it. If you want it, have it so burningly that you sacrifice everything for this one thing...

I cannot fill you, if you do not want to be filled

It cannot be a one-sided affair. I cannot fill you if you do not want to be filled... The deeper you drop the vessel of your desire into the well of understanding, the more will you have the capacity to receive... If on your part, you have the desire to put one idea of which I speak into practice, then you will see for yourselves the tremendous possibilities, the implications, the half-hidden meanings which to an unreflecting consciousness give but a superficial understanding...

Do not waste time in compromise

Most of you belong to various societies, various organisations. To me, life is not realisable through any organisation... I want to make my meaning once again perfectly clear. Truth to me is only realisable through your own self-recollectedness, through your own strength, through your own mindfulness...
It is realised through reason, which is gradually denuded of all personality, of all personal inclinations. Such reason leads to that inward perception... and because of that, you cannot find it through any organised religion, through priests, through ceremonies, through personal gods, worship, institutions, societies...
But if you have all these things, which to me are illusions, as your background... you cannot expect me to fall in with your systems, your standardisation, your images... If you want to understand my point of view you will reason, examine, reflect, but you will not waste time and energy in compromise. You cannot bring the dead wood and the living tree together.

Find out if what I say is true and if it is false, then leave it...

Completeness is the freedom from all ideals, from all cravings, from all illusions, from all self-deceptions. Before you can understand and realise this completeness, there must be a cessation of the idea of imitation, of following a system, a method, a path... Find out if what I say is true and if it is false, then leave it...
You believe that there is a supreme being apart from man and the world. Then you separate yourself, the individual, from the world; you think that by making yourself a perfect instrument, you can help the world... You say that Truth lies outside all this chaos, conflict, this struggle, this competitive hatred of peoples... I say, on the contrary, that through all this alone is Truth to be found, that when you are the master of yourself, completely responsible in yourself, you will find truth...

You cannot find truth by all the time adjusting it to illusions

Why this compromise and desire for reconciliation? From the questions that have been put to me day after day it is apparent that there is still in your minds the desire for compromise. Each one of you has a background of some kind. When any new idea or experience is put before you, you immediately translate it into terms of your preconceived ideas of Truth. Hence there is a constant battle of adjustment, not to discover what is true, but to try to reconcile what I say with what you have already found, with what is already established for you by another. If you would examine what I say, if you would diligently follow it mentally, then there must be a complete cleavage from preconceived ideas.
But you cannot reconcile certain things. There cannot be a compromise in certain things. In those things which to you are apparent facts, in the sense that are based on your own experience, on your own examination -impersonal, unbiased, free of authority- there is no longer the desire to compromise. Please realise why I am laying such emphasis on compromise. You cannot find truth by all the time adjusting it to illusions. You have to find out what is illusion and what is reality. To do this you must have a free mind. Reconciliation becomes but the dissipation of energy.
Your excuse for such a waste of energy is that you are seeking for a 'practical way' as you call it. The practical way of understanding life is to be impersonal and with that impersonal idea stripped of all this reaction of separateness, with that energy you can carry your ideas into action. Such energy makes all things practical, because you are no longer trying to balance those things, which it is impossible to reconcile. A compromise is the result of fear born of uncertainty, dread and doubt.
Because you are in conflict, continually fighting with unrealities, with uncertainties tortured in yourselves, with innumerable delusions, I put this forward, I offer it to you either to take it or leave it. If you take it, you must live it every moment of the day, not for a few weeks only. You must be uncompromising, strong, full of energy and interest, because truth is for those who come to it freely without fear, stripped of all delusions, void of all attachment. But if you are imprisoned in your own personal vanities, fears, ambitions, you will not find it. Then you will go away more certain of your own delusions.

You can really understand when you see the absolute necessity for cessation from all escapes

You are seeking a method, a system, which will enable you to keep awake at the moment of action. System and action cannot exist together, they kill each other. You are asking me: Can I take a sedative and yet be awake at the moment of action? How can a system keep you awake, or anything else except your own intensity of interest, the necessity of keeping awake? Please see the significance of this question. If you are aware that your mind is biased, then you do not want any discipline or system or mode of conduct. Your very discernment of a prejudice burns away that prejudice, and you are able to act sanely and clearly. But because you do not perceive a bias, which causes suffering, you hope to rid yourself of sorrow by following a system, which is but the development of another bias, and this new bias you call the process of keeping awake, becoming conscious. The so-called religious teachers have given you systems. You think that by following a new system you will train the mind to discern and accept new values. When you succeed in doing this, what you have really done is to deaden the mind, put it to sleep, and this you mistake for happiness, peace.
One listens to all this, and yet there remains a gap between everyday life and the pursuit of the real. This gap exists because change involves not only physical discomfort but mental uncertainty, and we dislike to be uncertain.
Because this uncertainty creates disturbance, we postpone change, thus exaggerating the gap. So we go on creating conflict and misery, from which we desire to escape. The gap between ourselves and the real is bridged only when we see the absolute necessity for cessation from all escapes and hence the necessity for integral action, out of which is born true human relationship with individuals, with society.

Chapter 2. Go beyond the limitations of the language

What I speak is not gathered from books, but what I have discovered and I am living

For myself, what I am speaking about is not derived from books. It has not been gathered from various kinds of books, digested and then put forward in a different language so that you will understand it. It is not all that kind of explanation, that kind of understanding of the fundamental reality. What I am putting forward is the product of my own experience.
The reality of which I am speaking is one which lies hidden in the heart of everyone and which as an individual I have discovered and which I am living...
From my point of view, the individual is everything. In him is the whole universe and the moment he enters into reality, he is at peace with the universe and becomes a living flame which shall purge the world of all its unessentials, stupid, childish things.
In the confusion and turmoil of life, in its continual bustle and conflict, every individual throughout the world is caught. To understand the meaning of it, one must first grapple with it intellectually and afterwards put one's intellectual theories into practice.
Since thought comes first, it is very necessary that it should be true thought. You have to find out what it is that this life, centred and focused in the individual, is trying to do.

Do not judge by the expression; gather the significance, implication not expressed

Naturally in a talk like this, you must try to get at the significance of the words I use and not be content with the literal meaning. That is, you must gather the full meaning, the full understanding of what I am saying -the implications not expressed in words, feeling and thoughts- and not merely judge by the expression which I shall employ, because if you do, we shall misunderstand each other completely. I am going to use words which have no traditional meaning, which have the ordinary meaning of daily life, which you would employ at every moment of the day.

The inexplicable is being explained by ordinary words; step beyond the illusion of words

If I had a new vocabulary, it would be all right but that would mean my learning a new vocabulary and your learning a new vocabulary. So by using ordinary words, not philosophical or technical words, and trying to explain those things which are inexplicable with ordinary words, there is naturally a limitation. But surely the limitation of words is not going to be a limitation of Truth. Not to me, anyhow. To me there is a vast experience, immense, which every human being must have, in which he must live and have his being concentrated. It is the whole sky and words are like windows. You can't translate the whole sky into words. But if you step beyond words -then the illusion of words disappears.

Words cannot express the fullness of living; experience it in your daily life

Words that express what one has experienced and is continually living cannot convey to another the fullness of that experience. What I want to describe cannot be grasped merely by the intellectual significance of words. The reality of what I say can only be experienced in your everyday life.

Catch the glimpse of the whole; do not dissect the part

As far as I have been able to see, you only take a part of what I say and dissect that part. And that little part has no value detached from the whole. It is the whole that matters, the complete unity of the whole of life. And its various struggles, strifes, pains, sorrows, can only be understood when you have caught a glimpse of the whole.

Chapter 3. Understand the vicious circle of ignorance.

Human being - Is he a separate entity?

Life is creation, including the creator and the created, and Nature conceals life -that is, everything in manifestation conceals life in itself. When that Life in Nature develops and becomes focused in the individual, then Nature has fulfilled itself.
The whole destiny and function of Nature is to create the individual who is self-conscious, who knows the pairs of opposites, who knows that he is an entity in himself conscious and separate. (So life in Nature, through its development, becomes self-conscious in the awakened, concentrated individual.) Nature's goal is man's individuality... But individuality is imperfection; it is not an end in itself.
Individuality is intensified through the conflict of ignorance and the limitation of thought and emotion. In that there is self-conscious separation... The evolution of 'I am' is but an expansion of that separateness in space and time. The individual held in the bondage of limitation, knowing the separation of 'you' and 'I', has to liberate himself and has to fulfil himself in that liberation.
When individuality has fulfilled itself through ceaseless effort, destroying, tearing down the wall of separateness, when it has achieved a sense of effortless being, then individual existence has fulfilled itself. If the individual, in whom there is the consciousness of separation, of subject and object, does not understand the purpose of existence, he merely becomes a slave to experience, to the creation of forms...
It is in the subjectivity of the individual that the object really exists. In him is the totality of all experience, all thought, all emotion. In him is all potentiality and his task is to realise that objectivity in the subjective.
The individual is the whole universe, not a separate part of the world. The individual is the all-inclusive. He is constantly making efforts, experimenting in different directions; but the self in you and in me and in all is the same, though the expressions may vary and should vary.
To be rid of fear is to realise that in you is the focal centre of life's expression. When there is the desire, the craving for existence and the continuity of separate being, there must of necessity be what you would call reincarnation.
Reincarnation is a series of opportunities for the spiritual realisation of pure being. But if you as an individual are highly concentrated in awareness in the present, then you live that series of opportunities now.
Because in your consciousness there is separateness and the cognizance of individuality, of you and I, there must be sorrow. When you are aware of separation, it is a limitation and in its wake must come suffering.
Individuality grows in the soil of hate, love, jealousy, greed, action, inaction, loneliness, the desire for company... Whenever there is sorrow, there is the seeking for comfort, and for the persistence of individual existence.

Separateness creates craving, want

Life is every moment in a state of being born, arising, coming into being. In this arising, coming into being, in this itself there is no continuity, nothing that can be identified as permanent. Life is in constant movement; action. Each moment of this action has never been before and will never be again. But each new moment forms a continuity of movement.
Now, consciousness forms its own continuity as an individuality through the action of ignorance, and clings with desperate craving to this identification.
This something that each one clings to is the Consciousness of Individuality. This consciousness is composed of many layers of memories, which come into being, or remain present, where there is ignorance, craving, want.
Craving, want, tendency in any form, must create conflict between itself and that which provokes it, that is, the object of want. This conflict between craving and the object craved appears in consciousness as individuality. So it is this friction, really, that seeks to perpetuate itself. What we intensely desire to have continue is nothing but this friction, this tension between the various forms of craving and their provoking agents.
To many, what I say will remain a theory, it will be vague and uncertain; but if you will discern its validity or accept it as an hypothesis, not as a law or as a dogma, then you can comprehend its active significance in daily life...

Craving is an endless process

So the question is not what is reality, God, immortality, and whether one should believe in it or not, but what is the thing that is striving, wanting, fearing, longing. What is it and why does it want? What is the centre in which this want has its being? From this we must begin our inquiry.
This thing that is continually wanting is the consciousness which has become perceptible as the individual. That is, there is an 'I' that is wanting. What is the 'I'? There is a self-sustaining energy, a force which, through its development, becomes consciousness. This energy or force is unique to each living being. This consciousness becomes perceptible to the individual through the senses. It is at once both self-maintaining and self-energizing, if I may use those words. That is, it is not only maintaining, supporting itself through its own ignorance, tendencies, reactions, wants, but by this process it is storing up its own potential energies. And this process can be fully comprehended by the individual only in his awakened discernment.
You see something that is attractive, you want it, and you possess it. Thus there is set up this process of perception, want and acquisition. This process is ever self-sustaining. There is a voluntary perception, an attraction or repulsion, a clinging or a rejecting. The I process is thus self-active. That is, it is not only expanding itself by its own voluntary desires and actions, but it is maintaining itself through its own ignorance, tendencies, wants and cravings... And yet the I itself is want... the material for the I process is sensation, consciousness. This process is without a beginning, and is unique to each individual.
Experiment with this and you will discern for yourself how real, how actual it is... If you comprehend the arising, the coming into being of consciousness through sensation, through want, and see that from consciousness there is born the unit called the I which in itself does not conceal any reality, then you will awaken to the nature of this vicious circle...

Emptiness creates craving to fill the void

Greed is the demand for gratification, pleasure, and we use needs as a means to achieve it and thereby give them far greater importance and worth than they have.
The constant desire for greater and greater sensation must inevitably lead to pain and sorrow; one often does not realise this and one craves for an enduring satisfaction, a final security in an idea, person or thing. This craving for a finality is the result of a series of satisfactions and disappointments but the desire for permanency is still a form of sensation and gratification.
In relationship we are seeking gratification, pleasure, comfort, and if there is any deep opposition to it we try to change our relationship... Relationship is now based on dependence, that is, one depends on another for one's psychological satisfaction, happiness and well-being. Generally we do not realize this but, if we do, we pretend that we are not dependent on another or try to disengage ourselves artificially from dependence.
In relationship, the primary cause of friction is oneself, the self that is the centre of unified craving... the important thing to bear in mind is not the other but oneself, which does not mean that one must isolate oneself but understand deeply in oneself the cause of conflict and sorrow.
Fear and sorrow permeate our being through our unawareness of the process of craving. Craving for pleasure and gratification necessitates the possessing of the other, thus creating and continuing fear and sorrow. But if we can become keenly aware of the process of craving, understanding will naturally come into being.

Loneliness, fear creates craving to escape and also illusions

Has not our thought its source in craving? Is not what we call the mind the result of craving? Through perception, contact, sensation, and reflection, thought divides itself into like and dislike, hate and affection, pain and pleasure, merit and demerit -the series of opposites, the process of conflict. It is this process which is the content of our consciousness, the unconscious as well as the conscious, and which we call the mind. Being caught up in this process and fearing uncertainty, cessation, death, each one craves after permanency and continuity. We seek to establish this continuity through property, name, family, race, and, dubiously perceiving their insecurity, again we seek this continuity and permanency through beliefs and hopes, through the concepts of God...
Is not the fundamental cause of fear self-preservation, with all its subtleties? For instance, you may have money, and therefore you are not bothering about the competition of getting a job; but you are afraid of something else, afraid that your life may come suddenly to an end and there might be extinction, or afraid of loss of money. So, if you look at it, you will see that fear will exist so long as this idea of self-preservation continues, so long as the mind clings to this idea of self-consciousness. As long as that ego consciousness remains, there must be fear; and that is the fundamental cause of fear.
There is a fear of another kind, the fear of inward poverty. There is the fear of external poverty, and then there is the fear of being shallow, of being empty, of being lonely. So, being afraid, we resort to the various remedies in the hope of enriching ourselves... It may be the remedy of literature, by reading a great deal; it may be this exaggeration of sport... All these but indicate the fear of that loneliness which you must inevitably face one day or the other. And as long as that emptiness exists, that shallowness, that hollowness, that void, there must be fear. To be really free of that fear, which is to be free of that emptiness, that shallowness, is not to cover it up by remedies, but rather to recognize that shallowness, become aware of it, which gives you then the alertness of mind to find out the values and the significance of each experience, of each standard, of each environment... It is when you are trying to cover it up, trying to gain something to fill that emptiness, that the emptiness grows more and more. But, if you know that you are empty, not try to run away, in that awareness your mind becomes very acute, because you are suffering. The moment you are conscious that you are empty, hollow, there is tremendous conflict taking place. In that moment of conflict you are discovering, as you move along, the significance of experience -the standards, the values of society, of religion, of the conditions placed upon you.
Instead of covering up emptiness, there is a depth of intelligence. Then you are never lonely even if you are by yourself or with a huge crowd, then there is no such thing as emptiness, shallowness.

Thought enslaved by craving creates opposites

Acquisition is a form of pleasure, and during its process, that is, while acquiring, gathering, there comes suffering, and in order to avoid it you begin to say to yourself, I must not acquire. Not to be acquisitive becomes a new virtue, a new pleasure. But if you examine the desire that prompts you not to acquire, you will see that it is based on a deeper desire to protect yourself from pain. So you are really seeking pleasure, both in acquisitiveness and in non-acquisitiveness.
Now there is a different way of looking at this problem of opposites; it is to discern directly, to perceive integrally, that all tendencies and virtues hold within themselves their own opposites, and that to develop an opposite is to escape from actuality.
If acquisitiveness in itself is ugly and evil, then why develop its opposite? Because you do not discern that it is ugly and evil, but you want to avoid the pain involved in it, you develop its opposite. All opposites must create conflict, because they are essentially unintelligent. If there is direct perception, there must be action, and in order to avoid action one develops the opposite and so establishes a series of subtle escapes.
You vacillate between the opposites, whereas only through comprehension of the illusion of the opposites can you free yourself from their limitations and encumbrances. You often imagine that you are free from them, but you can be radically free only when you fully comprehend the process of the building up of these limitations and of bringing them to an end...
To understand life and to have true values, you must perceive how you are held by the opposites, and before rejecting them you must discern their deep significance. And in the very process of freeing yourself from them, there is born the comprehension of beginning less ignorance, which creates false values and so establishes false relationship between the individual and his environment, bringing about confusion, fear and sorrow.

Chapter 4. Live a religious life - A life of inquiry and discovery.

Begin near to go far

When I am talking I should like you to apply what I say to yourself, not to your neighbours, because it is more interesting to apply it to yourself.
Before we awaken another, we must be sure that we ourselves are awake and alert. This does not mean that we must wait until we are free. We are free insofar as we begin to understand and transcend the limitations of thought. Before one begins to preach awareness and freedom to another, which is fairly easy, one must begin with oneself. Instead of converting others to our particular form of limitation we must begin to free ourselves from the pettiness and narrowness of our own thoughts.
You are not going to be aware by merely listening to one or two talks. It is as a fire which must be built, and you must build it. You must begin, however little, to be conscious, to be aware, and this you can be when you talk, when you laugh, when you come into contact with people, or when you are still. This awareness becomes a flame, and this flame consumes all fear which causes isolation. The mind must reveal itself spontaneously to itself.

Ignorance - an unawareness...

If what I am saying acts merely as a stimulation, then there arises the question of how to apply it to your daily life with its pains and conflicts. The how, the method, becomes all important only when explanations and stimulations are urging you to a particular action.
When the mind reveals to itself its own efforts of fears and wants, then there arises integral awareness of its own impermanency which alone can set the mind free from its binding labours. Unless this is taking place, all stimulation becomes further bondage. All artificially cultivated qualities divide.
To free thought from acquisitiveness through discipline, through will, is not a release from ignorance, for it is still held in the conflict of opposites. When thought integrally perceives that the effort to rid itself of acquisitiveness is also part of acquisitiveness, then there is a beginning of enlightenment.
Ignorance is the unawareness of the process of conditioning, limiting that energy which may be called life, thought, emotion, which consists of the many wants, fears, acquisitive memories, and so on.
The craving for understanding, for happiness, the attempt to get rid of this particular quality and acquire that particular virtue, all such effort is born of ignorance, which is the result of this constant want, strengthening resistance. A belief, the result of want, is a conditioning force; experience based on any belief is limiting, however wide and large it may be.
Whatever effort the mind makes to break down its own vicious circle of ignorance must further aid the continuance of ignorance. If one does not understand the whole process of ignorance, and merely makes an effort to get rid of it, thought is still acting within the circle of ignorance.
Now, is this an all-important, vital question to you? If it is, then you will see that there is no direct, positive answer. So there is only a negative approach, which is to be integrally aware of the process of fear or ignorance. This awareness is not an effort to overcome, to destroy or to find a substitute, but is a stillness of neither acceptance nor denial, an integral quietness of no choice. This awareness breaks the circle of ignorance from within, as it were, without strengthening it.

Wisdom

What brings wisdom is to become aware of one of the hindrances and to act; and you will see to what depth, to what profundity of thought it will lead you. And in that action you will find out that there comes a time when you are not seeking for a result from your action, a fruit from your action, but the very action itself has meaning.
In the process of experimenting, in the process of liberating the mind and heart from hindrances, there will take place action, result. There is not the replacement of the false by the true, but only the true. And such a life is a life of a consummate human being.

Conduct - The way you live your everyday life

Conduct is the outcome of clear understanding of the purpose of individual existence. There may be many here who are vitally and anxiously, not merely superficially, concerned to put into practice what they have understood, to express it in conduct. If you examine, analyse, criticise with affection, then the idea will become practical and can be translated into daily action. So you should exercise criticism all the time, through observation as to whether you are living that reality. Criticism is of value only in training your observation so that it can be eventually turned upon yourself. That is the true purpose of criticism. When you turn the light of criticism on yourself, you begin to grow.
We must concern ourselves not only with that ultimate reality but with the practical way of translating that reality into conduct. Life is conduct, the manner of our behaviour towards another, which is action. Liberation is to be found in the world of manifestation and not away from it.
All things about us are real. Every thing is real and not an illusion. Each one has to discern the unreality that surrounds the real. Desire is all the time trying to free itself from delusion. So desire goes through various stages of experience in search of this balance, and can either become a cage or an open door; a prison house or an open way to liberation.
When you understand desire, from whence it springs and towards what it is going, its aim and purpose, desire becomes a precious jewel. Find out what you are interested in, on what you are laying emphasis. Find out towards what purpose your secret desire is tending. You can either strangle that desire and make it narrow, or you can make it all-inclusive, free, unlimited. What strengthens you is desire itself. In watching, in guiding that desire, in being self-recollected in your conduct, in your thought, in your movements, in your behaviour, in adjusting yourself to that which you realise to be the purpose of individual existence, you have the positive test of self-realisation, not in belonging to sects, societies, groups and orders.

True effort

Effort is but the awareness of individuality, of separation, of limitation. But effort must be made in order to be free of it, free of the application of many centuries of tradition, of want, and of giving, of illusion of fear and of fear itself.
This effort, consciously made, with the full knowledge of the basis of fear, the basis of want and of giving, the basis of traditional thought and emotion, will set man free of self-consciousness. This is true effort, which leads man to the realisation of Truth.

Doubt - to find out what is true and what is false

Life is a process of search, search not for any particular end, but to release the creative energy, the creative intelligence in man. No belief is ever a living reality. Now since the mind is crippled by many beliefs, many principles, many traditions, false values and illusions, you must begin to question them, to doubt them; you must question so as to discover for yourselves the true significance of traditional values. This doubt, born of intense conflict, alone will free the mind, an ecstasy liberated from illusion. So the first thing is to doubt, not cherish your beliefs.
Where there is the desire for gain, there is no longer doubt; there is the acceptance of authority. Doubt brings about lasting understanding. What is true is revealed only through doubt, through questioning the many illusions, traditional values, ideals. For example, to find out if ceremonies are worthwhile at all, do you see that ceremonies keep people apart, and each believer in them says, 'Mine are the best'. These ceremonies and such other thoughtless barriers have separated man from man. To find out the lasting significance of ceremony, you must not be enticed into it, entangled in it. Doubt, question, ponder over this profoundly. When you begin to relinquish the past, you will create conflict in yourself, and out of that conflict there must come action born of understanding. Now you are afraid to let go, because that act of relinquishment will bring turmoil; out of that act might come the decision that ceremonies are of no avail, which would go against your family, your friends, and your past assertions. There is fear behind all this, so you merely doubt intellectually. You suffer patiently, submitting to the cruelties of environment, when you, individually, have the possibilities of changing them. To be truly individual, action must be born of creative intelligence, without fear, not caught up in illusion.

Inquiry - An experimental approach

If consciously or unconsciously we are merely seeking results, we are not experimenting. Experimentation with one's own thought and feeling becomes impossible if we are merely adjusting ourselves to a pattern, ancient or modern. We may think we are experimenting, but if our thought is influenced and limited, say by a belief, then experimentation is not possible and most of us are blind to our own limitations. True experimenting consists in understanding through our own alert watchfulness, awareness, the causes that condition thought.
I shall try to explain how to experiment with ourselves and free thought from its self-imposed limitations. This earnest experiment must begin with ourselves, with each one of us, and it is vain merely to alter the outward conditions without deep, inward change. Society is the projection of ourselves. Man is the measure of things.
With what are our thoughts and feelings mostly concerned? They are concerned with things, with people, and with ideas. These are the fundamental things in which we are interested -things, people, ideas.
We all need clothes, food, and shelter. Things assume such disproportionate value and significance because we psychologically depend on them for our well-being. They feed our vanity; they give us social prestige; they give us the means for procuring power. We use them in order to achieve purposes other than what they in themselves signify.
Ask yourself this question: Am I dependent on things for my psychological happiness, satisfaction? If you earnestly seek to answer this apparently simple question you will discover the complex process of your thought and feeling. You will begin to understand the nature of sensation and gratification.
The process of living is partly sensation; seeing, tasting, thinking, and so on. If we seek pleasure through sensation or use sensation for gratification, then thought becomes a slave of desire. There is a sort of psychological satisfaction in possessing and in being possessed. When the sensation of possession is satisfied, then thought seeks other types of sensation and pleasure, so desire is continually changing its object of gratification until reality is assumed to be a form of pleasure which is hoped to be permanent.
Greed is the demand for gratification, pleasure, and we use needs as a means to achieve it and thereby give them far greater importance and worth than they have. Being poor inwardly, psychologically, spiritually, one thinks of enriching oneself through possessions, with ever-increasing complex demands and problems.
Thought is now the product of greed, and therefore transitory, and whatever it creates must surely also be transient. And so long as the mind is held within the transient, within the circle of greed, it cannot transcend. How is greed to be dissolved without creating further conflict if the product of conflict is ever within the realm of desire which is transitory?
Can satisfaction ever be complete, is it not ever in a state of constant flux, craving one gratification after another? You have to be sharply aware of the subtlety of craving and through experiment, there comes into being the wholeness of understanding which alone radically frees thought from craving.

Discovery - Perception of 'what is'

Let us begin as though we know nothing about it at all and start from scratch.

1st STEP

We see with our eyes, we perceive with our senses the things about us -the colour of the flower, the thousand sounds of different qualities and subtleties, the shadow of the tree and the tree itself. We feel in the same way our own bodies, which are the instruments of these different kinds of superficial, sensory perceptions. If these perceptions remained at the superficial level there would be no confusion at all. That flower, that pansy, that rose, are there, and that's all there is to it. There is no preference, no comparison, no like and dislike, only the thing before us without any psychological involvement. Is all this superficial sensory perception or awareness quite clear?

2nd STEP

Now, the next step; what you think about these things, or what you feel about them, is your psychological response to them. And this we call thought or emotion. The door is there, and when you get emotionally involved in the description you don't see the door. This description might be a word or a scientific treatise or a strong emotional response. Though we are describing something even now, and we have to, the thing we are describing is not our description of it. The word is never the real, and we are easily carried away when we come to the next stage of awareness where it becomes personal and we get emotional through the word. Now when we become aware of this response, we might call it a second depth of awareness.
When there is a visual awareness of the tree without any psychological involvement there is no division in relationship. But when there is a psychological response to the tree, the response is a conditioned response, it is the response of past memory, past experiences, and the response is a division in relationship. This response is the birth of what we shall call the 'me' in relationship and the 'non-me'. The world is seen not as it is, but in its various relationships to the 'me' of memory.

3rd STEP

Now can there be an awareness, an observation of the tree, without any judgment, and can there be an observation of the response, the reactions, without any judgment?In this way we eradicate the principle of division, the principle of me and non-me, both in looking at the tree and in looking at ourselves. In the seeing of any fact there is no me. There is either the me or the seeing. There can't be both. The me cannot see, cannot be aware.

4th STEP

Can the mind, in which is included all our feelings, be free of this conditioning, which is the past? There is no me in the present. As long as the mind is operating in the past, there is the me, and the mind is this past, the mind is this me. All this is one unitary action of awareness because in this there are no conclusions.
Can the mind be free of the past? Who is putting this question? If it is the observer who is putting the question, then he is trying to escape from the fact of himself. Either one turns away from a fact or one faces it. In fact, just to ask this question at all is already an act of escape. Let us be aware whether this question is or is not an act of escape.

5th STEP

Now, being aware of that, it doesn't ask the question! It does not ask the question at all because it sees the trap. Awareness has shown us the nature of the trap, and therefore there is the negation of all traps; so the mind is now empty. It is empty of the me and of the trap. This mind has a different dimension of awareness. This awareness is not aware that it is aware.
All that you have to do is to be aware from the beginning to the end, not become inattentive in the middle of it. This new quality of awareness is attention, and in this attention there is no frontier made by the me.
This attention is the highest form of virtue, therefore it is love.