Choiceless Awareness
New Delhi Public Talk 19th December, 1948
As this is the last talk, perhaps it might be just as well if I made a
brief summary of what we have been discussing for the last six weeks.
Our life is beset with so many problems at different levels. We have not
only the physical problems, but the much more subtle and more intricate
psychological problems; and without solving the psychological problems
or even trying to understand their subtleness, we seek merely to
rearrange their effects. We try to reconcile the effects without really
understanding the causes which produce these effects. Therefore, it
seems to me much more important to understand the psychological
conflicts and sorrows than merely to rearrange the pattern of effects;
because, the mere reconciliation of effects cannot profoundly and
ultimately solve the problems that are produced. If we merely rearrange
the effects without understanding the psychological struggles that
produce these effects, we will naturally produce further confusion,
further antagonism, further conflict. So, in understanding the
psychological factors that bring about our well-being, there may be a
possibility - and I think there is a definite possibility - of creating a
new culture and a new civilization; but it must begin with every one of
us, because, after all, society is my relationship with you, and your
relationship with another. Society is the outcome of our relationship,
and without under standing relationship, which is ac- tion, there can be
no cessation of conflict. So, relationship and its effect and cause
must be thoroughly understood before I can transform or bring about a
radical revolution in the ways of my life.
We are concerned, then, with the individual problem and our own
psychological sufferings. In understanding the individual problem we
will naturally bring about a different arrangement in its effects, but
we should not begin with the effects; because, after all, we do not live
by the effects alone but by the deeper causes. So, our problem is how
to understand suffering and conflict in the individual. Mere verbal
explanation of suffering, mere intellection, the perception of the
causes of suffering, does not resolve suffering. That is an obvious
fact; but as most of us are fed on words, and as words have become of
such immense importance, we are easily satisfied by explanations. We
read the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, or any other religious book which
explains the cause of suffering, and we are satisfied; we take the
explanation for the resolution of suffering. Words have become much more
significant than the understanding of suffering itself; but the word is
not the thing. Any amount of explanation, any amount of reasoning, will
not feed a hungry man. What he wants is food, not the explanation of
food, or the smell of food. He is hungry, and he must have the substance
that nourishes. Most of us are satisfied by the explanation of the
cause of suffering. Therefore, we don't take suffering as a thing to be
radically resolved, a contradiction in ourselves that must be
understood. How is one to understand suffering? One can understand
suffering only when explanation subsides and all kinds of escapes are
understood and put aside, that is, when one sees the actual in
suffering. But you see, you don't want to understand suffering; you run
away to the club, you read the newspaper, you do puja, go to the temple,
plunge into politics or social service - anything rather than to face
that which is. So, the cultivation of escapes has become much more
important than the understanding of sorrow; and it requires a very
intelligent mind, a mind that is very alert, to see that it is escaping
and to put an end to escapes.
How, I have explained that conflict is not productive of creative
thinking. To be creative, to produce what you will, the mind must be at
peace, the heart full. If you want to write, to have great thoughts, to
enquire into truth, conflict must cease; but in our civilization,
escapes have become much more significant than the understanding of
conflict. Modern things help us to escape, and to escape is to be
utterly uncreative, it is self-projection. That does not solve our
problem. What does solve our problem is to cease to escape and to live
with suffering; because, after all, to understand something, one must
give full attention to it, and distractions are mere escapes. To
understand escapes, which is to put an end to them by seeing their
falseness, and to perceive the whole significance of suffering, is a
process of self-knowledge; and without self-knowledge, without knowing
yourself fundamentally, not the mere superficial effects of your
actions, but the whole total process of yourself, both the thinker and
the thought, the actor and the action - without that self-knowledge,
there is no basis for thought. You can repeat like a gramophone, but you
will not be the music-maker, there will be no song in your heart.
So, through self-knowledge alone an suffering come to an end. After
all, what does suffering mean - not as a verbal explanation, but as a
fact? How does suffering arise, not merely as a scientific observation,
but actually? In order to know, to find out, surely discontent is
essential. One must be thoroughly discontented in order to find out. But
when there is discontent - and most of us are discontented - we find an
easy way of smothering that discontent. We become something - clerks,
governors, ministers, or what you will - , anything to smother that
flame, that spark, that dissatisfaction. Materially as well as
psychologically we want to be sure, we want to be secure, we do not want
to be disturbed. We want certainty, and where the mind is looking for
certainty, security, there is no discontent; and most of us spend our
lives doing this, we are all seeking security. Obviously there must be
physical security, food, clothing and shelter; but that is denied when
we seek psychological security - psychological security being
self-expansion through physical necessities. A house in itself is not
important except as shelter, but we use the house as a means of
self-aggrandizement. That is why property becomes very important, and
hence we create a social system which denies the right distribution of
food, clothing and shelter.
So, it is discontent that drives, that creates, that urges us on; and
if we can understand discontent without smothering it by the search for
certainty, psychological security, if we can keep that discontent and
its flame alive, then our problem is simple; because, that very
discontent is creative, and from that we can move on. But the moment we
smother discontent, put it away, resist it, hide it, then the mind is
concerned merely with the reconciliation of effects, and discontent is
no longer a means of going forward, plunging into something unknown.
That is why it is so important for each one really to understand
oneself. The study of oneself is not an end, but a beginning; because,
there is no end in understanding oneself, it is a constant movement. If
you observe yourself very carefully, you will see that there is no fixed
moment when you can say, `I understand the whole totality of myself',
it is like reading many volumes. The more one studies oneself, the more
there is to be studied. Therefore, the movement of the self is timeless;
and that self is not the high or the low, but the self which is from
moment to moment, with its actions, its thoughts, its words. That
self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, and in that self-knowledge
one discovers a state of utter tranquillity in which the mind is not
made still, but is still; and only when the mind is still, when it is
not caught up in the thought process or occupied with its own creations -
only then is there creativeness, is there reality. It is this
creativeness, this perception of reality which will free us from our
problem, not the search for an answer to the problem.
So, self-knowledge is the technique of meditation, and without
self-knowledge there is no meditation. Self-knowledge is not something
acquired from a book, or from a guru or teacher. Self-knowledge begins
in understanding oneself from moment to moment, and that understanding
requires one's full attention to be given to each thought at any
particular moment without an end in view; because, there cannot be
complete attention when there is condemnation or justification. When the
mind condemns or justifies, it does so either to deny or to escape what
it perceives. It is much easier to condemn a child than to understand a
child. Similarly, when a thought arises, it is easier to put it away or
discipline it than to give it your undivided attention and thereby
discover its full significance. Therefore, the problem is to understand
oneself, and one can approach it rightly only when there is no
justification, condemnation or resistance - and then you will find that
the problem unfolds like a map.
To discover what is eternal, the process of the mind must be
understood. You cannot think about the unknown; you can think only about
the known, and what is known is not the real. Reality cannot be thought
about, meditated upon, pictured, or formulated; if it is, it is not
real, because it is merely the projection of the mind. It is only when
the thought process ceases, when the mind is literally and utterly still
- and stillness can come about only through self-knowledge - , that
reality is understood; and it is the real that resolves our problems,
not our cunning distractions and formulated escapes.
I have several questions here, and I shall try to answer them as briefly and clearly as possible.
Question: I have parents who are orthodox and who depend on me, but I
myself have ceased to believe in their orthodoxy. How am I to deal with
such a situation? This is a real problem to me.
Krishnamurti: Now, why has one ceased to be orthodox? Before you say,
`I have ceased to be orthodox', must you not find out why, for what
reason? Is it because you see that orthodoxy is mere repetition without
much meaning, a framework in which man lives because he is afraid to go
beyond and discover? Or, have you abandoned orthodoxy as a mere
reaction, because it is the modern thing to do to reject the ancient,
the old? Have you rejected the old without understanding it? - which is
merely a reaction. If that is the case, it is quite different, it brings
about quite a different issue. But if you have ceased to be orthodox
because you see that a mind caught in tradition, in habit, is without
understanding, then you know the full significance of orthodoxy. I do
not know which you have done: Either you have left it in protest; or,
you have abandoned it - or rather, it has fallen away from you naturally
- because you understand it. Now, if it is the latter, then what is
your responsibility to those people around you who are orthodox? Should
you yield to their orthodoxy because they are your mother and father,
and they cry and give you trouble at home, calling you an undutiful son?
Should you yield to them because they create trouble? What is your
responsibility? If you yield, then your understanding of orthodoxy has
no meaning; then you are placatory, you don't want trouble, you want to
let sleeping dogs lie. But surely, you must have trouble, a revolution
is essential; not the bloody kind of revolution, but a psychological
revolution - which is far more important than mere revolution in outward
effects. Most of us are afraid to have a fundamental revolution; we
yield to the parents saying, `There is enough trouble as it is in the
world, why should I add more?' But surely, that is not the answer, is
it? When one has trouble, it must be exposed, opened up and looked into.
Merely to accept an attitude, to concede to the parents because they
are going to give you trouble, kick you out of the house, does not bring
out clarity; it merely hides, suppresses conflict, and a conflict which
is suppressed acts as a poison in the system, in the psychological
being.
If there is tension between you and your parents, this contradiction
has to be faced if you want to live creatively, happily; but as most of
us do not want to lead a creative life and are satisfied to be dull, we
say, `It is all right, I will yield'. After all, relationship with
another, especially with a father, mother or child, is a very difficult
thing, because relationship with most of us is a matter of
gratification. We do not want any trouble in relationship. Surely, a
person who is looking for gratification, satisfaction, comfort, security
in relationship, ceases to have a relationship that is alive; he makes
that relationship into a dead thing. After all, what is relationship?
What is the function of relationship? Surely, it is a means by which I
discover my- self. Relationship is a process of self-revelation; but if
the self-revelation is unpleasant, unsatisfactory, disturbing, we do not
want to look any further into it. So, relationship becomes merely a
means of communication, and therefore a dead thing. But if relationship
is an active process in which there is self-revelation, in which I
discover myself as in a mirror, then that relationship not only brings
about conflict, disturbance, but out of it comes clarity and joy.
The question, then, is: `When you are not orthodox, what is your
responsibility to the person who is dependent on you?' Now, the older
you grow, the more orthodox you become; that is, because you know you
are soon coming to the end of your life and you don't know what awaits
you on the other side, you seek safety, security, on both sides. But a
man who believes without understanding is obviously stupid; and should
you encourage stupidity? Belief creates antagonism, the very nature of
belief is to divide: You believe in one thing, I believe in another; you
are a communist, I am a capitalist, which is merely a matter of belief;
you call yourself a Hindu, I call myself a Musalman - and we slaughter
each other. So, belief is obviously a device which sets man against man;
and recognizing all these factors, what is your responsibility? Can one
advise another as to what to do? You and I can discuss; but it is for
you to act, after looking into it. To look into it you must pay
attention, and you must face the consequences of your decision, you
cannot leave it to me or to anybody else. That means you understand and
are quite willing to face trouble, to be thrown out, to be called an
ungrateful son, and all the rest of it; it means that for you orthodoxy
does not matter, but that truth, which is the understanding of the
problem, matters immensely, and therefore you are prepared to face
trouble. But most of us do not want the clear happiness that truth
brings; want mere gratification, and therefore we concede and say, `All
right, I will do what you want me to do; but for God's sake, leave me
alone.' That way you will never create a new society, a new culture.
Question: It us the universally accepted conclusion of modern
intellectuals that educators have failed. What is, then, the task of
those whose function it is to teach the young?
Krishnamurti: There are several problems involved in this, and to
understand them, one must go very carefully into them. First of all, why
do you have children? Is it mere accident, an unwanted event? Do you
have children to carry on your name, title or estate? Or do you love,
and therefore you have children? Which is it? If you have children
merely as toys, something to play with, or if you arc lonely and a child
helps you to cover up that loneliness - then children become important
because they are your own self-projection. But if children are not a
mere means of amusement or a result of accidents, if you really love
them in the profound sense of that word - and to love somebody means to
be in complete communion with them - , then education has quite a
different significance. If as a parent you really love your children,
you will see that they have the right kind of education. In other words,
children must be helped to be intelligent, sensitive, to have a mind
and heart that are pliable, able to deal with any situation. Surely, if
you really love your child, you as a parent will not be a nationalist,
you will not belong to any country, you will not belong to any organized
religion; because, obviously, if you are a nationalist, if you worship
the State, then you inevitably destroy your son, because you are
creating war. If you really love your son, you will find out what is
your right relationship with property; because it is the possessive
instinct which has given property such enormous significance, and which
is destroying the world. Again, if you really love your children, you
will not belong to any particular religion, because belief creates
antagonism between man and man. It you love your children, you will do
all these things. So, that is one aspect.
Then the other aspect is that the educator needs educating. What are
you educating the children for? To become clerks or glorified clerks,
governors, engineers, technicians? Is that all life us, merely a matter
of glorified clerks, technicians, mechanics, human beings made into
cannon fodder? What us the purpose and intention of education? Is ut to
turn cut soldiers, lawyers and policemen? Surely, the occupations of
soldier, lawyer, and policeman, are not right professions for decent
human beings. (Laughter.) Don't laugh it off. By laughing it off, you
are pushing it aside. You can see that these professions do not
contribute to the total well-being of man, though they may be necessary
in a society that has already become corrupt. Therefore, first of all,
you have to find out why it is that you have children, and what it is
that you are educating them for. If you are merely educating them to be
technicians, naturally you will find the best technician to educate your
child, and he will be made into a machine, he will discipline himself
to conform to a pattern. Is that all there is to our existence, our
struggle and our happiness - merely to become mechanics, tank or
airplane experts, scientists, physicists inventing new ways of
destruction? Therefore, education is your responsibility, is it not?
What is it you want your children to be, or not to be? What is the
purpose of existence? If it is merely to adjust to a system, to efface
oneself for a party, then it is very simple; then all that you have to
do is to conform and fit in. But if life is meant to be lived rightly,
fully, joyously, sensitively, then there must be quite a different
process of education in which there is the cultivation of sensitivity,
of intelligence, and not mere technique - though technique is necessary.
So, as a parent - and God knows why you are parents - you have to
find out what your responsibility is. Sirs, you love so easily: you say
you love, but really you don't love your children. You have no feeling.
You accept social events and conditions as inevitable; you don't want to
transform them, to create a revolution and bring about a new culture, a
new society. Surely, it depends on you what kind of education your
children will have. As the questioner says, education throughout the
world has failed, it has produced catastrophe after catastrophe,
destruction and more destruction, bloodshed, rape and murder. Obviously,
education has failed; and if you look to the experts, the specialists,
to educate your children, the disaster must continue, because the
specialists, being concerned only with the part and not with the whole,
are themselves inhuman. Surely, the first thing is to have love; for if
there is love, it will find the way to educate the children rightly. But
you see, we are all brains and no heart; we have cultivated the
intellect, and in ourselves we are so absurdly lopsided - and then the
problem arises of what to do with the children. Surely, it is obvious
that the educator himself needs educating - and the educator is you; for
the home environment is as important as the school environment. So, you
have to transform yourself first to give the right environment to the
child; for the environment can make him either a brute, an unfeeling
technician, or a very sensitive, intelligent human being. The
environment is yourself and your action; and unless you transform
yourself, the environment, the present society in which we live, must
inevitably harm the child, make him rude, rough, unintelligent.
Surely, sirs, those who are deeply interested in this problem will
begin to transform themselves and thereby transform society, which will
in turn bring about a new means of education. But you are really not
interested. You will listen to all this and say, `Yes, I agree; but it
is too impracticable'. You don't treat it as a direct responsibility;
you are not really, fundamentally concerned. If you really loved your
son and knew the war was coming, as it inevitably is, do you mean to say
yon would not act, you would not find a way of stopping war? You see,
we don't love; we use the word `love' but the content of that word has
no meaning any more. We just use the word without a referent, without
substance, and we live merely on the word; so the complex problem is
there still, and we have to face it. And don't say I have not shown you a
way out of it. The way is yourself and your relationship with your
children, your wife, your society. You are the gleam, you are the hope;
otherwise there is no way out of this at all.
Look at what is happening. More and more governments are taking
charge of education, which means they want to produce efficient beings,
either as technicians or for war; and therefore the children must be
regimented, they must be told, not how to think, but what to think. They
are taught to live on propaganda, slogans. Because those who are in
power don't want to be disturbed, they want to keep the power, it has
become the function of government to maintain the status quo with little
alterations here and there. So, taking all these factors into
consideration, you have to find out what is the meaning of existence why
you are living, why you are producing children; and you have to find
out how to create a new environment - for, what the environment is, your
child is. He listens to your talk, he repeats what the older people
think and do. So, you have to create a right environment, not only at
home, but outside, which is society; and you have to create a new kind
of government which is radically different, which is not based on
nationalism, on the sovereign State with its armies and efficient ways
of murdering people. That implies seeing your responsibility in
relationship, and you actually see that responsibility in relationship
only when you love somebody. When your heart is full, then you find a
way. This is urgent, it is imminent - you cannot wait for the experts to
come and tell you how to educate your child. Only you who love will
find the way; for, those hearts are empty that look to the experts.
You have listened to all this, and what is your reaction? You will
say, `Yes, very nice, very good, it should be done; but let somebody
else begin' - which means, really, you don't love your child; you have
no relationship with your child, so you don't see the difficulty. The
more irresponsible you become, the more the State takes over all
responsibility - the State being the few, the party, left or right. You
yourself have to work it out because we are facing a great crisis - not a
verbal crisis, not a political or an economic crisis, but a crisis of
human degradation, of human disintegration. Therefore, it is your
responsibility; as the father, as the mother, you have got to transform
yourself. These are not just words I am indulging in. One sees this
calamity approaching so closely and dangerously, and we sit here and do
not do a thing about it; or if we do, we look to some leader and turn
our hearts over to him. It is an obvious fact that when you pursue a
leader, you choose that leader out of your own confusion, and therefore
the leader himself is confused. (Laughter.) Don't laugh it off as a
clever remark: please look at it, see what you are doing. It is you who
are responsible for the appalling horror which we have come to, and you
are not facing it. You go out and do exactly the same thing that you did
yesterday; and you feel your responsibility is over when you ask that
question about education and pass your child on to a teacher who teaches
and beats him. Don't you see? Unless you love your wife, your children,
and not merely use them as a tool or means for your own gratification,
unless you are really touched by this, you will not find a right way of
education. To educate your children means to be interested in the whole
process of life. What you think, what you do, and what you say, matters
infinitely, because that creates the environment, and it is the
environment which created the child.
Question: Marriage is a necessary part of any organized society, but
you seem to be against the institution of marriage. What do you say?
Please also explain the problem of sex. Why has it become, next to war,
the most urgent problem of our day?
Krishnamurti: To ask a question is easy, but the difficulty is to
look very carefully into the problem itself, which contains the answer.
To understand this problem, we must see its enormous implications. That
is difficult, because our time is very limited and I shall have to be
brief; and if you don't follow very closely, you may not be able to
understand. Let us investigate the problem, not the answer, because the
answer is in the problem, not away from it. The more I understand the
problem, the clearer I see the answer. If you merely look for an answer,
you will not find one, because you will be seeking an answer away from
the problem. Let us look at marriage, but not theoretically or as an
ideal, which is rather absurd; don't let us idealize marriage, let us
look at it as it is, for then we can do something about it. If you make
it rosy, then you can't act; but if you look at it and see it exactly as
it is, then perhaps you will be able to act.
Now, what actually takes place? When one is young, the biological,
sexual urge is very strong, and in order to set a limit to it you have
the institution called marriage. There is the biological urge on both
sides, so you marry and have children. You tie yourself to a man or to a
woman for the rest of your life, and in doing so you have a permanent
source of pleasure, a guaranteed security, with the result that you
begin to disintegrate; you live in a cycle of habit, and habit is
disintegration. To understand this biological, this sexual urge,
requires a great deal of intelligence, but we are not educated to be
intelligent. We merely get on with a man or a woman with whom we have to
live. I marry at 20 or 25, and I have to live for the rest of my life
with a woman whom I have not known. I have-not known a thing about her,
and yet you ask me to live with her for the rest of my life. Do you call
that marriage? As I grow and observe, I find her to be completely
different from me, her interests are different from mine; she is
interested in clubs, I am interested in being very serious, or vice
versa. And yet we have children - that is the most extraordinary thing.
Sirs, don't look at the ladies and smile; it is your problem. So, I have
established a relationship the significance of which I do not know, I
have neither discovered it nor understood it.
It is only for the very, very few who love that the married
relationship has significance, and then it is unbreakable, then it is
not mere habit or convenience, nor is it based on biological, sexual
need. In that love which is unconditional the identities are fused, and
in such a relationship there is a remedy, there is hope. But for most of
you, the married relationship is not fused. To fuse the separate
identities, you have to know yourself, and she has to know herself. That
means to love. But there is no love - which is am obvious fact. Love is
fresh, new, not mere gratification, not mere habit. It is
unconditional. You don't treat your husband or wife that way, do you?
You live in your isolation, and she lives in her isolation, and you have
established your habits of assured sexual pleasure. What happens to a
man who has an assured income? Surely, he deteriorates. Have you not
noticed it? Watch a man who has an assured income and you will soon see
how rapidly his mind is withering away. He may have a big position, a
reputation for cunning, but the full joy of life is gone out of him.
Similarly, you have a marriage in which you have a permanent source
of pleasure, a habit without understanding, without love, and you are
forced to live in that state. I am not saying what you should do; but
look at the problem first. Do you think that is right? It does not mean
that you must throw off your wife and pursue somebody else. What does
this relationship mean? Surely, to love is to be in communion with
somebody; but are you in communion with your wife, except physically? Do
you know her, except physically? Does she know you? Are you not both
isolated, each pursuing his or her own interests, ambitions and needs,
each seeking from the other gratification, economic or psychological
security? Such a relationship is not a relationship at all: it is a
mutually self-enclosing process of psychological, biological and
economic necessity, and the obvious result is conflict, misery, nagging,
possessive fear, jealousy, and so on. Do you think such a relationship
is productive of anything except ugly babies and an ugly civilization?
Therefore, the important thing is to see the whole process, not as
something ugly, but as an actual fact which is taking place under your
very nose; and realizing that, what are you going to do? You cannot just
leave it at that; but because you do not want to look into it, you take
to drink, to politics, to a lady around the corner, to anything that
takes you away from the house and from that nagging wife or husband -
and you think you have solved the problem. That is your life, is it not?
Therefore, you have to do something about it, which means you have to
face it, and that means, if necessary, breaking up; because, when a
father and mother are constantly nagging and quarrelling with each
other, do you think that has not an effect on the children? And we have
already considered, in the previous question, the education of children.
So, marriage as a habit, as a cultivation of habitual pleasure, is a
deteriorating factor, because there is no love in habit. Love is not
habitual; love is something joyous, creative, new. Therefore, habit is
the contrary of love; but you are caught in habit, and naturally your
habitual relationship with another is dead. So, we come back again to
the fundamental issue, which is that the reformation of society depends
on you, not on legislation. Legislation can only make for further habit
or conformity. Therefore, you as a responsible individual in
relationship have to do something, you have to act, and you can act only
when there is an awakening of your mind and heart. I see some of you
nodding your heads in agreement with me, but the obvious fact is that
you don't want to take the responsibility for transformation, for
change; you don't want to face the upheaval of finding out how to live
rightly. And so the problem continues, you quarrel and carry on, and
finally you die; and when you die somebody weeps, not for the other
fellow, but for his or her own loneliness. You carry on unchanged and
you think you are human beings capable of legislation, of occupying high
positions, talking about God, finding a way to stop wars, and so on.
None of these things mean anything, because you have not solved any of
the fundamental issues.
Then, the other part of the problem is sex, and why sex has become so
important. Why has this urge taken such a hold on you? Have you ever
thought it out? You have not thought it out, because you have just
indulged; you have not searched out why there is this problem. Sirs, why
is there this problem? And what happens when you deal with it by
suppressing it completely - you know, the ideal of Brahmacharya, and so
on? What happens? It is still there. You resent anybody who talks about a
woman, and you think that you can succeed in completely suppressing the
sexual urge in yourself and solve your problem that way; but you are
haunted by it. It is like living in a house and putting all your ugly
things in one room; but they are still there. So, discipline is not
going to solve this problem - discipline being sublimation, suppression,
substitution - , because you have tried it, and that is not the way
out. So, what is the way out? The way out is to understand the problem,
and to understand is not to condemn or justify. Let us look at it, then,
in that way.
Why has sex become so important a problem in your life? Is not the
sexual act, the feeling, a way of self-forgetfulness? Do you understand
what I mean? In that act there is complete fusion; at that moment there
is complete cessation of all conflict, you feel supremely happy because
you no longer feel the need as a separate entity and you are not
consumed with fear. That is, for a moment there is an ending of
self-consciousness, and you feel the clarity of self-forgetfulness, the
joy of self abnegation. So, sex has become important because in every
other direction you are living a life of conflict, of
self-aggrandizement and frustration. Sirs, look at your lives,
political, social, religious: you are striving to become something.
Politically, you want to be somebody, powerful, to have position,
prestige. Don't look at somebody else, don't look at the ministers. If
you were given all that, you would do the same thing. So, politically,
you are striving to become somebody, you are expanding yourself, are you
not? Therefore, you are creating conflict, there is no denial, there is
no abnegation of the `me'. On the contrary, there is accentuation of
the `me'. The same process goes on in your relationship with things,
which is ownership of property, and again in the religion that you
follow. There is no meaning in what you are doing, in your religious
practices. You just believe, you cling to labels, words. If you observe,
you will see that there too there is no freedom from the consciousness
of the `me' as the centre. Though your religion says, `Forget yourself',
your very process is the assertion of yourself, you are still the
important entity. You may read the Gita or the Bible, but you are still
the minister, you are still the exploiter, sucking the people and
building temples.
So, in every field, in every activity, you are indulging and
emphasizing yourself, your importance, your prestige, your security.
Therefore, there is only one source of self-forgetfulness, which is sex,
and that is why the woman or the man becomes all-important to you, and
why you must possess. So, you build a society which enforces that
possession, guarantees you that possession; and naturally sex becomes
the all-important problem when everywhere else the self is the important
thing. And do you think, Sirs, that one can live in that state without
contradiction, without misery, without frustration? But when there is
honestly and sincerely no self-emphasis, whether in religion or in
social activity, then sex has very little meaning. It is because you are
afraid to be as nothing, politically, socially, religiously, that sex
becomes a problem; but if in all these things you allowed yourself to
diminish, to be the less, you would see that sex becomes no problem at
all.
There is chastity only when there is love. When there is love, the
problem of sex ceases; and without love, to pursue the ideal of
Brahmacharya is an absurdity, because the ideal is unreal. The real is
that which you are; and if you don't understand your own mind, the
workings of your own mind, you will not understand sex, because sex is a
thing of the mind. The problem is not simple. It needs, not mere
habit-forming practices, but tremendous thought and enquiry into your
relationship with people, with property and with ideas. Sir, it means
you have to undergo strenuous searching of your heart and mind, thereby
bringing a transformation within yourself. Love is chaste; and when
there is love, and not the mere idea of chastity created by the mind,
then sex has lost its problem and has quite a different meaning.
Question: In my view, the guru is one who awakens me to truth, to reality. What is wrong in my taking to such a guru?
Krishnamurti: This question arises because I have said that gurus are
an impediment to truth. Don't say you are wrong and I am right, or I am
wrong and you are right, but let us examine the problem and find out.
Let us enquire like mature, thoughtful people, without denying and
without justifying.
Which is more important, the guru or you? And why do you go to a
guru? You say, `To be awakened to truth'. Are you really going to a guru
to be awakened to truth? Let us think this out very clearly. Surely,
when you go to a guru you are actually seeking gratification. That is
you have a problem and your life is a mess, it is in confusion; and
because you want to escape from it, you go to somebody whom you call a
guru to find consolation verbally, or to escape an ideation. That is the
actual process, and that process you call seeking truth. That is, you
want comfort, you want gratification, you want your confusion cleared
away by somebody; and the person who helps you to find escapes you call a
guru. Actually, not theoretically, you look to a guru who will assure
you of what you want. You go guru-hunting as you go window-shopping: you
see what suits you best, and then buy it. In India, that is the
position: You go around hunting for gurus, and when you find one you
hold on to his feet or neck or hand till he gratifies you. To touch a
man's feet - that is one of the most extraordinary things. You touch the
guru's feet and kick your servants, and thereby you destroy human
beings, you lose human significance. So, you go to a guru to find
gratification, not truth. The idea may be that he should awaken you to
truth, but the actual fact is that you find comfort. Why? Because you
say, `I can't solve my problem, somebody must help me'. Can anybody help
you to solve the confusion which you have created? What is confusion?
Confusion with regard to what, suffering with regard to what? Confusion
and suffering exist in your relationship with things, people and ideas;
and if you cannot understand that confusion which you have created, how
can another help you? He can tell you what to do, but you have to do it
for yourself, it is your own responsibility; and because you are
unwilling to take that responsibility, you sneak off to the guru - that
is the right expression to use, `sneak off' - and you think you have
solved the problem. On the contrary, you have not solved it at all; you
have escaped, but the problem is still there. And, strangely, you always
choose a guru who will assure you of what you want; therefore you are
not seeking truth, and therefore the guru is not important. You are
actually seeking someone who will satisfy you in your desires; that is
why you create a leader, religious or political, and give yourself over
to him, and that is why you accept his authority. Authority is evil,
whether religious or political, because it is the leader and his
position that are all-important, and you are unimportant. You are a
human being with sorrow, pain, suffering, joy, and when you deny
yourself and give yourself over to somebody, you are denying reality;
because it is only through yourself that you can find reality, not
through somebody else.
Now, you say that you accept a guru as one who awakens you to
reality. Let us find out if it is possible for another to awaken you to
reality. I hope you are following all this, because it is your problem,
not mine. Let us find out the truth about whether another can awaken you
to reality. Can I, who have been talking for an hour and a half, awaken
you to reality, to that which is real? The term `guru' implies, does it
not?, a man who leads you to truth, to happiness, to bliss eternal. Is
truth a static thing that someone can lead you to? Someone can direct
you to the station. Is truth like that, static, something permanent to
which you can be led? It is static only when you create it out of your
desire for comfort. But truth is not static, nobody can lead you to
truth. Beware of the person who says he can lead you to truth, because
it is not true. Truth is something unknown from moment to moment, it
cannot be captured by the mind, it cannot be formulated, it has no
resting place. Therefore, no one can lead you to truth. You may ask me,
`Why are you talking here?' All that I am doing is pointing out to you
what is and how to understand what is as it is, not as it should be. I
am not talking about the ideal, but about a thing that is actually right
in front of you, and it is for you to look and see it. Therefore, you
are more important than I, more important than any teacher, any saviour,
any slogan, any belief; because you can find truth only through
yourself, not through another. When you repeat the truth of another, it
is a lie. Truth cannot be repeated. All that you can do is to see the
problem as it is, and not escape. When you see the thing as it actually
is, then you begin to awaken, but not when you are compelled by another.
There is no saviour but yourself. When you have the intention and the
attention to look directly at what is, then your very attention awakens
you, because in attention everything is implied. To give attention, you
must be devoted to what is, and to understand what is, you must have
knowledge of it. Therefore, you must look, observe, give it your
undivided attention, for all things are contained in that full attention
you give to what is.
So, the guru cannot awaken you; all that he can do is to point out
what is. Truth is not a thing that can be caught by the mind. The guru
can give you words, he can give you an explanation, the symbols of the
mind; but the symbol is not the real, and if you are caught in the
symbol, you will never find the way. Therefore, that which is important
is not the teacher, it is not the symbol, it is not the explanation, but
it is you who are seeking truth. To seek rightly is to give attention,
not to God, not to truth, because you don't know it, but attention to
the problem of your relationship with your wife, your children, your
neighbour. When you establish right relationship then you love truth;
for truth is not a thing that can be bought, truth does not come into
being through self-immolation or through the repetition of mantras.
Truth comes into being only when there is self-knowledge. Self-knowledge
brings understanding, and when there is understanding, there are no
problems. When there are no problems, then the mind is quiet, it is no
longer caught up in its own creations. When the mind is not creating
problems, when it understands each problem immediately as it arises,
then it is utterly still, not made still. This total process is
awareness, and it brings about a state of undisturbed tranquillity which
is not the outcome of any discipline, of any practice or control, but
is the natural outcome of understanding every problem as it arises.
Problems arise only in relationship; and when there is understanding of
one's relationship with things, with people and with ideas, then there
is no disturbance of any kind in the mind and the thought process is
silent. In that state there is neither the thinker nor the thought, the
observer nor the observed. Therefore, the thinker ceases, and then the
mind is no longer caught in time; and when there is no time, the
timeless comes into being. But the timeless cannot be thought of. The
mind, which is the product of time, cannot think of that which is
timeless. Thought cannot conceive or formulate that which is beyond
thought. When it does, its formulation is still part of thought.
Therefore, eternity is not a thing of the mind; eternity comes into
being only when there is love, for love in itself is eternal. Love is
not something abstract to be thought about; love is to be found only in
relationship with your wife, your children, your neighbour. When you
know that love which is unconditional, which is not the product of the
mind, then reality comes into being, and that state is utter bliss.
