[Mr. Krishnamurti gave
brief addresses over the Radio at the invitation. of the Broadcasting Stations
in several cities visited by him during his travels in the U.S.A and in
Most people are trying to seek physical, mental
or emotional comfort. Now I say that wherever there is the pursuit of
satisfaction, there is a narrowing down of thought and emotion, which brings
about a mediocrity of outlook on life. Our whole structure of thought and
civilization has been based on the search for consolation, for satisfaction,
whereas from my point of view, the search after comfort cannot bring
understanding, and in understanding alone is there the realization of intense
living.
In seeking comfort there is continual
conformity, and, therefore, dependence on another, on one’s neighbour or
friend, so that, as an individual, one becomes incapable of thinking truly.
There is a continual imitation, and in this effort to adapt one’s own mind to a
particular ideal, there cannot be completeness of
thought, because one does not think through, one is all the time being hindered
by circumstances, by society, by tradition. Most people thus live in this continual
state of fear through conformity.
To me, where there is conformity, there is
death; where there is compromise, there is mediocrity, stagnation and slow
decay; whereas, if one thinks intensely and completely, irrespective of
tradition, or habit, the mind frees itself from this idea of fear, and
therefore, there is no longer the search for security, whether physical or
mental or emotional, whether for our existence in this world or in another.
* *
* *
Now you are held within the walls of the
prison of your own fashioning, and you look to aid from without, but no one can
help you, or give you the strength to free yourself from the walls that enclose
you, except yourself.
So, being prisoners of want and craving, we are
all the time concerned about what is Truth, what is God or Light. We can know
this only when we are out of the prison. Yet we do not, in our intensity of
suffering, break down the walls, which we have created by ourselves, so what we
do is merely to imagine what a spiritual life would be, Thus
we merely bring the idea into the prison but we do not break down the walls. It
is only by breaking down the illusions created through want, through craving,
that we rid the mind of the idea of distinctions, so that there is no longer a
struggle.
I say therefore do not assume anything. Do not
struggle to imagine what a perfect Life, or what Truth must be; but become
aware of the fact that you are the creator of your own prison, and in facing
that fact, in recognizing that through your own cravings, through your desire
for accumulation of a multitude of things, or of knowledge, you create the
prison that holds you. Where there is craving there must be struggle for
achievement, and the achievement, as it were, withers in your hand, because in
the very moment of gratification or fulfilment it has already lost its
significance and is discarded. And thus continues a ceaseless struggle.
So, in order to understand truly this ceaseless
struggle without meaning, and be free of it, become conscious that you are a
prisoner, and then you, as an individual, will step out of this prison, which
is this so-called Civilization, based on selfishness, this monstrous structure
which has been raised through the centuries.
And it is only through becoming aware that you
and no one else are the creator of the walls of the prison which holds you, and
becoming fully conscious of your actions, which are the result of your thoughts
and feelings, that you can destroy the prison. And when the mind is free and no
longer bound by a personal idea or the limitation of personal affection, there comes harmony, and the quietude of living intensity. Then
alone you will know that which is Eternal. So, do not
seek the Eternal, but become aware in the present of the cause of suffering;
and in that flame of awareness you will know the freedom of harmony, which is
Truth.
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* *
I am going to try to explain what seems to me the most important and natural attitude of life. One’s thinking and one’s actions are at present conditioned, limited by social, economic and religious ideas, and one has become merely a cog in a vast machine. One is not responsible or certain, and out of that uncertainty and irresponsibility one’s actions are all the time disharmonious and in conflict. And where there is conflict in thinking and feeling, and therefore in action, there follows sorrow, and most people in the world, the thoughtless and the clever alike, are caught up in sorrow.
To
be free of that sorrow one must become conscious that one is but imitating,
that one’s feelings and thinking are merely the result of continual conformity
to established ideals and standards which one follows blindly. And thereby
one’s true instinct has been perverted.
Now,
we cannot trust our instinct, because throughout these many centuries instinct
has been perverted by public opinion, by tradition, by spiritual authority, and
so on. Our own instinct which is our true guide, has
been thus ruthlessly perverted, and hence we have naturally lost all confidence
in it. So, once again to discover pure instinct, we must begin to see how our
thoughts and feelings are conditioned through fear, through imitation; and in
truly facing those limitations imposed by society and religion, through the
many standards and ideals, we shall release the natural intelligence which is
intuition, which is true instinct.
* * * *
What
I am saying is not in any way philosophical, nor is it Western or Oriental
thought expressed to suit modern minds, because to me philosophy, that is, a
system of thought, merely limits the freedom of feeling and thinking and brings
about a conformity, and imitation. I am not in any way offering a remedy or a
panacea to the world’s existing ills, nor giving you a
system whereby you can find happiness.
Throughout the world, everyone is seeking happiness, the happiness which endures, but such happiness is not to be found through conformity of any kind. Conformity, which is imitation, begins from childhood, through education, through the impact of society, and of external circumstances. Thus we tend to make our thoughts and our feelings correspond to public opinion and subserve religious ideas, or spiritual authority.
If you consider any philosophy or religion, you
will find in it a method laid down, whereby one can come to the realization of
Truth or God. All that we do is to conform, imitate and force our thinking and
our feeling into the particular mould of that system, and thus we merely become
cogs in a social or a religious machine. Our whole structure of modern
civilization is based entirely on conformity and adjustment to standards which
have been laid down by an authority, the authority of public opinion or of a
spiritual teacher. And as with church, society, worship and ideals, so it is
with education: continual conformity results in the suffocation of individual
thinking.
But what happens in actual Life? We have an
experience–death, or failure in business or a great disillusionment–and that
experience makes us suffer; forces us to think. So, faced by conflict,
confusion and misery, we break away from conformity, from imitation, in which
there lies insecurity, falseness, and we begin to think for ourselves, thus
increasing the conflict. Now when this happens, what do we do? We seek a
way to conquer that conflict, that sorrow, not by understanding the cause, but
by seeking a means of escape, and we establish an ideal and we hope by means of
that ideal to forget the conflict. So, from conformity one awakens to conflict,
and from conflict one escapes to a satisfaction, a consolation, which is again
a limitation, and thus one is bound to this process of continual escape from
the present, in which alone is Immortality. I say that there is understanding
of the present, not in conforming to the memory of the past or by pursuit of an
ideal in the future, but in the continual awareness which reveals all
conflicts; in facing them and not in trying to escape from them. To face them
is to become aware that the cause of suffering will exist so long as there is
the pursuit of craving, which is different from need. It is in the intensity of
living in the present without the hindrance of conformity or escape, that there
comes an ecstasy, an everlasting happiness which to me is the blessedness of
Truth.
Question:
- What have you to say as regards religion and philosophy as educative factors
in the life of an individual? How far, according to you, is religion of any
value to the understanding of Truth? Is religious leadership compatible with
true spirituality?
What
is your conception of God?
Krishnamurti:
- To me, religion or philosophy is a system to mould a mind. I say that Truth
cannot be found through a system, through a guide. Religion cannot show the
path to Truth, because Truth or God or Life, whatever be
the name we give this Reality, can only be realized through individual
awareness. Religion and philosophy but superimpose the ideas of others on our
minds and thereby dull and cripple our thoughts. They set up ideals and
standards to which we continually try to conform. Because our thought is
conditioned by tradition, by imitation, by fear, our action also must be
limited, and therefore out of that action there springs sorrow. It is only through
the intense awareness of mind and heart, through the clear perception of thought, that we can come to the freedom from sorrow and to
the realization of that which is eternal.
* *
* *
As I have said, Truth cannot be realized through
any organized form of thought. You have perhaps heard the story of how the
devil and a friend were walking one day, and they saw a man ahead pick up
something, look at it intently, and put it in his pocket. The friend asked the
devil, “What was it that he picked up?” and the devil replied, “ Oh! he picked up a bit of
Truth.” The friend said, “That’s very
bad business for you, then, isn’t it,” and the devil replied, “Oh I no, I shall
get him to organize it.”
One cannot organize Truth because realization is
purely an individual matter. Where mind and heart are pursuing a system and are
not entirely relying on their own strength, on their own integrity, there must
then be confusion in one’s life.
And so, an organized system of thought, a
spiritual authority, is to me the utter denial of Truth, because Truth, the
Godhead of understanding, cannot be realised through a system or through
another. No one can eave man except himself and this
is the greatness of man, that in himself, in his own fullness of action, lies
the realization of Truth.
* *
* *
If you were to ask a Hindu, a Christian,
a Buddhist, a Muhammadan or a Hebrew to describe God,
each of them will try to give expression to his particular conception. That is,
each one will contrive to give shape to God in accordance with his particular
fancy, his particular predilection or prejudice.
Now, God or Life or Truth cannot be conceived
and described. If you had never seen the sea,
and some one were to come and describe it to you, you could but imagine
it, but your idea cannot convey the reality to you. Likewise, being limited,
being finite and conditioned, you try to imagine the immeasurable, the
indescribable. Like a prisoner who craves for liberty, begins to imagine and
worship the beauty, the ecstasy, the majesty of freedom, but does not break
down the walls that hold him prisoner, so does man toy
with the conception of God, of that Reality, through the prison bars of his
limitations. Now I say that there is immortality, that there is eternity of which
I know, but it cannot be grasped by the mind in limitation. So I say, do not concern yourself about it, but rather concern
yourself with the present with which you live, with the conflict, the
cruelty, and the suffering of everyday incidents. Thus when you begin to free
the mind and heart from this limitation, from this illusion, from this prison
of sorrow of many centuries, you will know for yourself that everlasting
eternity called Life or God or Truth. Therefore live with intensity in the
present, for in the present alone is eternity. Immortality is not in a distant
future, and the concern about your individual destiny is but vain effort. In
the present is the Godhead of understanding which is supreme intelligence.
Question: - The whole
world is at present passing through a very critical phase. There is acute
economic crisis throughout the world, under a darkened political firmament. To
what cause or causes would you attribute this state of affairs, and what
remedy would you suggest?
Krishnamurti :
- We desire to solve our economic difficulties by a miracle, We have built up a
system through centuries, based on competition and selfishness. Now, we must
aim not at the substitution of one system for another, but at a complete
re-orientation of our minds and hearts. We have set up innumerable authorities,
as religions, teachers, gods, for our worship. Individually in the field of
thought, therefore, we have become as lambs; but with regard to work for our
living, like so many wolves.
It is of the utmost importance that we go to the
root of the problem, That is, in the field of thinking and feeling we must not
set up another as a guide, but be integrally alone, whereas in work we must
plan together collectively for our living, Therein lies the remedy: it is by
the expression of individuality in its rightful place that you can find
freedom, which is Truth; and in the realization of that Truth you will solve
your social and economic problems, By merely trimming the branches of the tree
you will not solve your troubles, but if you properly nourish the roots, the
branches will be healthy and abundant, So work for the change of heart and mind
individually and then these problems will solve
themselves.
The present civilization has been based on greed
and individual competition and therefore cannot last forever, because it has no
intrinsic value. At present the individual who is the outcome of our present
civilization, has been caught up in accumulation which is his sole incentive
that is the individual has tried to express his ambition and attain his desired
social position through the accumulation of wealth and power. He has therefore
set up social distinctions, and hence a civilization as it is, which is based
on utter ruthless selfishness, must eventually break down, It
is merely a matter of time.
As long as we have this conception of
individuality, based on selfishness and greed, no civilization, no structure
built on it can last long, nor can it free the mind from sorrow.
Up till now spiritually we have been slaves;
that is, we have followed, we have imitated, we have set up spiritual
authorities, and tradition has bound our minds, No matter to which country we
belong, there is, I am afraid, everywhere a constant adjustment towards a
tradition. In thought and emotion, as individuals we have merely conformed,
while in the world of action we have lived utterly for ourselves, selfishly, in
the pursuit of our own security. As I said, I am not giving you a panacea, but
from my point of view, only when we understand the right function of
individuality, is there a way out of this chaos. To me, individuality can be
expressed only in the world of thought, not in the world of existence; that is,
we must think intensely for ourselves, untrammelled by tradition, by habit, or
by the fear of public opinion. But in order to secure the needs for our
existence, we must co-operate, work and plan together; that is, we must get rid
of this idea of nationality, flags and frontiers, and thereby we shall come to
solve the economic problem through a human point of view–not through national
or separative prejudices.
* *
* *
When society is built on selfishness, on
ruthless competition, when one fights another for security for himself, as in
the structure of our present civilization, then that social order must
eventually collapse. Man, through his possessive craving, has built up what he
calls a civilization. To that world he clings, and naturally a structure based
on continual want,on
continual achievement of successive heights of empty nothingness, must
eventually crumble.
Now, what is the remedy?
There is no world panacea. We can individually,
and therefore collectively, see the basic cause, and individually and therefore
collectively, step out of that system which is its inevitable product.
In the world of action, man, as an individual,
has become ruthlessly aggressive in his desire for possessions, in his search
for security. He has used his mind for his selfish cravings.
Now, I say that one must think utterly for
oneself, and be free of all imitation; that one must maintain one’s
individuality in its integrity in thought and feeling; thereby alone can there
be the spontaneity of true co-operation in the world of action, in the
collective work for the benefit of all.
In seeking that which is eternal, there is true
work for all, based on human needs, not on human greed and exploitation. And,
when you, as an individual, break down this narrowness of patriotism,
nationality, flag-waving and war, when you, as an individual cease to be an
exploiter through your strength and through your selfish cleverness, then will
come to you the peace, the understanding, for which you now grope in vain.
* *
* *
When you are no longer a cog in the machine of
society where you exploit and are exploited, when you, the individual, do not
abandon yourself to authority, when you free yourself from all traditions which
cripple your mind and heart, when you cease to look for happiness, for Truth,
through another, then you will become utterly responsible in action and thus
will create an understanding of life, based on Truth and Freedom.
–Reprinted
from Triveni, Jan.–Feb. 1933