Talks and Dialogues Saanen 1968

It is only the religious mind that is a truly revolutionary mind; there is no other revolutionary mind, whether calling itself revolutionary from the extreme left or centre, it is not revolutionary. The mind which calls itself left or centre is only dealing with a fragment of the totality and is even breaking that fragment into various other parts; it is not a truly revolutionary mind at all. The really religious mind in the deep sense of that word is truly revolutionary because it is beyond the left, the right and the centre. To understand this and co-operate with each other is to bring about a different social order; and it is our responsibility. If we could put away all these immature, childish things, I think we could be the salt of the earth; and that is the only reason for which we have come together, there is no other reason. You are not going to get something from me, nor I from you. That which is absolutely essential is not possible round an ideology. I think that is fairly obvious, historically and factually. What is going on in the world indicates this, the division and conflict of ideologies; you, knowing of an ideology however superior, however great, however noble cannot possibly bring about co-operation; perhaps it can bring about a destructive tyranny, of the left or right, but it cannot possibly bring this co-operation of understanding and love.

Authority gives a great deal of satisfaction to the man who exercises it in whatever name he does so he derives immense pleasure and therefore he is the most...! One has to be tremendously aware of such a person; from the beginning of these talks let us be very clear on this one point, at least. Seriousness entails non-acceptance of any authority, including the speaker. There are those who come from the East, unfortunately, who maintain that they have most extraordinary experiences, that they can show the past to another, that they know how to give some word which will help you to meditate most excellently. I do not know if you are caught in those kinds of traps many people are, thousands, millions are. Such authority prevents a human being from being a light to himself. When each one of us is a light to himself then only can we co-operate, then only can we love, then only is there a sense of communion with each other. But if you have your particular authority, whether that authority be an individual or an experience which you yourself have felt, have known, then that experience, that authority, that conclusion, that definite position, prevents communication with each other. It is only a mind that is really free that can commune, that can co-operate.

It is only possible to act totally and not in fragments, when we see totally the whole human problem not the fragments. So, what is the problem? What is the total, essential, problem of the human being, which having been understood, having been seen (as you would see a tree, a lovely cloud) then all the other fragments can be resolved? From there you can act. So what is this total perception this total seeing? I am asking, you have to find the answer. If you wait for me to give the answer and you accept it, then it will not be yours, then I become the 'authority', which I abhor. So, what is your response, as a human being living in this world with all the turmoil, with all the disturbances, revolutions, this terrible division between man and man, the immoral society, the religious immorality of the priests, when you see all this spread out before you, and see the agony of man what is your response? How do you act to it? Either you belong to a part, to a fragment and try to convert all the fragments to your particular fragment which is obviously so immature, so meaningless or you see this whole fragmentation and that very seeing gives you a total perception. So, what is to you the essential problem, the essential issue, the one challenge, which, if answered completely, then all the other problems are dissolved, or understood, or can be tackled?

You know, what I am trying to say is really quite simple. You must find a new way of living, a new way of acting, to find out what love means. And to find that out you cannot use the old instruments that we have. The intellect, the emotions, the tradition, the accumulated knowledge, those are the old instruments. We have exercised those instruments, used them so endlessly and they have not brought about a different world, a different state of mind; they are utterly useless. They have their value at certain levels of existence but they have no value when we are asking, when we are trying to find out, a way of living which is totally new. To put it differently; our crisis is not in the world but in consciousness itself. It is not, how to stop a war, or reform universities, or give more work or less work and more pay and so on, on that level there is no answer; any reform gives more complication. The crisis is in the mind itself, in your mind, in your consciousness. And, unless you respond to that crisis, to that challenge, you will add, consciously or unconsciously, to the confusion, the misery and to this immensity of sorrow.

Our crisis is in the mind, in our consciousness and we have to respond to it totally. What is the true response, the essential issue? Obviously, as we have seen, thought cannot help us there; which does not mean we become vague, dreamy, dull. When you no longer use thought, to find out for yourself what the essential issue in life is, then what has taken place in the mind? Do you understand my question are we communicating with each other? Do say yes or no. To communicate, to commune with each other, we must be at the same level at the same time with the same intensity. It is like love and if you say yes, it means that you have put away, for the time being, thought as an instrument of discovery. Then you and the speaker are on the same level. We both are intense to find out and you are not waiting for me to tell you. When you tell somebody, 'I love you', either you say it casually and do not mean it, or you say it with intensity, with a depth and with a quality of urgency and if the other person is rather indifferent, is looking in another direction, then communion between the two ceases. This communion in only possible when both are intense, not casual, not holding back. You know, when you are both generous you understand it does produce an extraordinary intensity; the giver and the receiver cease to exist.

One asks, is it possible to be free? Is it possible for us as we are, conditioned, shaped by every influence, by propaganda, by the books we read, the cinemas, the radios, the magazines all impinging on the mind, shaping it to live in this world completely free, not only consciously, but at the very roots of our being? That, it seems to me, is the challenge, is the only issue. Because if one is not free, there is no love; there is jealousy, anxiety, fear, domination, the pursuit of pleasure, sexually or otherwise. If one is not free one cannot see clearly and there is no sense of beauty. This is not mere argument, supporting a theory that man must be free; such a theory again becomes an ideology, which again will divide people. So, if to you that is the central issue, the main challenge of life, then it is not a question of whether you are happy or unhappy that becomes secondary whether you can get on with others or whether your beliefs and your opinions are more important than those of another. All those are side issues which will be answered if this central issue is fully, deeply, understood and answered. If you really feel that that is the only challenge in life seeing the actual facts around you and the actual facts inside yourself, how narrow, petty, small we are, anxious, guilty, fearful if you see that hanging on to other people's ideas, opinions, judgments, worshipping public opinion, having heroes, examples, breeds fragmentation and division if you yourself have seen very clearly the whole map of human existence with its nationalities and wars, the divisions of gods and priests and ideologies, the conflict and the misery and the sorrow if you yourself see all this, not as given by another, not as an idea, not as a something to be aspired to then there is a complete inward sense of freedom, then there is no fear of death, then you and the speaker are in communion, you and the speaker can communicate with each other. Is it at all possible, we can then go into it step by step? But if to you that is not the main interest, that is not the main challenge and you ask if it is possible for a human being to find God, Truth, love and all the rest of it, you are not free, then how can you find anything; how can you explore, take a voyage, if you carry with you all that burden, all that fear that you have accumulated through generation after generation? That is the only issue; is it possible for human beings, you and me, to be really free?

Here is the question, whether it is possible for a human being, you, an individual, living in this world, going to the office, or keeping a house, having children and so on and on, living in a very complex society, living intimately in a relationship, whether it is possible to be free? Is it possible to live, a man with a woman, in a relationship in which there is complete freedom, in which there is no domination, no jealousy, no obedience and therefore a relationship in which perhaps there is love? Now, is this possible?

If you see, as well as the speaker, the importance of being completely free from fear, from jealousy, anxiety, free from the fear of death and the fear of not being loved, from the fear of loneliness and the fear of not becoming successful, famous, achieving, you know, all the fears if for you this is the central issue then we can start from there. Complete freedom is the only issue in human existence, for man has sought freedom from the very beginning of time, only he has said 'there is freedom in heaven, not on earth', each group, each community, has its different ideology of freedom. Discarding, putting aside, all that, we are asking, if, living here, now, it is possible to be free? If you and I see this common factor as the only challenge in life then we can begin to find out for ourselves in what manner to approach it, how to look at it, how to come by it. Shall we start from there?

We said, peace or love or beauty is not possible unless there is complete freedom. We said that it is obviously not possible to be free, totally, completely, if inwardly, psychologically, we follow a method, a system, or a particular habit which we have cultivated, perhaps for many years or many generations, which has become tradition. Why do we do this? I hope I am making the question clear. The tradition may be of yesterday, or a thousand years. It is tradition to believe that you are a Catholic or a Protestant. It is a system when you say 'I am a Frenchman' and when you belong to a particular group or think according to a particular culture. Why we do this? Is it that the mind is constantly seeking security, wanting to be safe, certain? Can a mind that is constantly searching out security for itself, psychologically, ever be free? And if it is not free can it ever see what is true, can it ever see what is true through a system or tradition that promises the eventual beauty, the incalculable state of mind? Do please let us think it over, or rather let us go into it. Do not, if I may suggest, do not merely listen to a lot of words. To say, 'intellectually, I understand' is such a false statement. When we say we understand intellectually, we mean, we hear a lot of words of which we understand the meaning. But to understand means also immediate action; not, first there is understanding and later, perhaps many days after, there is action. You see the significance of the particular problem; you see that freedom cannot possibly be when there is any pursuit of the acceptance or the obedience of any particular ideology or tradition. If you see that, actually, not verbally, then there is action, you drop it immediately. But if you say 'I understand what you are talking about verbally' that is merely an avoidance of the fact.

Now, have you done it? If you have not done it we cannot proceed any further. Look to put it much more simply when you see a tree there is the observer, the seer, and the thing seen. Between the observer and the thing observed there is space; between the entity that sees the tree and the tree, there is space. The observer looks at that tree and has various images or ideas about trees; through those innumerable images he looks at the tree. Can he eliminate those images botanical, aesthetic, and so on so that he looks at the tree without any image, without any ideas? Have you ever tried it? If you have not tried it, if you do not do it, you will not be able to go into this much more complex problem which we are investigating; that of the mind that has looked at everything as the 'observer', as something different from the thing observed and therefore with a space, a distance, between himself as the 'observer' and the thing 'observed' as you have the space between the tree and yourself. If you can do it, that is, if you can look at a tree without any 'image', without any knowledge, then the observer is the observed. That does not mean he becomes the tree which would be too silly but that the distance between the 'observer' and the 'observed' disappears. And that is not a kind of mystical, abstract or lovely state, or that you go into an ecstasy.

In what manner is it possible to bring about the state of inward awareness in which to see what is actually taking place in ourselves, without any bias, without any neurotic assumptions, being aware, choicelessly, of what is actually going on? I do not know if you have ever tried (not psychologically) to examine every thought, every feeling; tried to trace out the source of that thought or of that feeling; to see the examination of behaviour the cause, the motive and the various layers (if one may use that word) of the mind, of our consciousness? But that would take too long and would lead us nowhere, for the analytical process implies an analyser and the analyser is conditioned, so whatever he examines that also will be conditioned, and be seen through his conditioned state; the analytical process is obviously limited in this way. There must be a way of looking at ourselves totally, without going through all the complications of introspective analysis and so on; there must be a state, a regard, a look, that will reveal the whole content of our conditioning. I do not know if you have asked that question of yourselves and if you have, I wonder how you would answer that question? You understand the problem? Human beings are conditioned, the whole of their behaviour pattern, their outlook, their activities, their aggressiveness, their contradictory states of mind, hate and love, pleasure and pain, the despair and hope, this constant battle in the whole field of our consciousness, the inventions of gods and beliefs and faiths, is the outcome of this conditioned mind. Our nationalities, the division of people, racial and so on, is the result of our education and of the influence of the society which we have built; and so there we are, that is the field of our so obviously conditioned consciousness. How is one to be free, completely, of this, so that there is no conflict of any kind? The conflict, the struggle and battle, is a waste of energy. Our whole life is spent in this way, one desire opposing another desire, one demand, urge, instinct, contradicted by another. That is our life and one asks oneself if it is possible to step completely out of it and if so, how is this to be done? Is it at all possible?

We were saying that systems, philosophies and religions, have not freed man; he is still within the prison he has made of consciousness and that is not freedom at all. It is like a prisoner living within four walls and saying he is free, he is not free, he can walk about in the yard but freedom is something entirely different, it lies totally outside the prison. Seeing this whole complex human relationship, this complex of conditioning, the battle, the struggle, the fear of death, the loneliness, the despair, the lack of love, the brutality, the aggressiveness, of which we are, is it possible to go completely beyond and be free of it all? No outside agency can help us; the outside agency is another invention of a conditioned mind, another ideology of a mind that cannot find a way out and therefore it posits a belief. Now when you brush aside all that, you are left with this fact, that the mind is wholly conditioned, both the conscious mind as well as the unconscious deeper layer. If one is aware of that, what actually takes place? If I am aware that whatever I do, whatever movement of thought or effort I make, is within the limitation of that conditioning, then what actually takes place? You understand my question? I am aware how my mind, the very complex of brain cells themselves, is heavily loaded with the past, with memories, experience, knowledge, tradition, with systems of behaviour which one has accepted in the name of law and order yet with the aggression, the killing, each other, the destroying by word, by gesture, by an act separating ourselves. Now, how am I aware of this? Am I aware of it intellectually? (Do please follow this right through with me, with the speaker, do not just merely listen, merely hear, but actually do it.) How am I aware of this fact? I have to ask myself 'what do I mean by awareness?' 'how do I look at my conditioning?' Obviously, when I look at it I either condemn it, justify it, or accept it as inevitable.

There are two types of freedom, are there not? There is freedom from something I am free from anger let us suppose but the freedom from something is a reaction; obviously that is not freedom. To be free from one's nationality means absolutely nothing; a very intelligent man is free from that particular poison; but that does not constitute freedom at all. And there is a different kind of freedom, a state of mind in which there is no effort at all. Such freedom is love; it is not as when you say, 'I must learn to love, to practise love', 'I hate people but I am going to struggle, make an attempt to love', that is not love. Freedom is a state of mind in which love is and it is not the opposite of hate, or jealousy, or aggression. When we are dealing with opposites and trying to be free from one and achieve the other then the other has its root in its own opposite right? Through conflict freedom cannot possibly be understood.

We need a great deal of energy; to look at a tree without this space, without this division, between the seer and the seen, you need great energy of attention and also you need a sense of freedom. Freedom and attention must go together, which is love and that quality of attention in which the observer is not.

Krishnamurti: Madame, this is not a confession for God's sake do not let us be reduced to that. This is not exposing each other and saying we have advanced so much which would be utterly silly. What we are asking is, have we communicated with each other? Is there a communion between the speaker and yourself over something? When you say to somebody, 'I love you' those few words are enough, you have actually communicated something which you feel very deeply, something very real, which is not just words. And, if we can put it that way, is there love which actually is a state of communion? not sentiment, not emotion, not all that stuff but a freedom, a love, so that we are entirely different human beings? After all, that is the meaning of this gathering, to shake the very foundation of our being so that we may discover something of a different dimension altogether. We may make a mistake, probably we will, but when we do make a mistake see it immediately and remove it, we do not remain wallowing in that mistake. I do not know if you are following all this? Look Sirs, we have enormous work to do together, we have great responsibility, the world is in such a fearful mess, a frightening state, and when we leave we must be entirely different human beings, utterly responsible, to bring about a different world. That is, we must be revolutionaries in the sense that deep inward revolution must take place in us. l4th July, 1968

Is there right action which is right under all circumstances, or is there only action neither right nor wrong? Right action varies according to the individual and the different circumstances in which he is placed. The individual as opposed to the community, the individual as a soldier, he might ask, 'What is right action?' To him the right action obviously would be as he's in the front to kill. And the individual with his family enclosed within the four walls of the idea of mine, my family, my possessions to him there is also a right action. And the business man in the office, to him also there is right action. And so the right action breeds opposition; the individual action opposed to the collective action. Each maintains that his action is right; the religious man with his exclusive beliefs and dogmas pursues what he considers right action and this separates him from the non-believer, from those who think or feel the opposite of what he believes. There is the action of the specialist who is working according to certain specialized knowledge, he says 'This is the right action'. There are politicians with their right and wrong action the communists, the socialists, the capitalists, and so on. There is this whole stream of life, which includes the business life, the political life, the religious life, the life of the family and also the life in which there is beauty love, kindliness, generosity and so on.

Is it possible to live so completely, so wholly, so totally that there are no fragmentary actions? As one observes, life is action; whatever you do or think or feel, is action. Life is a movement, an endless movement, without a beginning and without an end; and we have broken it up into the past, present and the future, as living and dying, as well as breaking it up into love and hate, into nationalities. And we are asking: is there a way of life not ideologically, but actually, every minute of daily life in which there is no contradiction, no opposition, no fragmentation, in the very living of which is complete action? 14 Have you ever considered what love is? is it this torture? it may be beautiful at the beginning when you tell somebody 'I love you', but it soon deteriorates into every form of cunning, possessive, dominating relationship, with its hate and jealous anxiety, its fear. Such love is pleasure and desire, pleasure of sex and the urge of desire maintained by thought chewing over that particular pleasure day after day; that is what we call love. The love of Country, the love of God, the love of fellow man, all that means absolutely nothing, it is just ideas. When we talk about the love of the neighbour, in the church or in the temple, we do not really mean it; we are hypocrites for on Monday morning we destroy our neighbour in business, through competition, by wanting a better position, more power, and so on and on and on. love of the particular, in the family and the love of man outside that circle as possessiveness, possessing my wife, my husband, my child, dominating them, or I let them go because I am too occupied, I have business, I have other interests, I have... God knows what else, so there is no home; yet when there is a home there is this constant battle of possessiveness, domination, fear, jealousy, of trying to fulfil oneself through the family, through sex all these phenomena we call love; I do not think we are exaggerating, we are merely stating the fact; we may not like it but it is there. In that love again is the right and wrong action, which again breeds various forms of conflict. Is all that love? that which we accept as love, that which has become part of our nature. We instinctively cover up this structure, but when you look at it objectively, very earnestly, with clear eyes is that love? obviously it is not. And being caught in the behaviour pattern set by ourselves and by society for centuries, we cannot break away, we do not know what to do and hence there is conflict between the 'right' love and the 'wrong' love, between what should be and what is. The 'morality' of this structure is really immoral; and knowing that, we create another ideology and therefore conflict in opposing the immorality. So, what is love? not your opinion, not your conclusion, not what you think about it who cares what is thought about it. You can only find out what it is when you completely get rid of the structure of jealousy, domination, hate, envy, the desire to possess the structure of pleasure.

Pleasure is something that has to be gone into. We are not saying that pleasure is wrong or right, which again would lead us to various conclusions and therefore oppositions. But for most of us, love is associated, is closely knit, with pleasure sexual and other forms of pleasure. And if love is pleasure then love is pain; and when there is pain, is there love? logically, there is not, yet we go on with it, day after day. Can one break away from the structure, the tradition, the thing in which we are caught and find out, or come upon, that state of love which is none of this? it is beyond, outside the tent, it is not within the tent, within ourselves.

Is a life possible in which the very living is the beauty of action and love? Without love there is always the right and wrong action, breeding conflict, contradiction and opposition. There is only one action that comes out of love; there is no other action which never contradicts, never breeds conflict. You know, love is both aggressive and non-aggressive do not misunderstand it love is not something pacifist, quiet, down somewhere in the cellar or up in heaven; when you love you have vitality, drive, intensity and the immediacy of action. So, is it possible for us human beings to be involved in this beauty of action, which is love?

It would quite extraordinary if all of us here, in this tent, could come upon this not as an idea, not something speculatively to be reached and actually from this day step out into a different dimension and live a life so whole, complete, so sacred; such a life is the religious life, there is no other life, no other religion. Such a life will answer every problem, because love is extraordinarily intelligent and practical, with the highest form of sensitivity and there is humility. That is the only thing that is important in life; one is either steeped in it, or one is not. If we could, all of us, come into this naturally, easily, without any conflict or effort, then we would live a different life, a life of great intelligence, sagacity, clarity; it is this clarity which is a light to itself, this clarity solves all problems.

When we left off last time we were going to talk about pleasure; exploring that very important factor in life we have also to understand what love is and in understanding that we have also to find out what beauty is. So there are three things involved: there is pleasure, there is beauty about which we talk and feel a great deal, and there is love that word which is so spoilt. We will go into it, step by step, rather diligently yet hesitatingly, because such a vast field of human existence is covered by these three things. And to come to any conclusion, to say 'This is pleasure' or 'One must not have pleasure', or 'This is love', 'This is beauty' seems to me to demand the very clearest comprehension and feeling of beauty, of love and pleasure. So we must, if we are somewhat wise, avoid any formula, any conclusion, any definite apprehension about this deep subject. To come into contact with the deep truth of these three things is not a matter of intellection nor of the definition of words, nor of any vague, mystical, or parapsychological feeling.

We know what pleasure is, the looking at a beautiful mountain, at a lovely tree, at the light in a cloud that is chased by the wind across the sky, at the beauty of the river with its clear running water. There is a great deal of pleasure in watching all of this or in seeing the beautiful face of a woman, a man or a child; and we all know the pleasure that comes through touch, taste, seeing, listening. And when that intense pleasure is sustained by thought, then there is the counteraction which is aggression, reprisal, anger, hate, born out of the feeling of not getting that pleasure which you are after and therefore fear which is again fairly obvious if you observe it. Any kind of experience is sustained by thought, the pleasure of an experience of yesterday, whatever it was, sensual, sexual, visual. Thought thinks over, thought chews over the pleasure, goes over it, creating an image or picture which sustains it, gives it nourishment. Thought gives sustenance to that pleasure of yesterday, gives it a continuity today and tomorrow. Do notice it. And when the pleasure sustained by that thought is inhibited, because it is bound round by circumstance, by various forms of hindrances, then that thought is in revolt, it turns its energy into aggression, to hate, to violence which again is another form of pleasure.

So is beauty pleasure? And when there is self-expression in any form, does it convey beauty? And is love pleasure? Is love which has now almost become synonymous with sex and its expression and all that is involved in it, self-forgetfulness and so on is love, when thought derives intense pleasure from it, love? When it is thwarted it becomes jealousy, anger, hatred. Pleasure entails domination, possession, dependence and therefore fear. So one asks oneself, is love pleasure? Is love desire, in all its subtle forms, sexual, as companionship, tenderness and that self-forgetfulness is all that love and if it is not, then what is love?

What relationship has pleasure to love? Or has pleasure relationship to love at all? Is love something entirely different? Is love something which is not fragmented by society, by religion, as profane and divine? How are you going to find out? How are you going to find out for yourself? Not being told by another, for if somebody tells you what it is and you say 'Yes, that's right' it is not yours, it is not something you have discovered and felt profoundly for yourself.

What relationship has the pleasure of self-expression to beauty and to love? The scientist, he must know the truth of things; for the human being not the specialized philosopher, the scientist, the technologist but for the human being concerned with daily life, the earning of a livelihood, with the family, and so on, is truth something static? Or is it something that you discover as you go along, never stationary, never permanent but always moving? Truth is not an intellectual phenomenon, it is not an emotional or sentimental affair and we have to find the truth of pleasure, the truth of beauty and the reality of what love is.

One has seen the torture of love, the dependence on it, the fear of it, the loneliness of not being loved and the everlasting seeking of it in all kinds of relationships, never finding it to one's complete satisfaction. So one asks, is love satisfaction and at the same time a torture hedged about by jealousy, envy, hatred, anger, dependence?

When there is not beauty in the heart we go to museums and concerts, we visit and marvel at the beauty of an ancient Greek temple with its lovely columns, its proportions against the blue sky. We talk endlessly about beauty; we lose touch with nature altogether as modem man, living more and more in towns, is losing it. There are societies formed to go into the country to look at the birds, trees and rivers; as though by forming societies to look at trees you are going to touch nature and come into extraordinary contact with the immense beauty! Because we have lost touch with nature, modern objective painting, museums and concerts, assume such importance.

There is an emptiness, a sense of inward void which is always seeking self-expression and the deriving of pleasure and hence breeding the fear of not having it completely; there is resistance, aggression and all the rest of it. We proceed to fill that inward void, that emptiness and sense of utter isolation and loneliness which I am sure you have all felt with books, with knowledge, with relationships; with every form of trickery, but at the end of it there is still this unfillable emptiness; then we turn to God, the ultimate resort. When there is this emptiness and this sense of deep unfathomable void, is love, is beauty, possible? If one is aware of this emptiness and does not escape from it, then what is one to do? We have tried to fill it with gods, with knowledge, with experience, with music, with pictures, with extraordinary technological information; that is what we are occupied with morning until night. One realizes that this emptiness cannot be filled by any person one sees the importance of this. If you fill it with that which is called relationship with another person or with an image, then out of that comes dependence and the fear of loss, then aggressive possession, jealousy and all the rest that follows. So one asks oneself: can that emptiness ever be filled by anything, by social activity, good works, going to a monastery and meditating, training oneself to be aware? which again is such an absurdity. If one cannot fill it then what is one to do? You understand the importance of this question? One has tried to fill it with what one calls pleasure, through self-expression, searching for truth, God; one realizes that nothing can ever fill it, neither the image one has created about oneself nor the image or ideology one has created about the world, nothing. And so, one has used beauty, love and pleasure to cover this emptiness and if one no longer escapes but remains with it, then what is one to do? Is the question clear? Have you followed somewhat?

I wonder if you are following all this? I see this emptiness, I see how it has come into being, I am aware that 'will', or any other activity, exerted to dispel the creator of this emptiness is only another form of self-centred activity; I see that very clearly, objectively and I realize suddenly that I cannot do anything about it. You understand? Before, I did something about it, I escaped, or I tried to fill it, I tried to understand it and to go into it, but they are all other forms of isolation. So, I suddenly realize that I cannot do anything, that the more I try to do something about it, the more I am creating and building walls of isolation. The mind itself realizes that it cannot do anything about it, that thought cannot touch it, because the moment thought touches it, it breeds emptiness again. So by carefully observing, objectively, I see this whole process and the very seeing of it is enough. See what has happened. Before I have used energy to fill this emptiness, wandered all over the place and now I see the absurdity of it, the mind sees very clearly how absurd it is, so now I am not dissipating energy. Thought becomes quiet; the mind becomes completely still; it has seen the whole map of this and so there is silence; in that silence there is no loneliness. When there is that silence, that complete silence of the mind, there is beauty and love, which may, or may not, express.

It is raining and you can hear the pattern of the drops. You can hear it with your ears, or you can hear it out of that deep silence. If you hear it with complete silence of the mind, then the beauty of it is such that cannot be put into words or onto canvas, because that beauty is something beyond self-expression. love obviously is bliss, which is not pleasure.

Inattention can never become attention. How can it? How can you make hate into love? You cannot. But investigate the ways of inattention, watch it, watch how inattention grows, be aware of it and do not try to make inattention into attention, do nothing right? You are inattentive what is happening? look at it very carefully, be aware that you are inattentive, do not try to force it to become attention. Be aware that you are inattentive, then you will change it; but you cannot do it if you say 'I will be aware that I am inattentive'. You understand what I am talking about? Do please look at it, do not come to any conclusions, first look. There are two states, one is inattention, and the other in rare moments is complete attention when thought does not come into it at all; in those rare moments you will discover something wholly new. In that complete attention there is a different dimension altogether. If that then becomes something that you have known, that you have felt, that you remember, if it becomes a memory and you say to yourself 'I wish I could capture that again, keep hold of it, not let it go', then that again is the state of inattention. So, be aware of inattention not, 'how to be attentive' do not do anything about inattention. All right, I am inattentive, but I am very careful, I am watching it, I am not trying to give it a shape, I am not trying to change it, I am just watching it. The very watching is attention.

One of our greatest difficulties is it not? is that we are caught in habit. And habit, however refined, however subtle, deeply established and engrained, is not love. love can never be a thing of habit. Pleasure as we were saying the other day can become a habit and a continued demand; but I do not see how love can become a habit. And the deep, radical change that we are talking about is to come upon this quality of love, a quality which has nothing whatever to do with emotionalism, or sentimentalism; it has nothing whatever to do with tradition, with the deeply established culture of any society. Most of us, lacking this extraordinary quality of love, slip into 'righteous' habits; and habits can never be righteous. Habit is neither good nor bad, there is only habit, a repetition, an imitation, a conformity to the past and to the tradition which is the outcome of inherited instinct and acquired knowledge.

As long as the mind is not sensitive, not alert and quick, it is not capable of living with the actuality of life, which is so fluid, so constantly undergoing change. Psychologically, inwardly, we refuse to follow the movement of life because our roots are deep in habit and tradition, in obedience to what has been told to us, in acceptance. And it seems to me that it is very important to understand this and to break away from it, for I do not see how man can continue to live without love. Without love we are destroying each other, we are living in fragments, one fragment in aggression with the other, one in revolt against the other; and habit, in any form, must inevitably breed fear. If I may suggest, please do not merely accept and say 'Yes, we do live in habits, what shall we do?', but rather, be aware of them, be conscious of them, be alive to the habits that one has; be aware not only of the physical habits, like smoking, eating meat, drinking, which are all habits, but also of the deep-rooted habits in the psyche, which accept, which believe, which hope and have despairs, agonies, sorrows. If we could together go into this problem of habit and also of fear and perhaps thereby come to the ending of sorrow, then there might be a possibility of a love that we have never known, a bliss that is beyond the touch of pleasure.

Fear (am I putting you all to sleep?) fear is not an insoluble problem. When there is an understanding of fear, there is an understanding of all the problems related to that fear. When there is no fear there is freedom. And when there is this complete psychological inward freedom and non-dependence, then the mind is untouched by any habit. You know, love is not habit, love cannot be cultivated habits can be cultivated and for most of us love is something so far away that we have never known the quality of it, we do not even know the nature of it. To come upon love there must be freedom; he mind is completely still, within its own freedom, then there is the 'impossible' which is love.

If we could only look into ourselves. Most of us, unfortunately seem unwilling to do so, we want to find something extraordinarily beautiful, something noble, yet without being willing to acknowledge what actually is, the actual conscious or unconscious known, though most of us do not know it. We are so frightened to go beyond this 'known; to go beyond it we must examine it, we must be completely intimate with it familiar with it, understand the structure and the nature of it. The mind cannot go beyond the facts of the known if it has not completely, totally, understood and lived in intimate contact with all the movements of thought, of feeling, with the brutality, the animal instincts. Then only can one go beyond and find something which may be called the truth and a beauty that is not separate from love, a state, a different dimension, where there is a movement which is always new, fresh young, decisive.

I wonder why we suffer at all? We suffer, perhaps, because we are physically unwell, we have a great deal of pain and there is perhaps no remedy; or, the pain is so excruciating, so penetrating that it drives away all reason. In that there is great sorrow, as there is in the whole question of physical disease, physical incapacity, physically growing old, with the pain and the fear of old age. Then there is all the ache and pain in the field of psychological existence; the sorrow that comes when we have no love when we want to be loved, that comes when there is no clarity, when we cannot look at 'what is' with unspotted eyes. There is the sorrow of ignorance, not of books, not of technology - the computers are extraordinarily well informed, but they are ignorant machines - the ignorance with regard to the understanding of what one actually is. That ignorance causes great sorrow, not only within oneself, but with the whole community, with the race, with the people of the world. There is the sorrow of accepting time, time as a means of achieving, gaining some future benediction. And there is, of course, the sorrow of life coming to an end, of death, the death of another, the death of oneself.

The sorrow of physical pain, the sorrow of having no love and the frustrations of self-expression, the sorrow of tomorrow which never comes, the sorrow of living in the world of the known and being always frightened of the unknown all that is the way we live. We have accepted such a way of life and the very acceptance of it creates a barrier to going beyond it. It is only when the mind does not accept, but is always questioning, doubting, demanding, finding out, that it can face what actually is, both outwardly and inwardly and perhaps go beyond this everlasting suffering of man.

I wonder what sorrow means to you or do you avoid it and never come into touch with it at all? The very avoidance of it is another form of sorrow; and that is all that we know. Take death dying. The very avoidance of that word, never looking at it, never facing the inevitable, the very avoidance of it, is it not? a form of sorrow, a form of fear which breeds sorrow. So, what is sorrow? Please do not wait for an explanation. Most of us have felt sorrow in different ways; the demand for self-expression and its fulfilment, yet not being able to achieve that fulfilment, breeds sorrow; wanting to be famous and not having the capacity to achieve fame, that also brings sorrow; the sorrow of loneliness, the sorrow of not having loved and wanting always to be loved; the sorrow of a hope for the future and always being uncertain of that hope. Do look at it, please, for yourself. Do not wait for a description from the speaker.

If the mind is not silent, quiet, how can it understand anything, how can it grasp, look at, be completely intimate and familiar with death, with time or with sorrow? And what is that which says 'I am in sorrow', 'I am miserable', 'I have spent days in conflict, in misery, in hopeless despair'? What is that thing which keeps on repeating, 'I can't sleep', 'I've not been well', 'I am this, I am that', 'I am unhappy', 'You have not looked at me', 'You have not loved me', what is that thing which keeps on talking to itself? Surely, it is thought. We come back to that primary thing, thought, which has sought pleasure and been thwarted, which complains 'I have lost somebody whom I loved, and I'm lonely, I'm miserable, full of sorrow, which is self-pity, pitying oneself. Again it is thought, as the memory of companionship, the memory of pleasant days which have gone, which had hidden the loneliness, the emptiness within oneself; and thought begins to complain 'I am unhappy' which is the very nature of self-pity.

If one can look, listen, then one can honestly ask, what is death? What does it mean, to die? this is not only a question for the old but for every human being as one asks, what is love? What is pleasure? What is beauty? What is the nature of real human relationship in which there is no image interfering? So also must one ask this fundamental question as of love and beauty what is death? We dare not ask it, probably because we are a little frightened. One may say to oneself 'I would like to experience that state of dying to be really conscious as one dies', so one takes drugs to keep awake, to watch for the very moment when the breath ceases, because one wants to experience that extraordinary moment when life is not. So, what is death, what is dying, coming to an end? not 'what happens after', that is so irrelevant, that you can invent so many theories, beliefs, hopes, formulas. To die not with old age or disease, as when the whole organism wears down and one slips off, not at that last moment but actually to die as one is living, full of vitality, energy, intensity, the capacity to explore. So, what is it, 'to die', not tomorrow but today, to find out? It is not a morbid question. Do you not want to know, deeply, for yourself, through all your nerves, brain, through everything that you have, do you not want to know what it means to love? Do you not want to know what it means, to have that extraordinary blessing and to know with the same eagerness, vitality, what death is? How are you going to find out? To die, implies does it not? the quality of innocence. But we are not innocent people, we have had a thousand experiences, a thousand years, it is all there, in the very brain cells themselves. Time has cultivated aggression, brutality, violence, the sense of domination and oh! so many experiences. Our minds are not innocent, clear, fresh, young, they have been spotted, tortured, twisted.

I would like to talk next time, if I may, of a thing which is really as important as love and the beauty of love and the significance of death; it is meditation. What we should do, if it is possible, is to go into this question of how we can live totally, differently, of how to bring about this immense psychological revolution, so that there is no aggression, but intelligence. Intelligence can be above both aggression and non-aggression because it understands the way of aggression and violence. Such a revolution brings about a life of highest sensitivity and therefore highest intelligence. I think that is the only question, how to live a life of great bliss, of great intensity, so that knowing the very nature and structure of one's being which is rooted in the animal, in the ape one goes beyond it.

There must be the foundation of right behaviour, of righteousness. We make a mistake, we put in a foundation stone which may not be strong; but put a strong stone there so as to make the foundation unbreakable in virtue. There is no virtue if there is no love; virtue is not a thing to be cultivated so that it becomes a habit, virtue is never a habit, it is a living thing, and the beauty of it is since it is not a habit that it is ever living.

For most of us the word 'meditation' has very little meaning. It is firmly established in the East that 'meditation' means certain ways of thinking, concentrating, the repetition of words and the following of systems all of which deny the freedom and the quickness of the mind. Meditation is not a deviation, or something that is entertainment, it is part of one's whole life. It is as fundamentally important and essential as love and beauty. If there is no meditation, then one does not know how to love, then one does not know what beauty is. And do what one will one may search, go from one religion, from one book, from one activity to another, always seeking to find out what truth is one never will find out, because the 'search' for truth implies that a mind can find it and has the capacity to say 'that is truth'. But does one know what truth is? Can one recognize it? If one recognizes it, it is already something of the past. So truth cannot be found through search; either it must come uninvited, or, if one is lucky, by chance. Meditation is not an escape from life, not a particular, individual process of one's own.

Let us proceed to find out for ourselves not as individuals, but as human beings living in this world with all the extraordinary complexity of modern society, as we are let us try to find out what love is. Not 'find' it, but be in that state of perfection, in that quality of mind which is not burdened with jealousy, with misery, with conflict, self-pity. Then only there is a possibility of living in a different dimension which is love. And as love is of immense importance, so is meditation.

How shall we I am asking this not casually but seriously how shall we proceed with this problem? the fairly obvious problem that our minds are conditioned, our minds are everlastingly chattering, never quiet. We try to impose quietness or it happens casually, by chance. To proceed with this problem, to learn, to see, there must be the quietness of a mind that is not broken up, that is not torn apart, that is not tortured. If I want to see something very clearly, the tree, or the cloud, or the face of a person next to me, to see very clearly without any distortion, the mind must not be chattering, obviously. The mind must be very quiet to observe, to see. And the very seeing is the doing and the learning. So what is meditation? Is meditation possible using the word with the meaning given in the dictionary, not the extraordinary meaning given by those who think they know what meditation is; is it possible to consider, to observe, to comprehend, to learn, to see very clearly, without any distortion, to hear everything as it is, not interpreting it, not translating it according to one's prejudice? When you listen to the bird of a morning is it possible to listen to it completely without a word cropping up into your mind, to listen to it with total attention, to listen to it without saying how beautiful, how lovely, what a lovely morning? All that means that the mind must be silent and the mind cannot be silent when there is any form of distortion. That is why one must understand every form of conflict, between the individual and society, between the individual and the neighbour, between himself, his wife, his children, her husband and so on. Any form of conflict, at any level, is a distorting process. When there is contradiction within oneself, which arises when one wants to express oneself in various different ways and one cannot, then there is a conflict, there is a struggle, there is a pain, it distorts the quality, the subtlety, the quickness of the mind.

As we said at the beginning, you cannot go very far without laying the foundation of this understanding of daily life, the daily life of loneliness, of boredom, of excitement, of sexual pleasures, of the demands to fulfil, to express oneself, the daily life of conflict between hate and love, life in which one demands to be loved, a life of deep inward loneliness; without understanding all that, without distorting, without becoming neurotic, being completely, highly sensitive and balanced, without that being there you cannot go very far. And when that is deeply laid, then the mind is capable of being completely quiet and therefore completely at peace which is entirely different from being contented, like a cow then alone is it possible to find out if there is something beyond the measure of the mind, if there is such a thing as reality, as God, something which man has sought for millions of years; something which he has sought through his gods and temples, through sacrificing himself, by becoming a hermit and all the absurdities and inventions that man has gone through.

But it is not possible to put into words what is beyond all this, to describe it becomes so utterly meaningless. All that one can do is to open the door, that door which is kept open only when there is this order not the order of society which is disorder the order that comes into being when you see actually 'what is', without any distortion brought about by the 'observer'. When there is no distortion at all, then there is order, which in itself brings its own extraordinary, subtle discipline. And to leave that door open is all that one can do, whether that reality comes through that door or not one cannot invite it and if one is very lucky, by some strange chance, it may come and give its blessing. You cannot seek it. After all, that is beauty and love, you cannot seek it, if you seek it, it becomes merely the continuation of pleasure, which is not love. There is bliss which is not pleasure; when the mind is in that state of meditation, there is immense bliss; then the everyday living, with its contradictions, its brutalities and violence, has no place. But one must work very hard, every day, to lay the foundation; that is all that matters, nothing else. Out of that silence which is the very nature of a meditative mind may come love and beauty.

IT MUST HAVE happened to many of us, when we are walking alone in a wood, when the sun is just about to set, that there comes a peculiar quietness. There is no movement of air, the birds have stopped singing and there is not a leaf stirring your own sense of quietness, a sense of aloofness, comes over you. As you watch, as you listen to the beauty of the evening, in that extraordinary quietness when almost everything seems to be motionless, you are then in complete communion, in complete harmony, with everything about you there is no thought, not a word, there is no judgment or evaluation, there is no sense of separateness. I am sure you must have felt all this, walking alone, leaving all your burdens, worries and problems at home, following a path along a river which is always chattering; your mind is very quiet and you feel totally at peace, with an extraordinary sense of beauty and love, a feeling that no words can describe. I am sure you have had such experience, but in describing it, as you are sitting here, in putting into words that peculiar quietness that comes of an evening, you listen with the motive to capture that quality; then because you have a motive, that quality will not come. Similarly, a motive is going to prevent you from listening to the speaker. He is merely describing something he has no motive and if you seek with a motive to possess that which he describes, however subtly, or enviously or aggressively, then communication between the speaker and yourself comes to an end. You have a motive and the speaker has none. He is just telling it; not to amuse you, not to tell you what a wonderful thing he had and so awaken envy in you because you also want to have that kind of experience, for then there is misunderstanding between ourselves.

We live in a world of misunderstanding. One thing is said and it is interpreted according to your background, to your desires, to your complex nature and so there is misunderstanding. This division between a fact and how you interpret that fact creates misunderstanding. And that which we are going to go into, this morning, is of necessity rather complex and yet it must be expressed in words. Words have a form and content, both to you and to the speaker and if that form and content is not very clear between the speaker and your self, there is misunderstanding and you can live in a world apart from that which is being said. So we must be very clear, in communicating with each other, how we listen to the word and as to what kind of design that word creates. After all, one uses words to communicate and if the content, the design, the form of the word, is not very clear to each of us, then we live in separate worlds, we each have a separate understanding which may be misunderstanding or it may not be misunderstanding. So words become extraordinarily dangerous unless we use them without any motive, as when merely telling you that the tree is green, that it is a lovely day. But when I say 'I've had the most marvellous experience of reality', the intention and the motive then, is to awaken in you envy I have had it, you have not. I have had this most precious thing which you also must have. In that case my motive is to awaken your envy, your aggression, or thereby perhaps you will follow me, put me on a pedestal. This is happening all the time around us. Someone says, 'I have realized God' or 'I have had the supreme experience', that is said with the motive (obviously, otherwise he would not say it) to awaken this aggressive envy in you. So both he who says 'I've had the most marvellous experience' and you who are greedy to get it, live in a world of misunderstanding and communication then is not possible. That is fairly clear. Similarly it is not possible for your mind to be very quiet if there is any intent or motive when you walk in the woods by yourself, for then there is no word, there is no sentence, there is no 'observer' with all the complex nature of his conditioning, his demands, his envy, his desire to oppress and exploit, and all that; he is just there walking quietly unaware of himself. There is no 'observer' and hence he is totally relationship with everything about him. In that there is no separativeness, no division, no judgment, but a complete unity which may, perhaps, be called love. And if this is somewhat clear how we invariably misunderstand, every word having a different meaning to each one of us, not only the content of that word, but every word awakening desire and various emotional qualities and if this does not take place, then it is possible to explore. That is what we are going to do if we can this morning; each of us being aware of the dangerous of the word, of the design the mind is going to make out of that word, giving it a content which the speaker may not intend at all; and each of us being aware that there will therefore be misunderstanding between us, you going away with one impression, another individual having a separate meaning; and the speaker may not have what you think he has.

Religion is an action which is complete, total, which covers the whole life not separated as the business life, sexual life, scientific life and the religious life. We live in a world of fragmented actions in contradiction with each other and that is not a religious life; that breeds antagonism, misery, confusion, sorrow. So one has to explore and find out for oneself, not as a separate individual but as a human being, what this action is that is complete each minute, wherever it acts whether in the family, or in the business world, or whatever it is, in painting, talking a complete, total action, without any contradiction in itself, therefore an action which does not breed misery. That is a way of religious life, that is the positive. We have denied what religion is not and we are saying what it is. Then, if there is such action, there is a life of harmony, a life in which there is unity between man and man, not contradiction, not hate, not antagonism such as one observes every religion to have bred, though they talk of love, though they talk of peace.

Religion is a way of life in which there is inward harmony, a feeling of complete unity. As we said, when you walk in the woods, silently, with the light of the setting sun on top of the mountains or on a leaf, there is complete union between you and that. There is no 'you' at all there is no 'word'. There is no 'observer' which is the word and the content or the design of that word there is no 'observer' at all, therefore there is no contradiction. Please, do not go off into some emotional, speculative state; this means very hard work, to see very clearly the way we are living, fragmentarily, opposed, antagonistic to each other, awakening aggression, violence, hate. In that state there is no possibility of unity and unity means love. So, a religious way of life is the total action in which there is no fragmentation at all, the fragmentation which takes place so long as there is the 'observer', the word, the content of that word, the design and all the memory. So long as that entity, the 'observer', exists, there must be contradiction in action.

It is not possible to end hate by its own opposite you understand? If I hate somebody and out of that hate I say, 'I must not hate, I must love', the love is the outcome of that hate. Every opposite has its roots in that of which it is the opposite.

Life is action, to live means to act; the religious life is a life of action, not according to any particular pattern, but action in which there is no contradiction, action which is not segmented, broken up as the business life, the social life, political life, religious life, family life and so on, as a Conservative or as a Liberal. To see that there is an action which is not fragmented, which is total, complete, and to live that way, is the religious life. You can only act in that way when there is love to love. And love is not pleasure, cultivated and sustained by thought; love is not a thing to be cultivated. It is only love that brings about this total action and that can possibly bring about this complete sense of unity.

The 'unknown' is not something extraordinary; living within the 'known' makes the 'unknown' into its opposite, something contradictory. But when you understand the nature of the 'known', the past experiences, the images that one has built up about the world, as the nations, as the races, the differentiation between various religious dogmatic beliefs, those are all the known and if the mind is not caught in it there can be love; otherwise, do what you will, have innumerable organizations to bring about peace in the world, there will be no peace.

Then one asks further, can a human being, you and I, or another, can we come upon life that has no death? can we come upon a life that is really timeless? which means a life in which thought, which creates the psychological time with its fear, comes to an end. Thought has its own importance, but psychologically it has no importance whatsoever. Thought is a mischief maker, thought is always seeking pleasure, inwardly; love is not pleasure, love is bliss, something entirely different. And when all that is seen very clearly and one lives that way not verbally, not in a world of misunderstanding, but when all that is very clear, very simple then perhaps there is a life that has no beginning and no end, a life of timelessness.

So we have this problem to communicate with each other first verbally, so that the words don't become a barrier, but rather a help in clearing up our understanding of ourselves; that must be established between us first. Then there is a form of communion which is non-verbal, which needs that peculiar quality of attention and ease. You know, it's like two very intimate friends they don't have to say very much, they don't have to go into long complicated explanations, they understand each other in that very silence in which there is communion of friendship, an exposing of oneself to the other, in which there is affection, love. These are the two issues we must first understand, before we can go into the question whether it is at all possible to establish a communication in which there will not be the slightest misunderstanding, so that when the speaker says: two plus two make four, you don't make five out of it; or when you say: two and two make four, I don't make it into six. Both of us must establish that very clearly and very definitely, so that we don't get confused by the form, by the design, by the content of the word. When that is very clear, then we can go on to the next dimension, which is to commune with each other without words, so that there is an empathy, a feeling, a sense of closeness in which there is no barrier. Can these two go together at the same time not one, or the other, first?

First of all, am I aware, conscious, that I lead a fragmentary life? (Don't give a tremendous significance to awareness, just keep it, at its lowest level.) Do I know that I lead a contradictory life? a life of hypocrisy, because contradiction means hypocrisy. You may not like that word. I say one thing and do anther. Do I know that my life is broken up? Can one say this as one says 'I am hungry'? Nobody can question that because if you are hungry, you know it. In the same way, do you know that your life is a complex of contradictions? Or, do you know it because somebody tells you so? The two states are different, aren't they? You know for yourself when you are hungry, nobody has to tell you that. In the same way, do you know for yourself that your life is contradictory: love and hate, a contradictory, dualistic existence? If you know it, first of all how does it come into being? Why do I have this contradiction in me? Is it natural and must I therefore accept it, or is it something that has been brought about through society, civilization, culture and so on, or by my own relationship to everything in life? Is my relationship to nature, to other people, to ideas, always dualistic? (I don't know if you are following?) Before I can do anything with it, I must know how it comes about.

I say, I love my wife or husband and I dislike so many people, or I hate somebody. Immediately there is contradiction. I want to tell the truth and I lie, because I am afraid; in that there is a contradiction. I want to fulfil, express myself and I can't; or I express myself so badly that it creates misunderstanding and that causes fear, there is anxiety and so on. Then there is the 'good' and the 'bad', the pattern which I have been following for years, and I am afraid to let that go because I don't know what will happen. So I live a contradictory life during the day, and when I sleep, through dreams. Why does it arise in me? I want to lead a harmonious, peaceful life, be non-aggressive, quiet; I want to live fairly, without too much ugliness. And I do everything that brings ugliness why? Is it because (I am just suggesting, I am not saying it is so) I am afraid? Because I am afraid I become aggressive, because I am afraid I am not free to say 'Yes, this is a lie' or to acknowledge to myself that I am a hypocrite. Because I pretend to be something, I have an image about myself which I dare not destroy. Is it due to fear or insecurity? (I am talking about inward insecurity). Do you say, 'I like your examination, your exploration, what you find'? We know only fools give advice! We are not fools, I hope, so don't give me advice. I want to find out why I lead this kind of double life with all its complexities: the hypocrisy, the neurotic states, isolating myself from others and so on.

Krishnamurti: That is understood, these are obvious facts but I am asking something impossible. If you can go beyond the impossible as we were saying the other day then you will know what to do with the possible. Can I look at anything without the image? Apparently that seems to be something outrageous, or mysterious, or impossible. Look Sir, a scientist in his laboratory looks from a very objective, non-sentimental viewpoint; he looks at something. That is not what we are talking about. That is fairly easy, because it doesn't matter to him; but touch him in his core about his ambition, or his love, or his this or that, then he can't look. Are you getting it?

Krishnamurti: How can I communicate, commune with myself? That is, 'myself' is this contradiction, and the entity who looks at the contradiction is part of that contradiction right? So when the entity that is looking at this contradiction is himself part of that contradiction, there is no way out. But can there be an observation without this entity which is part of the fragment? Can you look at something (I am sorry to repeat this everlastingly) just to look, without all the circus about it? If you cannot look without the observer, there can be no communion with the thing observed. If I have an image about my wife and she has an image about me, the communication is between these two images; which is between two images that have been built up through time, through many days, and therefore there is always a contradiction between these two obviously. So there is always a misunderstanding; she lives in one world and I live in another world and we say 'I love you'. But to commune with her means I must look at her without any image, and I may not want to that's a different point. I may not want to commune with her, she may be a bore, or I might be a bore to her; so I have this facade. But if I want to commune with these many fragments which are me I must look at the 'me' with all its fragments quietly, silently, without any reaction to it. Is this repetition getting rather boring?

Krishnamurti: All right, don't look at it. ( Laughter) If my wife is a bore and I have carefully avoided looking at that bore because I have created an image about her which is lovely, I say, 'All right, keep it'. You are playing a double game, this is a contradiction. If you like that, keep it!

Questioner: Does a child create an image of what he should be, because he fears not to be loved as he is?

Krishnamurti: It may not Sir, I may not use any word at all, and yet I might be occupied. Are you following all this? I might be occupied without a word to find out what silence is, or what love is, or what form of government one should have. Or I may be occupied in observing my wife. Just watch it. The mind says, 'I must be occupied, therefore I chatter'. Follow this. It may be one of the causes. One of the causes is, I may be lazy; another is I must be occupied. And if I'm not occupied what shall I do? Right? I'm frightened. You understand? The businessman who has gone to the office everyday for forty years suddenly stops doing it; it's going to upset his whole organism. So maybe I'm frightened not to be occupied, I'm frightened of being alone. Or, I'm frightened that if I don't chatter I will find out what I am. I can go on multiplying the causes. Now, I know some of the causes, but that doesn't stop me from chattering. Right?

We have enough energy, but, as we were saying, we dissipate it when we chatter endlessly, verbally and non-verbally. This is obvious, I don't have to go into the details of how we waste our energy. But I don't think that is really the question. Here is a problem of great and significant meaning, if we could go into it. The will has created this disorder in society which is ourselves and one can observe an order that exists beyond the limitations of man. How can this disorder end and enter into another order, an order of tremendous harmony, beauty, love, of something invaluable which has its own law. That is the question. One sees this and one says: I will do certain things, follow certain ideas, follow certain concepts, formulas and hope thereby to enter into the other dimension. So we say: ''Let me struggle, let me torture myself, let me have one supreme will so that I can resist everything''. Or, ''I will learn, concentrate, give total attention, so that by some trick of silence I will enter into the other dimension''. I don't think either of these work; they are like those systems which give you an insoluble problem and the mind which cannot solve it therefore becomes stunned, and in that state perhaps you see something. But that is a trick, a form of self-deception, so we'll discard all that. (I hope you are doing this as we go along).

Krishnamurti: Wait, wait! Now we're off! Whether you substitute 'order' for 'harmony', or substitute order for 'love' or 'beauty', it doesn't matter, you follow? But what do you mean by order? To have everything go like clockwork? To repeat, repeat, so that the habits which you have cultivated are never disturbed, that you are never shaken again? The order of going to the office every day and coming back home. And therefore the avoidance of any form of disturbance, students' revolt, revolution, communism and so on? Anything to avoid disorder and hold on to what you have do you call that order?

Krishnamurti: Sorry. I am asking if you know what disorder in your life is. Don't just say 'conflict'. Don't you know what disorder is? When you get up in the morning you dislike somebody, and at the same time say to yourself, ''I mustn't dislike''. Or you have contradictory desires, you want to fulfil, you want to write beautifully, but nobody recognizes your work, so you are in conflict, despair, struggle. You love somebody and that person doesn't love you, you want to sleep with somebody and that person doesn't want to sleep with you, and so on. Don't you know all this? No? You must be marvellous saints! (Laughter). And I hope you are not saints!

Krishnamurti: Which means what? Don't hate? The universal law says: Be kind, don't kill. Certain species of animals don't kill each other, they only kill other species. But we kill our own species. There are these universal laws love, be kind; but apparently we can't.

Krishnamurti: Look, we human beings want food, clothes, and shelter that is obvious, that is what we want; there is the whole complex, social, economic relationship between man and man in order to produce clothes, food and shelter for each other. Then there is this vast field of psychological, inward struggle, with all its contradictions, constant battles, with an occasional flash of joy, the psychological feeling of loneliness, emptiness, of not being loved, and of loving some- body with all your heart so that there is no quality of jealousy or hate in it. And also we want peace, not the peace of the politician, but a peace that is beyond understanding. We also want to find out what happens after death, or what it means to die, and why one is so everlastingly afraid of it. Also one wants to find out if there is anything permanent, timeless. And one wants to see if one can go beyond the known, if there is such a thing as truth, God, bliss, innocence, a law which will operate right through life without any action on one's part, if there is a divinity, something sacred, which is not the invention of man. This is the whole complex of existence. And how can I say, out of this vast field 'I want that'? You follow what I mean? Can one say that? We do! 'I want health', 'I want to feel close to my wife', 'I don't want any image between her and me', 'I want to appreciate the beauty of nature, of relationship' and so on. Out of all this I am going to choose a little bit and say 'This is what I want'.

Krishnamurti: Sir, do see the first question, which is: there is this vast field of existence, of different dimensions, different levels, different nuances, different feelings, different states, meanings, and so on, and being caught in all this activity, hope, despair, pain, anxiety, peace, hate, love and jealousy, can I say, out of all that, 'I want one blade of grass, one petal of this vast flowering beauty of life'? Is it logical to say that? That way we would approach the problem entirely wrongly. I don't know if you follow what I mean?

There is this whole field of life political, economic, social and individual behaviour, communal and individual aggression, the ideologies of various political parties, and the religious groups at variance with one another; and there are individuals, that is human beings. There is this whole field of existence, broken up into fragments, each fragment in opposition to the other, the various desires opposing each other, the contradictions and so on. This is the field in which we live. And we said that this field, this structure, is brought about by oneself, by the egotistic activity of each individual. I think that was fairly clear. Now what is one to do? What action can one take, so that one acts not in fragments as a conservative, as a communist (and the communists are becoming rather old fashioned now), as a nationalist and so on and yet is talking about freedom, love, joy and beauty. There is this contradiction and the individual aspirations and motives and struggles. Seeing all that, what is the right action which covers the whole field, not just one segment of it? I think when we ask the question: 'what is action?', that is included in it. That action must be a timeless action, not conforming with immediate necessities, with the behaviour of a society and therefore an individual behaviour; an action which must be whole, complete, total and therefore timeless. That question includes time. Is there such an action? Or is man everlastingly condemned to function in fragments and to be always in conflict? One sees the limitation of human behaviour and human understanding; but being aware of this; one may not know where the limitation lies. So shall we talk over together this morning, what action should come into being when we see all this? Would that be worthwhile?

Questioner: This would be the action of real love.

Krishnamurti: But I don't know what real love is! How do you answer this challenge?

Krishnamurti: No. Take time, find out how you will answer this. Knowing that all the professionals political, economic, religious are always thinking in terms of fragments (they may talk about love, universal brotherhood and so on, but actually these are just formulas, not realities in their life; you cannot depend upon them. So there is a challenge which you have to answer.

Then am I frightened of giving up the old? Even when one loves new ideas, new ways of life, new buildings, one is loving and stabilizing the new which becomes the old, and is living in it. I don't know if you are following this? I mean, for instance, saying 'the new is marvellous, I am going to accept it', and then it becomes the old. That is what is called progress. So am I doing that too? Please watch what is taking place. This is actual meditation if you don't object to that word because we are really penetrating into the whole structure and nature of our thinking, our feeling, our activity.

Intelligence is not conceptual thinking, nor its expression through words; but intelligence is this awareness of seeing what 'actually is', and seeing my relationship to the world, which I as a human being have created; to actually see it in my life: my activity, my thought, my conservatism, my fears, my love of the new which becomes acceptance, and so on (which is my daily life). It is observing and watching the facts of that life looking at it; and out of this observation the mind becomes highly intelligent. It is this intelligence that is going to answer non-fragmentarily, as an action which will be right under all circumstances. It is this intelligence that is going to act, not a formula, of what action should be. Are we communicating with each other?

Krishnamurti: Oh, lovely, lovely! (Laughter) Back to the good old world! When I don't see clearly myself, I want to help my neighbour to see clearly.

When we look at something, either we look with eyes that are very clear, or we look with the image right? How do we look? How do you look at a tree, at a cloud, at the lovely morning-light, or your neighbour, or the politician, or your wife, your husband, your children how do you look at them? What takes place when you look? Is it possible to look at yourself without any image? Is it possible to look at the political party, or the ideology to which you are committed? Is it possible to look if you are biased? Is it possible to see very clearly if there is any form of fear? Is there any clarity of perception when I am thinking conceptually? Is it possible to look at what another says if you do not like it, if you do not agree with what he says, though you may withhold your judgment, or you may consider he is not being accurate but can you listen to what he is saying without any bias, for or against? It is not possible to see clearly so long as one is not aware of one's bias, of the image one has about oneself or about another, of the commitment one has to a political party, or to an ideology. When one observes one's beliefs, dogmas, conclusions, one realizes that as long as one has those screens, those hindrances, those distractions, it is not possible to see very clearly. If I like you, I can't see you clearly, can I? My prejudice, my pleasure of liking you forbids me to see what you actually are. Or if I dislike you, equally I can't see very clearly what you are; I won't even listen, either I get angry, or push you away.

Let's approach it differently. What is love? Is love memory? The remembrance of pleasurable things and holding on to them? Is love pleasure? For anything that disturbs, takes away that pleasure, is a very dangerous thing. I am afraid of a person, or an incident, or an accident that might take away my pleasure, therefore I am going to resist and I become aggressive. Is love accumulated pleasure, with its resentments, temptations, aggression, defence? What do you say? Is love part of jealousy, hate? Have you gone into the question of hate in yourself: someone has done you harm and you hate that person? Hate is memory isn't it? Over five years, or two days ago, someone has done me harm; I remember that hurt, that wrong, and I keep on thinking about it. Hate is the past right? And is love in the past? Is love a thing of the intellect? Don't say 'Oh no, it is not, it is of the heart'. If it is of the heart, why is there hate, jealousy, envy, division, separation and so on, which is the outcome of conceptual thought, of the word with its form, content and design? So for most of us love is pleasure, accumulated by thought, given continuity by thought and when that pleasure becomes thwarted, blocked, it turns into jealousy, hate, aggression, fear and so on which are all part of the structure and nature of thought. And can I, can the mind, die to all that?

So, can one let go of the past happily, easily, without any struggle, just to let it go? You know that silence when there is beauty and love there is no touch of the past. Has beauty the colouring of the past? Am I talking to myself, or are you all taking part in this conversation? I am afraid you are not! Or are you being thoroughly mesmerized?

Questioner: love is something unknown.

Krishnamurti: Is it? Don't you love your wife or husband, your family? Don't you love your country the country being the vested interests, the bank account there, the accumulated knowledge, your house, all that don't you love it?

Questioner: That's not love, that is contaminated.

Krishnamurti: But we say we love. You don't say 'I like my wife' do you? Are we playing games with words? You see, one of the difficulties is, that we don't want to face things as they are. We are so frightened, and also we are proud, we have no humility to actually see what there is in our life.

Questioner: There is an element of the past in love, one loves someone who is dead as if he were present.

Krishnamurti: This is a very interesting question. Once a lady came to see me whose husband had died some years ago, and she said 'I would like to meet my husband again'. Please listen to this, I am not being cruel. I said, 'Which husband do you want to meet? The one who slept with you, the one who dominated you, the one who went to the office and cheated, or did what he was told, the one who was frightened? Whom do you want to meet?' You answer it, please! Now, the question is: someone is dead, and I love him in the present. What is it you love in that person, in the present? I am not being cruel, I am just looking at facts.

Questioner: You love the memories.

Krishnamurti: Is that the real thing? That through all this perception something comes to us? Maybe, Sir. Do listen. When we say, 'I love', is it the memory of the past? 'I love my son, my husband, my wife, they are gone, dead' and I love that person in the present. What is that person whom I love, in the present? It is my memory of that person, the attachment, the pain, the pleasure, the joy, the companionship, the tenderness, that quality of deep relationship that he or she brought into my life all that is the memory of that person and I love that person. Is love memory?

Krishnamurti: Is it? Is love time? That is, I love the memory of my husband, my wife which is of yesterday, which is of the past and I love the Utopia, the ideology of tomorrow, which is still a memory, a thought. Is love thought, a word, a formula? I may love a formula, but is that love? So one asks: is love of time? You understand now? Is the picture clear? The past and the future, with their memories, with their hopes is that love? Is love made up of time?

Krishnamurti: Is it? I didn't have it when he or she was living, but now I am going to bring about a creative relationship with him what does it mean? How sad it all is, isn't it? No? We live in ideas, concepts, formulas, and we don't know what love is.

So we are asking: is it possible to see with love? To listen is the same thing as to see, in this sense. Is it possible to see and to listen with that quality of mind that is not burdened with the past, with that attention which is love? Is it? If it is not possible, then there is no way out of our vicious, deadly circle. Then we are caught. And in that prison we talk about freedom, God, love, truth, but it has no meaning; that is mere pretence, and thereby we cultivate hypocrisy and pride. What has love to do with all this?

Questioner: It seems to me, that when we say we love, unconsciously we are considering the past. Our attachment to our wife, our friends, our home and country is to something we know and so we are afraid of the future. We are attached to what we know, because we are afraid.

Krishnamurti: That's right. You are saying: my love is attachment. Yes Sir, that is what we all say. My love is attachment to my family, to my home, to my precious memories, I am afraid to let go, because in letting go I find I am lonely, and there is fear. And so the loneliness, the fear, prevents me from being free from attachment. I cultivate detachment, which is a clever trick, because I can't let go of attachment, being afraid of my loneliness, of my emptiness, of my incapacity to look at anything with a quality of freshness. So I cling to everything, to my money, to my job, to my beliefs, to my gods, to my experiences, to my family, to my country oh, don't you know all this?

Krishnamurti: That's right, Sir. Do I really know what it is I am clinging to? I cling to my house listen to this I cling, I am attached to that house I am that house! right? Have you seen a man riding a horse? Have you ever looked at it? The horse is much more dignified, more beautiful, lovely, with a freshness and the man on top there he is attached to the horse! (Laughter) He is the horse, but the horse is not the man. (Laughter) So when you are attached to your furniture my God! just think of it! you are the furniture, you are the pictures, you are the things that you are attached to, and that is worthless. The problem is, how to see clearly so that there is this flowering of love. You know, without love and beauty there is no truth, there is no god, there is only a morality which becomes immoral.