Krishnamurti: Total Freedom

Intelligence is not borne out of self-discipline or suppression. In the one instance it is wholly the pursuit of desire, the primitive man pursuing the object he desires. In the other instance, the intelligent man sees the significance of desire and sees the conflict; the primitive man does not, he pursues anything he desires and creates suffering and pain. So to me self-discipline and suppression are both alike—they both deny intelligence.

Let me take an example. Suppose that you are class-minded, class-conscious, snobbish. You don't know that you are snobbish, but you want to find out if you are; how will you find out? By becoming conscious of your thought and your emotions. Then what happens? Suppose that you discover that you are snobbish, then that very discovery creates a disturbance, a conflict, and that very conflict dissolves snobbishness, whereas if you merely discipline the mind not to be snobbish, you are developing a different characteristic which is the opposite of being a snob, and being deliberate, therefore false, is equally pernicious.

Understand the environment, so as not to come in conflict with it.

So, because we have established various patterns, various goals, aids, which we are continually consciously or unconsciously-pursuing, we discipline our minds and hearts toward them and, therefore, there must be control, perversion, whereas if you begin to inquire into the conditions that create conflict, and thereby awaken intelligence, then that intelligence itself is so supreme that it is continually in movement and, therefore, there is never a static point which can create conflict.

If environment is driving you to a certain action, it is no longer righteous. It is only when there is action born out of the understanding of that environment that there is righteousness.

Hm, let it land:

So long as the mind is influenced—and influence is born of attraction, opposites, antitheses—these are the domination or compulsion of love, of intellect, of society, and this influence hinders understanding what is beauty, truth, and love itself.

I thought things weren’t perfect. I wanted control so things could be perfect, now I realize that things are perfect. There is no need for control. Things are perfect.

I used to be hungry, and I wanted a certain food. I was ok hungry though, perfect.

Try living completely in the present. In the fullness of the moment you become conscious of all the subconscious entanglements of memory, the dormant hopes and longings which surge forward and prevent you from functioning intelligently in the present. If you are aware of that, if you are aware of that hindrance, aware of it at its depth, not superficially, then the dormant subconscious memory, which is but the lack of understanding and incompleteness of living, disappears and, therefore, you meet each movement of environment, each swiftness of thought, anew.

Welcome the insight that comes in the present - and follow its depth.

Suffering is the shock of the mind’s insufficiency. I couldn’t be safe, warm, happy, loved, without ….. {cause of suffering}

If you have been relying on {cause of suffering} to fulfill that insufficiency, you will experience loss. You will experience loss until your mind becomes sufficient to fulfill ….

There is an emptiness and a solution. The solution was always there. There is no becoming, just …..

Suffering is merely high intense clarity of thought which forces you to recognize things as they are

When you see things as the mirror of truth, which is intelligence, there is a joy that there is no duality, no loss.

Things are cold out here. I am ok on the cold. And the heat.

When I get out of the shower I am in no rush to grab a towel. I am in the cold and I am ok in the cold and in the hot. There is no suffering in the cold and a rush to solve that suffering with a towel. I am ok here and there.

When there is no creative expression to life we give undue importance to sex.

To become aware is to go into the full depth of consciousness so as not to leave undiscovered one unconscious reaction.

become conscious of why you are thinking in a particular groove and from what motive you act. Although you can discover the motive through analysis, although you may find out something through analysis, it will not be real; it will be real only when you are intensely aware at the moment of the functioning of your thought and emotion; then you will see their extraordinary subtlety, their fine delicacy. So long as you have a "must" and a "must not," in this compulsion you will never discover that swift wandering of thought and emotion. And I am sure you have been brought up in the school of "must" and "must not" and hence, you have destroyed thought and feeling.

This is an amazing analogy, then a big idea…..

Would you ask that question if there were a poisonous snake in your room? Then you wouldn't ask, "How am I to keep awake? How am I to be intensely aware?" You ask that question only when you are not sure that there is a poisonous snake in your room. Either you are wholly unconscious of it, or you want to play with that snake, you want to enjoy its pain and its delights.

Please follow this. There cannot be awareness, that alertness of mind and emotion, so long as mind is still caught up in both pain and pleasure. That is, when an experience gives you pain and at the same time gives you pleasure, you do nothing about it. You act only when the pain is greater than the pleasure, but if the pleasure is greater, you do nothing at all about it, because there is no acute conflict. It is only when pain overbalances pleasure, is more acute than pleasure, that you demand an action.

Most people wait for the increase of pain before they act, and during this waiting period they want to know how to be aware.

No one can tell them. They are waiting for the increase of pain before they act; that is, they wait for pain through its compulsion to force them to act, and in that compulsion there is no intelligence.

Act when pleasure equals pain, and when pleasure is greater. Act when...

if you know how to listen, then you will begin to understand the whole, and your mind will not be entangled by the particular.

If you are thinking of the goal you are not doing. When you just do, you are doing…

With thinking of a goal, everything is a means to an end. The second clause is wrought out of the first clause.

Krishna’s insight: life becomes a means to an objective which you have established through your various environments and conditions. So life becomes a school of great conflict and struggle, never a thing of fulfillment, of richness, of completeness.

When we ask for the meaning of life we are seeking an end. In seeking an end we desire to skip life.

It is a reckoning to realize how much of your life is conditioned. How much, or all of…

Huh, “I, is but a long, continuous scroll of memory”

mind, being conscious of insufficiency, pursues a gain and, therefore, creates a distinction, a division. Such a mind cannot understand environment, and as it cannot understand it, it must rely on the accumulation of memory for guidance; for memory is but a series of accumulations which act as a guide toward an end.

Now to be aware is not to alter. Our mind is accustomed to alteration which is merely modification, adjustment, becoming disciplined to a condition; whereas if you are aware, you will discover the full significance of the environment. Therefore there is no modification, but entire freedom from that environment.

Only when all these walls of protection are destroyed in the flame of awareness, in which there is no modification or alteration or adjustment, but complete understanding of the significance of environment with all its delicacies and subtleties

You cannot destroy these hindrances by disciplining yourself or by following a system or by imitating a pattern; you can understand them with all their complications only through the full awareness of mind and heart. Then there is an ecstasy, there is that living movement of truth, which is not an end, not a culmination, but an ever-creative living

“I see so much suffering, so much misery, and I feel something must be done about it.” Are you really concerned, or are you merely ambitious to do something?

Fear can come into being only in relation to something. That something may be your family, your work, your preoccupation with the future, with death.

You depend on her for your happiness, and this dependence is called love.

She is always there to cover up the fact of your loneliness, as you cover up hers; but the fact is still there, is it not?

by escaping from yourself, you have become dependent. Dependence grows stronger, escapes more essential, in proportion to the fear of what is. The wife, the book, the radio, become extraordinarily important; escapes come to be all-significant, of the greatest value. I use my wife as a means of running away from myself, so I am attached to her. I must possess her, I must not lose her; and she likes to be possessed, for she is also using me.

You do not like what you are, and so you run away from yourself, from what is

You cannot do anything about it. Whatever you do is an activity of escape. That is the most essential thing to realize. Then you will see that you are not different or separate from that hollowness. You are that insufficiency. Then if you proceed further, there is no longer calling it loneliness; the terming of it has ceased. If you proceed still further, which is rather arduous, the thing known as loneliness is not; there is a complete cessation of loneliness, emptiness, of the thinker as the thought.

You do not think about love when it is there; you think about it only when it is absent, when there is distance between you and the object of your love. It is when the communion breaks, at any level, that the process of thought, of imagination, begins. Love is not of the mind. The mind makes the smoke of envy, of holding, of missing, of recalling the past, of longing for tomorrow, of sorrow and worry; and this effectively smothers the flame. When the smoke is not, the flame is.

There is immediate regeneration, a newness, a quality of freshness;

Because the mind is always still when it is interested, when it desires or has the intention to understand.

The mind was totally with that bird. It was not observing the bird, though it had taken in every detail; it was not the bird itself, for there was no identification with it. It was with the bird, with its eyes and its sharp beak, as the sea is with the fish

it was wholly empty, and being empty it could attend without a cause.

sorrow is not to be compared. Comparison breeds self-pity, and then misfortune ensues.

Adversity is to be met directly, not with the idea that yours is greater than another’s.

Either you are suffering on behalf of your father, that is, because he enjoyed living and wanted to live, and now he is gone; or you are suffering because there has been a break in a relationship that had significance for so long, and you are suddenly aware of loneliness.

“I want to know what loneliness is,” he replied.

You mean you want a description of it. It’s an experience of being completely isolated; a feeling of not being able to depend on anything, of being cut off from all relationship. The “me,” the ego, the self, by its very nature, is constantly building a wall around itself; all its activity leads to isolation. Becoming aware of its isolation, it begins to identify itself with virtue, with God, with property, with a person, country, or ideology; but this identification is part of the process of isolation.

In what manner should one live one’s daily life?”

As though one were living for that single day, for that single hour.

Human being whose chief interest is to find security, to become somebody important, or to have a good time with as little thought as possible.

If we are being educated only to be scientists, to be scholars wedded to books, or specialists addicted to knowledge, then we shall be contributing to the destruction and misery of the world. We may be highly educated, but if we are without deep integration of thought and feeling, our lives are incomplete, contradictory, and torn with many fears

Training makes for efficiency, but it does not bring about completeness. A mind that has merely been trained is the continuation of the past, and such a mind can never discover the new.

The purpose of education is not to produce mere scholars, technicians, and job hunters, but integrated men and women who are free of fear; for only between such human beings can there be enduring peace.

Being free of fear is a revolution of mind, not only thought

Learning is possible only when there is no coercion of any kind. And coercion takes many forms, does it not? There is coercion through influence, through attachment or threat, through persuasive encouragement or subtle forms of reward.

Ambition breeds fear.

The feeling of being secure in relationship is a primary need of children. There is a vast difference between the feeling of being secure and the feeling of dependency.

Sensitivity means being sensitive to everything around one—to the plants, the animals, the trees, the skies, the waters of the river, the bird on the wing; and also to the moods of the people around one, and to the stranger who passes by. This sensitivity brings about the quality of uncalculated, unselfish response, which is true morality and conduct

To be sensitive is to love.

but we are always measuring love in our relationship and thereby destroying it.

quality of love must express itself also in doing things with one’s hands, such as gardening, carpentry, painting, handicrafts; and through the senses, as seeing the trees, the mountains, the richness of the earth, the poverty that men have created amongst themselves; and in hearing music, the song of the birds, the murmur of running waters.

Conflict makes for insensitivity. The mind may dominate the body and suppress the senses, but it thereby makes the body insensitive; and an insensitive body becomes a hindrance to the full flight of the mind.

Most of us know beauty only through that which has been created or put together—the beauty of a human form, or of a temple. We say a tree, or a house, or the widely curving river, is beautiful. And through comparison we know what ugliness is—at least we think we do. But is beauty comparable? Is beauty that which has been made evident, manifest? We consider beautiful a particular picture, poem, or face, because we already know what beauty is from what we have been taught, or from what we are familiar with and about which we have formed an opinion.

A feeling is not beautiful or ugly, it is just a feeling. But we look at it through our religious and social conditioning and give it a label; we say it is a good feeling or a bad feeling, and so we distort or destroy it.

the unconscious is under the weight of centuries, with the quality of deep time, and the conscious mind, with its recent culture, cannot deal with it according to its passing urgencies. To eradicate self-contradiction, the superficial mind must understand this fact and be quiescent

If you do not follow somebody you feel very lonely.

Be lonely then. Why are you frightened of being alone? Because you are faced with yourself as you are and you find that you are empty, dull, stupid, ugly, guilty, and anxious—a petty, shoddy, secondhand entity. Face the fact; look at it, do not run away from it. The moment you run away fear begins

Man throughout the world is caught up in the same daily problems as ourselves, so in inquiring into ourselves we are not being in the least neurotic because there is no difference between the individual and the collective.

When there is no resistance between the open and the hidden, then the hidden, because it has the patience of time, will not violate the immediate.

What is important is the understanding of the hidden, and not the mere education of the superficial mind to acquire knowledge, however necessary. This understanding of the hidden frees the total mind from conflict, and only then is there intelligence.

To understand anything you must live with it, you must observe it, you must know all its content, its nature, its structure, its movement. Have you ever tried living with yourself? If so, you will begin to see that your self is not a static state, it is a fresh living thing. And to live with a living thing your mind must also be alive. And it cannot be alive if it is caught in opinions, judgments, and values.

You will be able to see for yourself how you are conditioned only when there is a conflict in the continuity of pleasure or the avoidance of pain. If everything is perfectly happy around you, your wife loves you, you love her, you have a nice house, nice children and plenty of money, then you are not aware of your conditioning at all. But when there is a disturbance—when your wife looks at someone else or you lose your money or are threatened with war or any other pain or anxiety—then you know you are conditioned. When you struggle against any kind of disturbance or defend yourself against any outer or inner threat, then you know you are conditioned. And as most of us are disturbed most of the time, either superficially or deeply, that very disturbance indicates that we are conditioned. So long as the animal is petted he reacts nicely, but the moment he is antagonized the whole violence of his nature comes out

If one gets used to disturbance it means that one’s mind has become dull, just as one can get so used to beauty around one that one no longer notices it.

One gets indifferent, hard and callous, and one’s mind becomes duller and duller. If we do not get used to it we try to escape from it by taking some kind of drug, joining a political group, shouting, writing, going to a football match or to a temple or church, or finding some other form of amusement. Why is it that we escape from actual facts? We are afraid of death—I am just taking that as an example—and we invent all kinds of theories, hopes, beliefs, to disguise the fact of death, but the fact is still there. To understand a fact we must look at it, not run away from it. Most of us are afraid of living as well as of dying. We are afraid for our family, afraid of public opinion, of losing our job, our security, and hundreds of other things. The simple fact is that we are afraid, not that we are afraid of this or that. Now why cannot we face that fact?

Yet you will not lack energy if you see an immediate physical danger like a snake in your path, or a precipice, or a fire.

Seeing is acting.

Very interesting: Pleasure is the structure of society. From childhood until death we are secretly, cunningly, or obviously pursuing pleasure. So whatever our form of pleasure is, I think we should be very clear about it because it is going to guide and shape our lives. It is, therefore, important for each one of us to investigate closely, hesitantly, and delicately this question of pleasure, for to find pleasure, and then nourish and sustain it, is a basic demand of life

Even more interesting: if we pursue it, let us do so with our eyes open, knowing that a mind that is all the time seeking pleasure must inevitably find its shadow, pain. They cannot be separated, although we run after pleasure and try to avoid pain.

It is the same with sexual desire or any other form of desire. There is nothing wrong with desire. To react is perfectly normal. If you stick a pin in me I shall react unless I am paralyzed. But then thought steps in and chews over the delight and turns it into pleasure. Thought wants to repeat the experience, and the more you repeat, the more mechanical it becomes

So thought creates and sustains pleasure through desire, and gives it continuity;

Therefore, the natural reaction of desire to any beautiful thing is perverted by thought.

This is a really crazy idea about the relationship between joy (natural and good), then desire (thought wants more pleasure), which creates never ending pleasure run.

seeing the whole meaning and significance of pleasure. Then you will have tremendous joy in life.

You cannot think about joy. Joy is an immediate thing and by thinking about it, you turn it into pleasure.

Living in the present is the instant perception of beauty and the great delight in it without seeking pleasure from it.

I want to understand this whole problem, not just one fragment of it expressed in war, but this aggression in man which also exists in the animals and of which I am a part.”

Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear.

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind.

Being alone is leaving your old self who is otherwise a companion.

To be alone you must die to the past. The man who is completely alone in this way is innocent and it is this innocence that frees the mind from sorrow.

I love you, but the moment you cease to supply what I want I don’t like you.” So there is antagonism between you, there is separation, and when you feel separate from another there is no love. But if you can live with your wife without thought creating all these contradictory states, these endless quarrels in yourself, then perhaps—perhaps—you will know what love is.

Beauty is not something you see—not a beautiful tree, a beautiful picture, a beautiful building, or a beautiful woman. There is beauty only when your heart and mind know what love is.

Identify for comfort

One wonders why this craving, longing, for identification exists. One can understand the identification with one’s physical needs, the necessary things— clothes, food, shelter, and so on. But inwardly, inside the skin as it were, we try to identify ourselves with the past, with tradition, with some fanciful romantic image, a symbol much cherished. And surely in this identification there is a sense of security, safety, a sense of being owned and of possessing. This gives great comfort.

Applies to future comfort - identifying with future retirement etc.

If you are in harmony with nature, with all the things around you, then you are in harmony with all human beings. If you have lost your relationship with nature you will inevitably lose your relationship with human beings.

Interesting: This morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky; the sun was in the valley and all things were rejoicing, except man. He looked at this wondrous earth and went on with his labor, his sorrow and passing pleasures.

He had no time to see; he was too occupied with his problems, with his agonies, with his violence.

When he’s forced to look, he tears to pieces what he sees, which he calls analysis, runs away from it or doesn’t want to see.

good is not the product of thought; it lies beyond thought, like beauty.

Or is it that we are continually at war within ourselves and, therefore, outwardly?

After all, what is civilization? What is the Indian or the European civilization? It is an expression of the collective will, is it not? The will of the many has created this present civilization in India, and cannot you and I break away from it and think entirely differently about these matters? Is it not the responsibility of serious people to do this?

Now, what is this thing which we call life? We know life only through self- consciousness, do we not? I know I am alive because I speak, I think, I eat, I have various contradictory desires, conscious and unconscious, various compulsions, ambitions, and so on. It is only when I am conscious of these, that is, as long as I am self-conscious, that I know I am alive. And what do we mean by being self-conscious? Surely, I am self-conscious only when there is some kind of conflict; otherwise I am unconscious of myself.

And can you be aware of how your mind is conditioned? Surely, that is our problem, not what freedom is. Can you just be aware of your conditioning, which is to see that your mind functions in a particular manner?

Hm. can you listen so as to comprehend what is being said? Can you listen without making an effort, without interpreting, which is to give total attention?

I think it is always important to ask fundamental questions: but when we do ask a fundamental question, most of us are seeking an answer, and then the answer is invariably superficial, because there is no yes or no answer to life. Life is a movement, an endless movement, and to inquire into this extraordinary thing called life, with all its innumerable aspects, one must ask fundamental questions and never be satisfied with answers, however satisfactory they may be, because the moment you have an answer, the mind has concluded, and conclusion is not life—it is merely a static state.

The truth is that as long as there is a point in the mind which is moving toward another point, that is, as long as the mind is seeking security in any form, it will never be free from pain.

most of us are aware of this emptiness, and we try to run away from it. In running away from it, we establish certain securities, and then those securities become all-important to us because they are the means of escape from our particular loneliness, emptiness, or anguish. Your escape may be a Master, it may be thinking yourself very important, it may be giving all your love, your wealth, jewels, everything, to your wife, to your family; or it may be social or philanthropic activity. Any form of escape from this inward emptiness becomes all-important and, therefore, we cling to it desperately. Those who are religiously-minded cling to their belief in God, which covers up their emptiness, their anguish;

when there is fear, I can have no communication with it.

Empty vessel. The vessel is. The vessel is even if full or empty. The story changes around it. The vessel is. Even if the vessel is empty, improve the vessel.

The vessel does not fill itself, the hand and the water or the hand without water might come or might never. Rather than paying attention to filled or not filled, the vessel exists. That’s enough. And if the vessel wants to do more it can focus on becoming a better vessel. Smoother or larger.

Empty vessel is a very nice experience - I looked inside the empty vessel a few times throughout the day, such as in a pause in the middle of eating lunch, and it felt so comforting :)

Now, must we not be alone? At present we are not alone—we are merely a bundle of influences. We are the result of all kinds of influences—social, religious, economic, hereditary, climatic. Through all those influences, we try to find something beyond, and if we cannot find it, we invent it, and cling to our inventions. But when we understand the whole process of influence at all the different levels of our consciousness, then, by becoming free of it, there is an aloneness which is uninfluenced; that is, the mind and heart are no longer shaped by outward events or inward experiences. It is only when there is this aloneness that there is a possibility of finding the real.

But emptiness can never finally be covered—it must be understood. To understand it, we must be aware of these escapes, and when we understand the escapes, then we shall be able to face our emptiness. Then we shall see that the emptiness is not different from ourselves, that the observer is the observed.

How are we to live in this world, where living implies competition, acquisitiveness, ambition, the aggressive pursuit of our own fulfillment, and also bring into being the perfume of something which is beyond? Can we live in this world and yet have the other?

Incredible:

Two small creatures quarreling with each other, fighting in their small way. One was trying to drive off the other. The other was intruding, trying to get into the other's little hole, and the owner was fighting it off. The little creature had identified itself with its home, as we human beings do. We are always trying to identify ourselves with our race, with our culture, with those things which we believe in, with some mystical figure, or some savior, some kind of super authority. Identifying with something seems to be the nature of man. Probably we have derived this feeling from that little animal.

As we said earlier, the future is what you are now. If there is no change, not superficial adaptations, but the change that is far deeper, demanding your attention, your care, your affection if there is not a fundamental change, then the future is what we are doing every day of our life in the present.

Will you be mediocre, though you may be first class in your profession? You may excel, you may be very, very good at whatever you do, but I am talking of mediocrity of the mind, of the heart, mediocrity of your entire being.

These young people want to become something lawyers, engineers, politicians, and so on; there is the urge, the drive of, ambition for power, money. That is what those old people whom you talk about have been through. They are worn out by constant conflict, by their desires.

When you ask 'how' you really become a secondhand human being; you lose integrity and also the innate honesty to look at yourself. to be what you are and to go beyond and above what you are. Never, never ask the question 'how.' We are talking psychologically, of course. You have to ask 'how' when you want to put a motor together or build a computer. You have to learn something about it from somebody. But to be psychologically free and original can only come about when you are aware of your own inward activities, watch what you are thinking and never let one thought escape without observing the nature of it, the source of it. Observing, watching.

one thing the brain apparently cannot do: change completely its behavior in its relationship to another head, to another man. Neither punishment nor reward seem to change its behavior; knowledge doesn't seem to transform its conduct. The me and the you remain. It never realizes that the me is the you, that the observer is the observed.

Death was everywhere that morning. You could hear it in the village; the great sobs as the body, wrapped in a cloth, was being carried out; a kite was streaking down on a bird; some animal was being killed; you heard its agonizing cries. So it went on day after day: death is always everywhere, as sorrow is.

Without the observer, distance ceases. Distance is from one point to another

and to reach that point time is necessary; distance only exists where there is

direction, inward or outward. The observer makes a separation, a distance

between himself and what is; from this grows conflict and sorrow. The

transformation of what is takes place only when there is no separation, no time,

between the seer and the seen. Love has no distance.

with attention, which is love

There’s vast mystery in the act of seeing. This needs care, attention, which is love.

When he’s forced to look, he tears to pieces what he sees, which he calls analysis. The “what should be” never is. The art of seeing requires attention, which is love, to see what is.

What do we mean by being serious? And are we ever really serious? Most of

us think very superficially; we never sustain a particular intention and carry it

through because we have so many contradictory desires, each desire pulling in a

different direction. One moment we are serious about something, and the next it

is forgotten, and we pursue a different object at a different level. And is it

possible to maintain an integrated outlook toward life?

We spend our days in such varieties of conflict and unhappiness, with some joy and pleasure, drinking, smoking, late nights, and work, work, work. And at the end of one's life one faces that thing called death and is frightened of it. However the ending of every day is also the ending of oneself every day.

If all the human beings who have lived before us, past generations upon generations, still lived on this earth, how terrible it would be. The beginning is not the ending.

That is not a serious question, is it? It is like my saying that others have eaten when I myself am hungry. If I am hungry I will inquire where food is to be had, to say that others are well-fed is irrelevant; it indicates that I am not really hungry.

when the mind is totally aware of its conditioning, there is only the mind: there is no “you” separate from the mind. But when the mind is only partially aware of its conditioning, it divides itself, it dislikes its conditioning or says it is a good thing; and as long as there is condemnation, judgment, or comparison, there is incomplete understanding of conditioning and, therefore, the perpetuation of that conditioning

as long as there is a point in the mind which is moving toward another point, that is, as long as the mind is seeking security in any form, it will never be free from pain.

Security is dependency, and a mind that depends has no love.

Your escape may be a Master, it may be thinking yourself very important, it may be giving all your love, your wealth, jewels, everything, to your wife, to your family; or it may be social or philanthropic activity. Any form of escape from this inward emptiness becomes all-important and, therefore, we cling to it desperately.

when there is fear, I can have no communication with it

After all, loneliness is a process of isolation, is it not? Surely, in all our relationships, in all our efforts in life, we are always isolating ourselves. That process of isolation must obviously lead to emptiness, and without understanding the whole After all, loneliness is a process of isolation, is it not? Surely, in all our relationships, in all our efforts in life, we are always isolating ourselves. That process of isolation must obviously lead to emptiness, and without understanding the whole process of isolation, we will not he able to resolve this emptiness/loneliness.

integration of the thinker and the thought, this loneliness, this anguish, disappears.

Envy is not merely being concerned because someone else has more than I.

Envy is the state of a mind which is demanding more and more all the time—

more power, more position, more money, more experience, more knowledge.

Wanting to be different, to be “more,” is the beginning of envy

A mind concerned with itself is envy. This is the central issue of peace.

The reason you are concerned with yourself is that you think you are important.

A humble mind says, “I do not know, I shall find out,” which means that there is humility from the very beginning. And the moment one is humble, one has the capacity to be free of envy. Because there is humility, your mind has the capacity to inquire into envy, and such a mind is no longer envious.

If you are watching yourself from moment to moment, then in that awareness you will find there is a tremendous vitality. The mind that is accumulating is frightened to die, and such a mind can never discover what is truth. But to a mind that is dying every minute to everything that it has experienced, there comes an astonishing vitality because every moment is new; and only then is the mind capable of discovery.

How can a petty mind find the immeasurable? Such a mind can talk about the immeasurable, write books about it; it can fashion a symbol of truth and garland the symbol, but that is all on the verbal level. “I must begin with what I actually am, not with what I should be. I am envious, that is all I know.”

We are concerned with the world, with what is happening in Europe, with the mechanization of industry—anything to get away from the central point, which is that I cannot help to bring about a different world until I as an individual have changed fundamentally. To see that one must begin with oneself is to realize an enormous truth; but most of us overlook it; we easily brush it aside because we are concerned with the collective, with changing the social order, with trying to bring about peace and harmony in the world.

I love you, I have identified myself with you. Or I have hurt her and you identify yourself with her and get angry with me. See what has happened: I have said something to her which is harmful and unpleasant; you are her friend and you identify yourself with her and get angry with me. So that is part of the self-

centered activity, isn’t it?

you can never say, “I love you,” until you stop thinking about yourself. When a man feels ambitious, competitive, imitative, which is part of thinking about oneself, can there be love?

What do you mean by love, sir?

K: I don’t know. I will tell you what it is not; and when that is not in you, the other is. Listen to this: Where the known is, love is not.

Most human beings throughout the world want to be safe, secure, comfortable, lead a life of indulgence, a life in which they do not have too much opposition, have a job, get married, have children and responsibility. But because the mind wants something much more than that, they are discontented, running from one thing to another.

Seeing all of this—not just one segment, one fraction of it, but the whole of the map—what are you all going to do? Or is it a question that you cannot possibly answer at your age? You are too young, perhaps, with your own occupations

am I capable of listening to what he is saying with complete abandonment of the past? How do you know that what he is talking about is the truth? When you use the word truth, you indicate you have the ability to judge what is true, or you already have a definition of truth, or you know what truth is, which means you will not be listening to what somebody is saying.

At a certain moment I have perception. But during the interval between the perceptions there is a lot of debris being gathered. Our question is: Is perception continuous so that there is no collection of the debris? Put it round the other way: Does one perception keep the field clear? It is only when that perception becomes darkened by the debris that the process of getting rid of it begins. But if there is perception why should there be a collecting, gathering?

If I am in fear, my perception will be very partial. That is a fact.

Perception, curiosity, investigating, observing, asking where X comes from.

Perception can take place only when there is no division between the observer and the observed. You are the fear in the moment and investigating it cleans the window. You cannot see with a dirty window. With a dirty window you cannot only see the dirt clearly, this is step 1

You are always talking from that total perception; therefore, what you say can never be distorted.” And another listens to all this and says: “I am frightened, I am jealous, I am this, I am that, and, therefore, I can’t have total perception.” So I observe attachment, or fear, or jealousy, and I have an insight.

The key to this is somewhere in desire. There is some sort of desire for continuity, for security

If you could see the molecules, you would have an insight. Molecules bubbling off of every object on the plane make apparent that change is constant. There us no staying the same, only getting ‘better’ or ‘worse’ .

Compassion is compassion, it doesn’t act. If it acts because there is a cause and an effect, then it is not compassion: it wants a result. What makes it want a result is the idea of separation. Somebody says, “There is a person suffering, I would like to produce the result that he is not suffering.”

But that is based on the idea that there is “me” and “he.” There is no “he” and no “I.” The world is me and I am the world. When I say “me,” “you” exist; both of us are there. The “you” and the “I” are the results of man’s misery, of selfishness, and so on; it is a result. When one looks into the result, goes into it very, very deeply, the insight brings about a quality in which “you” and “I”—who are the result—don’t exist. This is easy to agree to verbally, but when you see it deeply there is no “you” and no “me.” Therefore, there is no result; which means compassion. The person upon whom that compassion acts wants a result. We say, “Sorry, there is no result.” But the man who suffers says, “Help me to get out of this,” or, “Help me to bring back my son, my wife.” He is demanding a result. This thing has no result. The result is the world. Compassion says, this state is not a result; therefore, there is no cause.

Man has built in himself images as a sense of security—religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these dominates man’s thinking, relationships, and daily life. These are the causes of our problems, for they divide man from man in every relationship.

His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind.

If you have choice you have freedom. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence.

When man becomes aware of the movement of his own consciousness he will see the division between the thinker and the thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation, which is insight without any shadow of the past.

Knowing is knowing. Thought is always endeavoring to go beyond that, asserting the ineffable, the unnamable, unknowable.

Look at your own consciousness, if you can. You believe in saviors, rituals, creeds, and

dogmas on one side and, on the other side, you accept social immorality, wars,

nationalities and their divisions that restrict economic expansion and deny consideration for others. Your personal unhappiness, your ambitions, your fears, your greeds, your aggressiveness, your demands, your loneliness, your sorrow, your lack of relationship with another, the isolation, frustration, confusion, misery. All that is consciousness whether you are of the East or the West—with variations, with joys, with more

knowledge or less knowledge.

You may meditate for hours, sitting in a certain posture, breathing in a special way, but it is still within the area of thought because you want something out of your meditation.

If “I,” the observer, am different from anger, I try to control it, suppress it, dominate it, overcome it, and there is conflict. But is the observer different at all? Or is he essentially the same as the observed? If he is the same, then there is no conflict, is there? The understanding of that is intelligence.

It would be a thousand pities if you did not understand this simple thing. Man has lived in conflict. He wants peace through conflict. And there can never be peace through conflict; however many armaments you may have against another’s equally strong armaments, there will never be peace. Only when intelligence operates will there be peace, the intelligence that comes when one understands that there is no division between the observer and the observed.

There is no thinker if you do not think. Thought has created the thinker. That is the first thing to understand, to have an insight into the truth of, the fact of, as palpable as you sitting there, so that there is no conflict between the observer and the observed.

When I look at a map of France, as I come from England and cross the Channel, I see the road leading to Gstaad. I can tell the mileage, I can see the direction. All that is very simple because it is marked on the map and I follow it. In doing that, I do not look at any other part of the map; I know the direction in which I want to go and that direction excludes all others. In the same way, a mind that is seeking in a given direction does not see the whole.

A movement in a particular direction, seeking a certain pleasure, not wanting to do this or that, makes one

incapable of seeing the whole. If I am a scientist, I see only in a certain direction.

If I am an artist, there again. If I have a certain talent or gift, I see only a certain direction. So the mind is incapable of seeing the totality and the immensity of that totality if there is a movement in a particular direction.

Of course, the mind has to have

direction when I go from here to the house, or when I have to drive a car, when I have to perform some technical function; but I am talking of a mind that understands the nature of direction and, therefore, is capable of seeing the whole. When it sees the whole, it can then also operate in direction. If I have the whole picture in mind, then I can take in the detail; but if my mind only operates in details, then I cannot take in the whole. If I am concerned with my opinions, with my anxieties, with what I want to do, with what I must do, I cannot see the whole. When it operates from the whole, the direction becomes clear, very strong and effective

Can your mind look at its content when you talk to another, in your gestures, in the way you walk, in the way you sit and eat, in the way you behave? Behavior indicates the content of your consciousness, whether you are behaving according to pleasure, reward, or pain, which are part of your consciousness.

you are lazy, indifferent, not only to your own sorrow, to your own suffering, to your

own misery, but to the misery of millions of people, to what is going on in Russia, in India, and elsewhere? Are you totally indifferent to all that, because you want to find God, you want to meditate, you want to learn how to breathe properly, how to have the right kind of sexual relationship, and so on? If you are

concerned with the whole of humanity, not just your neighbor or your wife but with the whole of humanity, then when you see that whole you can put the detail in order.

This has been the problem of man right through the ages. He knows he lives by the senses, by his desires, by touch, by appetites—sexual, intellectual, and otherwise—and he questions: “Is that all?” Then he begins to invent the gods, the supergods, superconsciousness, and so on and so on. Having invented and projected a form, he

pursues it, thinking he is tremendously idealistic or tremendously religious. But his pursuit of what he calls “God” or truth is still the pursuit of the product of thought, which is material.

one must examine what is the cause of one’s search. Is the cause of one’s search an escape from this? Cause means motive. Is all one’s inquiry motivated? Because if it is, the root of that is either the seeking of pleasure or the escape from fear. Or, if it is from total dissatisfaction with what is, then it projects its own answer.

Where there is division, there must be disorder. The observer, rooted in the past, is essentially the factor of division. Now can the mind see the truth of that and observe the actual disorder of your life, not the description? (You describe to me a mountain, its beauty, its snow, its lines against the blue sky, the depth of shadows in the forest, the running waters, the murmur of trees, the beauty of it all. You describe it to me and the description catches my mind and I live with that description. But the description is not that which is described. So one asks oneself, “Am I caught in the description, or am I actually seeing disorder?” One is intellectual, the other is factual. Now, is the mind observing its disorder, which means no word, not being caught in the description, but merely observing this enormous disorder? Can the mind so observe?) Can it observe your disorder, your confusion, your anxieties, your contradictions, your selfish demands, all that? Observe. And if it observes without the observer there is then the going beyond it, which means total order

Therefore, there must be observation of behavior. Do I behave according to a motive, according to circumstances? Is my behavior pragmatic, or is it under all circumstances the same? Not the same in the sense of copying a pattern; is it a behavior that is never relative, that is not based on reward and punishment? Inquire into it, observe it and you will find how terrible your behavior is, how you look to a superior and inferior and all the other things you do. There is never a constant movement free of the motive of reward and punishment.

When the mind has order and the sense of total relationship, then what takes place? Then the mind is not seeking at all, it is not capable of any kind of illusion.

Can the mind be free of causation, for where there is causation, all movement as thought must be mechanical.

Thought is the measure of fear. Thought is the response of memory, which is experience and knowledge stored up in the brain cells and tissues. Thought is matter.

One has to find out whether it is thought that has bred fear. Not how to be free of fear; freedom from fear will inevitably come about when one understands the structure, the nature, and the functioning of thought.

Thought created the materialistic world—one sees that, as long as we function there and remain there, fear must continue.

the brain can only function effectively, objectively, rationally, if it has complete security. That is obvious. When it has no security, it seeks security in belief in gods, in symbols, in ideologies, in nationalities, which leads to neurotic action. As long as I call myself a nationalist of a particular country, I am behaving neurotically; I bring about conflict and division between people. That is one of the causes of fear.

but the truth that all the gods, Christian or Hindu, all of them, are the invention of thought. Thought can project itself into all kinds of states, into all kinds of illusions, and when thought says there is the higher self, it

is still within the field of thought and, therefore, that higher self is still matter.

When you see that the controller is the controlled, the whole aspect of meditation changes. Meditation means the emptying of consciousness of its content. Then only can the mind and the brain be absolutely quiet. That absolute—not relative—that absolute quietness is necessary to observe. Not to experience! Experiences we have had, of every kind, and thought desires more experience, including the experience of another state, another dimension.

If I do not recognize, is there an experience? I

have had the experience of looking at a mountain, the beauty of it, the shadow,

the lovely deep blue of an early morning, the whole sense of something extraordinary and magnificent. That experience cannot exist if there is no relationship to the past. And so experience implies recognition from the past.

And the mind wants to experience something supreme. But to recognize it, it must already have had it. Therefore, it is not the supreme, it is still the projection of thought.

Can the mind empty itself of time, direction, and movement, which implies the ending of

thought? That is the whole problem.

you are not giving importance to the understanding of yourself, which is to be watchful, to be aware, to give attention to what you are doing, every day of your life. That is, to give attention to how you speak and what you say, to what you think, how you behave, whether you are attached, whether you are frightened, whether you are pursuing pleasure, and so on, to be aware of the whole movement of thought.

whole relationship—not between you and me, but human relationship with the whole of the world

From there you can go on to behavior, how you behave. If your behavior is based on pleasure or on reward, it is not behavior. It is merely the pursuit of pleasure, and from that fear arises.

you will find no enlightenment there. Enlightenment is where you are. And where you are, you have to understand yourself. Having established that, lay the foundation there of order

Meditation implies a quality of mind that is absolutely silent. Not made silence, not a contrived act brought about through will, but a silence that comes naturally when you have established order, relationship, and behavior. Silence comes only when the content of consciousness has been completely understood and gone beyond, which means the observer and the observed are one and there is no controller. When there is no controller—which does not mean that you live a life of nondiscipline—when there is no controller, no observer, then action is instantaneous and it brings a great deal of energy.

So we are dealing with the human, global problem, which is that you as a human being are living in a disintegrating world. So when we talk about relationship, we are talking about the relationship of man to man. When you

understand that relationship, then you can come very much closer, which is the relationship between you and your neighbor, you and your wife, you and your

son, and so on. Unless you have a global, universal, sense of the whole human

being, you will live merely in fragments, as an American, or a European, a communist, a socialist, a Hindu, or a Buddhist—and all the rest of the divisions that man has made. We are concerned with mankind, which is you. Wherever you go, man is suffering, man is afraid, man wants to find out if there is some

truth anywhere—if there is any god, if there is anything sacred, whether there is an eternity or only the ending of life and whether man can ever be free from fear, find an end to sorrow

If you have lived with another for a week, or a hundred weeks, you have made a picture of the other, and the other has made a picture of you. That is a fact, isn’t it? Are you afraid to look at that picture? That picture has been built through many days, many years, many incidents: nagging, pleasure, comfort, fear, domination, possession, attachment, and so on and so on and so on. Each person has an image of the other. That is an actuality, isn’t it? And you call that relationship. That is a relationship between two pictures, between two images. Right? You are not agreeing with the speaker, you are looking at the fact. These pictures or images or conclusions are memories, which each has put together, stored up in the brain. And they are reacting to each other according to those images. You have been hurt, and that hurt is a memory, stored up in the brain, and that reacts. So our relationship is not actual but from memories. If you are married, you have built a picture about your wife, and the wife has built a picture, an image about you. Those pictures, those images are the nagging, the casual remarks, the hurts, the pleasures, the comforts, the sexual memories, all that. And the relationship is between these two verbal pictures in memory; it is not actual; and, therefore, there is always division and conflict. When you have been hurt in that relationship, it is the image you have built about yourself that has been hurt

deep-rooted fear is the movement of thought in time, which is a material process, which has created an artificial structure called the “me,” and having created it clings to

There is fear in relationship, because in relationship we have created the image of you and me. Their relationship is between these two images. We cling to the picture, to the image, and we are frightened of losing that image.

So can you look at fear without the observer? Because you are the fear, fear isn’t different from you. When you are angry, is that anger different from you? If you say it is different, then you try to control it, then you try to rationalize it, then you try to do something about it. But if the observer is the observed, you can’t do anything about it, you are that

Big idea that pleasures means experience + repeating that experience, and this is because we don’t want the world to change. We want yesterday if yesterday was a good day.

There are three things: pleasure, enjoyment, and joy. You can cultivate pleasure—taste, all

sensory activities. Can you cultivate joy? Joy comes uninvited, by some curious chance. You find yourself suddenly, extraordinarily, unspeakably happy. Then thought takes it over and says, “I must have more of it.” So the moment thought interferes with that thing called joy becomes pleasure. So that is our life, a way of living, that is constantly repetitive, constantly going over something that was, that is already dead, making it live through thought and pursuing that as pleasure. You can look at something beautiful, the trees and the clouds and the light. But when thought comes in and says, “That was a most lovely thing,” it is already finished. So can you watch the beauty of nature, the beauty of this world, with all your senses and not let thought come in? Can you watch it without thought coming into it, and end it there, not wanting to continue it? What has continuity becomes mechanistic. In that which has an ending, there is a new beginning.

Sorrow is the lot of human beings, everyone knows it. We escape from the fact of what is, which is sorrow. Now if you don’t escape, that is, if there is no rationalizing, no avoiding, no justifying, just remaining with that totality of suffering, without the movement of thought, then you have all that energy to comprehend the thing that you call sorrow.

If you remain without a single movement of thought, with that which you have called sorrow, there comes a transformation in that which you have called sorrow. That becomes passion. The root meaning of sorrow is passion. When you escape from it, you lose that quality which comes from sorrow, which is complete passion, which is totally different from lust and desire. When you have an insight into sorrow and remain with that thing completely, without a single movement of thought, out of that comes this strange flame of passion. And you must have passion, otherwise you can’t create anything.

Out of passion comes compassion. Compassion means passion for all things,

for all human beings. So there is an ending to sorrow, and only then you will begin to understand what it means to love.

You are attached because of your own insufficiency, loneliness. And so out of your own insufficiency, loneliness, a sense of lacking, you cling to another. So is attachment love? Where there is attachment there must be exploitation. None of these things exist as attachment when you have understood that that emptiness in yourself can never be filled by something else. You have to look at

it. You have to not escape from it, observe it totally. Then you will see that loneliness goes completely away. Then there is not that lonely attachment. Then perhaps one will know what love is. In attachment there is fear, there is anxiety, there is hate, all the conflicts in relationship; and where there is conflict can there be love? Where there is ambition, can there be love? When you strip yourself of

ambition, anxiety, attachment, and understand deeply the meaning and the

significance of pleasure and desire, then you perhaps come upon that strange thing called love. And out of that comes compassion.

Life is total movement

Can you observe without any choice the mechanical movement of the brain, or rather one part of the brain that has been cultivated for centuries upon centuries to act mechanically? Just be aware of it, not try to correct it, not try to alter it, because from trying to alter it comes conflict. As we said, where there is duality, difference between the observer and the observed, there must be conflict. When there is no observer but merely observation then there is no conflict.

once you understand this you will never touch any system; because what is implied in a system and a practice? Repetition, practice, practice, practice, control, make an effort, which is to become mechanical. We said thought in its essence is mechanical, because thought is the repetition, or the reaction, of memory. And when you already live a life that is mechanical and try to go beyond that

mechanical life by introducing another mechanical process, which is systems, methods, practices, you are still mechanical.

The idea that you are an individual with a mind that is specially yours is an absurdity because this brain has evolved through time. It is the brain of mankind, and that brain is part of mankind, genetically, and so on, and so on. So you are the world and the world is you.

is that attachment, the feeling of dependence, clinging, holding on to somebody, different from me? Or I am that? I am attachment. If one realizes that, conflict ends

Sorrow is not different from the one who suffers. The person who suffers wants to run away, escape, do all kinds of things. But to look at it as you look at a beautiful child, to hold it, never escape from it, then you will see for yourself, if you really look deeply, that there is an end to sorrow. And when there is an end to sorrow, there is passion.

We are frightened of death, we never see the greatness of this extraordinary thing. Death means surely the ending of everything, the ending of my relationships, the ending of all the things I have put together in my life, all the knowledge, all the experience. I’ve led an idiotic life, a meaningless life, or I have tried to find intellectually a meaning to life; then death comes and says, “That’s the end.” I identify myself with the furniture or the pictures or the bank account so I am the bank account, the pictures, the furniture. When you identify with something so completely, you are that. I have established roots. I have established a great many things round me. And death comes and makes a

clean sweep of all that. So I ask myself, is it possible to live with death all the time? So can I live with death, which means that everything that I have done and collected ends? Ending is more important than continuity. The ending means the beginning of something new. If you merely continue, it is the same pattern being repeated in a different mold. So can I live with death? That means freedom, complete, total, holistic freedom.

If there is no time there is no thought. If there is no matter there is no thought. Thought is a product of memory, as it tried to repeat material things that it likes over and over. Thought is always destined to be unhappy because of this because the only thing certain in life is change.