Theos-Talk Archives (May 1997 Message tl00442)

Krishnaji's lecture Part 2 of 2.

=================continued from part 1 =====================

Please follow this! It may appear to be complicated but it is only verbally
complex. So thought is the response of the brain cells which have
accumulated knowledge as experience and since thought breeds fear, it has
divided itself and separated the thinker from the thought. The thinker says
'I am afraid'. The thinker, the 'I' is separate from the thing of which he
is afraid, the fear itself, so there is duality, a division the thinker and
the thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the
experienced. This duality or division, this separation is the cause of
effort, the source from which all effort springs. Apart from obvious duality
as man and woman, black and white, there is an inward psychological duality
as the observer and the observed, the one who experiences and the thing
experienced. In this division, in which time and space are involved, is the
whole process of conflict; you can observe it in yourself. You are violent,
that is a fact and you also have the ideological concept of non-violence, so
there is duality. Now the observer says 'I must become non-violent' and the
attempt to become non-violent is conflict, which is a waste of energy;
whereas if the observer is totally aware of that violence without the
ideological concept of nonviolence then he is able to deal with it immediately.

One must observe therefore this dualistic process at work within oneself
this division of the I and the not-I, the observer and the observed, and
thought has brought about this division. It is thought which says, I am
dissatisfied with what is and I shall only be satisfied with what should be;
it is thought which has enjoyed some experience as pleasure and says I must
have more of it. So in each one of us there is this dualistic, contradictory
process and this process is a waste of energy. Therefore one asks oneself
and I hope you are asking why is there this division? Why is there this
constant effort between what is and what should be? And is it possible to
eradicate totally the what should be, the ideal, which is the future, as
well as the what has been, the past, from which the future is built? Is
there an observer at all except as thought dividing itself into the observer
and the observed? You can either look at this and discard it or look at it
and go into it very deeply, because as long as there is an observer, there
must be division, hence conflict. And the observer is always the past, never
new; the thing observed may be new, but the observer always translates it in
terms of the old, the past, so thought can never be new and therefore never
free. Thought is always the old, so when you worship thought, you are
worshipping something which is dead; thought is like the children of barren
women. And we who are supposed to be great thinkers actually live on the
past and therefore we are dead human beings.

Thought then has created pleasure and also fear, which breeds violence, so
the problem is: there is fear and there is violence, and by considering them
merely in terms of words, or by description, does not bring them to an end.
I see very clearly how thought has bred this fear I am afraid I may lose
something which is very precious to me, that is the thought which has
produced this fear. If thought suppresses itself, says 'I won't think about
it' the fear is still there. Please follow this slowly! If I attempt to
escape from it, accept or deny it, I am still afraid, it is still there. So
what is the next question? There is fear and thought cannot be suppressed;
that would be an extreme form of neurosis.

What takes place when the observer is the observed? Do you understand the
question? The observer is the result of the past, of thought; and the thing
observed, which is fear, is also the result of thought, so the observer and
the observed are both the product of thought. Now whatever thought does with
regard to this state of fear whether it accepts or suppresses it, whether it
interferes and tries to sublimate it, whatever it does is to continue fear
in a different form. So thought, observing this whole process, learning
intimately about itself (not being told by another), seeing for itself the
nature and structure of fear, which is itself, thought then realises that
whatever it does with regard to fear is still to give nourishment to fear.
So then what happens, what comes out of this understanding?

I hope you are following all this. I have observed fear  which is thought as
I have observed pleasure. Now the observer is the observed, although thought
has separated the observer and the thing observed. I see that very clearly;
there is an understanding of it, not as an intellectual concept but as an
actual reality, so what takes place? The understanding is not intellectual
therefore it is the highest form of intelligence and to be intelligent, in
this way, means to be highly sensitive, aware of the nature and the whole
structure of fear. If I suppress fear or run away from it, then there is no
sensitive perception of fear and all its implications, therefore I must
learn about fear and not run away; and I can only learn about something when
I am in direct contact with it, and I can only be in contact with it so
intimately when I can look freely. This freedom is the highest form of
sensitivity, not only physically but in the mind also; the brain itself
becomes highly sensitive. This understanding is intelligence and it is this
intelligence which is going to operate and as long as there is this
intelligence, there is no fear; fear only comes when this intelligence is
absent. This must be understood at a very deep level not just verbally,
because as we said previously the word is not the thing and the description
is never the described. You can describe food to a hungry man but the words
and the description do not appease his hunger. This intelligence is the
highest form of sensitivity, not only at the physical level ( this implies a
great deal which unfortunately we haven't time to go into), but also at the
deeper psychological level, and it is this intelligence which is the
foundation of virtue.

Nowadays, I am afraid, most people spit on that word 'virtue' as they do on
'humility' and 'kindliness' they have lost all their meaning. But without
virtue there is no order; we are not talking of political order or economic
order, but of something quite different; the order of which we are speaking
is virtue, not the so-called virtue or morality of the church and society,
because they are based on authority. The morality of the church and
organised religions is immoral because it compromises with society; to these
organisations virtue is an ideal, but you cannot cultivate humility. So
order is virtue and this order can only come into being when we understand
the whole negative process of disorder which is in ourselves, which is this
contradiction, this division which has been brought about by the process of
thought. Unless we understand this state of order and virtue very clearly
and lay its foundation deeply within ourselves, there is no possibility of
of going into the question of meditation, and of finding out what love is
and what truth is.

And now if you have time and the inclination, perhaps you would like to ask
questions and talk things over together.

Questioner: Could you discuss this verbalization which takes place within
oneself when one wishes to look at something very clearly?

KRISHNAMURTI: I wonder if we have ever observed within ourselves what slaves
we are to words, to verbalization? Why? We are incapable of looking at
anything a cloud, a bird, those marvellous hills over there, our wife or our
husband without this process of verbalization. Why? Why is it that we cannot
look at anything without the image? To understand this is quite a complex
problem. Why do we look at everything through an image which is the word?
Why do I look at my wife or my husband, or at my friend, with an image? My
wife has done a great many things she has possessed me, nagged me, bullied
me or annoyed me, insulted me and discarded me. And through time, through
many days I have put all this together; it has become a memory and through
that memory, of all these hurts, I look at her. If I may point out, the
speaker unfortunately has a certain reputation and through that image you
look at him and therefore you are not looking at the speaker at all; you are
looking through the image you have about the speaker, the image being the
word, the idea, the tradition. So can you look at something without the
image? Can you look at someone without the image? Can you look, without the
image, at your wife or your husband, at the man across the valley, at the
man who has insulted you or flattered you?

It is only possible to look without the image when you have understood the
nature of experience. What is experience? (Pause) I hope you are all doing
this with me and not just listening to a lot of words! You must understand
what experience is, because it is this accumulated experience which is all
the time building images so what is experience? The word 'experience' means
to go right through something, but we never do! Let us take it at the
simplest level! You insult me and the experience remains, leaves an imprint
on my mind, becomes part of my memory, so you are my enemy; I don't like
you. And the same thing happens if you flatter me, then you are my friend;
the memory of the flattery remains as does the insult. Please follow this
very carefully! Can I, at the moment of the flattery or the insult, go
through it completely, so that the experience leaves no mark on the mind at
all? This means that when you insult me, I listen to it and look at it,
totally, completely, objectively and without emotion, as I look at this
microphone, which means giving total attention to it with my whole mind and
heart, to find out if what you say is true and if it isn't, then what is the
point of holding on to it. This is not a theory; the mind is never free if
there is any form of conceptual thinking or image-building. And I do the
same if you flatter me, say what a marvellous speaker I am. I listen with my
whole mind and heart while you are speaking, not afterwards, to find out why
you are saying it and what value it has, whether or not I am a marvellous
speaker, then I have both finished with insult and flattery. However it is
not as simple as that, because we enjoy living in a world of images, images
of like and dislike; we live with those images and our minds are forever
chattering, forever verbalizing, so we never look at our wife, our husband
or the mountain with a free mind, and it is only the innocent mind that can
look.

Questioner: How can we get rid of this division in  ourselves?

KRISHNAMURTI: First of all, if I may suggest, don 't get rid of anything!
Getting rid of something is to escape from it. You have to look at it, go
into it! Now this division of like and dislike, love and hate, mine and not
mine exists within oneself  - why?

We come now to a very important point, which is, do you understand or
discover anything through analysis? Let us look at it! There is this problem
of division, contradiction within ourselves and I want to understand it, go
into it to find out if it is possible for the mind to be completely
non-fragmentary. Now can I find out through analysis? Will this division
come to an end through analysis? Surely analysis implies an analyser and the
thing to be analysed, therefore the analyser is different from the analysed
and in that there is division; so can this fragmentation within ourselves
come to an end through analysis, which is of course thought, or does it come
about through having direct perception?

You can only have direct perception when there is no condemnation of this
division, when there is no evaluation, saying I must be in this state in
which there is no division at all, I must achieve this harmony; you can't
achieve harmony as long as this division between you and harmony exists as
an idea, because that division, which is brought about by thought, breeds
further division.

Since ancient times they have said there is God and there is man - this
everlasting division. Later on they said God is not over there, he's here,
in you; and again there was this division between you and the God within
you. The God who previously was in a stone, in a tree, in a statue, who was
venerated as the Saviour, as the Master was now in you; you are the God.
Then the God within you says do this, don't do that, be harmonious, be kind,
love your neighbour, but you can't because there is a division between you
and the God within you.

So thought is the entity that divides and through thought, that is through
analysis, you hope to come upon that state in which there is no division at
all; you can't do it, it can only come about when the mind itself sees and
understands this whole process, and is then completely quiet. That word
'understanding' is very important; a description doesn't bring
understanding, neither does finding out the cause of something. So what
brings understanding? What is understanding? Have you ever noticed when your
mind is quietly listening - not arguing, judging, criticizing, evaluating,
comparing but just listening, then in that state the mind is silent and then
only understanding comes. There is this division within ourselves, this
everlasting contradiction and we must simply be aware of it, and not try to
do anything about it, because whatever we do causes this division. So
complete negation is complete action.

10th November 1968
Talk at Claremont Colleges, California, USA