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krishnamurti_discussions

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I'm afraid we haven't heard it properly, sir. You have understood my question? When you have had fears in the past and when you are aware of those fears in the past, what effects those fears had on you and on your environment - what happened?
Weren't you cut off from others? Weren't the effect of those fears isolating you? It crippled me.
It crippled you, isolated you, cut you off. It made you feel desperate, you didn't know what to do. Right?
Now, when there was this isolation what happened to action? It is fragmentary. Which is fragmentary, isn't it?
Do listen to this carefully please. I have had fears in the past, about something or other, that's irrelevant, and the effects of those fears was to isolate me, was to separate me, to cripple me, to make me feel anxious, desperate, a feeling of running away, seeking comfort from something or other - all that we'll call for the moment isolating myself from all relationship. Right?
The effect of that isolation in action is to bring about fragmentation. Right? Sir.
Wait, wait, wait. One moment sir. Do get this point.
Didn't this happen to you when you are frightened? You didn't know what to do, ran away from it, or tried to suppress it? Reason it away?
And when you had to act you were acting from a fear which is in itself isolating? No? So an action born out of that fear must be fragmentary.
Right? Fragmentary being contradictory, therefore in that there was a great deal of struggle, pain, anxiety - no? Sir, as a crippled person walks on crutches, so a person who is humbled, crippled by fear uses various kinds of crutches.
Right, sir. That's what we are saying. Quite right.
That's exactly - he says that a person on crutches can't walk fully therefore - and so on. Now, you are very clear what that action of effects of past fear does. Right?
Produces fragmentary actions. Now what is the difference between that and the action of fear without the response of memory? You have got my question?
Look sir, when you meet danger, physical danger what takes place? Spontaneous action. Spontaneous action it's called.
Is it spontaneous? No, please do enquire, we are trying to find out something. You go along in the woods by yourself, perhaps not in Switzerland, but you go in wild parts of India, or certain parts of America, and you go along and suddenly round the corner you come upon a bear with cubs - what happens then?
Knowing the bear is a dangerous animal, with cubs specially - what happens to you? There is a chemical change in you, the adrenaline rises. Yes, sir, adrenaline and all the rest of it.
We know - then what is the action that takes place? We're surprised, we see the danger. No, sir, what happens to you - of course if you are afraid you transmit it to the bear and the bear gets more frightened and attacks you.
(Laughter) This is all very simple - do please - you are missing the whole point. Please, sirs. What happens in that situation if you are fear?
Have you ever faced a bear in the woods? No? There is someone here who has.
I have. We have. That gentleman and I happen to have many of these happenings during certain years but that is irrelevant.
What takes place? Don't imagine, sir. There is a bear in front of you, a few feet away from you, all the bodily reactions, the adrenaline and so on and so on and so on, there is instant stopping, isn't there, and you turn away and run, leave.
What has happened there? What was the response? A conditioned response, wasn't it?
People have told you generation after generation 'Be careful of wild animals'. If you get frightened you will transmit that fear to the animal and it'll attack you. The whole thing is through instantly.
Now is that fear functioning or intelligence? Don't answer me, please listen to this. You understand, sir.
Which is operating, fear or intelligence? Fear of what - the fear that has been aroused by the repetition - 'Be careful of wild animals'. That has been your conditioning from childhood - be careful - is that operating?
Or is intelligence operating? You have never faced wild animals, have you? No.
So see the the conditioned response to that animal and the action of that conditioned response is one thing, and the operation of intelligence and the action of intelligence is entirely different, the two are entirely different. Are you meeting this thing? The bus is rushing by, a bus, you don't throw yourself in front of it, your intelligence says, don't do it.
It's not fear, unless you are slightly neurotic or taken a series of drugs. Your intelligence says, don't be - you know, intelligence prevents you. It's not fear.
Sir, when you meet the wild animal don't you have to have both intelligence and conditioned response? No, sir. See it.
The moment it is a conditioned response there is fear involved in it and that is transmitted to the animal; but if it is intelligence - must I go into it, personally it's not important. I have faced a tiger - well, never mind - leave all that alone. So you find out for yourself what is operating.
If it is fear then its action is incomplete and therefore there is a danger from the animal, but the action of intelligence is entirely different. There is no fear at all. (In Italian) If I watch that bear then will I be killed - if I watch that bear intelligently, will I be intelligently killed?
(laughter) Without fear. Oh, yes, without fear. (Inaudible) Oh Lord!
Oh Lord! You are all talking with such complications. It is so simple, this.
Now leave the animals, poor things, alone. Let us start with ourselves, who are part animals too. The action of fear and the effects of fear and its action, based on the past memories, such actions are destructive, contradictory, paralysing.
Right? Do we see that? Not verbally but actually see that?
That when you are afraid you are completely isolated and any action that took place from that isolation must by fragmentary and therefore contradictory, therefore there was struggle, pain and all the rest of it? Now, an action of awareness of fear without all the responses of memory is a complete action. You try it!
Do it. Become aware, as you are walking along, going home, your old fears will come up. Then watch, watch, be aware, whether those fears are actually fears or projected by thought as memory.
You see that? If those fears are the projection of thought as the response of memory, then your action will be incomplete and therefore painful. Right?
But as you walk along and a fear arises watch it, whether you are watching from the response of thought or merely watching. Right, is that clear? If it isn't clear go and jump in that lake!
(Laughter). Don't do it though! So, what we are talking is action, because life is action, not saying one part of life is action only, the whole of living is action.
And that action is broken up, and this breaking up of action is this process of memory with its thoughts and isolation. Right? Is that clear?
You mean the idea is totally experienced, every split second, without memory entering? Sir, when you put a question like that, you have to investigate the question of memory. You have to have memory, the more clear, the more definite the better, if you are to function technologically, or if you want to go home, you have to have memory.
Right? You can't say, 'Well, I have no memory' - you have to have memory. But thought, as response of memory and projecting fear out of that memory, such action is entirely different.
Now what is fear? What is fear? How does it happen that there is fear?
You have had it. You have had yesterday certain fears. How does it happen?
How do these fears take place? Would you tell me please? We are talking over together.
Can't you say? In me it is the attachment to the past. In me it is the attachment to the past.
Now let's take that, one thing. Attachment to the past. What do you mean by that word 'attachment'?
My mind is holding on to something. That is, he says, the mind is holding on to some memory. When I was young, how lovely, I had - you know.
Or holding on to something that might happen, for which I have definitely cultivated a belief which will protect me - attachment. I am attached to a memory. I am attached to a piece of furniture.
I am attached to what I am writing because through writing I'll become very famous. I am attached to a name, to a family, to a house, to a belief, to various memories and so on and so on - attached, bound, identified myself with that. Now why does this attachment take place?
I think because fear is the very basis of our civilisation? No sir, look, sir, don't - why are you attached? What does that word 'attachment' signify?
Depending on - right, sir? Security. Now please, you are all too quick.
I am depending upon something. I am depending on you all attending so that I can talk to you. I am depending on you, and therefore I am attached to you, because through that attachment I feel I gain certain energy, certain 'elan, and all the rest of that rubbish.
So I am attached, which means what? I am dependent on you. I am dependent on the furniture, in being attached to the furniture, to the belief, to the book, to the family, to the wife.
I am depending. Right? To give me comfort, to give me prestige, to give me social position, to give me this and that and that.
So dependence is a form of attachment. Right? Now why do I depend on you, on the furniture, on my books - you follow?
- why, why do I depend? Don't answer me, look at it in yourself. You depend on something, don't you?
On your country, on your gods, on your beliefs, on the drugs you take, drink, good Lord! It is part of social conditioning. Is it social conditioning that makes you depend?
Which means you are part of society, society is not independent of you. You have made society, the society which is corrupt, you have put together; and in that cage your are caught, you are part of it. So don't blame society.
Do you see the implications of dependency? What is involved? Why are you depending?
So as not to feel lonely. Wait, wait. Look, listen quietly.
Somebody says, 'I depend on something because I am lonely'. I depend on something because that something fills my emptiness. I depend on knowledge, books, because that covers my emptiness, my shallowness, my stupidity - so knowledge becomes extraordinarily important.
I'm an artist, I talk about pictures and the beauty of pictures because in myself I depend on that. So dependence indicates my emptiness, my loneliness, my insufficiency and that makes me depend on you. Right?
That is a fact isn't it? Don't theorise, don't argue, don't say - it is so. If I am not empty, if I am not insufficient, I wouldn't care what you say or do.
I wouldn't depend on anything. Because I am empty, lonely, I don't know what to do with my life. I write a stupid book and that fills my vanity.
I go back and write about ancient Sanskrit rot, and I say 'By Jove'. So I depend, which means I am afraid of being lonely. Right?
I am afraid of my emptiness. Therefore I fill it with cloth, or with ideas, or with persons. Now wait - now aren't you afraid of uncovering your loneliness?
Right? Have you uncovered your loneliness, your insufficiency, your emptiness? And that is taking place now, isn't it?
Right? Therefore you are afraid now. Right?
You are afraid of that emptiness now. Now what are you going to do? What is taking place?
Before you were attached to people, to ideas, to all kinds of stuff and you see you are depending and that dependence is covering your emptiness, your shallowness, your petty little, shoddy little mind, though you may write clever books. And when you see that, you are free - aren't you? Aren't you?
No? Now what is the response? Is that fear the response of memory?
Or is that fear actual, you see it? Gosh, I work hard for you, don't I? You know I saw a cartoon yesterday morning - you have heard of Peanuts?
One little boy says to the other boy, he says, 'When I grow up I am going to be a great prophet', and he says - the next drawing is - 'I am going to speak of profound truths but nobody will listen' (Laughter!) Wait, wait, wait. And the other little boy says, 'Then why do you talk if nobody is going to listen?'
'Ah' he said 'Us prophets are very obstinate'. (Laughter). So now sir, you have uncovered your fear now, uncovered through attachment, which is dependency, and the dependency, when you look into it you see your emptiness, your shallowness, your pettiness - you know all, the rest of it - and you are frightened of it.
Right? Which means what takes place then? Proceed, sirs.
What takes place? Try to escape. You try to escape, which is trying to escape through attachment, through dependency.
Therefore your are back again in the old pattern. But if you see the truth, the fact that attachment, dependency, emptiness, if you see that fact, you won't escape, will you? If you don't see the fact of that you are bound to run away, you will do all kinds of things.
You try to fill that emptiness in other ways, before you filled it with drugs, now you will fill it with sex or you will fill it with something else. So when you see the fact of that, what has happened? Proceed sirs, go on with it.
I have been attached to the house, to the wife, to the books, to my writing and becoming famous - you know the people who want to be famous ought to be kicked in the pants - so I see fear arises because I don't know what to do with my emptiness. You understand? Therefore I depend, therefore I am attached, on that which I depend on.
Now what do I do when I get this feeling of great emptiness in me? (Inaudible) Which is fear - you follow? I discover I am frightened, therefore I am attached.
Please go slowly. Now is that fear the response of memory, or is that fear of actual discovery? You see the difference between the two?
Discovery is something entirely different from the response of the past. Right? Now which is it with you?
Is it the actual discovery? Or the response of the past? Don't answer me.
Find out, sir, dig into yourself. Sir, in that emptiness surely there is loneliness. No, no.
I am asking something different. Please I don't have to repeat the question again. I have asked something entirely different.
The fear of attachment, the fear which emptiness, loneliness and all that insufficiency, which you haven't been able to understand efficiently to go through with it and finish it, has brought about fear. Now is it your discovery now, now being here in the tent, is it your discovery? Or is it the recognition of the past?
I don't have to repeat it again, have I? Which is it? Have you discovered that you are attached because you depend, and you depend because fear of emptiness.
Are you aware of your emptiness and the process of what that emptiness does? Are you aware of it? Right?
Which means becoming aware of that emptiness is there fear involved in it? Or you are you merely empty? Merely see the fact that you are lonely.
If you can see that you are not alone any more. Just a minute, sir. We'll go step by step sir, if you don't mind.
Do you see that? Or are you going back to the old stuff? Dependency, attachment - you follow?
The regular pattern being repeated over and over and over again. Which is it that you are - what is going to take place? (Inaudible) Sir, unfortunately we are not dogs.
Pardon? Unfortunately we are not dogs, we're not animals. We are partly animals.
I wish we were entirely animals then it would be quite a different problem. We are partly animals. So please sir, I am asking something which you don't answer.
Have you discovered for yourself the fear that takes place when you discover for yourself your emptiness, your shallowness, your isolation? Or discovering, you are going to run away, get attached to microphones? So then what takes place, if you don't run away through dependency and attachment, then what takes place when there is this emptiness?
Freedom. You see sir, do look at it. It's quite a complex problem, don't say it is freedom.
Before I was attached and I covered up my fear. Now by asking that question I'm attached, I discover it was an escape, this attachment, escape from fear which came into being when I was aware for a split second of my emptiness. Now I won't run away any more because I have finished with running away - then what takes place?
There is no time. We are nothing. What takes place, madam?