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To see the absurdity of such a thing and at the same time talk about love and peace and goodness is utter nonsense. When I have seen that is ambition, I am out of it, I won't be ambitious; at least I won't talk about peace, love and goodness. Can we run away from traditions, families, living on a desired pattern?
Sir, who is suggesting that we should run away from family? Our minds are the result of tradition. You are a Hindu.
I may not be a Hindu, a Muslim, or a Communist, or whatever it is. You are the result of your environment, of your society, of your education, of the family, the name you know - you are the result of all this. At what level do I see this, the verbal, theoretical as an explanation, or do I see this as a fact?
What do you say, Sir? Surely, there is a vast difference between seeing, perceiving something as a fact, and offering an opinion about the fact, or indulging in explanations about the fact, verbal, intellectual, theoretical, spiritual, whatever it is. Do you see that your mind is the result of tradition, whether it is the modern tradition or is the tradition of one yesterday or a thousand yesterdays?
Some days ago, perhaps last year, some of my friends asked me to sit in front in a car and several people were sitting behind in the car. And as we were driving along, they were talking about awareness, the complications of awareness, what was meant by awareness; and the chauffeur who was driving the car ran over a poor goat and broke its leg. And the gentleman sitting in the car was still discussing awareness; he never noticed that the poor goat had been run over, he was not concerned about anything but intellectually discussing awareness.
Sir, you are doing exactly the same thing. Can you be aware of the fact that your mind is dull? There is the will to live.
If my mind were to know that it is dull, it won't be able to live. Oh! The will to live prevents you from facing your dullness - is that what you call living?
The gentleman says that seeing the fact that I am dull will horrify me and I would cease to live. But I am asking, "Are we living now?" When we don't see the beautiful sky, when we don't see the beautiful tree, when we don't see the garden, sea, rain, when we don't know all that, feel love, feel sympathy, are we living?
Sir, take a very simple example which everybody talks. about in India since I have been here - corruption. There is corruption everywhere, because everybody talks about it from top to bottom and everybody says we cannot help it and we don't bother over it.
But suppose each one of us were really aware what corruption implies, what would happen? Would that prevent corruption, or would that make you more corrupt? Sirs, you have never thought about this.
Have you been aware of the fact of what you are? We are slaves to words - the word "soul", the word "Communist", the word "Congress", the word "this" and "that". Are you aware of this fact that you are slave to words?
For instance, you don't go into why you are used to the word "leadership". Why? Because, you belong to a party, Socialist, Communist, Congress or something else.
They have their leaders, and you accept them, it is the tradition; and you also see if you don't want to accept the same, you may lose your job. Therefore fear blocks you from looking. So you accept it as it is advantageous, it is profitable, it is less disturbing; so you live in the world of words and are slave to words.
So, the word "God" means very little to all of you. Does it really mean anything? We might spell it the other way and be slave to that word "dog" as the altruists are.
But, Sir, can the mind break through all this slavery to words? As long as the mind is seeking security through words, it is going to be dull. I don't mean that the mind must be very clever, read lots of books, and all the latest books and the enormous and the latest criticism; I am not talking about that sort of superficial cleverness.
I am talking of perceiving the mind as it is. Sir, let us take another problem, the same thing in a different way. We are all competitive, aren't we?
In the office, at home, religiously, we are competitive. There is the guru and I am below him, and one day I will reach that state and I will be the guru and so on - climbing the ladder. We are, aren't we?, ambitious.
Aren't we competitive? - which means we are ambitious, which means lack of love. There is a distinction between rational ambition and irrational ambition.
For example, I try to improve my work, that is a rational ambition; and if I want to become the Prime Minister, that is irrational ambition. Sirs, a gentleman there is rational ambition and there is irrational ambition; when I try to become the Prime Minister - a post which is already occupied - it is irrational ambition, and it is rational ambition when I try to improve my job. He means personal efficiency.
That is all. Krishnamurti Personal efficiency? Can an ambitious mind be ever efficient?
Have you noticed a child completely absorbed in a toy? Would you call that child efficient? You don't call it efficient, because the toy to him is something amazing, he is completely in it.
There is no incentive, there is no trying to become better, trying to become something else. This is play. If I have no ambition, if I don't want to work for my children, why should I improve?
Are you improving, Sir? Sir, if all incentive is taken away, would you stop working? Do you know what is happening in the world, in welfare States?
Sweden is the most complete form of all welfare States and there are many more suicides there than anywhere else. Why? Because, there is no incentive, everything from womb to tomb is settled.
That is one form of not having an incentive. And here, in this country and elsewhere, you have incentive; you will become a better officer if you work hard - climb, climb, climb. Yet, efficiency is declining here also, isn't it?
No? What do you say, Sir? You have incentive and yet efficiency is declining.
You have no incentive and thereby the mind is becoming dull. So, if you want to be really efficient, how do you set about it? Don't talk of efficiency, how do you become efficient?
Only when you give your whole mind to it, when you love the thing which you are doing. Isn't that so, Sir? But we have no choice, because of circumstances.
Sir, each of us is a slave to circumstances and we hold to them. Can't we realize to what extent one is a slave to circumstances and limit it, cut it and be free of it, instead of saying, "I am a slave to circumstances"? Limit it to bodily needs and get on with it.
We are not asking ourselves first why the mind is made dull. Sir, we began this morning asking ourselves if we can understand this whole process of competition, conflict and ambition and this attitude of the mind to accept leadership, to follow. This is what we are used to.
You are sitting there, I am sitting here; you are listening to me, with an attitude, with an idea and you say, "let me listen". So there is this conflict which inevitably results in dulling the mind. Obviously, Sir, all conflicts destroy the mind.
Now, is it possible to see the process of this conflict? And the very perception of this conflict, perceiving, seeing the very source of this conflict, not what you should do about it - the very perception has its own action. Now, do we see that?
That is all what I am asking. What is the good of saying, "It is inevitable. What will happen if I don't compete in the society which is competitive, which is ambitious, which is authoritative?"
"What will happen to me?" - that is not the problem. You will answer it later.
But can we see the fact that a mind which is in conflict is the most destructive mind and whatever it wants to do, any activity, however reformative, has in it the seed of destruction. Do I see it as I see a cobra, that it is poisonous? That is the crux of the whole matter.
And if I see it, I do not have to do a thing about it, it has its own action. Look, Sir. You know, the saints, the leaders, and all the swamis and the yogis talk about building character, doing the right thing, living a right life; and they talk a great deal about what they do in the West, about sin.
Now, is there sin, when there is love? And when there is love, is there not character? Let love do what it will, it is always right.
When there is love, what it does is right; and if it doesn't do anything it is right. So why discuss everything else, how to build character, what should you do and what should you not do and how can we find it? Surely, Sir, to uncover the source of love, the mind must be extraordinarily free from conflict.
To look at the heaven, Sir, your mind must be clear, mustn't it? It cannot be engrossed in your office, in your wife, in your children, in your security; it must look, mustn't it? So, can the mind be free from conflict, which means competition and all the rest of it?
Sir, how do you see things? Do you see things at all? Sir, do you see me and do I see you, see visually, or between you and me are there several layers of verbal explanations and curtains, opinions and conclusions?
You understand what I am saying? Do you see me, or do you see your verbal explanations about me? When you see a Minister, do you see the man or the Minister?
What, Sirs? We usually see the Minister and rarely the man. So, you never see the fact at all, you see the label and not the contents.
You are slave to words, slave to labels. You don't say, "Let me look at that man and not that label, not the Socialist, the Congress, the Communist, the Capitalist, but look at the man" - which indicates that we are slaves to words. Sir, haven't you noticed with what respect we greet a big man, a big noise?
What does that mean? Surely, all this is part of self-knowing. The very knowing is going to create its own action.
January , The last few times that we met here we have been considering what it is to be intelligent, not merely at the functionary level but right through one's whole being. And we were, I think, day before yesterday considering efficiency and competition, whether a competing mind, a mind that is ambitious, is really an intelligent mind. A mind that is comparing and in comparison is said to be progressing, achieving, arriving - is such a mind essentially an intelligent mind?
You know, words are as a rider to understanding, words are meant to convey a certain significance, to open the door to further comprehension. But if we merely use words and bc slave to words, it seems to me, it is incredibly difficult to go beyond the limitations of words. And it is very difficult with a group of people, which is constantly changing, to pursue a particular line of thought completely and wholely, because there are newcomers all the time and it is rather difficult to maintain a certain verbal comprehension at a certain level at the same time.
And we were discussing, considering, whether the mind could be free of all this idea of comparison. And from that, the question arose as to efficiency in whether a mind which has comprehended the fullness, the deep significance of competition, achievement, arriving - whether such a mind can act at all efficiently. I think it might be worth while if we could this morning consider what is action.
I wonder what we consider is action. At what level does action cease and contemplation begin, or is there no such division as contemplation and action? I am not using the word "contemplation" in any ascetic or Christian sense of that word, but in the to contemplate, to think, to fathom out things, to delve into the deep recesses of one's own mind, to meditate.
Is there a difference between action and contemplation in that sense? But, for most of us, action means doing, a physical action, doesn't it? For most of us, going to the office, writing, playing, doing something, cooking, bathing talking, and so on, the doing is the action.
And so we have a philosophy of action. Let us think the problem out together, you and I together - not I think it out, and you listen, agree or disagree with what is being said. Because, when we are thinking out together a problem, there can be no agreement or disagreement.
We are rowing the same boat down the same river, or up the same river. We must go together. And so, if I am talking, it is not that you are merely a hearer, but rather you are partaking, sharing in the thought; I may be talking now, but you cannot leave it all to me and just listen.
So, please, while the speaker is saying certain things, you have not only to listen but also actually to experience the thing that is being said. Otherwise, we cannot possibly go any further. Sirs, I have been saying we have a philosophy of action, a pattern of action.
We have not only a pattern of action but a pattern of thought which has established the pattern of action according to which it is going to act, to do. For us there is a difference between idea, thought and action; and we are everlastingly seeking to bridge over, to bridge thought and action. So we not only have a framework in which thought functions, within which thought lives but also from that framework we create another framework of action which we call philosophy of action.
Whether it is the philosophy of action in daily life or philosophy of action in inward life, it is all according to a pattern. And is there any other kind of action which is not merely the conformity to an idea, to an ideal, to a pattern? And if there is such an action, is not that action merely reaction and therefore not action at all?
Obviously, a reaction is not an action. If you push me in a direction and I resist and do something in return, it is a reaction and therefore it is not an action. If I am greedy and I do something out of that greed, it is a response to the original influence.
If I am good, because society tells me to be good, or I do something because I am afraid, or I do, act, in order to be something, in order to achieve, in order to become, in order to arrive, such activities are reactions. And reaction is not obviously total action. I seek God, or truth, or something else, because I am afraid of life and I pursue a pattern of views, denials, in order to achieve a result; such activities are obviously reactions which bring about, breed contradiction.
And being in a state of contradiction, any action from that contradiction creates further contradictions and therefore there is general reaction and not action. Sir, if you really go into it, it is very interesting to find out for oneself if the mind can be in a state of action without reaction. Because reaction involves the pattern of authority - whether it is the authority of the Catholic, the authority of the Communist, the authority of the priest, or the authority which the reaction has brought about, an experience which become; the knowledge from which there is action.
I do not know if you are following all this. So, the mind has to understand what is action, not according to the Gita, not according to the various divisions which the human mind has broken action into - such as the political action, the religious action, the contemplative action, the individual action, the collective action - which, to me, are all reactions; Communism is the reaction to capitalism and Marxism is the reaction to all the th century or the th century conditions. So, can the mind perceive all this, not deny it?
Because, the moment you deny it, there is the reaction of denial; and resistance in any form brings a reaction, and from that reaction any action is still a reaction. So, the mind seeing this, comprehending this, can it discover an action which is not a reaction? Sir, this has, I think, immense significance because most of our lives are contradictory.
We are in a state of contradiction, our lives are in a state of contradiction, our society is in a state of contradiction; and any activity born of that contradiction is bound to create more misery, more contradictions, more travail, more agony. And it is not that I am asking a theoretical question, but an actual question to oneself and therefore to whether it is possible for the mind to understand this contradiction and therefore perhaps comprehend reaction and come upon, not intellectually, something which is action and which is not the result of reaction. Sir, let us put it round the other way.
Most of us know love through jealousy. Most of us know peace through violence or as the opposite of violence, the so-called non-violence which we are everlastingly talking about in this country. The practising of non-violence is practising reaction.
But the mind has to go into the whole problem of violence which is essentially a contradiction. So, the understanding of the contradictions within oneself - not merely those at the conscious level, at the verbal, intellectual level, but also the deep contradictions within oneself - may perhaps reveal the reaction and its processes; and in understanding them perhaps we shall be able to come upon that action which is not the outcome of influence. I do not know if this interests you at all.
A man says, "I am going to lead a religious life, I am going to lead a life of silence, a life of contemplation, I am not a businessman, I am not a shoddy-level politician, I am not interested in socialism; so I don't like any of these things, as they don't appeal to me; I am going to withdraw and lead a contemplative life." Is such a mind an intelligent mind, which divides life as the contemplative, silent life and the business life and the political life and the religious life, and can it live? Whether I do go to the office or I don't go to the office, life is action, living is action.
And is it possible to live so totally that there is no division? This means really there is only the active present of action, which is the acting - not the acting according to a pattern, not the doing according to something, but doing living, acting - always in the present. Sirs, can we discuss this?
Sir, as one sees, tyranny is growing more and more in the world. Whether it is the tyranny of the Fascist or the tyranny of the Communist, or the tyranny of the Church or of the politician, tyranny is extending, expanding. And one can only battle it not as a reaction, but by living a life which is not a reaction, which is a thing which is real, which is uninfluenced, which is complete, which is not conditioned.
The Fascists and the Communists are the same, because both are tyrannical, as the Church is. One has to see this and not act in reaction to it; and the very seeing of it is action. To put the question differently, Sirs, the active present of doing - acting not with an end in view, not with a goal to achieve, not to conform to the pattern established either by society or by yourself for yourself through your own reactions has got immense importance.
You say that unless one belongs to a group, to a political party, to a particular organization, or to various sects, action effective in society is not possible; that if you want to do something to alter society, you must create an organization or join a group of people who want to do the same thing. Such a group is a reactionary group, and so the reform is a continuous process of bringing about the seed of deterioration. Now, one who sees this, who comprehends this - not one who is afraid of all this - , obviously cannot belong to any group, and yet his action must be effective; but to judge the effectiveness of his action according to the effect on society seems to me to be naturally wrong.
Is there not such a thing as purposeless action, action without a purpose? We are trying to find out what is meant by an action with a purpose, a purposive action. To be effective, apparently, you must have a purpose in action.
If I want to create a school, the purpose is to create a school, I must act towards it. I go for a walk; the purpose is to enjoy the sunset, to get exercise, to look, to observe. An action without a purpose is merely an event.
But it cannot be called action which is movement, movement which may have a good end. So, to you, event is different from action. An action has a purpose towards something and an event is an immediate incident.
This is all hair-splitting. Don't do it. I thought I made it clear at the beginning of the talk, or rather during;the talk, that there is only action and not action with a purpose.
We are trying to investigate, to experience, to understand this extraordinarily complex thing called action. This gentleman says that an action is only an action where there is a purpose. And I am asking is that an action at all?
It seems to me that when I look at a flower, I have no purpose; and this is an action. When I hear a bird singing, that bird-song somehow affects me and I have real joy in hearing that; this is an action, but without purpose. Yes sir.
But there is poverty in this country, starvation, squalor and all the rest of it. That has to be altered, it has to be wiped out; and you and I being part of the society, we say, "What shall I do about it?". What you said about the flower is one thing, and the other thing is, "What am I to do about this?".
And seeing that, I say, "I will join that group, or that party that will help to wipe this out." This is a purposive action also. Isn't it?
Now I am just asking myself - I am sure you are doing the same whether action needs a purpose. I am living rightly and therefore the very act of living is right action. It seems to me that we are substituting purpose for living and that from living there is an action which is not purposive in the ordinary sense of the word.
Sir, let us take another question, which has love a purpose? And is not the very fact of loving, in itself, the righteous, the good, the complete action in the world and in the world of thought and ideas and of flowers and everything else? Sir, this is not a matter of intellectual agreement with me.
We are trying to understand whether an action with a purpose, or a purposive action is the right way out of all this mess and difficulty. Or, is there a different way, a different approach, a different thing altogether? You follow, Sir?
I can live purposively, according to the Gita, or the Koran, or some other book; but that is not living at all; it is conforming, it is a reactionary process. Or, I can establish a righteous purpose, seeing the immediate purpose - which is, Tibetans starving and poverty in India - , and act on that immediacy. But always there is the act of doing.
There is an entity as the thinker, the doer who is doing, and hence there is a gap; he is everlastingly trying to bridge over between the idea and the action. Now, can I wipe out all that, the whole thing, and look at action entirely differently? Then the very living is acting, which does not need any purpose, which does not have an end.
Living has no end. It is only a dead being who says, "my end is there". So, if I can so live, why do I want a purpose?
But the living is the thing, which is not a reaction. I see a boy drowning and I rescue him. Is that action a purposive action?
Sir, don't please take a concrete example and draw conclusions from that example, whether an action such as rescuing a boy or somebody drowning is spontaneous or true. What we are trying to find out how to live? And the "how" is not a pattern.
This is a question to comprehend a way of living which is not a reaction, which has no end in view - a living that is so complete, so total, that the very living is the action both outward and inner. The fact is my life is in a state of contradiction. That obviously is a fact and from that fact there are reactions which in fulfilling those reactions create further reactions and further misery.
And I say that the pursuit of such fulfilment politically, religiously, economically in the present is most destructive. Now, if those are facts, my concern is with the understanding of self-contradiction within and without - which is, society as well as within - which is a unitary process and not a separative process; and then in understanding this contradictory process, outward and within, the mind inevitably comes to this question of action without seeking a purpose, action which is not stimulated by a purpose. A contradictory mind is an ineffectual mind.
And look at our society, we do not have to go very far! Can there be a mind which is not in itself self-contradictory and therefore is not a slave to influence? I have put to you a question.
Now, how do you listen to it? You have heard the words, you understand the verbal meaning, but how do you listen to it? To find an answer to it or do you listen to find out what it means, not verbally but inwardly?
I put to myself the whether there is a mind which in the very act of living - living being thinking, living being alive - ,in its action, includes all purposes, which is beyond all purpose? When I put this question to myself, the way this particular mind proceeds it does not want an answer, it does not want a solution, it tries to find out the actual experience of putting away the words; having understood the meaning of words, it actually experiences the state of the mind that says, "Yes". It is no longer seeking a purpose, it is no longer seeking an answer, therefore, it is no longer seeking which means, the mind is in a state of complete perception.
In the very act of having put that question, it is not waiting for an answer, because the waiting for an answer implies that there is an answer. Such a mind is in a state of complete perception, seeing. Look, I want to live a life which is not contradictory.
I see that every thing around me - politically, religiously, traditionally, my education, my relationship, everything I do - is contaminated with this contradiction, tarred with this ugliness; and such contradiction is a sin, pain, is a thing that the mind says it must go beyond. First I have become aware of this contradiction within as well as in society; and seeing the brutality of contradiction, the question is it possible to go beyond it, not theoretically and verbally but actually? When the mind puts that question to itself, it must inevitably come upon action, it cannot just theoretically say it is out of contradiction.
Contradiction is an action in living. So then the mind asks is it possible to live - which is action itself - such that there is no purpose? Purpose is so silly in living.
It is a small mind that is always asking for the goal of life, for the purpose of life. So, Sir, if you could understand this, if the mind could understand this sense of living which is action, then there is no division between the political, religious, contemplative action and life. There is not a life according to the Gita, or according to the Bible, or the Christ or the Buddha; but there is living.
I want to lead a life without contradiction. Does that become a purpose? If you want to lead a life without contradiction and that becomes a purpose, then you will never lead a life without contradiction.
Sir, I am not being personal. Are you aware of a state of contradiction in your life? Are you not ambitious?
A mind which is in a state of ambition is in a state of contradiction, obviously. I am just are you actually, apart from the verbal expression, aware that your life is in a state of contradiction? I am violent and non- that is contradiction, isn't it?
Am I aware of this? Do I know that I live like that? Or living that way, do I say it is inevitable, rationalize it and cover it up?
What do I do, Sir? Sir, the society and the leaders of society who try to guide the society which they represent, politically or religiously, are in a state of contradiction, isn't it so? Yet, these people talk about peace.
How can a mind which is in conflict ever have peace and talk about peace, or try to organize peace? Why should not a mind which is violent try not to be violent? The mind which is violent tries to be non-violent.
What does it mean? Is that possible? You have not tried it, you have been talking about non-violence.
Have you tried to become non-violent? What is the thing which is more important - to understand "what is", or to see "what is" and try to make "what is" into "what it is not"? A person who is trying to be non-violent may succeed ultimately.