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The observer is different from the observed and wants to pursue the observed, which becomes pleasure and he is pursuing pleasure and not the actual moment of that extraordinary state. There is no understanding of that type of experience. That's right, sir.
You can't even ask a question of that experience. That's right. You are seeking that experience but as it is not an experience, therefore what you are left with is a question.
Sir, please, you have asked a question, which is quite important and essential, which thought is in constant movement, can that thought which is constantly revolving from one thing to another, can there be a gap between two thoughts and observe what takes place in that gap? You are asking that question, aren't you, sir? Because in that gap you may see things which you have never seen before.
You may, I don't say you will, you may. So we have to find out, we have to learn, see the movement of thought, the rapid movement of thought, and to slow it down - is that possible? That is why one aspect of my life will always hold my interest, and in that intense interest thought is observable or slows down.
If I find that I have opinions in being intensely concerned about opinion, thought, the nature of thought will be observed too. Yes sir but I am asking something different from that. We are is there a gap between two thoughts?
And if there is a gap, in that gap is it possible to observe the coming of thought and the going away of thought? You understand? Then I have slowed it down, then thought has slowed down.
I don't know if you follow this sir. But in the gap... Wait, wait.
We are just learning. Thought doesn't slow down by any effort. Now wait a minute.
Effort implies division, doesn't it? Right? Effort basically implies conflict.
Effort, conflict, struggle between two countries, division, between two people, division, between two beliefs, division, between two conclusions a division and conflict. So where there is division there must be conflict. That is a fact.
It is not my invention or yours, that is a fact. Now if I try through effort to slow down thought then it becomes conflict, I am battling. In that battle I never discover anything.
So to see the truth that division is conflict, to see it, to perceive it, is to end division. You understand sir? As a Hindu, if I am still a Hindu, meeting a Pakistani that is a division, that is a quarrel, a war and all the beastly business of it.
If I see the truth of it I am no longer a Hindu, or a Muslim - you follow? I see the truth of it and therefore it goes, it is finished. The seeing is the learning, which has nothing to do with a conclusion.
Right. Now, I am asking, can thought be slowed down? Not controlled slowed down, not thought made to go slowly by concentration, by effort, by struggle - I am asking if it can naturally be slowed down.
Talking about is it possible to have a gap between thoughts, or whether thought can be slowed down - are we agreed what thought is? As far as we can be. I thought we went into that.
All right, what is thought? Again, no conclusions, we are going to learn. What is thought?
I ask you a question - do listen to this - I ask you a what is your name, and your response is instantaneous, isn't it? Because you are familiar with it, you have repeated it a thousand times and you say, 'My name is so and so'. There is no interval between the question and the answer; but there is an interval between the question and the answer when the question is a little more complex, with which you are not familiar.
Right? I ask you something and you are not familiar, then what takes place? Thought is searching in its memory for the answer, if it cannot find it it looks into books, if it cannot find it in the books, it will ask somebody else.
So the interval is longer between the question and the answer. Follow all this sir. And if I ask you something of which you don't know, you say, 'I don't know'.
Right? Because 'I don't know' is an instant response of truth, about which you say, 'I don't know'. So thought is the response of memory, memory being experience that has been accumulated in the brain cells through generations and generations and generations, tradition, culture, all that is stored up in the brain.
I wonder if we can say that thought is conclusion. Yes, obviously. Sir, don't jump, I want to learn.
So I know what thought is. And I am asking whether that thought can be quiet, slowed down and in that slowing down is it capable of being observed without the observer? The observer is the past, and the thought is the response of the past.
So if the observer observes thought as an outsider he is still playing the part in the past. See that. So how is thought to slow down?
Well one way is to have an intensive experience, like a shot. If you have a shot, oh, take a drug, or have a shot, or take LSD or whatever it is. Now let us go into that.
I have found that when I am thinking a lot that if my thought subsides, I find there is a certain amount of pain within myself. When I am thinking I am not experiencing the pain... Oh, I see what you are you are saying thought is a means of escape from my suffering or from my misery, or from my frustration, so I think. And it is not being able to resist the pain which I have that one keeps thinking.
Yes sir, but we are not asking thought as a means of escape from pain. We are examining thought itself. It is easier to see the gap between thought than to see how to slow thought down.
Is your thought sir, sitting there, discussing, talking things over, have you discovered that you can slow down thought? Actual, don't theorise. I can experience the space between thoughts.
Wait, wait. Can you? If you can, what is that space?
Thinking of it. It's attention. Then if it is still thinking of it - Ah, no, no, no, no.
Do please find this out, because I'll tell you why it is important. Meditation is the emptying of the mind of its content, that is the real meditation, not all the phoney business that is going on. Emptying consciousness of its content.
Its content being the furniture, the house, the memories, the images, the various conditionings - you follow? - the whole content is consciousness, and to meditate outside that consciousness, or to go beyond that consciousness is illusion; until you empty the consciousness of its content meditation becomes merely a means of further distortion. When you say emptying consciousness of its content are you implying consciousness is...?
I said madam, no, I said consciousness is its content. Wait, wait. The content of my consciousness and your consciousness is made up of all your memories, not only conscious and unconscious memories but also all the remembrances, the hurts, the agonies, the pain, the physical pain, the psychological hurts, your attachments and your fears, your pleasures, the accumulation that you have gathered is the content which is your consciousness.
The understanding of the content and the emptying of that content is the process of meditation. The process of meditation is to empty consciousness otherwise you are still a prisoner in it. You may invent, you may think, well I have seen Christ, I have seen Krishna, I have seen the Buddha, but it is all within that, therefore no reality.
Right? And thinking is the basic content of consciousness, which is the response of my conditioning. If I am a Communist, a hard-boiled Communist, I have been indoctrinated by Marx, Lenin and all the rest of it, and that is my conditioning and I think from that.
If I am a devout, practising Catholic, my conditioning is such and I think from that - or a business man or whatever it is. And to meditate, having this content, being conditioned, is like playing a childish game. So in asking this can thought be slowed down, I am enquiring into the whole content of my consciousness - you follow sir?
Not just, thought can be slowed down, that is fairly easy. But in asking the question I am asking a much deeper question, which can the mind with its content empty itself without the least effort? Earlier on you were going to talk about the effect of certain drugs, LSD... Would you please go on about LSD and various other forms of drugs slowing down the mind.
I have never taken any kind of drugs. Your LSD, marijuana, pot, grass, hash, hard drugs of any kind, but I have seen and talked to a great many people who have taken it, serious people who have - scientists, experimenters who have gone into this. First of all why do we take drugs at all, including tobacco - you follow?
Escape. Go into it, sir, I want to learn, I am not going to say 'escape', I want to learn why I smoke. We are looking for something we think we don't have.
So you want to experience something which you don't know, is that right? But do you know all experiences in living before you ask that question, something I don't know? Which means you are bored with the present living and you want to experience something more.
Mr. Krishnamurti, what about people who are suffering from severe mental illness? Ah, who are suffering from severe mental illness. Ah, what happened, madam?
Just a minute. You are suffering from severe mental illness. I want to help them.
Wait, madam. Not dangerous drugs like this mescaline and hashish. I don't know they are dangerous, they say they are not, some of them say they are perfectly healthy, marvellous.
They are. They work wonders. Good!
(laughter) Please madam. Look, first of all I am asking myself, why do I take drugs, alcohol, smoke, why? For a breakthrough from your limited consciousness.
So you are saying, chemically - listen to it sir, carefully listen - through chemical processes I will break through the limitation of my consciousness. Right? I will fast, not eat food for many days and that sharpens the mind and that will help me to break through.
Right? I will practise certain systems and that in the practice of it I will strengthen my mind and that will be a breakthrough. It is all implied in all this.
You understand sir? My intention is I want to break through my petty little consciousness - Christian, Hindu, whatever it is. And drugs, systems, anything that will help me to break through I will accept.
Right? It is a matter of experiencing, not accepting. There is no acceptance until you have experienced.
Yes, that is what I mean. You take drugs, you accept it and then take it because you want to break through. My God!
You don't... Go at it sanely sir, step by step. Now I am can you break through, or you break through, or you expand your consciousness and you call that breaking through? No but on the acceptance - you accept that you don't know the experience.
You just take the drugs and then have the experience. You don't accept the drug as being that which will break through consciousness, you accept the drug that will give you an experience. Yes sir, that is what I mean.
You accept the drug because somebody has said if you take this drug you will have an extraordinary experience. Well, the matter of it being extraordinary is up to your own judgement. Yes sir, that is what I am saying.
Don't quibble over words, sir. You will have an experience. I accept you as my authority because you have taken it and you say, 'Take this, old boy, and you will have a breakthrough'.
And I say to why do I take it, is it a break through at all? Or the breakthrough is the extension of my conditioning, which I think is a breakthrough. Look sir, have you ever observed a tree closely?
- without the image of the tree, without a conclusion of the tree, actually observed it so that there is no gap between you and the tree, no distance, so that you observe this extraordinary phenomenon called the tree. If you can observe it without the word, without the image, without the knowledge, there is a tremendous contact with that tree - not that you become the tree, that would be absurd, but you have direct relationship with it. You see things that you have never seen before.
Now that is a break through. What about the grass under your feet while you are looking at the tree? Oh, for goodness sake, I am talking of the tree sir.
Then you can look at the grass too. It would be a heightened awareness without identification. I said sir, it is not identification, I can't identify.
I am too alive to identify with a tree. I am not the tree. In resonance then.
No. I explained it sir. Look sir, you have an image about me and I have an image about you, haven't you?
You have an image about your girlfriend, your husband, your wife. You have an image. The images have relationship.
Right? I have an image about my wife and she has an image about me, this image has been created through years, and our relationship is between these two images. I don't know her and she doesn't know me actually, but I think I know her through the images which I have about her.
Now if there was no image at all, then my relationship with my wife is entirely different - my wife or friend, whatever it is. Similarly when I watch a tree, or a cloud, or a bird, without this screen of words, knowledge, conclusion, then there is direct relationship with it. Now the content of my consciousness cannot be broken through through any chemical.
If it is as simple as that, by taking a drug, it is all finished. That would be marvellous. Then why aren't we all happy human beings - you follow?
Those who have taken drugs. Mate, it is not a drug, it is the experience that comes from it. I explained sir.
Experience. Now why do you want experience? Why this craving for experience?
To be satisfied That is not an answer, is it? I am bored. Which is, you are bored with all the experiences you have had, right?
That is right, sir. You are bored with all the experiences you have had and you want to experience something more. You have had sex, you have had every kind of silly and good experience and you say, 'For goodness sake, these are all rather trivial and I want something more'.
For myself anyway, it wasn't a case of wanting something more, it was a correlating factor, to tie everything together, the experiences in my life. That is the same thing, wait, all right. Correlating all the factors of experiences so that you are made a whole.
Watch it sir. Correlate all the experiences one has accumulated, there are different kinds of experiences, sexual, mental, you know dozens and dozens of separated experiences. And you hope by taking a drug they will all be joined, or see the experience as a total.
Which asking further experience, which is the same thing - you understand, sir? I the experience, what happens if I take a drug, perhaps I will break through, whatever that word 'breakthrough' is to my consciousness, and you say, 'I want to experience that state of mind when the fragmentation of experiences don't exist'. It is exactly the same thing, only you put it in one way and I put it in another way, but we both want experience.
I say, why? We need experience, as when there is a challenge you respond, that is an experience, and that challenge keeps one awake - right? - if there wasn't the Communists, the Capitalists would be further Capitalists, if there wasn't somebody - you follow?
Challenge is necessary to keep us awake. Now you say the drug will act as a challenge to further response which will be beyond. Right?
So you are looking for a challenge which is the drug. Right? And I say, why do you want a challenge at all?
You say, 'My friend I want it because I am asleep'. Right? Right sir?
'I am asleep, I don't know how to keep awake so that I see the whole thing.' So you are dependent on a drug to keep you awake. Right?
Be clear, don't accept what I am saying. I suppose we are bored. Yes, you are bored, we said that.
It is better to be awake on something than asleep on nothing, isn't it? Why aren't you awake? Much more important than saying drugs will keep me awake.
Why aren't you awake, what is wrong? Well a lot of people I know have said that in taking LSD that it has shown them how sharp they are - they weren't aware of really how thorough enlightenment was until they took the drug. Yes sir, that is right.
The drug gave you a sense of awareness and then you began to live and see what you were doing - put it differently. You can see how you live, how squalid you are, how you squirm, you portray it out, and you terrorise yourself with the way you usually are. Yes sir, I understand that.
If you get something beyond that, well then that is a bit of good luck for you. Yes I understand that. That is, by taking a drug...
It is no easy matter, not really, not really, not really. I know it is not an easy matter, nothing is an easy matter except the drug. It is easy to do that, it is easy to roll up a cigarette.
That's right sir, you want the easiest way out. I don't want the easiest way out, and don't want the hardest way out, just a way out. You want a way out, way out of our misery, out of our problems, financial, emotional, intellectual problems, our suffering, our pettiness - you follow?
- we want a way out of all that. And I say, 'Why do you take the longest method to do it'? Because of suffering.
Wait sir. Why do you take the most complicated, the most unrealistic, impractical way to live differently? You follow sir?
You answer me. Why have you become so impractical? By taking drugs you are not any more happier at the end of it, you are not much more alive, active, creative.
Mr. Krishnamurti, may I very politely point out if you are really ill you just take drugs for a little while to get back to normal... Madam, look, when the dentist gives me a novocaine, or whatever it is, that is a sedative, isn't it, it prevents the pain and he can extract or whatever he wants to do, that is natural, isn't it? But to say I'll take drugs in order to - that is what we are talking about. Sir, that lady is talking about psychological medicine, when people are depressed they take medicines.
Sir, do you know how we began this - do you know how we began this discussion? We said, what is thinking, can the mind investigate, learn, the whole machinery of thinking and in the very act of learning there is the slowing down of thinking. That is all what we are discussing.
Not how to break through, not which are the beneficial drugs, what the effects of drugs are. The effects of the drugs you can see, those people who have taken them for a long time, their brain deteriorates. There are exceptions.
Of course there are exceptions. You may be the exception! (laughter) But generally, as I have seen many of them, it is terrible what goes on with drugs.
That is an irrelevant question. The question in learning about thought, the machinery of thought, the necessary function of thought, in learning about it, the slowing takes place without control, without subjugation, without effort. And to learn about thinking one has to watch the machinery of thinking, be aware of it, how you think, what makes you think.
Prejudice? A conclusion? A conditioning?
All in the past. So thought can never be free because it has its roots in the past, so thought can never be new. What is new is when thought comes to an end and there is a new...
Didn't you say we have to keep on thinking to learn? Ah, no. You say you keep on thinking to learn, no.
I didn't say that. To learn - we'll go again - what does it mean to learn? Does it mean thinking?
Learning a language needs thinking, which is accumulation of words and their meanings, in Italian or in French or whatever it is. There I have to exercise thought and relate each word and so on and so on, so on. Now I am does learning require thinking, or only a perception and the continuing of that perception, which is learning?
That is, I'll begin again. That is, I am aware of the necessity and the functional value of knowledge. And has knowledge any relationship with learning?
I see learning is constant movement, in that I have to function and knowledge is necessary but it is a constant movement. And that movement is not thought but constant awareness, perception, insight. The moment that insight makes a conclusion then it becomes knowledge and an impediment to further enquiry.
That is all. What shall we talk over together this morning? Are questions necessary at all if we have understood you rightly in the first place?
Quite right. Are questions at all necessary if we see things very clearly - obviously not. So what shall we talk over together this morning?
Could we talk about what happens when you put the why aren't you sufficiently interested to see the division between the observer and the observed? Right. Do you want to discuss that?