Idem, p. 416-429

KRISHNAMURTI: ...What is this fear? Why are you, why is anybody, afraid? Is it based on not wanting to be hurt? Or is it that one wants complete security, and not being able to find it - this sense of complete safety, of protection, physically, emotionally, psychologically - one becomes terribly anxious about living? - so there is this sense of uncertainty. Now why is there fear? You have been hurt, haven't you? And out of that hurt you do all kinds of things. We resist a great deal, we don't want to be disturbed; out of that feeling of hurt we cling to something which we hope will protect us. Therefore we become aggressive towards anything that attacks what we are holding on to for protection. As a human being sitting here, wanting to resolve this problem of fear what is it that you are frightened of? Is it physical fear - fear of physical pain? Or a psychological fear of danger, of uncertainty, of being hurt again? Or of not being able to find total, complete security? Is it fear of being dominated, and yet we are dominated? So what is it that you are frightened of? Are you aware of your fear?

Questioner: I fear the unknown.

KRISHNAMURTI: Now listen to that question. Why should one be afraid of the unknown, when you know nothing about it? Please enquire into it.

Questioner: I have an image of what has happened to me and there is the fear that it might happen again.

KRISHNAMURTI: But is it the fear of letting go of the known? Or fear of the unknown? You understand? Fear of letting go the things I have gathered - my property, my wife, my name, my books, my furniture, my capacities - to let go the things that I know, that I have experienced: is that the fear? Or is it fear of the future, the unknown?

Questioner: I find that my fear generally is of what will happen not of what is happening.

KRISHNAMURTI: Shall we go into that?

Questioner: It isn't that one is frightened of what might happen tomorrow, but of losing own's own recognitions, one's satisfactions, today.

KRISHNAMURTI: Look, the gentleman asked a question which was "I am not frightened of yesterday or of today, but I am frightened of what might happen tomorrow, in the future." Tomorrow may be twenty-four hours away or a year, but I am frightened of that.

Questioner: But the future is the result of all the expectations one has because of the past.

KRISHNAMURTI: I am frightened of the future, how shall I deal with this? Don't explain it to me, I want to find out what to do with this fear. I am frightened what might happen: I might get ill, I might lose a job, a dozen things might happen to me, I may go insane, lose all the things which I have stored up. Now please enquire.

Questioner: I think perhaps is it not the future that we fear but rather the uncertainty of the future, new events which cannot be predicted. If the future were predictable there would be no fear, we should know what would happen. Fear is a sort of defence of the body against something completely new, against the whole uncertainty of what life is.

KRISHNAMURTI: "I am afraid of the future because the future is uncertain." I don't know how to deal with this uncertainty, with my whole being, therefore I am afraid. Fear is an indication of this uncertainty of the future, is that it?

Questioner: That's only a part of it. There are other fears too.

KRISHNAMURTI: Sir, we are taking one fear; we will discuss various forms of fears presently. The gentleman says, "I am not really frightened of anything except the future. The future is so uncertain, I don't know how to meet it. I haven't the capacity to understand not only the present, but also the future." So it is this sense of uncertainty that indicates fear. Whatever the explanation be, the fact is that I am frightened of tomorrow. Now how shall I deal with it? How shall I be free of that fear?

Questioner (1): Looking at one's response to the uncertainty of the future it seems it might be inadequate.

KRISHNAMURTI: I am frightened of tomorrow, of what might happen. The whole future is uncertain, there might be an atomic war, there might be an ice age - I am frightened of all that. How am I to deal with it? Help me, don't theorise about it. don't give me explanations!

Questioner (2): We are frighted because we are pretending, playing games, and we are afraid, of being exposed.

KRISHNAMURTI: But you are not helping me! Aren't you frightened of the future, Sir? - stick to this.

Questioner: Yes, perhaps.

KRISHNAMURTI: Now, how are you going to deal with it?

Questioner: By living in the present.

KRISHNAMURTI: I don't know what that means.

Questioner (1): For me it has been helpful to realise what I have been afraid of in the past, and why I have been afraid, and to submit this to examination. This helps me to face the future.

Questioner (2): First of all we have got to understand what we mean by the future.

KRISHNAMURTI: Thats what I am trying to find out.

Questioner: The first thing we have to do is not to be afraid of being frightened.

KRISHNAMURTI: Oh, that is a cliche, that doesn't help me!

Questioner: One has to realise you can't help me out: fear is always there. One has to understand fear is going to be a life companion.

KRISHNAMURTI: Sir, you have not fed me. You have given me a lot of words, ashes. I am still frightened of tomorrow.

Questioner (1): That is just the problem. You can't help anyone.

Questioner (2): Can't you wait for tomorrow and let things come, see what happens?

Questioner (3): I know the necessity for physical security, but I want to understand my need for psychological security.

KRISHNAMURTI: He means that, Sir. He probably has some security physically, but psychologically he is frightened of tomorrow. He has got a little bank account, a little house and all the rest of it, he is not frightened about that; he is frightened of what might happen in the future.

Questioner (1): Is it possible to live with your uncertainty?

Questioner (2): If we knew what was going to happen, we should not be afraid.

Questioner (3): Sitting here I am not afraid, but thinking about tomorrow I get frightened.

KRISHNAMURTI: Thought does it.

Questioner: When we are frightened now, it is a fact. If we accept the fact and if we live totally in the present, we forget the future.

KRISHNAMURTI: Right, let's look. I want to find out what causes this fear of tomorrow. What is tomorrow? Why does tomorrow exist at all? You understand? I am going to answer it.
I want to find out how thought arises, how fear arises. I think about tomorrow, and the past has given me a sense of security; though there may have been a great many uncertainties in the past, on the whole I have survived. Up to now I am fairly safe, but tomorrow is very uncertain and I am frightened. So I am going to find out what causes this fear of tomorrow. The response of my whole being to that insecurity of tomorrow, being uncertain, is fear. So I want to find out why fear arises when I think about the future. Which means the future may be all right, but my thinking about it makes the uncertainty. I don't know the future, it may be marvellous or it may be deadly, it may be terrible, or most beautiful, I don't know; thought is not certain about the future. So thought, which has always been seeking certainty, is suddenly faced with uncertainty. So why does thought create fear? You follow?

Questioner: Because thought divides and creates distance between past and future, and fear enters into this space.

KRISHNAMURTI: The questioner says, "Thought separates the future from the past and divides what might be. This separation of 'what is' and 'what might be' is part of this fear." If I did not think about tomorrow, there would be no fear, I would not know the future, I would not even care. Because I think about the future- the future which I don't know, the future which is so uncertain-my whole response, psychologically as well as physically, is to say "My God, what is going to happen?" So thought breeds fear.

Questioner: Is thought the only psychological function that is able to bring about fear? There are some other irrational functions like feeling; that might bring about fear as well.

KRISHNAMURTI: I am taking that one particular thing, there are other factors too.

Questioner (1): There is fear of the unknown, fear of tomorrow; it is based on attachment to a belief, or some formula. The fear can be understood if I see why I am attached to a particular convention or belief.

Questioner (2): What about fear of existence?

KRISHNAMURTI: All these are involved, are they not? The attachment to a belief, to a formula, to a certain ideological concept which I have built for myself, all these are part of this fear. Now I want to find out by seeing what is fear. I said to you earlier that I have done something in the past of which I am ashamed, or of which I am frightened: I don't want it to recur. Thinking about what I have done in the past breeds fear, doesn't it? Thinking about what might happen in the future also breeds fear. So I see- I may be wrong- that thought is responsible for the fear, both the past and of the future. And thought is also responsible for fear by projecting an ideal, a belief, and holding on to that belief and wanting certainty out of that belief; it is all the operation of thought, isn't it? So I have to understand why thought thinks about the future, why thought goes back to some event which has brought fear. Why does thought do this?

Questioner: Thought can help itself by imagining all the possibilities of terrible things that could happen in the future, so it can make some plans to prevent these things happening. It tries to protect itself by imagining.

KRISHNAMURTI: Thought also helps you to protect yourself, through insurance, thought building a house, avoiding wars; thought cultivates fear and also protects it, doesn't it? We are talking about thought creating fear, not how it protects. I am asking why thought breeds this fear.

Questioner: Fear come from the discriminating aspect of thought. Thought is fear. This gives thought a kind of energy.

KRISHNAMURTI: Thought is energy.

Questioner: This gives thought a different kind of energy.

KRISHNAMURTI: Go into it, it is both.

Questioner: It is accumulating memories. Thought seems to resist its termination-fear and pleasure seem to be somewhat similar- by the state where thought doesn't exist eludes me.

KRISHNAMURTI: So I force myself to think about things that are happening and not about things that don't happen?

Questioner: Think about things that are happening.

KRISHNAMURTI: But my mind is always watching what might happen. Doesn't this happen to you? Let's be quite simple and honest. We want to think about the things that are happening but thought also keeps an eye on what might happen. And when I am not thinking about this, that pops up!

Questioner: Sir, the feeling "I am" has nothing to do with the pleasure and nothing to do with fear and thought. I think only "I am". I don't have fear. This feeling "I am" has nothing at all to do with thought.

KRISHNAMURTI: When you say "I am"- what do you mean by those words?

Questioner: The feeling to be present, to be sitting here, and there is no fear in it.

KRISHNAMURTI: That is not the problem, Sir.

Questioner: First of all we must find out if certainty exists, then there won't be fear.

KRISHNAMURTI: How shall we find out?

Questioner: I see the whole process of thought as a trap.

KRISHNAMURTI: Go into it; each person pursues something else. Let me state what I feel the problem is. I am afraid of tomorrow because tomorrow is uncertain. So far I have been fairly certain in my life; though there have been occasions on which I have been frightened, somehow I have got over them. But the sense of fear of tomorrow, which is so uncertain- atomic war, the casual wars that might explode into all kinds of horrors, losing money- I am in a state of convulsion about the future. Now what am I to do? I want to be free, if I can, of the fear both of the past and the future, of the fears deep down and the superficial fears.
Don't give me explanations, "Do this", "Don't do that." I want to find out what fear is; whether it is fear of darkness, of uncertainty, whether it is fear of attachment, holding on to something, or to some person or idea. I want to find out what is the root of it, how to escape from it, now how to smother is. I want to see the structure of fear. If I can understand that, then something else can take place. So I am going to investigate what fear is. Let me go on a little while, may I? Fear exists for me because I am thinking about tomorrow; despite you assurance that tomorrow is perfectly all right, I still feel fear. Now why am I thinking about tomorrow? Is it because the past has been so good, has given me a great deal of knowledge and this has become my security, and I have no knowledge about the future? If I could understand the future and reduce that to my knowledge, then I would not be frightened....So follow this: I want certainty of tomorrow, and certainty can only exist where there is knowledge, when I say, "I know". Can I know anything except the past? The moment I say "I know" it is already the past. When I say "I know my wife", I know her in terms of the past. In the past there is certainty and in the future there is uncertainty. So I want to draw the future into the past so that I will be completely safe. I see fear arises where thought is operating; if I did not think about tomorrow there would be no fear.

Questioner: Fera seems to be something instinctive. I feel that fear is an energy, that some force is there.

KRISHNAMURTI: You see, each of us has an opinion. Each of us is quite sure we know how to deal with fear. We explain it, we give cause, we think we understand it, and yet at the end of it we are frightened. I want to go behind all that and find out why fear exists at all. Is it the result of thought thinking about the future? Because the future is very uncertain about thought is based on memory, accumulated as knowledge, as centuries of experience, and out of that come thought. Thought says, "Knowledge is my security". And now you are telling me to be free of tomorrow, which is uncertain, if I know what tomorrow is, there will be no fear. What I am cracing for is certainty of knowledge. I know my past, I know what I did ten years or two days ago. I can analyse it, understand it, live with it; but I don't know tomorrow and therefore not knowing it makes me afraid. Not knowing means: not having knowledge of. Now can thought have knowledge about something which does not know? So there is fear. Thought trying to find out the future, and not knowing what its content is, it is afraid. Why is thought thinking of tomorrow, about which it knows nothing? It wants certainty, but there may be no certainty. Please answer my question, not your question.

Questioner: The living system needs to think about tomorrow, this is a fundamental rule of life: if needs some sort of prediction.

KRISHNAMURTI: I said that, Sir.

Questioner: We must follow this rule of life. There are psychological disturbances due to imagination which project awful fears, as you say, but it is impossible to prevent human beings from thinking in a logical fashion.

KRISHNAMURTI: If I may say so, we did say thought is necessary to protect physical survival. That is part of our life, that is what we are doing all the time.

Questioner: I don't agree, I think thought is not necessary for survival. Animals have the instinct for survival without the fear which is our trouble.

KRISHNAMURTI: Madam, we are mixing up two things. Please we tried to explain this at the beginning.

Questioner: She's right, human thought replaces instinct.

KRISHNAMURTI: I agree with you. One must know that tomorrow the house will be there. Physical survival and planning for the future are essential, aren't they? Without that we can't survive.

Questioner (1): When you see it all clearly, fear has no time.

Questioner (2): Thought thinks of living in the present, and must also think of tomorrow.

KRISHNAMURTI: The weather is hot, I must plan to buy some trousers that will be cool. That means planning for tomorrow. I have to go to India in the winter. I shall plan, which is the future. We are not denying that, on the contrary. What we are talking about is fear of uncertainty.

Questioner: We have no confidence in ourselves.

KRISHNAMURTI: That I really don't understand. Who is "yourself" to have confidence in? Are you such a marvellous human being to have confidence in yourself?

Questioner: Why not?

KRISHNAMURTI: What is yourself?

Questioner: Humanity.

KRISHNAMURTI:What is humanity? That good and the bad, the wars- we have been through all that. We are concerned with fear. We must use thought to survive. But to survive, thought has divided the world as my country, your country, my government, your government, my God, your God, my guru, your guru: thought has created this. Thought it wants to plan to survive, thought has divided the world which destroys itself, of which I am apart of. So I have to understand the nature of thought, where it is necessary, and where it is diabolical, where it is destructive and where it creates fear- that is my problem.

Questioner: To be safe.

KRISHNAMURTI: You see, thought must think about tomorrow in order to be safe, that is clear. And also you see that thought, thinking about tomorrow, creates fear. Now why?

Questioner (1): Because we want to continue.

Questioner (2): Because we are tied to pleasure.

KRISHNAMURTI: We haven't solved this problem because we refuse to leave our particular little opinions, judgements and conclusions. Let's abolish them and think anew. For me it is very simple. Thought must create fear because thought cannout ever find security in timel tomorrow may exist at all, pyschologically. And because of that uncertainty, thought projects what it wants for tomorrow: safety, what I have acquired, what I have achieved, what I possess, all that. And that too is completely uncertain. So can thought be quiet about the future? That's my point. Can thought be quiet, which means:function where it is necessary for physical protection; and therefore no divisions, no separate Gods, no warmongers. Let thought be quiet so that time as tomorrow does not exist. Therefore I have to understand what is to live now. I don't understand what it is to live now, nor have I understod what it is to live in the past, therefore I want to live in the future, which I don't know, as I don't know what the present is. So I am asking, can I live completely, wholly, today? I can only do that when I have understood the whole machinery and the functioning of thought, and in the very understanding of the reality of thought there is silence. And when the mind is quiet there is no future, no time.

SAANEN
7 August 1971

Krishnamurti, J. (2000), The Awakening of Intelligence, Penguin Books, India



pg. 214-217



The past in you is your tradition, the books that you have read, the racial inheritance as the Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, and all the rest of it, and the culture in which you have lived, the temples, the beliefs that have been handed down from generation to generation. This constitutes the propaganda to which you have been subjected, your propaganda; you are the slaves to the propaganda for five thousand years. And the Christian is a slave to propaganda of two thousand years. He believes in Jesus Christ and you believe in Krishna, or whatever you do believe in, as the Communist believes in something else. We are the result of propaganda. Do you realise what this means? .. words, the influence of others; so there is nothing whatsoever original. And to find out the origin of anything we must have order. Order that can only come about when there is the cessation of total disorder in oneself. Because all of us, at least those who are even a little serious, thoughtful and earnest, must have asked whether there is anything sacred at all, anything holy. Of course the answer is that the temple, the mosque, or the church is not holy, is not sacred, nor the images therein.

I do not know if you have experimented with yourself. Take a piece of stick, put it on the mantelpiece and every day put a flower in front of it- give it a flower- put in front of it a flower and repeat some words- "Coca-cola", "Amen", "Om", it doesn't matter what word- any word you like .. listen, don't laugh it off .. do it and you will find out. If you do it, after a month you will see how holy it has become. You have identified yourself with that stick, with that piece of idea and you have made it into something sacred, holy. But it is not. You have given it a sense of holiness out of your fear, out of constant habit of this tradition, giving yourself over, surrendering yourself to something, which you consider holy. The image in the temple is no more holy than a piece of rock by the roadside. So it is very important to find out what is really sacred, what is really holy, if there is such a thing at all.

You know, man has spoken of this throughout centuries, seeking something that is imperishable, that is not created by the mind, that is holy in itself, something that is never touched by the past. Man is always seeking that. And man, seeking that, not finding it, has invented religion, organised belief. A serious man has to find out, not through some rock, temple or idea, but he has to find what is really, truly, everlastingly sacred. If you cannot find it, you will always be cruel, you will always be in conflict. And if you will, this evening, listen, perhaps you may come upon it, not through his statements, but you may come upon it when there is discipline through the understanding of disorder. When you watch, see what disorder is; the very seeing of disorder demands attention. Please do follow this. You know, for most of us, discipline is a drill, as it is for the soldier, drill, drill from morning until night so that there is nothing but slavery to a habit. And that is what we call discipline; suppression, control .. that is deadly, that is not discipline at all. Discipline is a living thing; it has its own beauty, its own freedom. And this discipline comes naturally, when you know how to look at a tree, how to look at the face of your wife, your husband, when you can see the beauty of a tree or a sunset. To see, to look at the sky, the glow of it, the beauty of the leaves against that glow, the orange colour, the depth of the colour, the swiftness of that colour .. see it! To see it you must give your whole attention to it. And to give your whole attention has its own discipline, you don't want any other discipline. So that thing, that attention is a living thing, moving and vital.

This attention itself is virtue. You need no other ethical standard, no morality (anyhow you have no morality, except on the one hand the morality that society which you have built tells you, and on the other hand what you want to do, and neither has anything whatsoever to do with virtue). Virtue is beauty and beauty is love, and without love you have no virtue and therefore no order. So again, if you have done it now, as the speaker is talking about it, looking at the sky with your whole being, that very act of looking has its own discipline and therefore its own virtue, its own order. Then the mind reaches the highest point of absolute order and therefore because it is absolutely orderly, it itself becomes the sacred. I do not know if you understand this. You know, when you love the tree, the bird, the light on the water, when you love your neighbour, your wife, without jealousy, that love has never been touch by hate, when there is that love, that love itself is sacred, you have no other thing that can be more so.

So there is the sacred thing, not in the things that man has put together, but which comes into being when man cuts himself off entirely from the past, which is memory. This does not mean that man becomes absent-minded, he must have memory in a certain direction, but that memory will be found to be part of this whole state in which there is no relation with the past. And that cessation of the past can only be when you see things as they are and come directly in contact with them .. to see things as you are in order to understand your world better.

Then out of this order, discipline, virtue, there comes into being love. Love is tremendously passionate and therefore acts immediately. It has no time interval between seeing and the doing. And when you have that love you can put away all your sacred books, all your gods. And you have to put away your sacred books, your gods, your everyday ambitions, to come upon that love. That is the only sacred thing there is. And to come upon it, goodness must flower. Goodness .. you understand, Sirs? ..goodness can only flower in freedom, not in tradition. The world needs change, you need tremendous revolution (not economic, Communist, bloody revolution that man has tried throughout history, that has only led him to more misery). But we do need fundamental, psychological, revolution, and this revolution is order. And order is peace; and this order, with its virtue and peace, can only come about when you come directly into contact with disorder in your daily life. Then out of that blossoms goodness and then there will be no seeking anymore. For that which is, is sacred.



Madras

14 January 1968

Perhaps this morning we could put all our problems aside - our economic problems, our problems of personal relationship, of ill health, and also the many larger problems that surround us, national and international, the problems of war, of starvation, of riots, and so on. Not that we are escaping from them; but if we can put them all aside, for this morning at least, perhaps we shall then be able to approach them differently - with a fresher mind, with keener perception - and thereby tackle them anew, with greater vigour and clarity.

It seems to me that only love can produce the right revolution, and that every other form of revolution - that is, revolution based on economic theories, on social ideologies, and so on - can only bring about further disorder, more confusion and misery. We cannot hope to resolve the basic human problem by reforming and putting together again its many parts. It is only when there is great love that we can have a total outlook and therefore a total action, instead of this partial, fragmentary activity which we now call revolution, and which leads nowhere.

This morning I would like to talk about something that includes the totality of life - something that is not fragmentary, but a total approach to the whole existence of man; and to go into it rather deeply, it seems to me that one must cease to be caught in theories, beliefs, dogmas. Most of us plough incessantly the soil of the mind, but we never seem to sow; we analyze, discuss, tear things to pieces, but we do not understand the whole movement of life.

Now, I think there are three things that we have to understand very deeply if we are to comprehend the whole movement of life. They are: time, sorrow, and death. To understand time, to comprehend the full significance of sorrow, and to abide with death - all this demands the clarity of love. Love is not a theory, nor is it an ideal. Either you love, or you do not love. It cannot be taught. You cannot take lessons in how to love, nor is there a method by the daily practice of which you can come to know what love is. But I think one comes to love naturally, easily, spontaneously, when one really understands the meaning of time, the extraordinary depth of sorrow, and the purity that comes with death. So perhaps we can consider - factually, not theoretically or abstractly - the nature of time, the quality or structure of sorrow, and the extraordinary thing that we call death. These three things are not separate. If we understand time, we shall understand what death is, and we shall understand also what is sorrow. But if we regard time as something apart from sorrow and death, and try to deal with it separately, then our approach will be fragmentary, and therefore we shall never comprehend the extraordinary beauty and vitality of love.

So this morning we are going to deal with time, not as an abstraction, but as an actuality - time being duration, the continuity of existence. There is chronological time, hours and days extending into millions of years; and it is chronological time that has produced the mind with which we function. The mind is a result of time as the continuity of existence, and the perfecting or polishing of the mind through that continuity is called progress. Time is also the psychological duration which thought has created as a means of achievement. We use time to progress, to achieve, to become, to bring about a certain result. For most of us, time is a stepping stone to something far greater - to the development of certain faculties, to the perfecting of a particular technique, to the achievement of an end, a goal, whether praiseworthy or not; so we have come to think that time is necessary to realize what is true, what is God, what is beyond all the travail of man.

Most of us regard time as the period of duration between the present moment and some moment in the future when we shall have achieved, and we use that time to cultivate character, to get rid of a certain habit, to develop a muscle or an outlook. For two thousand years the Christian mind has been conditioned to believe in a Saviour, in hell, in heaven; and in the East a similar conditioning of the mind has been produced over a far longer period. We think that time is necessary for everything that we have to do or understand, therefore time becomes a burden, it becomes a barrier to actual perception; it prevents us from seeing the truth of something immediately, because we think that we must take time over it. We say, "Tomorrow, or in a couple of years, I shall comprehend this thing with extraordinary clarity". The moment we admit time we are cultivating indolence, that peculiar laziness which prevents us from seeing immediately the thing as it actually is.

We think we need time to break through the conditioning which society - with its organized religions, its codes of morality, its dogmas, its arrogance and its competitive spirit - has imposed upon the mind. We think in terms of time because thought is of time. Thought is the response of memory - memory being the background which has been accumulated, inherited, acquired by the race, by the community, by the group, by the family, and by the individual. This background is the outcome of the additive process of the mind, and its accumulation has taken time. For most of us the mind is memory, and whenever there is a challenge, a demand, it is memory that responds. It is like the response of the electronic brain, which functions through association. Thought being the response of memory, it is in its very nature the product of time and the creator of time.

Please, what I am saying is not a theory, it is not something that you have to think about. You don't have to think about it, but rather see it, because it is so. I am not going into all the intricate details, but I have indicated the essential facts, and either you see them, or you don't see them. If you are following what is being said, not just verbally, linguistically, or analytically, but if you actually see it is so, you will realize how time deceives; and then the question is whether time can stop. If we are able to see the whole process of our own activity - see its depth, its shallowness, its beauty, its ugliness - not tomorrow, but immediately, then that very perception is the action which destroys time.

Without understanding time, we cannot understand sorrow. They are not two different things, as we try to make out. Going to the office, being with one's family, procreating children - these are not separate, isolated incidents. On the contrary, they are all profoundly and intimately related to each other; and we cannot see this extraordinary intimacy of relationship if there is not the sensitivity that love brings.

To understand sorrow we have really to understand the nature of time and the structure of thought. Time must come to a stop, otherwise we are merely repeating the information we have accumulated, like an electronic brain. Unless there is an end to time - which means an end to thought - there is mere repetition, adjustment, a continual modification. There is never anything new. We arc glorified electronic brains - a bit more independent, perhaps, but still machine-like in the way we function.

So, to understand the nature of sorrow, and the ending of sorrow, one must understand time; and to understand time is to understand thought. The two are not separate. In understanding time, one comes upon thought; and the understanding of thought is the ending of time, and therefore the ending of sorrow. If that is very clear, then we can look at sorrow, and not worship it, as the Christians do. What we don't understand we either worship or destroy. We put it in a church, in a temple, or in a dark corner of the mind, and hold it in awe; or we kick it, throw it away; or we escape from it. But here we are not doing any of those things. We see that for millennia man has struggled with this problem of sorrow, and that he has not been able to resolve it; so he has become hardened to it, he has accepted it, saying it is an inevitable part of life.

Now, merely to accept sorrow is not only stupid, but it makes for a dull mind. It makes the mind insensitive, brutal, superficial, and therefore life becomes very shoddy, a process of mere work and pleasure. One lives a fragmented existence as a business man, a scientist, an artist, a sentimentalist, a so-called religious person, and so on. But to understand and be free of sorrow, you have to understand time, and thereby understand thought. You cannot deny sorrow, or run away, escape from it through entertainment, through churches, through organized beliefs; nor can you accept and worship it; and not to do any of these things demands a great deal of attention, which is energy.

Sorrow is rooted in self-pity, and to understand sorrow there must first be a ruthless operation on all self-pity. I do not know if you have observed how sorry for yourself you become, for example, when you say, "I am lonely". The moment there is self-pity you have provided the soil in which sorrow takes root. However much you may justify your self-pity, rationalize it, polish it, cover it up with ideas, it is still there, festering deep within you. So a man who would understand sorrow must begin by being free of this brutal, self-centred, egotistic triviality which is self-pity. You may feel self-pity because you have a disease, or because you have lost someone by death, or because you have not fulfilled yourself and are therefore frustrated, dull; but whatever its cause, self-pity is the root of sorrow. And when once you are free of self-pity, you can look at sorrow without either worshipping it, or escaping from it, or giving it a sublime, spiritual significance, such as saying that you must suffer to find God - which is utter nonsense. It is only the dull, stupid mind that puts up with sorrow. So there must be no acceptance of sorrow whatsoever, and no denial of it. When you are free of self-pity, you have deprived sorrow of all the sentimentality, all the emotionalism that springs from self-pit then you are able to look at sorrow with complete attention.

I hope you are actually doing this with me this morning as we go along, and are not just verbally accepting what is being said. Be aware of your own dull acceptance of sorrow, of your rationalizing, your excuses, your self-pity, your sentimentality, your emotional attitude towards sorrow, because all that is a dissipation of energy. To understand sorrow you must give your whole attention to it, and in that attention there is no place for excuses, for sentiment, for rationalization, no place for any self-pity whatsoever.

I hope I am making myself clear when I talk about giving one's whole attention to sorrow. In that attention there is no effort to resolve or to understand sorrow. One is just looking, observing. Any effort to understand, to rationalize, or to escape from sorrow, denies that negative state of complete attention in which this thing called sorrow can be understood.

We are not analyzing, we are not analytically investigating sorrow in order to get rid of it, because that is just another trick of the mind. The mind analyzes sorrow, and then imagines it has understood and is free of sorrow - which is nonsense. You may get rid of one particular kind of sorrow; but sorrow will come up again in another form. We are talking about sorrow as a total thing - about sorrow as such - whether it is yours, or mine, or that of any other human being.

As I have said, to understand sorrow there must be the understanding of time and thought. There must be a choiceless awareness of all the escapes, of all the self-pity, of all the verbalizations, so that the mind becomes completely quiet in front of something which has to be understood. There is then no division between the observer and the thing observed. It is not that you - the observer, the thinker - are in sorrow and are looking at that sorrow, but there is only the state of sorrow. That state of undivided sorrow is necessary, because when you look at sorrow as an observer you create conflict, which dulls the mind and dissipates energy, and therefore there is no attention.

When the mind understands the nature of time and thought, when it has rooted out self-pity, sentiment, emotionalism, and all the rest of it, then thought - which has created all this complexity - comes to an end, and there is no time; therefore you are directly and intimately in contact with that thing which you call sorrow. Sorrow is sustained only when there is an escape from sorrow, a desire to run away from it, to resolve it, or to worship it. But when there is nothing of all that because the mind is directly in contact with sorrow, and is therefore completely silent with regard to it, then you will discover for yourself that the mind is not in sorrow at all. The moment one's mind is completely in contact with the fact of sorrow, that fact itself resolves all the sorrow producing qualities of time and thought. Therefore there is the ending of sorrow.

Now, how are we to understand this thing which we call death, and of which we are so frightened? Man has created many devious ways of dealing with death - by worshipping it, denying it, clinging to innumerable beliefs, and so on. But to understand death, surely you must come to it afresh; because you really do not know anything about death, do you? You may have seen people die, and you have observed in yourself or in others the coming on of old age with its deterioration. You know there is the ending of physical life by old age, by accident, by disease, by murder or suicide, but you do not know death as you know sex, hunger, cruelty, brutality. You do not actually know what it is to die, and until you do, death has no meaning whatsoever. What you are afraid of is an abstraction, something which you do not know. Not knowing the fullness of death, or what its implications are, the mind is frightened of it - frightened of the thought, not of the fact, which it does not know.

Please go into this with me a little bit.

If you died instantly, there would be no time to think about death and be frightened of it. But there is a gap between now and the moment when death will come, and during that interval you have plenty of time to worry, to rationalize. You want to carry over to the next life - if there is a next life - all the anxieties, the desires, the knowledge that you have accumulated, so you invent theories, or you believe in some form of immortality. To you, death is something separate from life. Death is over there, while you are here, occupied with living - driving a car, having sex, feeling hunger, worrying, going to the office, accumulating knowledge, and so on. You don't want to die because you haven't finished writing your book, or you don't yet know how to play the violin very beautifully. So you separate death from life, and you say, "I will understand life now, and presently I will understand death". But the two are not separate - and that is the first thing to understand. Life and death are one, they are intimately related, and you cannot isolate one of them and try to understand it apart from the other. But most of us do that. We separate life into unrelated watertight compartments. If you are an economist, then economics is all that you are concerned with, and you don't know anything about the rest. If you are a doctor whose speciality is the nose and throat, or the heart, you live in that limited field of knowledge for forty years, and that is your heaven when you die.

As I said, to deal with life fragmentarily is to live in constant confusion, contradiction, misery. You have to see the totality of life; and you can see the totality of it only when there is affection, when there is love. Love is the only revolution that will produce order. It is no good acquiring more and more knowledge about mathematics, about medicine, about history, about economics, and then putting all the fragments together - that will not solve a thing. Without love, revolution only leads to the worship of the State, or the worship of an image, or to innumerable tyrannical corruptions and the destruction of man. Similarly, when the mind, because it is frightened, puts death at a distance and separates it from daily living, that separation only breeds more fear, more anxiety, and the multiplication of theories about death. To understand death you have to understand life. But life is not the continuity of thought - and it is this very continuity which has bred all our misery.

So, can the mind bring death from the distance to the immediate? Do you follow? Actually, death is not somewhere far away: it is here and now. It is here when you are talking, when you are enjoying yourself, when you are listening, when you are going to the office. It is here at every minute of life, just as love is. If once you perceive this fact, then you will find that there is no fear of death at all. One is afraid, not of the unknown, but of losing the known. You are afraid of losing your family, of being left alone, without companions; you are afraid of the pain of loneliness, of being without the experiences, the possessions that you have gathered. It is the known that we are afraid to let go of. The known is memory, and to that memory the mind clings. But memory is only a mechanical thing - which the computers are demonstrating very beautifully.

To understand the beauty and the extraordinary nature of death, there must be freedom from the known. In dying to the known there is the beginning of the understanding of death, because then the mind is made fresh, new, and there is no fear; therefore one can enter into that state which is called death. So, from the beginning to the end, life and death are one. The wise man understands time, thought, and sorrow, and only he can understand death. The mind that is dying each minute, never accumulating, never gathering experience, is innocent, and is therefore in a constant state of love.

I wonder if you care to ask questions about this, so that we can go into it in greater detail?

Questioner: Sir, what is the difference between your thought about love and the Christian thought about love?

Krishnamurti: I am afraid I cannot tell you. I am not thinking about love. You cannot think about love; if you do, it is not love. You know, there is a vast difference between sex, and the thought about sex which stimulates the feeling. The mind that is occupied with the mere enjoyment of sex, that thinks about sex, exciting itself by images, by pictures, by thoughts - the quality of such a mind is destructive. But the other thing, the feeling when there is no thought about it, is entirely different. Similarly, you cannot think about love. You can think about love according to the pattern of your memory, or in terms of what you have been told: that it is good, profane, sacred, and so on. But that thinking is not love. Love is neither Christian nor Hindu, neither oriental nor occidental neither yours nor mine. It is only when you get rid of all these ideas of your nationality, of your race, of your religion, and all the rest of it - it is only then that you will know what it is to love.

You see, I have talked this morning about death so that you might really understand this whole thing - not just while you are here in this tent, but throughout the rest of your life - and thereby be free of sorrow, free of fear, and actually know what it means to die. If now, and in the days to come, your mind is not completely aware, innocent, deeply attentive, then listening to words is utterly futile. But if you are aware, deeply attentive, conscious of your own thoughts and feelings; if you are not interpreting what the speaker is saying, but are actually observing yourself as he describes and goes into the problem, then when you leave this tent you will live - live not only with exultation, but with death and with love.

Jiddu Krishnamurti July 28, 1964 Saanen, Switzerland, 8th public talk

Freedom implies, does it not, that you must not follow anyone? You must be free to inquire, not accept, not look to a guide, to a savior, to a guru. Freedom implies that you must have the capacity to inquire, not into what others say but to inquire within yourself, to investigate, to examine the whole structure of a human mind that is, our mind, your mind.

Any form of conformity, imitation according to pattern, a mold, does not allow free inquiry. And what we are going to talk about demands that you be free to listen not only to the word but to the meaning of the word, and not be a slave to the word, not accept whatever the speaker says, or deny what he says, but to listen to find out. To find out for yourself not according to some other speaker, but to find our for yourself the truth or the falseness of what is being said.

The mind says, I must discipline myself in order to achieve a result. But such discipline does not bring freedom. It brings a result because you have a motive, a cause which produces the result, but that result is never freedom, it is only a reaction. Now, if I begin to understand the operations of that kind of discipline, then, in the very process of understanding, inquiring, going into it, my mind is truly disciplined. The exercise of will to produce a result is called discipline; whereas, the understanding of the whole significance of will, of discipline, and of what we call result demands a mind that is extraordinarily clear and 'disciplined' not by the will but through negative understanding.

So, negatively, I have understood the whole problem of what is not freedom. I have examined it, I have searched my heart and my mind, the recesses of my being, to understand what freedom means, and I see that none of these things we have described is freedom because they are all based on desire, compulsion, will, or what I will get at the end, and they are all reactions. I see factually that they are not freedom. Therefore, because I have understood those things, my mind is open to find out or recieve that which is free.

One has to find out if there is a discipline which is not conformity; because conformity destroys freedom, it never brings freedom into being. Look at the organized religions throught the world, the political parties. It is obvious that conformity destroys freedom, and we don't have to labor the point. Either you see it, or you don't; it is up to you.

The discipline of conformity, which is created by the fear of society and is part of the psychological structure of society, is immoral and disorderly, and we are caught in it. Now, can the mind find out if there is a certain movement of discipline which is not a process of controlling, shaping, conforming? To find that out, one has to be aware of this extraordinary disorder, confusion, and misery in which one lives; and to be aware of it not fragmentarily but totally and therefore choicelesslythat in itself is discipline. Order can come about only through this sense of awareness in which there is no choice, and which is therefore a total awareness, a complete sensitivity to every movement of thought.

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Relationship based on mutual need brings only conflict. However interdependent we are on each other, we are using each other for a purpose, for an end. With an end in view, relationship is not. You may use me and I may use you. In this usage, we lose contact. A society based on mutual usage is the foundation for violence. When we use another, we have only the picture of the end to be gained. The end, the gain, prevents relationship, communion. In the usage of another, however gratifying and comforting it may be, there is always fear. To avoid this fear we must possess. From this possession there arises envy, suspicion, and constant conflict. Such a relationship can never bring about happiness.

A society whose structure is based on mere need, whether physiological or psychological, must breed conflict, confusion, and misery. Society is the projection of yourself in relation with another, in which the need and the use are predominant. When you use another for your need, physically or psychologically, in actuality there is no relationship at all; you really have no contact with the other, no communion with the other. How can you have communion with the other when the other is used as a piece of furniture, for your convenience and comfort? So, it is essential to understand the significance of relationship in daily life.

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To be aware is to watch your bodily activity, the way you walk, the way you sit, the movements of your hands; it is to hear the words you use, to observe all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your reactions. It includes awareness of the unconscious, with its traditions, its instincual knowledge, and the immense sorrow it has accumulatednot only personal sorrow, but the sorrow of man. You have to be aware of all that; and you cannot be aware of it if you are merely judging, evaluating, saying, "This is good and that is bad, this I will keep and that I will reject," all of which only makes the mind dull, insensitive.

From awareness comes attention. Attention flows from awareness when in that awareness there is no choice, no personal choosing, no experiencing... but merely observing. And to observe you must have in the mind a great deal of space. A mind that is caught in ambition, greed, envy, in the pursuit of pleasure and the self-fulfillment, with its inevitable sorrow, pain, despair, anguish such a mind has no space in which to observe, to attend. It is a crowded with its own desires, going round and round in its own backwaters of reaction. You cannot attend if your mind is not highly sensitive, sharp, reasonable, logical, sane, healthy, withough the slightest shadow of neuroticism. The mind has to explore every corner of itself, leaving no spot uncovered, because if there is a single dark cormer of one's mind which one is afraid to explore, from that springs illusion...

It is only in the state of attention that you can be a light unto yourself, and then every action of your daily life springs from that lightevery actionwhether you are doing your job, cooking, going for a walk, mending clothes, or what you will. This whole process is meditation...

Two eyes wide shut, and the third wide open. Meditate and be well my friends...

J. Krishnamurti

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I was born on May 12th 1895 down in Mandanapalle, South India. My pops was a Telugu Brahmin monk, giving me early access to spiritual leadership. Dr Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society, focused on her communications with certain highly evolved beings, referred to as the “Masters.” Through their communication, they revealed the imminent coming of a great spiritual Teacher who would show the Light to a world enmeshed in darkness. That would be me.

They found something very extraordinary about myself as a boy. With my father's consent, Dr Besant adopted me and my younger bro. Crazy shit, right? To prepare me for my future role it was considered essential that my body should be made highly sensitive and purified through a very strict diet. I’ve been a vegetarian from birth. I Went to private school in England in 1911 for like 10 years. An order was founded on January 11, 1911 by George S. Arundale, the Principal of the Central Hindu College, who called it the Order of the Rising Sun. He intended this body to draw together those of his scholars who believed in the imminent advent of a great Teacher and were anxious to work in some way to prepare for Him. Apparently he did not expect it to spread much beyond the limits of the College. But a few months later Mrs Besant, recognizing that many people in various countries were ready for such an organization, took it in hand and transformed it into an international organization. She changed its name to the Order of the Star in the East and, furthermore, she asked me to be its Head.

Those who recognized the potential Teacher in me placed me at the head of the Order. Later I appointed many National Representatives. The Order consisted of many men and women from all over the world and mostly of Theosophists. Primarily the Order of the Star in the East existed to proclaim the coming of a World Teacher and to prepare the world for that great event. In 1927, however, the name of the Order was changed to “Order of the Star” as its members realized that the days of expectation were over and that I was the Teacher.

My pops had second thoughts about letting me and my bro go later on. He demanded our return but we had already developed a strong bond with Mrs Besant. My pops fought with her and legal action was brought against her. He maintained that we were not being properly cared for or educated, and that we were also being led to violate the rules of caste. Mrs Besant who was her own counsel pleaded her cause day after day. She lost the case in the lower court and we were made wards of court. When she took it to the High Court of Appeal she lost again. She thereupon appealed to the Privy Council and in 1914, for the first time, me and my bro, now aged 18 and 15, appeared as intervenes to state their side of the case.

She won her case. The Privy Council held that the minors should have been represented in the original suit and that it should have been brought in England where they were resident. It laid down the principle that in cases dealing with minors who had come to an age of discrimination, they themselves should be consulted in matters pertaining to their welfare and that no judge should dispose of them as if they were mere “bales of goods”.

I underwent a profound spiritual awakening that changed my entire outlook on life while living in the Ojai Valley in California in August of 1922. I became more certain of myself as a Teacher and there I dawned a new understanding of my own spiritual mission. In 1924 a Dutch Baron, Philip van Pallandt van Eerde offered his beautiful early eighteenth century castle, Castle Eerde, at Ommen, together with his 5,000 acre estate to me. I refused it as a personal possession, but a trust was formed to administer it for the benefit of my international work. Annual summer Camps were held at Ommen from 1924 until the beginning of the Second World War. Thousands from many parts of the world attended these meetings, which were addressed by myself. (The gift was afterwards returned to the Baron).

My bro Nityananda died in 1925. Shit really fucked me up. Peep this poem I wrote about it: He died, I wept in loneliness. Wherever I went I heard his voice And his happy laughter. I looked for his face In every passer-by And asked them if they had met with my brother, But none could give me comfort. I worshiped, I prayed, But the Gods were silent. I could weep no more, I could dream no more. I sought him in all things, Among all climes. I heard the whispering of many trees, Calling me to his abode. In my search, I beheld Thee, O Lord of my heart, In Thee alone I saw the face of my brother.

Out of the agonizing loss of my brother, I emerged a fully transformed person. I was never the same again. I suffered, but I set about to free myself from everything that bound me, till in the end I became united with the Beloved, I entered into the sea of liberation, and established that liberation within me.

At the annual convention of the Theosophical Society on December 28th, 1925 in Adyar, under the famous Banyan Tree, I publicly announced my future mission.

“We are all expecting Him Who is the example. He will be with us soon, is with us now. He comes to lead us all to perfection where there is eternal happiness; He comes to lead us and He comes to those who have not understood, who have suffered, who are unhappy, who are unenlightened . . . I come for those who want sympathy, who want happiness, who are longing to be released, who are longing to find happiness in all things. I come to reform and not to tear down, I come not to destroy but to build”.

Then in 1926, through a subscription organized by Mrs Besant, over 450 acres were bought in the Ojai Valley. Ojai soon became another important centre for my work and my meetings attracted persons from many countries. By breaking through the shell of the self, the restrictive psychological “I”, I had at last found that freedom which has been the spiritual quest of man throughout the ages.

In an address delivered at Eerde on August 2nd, 1927, I explained: “I could not have said last year, as I can say now, that I am the Teacher; for had I said it then it would have been insincere, it would have been untrue . . . But now I can say it. I have become one with the Beloved. I have been made simple. I have become glorified because of Him, and because of Him I can help. My purpose is not to create discussions on authority, on manifestations in the personality of Krishnamurti, but to give the waters that shall wash away your sorrows, your petty tyrannies, your limitations, so that you will be free, so that you will eventually join that ocean where there is no limitation, where there is the Beloved”.

This date needs remembering because it marks an important turning point in my life. The shit that I wrote, in a sense, conveniently fall into two categories: first, those belonging to the years of my preparation and search; second, those since my spiritual illumination.

I felt kinda shady, cuz after eighteen years of its existence, I dissolved the Order of the Star on August 3rd, 1929, at Ommen in the presence of Mrs Besant and some 2,000 Star members. The speech undoubtedly pissed off a lot of people. But it may not have surprised those who had studied my pronouncements, and had been following my trip from about 1926, which indicated a clear reluctance to fit into that ready made role which others had so elaborately prepared for me.

“I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect . . . I desire those who seek to understand me to be free, not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather they should be free from all fears . . . For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the World Teacher, for eighteen years you have organized, you have looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would transform your whole life . . . And now look what is happening . . . you want to have new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old — all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches . . . After careful consideration I have made this decision to dissolve the Order . . . You can form new organizations, and “expect” someone else. With that I am not concerned, not with the creating of new cages, or new decorations for those cages. My own concern is to set man absolutely, unconditionally free”.

At no time since I uttered those remarkable words, more than seventy years ago now, have I deviated from this declared concern of setting men “absolutely, unconditionally free”. With an absolute minimum of personal possessions I have continued to travel and address meetings in America, India, Australia and Europe.

The summer meetings in Saanen in Switzerland have become an almost annual event. I belong to no religion, no race and no country (although for travel purposes my passport happened to be an Indian one). My real home is nowhere but is yet everywhere. Wherever I go I sing the song of Liberation. It is the song of one who has cast aside the separative walls of the self.

I died in Ojai February 17, 1986 at the age of ninety. My talks, dialogues, journals and letters have been preserved in over seventy books and in hundreds of audio and video recordings.