J Krishnamurti - The Book Of Life

Is Suffering Essential?

There are so many varieties and complications and degrees of suffering. We all know that. You know it very well, and we carry this burden right through life, practically from the moment we are born until the moment we collapse into the grave....

we say that it is inevitable, then there is no answer; if you it, then you have stopped inquiring into it. You have closed door to further inquiry, if you escape from it, you have also dosed the door. You may escape into man or woman, into drink, amusement, into various forms of power, position, prestige, and the internal chatter of nothingness. Then your escapes become all-important; the objects to which you fly assume colossal importance. So you have shut the door on sorrow also, and that is what most of us do.... Now, can we stop escape of every kind and come back to suffering?... That means not seeking a solution for suffering. There is physical suffering a toothache, stomachache, an operation, accidents, various forms of physical sufferings that have their own answer. There is also the fear of future pain that would cause suffering. Suffering is closely related to fear, and without comprehension of these two major factors in life, we shall never comprehend what it is to be compassionate, to love. So a mind that is concerned with the comprehension of what is compassion, love, and all the rest of it must surely understand what is fear and

what is sorrow.

Integrated Understanding

What do we mean by "grief"? Is It something apart from you?

Is it something outside of you, inwardly or outwardly, which you are observing, which you are experiencing? Are you merely the observer experiencing? Or, is it something different? Surely that is important point, is it not? When I say "I suffer," what do I mean vi? Am I different from the suffering? Surely that is the question, is it not? Let us find out.

There is sorrow-I am not loved, my son dies, what you will.

There is one part of me that is demanding why, demanding the explanation, the reasons, the causes. The other part of me is in agony for various reasons. And there is also another part of me that wants to be free from the sorrow, which wants to go beyond it. We are all these things, are we not? So, if one part of me is rejecting, resisting sorrow, another part of me is seeking an explanation, is caught up in theories, and another part of me is escaping from the fact-how then can I understand it totally? It is only when I am capable of integrated understanding that there is a possibility of freedom from sorrow. But if I am torn in different directions, then I do not see the truth of it...

Now, please listen carefully, and you will see that when there is a fact, a truth, there is understanding of it only when I can experience the whole thing without division-and not when there is the separation of the "me" observing suffering. That is the truth.

Understanding Suffering

Why do we inquire, "what is happiness"? Is that the right approach? Is that the right probing? We are not happy. If we were happy, our world would be entirely different; our civilization, our culture would be wholly, radically different. We are unhappy human beings, petty, miserable, struggling, vain, surrounding ourselves with useless, futile things, satisfied with pretty ambitions, with money, and position. We are unhappy beings, though we may have knowledge, though we may have money, rich houses, plenty of children, cars, experience. We are unhappy, suffering, human beings, and because we are suffering, we want happiness, and so we are led away by those who promise this happiness - social, economic, or spiritual...

What is the good of my asking if there is happiness when I am suffering? Can I understand suffering? That is my problem, not how to be happy. I am happy when I am not suffering, but the moment I am conscious of it, it is not happiness. ... So I must understand what is suffering. Can I understand what is suffering when a part of my mind is running away seeking happiness, seeking a way out of this misery? So must I not, if I am to understand suffering, be completely one with it, not reject it, not justify it, not condemn it, not compare it, but completely be with it and understand it

The truth of what is happiness will come if I know how to listen. I must know how to listen to suffering, if I can listen to suffering I can listen to happiness, because that is what I am.

Happiness That Is Not of the Mind

We may move from one refinement to another, from c subtlety to another, from one enjoyment to another; but at the centre of it all, there is "the me"-"the me" that is enjoying, that es looks for, longs for wants more happiness, "the me" that searches, looks for lo happiness, "the me" that struggles, "the me" that becomes more refined, but never likes to come to an end. It is only when me" in all subtle forms comes to an end that there is a state of bliss that cannot be sought after, an ecstasy, a real joy without without corruption.... pain.

When the mind goes beyond the thought of the "me," the experience, the observer, the thinker, then there is a possibility of a happiness that is incorruptible. That happiness cannot be permanent, in the sense in which we use that word. But our mind is seeking permanent happiness, something that will last, that will continue. That very desire for continuity is corruption....

If we can understand the process of life without condemning, without saying it is right or wrong, then, I think, there comes a creative happiness that is not "yours" or "mine." That creative happiness is like sunshine. If you want to keep the sunshine to yourself, it is no longer the clear, warm, life-giving sun. Similarly,

if you want happiness because you are suffering, or because you have lost somebody, or because you have not been successful, then that is merely a reaction. But when the mind can go beyond, then there is a happiness that is not of the mind.

Can Happiness Be Found Through Anything?

We seek happiness through things, through relationship, through thoughts, ideas. So things, relationship, and ideas become all-important and not happiness. When we seek happiness through something, then the thing becomes of greater value than happiness itself. When stated in this manner, the problem sounds simple and it is simple. We seek happiness in property, in family, in name; then property, family, idea become all-important, for then happiness is sought through a means, and then the means destroys the end. Can happiness be found through any means, through anything made by the hand or by the mind? Things, relationship, and ideas are so transparently impermanent, we are ever made unhappy by them....

Things are impermanent, they wear out and are lost; relationship is constant friction and death awaits; ideas and beliefs have no stability, not permanent. We seek happiness in them and yet do not realize their impermanency. So sorrow becomes our constant companion and overcoming it our problem.

To find out the true meaning of happiness, we must explore the river of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is not an end in itself. Is there a source to a stream? Every drop of water from the beginning to the end makes the river. To imagine that we will find happiness at the source is to be mistaken. It is to be found where you are on the river of self-knowledge.

Happiness Is Not Sensation

thing to Mind can never find happiness. Happiness is not a be pursued and found, as sensation. Sensation can be found a again and again, for it is ever being lost; but happiness cannot be for Remembered happiness is only a sensation, a reaction for or against the present. What is over is not happiness; the experience of happiness that is over is sensation, for remembrance is the past and the past is sensation. Happiness is not sensation....

What you know is the past, not the present, and the past is sensation, reaction, memory. You remember that you were happy; and can the past tell what happiness is? It can recall but it cannot be.

Recognition is not happiness; to know what it is to be happy is not happiness. Recognition is the response of memory; and can the mind, the complex of memories, experiences, ever be happy? The very recognition prevents the experiencing.

When you are aware that you are happy, is there happiness?

When there is happiness, are you aware of it? Consciousness comes only with conflict, the conflict of remembrance of the more.

Happiness is not the remembrance of the more. Where there is conflict, happiness is not. Conflict is where the mind is. Thought at all levels is the response of memory, and so thought invariably breeds conflict. Thought is sensation, and sensation is not happiness. Sensations are ever seeking gratifications. The end is sensation, but happiness is not an end; it cannot be sought out.

Happiness Cannot Be Pursued

What do you mean by happiness? Some will say happiness consists of getting what you want. You want a car, and you get it, and you are happy. I want a sari or clothes, I want to go to Europe and if I Can. I am happy. I want to be the greatest politician, and if I get it, I am happy, if I cannot get it, I am unhappy. So, what you call happiness is getting what you want, achievement or success, becoming noble, getting anything that you want. As long as you want something and you can get it, you feel perfectly happy: you are not frustrated, but if you cannot get what you want, then unhappiness begins. All of us are concerned with this, not only the nick and the poor. The rich and the poor all want to get something for themselves, for their family, for society, and if they are prevented, stopped, they will be unhappy. We are not discussing, we are not saying that the poor should not have what they want. That is not the problem. We are trying to find out what is happiness and whether happiness is something of which you are conscious. The moment you are conscious that you are happy, that you have much, is that happiness? The moment you are conscious that you are happy, it is not happiness, is it? So you cannot go after happiness.

The moment you are conscious that you are humble, you are not humble. So happiness is not a thing to be pursued; it comes. But if you seek it, it will evade you.

One Must Go Deep to Know Joy

Very few of us enjoy anything. We have very little joy in osa lovely seeing the sunset, or the full moon, or a beautiful person

tree, or a bird in flight, or a dance. We do not really enjoy a We look at it, we are superficially amused or excited by it, we have sensation that we call joy. But enjoyment is something far deeper which must be understood and gone into....

As we grow older, though we want to enjoy things, the best has gone out of us, we want to enjoy other kinds of sensations passions, lust, power, position. These are all the normal things of life, though they are superficial; they are not to be condemned, not to be justified, but to be understood and given their right place. If you condemn them as being worthless, as being sensational, stupid, or unspiritual, you destroy the whole process of living ...

To know joy one must go much deeper. Joy is not mere sensation. It requires extraordinary refinement of the mind, but not the refinement of the self that gathers more and more to itself. Such a self, such a man, can never understand this state of joy in which the enjoyer is not. One has to understand this extraordinary thing, otherwise, life becomes very small, petty, superficial-being born, learning a few things, suffering, bearing children, having responsibilities, earning money, having a little intellectual amusement and then to die.

Happiness vs. Gratification

What is it that most of us are seeking? What is it that each one wants? Especially in this restless world, where everybody is to find some kind of peace, some kind of happiness, a refuge.

surely it is important to find out, isn't it, what it is that we are trying to seck, what it is that we are trying to discover? Probably most of us are seeking some kind of happiness, some kind of peace; in a world that is ridden with turmoil, wars, contention, strife, we want a refuge where there can be some peace. I think that is what most of us want. So we pursue, go from one leader to another, from one religious organization to another, from one teacher to another.

Now, is it that we are seeking happiness or is it that we are seeking gratification of some kind from which we hope to derive happiness? There is a difference between happiness and gratification. Can you seek happiness? Perhaps you can find gratification but surely you cannot find happiness. Happiness is derivative; it is a by-product of something else. So, before we give our minds and hearts to something that demands a great deal of carnestness, attention, thought, care, we must find out, must we not, what it is that we are checking, whether it is happiness, or gratification?

That Thing Which You Fight You Become

Surely that thing which you fight you become. ... If I am anger. angry and you meet me with anger what is the result?

You have become that which Iam. If I am evil and you fight me with evil means then you also become evil, however righteous you may feel. If I am brutal and you use brutal methods to overcome me, then me brutal like me. And this we have done for thousands of years. Surely there is a different approach than to meet hate by hate?

If I use violent methods to quell anger in myself then I am using wrong means for a right end, and thereby the right end ceases to be In this there is no understanding, there is no transcending anger.

Anger is to be studied tolerantly and understood; it is not to be overcome through violent means. Anger may be the result of many causes, and without comprehending them there is no escape from

anger.

We have created the enemy, the bandit, and becoming ourselves the enemy in no way brings about an end to enmity. We have to understand the cause of enmity and cease to feed it by our thought, feeling, and action. This is an arduous task demanding constant self-awareness and intelligent pliability, for what we are the society, the state, is. The enemy and the friend are the outcome of our thought and action. We are responsible for creating enmity and so it is more important to be aware of our own thought and action than to be concerned with the foe and the friend, for right thinking puts an end to division. Love transcends the friend and the enemy.

To Destroy Hate

the world of hate taking its harvest at the present.

This world of hate has been created by our fathers and their hers and by us. Thus, ignorance stretches indefinitely into st. It has not come into being by itself. It is the outcome of human ignorance, a historical process, isn't it? We as individuals have cooperated with our ancestors, who, with their forefathers, set going this process of hate, fear, greed, and so on. Now, as individuals, we partake of this world of hate so long as we, individually, indulge in it.

The world, then, is an extension of yourself. If you as an individual desire to destroy hate, then you as an individual must cease hating. To destroy hate, you must dissociate yourself from hate in all its gross and subtle forms, and so long as you are caught up in it you are part of that world of ignorance and fear. Then the world is an extension of yourself, yourself duplicated and multiplied. The world does not exist apart from the individual. It may exist as an idea, as a state, as a social organization, but to carry out that idea, to make that social or religious organization function, there must be the individual. His ignorance, his greed, and his fear maintain the structure of ignorance, greed, and hate. If the individual changes, can he affect the world, the world of hate, greed, and so on? ...The world is an extension of yourself so long as you are thoughtless, caught up in ignorance, hate, greed, but when you are earnest, thoughtful, and aware, there is not only a dissociation from those ugly causes that create pain and sorrow, but also in that understanding there is a completeness, a wholeness.

The Fact Is We Are Violent

We all see the importance of the cessation of violence. And how am I, as an individual, to be free of violence-not just superficially but totally, completely, inwardly? If the ideal of nonviolence will not free the mind from violence, then will k

analysis of the cause of violence help to dissolve violence?

After all, this is one of our major problems, is it not? The whole world is caught up in violence, in wars; the very structure of our acquisitive society is essentially violent. And if you and I as individuals are to be free from violence-totally, inwardly free, not merely superficially or verbally-then how is one to set about it without becoming self-centred?

You understand the problem, do you not? If my concern is to free the mind from violence and I practice discipline in order to control violence and change it into nonviolence, surely that brings about self-centred thought and activity, because my mind is focused all the time on getting rid of one thing and acquiring something else.

And yet I see the importance of the mind being totally free from violence. So what am I to do? Surely, it is not a question of how one is not to be violent. The fact is that we are violent, and to ask "How am I not to be violent?" merely creates the ideal, which seems to me to be utterly futile. But if one is capable of looking at violence and understanding it, then perhaps there is a possibility of resolving it totally.

The Major Cause of Violence

The major cause of violence, I think, is that each one inwardly, psychologically, seeking security. In each one of us the for psychological security—that inward sense of being safe-projects the demand, the outward demand, for s security. Inwardly each one of us wants to be secure, sure, certain. That is hy we have all these marriage laws; in order that we may possess a woman, or a man, and so be secure in our relationship. If that relationship is attacked we become violent, which is the psychological demand, the inward demand, to be certain of our relationship to everything. But there is no such thing as certainty, security, in any relationship. Inwardly, psychologically, we should like to be secure, but there is no such thing as permanent security....

So all these are the contributory causes of the violence that is prevalent, rampaging, throughout the world. I think anybody who has observed, even if only a little, what is going on in the world, and especially in this unfortunate country, can also, without a great deal of intellectual study, observe and find out in himself those things which, projected outwardly, are the causes of this extraordinary brutality, callousness, indifference, violence.

Freedom from Violence

on you see the fact of violence the fact not on of you but also inside you-and not have any time interval between Listening and acting? This means by the very act of listening you are free from violence. You are totally free from violence because you have not admitted time, an ideology through which you can of violence. This requires very deep meditation, not just a ve agreement or disagreement. We never listen to anything, our mind our brain cells are so conditioned to an ideology about violence tha:

we never look at the fact of violence. We look at the fact of violence through an ideology and the looking at violence through an ideology creates a time interval. And when you admit time, there is no end to violence; you go on showing violence, preaching nonviolence.

Realize You Are Violent

The animal is violent. Human beings who are the result of the animal, are also violent; it is part of their being to be violent, to be angry, to be jealous, to be envious, to seek power, position, prestige all the rest of it, to dominate, to be aggressive. Man is violent-this is shown by thousands of wars--and he has developed an ideology which he calls nonviolence.... And when there is actual violence as a war between this country and the next country, everybody is involved in it. They love it. Now, when you are actually violent and you have an ideal of nonviolence, you have a conflict.

You are always trying to become nonviolent—which is a part of the conflict. You discipline yourself in order not to be violent-which, again, is a conflict, friction. So when you are violent and have the ideal of nonviolence, you are essentially violent. To realize that you are violent is the first thing to do-not try to become nonviolent. To see violence as it is not try to translate it, not to discipline it, not to overcome it, not to suppress it, but to see it as though you are seeing it for the first time—that is to look at it without any thought. I have explained already what we mean by looking at a tree with innocence-which is to look at it without the image. In the same way, you have to look at violence without the image that is involved in the word itself. To look at it without any movement of thought is to look at it as though you are looking at it for the first time, and therefore looking at it with innocence.

The Central Cause of Conflict

Do not think by merely wishing for peace you will have peace, when in your daily life of relationship you are aggressive, acquisitive, seeking psychological security here or in the hereafter. You have to understand the central cause of conflict and sorrow and then dissolve it and not merely look to the outside for peace. But You see, most of us are indolent. We are too lazy to take hold of ourselves and understand ourselves, and being lazy, which is really a form of conceit, we think others will solve this problem for us and peace, or that we should destroy the apparently few people that a causing wars. When the individual is in conflict within himself must inevitably create conflict without, and only he can bring about peace within himself and so in the world, for he is the world.

Is It Possible to End Violence?

vou talk about violence, what do you mean by it? Itis really quite an interesting question, if you go into it deeply, to whether a human being, living in this world, can totally cease to be violent. Societies, religious communities, have tried not Lill animals. Some have even said, "If you don't want to kill animals, what about the vegetables?" You can carry it to such an vtent that you would cease to exist. Where do you draw the line? Is there an arbitrary line according to your ideal, to your fancy, to your norm, to your temperament, to your conditioning, and you say, "T go up to there but not beyond"? Is there a difference between individual anger, with violent action on the part of the individual, and the organized hatred of a society which breeds and builds up an army to destroy another society? Where, at what level, and what fragment of violence are you discussing, or do you want to discuss whether man can be free of total violence, not a particular fragment which he calls violence?...

We know what violence is without expressing in words, in phrases, in action. As a human being in whom the animal is still very strong, in spite of centuries of so-called civilization, where shall I begin? Shall I begin at the periphery, which is society, or at the centre, which is myself? You tell me not to be violent, because it is ugly. You explain to me all the reasons, and I see that violence is a terrible thing in human beings, outwardly and inwardly. Is it possible to end this violence?

Violence

What takes place when you give complete attention thing that we call violence?-violence being not only what separates human beings, through belief, conditioning, and so on.

what comes into being when we are seeking personal security, or the security of individuality through a pattern of society. Can ve at that violence with complete attention? And when you look at the violence with complete attention, what takes place? When you complete attention to anything your learning of history mathematics, looking at your wife or your husband what takes place? I do not know if you have gone into it-probably most of us have never given complete attention to anything—but when you do, what takes place? Sirs, what is attention? Surely when you are giving complete attention there is care, and you cannot care if you have no affection, no love. And when you give attention in which there is love, is there violence? You are following? Formally I have condemned violence, I have escaped from it, I have justified it, I have said it is natural. All these things are inattention. But when I give attention to what I have called violence and in that attention there is care, affection, love-where is there space for violence?

What Is Thoroughly Understood Will Not Repeat Itself

In self awareness there is no need for confession, for self-awareness creates the mirror in which all things are reflected thought distortion. Every thought-feeling is thrown, as it were, on the screen of awareness to be observed, studied and understood, but shis flow of understanding is blocked when there is condemnation or acceptance, judgement or identification. The more the screen is watched and understood-not as a duty or enforced practice, but because pain and sorrow have created the insatiable interest that brings its own discipline-the greater the intensity of awareness, and this in turn brings heightened understanding.

You can follow a thing if it moves slowly, a rapid machine must be made to slow down if one is to study its movements.

Similarly, thoughts-feelings can be studied and understood only if the mind is capable of proceeding slowly; but once it has awakened this capacity, it can move at a high velocity, which makes it extremely calm. When revolving at high speed the several blades of a fan appear to be a solid sheet of metal. Our difficulty is to make the mind revolve slowly so that each thought-feeling can be followed and understood. What is deeply and thoroughly understood will not repeat itself.

Passive Awareness

In awareness there is no becoming, there is no end to be gained. There is silent observation without choice and condemnation, from which there comes understanding. In this process when thought and feeling unfold themselves, which is possible when there is neither acquisition nor acceptance.

there comes an extensional awareness, all the hidden layers and the significance are revealed. This awareness reveals that creative emptiness which cannot be imagined or formulated. This extensional awareness and the creative emptiness are a total process and are not different stages. When you silently observe a problem without condemnation, justification, there comes passive awareness. In this passive awareness, the problem is understood and dissolved. In awareness there is heightened sensitivity, in which there is the highest form of negative thinking. When the mind is formulating, producing, there can be no creation. It is only when the mind is still and empty, when it is not creating a problem-in that alert passivity there is creation. Creation can only take place in negation, which is not the opposite of the positive. Being nothing is not the antithesis of being something. A problem comes into being only when there is a search for result. When the search for result ceases, then only is there no problem.

Let a Thought Flower

Awareness is that state of mind which takes in rything the crows flying across the sky, the flowers on the the people sitting in front, the colours they are wearing ng extensively aware, which needs watching, observing, taking in the shape of the leaf, the shape of the trunk, the shape of head of another, what he is doing. To be extensively aware and from there acting that is to be aware of the totality of one's being. To have a mere sectional capacity, a fragmentation of capacity or capacity fragmented, and to pursue that capacity and derive experience through that capacity which is limited—that makes the quality of the mind mediocre, limited, narrow. But an awareness of the totality of one's own being, understood through the awareness of every thought and every feeling, and never limiting it, letting every thought and every feeling flower, and therefore being aware—that is entirely different from action or concentration that is merely capacity and therefore limited.

To let a thought flower or a feeling flower requires attention-not concentration. I mean by the dowering of a thought giving freedom to it to see what happens, what is taking place in your thought in your feeling. Anything that flowers must have freedom, must have light; it cannot be restricted. You cannot put any value on it, you cannot say, "That is right, that is wrong, this should be, and that should not be"-thereby, you limit the flowering of thought.

And it can only flower in this awareness. Therefore, if you go into it very deeply, you will find that this flowering of thought is the ending of thought.

Awareness Cannot Be Disciplined

If awareness is practiced, made into a habit, then it becomes tedious and painful. Awareness cannot be disciplined. That wh practiced is no longer awareness, for in practice is implied creation of habit, the exertion of effort and will. Effort is dist

There is not only the awareness of the outer-of the flight of birds

of shadows, of the restless sea, the trees and the wind, the beggar and the luxurious cars that pass by-but also there is the awareness of the psychological process, the inward tension and conflict. You do not condemn a bird in flight: you observe it, you see the beauty of it. But, when you consider your own inward strife, you condemn it or justify it. You are incapable of observing this inward conflict without choice or justification.

To be aware of your thought and feeling without identification and denial is not tedious and painful; but in search of a result, an end to be gained, conflict is increased and the tedium of strife begins.

Seeing the Whole

How do you look at a tree? Do you see the whole of the tree?

very

that

goes up

If you don't see it as a whole, you don't see the tree at all. You may pass it by and say, "There is a tree, how nice it is!" or say, "It is a mango tree," or "I don't know what those trees are; they may be tamarind trees." But when you stand and look-I am talking actually, factually-you never see the totality of it; and if you don't see the totality of the tree, you do not see the tree. In the same way is awareness. If you don't see the operation of your mind totally in that sense-as you see the tree-you are not aware. The tree is made up of the roots, the trunk, the branches, the big ones and the little ones and the delicate one there; and the leaf, the dead leaf, the withered leaf and the green leaf, the leaf that is caten, the leaf that is ugly, the leaf that is dropping, the fruit, the flower-all that you see as a whole when you see the tree. In the same way, in that state of seeing the operations of your mind, in that state of awareness, there is your sense of condemnation, approval, denial, struggle, futility, the despair, the hope, the frustration, awareness covers all that, not just one part. So, are you aware of your mind in that very simple sense, as seeing a whole picture-not one corner of the picture and saying, "Who painted that picture?"

Introspection Is Incomplete

In awareness there is only the present-that is, being aware, you see the past process of influence which controls the present and modifies the future. Awareness is an integral process, not a process of division. For example, if I ask the question, "Do I beli God?"-in the very process of asking, I can observe, if I am what it is that is making me ask that question; if I am aware 1 perceive what have been and what are the forces at work that are compelling me to ask that question. Then I am aware of various forms of fear-those of my ancestors who have created a certain idea of God and have handed it down to me, and combining their idea with my present reactions, I have modified or changed the concept of God. If I am aware. I perceive this entire process of the past, its effect in the present and in the future, integrally, as a whole.

If one is aware, one sees how through fear one's concept of God arose; or perhaps there was a person who had an original experience of reality or of God and communicated it to another who in his greediness made it his own, and gave impetus to the process of imitation. Awareness is the process of completeness, and introspection is incomplete. The result of introspection is morbid.

painful, whereas awareness is enthusiasm and joy.

Knowledge Is Not Awareness

Awareness is that state of mind which observes something without any condemnation or acceptance, which merely faces the thing as it is. When you look at a flower not botanically, then you see the totality of the flower; but if your mind is completely taken up with the botanical knowledge of what the flower is, you are not totally looking at the flower. Though you may have knowledge of the flower, if that knowledge takes the whole ground of your mind, the whole field of your mind, then you are not looking totally at the flower.

So, to look at a fact is to be aware. In that awareness, there is no choice, no condemnation, no like or dislike. But most of us are incapable of doing this because traditionally, occupationally, in every way, we are not capable of facing the fact without the background. We have to be aware of the background. We have to be aware of our conditioning, and that conditioning shows itself when we observe a fact; and as you are concerned with the observation of the fact and not with the background, the background is pushed aside. When the main interest is to understand the fact only, and when you see that the background prevents you from understanding the fact, then the vital interest in the fact wipes away the background

There Is No Place at Which to Arrive

Can humility be practiced? Surely, to be conscious that you are humble is not to be humble. You want to know that you arrived. This indicates, does it not, that you are listening in order to achieve a particular state, a place where you will never be disturbed where you will find everlasting happiness, permanent bliss? But as I said previously, there is no arriving, there is only the movement of learning-and that is the beauty of life. If you have arrived, there is nothing more. And all of you have arrived, or you want to arrive, not only in your business, but in everything you do; so you are dissatisfied, frustrated, miserable. Sirs, there is no place at which to arrive, there is just this movement of learning, which becomes painful only when there is accumulation. A mind that listens with complete attention will never look for a result because it is constantly unfolding, like a river, it is always in movement. Such a mind is totally unconscious of its own activity, in the sense that there is no perpetuation of a self, of a "me," which is seeking to achieve an end.

Elimination of Fear Is the Beginning of Attention

How is the state of attention to be brought about? It cannot be cultivated through persuasion, comparison, reward, or punishment, all of which are forms of coercion. The elimination of fear is the beginning of attention. Fear must exist as long as there is an urge to be or to become, which is the pursuit of success, with all its frustrations and tortuous contradictions. You can teach concentration, but attention cannot be taught, just as you cannot possibly teach freedom from fear, and in understanding these causes there is the elimination of fear. So attention arises spontaneously when around the student there is an atmosphere of well-being, when he has the feeling of being secure, of being at ease, and is aware of the disinterested action that comes with love. Love does not compare and so the envy and torture of becoming" cease.

Complete Attention

What do we mean by attention? Is there attention when I am forcing my mind to attend? When I say to myself, "I must pay attention, I must control my mind and push aside all other thoughts," would you call that attention? Surely that attention. What happens when the mind forces itself to attention? It creates a resistance to prevent other thoughts from seeping in; it is concerned with resistance, with pushing away therefore it is incapable of attention. That is true, is it not?

To understand something totally you must give your complete attention to it. But you will soon find out how extraordinarily difficult that is, because your mind is used to being distracted, so you say, "By Jove, it is good to pay attention, but how am I to do it?" That is, you are back again with the desire to get something, so you will never pay complete attention.... When you see a tree or a bird, for example, to pay complete attention is not to say, "That is an oak," or, "That is a parrot," and walk by. In giving it a name you have already ceased to pay attention... .Whereas, if you are wholly aware, totally attentive when you look at something, then you will find that a complete transformation takes place, and that total attention is the good. There is no other, and you cannot get total attention by practice. With practice you get concentration, that is, you build up walls of resistance, and within those walls of resistance is the concentrator, but that is not attention, it is exclusion.

Attention Is Limitless, Without Frontiers

In the cultivation of the mind, our emphasis should not be on concentration, but on attention Concentration is a process of forcing the mind to narrow down to a point, whereas attention is without frontiers. In that process the mind is always limited by a frontier or boundary, but when our concern is to understand the totality of the mind, mere concentration becomes a hindrance.

Attention is limitless, without the frontiers of knowledge.

Knowledge comes through concentration, and any extension of knowledge is still within its own frontiers. In the state of attention the mind can and does use knowledge, which of necessity is the result of concentration, but the part is never the whole, and adding together the many parts does not make for the perception of the whole. Knowledge, which is the additive process of concentration does not bring about the understanding of the immeasurable. The total is never within the brackets of a concentrated mind.

So attention is of primary importance, but it does not come through the effort of concentration. Attention is a state in which the mind is ever learning without a centre around which knowledge gathers as accumulated experience. A mind that is concentrated upon itself uses knowledge as a means of its own expansion; and such activity becomes self-contradictory and antisocial.

An Attention That Is Not Exclusive

I think there is a difference between attention that is given to can concentrate on a an object and attention without object. We conce particular idea, belief, object-which is an exclusive proc there is also an attention, an awareness, which is not exclusive.

Similarly, there is a discontent which has no motive, which is the outcome of some frustration, which cannot be canalized, which cannot accept any fulfilment. Perhaps I may not be using the right word for it, but I think that that extraordinary discontent is the essential. Without that, every other form of discontent merely becomes a way to satisfaction.

Attention Free of Effort

Is there attention without anything absorbing the mind? Is there attention without concentrating upon an object? Is there attention without any form of motive, influence, compulsion? Can the mind give full attention without any sense of exclusion? Surely it can, and that is the only state of attention; the others are mere indulgence, or tricks of the mind. If you can give full attention without being absorbed in something, and without any sense of exclusion, then you will find out what it is to meditate; because in that attention there is no effort, no division, no struggle, no search for a result. So meditation is a process of freeing the mind from systems, and of giving attention without either being absorbed or making an effort to concentrate.

Attention Without Resistance

You know what space is. There is space in this room. The distance between here and your hostel, between the bridge and you home, between this bank of the river and the other-all that is Space Now, is there also space in your mind? Or is it so crowded that there is no space in it at all? Of your mind has space, then in that space there is silence-and from that silence everything else comes, for then you can listen, you can pay attention without resistance. That is why it is very important to have space in the mind. If the mind is not overcrowded, not ceaselessly occupied, then it can listen to that dog barking, to the sound of a train crossing the distant bridge, and also be fully aware of what is being said by a person talking here. Then the mind is a living thing, it is not dead.

The Art of Listening Is the Art of Release

Somebody is telling you something you listen. The very act of listening is the act of release. When you see the fact, the very perception of that fact is the release of that fact. The very listening, the very seeing of something as a fact, has an extraordinary effect without the effort of thought.

Let us take one thing-say ambition. We have gone sufficiently into what it does, what its effects are. A mind that is ambitious can never know what it is to sympathize, to have pity, to love. An ambitious mind is a cruel mind-whether spiritually or outwardly or inwardly. You have heard it. You hear it; when you hear that, you translate it and say "How can I live in this world which is built on ambition?" Therefore, you have not listened. You have responded, you have reacted to a statement, to a fact; therefore, you are not looking at the fact. You are merely translating the fact or giving an opinion about the fact or responding to the fact; therefore, you are not looking at the fact. ... If one listens in the sense without any evaluation, reaction, judgement-surely then, the fact creates that energy which destroys, wipes away, sweeps away ambition which creates conflict.

The Highest Form of Energy

An idea about energy is entirely different from the fact of energy itself. We have formulas or concepts of how to bring about.

quality of energy that is of the highest quality. But the formula entirely different from the renovating, renewing quality of energy itself.

The highest form of this energy, the apogee, is the state of mind when it has no idea, no thought, no sense of a direction or motive-that is pure energy. And that quality of energy cannot be sought after. You can't say, "Well, tell me how to get it, the modus operandi, the way." There is no way to it. To find out for ourselves the nature of this energy, we must begin to understand the daily energy that is wasted-the energy when we talk, when we hear a bird, a voice, when we see the river, the vast sky and the villagers, dirty, ill-kept, ill, half-starved, and the tree that withdraws of an evening from all the light of day. The very observation of everything is energy. And this energy we drive through food, through the sun's rays. This physical, daily energy that one has, obviously can be augmented, increased by the right kind of food, and so on. That is necessary, obviously. But that same energy which becomes the energy of the psyche-that is, thought the moment that energy has any contradiction in itself, that energy is a waste of energy.

Creative Energy

Now the question is: Is there an energy which is not within the field of thought, which is not the result of self-contradictory, compulsive energy, of self-fulfilment as frustration? You understand the question? I hope I am making myself clear. Because, unless we find the quality of that energy which is not merely the product of thought that bit by bit creates the energy but also is mechanical, action is destructive, whether we do social reform, write excellent books, be very clever in business, or create nationalistic divisions and take part in other political activities, and so on. Now, the question is whether there is such an energy, not theoretically—because when we are confronted with facts, to introduce theories is infantile, immature. It is like the case of a man who has cancer and is to be operated upon; it is no good discussing what kinds of instruments are to be used and all the rest of it: you have to face the fact that he is to be operated upon. So, similarly, a mind has to penetrate or be in such a state when the mind is not a slave to thought. After all, all thought in time is invention, all the gadgets, jets, the refrigerators, the rockets, the exploration into the atom, space, they are all the result of knowledge, thought. All these are not creation, invention is not creation; capacity is not creation; thought can never be creative because thought is always conditioned and can never be free. It is only that energy which is not the product of thought that is creative.

Where There Is Contradiction There Is Conflict

You see that most of us are in conflict, live a life contradiction, not only outwardly, but also inwardly. Contradiction implies effort.... Where there is effort, there is wastape ther.

waste of energy. Where there is contradiction, there is conifers Where there is conflict, there is effort to get over that conflict which is another form of resistance. And where you resist,

there is also a certain form of energy engendered you know that when you resist something, that very resistance creates energy..., All action is based on this friction that I must and I must not.

And this form of resistance, this form of conflict, does breed energy:

but that energy, if you observe very closely, is very destructive; it is not creative.... Most people are in contradiction. And if they have a gift, a talent to write or to paint or to do this or that, the tension of that contradiction gives them the energy to express, to create, to write, to be. The more the tension, the greater the conflict, the greater is the output, and that is what we call creation. But it is not at all creation. It is the result of conflict. To face the fact that you are in conflict, that you are in contradiction, will bring that quality of energy that is not the outcome of resistance.

The Pattern of an Idea

If you say, "How am I to save energy?" then you have created a pattern of an idea-how to save it and then conduct your life according to that pattern; therefore, there begins again a contradiction. Whereas if you perceive for yourself where your energies are being wasted, you will see that the principal force causing the waste is conflict-which is having a problem and never resolving it, living with a deadly memory of something gone, living in tradition. One has to understand the nature of the dissipation of energy, and the understanding of the dissipation of energy is not according to Shankara, Buddha, or some saint, but the actual observation of one's daily conflict in life. So the principal waste of energy is conflict--which doesn't mean that you sit back and be lazy. Conflict will always exist as long as the idea is more important than the fact

Duality Creates Conflict

Conflict of any kind-physically. psychologically, actually is a waste of energy. Please, it is extraordinary difficult to understand and to be free of this because most of brought up to struggle to make effort. When we are at school, thar the first thing that we are taught to make an effort. And the struggle, that effort is carried throughout life that is, to be good you must struggle, you must fight evil, you must resist, control. So educationally, sociologically, religiously, human beings are taught to struggle. You are told that to find God you must work, discipline.

do practice, twist and torture your soul, your mind, your body.

deny, suppress, that you must not look, that you must fight, fight, fight at that so-called spiritual level - which is not the spiritual level at all. Then, socially each one is out for himself, for his family.

So, all around, we are wasting energy. And that waste of energy in essence is conflict: the conflict between "I should" and "I should not," "I must" and "I must not." Once having created duality, conflict is inevitable. So one has to understand this whole process of duality-not that there is not man and woman, green and red, light and darkness, tall and short, all those are facts. But in the effort that goes into this division between the fact and the idea, there is the waste of energy.

Energy Creates Its Own Discipline

To seek reality requires immense energy, and if man is not doing that he dissipates his energy in ways that create mischief, and therefore society has to control him. Now, is it possible to liberate energy in seeking God or truth and, in the process of discovering what is true, to be a citizen who understands the fundamental issues of life and whom society cannot destroy?

You see, man is energy, and if man does not seek truth, this

energy becomes destructive; therefore society controls and shapes the individual, which smothers this energy. And perhaps you have noticed another interesting and very simple fact: that the moment you really want to do something, you have the energy to do it....

That very energy becomes the means of controlling itself, so you don't need outside discipline. In the search for reality, energy creates its own discipline. The man who is seeking reality spontaneously becomes the right kind of citizen, which is not according to the pattern of any particular society or government.

Observe How Habits Are Formed

Without freedom from the past there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent. It is only the fresh, innocent mind that is free. Freedom has nothing to do with age, it has nothing to do with experience, and it seems to me that the very essence of freedom lies in understanding the whole mechanism of habit. both conscious and unconscious. It is not a question of ending habit, but of seeing totally the structure of habit. You have to observe how habits are formed and how, by denying or resisting one habit, another habit is created. What matters is to be totally conscious of habit; for then, as you will see for yourself there is no longer the formation of habit. To resist habit, to fight it, to deny it, only gives continuity to habit. When you fight a particular habit you give life to that habit, and then the very fighting of it becomes a further habit.

resistance, then

you

But if you are simply aware of the whole structure of habit without will find there is freedom from habit, and in

that freedom a new thing takes place.

It is only the dull, sleepy mind that creates and clings to habit.

A mind that is attentive from moment to moment-attentive to what it is saying, attentive to the movement of its hands, of its thoughts, of its feelings-will discover that the formation of further habits has come to an end. This is very important to understand, because as long as the mind is breaking down one habit, and in that very process creating another, it can obviously never be free; and it is only the free mind that can perceive something beyond itself.

The Interval Between Thoughts

Now, I say it is definitely possible for the mind to be free from all conditioning-not that you should accept my authority. If you accept it on authority, you will never discover, it will be another substitution and that will have no significance....

The understanding of the whole process of conditioning does not come to you through analysis or introspection, because the moment you have the analyzer, that very analyzer himself is part of the background and therefore his analysis is of no significance...

How is it possible for the mind to be free? To be free, the mind must not only see and understand its pendulum-like swing between the past and the future but also be aware of the interval between thoughts.....

If you watch very carefully, you will see that though the response, the movement of thought, seems so swift, there are gaps, there are intervals between thoughts. Between two thoughts is a period of silence that is not related to the thought process. If you observe you will see that that period of silence, that interval, is not of time, and the discovery of that interval, the full experiencing of that interval, liberates you from conditioning or rather it does not liberate "you" but there is liberation from conditioning.... It is only when the mind is not giving continuity to thought, when it is still with a stillness that is not induced, that is without any causation-it is only then that there can be freedom from the background.

The Burden of the Unconscious

Inwardly, unconsciously, there is the tremendous weight of the past pushing you in a certain direction....

Now, how is one to wipe all that away? How is the unconscious to be cleansed immediately of the past? The analysts think that the unconscious can be partially or even completely cleansed through analysis through investigation, exploration, confession, the interpretation of dreams, and so on-so that at least you become a "normal" human being, able to adjust yourself to the present environment. But in analysis there is always the analyzer and the analyzed, an observer who is interpreting the thing observed, which is a duality, a source of conflict.

So I see that mere analysis of the unconscious will not lead anywhere. It may help me to be a little less neurotic, a little kinder to my wife, to my neighbour, or some superficial thing like that, but that is not what we are talking about. I see that the analytical process, which involves time, interpretation, the movement of thought as the observer analyzing the thing observed-cannot free the unconscious, therefore I reject the analytical process completely. The moment I perceive the fact that analysis cannot under any circumstances clear away the burden of the unconscious, I am out of analysis. I no longer analyze. So what has taken place? Because there is no longer an analyzer separated from the thing that he analyzes, he is that thing. He is not an entity apart from it. Then one finds that the unconscious is of very little importance.

No Part of the Mind Is Unconditioned

Your mind is conditioned right through there is no part of you which is unconditioned. That is a fact, whether you like it or not. You may say there is a part of you the watcher, the supersoul, the atma-which is not conditioned; but because you think about it, it is within the field of thought, therefore, it is conditioned. You can invent lots of theories about it, but the fact is that your mind is conditioned right through, the conscious as well as the unconscious, and any effort it makes to free itself is also conditioned. So what is the mind to do? Or rather, what is the state of the mind when it knows that it is conditioned and realizes that any effort it makes to uncondition itself is still conditioned?

Now, when you say, "I know I am conditioned, do you really know it, or is that merely a verbal statement? Do you know it with the same potency with which you see a cobra? When you see a snake and know it to be a cobra, there is immediate, unpremeditated action, and when you say, "I know I'm conditioned," has it the same vital significance as your perception of the cobra? Or is it merely a superficial acknowledgment of the fact, and not the realization of the fact? When I realize the fact that I am conditioned, there is immediate action. I don't have to make an effort to unconditioned myself. The very fact that I am conditioned, and the realization of that fact, brings an immediate clarification. The difficulty lies in not realizing it in the sense of understanding all its implications, seeing that all thought, however subtle, however cunning, however sophisticated or philosophical, is conditioned.

Simple Awareness

Surely any form of accumulation, either of knowledge experience, any form of ideal, any projection of the mind, awy determined practice to shape the mind what it should be and should not be all this is obviously crippling the process of investigation and discovery....

So I think our inquiry must be not for the solution of our immediate problems but rather to find out whether the mind the conscious as well as the deep unconscious mind in which is stored all the tradition, the memories, the inheritance of racial knowledge-whether all of it can be put aside. I think it can be done only if the mind is capable of being aware without any sense of demand, without any pressure-just to be aware. I think it is one of the most difficult things to be so aware-because we are caught in the immediate problem and in its immediate solution, and so our lives are very superficial. Though one may go to all the analysts, read all the books, acquire much knowledge, attend churches, pray.

meditate, practice various disciplines; nevertheless, our lives are obviously very superficial because we do not know how to penetrate deeply. I think the understanding, the way of penetration, how to go very, very deeply, lies through awareness-just to be aware of our thoughts and feelings without condemnation, without comparison, just to observe. You will see, if you will experiment how extraordinarily difficult it is, because our whole training is to condemn, to approve, to compare.

Freedom from Conditioning

The desire to free oneself from conditioning only furthers conditioning. But if, instead of trying to suppress desire, one understands the whole process of desire, in that very understanding there comes freedom from conditioning. Freedom from conditioning is not a direct result. Do you understand? If I set about deliberately to free myself from my conditioning, that desire creates its own conditioning. I may destroy one form of conditioning, but I am caught in another. Whereas, if there is an understanding of desire itself, which includes the desire to be free, then that very understanding destroys all conditioning. Freedom from conditioning is a byproduct; it is not important. The important thing is to understand what it is that creates conditioning,

There Is No Noble or Better Conditioning

Does not the urge of the mind to free itself from its conditioning set going another pattern of resistance and conditioning? Having become aware of the pattern or mould in which you have grown up, you want to be free from it; but will not this desire to be free condition the mind again in a different manner?

The old pattern insists that you conform to authority, and now you are developing a new one which maintains that you must not conform; so you have two patterns, one in conflict with the other. As long as there is this inner contradiction, further conditioning takes

place.

There is the urge that makes for conformity, and the urge

to be free. However dissimilar these two urges may seem to be, are they not fundamentally similar? And if they are fundamentally similar, then your pursuit of freedom is vain, for you will only move from one pattern to another, endlessly. There is no noble or better conditioning, and it is this desire that has to be understood.

Awareness May Burn Away the Problems

All thinking obviously is conditioned; there is no such thing as free thinking. Thinking can never be free, it is the outcome of our conditioning, of our background, of our culture, of our climate, of our social, economic, political background. The very books that you read and the very practices that you do are all established in the background, and any thinking must be the result of that background. So if we can be aware-and we can go presently into what it signifies, what it means to be aware-perhaps we shall be able to uncondition the mind without the process of will, without the determination to uncondition the mind. Because the moment you determine, there is an entity who wishes, an entity who says, "I must uncondition my mind." That entity itself is the outcome of our desire to achieve a certain result, so a conflict is already there. So, is it possible to be aware of our conditioning, just to be aware?-in which there is no conflict at all. That very awareness, followed, may perhaps burn away the problems.

Freedom from the Self

To free the mind from all conditioning, you must see the reality of it without thought. This is not a conundrum; experiment with it and you will see. Do you ever see anything without thought?

have you ever listened, looked, without bringing in this whole process of reaction? You will say that it is impossible to see without thought; you will say no mind can be unconditioned. When you say that, you have already blocked yourself by thought, for the fact is you do not know.

So can I look, can the mind be aware of its conditioning? I think it can. Please experiment. Can you be aware that you are a Hindu, a Socialist, a communist, this or that, just be aware without saying that it is right or wrong? Because it is such a difficult task just to see, we say it is impossible. I say it is only when you are aware of this totality of your being without any reaction that the conditioning goes, totally, deeply-which is really the freedom from the self.

All Thought Is Partial

You and I realize that we are conditioned. If you say, as some people do that conditioning is inevitable, then there is no problem:

you are a slave, and that is the end of it. But if you begin to ask yourself whether it is at all possible to break down this limitation.

this conditioning, then there is a problem; so you will have to inquire into the whole process of thinking, will you not? If merely say, "I must be aware of my conditioning, I must think about it, analyze it in order to understand and destroy it," then you are exercising force. Your thinking, your analyzing is still the result of your background, so through your thought you obviously cannot break down the conditioning of which it is a part.

Just see the problem first, don't ask what is the answer, the solution. The fact is that we are conditioned, and that all thought to understand this conditioning will always be partial; therefore there is never a total comprehension, and only in total comprehension of the whole process of thinking is there freedom. The difficulty is that we are always functioning within the field of the mind, which is the instrument of thought, reasonable or unreasonable; and as we have seen, thought is always partial.

Subtle Truth

You have the flash of understanding, that extraordinary humidity of insight, when the mind is very still, when thought is rapidity ant when the mind is not burdened with its own noise. So, the understanding of anything-of a modern picture, of a child, of your wife, of your neighbour, or the understanding of truth, which is in all things can only come when the mind is very still. But such stillness cannot be cultivated because if you cultivate a still mind, it is not a still mind, it is a dead mind.

... The more you are interested in something, the more your intention to understand, the more simple, clear, free the mind is.

Then verbalization ceases. After all, thought is word, and it is the word that interferes. It is the screen of words, which is memory, that intervenes between the challenge and the response. It is the word that is responding to the challenge, which we call intellection. So, the mind that is chattering, that is verbalizing, cannot understand truth-truth in relationship, not an abstract truth. There is no abstract truth. But truth is very subtle. It is the subtle that is difficult to follow. It is not abstract. It comes so swiftly, so darkly, it cannot be held by the mind. Like a thief in the night, it comes darkly, not when you are prepared to receive it. Your reception is merely an invitation of greed. So a mind that is caught in the net of words cannot understand truth.

May 21