Krishnamurti - Truth & Actuality

Part 1

    We must be serious in facing what we have to do in life, with all
the problems, miseries, confusion, violence and suffering. Only those
live who are really earnest, but the others fritter their life away
and waste their existence. We are going to consider this morning the
whole complex problem of fear. The human mind has lived so long, so
many centuries upon centuries, putting up with fear, escaping from it,
trying to rationalise it, trying to forget it, or completely
identifying with something that is not fear - we have tried all these
methods. And one asks if it is at all possible to be free totally,
completely of fear, psychologically and from that physiologically. We
are going to discuss this, talk it over together, and find out for
ourselves if it is at all possible.

    First, we must consider energy, the quality of energy, the types
of energy, and the question of desire; and whether we have sufficient
energy to delve deeply into this question. We know the energy and
friction of thought; it has created most extraordinary things in the
world technologically. But psychologically we don't seem to have that
deep energy, drive, interest to penetrate profoundly into this
question of fear.

    We have to understand this question of thought bringing about its
own energy and therefore a fragmentary energy, and energy through
friction, through conflict. That is all we know: the energy of
thought, the energy that comes through contradiction, through
opposition in duality, the energy of friction. All that is in the
world of reality, reality being the things with which we live daily,
both psychologically and intellectually and so on.

    I hope we can communicate with each other. Communication implies
not only verbal understanding, but actually sharing what is being
said, otherwise there is no communion. There is not only a verbal
communication but a communion which is non-verbal. But to come to that
non-verbal communion, one must understand very deeply whether it is
possible to communicate with each other at a verbal level, which means
that both of us share the meaning of the words, have the same
interest, the same intensity, at the same level, so that we can
proceed step by step. That requires energy. And that energy can come
into being only when we understand the energy of thought and its
friction, in which we are caught. If you investigate into yourself you
will see that what we know, or experience, is the friction of thought
in its achievement, in its desires, in its purposes - the striving,
the struggle, the competition. All that is involved in the energy of
thought.

Part 2

    Now we are asking if there is any other kind of energy, which is not
mechanistic, not traditional, non-contradictory, and therefore without the
tension that creates energy. To find that out, whether there is another
kind of energy, not imagined, not fantastic, not superstitious, we have to
go into the question of desire.

    Desire is the want of something, isn't it? That is one fragment of
desire. Then there is the longing for something, whether it be sexual
longing or psychological longing, or so-called spiritual longing. And how
does this desire arise? Desire is the want of something, the lack of
something, missing something; then the longing for it, either
imaginatively, or actual want, like hunger; and there is the problem of how
desire arises in one. Because, in coming face to face with fear, we have to
understand desire - not the denial of desire, but insight into desire.
Desire may be the root of fear. The religious monks throughout the world
have denied desire, they have resisted, they have identified that desire
with their gods, with their saviours, with their Jesus, and so on. But it
is still desire. And without the full penetration into that desire, without
having an insight into it, one's mind cannot possibly be free from fear.

    We need a different kind of energy, not the mechanistic energy of
thought, because that has not solved any of our problems; on the contrary,
it has made them much more complex, more vast, impossible to solve. So we
must find a different kind of energy, whether that energy is related to
thought or is independent of thought, and in enquiring into that one must
go into the question of desire. You are following this? - not somebody
else's desire, but your own desire. Now how does desire arise? One can see
that this movement of desire takes place through perception, then
sensation, contact and so desire. One sees something beautiful, the contact
of it, visual and physical sensory, then sensation, then from that the
feeling of the lack of it. And from that desire. That is fairly clear.

    Why does the mind, the whole sensory organism, lack? Why is there this
feeling of lacking something, of wanting something? I hope you are giving
sufficient attention to what is being said, because it is your life. You
are not merely listening to words, or ideas, or formulas, but actually
sharing in the investigating process so that we are together walking in the
same direction, at the same speed, with the same intensity, at the same
level. Otherwise we shan't meet each other. That is part of love also. Love
is that communication with each other, at the same level, at the same time,
with the same intensity.

Part 3

    So why is there the sense of lacking or wanting in oneself?
I do not know if you have ever gone into this question at all?
Why the human mind, or human beings, are always after something
- apart from technological knowledge, apart from learning
languages and so on and so on, why is there this sense of
wanting, lacking, pursuing something all the time? - which is
the movement of desire, which is also the movement of thought in
time, as time and measure. All that is involved.

    We are asking, why there is this sense of want. Why there
is not a sense of complete self-sufficiency? Why is there this
longing for something in order to fulfil or to cover up
something? Is it because for most of us there is a sense of
emptiness, loneliness, a sense of void? Physiologically we need
food, clothes, and shelter, that one must have. But that is
denied when there is political, religious, economic division,
nationalistic division, which is the curse of this world, which
has been invented by the Western world, it did not exist in the
Eastern world, this spirit of nationality; it has come recently
into being there too, this poison. And when there is division
between peoples, between nationalities and between beliefs,
dogmas, security for everybody becomes almost impossible. The
tyrannical world of dictatorship is trying to provide that, food
for everybody, but it cannot achieve it. We know all that, we
can move from that.

    So what is it that we lack? Knowledge? - knowledge being
the accumulation of experience, psychological, scientific and in
other directions, which is knowledge in the past. Knowledge is
the past. Is this what we want? Is this what we miss? Is this
what we are educated for, to gather all the knowledge we can
possibly have, to act skillfully in the technological world? Or
is there a sense of lack, want, psychologically, inwardly? Which
means you will try to fill that inward emptiness, that lack,
through or with experience, which is the accumulated knowledge.
So you are trying to fill that emptiness, that void, that sense
of immense loneliness, with something which thought has created.
Therefore desire arises from this urge to fill that emptiness.
After all, when you are seeking enlightenment, or
self-realisation as the Hindus call it, it is a form of desire.
This sense of ignorance will be wiped away, or put aside, or
dissipated by acquiring tremendous knowledge, enlightenment. It
is never the process of investigating "what is", but rather of
acquiring; not actually looking at "what is", but inviting
something which might be, or hopeful of a greater experience,
greater knowledge. So we are always avoiding "what is". And the
"what is" is created by thought. My loneliness, emptiness,
sorrow, pain, suffering, anxiety, fear, that is actually "what
is". And thought is incapable of facing it and tries to move
away from it.

    So in the understanding of desire - that is perception,
seeing, contact, sensation, and the want of that which you have
not, and so desire, the longing for it - that involves the whole
process of time. I have not, but I will have. And when I do have
it is measured by what you have. So desire is the movement of
thought in time as measure. Please don't just agree with me. I
am not interested in doing propaganda. I don't care if you are
here or not here, if you listen or don't listen. But as it is
your life, as it is so urgently important that we be deadly
serious - the world is disintegrating - you have to understand
this question of desire, energy, and the enquiry into a
different kind of non-mechanical energy. And to come to that you
must understand fear. That is, does desire create fear? We are
going to enquire together into this question of fear, what is
fear? You may say, "well let's forget about energy and desire
and please help me to get rid of my fear" - that is too silly,
they are all related. You can't take one thing and approach it
that way. You must take the whole packet.

Part 4

    So what is fear, how does it arise? Is there a fear at one level
and not at another level? Is there fear at the conscious level or at
the unconscious level? Or is there a fear totally? Now how does fear
arise? Why does it exist in human beings? And human beings have put up
with it for generations upon generations, they live with it. Fear
distorts action, distorts clear perceptive thinking, objective
efficient thinking, which is necessary, logical sane healthy thinking.
Fear darkens our lives. I do not know if you have noticed it? If there
is the slightest fear there is a contraction of all our senses. And
most of us live, in whatever relationship we have, in that peculiar
form of fear.

    Our question is, whether the mind and our whole being can ever be
free completely of fear. Education, society, governments, religions
have encouraged this fear; religions are based on fear. And fear also
is cultivated through the worship of authority - the authority of
those who know and so on. We are carefully nurtured in fear. And we
are asking whether it is at all possible to be totally free of it. So
we have to find out what is fear. Is it the want of something? - which
is desire, longing. Is it the uncertainty of tomorrow? Or the pain and
the suffering of yesterday? Is it this division between you and me, in
which there is no relationship at all? Is it that centre which thought
has created as the "me" - the being, the form, the name, the
attributes - fear of loosing that "me"? Is that one of the causes of
fear? Or is it the remembrance of something past, pleasant, happy, and
the fear of losing it? Or the fear of suffering, physiologically and
psychologically? Is there a centre from which all fear springs? - like
a tree, though it has got a hundred branches it has a solid trunk and
roots, and it is no good merely pruning the branches. So we have to go
to the very root of fear. Because if you can be totally free of fear,
then heaven is with you.

    What is the root of it? Is it time? Please we are investigating,
questioning, we are not theorising, we are not coming to any
conclusion, because there is nothing to conclude. The moment you see
the root of it, actually, with your eyes, with your feeling, with your
heart, with your mind - actually see it - then you can deal with it;
that is if you are serious. We are asking: is it time? - time being
not only chronological time by the watch, as yesterday, today and
tomorrow, but also psychological time, the remembrance of yesterday,
the pleasures of yesterday, and the pains, the grief, the anxieties of
yesterday. We are asking whether the root of fear is time. Time to
fulfil, time to become, time to achieve, time to realise God, or
whatever you like to call it. Psychologically, what is time? Is there
such a thing - please listen - as psychological time at all? Or have
we invented psychological time? Psychologically is there tomorrow? If
one says there is no time psychologically as tomorrow, it will be a
great shock to you, won't it? Because you say, "Tomorrow I shall be
happy; tomorrow I will achieve something; tomorrow I will become the
executive of some business; tomorrow I will become the enlightened
one; tomorrow the guru promises something and I'll achieve it". To us
tomorrow is tremendously important. And is there a tomorrow
psychologically? We have accepted it: that is our whole traditional
education, that there is a tomorrow. And when you look
psychologically, investigate into yourself, is there a tomorrow? Or
has thought, being fragmentary in itself, projected the tomorrow?
Please, we will go into this, it is very important to understand.

Part 5

    One suffers physically, there is a great deal of pain. And the
remembrance of that pain is marked, is an experience which the brain
contains and therefore there is the remembrance of that pain. And
thought says, "I hope I never have that pain again": that is tomorrow.
There has been great pleasure yesterday, sexual or whatever kind of
pleasure one has, and thought says, "Tomorrow I must have that
pleasure again". You have a great experience - a least you think it is
a great experience - and it has become a memory; and you realise it is
a memory yet you pursue it tomorrow. So thought is movement in time.
Is the root of fear time? - time as comparison with you, "me" more
important than you, "me" that is going to achieve something, become
something, get rid of something.

    So thought as time, thought as becoming, is the root of fear. We
have said that time is necessary to learn a language, time is
necessary to learn any technique. And we think we can apply the same
process to psychological existence. I need several weeks to learn a
language, and I say in order to learn about myself, what I am, what I
have to achieve, I need time. We are questioning the whole of that.
Whether there is time at all psychologically, actually; or is it an
invention of thought and therefore fear arises? That is our problem;
and consciously we have divided consciousness into the conscious and
the hidden. Again division by thought. And we say, "I may be able to
get rid of conscious fears, but it is almost impossible to be free of
the unconscious fears with their deep roots in the unconscious". We
say that it is much more difficult to be free of unconscious fears,
that is the racial fears, the family fears, the tribal fears, the
fears that are deeply rooted, instinctive. We have divided
consciousness into two levels and then we ask: how can a human being
delve into the unconscious? Having divided it then we ask this
question.

    It is said it can be done through careful analysis of the various
hidden fears, through dreams. That is the fashion. We never look into
the whole process of analysis, whether it be self-introspective, or
professional. In analysis is implied the analyser and the analysed.
Who is the analyser? Is he different from the analysed, or is the
analyser the analysed? And therefore it is utterly futile to analyse.
I wonder if you see that? If the analyser is the analysed, then there
is only observation, not analysis. But the analyser as different from
the analysed - that is what you all accept, all the professionals, all
the people who are trying to improve themselves - God forbid! - they
all accept that there is a division between the analysed and the
analyser. But the analyser is a fragment of thought which has created
that thing to be analysed. I wonder if you follow this? So in analysis
is implied a division and that division implies time. And you have to
keep on analysing until you die.

    So where analysis is totally false - I am using the word "false"
in the sense of incorrect, having no value - then you are only
concerned with observation. To observe! - we have to understand what
is observation. You are following all this? We started out by
enquiring if there is a different kind of energy. I am sorry we must
go back so that it is in your mind - not in your memory, then you
could read a book and repeat it to yourself, which is nothing. So we
are concerned with, or enquiring into energy. We know the energy of
thought which is mechanical, a process of friction, because thought in
its very nature is fragmentary, thought is never the whole. And we
have asked if there is a different kind of energy altogether and we
are investigating that. And in enquiring into that we see the whole
movement of desire. Desire is the state of wanting something, longing
for something. And that desire is a movement of thought as time and
measure: "I have had this, and I must have more". And we said in the
understanding of fear, the root of fear may be time as movement. If
you go into it you will see that it is the root of it: that is the
actual fact. Then, is it possible for the mind to be totally free of
fear? For the brain, which has accumulated knowledge, can only
function effectively when there is complete security - but that
security may be in some neurotic activity, in some belief, in the
belief that you are the great nation; and all belief is neurotic,
obviously, because it is not actual. So the brain can only function
effectively, sanely, rationally, when it feels completely secure, and
fear does not give it security. To be free of that fear, we asked
whether analysis is necessary. And we see that analysis does not solve
fear. So when you have an insight into the process of analysis, you
stop analysing. And then there is only the question of observation,
seeing. If you don't analyse, what are you to do? You can only look.
And it is very important to find out how to look.

Part 6

    What does it mean to look? What does it mean to look at this
question of desire as movement in time and measure? How do you see it?
Do you see it as an idea, as a formula, because you have heard the
speaker talking about it? Therefore you abstract what you hear into an
idea and pursue that idea - which is still looking away from fear. So
when you observe, it is very important to find out how you observe.

    Can you observe your fear without the movement of escaping,
suppressing, rationalising, or giving it a name? That is, can you look
at fear, your fear of not having a job tomorrow, without naming,
without the observer? - because the observer is the observed. I don't
know if you follow this? So the observer is fear, not "he" is
observing "fear".

    Can you observe without the observer? - the observer being the
past. Then is there fear? You follow? We have the energy to look at
something as an observer. I look at you and say, "You are a Christian,
a Hindu, Buddhist", whatever you are, or I look at you saying, "I
don't like you", or "I like you". If you believe in the same thing as
I believe in you are my friend; if I don't believe the same thing as
you do, you are my enemy. So can you look at another without all those
movements of thought, of remembrance, of hope, all that, just look?
Look at that fear which is the root of time. Then is there fear at
all? You understand? You will find this out only if you test it, if
you work at it, not just play with it.

    Then there is the other form of desire, which not only creates
fear but also pleasure. Desire is a form of pleasure. Pleasure is
different from joy. Pleasure you can cultivate, which the modern world
is doing, sexually and in every form of cultural encouragement -
pleasure, tremendous pleasure and the pursuit of pleasure. And in the
very pursuit of pleasure there must be fear also, because they are the
two sides of the same coin. Joy you cannot invite; if it happens then
thought takes charge of it and remembers it and pursues that joy which
you had a year ago, or yesterday, and which becomes pleasure. And when
there is enjoyment - seeing a beautiful sunset, a lovely tree, or the
deep shadow of a lake - then that enjoyment is registered in the brain
as memory and the pursuit of that memory is pleasure.

    There is fear, pleasure, joy. Is it possible - this is a much
more complex problem - is it possible to observe a sunset, the beauty
of a person, the lovely shape of an ancient tree in a solitary field,
the enjoyment of it, the beauty of it - observe it without registering
it in the brain, which then becomes memory, and the pursuit of that
tomorrow? That is, to see something beautiful and end it, not carry it
on.

    There is another principle in man. Besides fear and pleasure,
there is the principle of suffering. Is there an end to suffering? We
want suffering to end physically, therefore we take drugs and do all
kinds of yoga tricks and all that. But we have never been able to
solve this question of suffering, human suffering, not only of a
particular human being but the suffering of the whole of humanity.
There is you suffering, and millions and millions of people in the
world are suffering, through war, through starvation, through
brutality, through violence, through bombs. And can that suffering in
you as a human being end? Can it come to an end in you, because your
consciousness is the consciousness of the world, is the consciousness
of every other human being? You may have a different peripheral
behaviour but basically, deeply, your consciousness is the
consciousness of every other human being in the world. Suffering,
pleasure, fear, ambition, all that is your consciousness. So you are
the world. And if you are completely free of fear you affect the
consciousness of the world. Do you understand how extraordinary
important it is that we human beings change, fundamentally, because
that will affect the consciousness of every other human being? Hitler,
Stalin affected all of the consciousness of the world, what the
priests have achieved in the name of somebody has affected the world.
So if you as human beings radically transform, are free of fear, you
will naturally affect the consciousness of the world.

Part 7 and Final

    Similarly, when there is freedom from suffering there is
compassion, not before. You can talk about it, write books about it,
discuss what compassion is, but the ending of sorrow is the beginning
of compassion. The human mind has put up with suffering, endless
suffering, having your children killed in wars, and willingness to
accept further suffering by future wars. Suffering through education -
modern education to achieve a certain technological knowledge and
nothing else - that brings great sorrow. So compassion, which is love,
can only come when you understand fully the depth of suffering and the
ending of suffering.

    Can that suffering end, not in somebody else, but in you? The
Christians have made a parody of suffering - sorry to use that word -
but it is actually so. The Hindus have made it into an intellectual
affair: what you have done in a past life you are paying for in the
present life, and in the future there will be happiness if you behave
properly now. But they never behave properly now; so they carry on
with this belief which is utterly meaningless. But a man who is
serious is concerned with compassion and with what it means to love;
because without that you can do what you like, build all the
skyscrapers in the world, have marvelous economic conditions and
social behavior, but without it life becomes a desert.

    So to understand what it means to live with compassion, you must
understand what suffering is. There is suffering from physical pain,
physical disease, physical accident, which generally affects the mind,
distorts the mind - if you have had physical pain for some time it
twists your mind; and to be so aware that the physical pain cannot
touch the mind requires tremendous inward awareness. And apart from
the physical there is suffering of every kind, suffering in
loneliness, suffering when you are not loved, the longing to be loved
and never finding it satisfactory; because we make love into something
to be satisfied, we want love to be gratified. There is suffering
because of death; suffering because there is never a moment of
complete wholeness, a complete sense of totality, but always living in
fragmentation, which is contradiction, strife, confusion, misery. And
to escape from that we go to temples, and to various forms of
entertainment, religious and non-religious, take drugs, group therapy,
and individual therapy. You know all those tricks we play upon
ourselves and upon others - if you are clever enough to play tricks
upon others. So there is this immense suffering brought by man against
man. We bring suffering to the animals, we kill them, we eat them, we
have destroyed species after species because our love is fragmented.
We love God and kill human beings.

    Can that end? Can suffering totally end so that there is complete
and whole compassion? Because suffering means, the root meaning of
that word is to have passion - not the Christian passion, not lust,
that is too cheap, easy, but to have compassion, which means passion
for all, for all things, and that can only come when there is total
freedom from suffering.

    You know it is a very complex problem, like fear and pleasure,
they are all inter-related. Can one go into it and see whether the
mind and the brain can ever be free completely of all psychological
suffering, inward suffering. If we don't understand that and are not
free of it we will bring suffering to others, as we have done, though
you believe in God, in Christ, in Buddha, in all kinds of beliefs -
and you have killed men generation after generation. You understand
what we do, what our politicians do in India and here. Why is it that
human beings who think of themselves as extraordinarily alive and
intelligent, why have they allowed themselves to suffer? There is
suffering when there is jealousy; jealousy is a form of hate. And envy
is part of our structure, part of our nature, which is to compare
ourselves with somebody else; and can you live without comparison? We
think that without comparison we shall not evolve, we shall not grow,
we shall not be somebody. But have you ever tried - really, actually
tried - to live without comparing yourself to anybody? You have read
the lives of saints and if you are inclined that way, as you get older
you want to become like that; not when you are young, you spit on all
that. But as you are approaching the grave you wake up.

    There are different forms of suffering. Can you look at it,
observe it without trying to escape from it? - just remain solidly
with that thing. When my wife - I am not married - runs away from me,
or looks at another man - by law she belongs to me and I hold her -
and when she runs away from me I am jealous; because I possess, and
in possession I feel satisfied, I feel safe; and also it is good to be
possessed, that also gives satisfaction. And that jealousy, that envy,
that hatred, can you look at it without any movement of thought and
remain with it? You understand what I am saying? Jealousy is a
reaction, a reaction which has been named through memory as jealousy,
and I have been educated to run away from it, to rationalise it, or to
indulge in it, and hate with anger and all the rest of it. But without
doing any of that, can my mind solidly remain with it without any
movement? You understand what I am saying? Do it and you will see what
happens.

    In the same way when you suffer, psychologically, remain with it
completely without a single movement of thought. Then you will see out
of that suffering comes that strange thing called passion. And if you
have no passion of that kind you cannot be creative. Out of that
suffering comes compassion. And that energy differs totally from the
mechanistic energy of thought.