LIVING NATURALLY
with J.Krishnamurti
Friends, Today I want to explain that there is a way of
living naturally, spontaneously, without the constant friction of
self-discipline, the constant battle of adjustment. But to understand what
I am going to say, please consider it not only intellectually, but also
emotionally. You must feel it; for you can bring about fulfillment of life
only when your emotions as well as your thoughts are acting harmoniously.
When you live completely in the harmony of your mind and heart, then your
action is natural, spontaneous, effortless.
Most minds are seeking security. We want to be sure. We set up in
authority those who offer us that security, and we worship them as our
authority because we ourselves are seeking a certainty to which the mind
can cling, in which the mind can feel safe, secure.
If you consider the matter, you will find
that most of you come to listen to me because you are seeking certainty -
certainty of knowledge, certainty of an end, certainty of truth, certainty
of an idea - in order that you may act with that certainty, choose through
that certainty. Your minds and hearts desire to act with the background of
that certainty. Your choice and your actions do not awaken true
discernment or true perception, because you are constantly engaged in the
gathering in of knowledge, in the accumulation of experiences, in
searching out various kinds of gain, in seeking authorities that give you
security and comfort, in striving for the development of character.
Through all these attempts at accumulation you hope to have the assurance
of certainty; certainty that takes away all doubt and anxiety; certainty
that gives you - at least you hope that it will give you - surety of
choice. With the thought of certainty, you choose in the hope of gaining
further understanding. Thus, in the search for certainty there is born
fear of gain and fear of loss.
So you make
life into a school where you learn to be certain. Isn't that what your
life is? A school where you learn, not to live, but how to be sure. To you
life is a process of accumulation, not a matter of living. Now I
differentiate between living and accumulation. A man who is really living
has no sense of accumulation. But the man who is seeking certainty and
security, who is seeking a shelter from which he can act - the shelter of
character, of virtue - that man thinks of life as accumulation, and hence
to him life becomes a process of learning, of gain, of struggle.
Where there is the idea of accumulation and
of gain, there must be a sense of time, and hence incompleteness in
action. If we are constantly looking to a future gain, to a future from
which we shall derive advantage, development, greater strength for
acquisition, then our action in the present must be incomplete. If our
minds and hearts are continually seeking gain, achievement, success, then
our action, whatever it be, has no true significance; our eyes are fixed
on the future, our minds are concerned only with the future. Hence, all
action in the present creates incompleteness.
From this incompleteness there arises conflict, which we hope to overcome
through self-discipline. We make a distinction in our minds between the
things that we wish to gain, which we call the essential, and the things
that we do not wish to acquire, which we call the unessential. Thus, there
is a constant battle, a constant struggle; conflict and suffering result
from this distinction.
I shall explain this
point in another way, because unless you see and really understand it, you
will not fully comprehend what I shall have to say later.
We have made life into a school of continual
learning. But to me life is not a school; it is not a process of gathering
in. Life is to be lived naturally, fully, without this constant battle of
conflicts, this distinction between the essential and the unessential.
From this idea of life as a school, there arises the constant desire for
achievement, success, and therefore the search for an end, the desire to
find the ultimate truth, God, the final perfection which will give us - at
least, we hope it will give us - certainty, and hence our attempts at the
continual adjustment to certain social conditions, to ethical and moral
demands, to the development of character and the cultivation of virtues.
These standards and demands, if you really think about them, are but
shelters from which we act, shelters developed through resistance.
This is the life that most people are living
- a life of constant search for gain, for accumulation, and therefore a
life of incompleteness in action. The idea of gain, which divides action
into past, present and future, is always in our minds; therefore there is
never complete understanding in action itself. The mind is continually
thinking of gain, and hence it finds no meaning in the action with which
it is occupied.
So this is the state in which
you are living. Now to me that state is utterly false. Life is not a
process of gathering in, a school in which you must learn, in which you
must discipline yourself, in which there is constant resistance and
struggle. Where there is this constant gathering in, this desire for
accumulation, there must exist incompleteness which creates want; if you
do not want, you do not gather. And where there is want there is no
discernment, even though you may go through the process of choice.
Now you say to me, "How am I to get rid of
this want? How am I to free my mind from this process of gathering in? How
am I to conquer these hindrances? You say that life is not a school In
which to learn, but how am I to live naturally? Tell me the path on which
I must walk, the method that I must practise every day to live fully."
To me, this is not the way to look at the
problem. The question is not how you are to live fully, but rather, what
urges you to this constant accumulation; the question is not how you shall
get rid of the idea of gathering, of accumulation, but rather, what
creates in you this desire to accumulate. I hope you see the distinction.
Now you look at the problem from the point of
view of getting rid of something, of acquiring non-acquisition, which is
essentially the same thing as desiring to acquire something, since all
opposites are the same. So, what prevents you from living naturally,
harmoniously? I say that it is this process of gathering, this searching
for certainty.
Then you want to know how to
be free from the search for certainty. I say, do not approach the problem
in this way. The futility of gain will have a meaning for you only when
you are really in conflict, only when you are fully conscious of the
disharmony of your actions. If you are not caught up in conflict, then
continue in your present way; if you are absolutely unconscious of
struggle and suffering, if you are unaware of your own disharmony, then go
on living as you are. Then do not try to be spiritual, for you do not know
what that signifies at all. The ecstasy of understanding comes only when
there is great discontent, when all false values about you are destroyed.
If you are not discontented, if you are not aware of intense disharmony in
and about you, then what I tell you of the futility of accumulation can
have no meaning to you.
But if there is this
divine revolt in you, then you will understand when I say that life is not
a school in which to learn; life is not a process of constant
accumulation, a process in which there is continual want which is
blinding. Then that very revolt in which you are caught up, that very
suffering, gives you understanding, because it awakens in you the flame of
awareness. And when you are fully aware that want is blinding, then you
will see its full significance, which dissipates want. Then you will have
freedom from want, from gathering in. But if you are unconscious of such a
struggle, of such a revolt, you can but continue your life as you are
living it, in a half-awakened state. When people suffer, when they are
caught up in conflict, that very suffering and conflict should keep them
intensely aware; but most of them only ask how to get rid of want. When
you understand the full significance of not desiring to gain, to
accumulate, then there is no longer the struggle to get rid of something.
To put it differently, why do you go through
the process of self-discipline? You do it because of fear. Why are you
afraid? Because you want surety, the surety that a social standard, a
religious belief, or the idea of acquiring virtue gives you. So you set
about disciplining yourself. That is, when the mind is enslaved by the
idea of gain or conformity, there is self-discipline. That you are
awakened to suffering is but the indication that mind is trying to free
itself from all standards; but when you suffer you immediately try to
quieten that suffering by drugging the mind with what you call comfort,
security, certainty. So you continue this process of seeking certainty,
which is but an opiate. But if you understand the illusion of certainty -
and you can understand it only in the intensity of conflict from which
alone all inquiry can truly begin - then want, which creates certainty,
disappears.
So the question is not how to get
rid of want; it is rather this: Are you fully aware when there is
suffering? Are you fully conscious of conflict, of the disharmonious life
about you and within you? If you are, then in that flame of awareness
there is true perception, without this constant battle of adjustment, of
self-discipline. However, seeing the falsity of self-discipline does not
mean that one can indulge in rash, impetuous action. On the contrary, then
action is born out of completeness. Question: Can there be happiness when
there is no longer any "I" consciousness? Is one able to feel anything at
all if the "I" consciousness is extinguished?
Krishnamurti: First of all, what does one mean by the "I" consciousness?
When are you aware of this "I"? When are you conscious of yourself? You
are conscious of yourself as "I", as an entity, when you are in pain, when
you experience discomfiture, conflict, struggle.
You say, "If that 'I' does not exist, what is
there?" I say you will find out only when your mind is free of that "I",
so do not inquire now. When your mind and heart are harmonious, when they
are no longer caught up in conflict, then you will know. Then you will not
ask what it is that feels, that thinks. As long as this "I" consciousness
exists there must be the conflict of choice, from which arises the
sensation of happiness and unhappiness. That is, this conflict gives you
the sense of limited consciousness, the "I", with which the mind becomes
identified. I say that you will find out that life which is not identified
with the "you" or the "me", that life which is eternal, infinite, only
when this limited consciousness dissolves itself. You do not dissolve that
limited consciousness; it dissolves itself.
Question: The other day you spoke of memory as a hindrance to true
understanding. I have recently had the misfortune of losing my brother.
Should I try to forget that loss?
Krishnamurti: I explained the other day what I mean by memory. I shall try
to explain it again.
After you have seen a
beautiful sunset, you return to your home or office and begin again to
live in that sunset, as your home or office is not as you would have it,
it is not beautiful; so to escape from that ugliness you return in memory
to that sunset. Thus you create in your mind a distinction between your
home, which does not give you joy, and the thing that gives you great
delight, the sunset. So, when you are confronted by circumstances which
are not pleasant, you turn to the memory of that which is joyous. But if,
instead of turning to a dead memory, you would try to alter the
circumstances that are unpleasant, then you would be living intensely in
the present and not in the dead past. So when one loses someone whom one
loves greatly, why is there this constant looking back, this constant
holding on to that which gave us pleasure, this longing to have that
person back again? This is what everyone goes through when he experiences
such a loss. He escapes from the sorrow of that loss by turning to the
remembrance of the person who is gone, by living in a future, or by belief
in the hereafter - which is also a kind of memory. It is because our minds
are perverted through escape, because they are incapable of meeting
suffering openly, freshly, that we have to revert to memory, and thus the
past encroaches upon the present.
So the
question is not whether you should or should not remember your brother or
your husband, your wife or your children; rather, it is a matter of living
completely, wholly, in the present, though that does not imply that you
are indifferent to those who are about you. When you live completely,
wholly, there is in that intensity, the flame of living, which is not the
mere imprint of an incident.
How is one to
live completely in the present, so that mind is not perverted with past
memories and future longings - which are also memory? Again, the question
is not how you should live completely, but what prevents you from living
completely. For when you ask how, you are looking for a method, a means,
and to me, a method destroys understanding. If you know what prevents you
from living completely, then out of yourself, out of your own awareness
and understanding, you will free yourself from that hindrance. What
prevents you from freeing yourself is your search for certainty, your
continual longing for gain, for accumulation, for achievement. But do not
ask, "How am I to conquer these hindrances?" for all conquering is but a
process of further gain, further accumulation. If this loss is really
creating suffering in you, if it is really giving you intense - not
superficial - sorrow, then you will not ask how; then you will see
immediately the futility of looking back or forward for consolation.
When most people say that they suffer, their
suffering is but superficial. They suffer, but at the same time they want
other things: they want comfort, they are afraid, they search out ways and
means of escape. Superficial sorrow is always accompanied by the desire
for comfort. Superficial suffering is like shallow ploughing of the soil;
it achieves nothing. Only when you till the soil deeply, to the full depth
of the ploughshare, is there richness. In the state of complete suffering
there is complete under- standing, in which hindrances as memories both of
the present and of the future cease to exist. Then you are living in the
eternal present.
You know, to understand a
thought or an idea does not mean merely to agree with it intellectually.
There are various kinds of memories: there is
the memory that forces itself upon you in the present, the memory to which
you turn actively, and the memory of looking forward to the future. All
these prevent your living completely. But do not begin to analyze your
memories. Do not ask, "Which memory is preventing my complete living?"
When you question in that way, you do not act; you merely examine memory
intellectually, and such an examination has no value because it deals with
a dead thing. From a dead thing there is no understanding. But if you are
truly aware in the present, in the moment of action, then all these
memories come into activity. Then you need not go through the process of
analyzing them.
Question: Do you think it is
right to bring up children with religious training?
Krishnamurti: I shall answer this question
indirectly, for when you understand what I am going to say, you can answer
it specifically for yourselves.
You know, we
are influenced not only by external conditions, but also by an inner
condition which we develop. In bringing up a child, parents subject him to
many influences and limiting circumstances, one of which is religious
training. Now, if they let the child grow up without such hindering,
limiting influences, either from within or from without, then the child
will begin to question as he grows older, and he will intelligently find
out for himself. Then, if he wants religion, he will have it, whether you
prohibit or encourage the religious attitude. In other words, if his mind
and heart are not influenced, not hindered, either by external or by inner
standards, then he will truly discover what is true. This requires great
perception, great understanding.
Now parents
want to influence the child one way or another. If you are very religious,
you want to influence the child toward religion; if you are not, you try
to turn him away from religion. Help the child to be intelligent, then he
will find out for himself the true significance of life.
Question: You spoke of harmony of mind and
heart in action. What is this action? Does this action imply physical
movement, or can action take place when one is quite still and alone?
Krishnamurti: Does not action imply thought?
Is not action thought itself? You cannot act without thinking. I know that
most people do, but their action is not intelligent, not harmonious.
Thought is action, which is also movement. Again, we think apart from our
feeling, thus setting up another entity separate from our action. So we
divide our lives into three distinct parts, thinking, feeling, acting.
Therefore you ask, "Is action purely physical? Is action purely mental or
emotional?"
To me the three are one: to
think, to feel, to act, there is no distinction. Therefore you may be
alone and quiet for a while, or you may be working, moving, acting: both
states can be action. When you understand this, you will not make a
separation between thinking, feeling and acting.
To most people, thinking is but a reaction.
If it is merely a reaction, it is no longer thinking, for then it is
uncreative. Most people who say that they think are but blindly following
their reactions; they have certain standards, certain ideas, according to
which they act. These they have memorized, and when they say that they
think, they are but following these memories. Such imitation is not
thinking; it is but a reaction, a reflection. True thinking exists only
when you discover the true significance of these standards, these
preconceptions, these securities.
To put it
differently, what is mind? Mind is speech, thought, consideration,
understanding; it is all these, and it is also feeling. You cannot
separate feeling from thinking; the mind and heart are in themselves
complete. But because we have created innumerable escapes through
conflict, there arises the idea of thought as apart from feeling, as apart
from action, and hence our life is broken up, incomplete.
Question: Among your listeners are people old
and feeble in mind and body. Also, there may be those who are addicts to
drugs, drink or smoking. What can they do to change themselves, when they
find that they cannot change even when they long to?
Krishnamurti: Remain as you are. If you
really long to change, you will change. You see, that is just it:
intellectually you want to change, but emotionally you are still enticed
by the pleasure of smoking or the comfort of a drug. So you ask, "What am
I to do? I want to give this up, but at the same time I don't want to give
it up. Please tell me how I can do both." That sounds amusing, but that is
really what you are asking.
Now if you
approach the problem wholly, not with the idea of wanting or non-wanting,
giving up or not giving up, you will find out whether or not you really
want to smoke. If you find that you do want to, then smoke. In that way
you will find out the worth of that habit without constantly calling it
futile and yet continuing it. If you approach the act completely, wholly,
then you will not say, "Shall I give up smoking or not?" But now you want
to smoke because it gives you a pleasant sensation, and at the same time
you don't want to because mentally you see the absurdity of it. So you
begin to discipline yourself, saying, "I must sacrifice myself; I must
give this up."
Question: Do you not agree
that man shall gain the kingdom of heaven through a life, like that of
Jesus, wholly dedicated to service?
Krishnamurti: I hope you will not be shocked when I say that man will not
gain the kingdom of heaven in this way.
Now
see what you are saying: "Through service I shall obtain something that I
want." Your statement implies that you do not serve completely; you are
looking for a reward through service. You say, "Through righteous
behaviour I shall know God." That is, you are really interested, not in
righteous behaviour but in knowing God, thus divorcing righteousness from
God. But neither through service, nor love, nor worship, nor prayer, but
only in the very action of these, is there truth, God. Do you understand?
When you ask, "Shall I gain the kingdom of heaven through service?" your
service has no meaning because you are primarily interested in the kingdom
of heaven; you are interested in getting something in return; it is a kind
of barter, as much of your life is. So when you say, "Through
righteousness, through love, I shall attain, I shall realize", you are
interested in the realization, which is but an escape, a form of
imitation. Therefore your love or your righteous act has no meaning. If
you are kind to me because I can give you something in return, what
significance has your kindness?
That is the
whole process of our life. We are afraid to live. Only when someone
dangles a reward before our eyes do we act, and then we act not for the
sake of action itself, but in order to obtain that reward. In other words,
we act for what we can get out of action. It is the same in your prayers.
That is, because for us action has no significance in itself, because we
think that we need encouragement in order to act rightly, we have placed
before us a reward, something we desire, and we hope that enticement, that
toy, will give us satisfaction. But when we act with that hope of reward,
then action itself has no significance.
That
is why I say that you are caught up in this process of reward and gain,
this hindrance born of fear, which results in conflict. When you see this,
when you become aware of this, then you will understand that life,
behaviour, service, everything, has significance in itself; then you do
not go through life with the purpose of getting something else, because
you know that action itself has intrinsic value. Then you are not merely a
reformer; you are a human being; you know that life which is pliable and
therefore eternal.
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