Questioner: We may want our minds to be quiet, but sometimes we have to take decisions. This makes for difficulty and causes problems.
Krishnamurti: If the mind cannot decide clearly, then problems arise; the very decision is a problem. When you decide, you make a decision between this and that – which means choice. When there is choice there is conflict; from that arise problems. But when you see very clearly, there is no choice, therefore there is no decision. You know the way from here to where you happen to live very well; you follow the road which is very clear. You have been on that road a hundred times, therefore there is no choice, although you may find a short cut which you may take next time. That is something mechanical there is no problem. The brain wants the same thing to happen again so that it may function automatically, mechanically, so that problems do not arise. The brain demands that it operate mechanically. Therefore it says, ‘I will discipline myself to function mechanically’, ‘I must have a belief, a purpose, a direction, so that I can set a path and follow it; and it follows that groove.
What happens? Life will not allow that, there are all kinds of things happening; so thought resists, builds a wall of belief and this very resistance creates problems.
When you have to decide between this and that, it means there is confusion: ‘should I, or should I not do this?, I only put that question to myself when I do not see clearly what is to be done. We choose out of confusion, not out of clarity. The moment you are clear your action is complete.
Questioner: But it cannot always be complete.
Krishnamurti: Why not?
Questioner: Often it is a complex choice and you have to take time you have to look at it.
Krishnamurti: Yes, take time, have patience to look at it. You have to compare; compare what? Compare two materials, blue and white; you question whether you like this colour or that colour, whether you should go up this hill or that hill. You decide. ‘I prefer to go up this hill today and tomorrow I’ll go up the other’. The problem arises when one is dealing with the psyche, what to do within oneself. First watch what decision implies. To decide to do this or that, what is that decision based on? On choice, obviously. Should I do this, or should I do that? I realize that when there is choice there is confusion. So I see the truth of this, the fact, the ‘what is’, which is: where there is choice there must be confusion. Now why am I confused? Because I don’t know, or because I prefer one thing as opposed to another which is more pleasant, it may produce better results, greater fortune, or whatever it is. So I choose that. But in following that, I realize there is also frustration in it, which is pain. So I am caught again between fear and pleasure. Seeing I am caught in this, I ask, ‘Can I act without choice?’ That means: I have to be aware of all the implications of confusion and all the implications of decision; fur there is duality, the ‘decider’ and the thing decided upon. And therefore there is conflict and perpetuation of confusion.
You will say, to be aware of all the intricacies of this movement will take time. Will it take time? Or can it be seen instantly and therefore there is instant action? It only takes time when I am not aware of it. My brain, being conditioned, says, ‘I must decide’ decide according to the past; that is its habit. ‘I must decide what is right, what is wrong, what is duty, what is responsibility, what is love’. The decisions of the brain breed more conflict which is what the politicians throughout the world are doing. Now, can that brain be quiet, so that it sees the problem of confusion instantly, and acts because it is clear? Then there is no decision at all.