Public Talk 1, New Delhi, 7 November 1965

Krishnamurti: If I may, during these four talks here, I would like to talk about order, violence and peace. We are not merely theorising, or merely giving various explanations for various causes. What we are trying to do is to understand the whole movement of life, this vast panorama of conflict, not only in this country but also throughout the world, where man is in conflict with another man; where man has lived for so many millennia in recorded history, over fourteen thousand wars, and has not been able to live peacefully with his neighbour; where nationalism throughout the world is rampant, destructive and disorderly; where man, though endeavours everlastingly to find order within himself and also order outwardly, apparently it has been almost impossible to live peacefully.

It is only in peace that a human being can flower in goodness; not in war, not in violence, not in disorder, but only when there is a deep, abiding peace. And to understand this whole phenomena of hate, destruction and disorder, one has to inquire not merely intellectually — because such inquiry is futile and worthless, has no meaning whatsoever — but actually inquire what order means, what violence means and the significance of peace. To inquire non-verbally, non-intellectually — which really has very little meaning; because most of us have read or indulge in theories: what peace should be, how to get rid of violence, how to establish order; books have been written about them, volumes.

Man — when the first war took place five thousand, five hundred years ago in recorded history — must have hoped that that would be the last war. And we are still at it. And so there must be something radically wrong, destructive in human beings who divide themselves into nationalities, break up their minds into fragments as religious sects with dogmas, beliefs, politics; into classes, divisions of every kind and thereby hope to bring about peace and order. So apparently, after these thousands-upon-thousand years, we have not found peace. As we said, there have been fourteen thousand, six hundred wars; that means two and a half wars every year. And yet we are going on living in the same stupid, destructive manner, hating each other, calling each other names, labelling ourselves as Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Russians, communists and so on.

So when you look at all this dispassionately, factually, not emotionally or in any way prejudiced but regard it as a fact; not interpret it according to your particular like and dislike, according to your favourite war which you call righteous, or un-favourite war which you call… which you deny as evil, but look at it as a phenomenon, as something animalistic, which must be solved by each human being. Because war, violence, disorder — along that path there is no peace, do what you will; the peace there is an interval between two calamities, two wars, two destructions.

So one has to find a new way of living; not theoretically, not discuss everlastingly about it, but actually in our daily life find a way to live totally differently; which means a total revolution in our ways of thinking, living, feeling. Unless we discover that for ourselves as human beings, we shall never find order, peace and a state of mind that can flower in goodness.

So we are not indulging in words, in theories: *what should be*, *what must be*, but actually *what is*, because it’s only when you are capable of facing the fact then you can do something about it. But if we refuse to face the facts, then we get completely lost in opinions; and opinions, however clever, however erudite, however dialectical, has very little meaning when you are confronted with facts of hate, disorder, violence. And that’s what we are faced with now, throughout the world. The war that’s going on in Vietnam, it’s your war and my war; the war that has been in this country, along the border. Man has suffered indefinitely, infinitely.

And you as a human being who have lived for so many millennia, you and I, as human beings — not as Hindus, not as Christians, not as a communist and an… Mohammedan or whatever you call oneself, but as human beings — we have to find order, because order is necessary, not only within but outwardly. And it’s one of the most difficult things to find this order. Because that word, the word *order* has extraordinary depth if you go into it; has extraordinary significance, if you can unravel, if you can look into it deeply. Because without order — not according to your order or my order, or according to the politicians or this person or that person, but the word itself has extraordinary significance and extraordinary depth, if we can go into it. And that’s what we are going to do together.

We are not doing any propaganda. I’ve a horror of propaganda! I’m not trying to convert you to any belief, to any dogma, to any way of life — that would be too stupid — but what we are trying to do is to point out, investigate, talk things over together as two human beings confronted with this enormous, complex problem. And if you cannot look at it dispassionately, then we shall live as human beings another five thousand years fighting each other, tearing each other’s hearts out, destroying each other. And it’s very strange: all the ancient teachers have talked about peace, not to hate another, to be kind, to be generous, to be forgiving; all that has been overthrown throughout the world. And as this country, which is supposed to be so old and ancient and full of wisdom — which is non-existent at the present time — that tradition, not practiced by politicians or the semi-political saints, but that reality where you must not hurt another, where you must love another, all that has been set aside. And as human beings, you and I have to find out for ourselves a new way of living, a new order, the ending of violence, and therefore bring about in ourselves, outwardly as well as inwardly, peace.

So we’re going to first talk over together this question of order. Our life is very disorderly, both outwardly and inwardly. We are in conflict, both outwardly and inwardly. We are in contradiction, outwardly as well as inwardly. And order is not possible when there is conflict, when inwardly there is a battle going on: hate, envy, greed, competition, brutal thoughts about somebody else. When there is this national prejudice — which is a poison — how can there be order? And you need order; we need enormous order. And to have order, you must have immense space, inwardly as well as outwardly. You cannot cut yourself off into a little country, or cultivate your own backyard and bring about an order in that little space, a little order as an individual within yourself. Because the individual is a very limited mind and being, and if he brings about order within himself, it has no meaning whatsoever. But what has meaning and significance: if that individual becomes a human being not belonging to any religion, to any nationality, to any class, to any political party but a human being with his problems, suffering, aching, in agony, greedy and envious, seeking power, position. And we are such human beings, and there we have to bring order.

We can only bring order negatively. I mean by that: order cannot be brought about by or through imitation or conformity. Please do listen to this; not because I’m talking about it, but you have to find out the truth of all this; it’s your life, it’s your misery, your desperation. When you’re living so close to disaster, you have to solve it. So listen to it with passion, with eagerness to find out how to live a different kind of life.

As we said, order can only come about negatively. If you deliberately set about to bring order within yourself, you attempt it either through suppression, control or through conformity. You understand? We want order; we see the importance of order, outwardly as well as inwardly; and there is no ideal pattern of orderliness. You can’t say, ‘This is orderly and this is not orderly. I’ll follow this path, which will bring about order within oneself,’ because order must begin within oneself first and then outwardly it will manifest itself. You cannot bring about order outwardly, as every politician, every reformer does throughout the world; he’s concerned in bringing about order outwardly. But there is order only when there is orderliness within. And then every action, every movement of life is orderly, sane, rational. So to find this order, one must approach it negatively. We will explain what we mean by that. It may be a little complex, but it is not really, if you will listen.

You know, it’s one of the most difficult things to listen. We hardly ever listen. We listen to our opinions; we listen to our knowledge of what we have experienced; we listen to what other people have said or written; we listen to all the promptings of our own prejudices, but we never listen to another. I’m going to talk about something which needs acute listening. You will have to listen to it; not counter it by your own knowledge, by your own information; you can do that much later. If you want to listen to somebody, you have to give attention; and you cannot give attention if your whole mind, your body, your nerves, your eyes, ears do not listen totally. And one has to listen to life that way. Life demands this attention, not your casual, irresponsible, disorderly attitudes and opinions, life demands that you listen to every movement of it. And life is yourself, your thoughts, your feeling, your activities, your ways of life, how you react — all that is the movement of life. And you have to listen to it passionately, completely, totally, with all your being. Then only does one understand the actual fact of life and the movement of life in which thought and mind can flow.

So if you’ll kindly listen to what is being said; not accepting — that would be too immature; nor denying, which would be equally juvenile — but if you listen to find out — to find out — and therefore you must listen with freedom. It is only a free mind that can find out.

So we said that orderliness, order, comes when… negatively; that is, when you understand what does not bring about order. Order cannot come through compulsion, through discipline — please listen carefully; I’ll explain all this — through conformity, because conformity denies freedom, conformity implies fear. In conforming there is submission, obedience, authority. A mind that is ridden with authority, with compulsive fears cannot possibly have order. So one begins to see that conformity to a pattern — however good, however noble, however sufficient — does not bring order. Therefore, one has to investigate within oneself this whole process of submission to a pattern of life; and that’s what actually is taking place. You are submitting to an idea as a national, as a Hindu, as a Muslim, as a… God knows what else. It is an idea, and you are submitting to it and therefore conforming to a tradition which has no value.

So when you understand this whole significance of conformity, in which is involved authority, fear, and the accepted norm as the way of life, then out of that understanding comes order. That is, if I see something as being false — not because somebody tells me, not because it is convenient for me or circumstances influence me or propaganda forces me to think in a certain way, but actually when I see something as false, unreal, which has no validity at all in life — then that very perception of what is false brings about order. Therefore order comes only through negation, not through the positive assertion of will.

You are…? I hope I am making myself clear. If not, we’re going to talk about it for the next three or four times and I hope by then we shall be able to communicate with each other.

You know, to communicate with one another is one of the most difficult things to do. I want to tell you something; I am passionately interested in what I’m telling you, because I think that’s the only way to live in… a different way. And to communicate with you, you must also be passionately interested; not when you go home, not when you are sitting in your office or in your business but actually now. So communion can only take place when you and I are both intense at the same time, at the same level; otherwise there is no communion between us. That intensity, that passionate attention is, after all, what we call love. When you love somebody intensely and the other person also loves at the same time, at the same level, with the same intensity, then there is communion; then words have a different perfume, different significance, different value. And that’s what we are doing.

If you don’t want to listen so completely, with such intense passion, you won’t understand this at all. Because our life is very short; we have to live so completely today and not tomorrow. So we have to understand this movement of life, with its tradition, with its brutality, with its agonies, with its violence, disorder; and in understanding this movement of confusion, conflict, out of that understanding comes order.

So order is only possible, and it comes about naturally, without your desiring it. If you desired it, it’ll be an act of will and therefore will essentially creates conflict. That is, ‘I want to be orderly’ — which means what? I don’t understand what has brought about disorder, but I’m merely resisting disorder; and I neither understand disorder nor order. I am only… a conceptual perception what order should be and conform according to that pattern; therefore that very concept of order brings about disorder. So will, conformity or the ideal as a pattern according to which order will bring about, only bring about disorder.

If you understand that completely — and you can only understand it completely, not verbally, but examining actually what is taking place within yourself, inside the skin; not try to bring about order, understand the actual fact as it is, what is actually taking place within yourself — then you will see, out of this understanding of what is the actual fact, out of that understanding comes order.

How can you have order if you are competitive, if you have divided yourself into nationalities, into sects? How can you have order if you call yourself a Hindu and I a Muslim? How can you have order if you’re a communist and I am an imperialist, and I hold to my opinions and you hold to your values? We destroy each other, and that’s what is actually taking place in the world. There have been religious wars, which have been called righteous wars. How can any war — any war — be righteous? To kill another — how can it be righteous? And our daily life of hate, competition, antagonism, ambition, seeking power, position, prestige — those bring about war. And war, which is violence, is the very essence of disorder.

You know, there is a great deal of the animal in us. The biologists tell you that, and we don’t have to listen to the biologists if we observe ourselves and observe the animals. There is a great deal of that animal in us. We are authoritarian, brutal, violent, pushing others aside, aggressive — which the animals are. There’s always the top animal, the dominant animal. All the characteristics… most of the characteristics of a human being are shown in the animal. Unless there is a transformation in each one of us, as a human being — that is, freeing ourselves from the animal — we shall live everlastingly in conflict.

So order is only possible when we understand the ways of disorder. Obviously, nationalism is a disorder. I know how the majority of you feel. When there is a war, the national spirit is very strong. Through hate we can unify ourselves, but that unity does not last. What brings about unity is the understanding of disunity. Nationalism, religious organisations, beliefs, dogmas, conceptual attitudes towards life — all these bring about disunity. You and I know this very well; any intelligent man reading history, observing daily facts knows all this; and yet we keep on repeating this pattern over and over again. So we do not learn through suffering, we do not learn through experience, we do not learn through history, but apparently we just want to live for the moment, suffer and die and not create a new world, a new sense of being.

So orderliness comes only when we understand the causes of disorder; when you cease to be a Hindu or a Muslim or a communist or a socialist, belonging to this party or that party, or belonging to this guru or that guru — which are all such infantile business. When you see how the world is divided by religions, by sects, by politicians, by hate; when you see it actually, not verbally, not theoretically but feel it in your blood, with your complete being, then you will do something. Then out of that perception comes order. Therefore order is only possible negatively, not positively.

You know, the question of positive and the negative are very important to understand in life. The positive, as we know, is conformity, doing something because somebody has told you or because your experience tells you that you must do it; or you are afraid and therefore you become aggressive, are aggressive and so on. All such pursuit of patterns as tradition — as conforming to a particular public opinion and so on and on — is what we call the positive action. But such positive action is destructive action because it breeds disorder. So it’s only when we begin to understand what brings about disorder, and when you understand that — not intellectually; there is no such thing as intellectual understanding; you understand it or not — if you understand it, then out of this extraordinary clarity comes order.

And one of the causes of disorder is violence. Why are we human beings violent? You understand, sir, the word itself? Why are we violent? Not somebody else is violent — the Muslim, the Hindu — you, as a human being, why are we violent? *Violent* being anger, hate, fear, accepting authority, asserting oneself constantly, hating — why? Because mostly because each of us wants security. When our security is threatened — you understand? — when your country, when your ideas, when your concept of what God or what truth or what should be or what should not be, when that conceptual attitude is threatened — which is, to make you feel so completely insecure — then you become aggressive, violent. Which means as long as you are satisfied, as long as you are left undisturbed in your little backyard, as long as nothing threatens you, then you live peacefully. But the moment there is any kind of threat, any kind of uncertainty — uncertainty about your relationship with your wife — then you become violent; uncertainty about your position, when you’re not capable of fulfilling yourself, being somebody, having a position, prestige — when all those are threatened, then you become violent.

So what you really want is not the ending of violence, what you really want is to be completely secure, both inwardly and outwardly. You want to be secure inwardly with your ideas, secure in your relationships, secure in your concepts. But unfortunately, you can never be secure. That’s one of the first things to realise: that life is not for the secure, which doesn’t mean that you must be insecure, or that you must seek insecurity. That is, each one of us, as a human being, we want to be secure within the pattern which we have created for ourselves as being secure; and that pattern will invariably contradict the pattern of another, and so there is a battle between us. And if you observe — not idealistically but factually — life is never secure: your wife may run away, or my wife may die, disease, death… nothing is secure.

Do think about it; do reflect about it, on it, and you’ll find it for yourself; which means to understand it is to be afraid. And we are frightened human beings, dreadfully frightened — frightened about insecurity, frightened about our relationship, frightened about our job, frightened about death, frightened about our love, our affections, our attitudes. So out of this fear comes violence. And we have lived that way for thousands of years, and we seem to be incapable of breaking through that darkness of fear. So that’s why we are violent.

Now, as a human being, can you understand for yourself — observing life, the everyday incidents — that there is no such thing as security; that life is a movement, an endless movement? And a man who can move with it and go beyond this movement, he will find that peace, that joy, that eternity. But that means one has to be rid of fear. And that’s one of the most difficult things to be free from. Therefore, one has to investigate the whole structure, the psychology of fear.

You know, to understand something like fear you have to observe it in yourself; not deny it or run away from it or suppress it but just to observe it. And to observe it, you must have clear eyes; you must listen to it very… completely. But you do not listen to it or you do not see the whole structure of fear if you try to develop courage, which is another escape from the fact, which is fear. I hope I’m conveying all this. So first, there must be no escape from fear. One has to observe it totally, completely. So there can be no escape. And we are caught in the network of escapes: your gods, your *puja*, your… oh, all the circus that exists around you is a network of escapes.

And a man who would really understand, be free of fear, has no escape; not only verbally; which is very difficult, because the word *fear* is in itself the cause of fear, if you observe it. Therefore one must be free of the word, and therefore of explanations of fear, of the cause of fear, of the searching out or the analysing of the process of fears, or the cause of fear. You must look at it totally, silently, completely. Then there is no escape; therefore you’re confronted with a fact. You know, if you are confronted with the fact of hate, not the justification of hate because somebody hates you, but the fact of hate in the world. And this hate is mounting, it’s not decreasing. Every war, every conflict, every inward struggle is an expression of hate. And to look at it demands that you look at it non-verbally; that you come directly in contact with this feeling of hate, which you cannot come directly in contact with it if you have a verbal concept of it; that is, either, ‘You must hate,’ or, ‘You must not hate.’

To understand something, sirs, you must look at it. To understand this whole phenomenon of violence in the world, you must understand the psychological structure of man, who has immense fears. That means you have to look at your own fears, which no God, no system, nothing will dissolve it except yourself. So you must become astonishingly serious. And seriousness leads to efficiency, clarity. It’s only the serious, earnest man that lives, and the rest become merely either cannon fodder or useless human beings. And it’s very difficult to be serious; not grow beards or put on a loincloth or put on a sanyasi robe or become a monk or join some ashrama; such a person is not a serious man at all. A serious man is one who sees the facts of the world as they are, not caught in concepts, in formulas or in ideals, but things as they are in the world and faces them and resolves them. Such a man is a serious man. And it’s only such serious men can bring about a different society.

And we need a different society, because society as it is, is always in a state of disorder, because there are classes, the rich and the poor, the man who knows, the man who does not know, the leader, the follower, the guru and the disciple. Think of all that and see how totally disorderly it is. And on that disordered society you try to build a new society, or try to reform that society. It is not possible. And it’s only… a new order can come into being only when we understand ourselves and bring about a total change within the human mind.

And the mind is extraordinarily capable of anything. Look what they are doing: going to the moon, going under the sea, living under the sea; consider the electronic brains, automation, the extraordinary scientific facts and the discoveries. The mind is capable of anything. But not your minds, because your minds are small, petty, concerned with itself, with its dogmas, with its fears, with its pursuits of its own pleasures. So all that has come to an end; then you will know for yourself what truth is; then you will know for yourself whether there is infinite joy or not. It is not someone else’s joy, someone else’s peace that matters; it’s yours that matters infinitely because you, as a human being in relation with another human being, alone can bring about a revolution; not economic or social revolution — which again is an outward thing. A revolution must begin within oneself. And then you will have peace, a state of non-violence, a state of freedom from violence and order. Without these, we are not human beings; we are violent, destructive, incapable of order and therefore we have no love.

Sir, as I said at the beginning of the talk, we are not doing propaganda. I am not trying to convince you of anything. All that we are trying to point out is that you, as a human being, can change and must change; not through any form of compulsion, not through some influence, but the necessity of it. And then only, out of that necessity, out of that understanding, there’ll be a freedom. And it is only the free man that can bring about a new world, a new society.