Public Discussion 2, Rishi Valley, 9 November 1967

*Identification: 9th of November, 1967, Mr J Krishnamurti’s second public discussion of the Rishi Valley Gathering.*

Krishnamurti (K): We’re going to carry on with the dialogue, that is, converse together, talk over together any questions that might arise. This is not a talk this morning, but we’re going to go into a problem together. I’ve got several questions here about what we said yesterday morning, and if you have other questions would you ask now, and I can answer, go into these later. *(Pause)* All right, then.

Questioner (Q): Sir, you spoke of living in the instant each moment without thought. Now it seems to me you need to have a mind that finds or at least lives entirely in this instant. I don’t see how the two can go together. We’ve to find some answer which makes it… (inaudible)

K: The question is, you have said: To live completely in the moment without thought. That question sounds rather cuckoo, doesn’t it? (*Laughs*) It is I suppose what I have said. So it must sound rather odd if you merely take it out of context.

First, before we answer the question in this, why is it that we make everything into a concept, into an idea, a formula? Why? Why is it we always live in an ideological world—read the Gita, the Bible, the Quran or whatever religious books you have that you read, and it becomes a concept, a formula, and according to that you live. Why? Why have ideas, ideologies become so extraordinarily important? You hear somebody say that you must live completely in the present. And that immediately, that becomes an idea, a formula and you say now, how am I going to live in the present so completely, without planning. So, the idea, the conclusion, the formula, is first conceived and then you want to live according to that. Why do we do this? Please, let’s go into this rather carefully, because what we are going to ask, questions afterwards, becomes difficult if this is not understood. Somebody says, some religious saint—unbalanced, immature, and most saints are—says that to be a really religious man, you must have nothing whatsoever to do with a woman. He says that. And because he has got the gift of the gab, or he’s capable of writing, or he’s popular, or he is traditional and therefore he’s popular, we accept it, we say that’s right. But why? Why do we accept what others say? Why do we create a formula out of all this: That in order to be spiritual, I must be completely, I must have no sexual desire, feeling at all. That becomes the pattern, the formula, and according to that you’re going to live because you want to achieve a certain state. Why do we do this all the time? And then there’s a conflict between the actuality and the formula, the concept, and we’re caught in this conflict always. One has the religious concept that if you want to find reality, lead the most extraordinary spiritual life, all sexual desire must be banished. And one is tortured by sexual desires. The actuality is one thing and the ideational demands are quite another. And hence there is a conflict between the two. Now, why do we do this? Why do we say, no this is right, this is wrong, this must be, this must not be? Why? Why can’t we live with the actual, with the ‘what is’, every minute with ‘what is’, not with ‘what should be’. Why don’t we do that? If I am sexual, all right, I am. I want to know all about it, I want to find out. But if I have an idea, that really to find God, or whatever the thing that one is seeking, you cannot possibly have sexual feelings, then the battle becomes much greater. I don’t know if you are following all this. The actuality is what is real, I have to live with it. I’m angry, why should I have an ideal of non-anger? I’m violent, why should I have the opposite which is non-violence? Do think it. Why? Why do we always do this—create the opposite. Why? Why can’t I accept the fact that I am stupid? Why should I say no I must not be stupid, because that man is so clever? Why do I compare myself with another? Do I become more intelligent through comparison?

Q: Sir, we have the ignorance of thought. That is essentially the problem. I know these things because I’m using thought to investigate them.

K: Wait, sir. First, let us see, let us see. First see this dualistic struggle that’s going in all of us all the time. Why can’t I accept the fact—not accept, it is so—that I am sexual—right?—or that I am angry, that I am violent. Why do I have to create the, bring in the opposite? Please, this is very important to understand this. If we could understand this one simple fact, then we can go, I mean, then there is no conflict, therefore investigation becomes extraordinarily interesting.

Q: Since we are angry we have to find its cause.

K: You are just repeating, look, madame, don’t just repeat something. I’m asking, why, when I am angry, why should I say to myself, I must not be angry. Why?

Q: Because it is painful we want its opposite.

K: Wait, look at it, look what you are saying. When it is painful, we want its opposite. But when it’s pleasurable, we don’t want its opposite. No, no, do look at it. So, we do not want the opposite when it is pleasurable. But when it is painful, we want the opposite. Right? And the pleasurable, does it not breed the painful? Ah, you see, you… First, therefore, one has to find out why the mind, why each one of us, always seeks the pleasure principle and avoids the painful principle, and are they not both the same? Look, I sit here and look at those hills and trees and the light on those leaves and the flowers. There’s great beauty in it. And it delights, not only the aesthetic sense, but also it delights the inward quality of the mind. And I want that to continue, that delight, and I think about it: How I can perpetuate this pleasure, and I come here again tomorrow morning and look at it, and the pleasure is not there. It’s not the same as it was, the first moment when I saw this. And so the pleasure has now become painful. I struggle to achieve the same pleasure. Right? Sir, do it yourself, in yourself, you watch it. Don’t agree or disagree, observe in yourself. Then the very demand for pleasure has brought about the pain, because of not having it. No? No? You all look so puzzled, what.

I want to be the most powerful person in this potty little village, or in the biggest village, which is the town, and everybody wants to have that position too, including the Prime Ministers and all the rest of the gang. And I can’t get it. I’m disappointed. It hurts me. The pleasure, which I would have had, if I became the biggest whatever it is in the town, which would have brought me pleasure, is denied to me and therefore I get hurt. Now, why don’t I see that fact? And so I say to myself, I see this fact: when you seek pleasure, you’re inviting pain. Seeking pleasure, you understand, sir? Not the instant pleasure of seeing something beautiful. No, you don’t see all this. The seeing, seeing the instant beauty of something is one thing and seeking the pleasure out of that beauty is another. And living in the present is the instant perception of beauty and the great delight in it without seeking pleasure out of it. Oh.

Now the problem then is, why do I live or why does one, human beings throughout the world, create the opposite? You understand? It’s a concept. Why do we live in a conceptual world? Unless you answer this for yourself, what we discuss has no meaning. I wonder… Look, sir, one is violent, human beings throughout the world are violent, aggressive because they have, part of their nature is still the animalistic. And that’s a fact, we are violent, brutal, angry, competitive, aggressive, holding on to our petty little opinions and fighting for them, and so on, so on, so on. Now that’s a fact. Now the conceptual world is the non-violence. And I use the concept of non-violence in order to get rid of violence. At least, I think I do. You’d say, if I had no ideal, what shall I do with what is? And you think by having an ideal you can get rid of the fact, the actual. But you haven’t. You’ve had ideals galore. All the sacred books and all the books are full of ideals, but yet you’re still violent. So why not deal with violence and forget the ideational world altogether?

Q: (Inaudible)

K: Beg your pardon?

Q: It is momentary, this anger or whatever.

K: No, I can’t discuss with this kind of silly…

Q: This comes to us before ideas.

K: No, madame, please, we’re not discussing that at all. We are discussing something entirely different. We are trying to find out why this dualistic existence comes into being.

Q: We can’t understand the actuality. So when you…

K: All right, if you cannot understand actuality, why create the fictitious world?

Q: That’s it.

K: Not that’s it, sir, you don’t keep a little… I want to understand the actual. To understand the actual, I must give my attention to it, my energy to it. That attention and energy are distracted when I create a fictitious ideal world. So can I, can we completely banish the ideal. And so, it reveals something, which is, the man who is really earnest, serious, and there is the urge to find out what is true, what is love, has no concept at all. So from that you can see, really spiritual—to use that ugly word *spiritual*—the really spiritual man lives only in what is. Hm. I hope you swallow that pill. So you see, you eliminate conflict altogether. Oh, you don’t see this. If I’m angry, I investigate that fact. And to investigate a fact, there must be no condemnation, no judgment, no justification, I must look at it. But I condemn it the moment I have the opposite. And to investigate my anger is fairly simple. I’m angry because I didn’t sleep well, I’ve not eaten enough, my wife or the husband or the boss has been angry with me, I can’t take it out of them, therefore I take it out of somebody else, and so on and on. I can easily find out why I am angry. And if I want to stop it, it is equally easy to stop it. So I don’t live in a hypocritical world. I have no double standards. I wonder if you’re following all this. I don’t say one thing and think something else. When I say I dislike or hate—that sounds terrible—someone, that’s a fact, and I look into it. I deal with it. I go into it, so completely that it ceases. But if I say well, I must be, I must have love in my heart, I mustn’t hate anybody, I must be this and I must… that’s a fictitious world that has no meaning at all. Right? So, to live completely in the moment, fully, is to live with what is the actual without any sense of condemnation or justification. Then I live, then the mind lives with it completely, understands it so totally, you’re finished with it.

Q: Such an actuality seems to be of no concern. The point is this: between the level of calling it and level of seeing it your explanation seems to be presumption only.

K: Qu’es qu’il ya? What’s that ?

Q: Your actuality seems to be…

K: It is not my actuality, it’s your actuality. (*Laughter*)

Q: The contradiction between actuality and image seems to be fictitious because there is underlying difference, it’s just a resemblance…

K: Sir, sir, I can’t… Sir, do look sir, don’t say both the actuality and the fictitious are both images.

Q: All I am aware of is two images.

K: No, sir, that is not so. I am in pain. I have a toothache. That is not an image.

Q: That is some physical perception and there is a mental image that I must get rid of it.

K: No, sir. Do listen, sir. I have actual pain. There’s no image about it.

Q: Image in the sense, sir, senses have provided certain data and I form an image. On psychological level…

K: Sir, sir, look at it. Sir, take a toothache, pain, physical pain.

Q: How do I know it, sir? How do I know that I am in pain? Senses have given me data…

K: Do you have to go through electronic computers to find out you’ve pain? (*Laughter*)

Q: It is already computerized and it has already been processed through it.

K: Sir, do look, sir. Don’t complicate the issue, it is complicated enough. (*Laughter*) Do look at it simply. I have pain. That is not a fictitious state, it’s an actuality. Now what does my mind do? It says I mustn’t have pain, it gets agitated—right?—and creates all kinds of issues, problems, and all the rest of it. I have pain, I’ll go to the dentist or do something. That’s over. Or if it is not over, I put up with it, without distorting my vision, my clarity. Sir, look, first of all, the speaker is not condemning or justifying or evaluating any problem. I am not condemning anything. And when you do condemn or justify, you can’t see clearly. When you see clearly the problem is solved. Right? So please, when we are going to discuss or answer these questions, please bear in mind that: We are *not* condemning, or justifying, and therefore there is no ideological world at all as far as the speaker is concerned. Right? We are dealing with actualities, which are not fictitious.

Now, we talked yesterday about behaviour and love. And these questions are put after hearing yesterday’s talk.

The first question is: It is said in Hindu sacred books that an enlightened man is utterly without the slightest sexuality or any other desire. Is this true?

Sir, there are six questions, shall I read them all out together? Or answer one by one?

Q: As you please, sir.

K: Not as *I*… Which is more worthwhile, to answer one by one or take the whole lot of it and put them all together?

Q: If you put them all together one or two of them might be forgotten.

K: Yes, if I put all of them together, some of them might be forgotten. So, I’ll answer each one. And then we’ll go into it. We’re discussing, you understand? We are not answering a question. We are conversing together, talking over the problem together.

It is said in Hindu sacred books that an enlightened man is utterly without the slightest sexuality or any other desire. Is this true? (*Laughs*)

Now first of all, why do you have sacred books? What are sacred books? It is what *you* attribute to the book. The book in itself is not sacred. Right? It’s like any other book. You attribute something sacred to it, which is, somebody, *you* think that what that book contains is straight from heaven. Right? To me there is no such book, straight from heaven. Which means I have no authority at all. Right? First of all, I don’t read any of those books, I don’t want to read them. Why should I? Because, what is important is not what other people say, what you discover, what you, through self-knowledge, through understanding yourself, come upon truth. That is original, not second-hand repetition of some sacred book whether it is Gita, Bible or Quran. To me all that’s rubbish. So, an enlightened man is supposed not to have any sexuality or any other desire. Why do you accept it? Why do you make it into an ideal? And who says it, some unbalanced person? You know, sir, you see what is behind this question. Let’s go into it.

You see, we need energy to find out any fact in life. Right? I need energy to understand anger. Right? But I dissipate that energy when I create its opposite. Right? I don’t know if you’re following all this. So I must have, there must be complete abundance of energy to find out why I am angry. But that abundance of energy is denied when I create its opposite. So I push that away, because that creates conflict. So, I need energy. So, it is said—from all these books and what saints and sanyasis who have come to see me and the pundits and all the rest of those crowd—have said you must not have any sexual desires because it’s a waste of energy. Right? Then what takes place? You must not have those desires, sexual feelings. But you *have* them. They’re burning you. That’s a fact. But the ideal says if you want to reach enlightenment, you mustn’t have those.

You know that lovely story of that man, saint or that enlightened person who has a girl on his knee and an extraordinary symbol of a calf on the other knee and he is equal, he doesn’t feel about anything, he feels equally to both, which is all so idiotic, childish. (*Laughter*) Wait, wait, you laugh, but that’s the tradition. So, we need energy, and any conflict dissipates that energy—any conflict. Please follow this. Whether the conflict between the duality of violence and non-violence, whether sexuality or non-sexuality, whether one desire opposing another desire, is a waste of energy. I wonder if you’re following all this. To suppress sexuality is a waste of energy. Or, to indulge in it is a waste of energy.

So one has to find out, not according to Hindu literature or—oh throw all those away for God’s sake. Find out for yourself, how, having these desires, sexualities, how you can live without conflict. Either you can go to sleep and obviously then you’ll not have conflict, or tremendously alive and yet not have conflict. I wonder if you are following all this. So the first thing in this question is, not to have authority of an ideal—doesn’t matter who says it, including the speaker. Then you are dealing with the fact, with actuality, and to understand the actuality, why you are so caught up in sexuality, you have to find out. Have you ever asked yourself why so many human beings have made sexuality into such a tremendous problem? So all the churches, all the religions have denied, have said you must not be sexual, in order to find whatever they want to find. Right? Now, why is it now that it has become such an extraordinary problem? Why, sirs? We are discussing, please. You are not listening to me. Why?

Q: By not facing the facts.

K: No, don’t…

Q: There is no conflict.

K: You are not answering my question, sir. Why has sexuality become a problem?

Q: Because one has suppressed it.

K: Because one has suppressed it.

Q: It has been suggested for us that we have, and therefore we want to do it.

K: Yes, same thing. All right. Is that why it has become so important?

Q: It has become very important, because intellectually and by reason we have idolized sex because it’s getting that pleasure.

K: Sir, look, sir, go into it little more. That’s the only pleasure we have, isn’t it? Original, authentic pleasure, right? Don’t be all so shut up. It is so, for God’s sake, be open about all these matters. Intellectually we are barred. Intellectually we’ve been stifled: You must do this, you must not do this. Living in a world of ideas, concepts, which are fictitious world. So intellectually you are second-hand, your thinking is all what somebody else has said—what Gita, the Upanishads, the Quran, the Bible, the politician, the saint, you know, what somebody else has said, Aldous Huxley or Teilhard de Chardin and so on, so on, so on. Right? So intellectually there is nothing active on your own. That’s a fact, isn’t it? So intellectually you’re not flowering. You may take delight in what other people have said, comparing each other or quoting and so on. That gives you some superficial pleasure. But the actual pleasure of clear perceptive thinking, feeling, intellectually, you have not had; you haven’t got it. Right? And so that great release is denied.

And emotionally—which is different. To feel tremendously is different from sentimentality and emotionalism. To feel very strongly is entirely different from feeling, from sentimentality, feeling, you know, being sentimental, emotional, which is so superficial. Getting tremendously excited about linguistic differences, about the rag which is coloured called the nationalistic flag, and all the rest of it. So, all round we are throttled, right? And this sexuality is the only release that you have. I don’t know if you’re meeting all this. So that has become a problem. But intellectually if you can throw away all that you have read—not technologically, I am not talking of the technological field—then you take delight in seeing things clearly; seeing truth, when falsehood is spoken: by the politician, by the guru, by the saint, by the newspapers and so on. Therefore your mind becomes extraordinarily sharp. And also you have strong feelings, which is entirely different from devotion, sentimentality, emotionalism—that’s all so childish. So when you have strong feelings, which is really tremendous passion, and intellectually are awake, then sexuality has its own place, it doesn’t become an immense consuming problem which distorts all existence. And, what the Hindu scriptures say has very little importance. What they say is mere tradition, and how do you know what they say is true? Because they’re old? Because it’s a printed book? So, that has very little value. What has value is your own understanding, not according to somebody else.

(K reads): You say love doesn’t know emotion or sentiment. This sounds terribly bleak. What about tenderness, care, affection, are these excluded from love? (Repeats) You say love doesn’t know emotion or sentiment. This sounds terribly bleak. What about tenderness, care, affection? Are these excluded from love?

When you exclude sentimentality and emotionalism, do you get rid of love? Please, sir, let’s talk it over. I’m not holding forth all the time.

Q: No.

K: What do you mean ‘no’? (*Laughs*) You know, sir, sentimentality and emotionalism, we know what that is, very well, don’t we? No?

Q: What do you mean by emotion?

K: What do I mean emotion? Getting excited about something. Emotions, which is reaction, like and dislike, or saying I prefer this and I don’t like you because you’ve said something against me. Now, devotion obviously is not love. Right? I am devoted to my house, my wife, my God, my…. I am devoted *to* something. What does that mean? To the something I’m devoted to, is a projection of myself. Oh, for God’s sake! No? Of course, of course. When I say, I am devoted to my wife, you know what is implied in that. That is sentimentality, emotionalism and extend that to an ideal called god, it’s still the same.

So, sir, first, what is important is not whether what I am talking about love excludes sentimentality and emotionalism or also whether it includes tenderness, care and affection. What is important is to find out for yourself what love is, not what somebody else says. So to love, to love means to care. That means to care for your children if you have any children. Care means give them right education. Right? To really care for them, which means, not to make them traditional, not to force them to become businessmen or lawyers or something which you think they should be. To care, as you would care for a tree, for a plant. You study the plant, what it needs, you study the soil, and water it, look after it with care, with gentleness, with tenderness. But we don’t do this with regard to our children.

Q: We are not so intelligent to find out.

K: Beg your pardon?

Q: (Repeats)

K: It is not easy to find out…

Q: …what they want.

K: …what they want. Why do you want to find out what they want?

Q: It is not so easy to find out if one is not very intelligent to find out what they want.

Q: …what they require.

K: To give them good education… Need I go into all this? Sir, most parents unfortunately think they are responsible, and their responsibility takes the form of telling them what they should do, what they should not do, what they should become. Right? Have you not noticed a person who feels responsible, he wants them to have safe, secure position in society. Right? Get them a good job, marry them off and that’s the end of that. And that’s what we call care. And what does that do, when you prepare them to fit into a society? Then you are perpetuating wars, conflict, brutality, maintaining armies. No? And you’re preparing your children to be killed. No? And you call that caring for children, responsible. So when you love, there must be freedom—freedom for yourself as well as for the other. So to understand this question, one must, it seems to me, become extraordinarily simple about all these matters. To love somebody—without jealousy, without anger, without hate, without wanting to interfere with what they are doing, without condemning. To really love somebody—don’t you know what that means? Don’t you know? Please, sir, this is a discussion, this is a conversation.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: I am not interested in what they should do, should not, madame, what are you—you are consumed with your children, aren’t you?

Q: No, you are probably speaking about children only.

K: I am saying, I am asking, to you children are very important, your children, aren’t they?

Q: Yes.

K: Yes, why?

Q: I think I love them.

K: So, you think you love them, therefore they are very important. This is too… Sorry, I won’t go into all this. You see, love is an investment in our children. No? So to love means, no fear. How can you love if you have fear? And so on, so on.

(K reads the question): Is marriage and sex excluded for a religious man? If so, why? Oh, for goodness’ sake. I don’t know, do you?

Q: The question is not clear.

K: Question not clear. Is marriage and sex excluded for a religious man? If so, why?

Do you know? Are they excluded for you? You’re supposed to be religious, aren’t you? (*Laughs*) Oh, for goodness sake.

Q: We look to you.

K: Look to me? What for? (*Laughter*) To tell you, to tell you to marry or not to marry? (*Laughter*) To tell you that if you want to be a really religious man, you must not have sex? And if I did, if I was foolish enough to tell you and you were foolish enough to accept it, would you be—follow it, sir, to the very end, follow it to the very end—would you have no sexual feelings at all?

Q: Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean that. What I meant was, once again we have a concept looking at you, that to be truly religious, is to have no marriage and all the rest that follow.

K: You see, therefore you have an authority who tells you, don’t marry, don’t have sexual feelings, and if you want to reach the highest enlightenment, etc., you must be celibate. Are you? Haven’t you all your desires, your sexual feelings? What do you mean by sexual feelings? Let’s get at that, for God’s sake! What do you mean by sexual feelings? To look at a woman? All the biological urges? And to look at a tree, is that not also a sexuality? To look at a flower, which has great beauty—that is a form of sensuality too, isn’t it? No? So if you deny, as most religions have denied, sexuality, then you must close your eyes, cut your tongue, put out your eyes, and never look at anything. Don’t laugh, sir, this is what you are doing anyhow. Because you’re not aware of beauty at all. And to you beauty is associated with a woman or with a man. Therefore the Shankaras of the world have said don’t have anything to do with woman if you want to be spiritual. And so you deny the whole beauty of the earth. Have you ever stopped, you, you particularly, each one of you, looked at a tree, looked at a flower? Have you ever looked at a woman or a man who is beautiful and not say, well I want to get something out of her or him? Just to look at the beauty of something, of the hills, the trees, the flowers, the faces, the smiles. You have not, and therefore you don’t know what love is, or what beauty is. All that you know is, you must not and you must. And so you’ve starved your heart and your mind, you’re dehydrated human beings. And you smile, and accept it, and carry on. So, sir, first thing is, not to condemn, and then you will know what love is.

(K reads): To live with the full resources of one’s emotional, mental, physical being seems sane and healthy. Does the love you speak of, allow full, healthy response of this kind? To live with the full resources of one’s emotional, mental and physical being, seems sane and healthy. Does the love you speak of, allow a full, healthy response of this kind?

It is not the love that the speaker speaks of, it’s just love. When you love, you live completely. Sir, you understand? You look at the shadow of the tree and that is complete delight, that is the full delight of the moment. When you see a nice smiling face, the beauty of a hill, the beauty of a flower, the silence of the night—when you feel all this, you’re living completely, sanely, healthily. And that’s love, not when you’re in conflict, when you are living in an ideational world away from this beastly ugly world. So, sirs, please, to understand what love is, which is not what *I* am talking about love—love, which is to be kind, to be generous, never self-seeking, without any self-pity, without violence, hatred, or creating antagonism, just to be kind, loving. Then you’ll solve all the other problems. If you know how to love, then you can do what you will. Because we don’t know what love is, we are trying to do every crooked thing.

(K reads): How to love the particular, without depending, without being absorbed by the particular? How to love the particular, without depending on the particular, without being absorbed by the particular? You’ve understood the question?

Sir, why is it we are absorbed by another? A child is absorbed by the toy with which he’s playing. He’s absorbed. Take away the toy, he becomes again restless, mischievous, all the rest of it. Right? That’s one form of absorption. I am absorbed by—what? By drink; drink takes me. Or, I am absorbed by a person—by my wife, by my husband, which is, I am absorbed by her, by him or by an idea—you’re following?—by a concept of God. So I depend on these concepts, on the wife or on the husband, because they take me away from myself. Right? I wonder if you’re following all this. In myself I’m nothing. I’m lost, confused, miserable, in conflict, in agony, despair, nothing satisfies, violent, discontent, I am in sorrow. And God, drink, some form of social commitment, wife, husband—they absorb me. That’s an easy escape, isn’t it? And so I depend on them. So, wife, God, drink, circus, church ceremonies, become extraordinarily important, because I’m running away from myself, from what I am. So I depend on others, on books, on ideologies. And when I depend on others, mischief is set going. In myself I am poor, empty, dull, stupid. What matters is not being absorbed or dependent on others, but I am empty, lonely, in sorrow. And as long as I don’t understand that and be free of all that, whatever I do creates only more mischief, whether I depend on God or on books or on anything.

(K reads): Absolutely, the only way to live is with love. How to love, and loving, how to be free of the enslavement to the particular? Absolutely, the only way to live is with love. How to love, and loving, how to be free of the enslavement to the particular?

You mean to say that you are slaves to the one person whom you think you love, to the particular? Are you? And you also say the only way to live is with love. And then you go on to add, how to love. Is there a method, a system, which by practising will bring you love? You might, by practising a system, a method, you might become extraordinarily clever, have a technological mind, which may be like a computer mind. But will you know what love is? So when you say how to love, aren’t you putting the wrong question? So what is the right question? Obviously, to say tell me how to love—for God’s sake! You know what you’re asking when you say please teach me, tell me how to love? Which means that you really don’t know how to love. Right?

If you don’t know how to love, then who is going to teach you? Will any authority, will anybody outside teach you how to love? So no system, no method—that you can forget. All right. Then how will this perfume, this eternal spring which doesn’t depend on anything, come into your life? How does it come, sirs? Obviously not through thought. Right? Thought cannot possibly cultivate love, right? Or do you say, no, it can? Love is something that’s fresh, new, alive every minute. It has no yesterday and tomorrow. It’s alive. And thought is old, thought is the response of memory, memory which has been accumulated through knowledge, through experience, and so on, so on. And therefore reaction from that is thought, and thought is always old. So thought cannot possibly engender, bring about this extraordinary thing called love. Right? Right? Then what will you do? And you know very well without love, do what you will, improve the society, feed the poor, do what you will, you’ll be only creating more mischief—not that the poor should not be fed and all the rest of it. But without love, there is only ugliness, poverty in one’s mind and heart, right? So how will you come by it? By loving somebody? By falling in love with somebody? How will you come by it, sirs?

You don’t know, do you? Please, sir, this is a conversation. Do you know how to come by it? No? If you don’t know what will you do? Do go into it, please: I don’t know how to come by it; I don’t know how to come to that extraordinary fountain; I don’t know how to live with it. I really don’t know what to do. Right? Then what do I do? If I don’t know what to do, I do nothing. Right? You’re following what I am saying? Absolutely nothing. I don’t say I love my children, I love my God, my country, I must do this. I do absolutely, inwardly nothing, which means inwardly I’m completely silent. You understand what that means? It means I’m neither seeking nor wanting nor pursuing nor haunting, which means that there is no centre at all. And when there is no centre and therefore no circumference, then there is love.

Right, sir.