Krishnamurti: What do you mean by progress.
Questioner: Scientific progress.
Krishnamurti: From the bullock cart to the jet plane – that is progress, is it not? Centuries ago there was only the bullock cart; but gradually, through time, we have developed the jet plane. The means of transport in ancient times was very slow, and now it is very rapid; you can be in London within a few hours. Through sanitation, through proper nutrition and medical care, there has been a great improvement also in matters of physical health. All this is scientific progress; and yet we are not developing or progressing equally in brotherhood.
Now, is brotherhood a matter of progress? We know what we mean by ‘progress’. It is evolution, achieving something through time. The scientists say that we have evolved from the monkey; they say that, through millions of years, we have progressed from the lowest forms of life to the highest, which is man. But is brotherhood a matter of progress? Is it something which can be evolved through time? There is the unity of the family and the unity of a particular society or nation; from the nation the next step is internationalism, and then comes the idea of one world. The one-world concept is what we call brotherhood. But is brotherly feeling a matter of evolution? Is the feeling of brotherhood to be slowly cultivated through the stages of family, community, nationalism, internationalism and world unity? Brotherliness is love, is it not? And is love to be cultivated step by step? Is love a matter of time? Do you understand what I am talking about?
If I say there will be brotherhood in ten, or thirty, or a hundred years, what does that indicate? It indicates, surely, that I do not love, I do not feel brotherly. When I say, “I will be brotherly, I will love”, the actual fact is that I do not love, I am not brotherly. As long as I think in terms of ‘I will be’, I am not. Whereas, if I remove from my mind this concept of being brotherly in the future, then I can see what I actually am; I can see that I am not brotherly, and begin to find out why.
Which is important, to see what I am, or to speculate about what I will be? Surely, the important thing is to see what I am, because then I can deal with it. What I will be is in the future, and the future is unpredictable. The actual fact is that I have no brotherly feeling, I do not really love; and with that fact I can begin, I can immediately do something about it. But to say that one will be something in the future is mere idealism, and the idealist is an individual who is escaping from what is; he is running away from the fact, which can be altered only in the present.
You will remember that we have been talking about fear. Now, is not fear responsible for the accumulation of knowledge? This is a difficult subject, so let us see if we can go into it, let us consider it very carefully.
Human beings accumulate and worship knowledge, not only scientific but so-called spiritual knowledge. They think that knowledge is so important in life knowledge of what has happened, and of what is going to happen. This whole process of accumulating information, worshipping knowledge – does it not arise from the background of fear? We are afraid that without knowledge we would be lost, we would not know how to conduct ourselves. So, through reading what the sages have said, through other people’s beliefs and experiences, and also through our own experiences, we gradually build up a background of knowledge which becomes tradition; and behind this tradition we take refuge. We think this knowledge or tradition is essential, and that without it we would be lost, we would not know what to do.
Now, when we talk about knowledge, what do we mean by that word? What is it that we know? What do you really know, when you come to consider the knowledge you have accumulated? At a certain level, in science, engineering, and so on, knowledge is important; but beyond that, what is it that we know?
Have you ever considered this process of accumulating knowledge? Why is it that you study, why do you pass examinations? Knowledge is necessary at a certain level, is it not? Without a knowledge of mathematics and other subjects, one could not be an engineer or a scientist. Social relationship is built upon such knowledge, and we would not be able to earn a livelihood without it. But beyond that kind of knowledge, what do we know? Beyond that, what is the nature of knowledge?
What do we mean when we say that knowledge is necessary to find God, or that knowledge is necessary to understand oneself, or that knowledge is essential to find a way through all the turmoils of life? Here we mean knowledge as experience; and what is this experience? What is it that we know through experience? Is not this knowledge used by the ego, by the ‘me’, to strengthen itself?
Say, for instance, that I have achieved a certain social standing. This experience, with its feelings of success, of prestige, of power, gives me a certain sense of assurance, of comfort. So the knowledge of my success the knowledge that I am somebody, that I have position, power, strengthens the ‘me’, the ego, does it not?
Have you not noticed how knowledge-puffed the pundits are, or how knowledge gives to your father, your mother, your teacher the attitude, ‘I have experienced more than you have; I know and you do not’? So knowledge, which is merely information, gradually becomes the sustenance of vanity, the nourishment of the ego, the ‘me’. For the ego cannot exist without this or some other form of parasitical dependence.
The scientist uses his knowledge to feed his vanity, to feel that he is somebody, just as the pundit does. Teachers, parents, gurus – they all want to be somebody in this world, so they use knowledge as a means to that end, to fulfil that desire; and when you go behind their words, what is it that they really know? They know only what the books contain, or what they have experienced; and their experiences depend on the background of their conditioning. Like them, most of us are filled with words, with information which we call knowledge, and without it we are lost; so there is always fear lurking behind this screen of words, of information.