K School – Students Talk 5, Rishi Valley, 1 February 1966

[Chanting]

Krishnamurti (K): I don’t know if it has ever struck you, why we human beings lose the sense of extraordinary joy in life. When you are very young, like you, it’s a delight to be alive, to hear the birds of a morning, as they are singing this morning, to see the clouds, the hills after the rain, all those rocks shining in the sun, to see the leaves sparkling, all the leaves washed by the rain, and to see the clouds go by, and to take delight in all that, and to rejoice on a clear morning with a full heart and a clear mind. And we lose this as we grow up, with worries, anxieties, quarrels, hatred, fear, and the everlasting struggle to earn a livelihood. And we spend our days that way, in battle with each other, disliking and liking, with a little pleasure now and then. But we never hear any more the birds, see the trees as we once saw them, see the dew on the grass and the bird on the wing, and the shiny rock on a mountainside glistening in the morning light. We never any more see all that. Why? I don’t know if you have ever asked yourself that question. I think you have to ask. If you don’t ask it now, you will soon be caught in it. You will go to college, pass some stupid examinations, get married, children, husbands, wives, responsibilities, office, earning a livelihood, and then getting old, dying. That’s what happens to all people. And unless we ask now why, why do we lose this extraordinary feeling of beauty when you see the flowers, when you hear the bees, and all the beautiful things of life. Why do we lose it?

I think we lose it primarily because we are so concerned with ourselves. We have an image of ourselves. You know what an image is? It is something carved by the hand, beautiful or ugly, out of a stone, out of marble, and this stone carved by the hand is put in a temple and worshipped, but it is still hand-made, made by the man. So it is an image. We have also an image about ourselves, not made by the hand but made by the mind, by thought, by experience, by knowledge, by our struggle, by all the conflicts and miseries of our life. That’s the image which we have of ourselves. You haven’t got any at present, you are too young. But probably a little bit older, already if you are fifteen, sixteen, you have already begun to have an image about yourself—what you must be, what you must not be, how you should live, how you should not live, what you are going to be and so on. That’s the image you are already creating about yourself. And that image becomes stronger, larger, all-demanding, and insisting. And the more we listen, act, have our existence in that image, the less we see of beauty, of joy, of something beyond the little promptings of the image. I think that is the reason why we lose this quality of a fullness, because we are so concerned. You know what that word *to be concerned* means? To be occupied with oneself, to be occupied with your qualities, whether you are good or bad, what your neighbours think of you, whether you have a nice husband or a wife, whether you have a good job, whether you are going to become a big man or be thrown aside by society, and so on and on, and on and on, struggling, struggling, struggling. In the office, and at home, in the fields, whatever we do we are always struggling, we are always in conflict; and we don’t seem to be able to come out of that. And not being able to come out of it, we create another image—the image of a perfect state in heaven, or God, another image again made by the mind.

So we have not only an image inwardly, but also deeper down we have other images, many of them, and they are always in conflict with each other. And so, the more you are in conflict, and conflict will always exist as long as you have images about yourself, opinions and concepts, ideas about yourself, you will always be in struggle, always.

So the question is: is it possible to live in this world without an image about yourself? You know, for a doctor, a scientist, a teacher, a physicist, you may have a function. You do certain things. But function does not necessarily create the image of oneself. But we use the function to create the image about ourselves. And so we use function, and thereby create conflict in functioning, in doing. I wonder if you understand all this. You know, if you play, if you dance, if you play an instrument, a violin, the veena, or dance well, beautifully, you use the instrument or the dance to create the image about yourself—how marvellous you are, how wonderfully well you play or dance. So you use the dancing, the playing of the instrument, in order to enrich your own image of yourself. And that’s how we live, constantly creating, strengthening that image of ourselves. And so there is more conflict, and so the mind gets more and more and more dull and occupied with itself. And so we lose the sense of beauty, of joy, of clear thinking.

So I think it is part of our education to function, to do, whether you are an engineer, whether you are a doctor, a professor, a teacher, a scientist, to do any function without creating an image, through that function, of ourselves, so that you function without the battle, the inward struggle that goes on within ourselves. So it seems to me, education which is what we are all going through, even though the older ones or the younger ones, we are all being educated all the time. There is no end to education. It isn’t that you read a book and pass an examination, and then finish with education. You think you have finished with it. You have not. The whole of life—from now, from the moment you are born till the moment you die, it’s a process of learning. Learning has no end, and that is the timeless quality of learning. And you cannot learn if you are in battle, if you are in conflict with yourself, with your neighbour, with your society. And you will always be in conflict, with your society, with your neighbour as long as there is that image, and you are not learning about that image, not only not creating it, but also learning all about the mechanics of putting together this image. If you’re learning that all the time, then you will see that you can look at the sky, then you look at the river, the rain drops on the leaf, feel the cool air of a morning, and the fresh breeze among the leaves. Then life has an extraordinary meaning—life in itself, not that the image gives significance to life. Life itself then has an extraordinary meaning. Right, sirs.

Student (S): Sir, you said something about stupid examinations. You said something about stupid examinations, but our future career depends on the examinations, sir.

K: Yes, sir.

S: What are we to do?

K: Question is, I said stupid examinations. What are we to do if we don’t pass examinations. Though they are stupid, our career, our jobs, our future depend on them. Sir, first of all why are you all so career-minded? Why? Why must you all become—God knows what. Why should you have a career? First, wait a minute, just listen. Why?

S: Then how should we spend our lives, sir?

Q: Then how should we spend our lives.

K: Wait, wait. Don’t ask that question. Let’s think it out together. You see, that’s one of the things that we have to understand. Don’t ask somebody else what to do, what to think, what to act. Don’t ask. Find out. Be independent. Think for yourself and find out. Don’t ask. Don’t always seek some authority to tell you what to do. So, first listen to what I have to say. We have to have jobs, obviously. But even that is being questioned now. I will go into it little bit. Wait a minute, listen to it. We are all career-minded. We must all, we think, we all must have jobs, otherwise how shall I live. So, all our youth, all our freshness, this capacity to look and enjoy and be with this fullness of life, is perverted, twisted because our minds are fixed on having a career. Right? Right. And also we see we must learn, we must have knowledge, we must be capable of doing things, right? And as society now exists, whether in Russia, in China, America or here, to get any job you must go to college. To get a good job, you must go to a college and pass an examination and all the rest of it, in order to earn a good livelihood. Right? That is what the structure of society is now. Now, that is said.

Then also look at this what I am telling you, what I am going to tell you. There are these computers, that is the electronic brains. They are going to take over the drudgery, the everyday occupation—going to the office, doing things. These electronic brains are going to take over. So man is going to have tremendous leisure, because these machines to which all knowledge has been given through tapes and so on, so on, they will do all the thinking, working for you. You understand? They are going to do it. This is already taking place. So what are you going to do? You understand my question? These machines, electronic brains are going to take over the drudgery of human beings. They will diagnose the human disease. You go to it and give all your ailments and it will diagnose what you are suffering from, and will tell you what you should take, so that doctors will become more or less unnecessary. [*Laughs*] So, machines, these electronic brains are going to take over more and more and more, not only in little things but in great factories. So man is going to have tremendous leisure, great leisure. And what will you do with that leisure? You understand? That’s coming into this country too. You may not have it in the next twenty years, but it’s coming. And we must be prepared to meet it, not say, well, I *must* have a career, I can’t think of anything else, and I *must* pass examinations in order to get a job. Right? But the future is going to be something entirely different. You are going to have great leisure. You are going to have hours and hours when you don’t have to go to the office, when you don’t have to go to the factory, be a manager, clerk. The machines are going to take over. What will you do then? You understand my question?

So, from that point of view look at your career. You are following? You understand what I am saying? Man is going to have leisure, time to do what he likes—to be lazy, to enjoy himself, to climb the mountain, swim, amuse, go to—anything he likes, he’ll have plenty of time. And in relation to that, examine your career. You understand? So your career must give you the opportunity to find out how to utilise your leisure. You’ve got it? So, then occupation becomes merely a secondary issue. The primary issue then will be, what you will do with yourself—the whole of your life, not just for a couple of hours. So what will you do with yourself? Amuse yourselves, go to cinema day after day, day after day, day after day? Swim? Everlastingly play cricket, football? Or go to the temple ten times a day? [*Laughs*] Or read books, if it is Gita or the Bible or some other book? So what will you do? Nothing? Sit quietly and vegetate? So, from now on, you have to find out. Find out what you are going to do with your leisure, which you are going to have more and more. So career is not important. It is a secondary issue. You must have a livelihood. You must have a means of earning your daily bread. But if that occupies your whole mind, all your days, then you will not be able to find out how you are going to use your leisure, your time. You have understood? So, when you are looking, considering your means of livelihood, you have to consider much greater issue, which is, what you will do with your leisure. Right. You’ve got it? S: Sir, can we create an image without having conflicts?

K: Can we…?

Q: Create.

K: Can we…?

S: Can we create an image without having conflicts.

Q: Can we create an image without having conflicts.

K: Can we create an image without having conflict. Oh, lordy! Conflict creates the image. Why do you *want* an image? You haven’t understood, sorry. Look, have you an image about yourself? If you are very honest, look at yourself. Now wait a minute. If you are very honest, look at yourself, go into yourself and find out if you have an image about yourself. You know what an image is? That you think you must be that way; you think that you must be very good, or you are frightened, or you must be very ambitious, very clever—you are building an image, aren’t you?, about yourself. Now, have you got an image about yourself? I hope not, because you are too young. Give that horrible image to the older people. Don’t keep it. If you have no image at all about yourself, no opinions about yourself at all, then you have no conflict. As long as you are building an image about yourself, that image is the result of conflict and that image creates conflict. So, a really, a religious man has no image about himself at all, neither in himself nor in the temple. (*Pause*)

No questions? Any more questions? Ah, wait a minute. Do you remember I said don’t ask questions? Is that why you are being hesitant? You know, there are two ways of asking questions. You ask a question because you don’t understand, therefore you want to find out—find out, enquire, examine. Therefore, you ask a question, because you yourself want to understand the answer, the meaning of that question. So you begin to ask. That’s one way, because you want to understand, you want to examine, you want to find out for yourself. Or, you ask question and wait for somebody to tell you what you should or should not do, what you should think or should not think. Right? There are two ways of asking a question. One is to find out for yourself, the other, to be told what you should think. In asking questions, you are putting yourself in a very difficult position if you don’t understand what the motive of your question is. You have understood what I am saying?

Look, I want to know how I am to use my leisure. I can ask somebody to tell me how I should use my leisure—the time that I have which is not taken up with occupation. And I ask you to tell me what I should do, and you tell me, and if I like what you tell me I accept it and then live according to that. But if I ask because I really want to find out, because it is my life, not your life, it’s my life, and I want to find out how to live it. I want to enquire what is the way to live so that there will be no conflict, this and various other ways. So my questioning then is entirely different. My motive for that question is different. You’ve understood? Yes, sir? So, out of that, one can ask right questions or wrong questions. It is always a wrong question when you say, please tell me what to do—always. Whether you ask it of your fathers, of your teachers or of anybody, that’s always a wrong question. But if you say, if you ask a question in order to find out, in order to open your own mind and enquire, examine, search, look, observe, listen, to discuss, then it is always right question.

You know what scepticism is? You know what’s… I say that there is God. I don’t say that, but suppose if I say it, that there is a god, and you accept it because it gives you a certain comfort, and because also the man who says it has some authority. So you accept it. But if you say, wait a minute, I won’t accept what you are saying, but I want to find out. Then you begin to have scepticism, you begin to doubt, and doubt is essential. You must doubt to find out. Otherwise you will just become like the rest of the world—accepting authority, accepting tradition, accepting the family, doctor, you know all that. So your mind then becomes merely dull, stupid, ineffective thing, as it is, when you accept authority and tradition. But when you begin to doubt, when you have scepticism, when you say, no, I won’t accept everything everybody says, including the newspapers, the Prime Ministers, the generals, the priests, the books. I am going to question, I am going to find out. Then your mind becomes fresh, young, begin to ask.

Then such a mind becomes a nuisance to others. [*Laughs*] You understand? Such a mind people don’t like. They begin to dislike you. You will have no friends. They will push you out. So you have to, to have scepticism, doubt, you have to have great deal of inward strength and vitality and energy in yourself. Otherwise such doubt, scepticism, makes you hard, cynical, which brings its own stupidity.

S: Sir, if you have lot of leisure time, how will you spend it, sir?

Q: If you have lot of leisure, how would you spend it.

K: If I had a lot of leisure, a great deal of time during the day, when I am not sleeping, [*laughter*] what would I do. Are you asking me?

S: Yes, sir.

K: You are asking what *I* would do?

S: Yes, sir. [*Laughter*]

K: You say yes, sir. All right. I would do what I am doing. [*Laughs*] [*Laughter*] You see, if you love what you are doing—love, then you have all the leisure that you need in your life. You understand? No, you don’t. [*Laughs*] Have you got it? You understand what I said? Now wait a minute. You asked me what I would do if I had leisure. I said I would do what I am doing, which is to go around to different parts of the world, talk, see people, discuss and so on and so on and on. I do it because I love to do it, not because I talk to great many people with a big audience and get excited and feel that I am very important. Then when you feel very important in what you are doing, you don’t love what you are doing. You love yourself, not what you are doing. And when you love what you are doing, there is no time at all. You understand? So your question is really not what *I* am doing, but what *you* are going to do. Right? I have told you what I am doing. Now you tell me what you will do when you have plenty of leisure.

S: Sir, I would get bored, sir.

K: You would get bored. Quite right. That’s what most people are. You are very good.

S: How to get rid of the boredom, sir?

K: Wait, listen first, old boy. [*Laughter*] Most people are bored. Why? You asked how am I to get rid of this boredom. Now find out. I am going to show it to you.

You are bored. If you are by yourself for half an hour, ten minutes, you are bored. You have to do something—pick up a book, chatter, look at a magazine, go to a cinema, talk, do anything, as long as you are not by yourself quietly (*Laughs*) for even five minutes. So you get bored the moment you are with yourself. So you occupy your mind with something else, which is to escape from yourself which causes boredom. You are following this? You have asked a question, so please pay attention to what is being said. You get bored because you find yourself with yourself, and you have never found yourself with yourself. Therefore you get bored. You say, by Jove, is that all I am? I am so small, I am so worried, I want to escape from all that. So, that is very boring what you are, so you run. But if you say look, I am not going to be bored, I am going to find out why, why I am like this. I want to enquire. I want to see what I am like, really.

You know, you look at yourself in a mirror. Don’t you?

S: Yes.

K: Yes? Good. [*Laughs*] Don’t you?, when you comb your hair, when you shave, when you part your hair, when you put this or that—you do all that. [*Laughter*] You look at a mirror, don’t you?

S: Yes, sir.

K: There you see very clearly what you are, what your face looks like. It is slightly altered, because the mirror slightly misshapens the face. But you see what you are. If you say well, I don’t like it, I must be much more beautiful, I must be like that cinema actress or that person or this person, then when you look at yourself you get bored with yourself. You get what I am talking about?

S: Yes, sir.

K: But if you look at yourself and say yes, that’s what I am, my nose isn’t very straight, [*Laughter*] my eyes are that way rather small, or my hair is crinkly or should be straight, whatever it is, you accept it. When you see what you are there is no boredom. Boredom comes in only when you reject what you see and want to be something else. In the same way, when you can look at yourself inside and see exactly what you are, the seeing of it is not boring, it is extraordinarily interesting. Because the more you see of it, the more there is, the more you can go deeper and deeper and deeper and wider and there is no end to it. In that there is no boredom. But if you say, what I see is not very pleasant, and I want to run, then the running is the boredom. So if you can do that, then what you do is what you love to do, and when you love to do a thing, then time doesn’t exist. If you love to do gardening, planting trees, watering them, looking after them, protecting them—you know, when you are doing what you really love to do, you will see days are much too short. So one has to find out for yourself from now what you love to do, what you really want to do, not just career.

S: Sir, how do you find out what you want to do?

K: How do you find out what you want to do. What you *love* to do, you understand?, which is quite different from what you *want* to do. I may want to become a lawyer, because my father is a lawyer or I see by becoming a lawyer I can earn more money or this or that. Then you don’t love it, because you have a motive for doing, something which will give you a profit, it will make you famous. But if you love something there is no motive. You don’t use what you are doing for your own self-importance. Now, to find out is one of the most difficult things to do. And that’s part of our education, to help you to find what you love to do. So, willing to find that out, you have to go into yourself very, very, very deeply. It isn’t very easy. You may say I want to be a lawyer and you struggle to be a lawyer, pass an exam, take an L.L.B. or whatever it is. And then you suddenly find, by Jove, I don’t want to do that, I really would like to paint. But it’s too late. You are already married; you already have children; you already have a wife, and you can’t give it up, you have responsibility. So you are stuck there, and you feel frustrated, unhappy, being a lawyer when you really want to paint. Or you may say, I really would like to paint and you devote all your life, a part of your life without passing examination or anything, and say, by Jove, I like to paint, and suddenly find you are not a good painter. What you really want to do is to be a pilot. And so you say, I will try pilot. And so that goes on with us. And right education is not to help you to find careers—for God’s sake, throw that out of the window, but to help you to find out for yourself what you really with all your heart love to do. Doesn’t matter what it is, whether it is a cook, a gardener, anything, but in which you put your mind, your heart, everything into it. Then you are really efficient without becoming brutal. After all that is the job of this school, that is the function of a school of this kind, where you are helped to find out for yourself through talk, through discussion, through study, through examination, through listening, through silence, to find out what, right through your life, you really love to do.

S: Sir, how can we know ourselves?

K: How can you know for yourself. I was watching this…

Q: How can we know ourselves.

K: Ah, how can we know ourselves?

S: Yes, sir.

K: How do you know yourself in a mirror? That’s a very good question, listen to it carefully. [*Laughs*] How do you know what you are, and that which you see you are in the mirror? You understand my question? You have looked for the first time in the mirror your face. Right? And after a few days or a few weeks, you say, by Jove, there is me again. That’s my face. Right ? So, by looking at the mirror every day, you become familiar, you begin to know your face, right?, and you say that is me. Now, you can know yourself inwardly, what you are, by watching yourself—watching what you say, your words, your gesture, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you behave, whether you are hard, cruel, rough, patient. So you begin to know yourself by watching yourself. Watching yourself in the mirror of what you are doing, what you are thinking, what you are feeling. You follow? That is the mirror—the feeling, the doing, the thinking. And in that mirror you begin to watch yourself. But the mirror says this is the fact, but you don’t like the fact. So you want to alter that. The moment you want to alter it, you are distorting it, you don’t see it as it is. So that way you begin to find out for yourself what you are by watching how you sit, how you walk, what words you use, how you feel when you see somebody whom you like or don’t like, what you are thinking, why you are thinking, whether somebody has told you what to think, and so on and on and on. Then you begin to find out. Right, sir?

That’s enough.

Now, as I said the other day, you learn when there is attention and silence. Learn. That is, when you have silence and give complete attention, in that state you begin to learn. Now, sit very quietly, again, not because I am asking you to sit quietly, but because that is the only way to learn. Sit very quietly, take a comfortable position, sit very quietly, and be still, not only physically, not only in your body, but also in your mind be very still and then in that stillness, attend. Attend to the sounds outside, outside this building—the cock crowing, the bird, somebody coughing there, somebody moving there. Listen, and listen first to the things outside of you. Then listen what is going on in your mind. And you will then see, if you listen very, very, very attentively, in that silence, the outside sound and the inside sound are the same. (*Pause*)

Right, sirs.