Public Discussion 3, Saanen, 6 August 1964
Krishnamurti: We were talking the other day about learning. We said that we acquire learning through study, experience, and being taught, and we feel that such learning is merely accumulating knowledge, which prevents us from actually learning. Because learning is an act from moment to moment. And I think it is important to bear that in mind when we are discussing; that is, when we are examining through argument that we are not accumulating knowledge and from there responding to every challenge. Which is quite an art, because for most of us learning implies accumulation, gathering of memory, and from there responding to every… or to any future action. And so, when we are discussing, we should very clearly bear that in mind, that we are learning, that we’re not being taught.
The speaker is not teaching, and therefore we are together cooperating in learning, therefore we should be extremely alert in the use of words, being aware the source and the meaning of those words, and thus, becoming aware, one perceives the operation of one’s own mind, feeling. All that implies when we are discussing: learning, the use of words, and the background of ourselves from which the words spring — all that is implied when we are discussing, otherwise discussion merely becomes argument, exchange of opinion, and then we shall not go very deeply in that… in the matter which we are concerned.
So having said that, what we were discussing yesterday was, it seems to me, something rather important. We were saying that we approach all our problems from the outside, from the periphery, from the boundary, and then work from the boundary inwards; or we have certain concepts, formulas, and ideas derived from the outside, which have become established in the conscious or the unconscious, and responding from what we call the inner is still the result of the outer. The two, the inner and the outer are similar. They are not dissimilar. One leaves the outer because one has not found the answers through that approach and one hopes to find the answers to our problem by going within. This going within is the reaction of the outer. The two are not separate. They are a unitary process.
So, we were saying yesterday – I hope you don’t mind if I talk for a few minutes — we were saying yesterday that this inward and outward approach, being the same, similar, and therefore always directive, always a purpose… (inaudible), going towards a certain goal and therefore it’s already predetermined. And when one sees that very clearly, then there is no directive at all. And we said also yesterday that we are so concerned with the secondary issues, which is the very essence of the bourgeois, that we never find for ourselves a flame, a source that keeps itself uncorrupted, clear, flaming, without our adding to maintain, to sustain that flame. That’s what we said yesterday. I think, if I may suggest, we should proceed along these lines to discuss.
We were talking also about peace. We said peace is a by-product, it’s not an end in itself. Like virtue, it is not an end, it is a by-product. But if we are concerned with the by-product we shall never… we shall not be able to go beyond the limitations of the by-product, of the secondary issue. And what is important is, it seems to me, to discover for oneself, and this requires a great deal of attention, a great deal of pliability, swiftness of thought, to find out for ourselves the origin, the source from which we can act without being corrupted, without creating problems and so on. And that is, it seems to me, the purpose of these discussions.
So what shall we discuss this morning, or have I throttled all discussion?
(Laughter)
Questioner: (Inaudible).
Q: Sensitivity.
K: It is suggested that we discuss our conditioning, the background, the limitations, and also it is suggested that we should discuss sensitivity.
Q: You said the other day that we would discuss thought after peace.
K: It’s also asked what is there after peace. Is that it?
Q: No, thought was the second topic we were going to tackle.
K: Ah, yes, yes, yes.
(Laughter)
K: What is the second topic, sir?
Q: Thought.
K: Thought. (Inaudible). Sorry; sorry, sir. And what… oh, yes, and the third was bringing the unknown to the known or known to the unknown, quite something like that. It is suggested that we discuss the whole mechanism of thought.
Why do we think at all? What would happen if you didn’t think? And what would happen if the whole mechanism of thought came to an end? Would we function as savages, as primitive people? So all these questions arise, so we’d better begin to find out what is thinking, what is the extraordinary importance we give to this machinery of thinking. I don’t, but you do. So, in discussing, as I said, we are learning. We are not being dogmatic, and to learn you need to be sensitive. Moment you are dogmatic, assertive, aggressive you cease to be sensitive and therefore cease to learn. So sensitivity, intelligence and learning go together. You can’t separate those three. So, let’s begin. What is thinking? Then we can find out why we have given such extraordinary importance to the intellect, to the man who is capable of quoting innumerable books, correlating the various ideas, the whole process of clever mentation. Why? So let’s find out what do we mean by thinking. Oh, does it take a long time, all this?
Q: The response of memory to a challenge.
K: Yes sir, yes sir, but need we go through all this business? Can’t we jump at something else?
Q: (Inaudible)… it’s a movement of the mind in terms of ideas… (inaudible).
K: The gentleman says it’s a… the mind in relationship with ideas is thinking.
Q: (Inaudible)… think that we are afraid of silence?
K: As we are afraid of silence we begin to think. And if you did not think at all, what would happen? You wouldn’t be able to function, would you? You wouldn’t be able to function in your office. You wouldn’t be able to recognize your house, your family, this… number of the street and so on and so on and so on. I’m sorry, I’m not going to help in this matter. You’ll have to discuss it with me. I’ll keep quiet.
Q: Is it not… (inaudible) recognize the similarities, dissimilarities… (inaudible)?
K: Is it not the process of the observation of the similarity and the dissimilarity and thinking gives that capacity, which is necessary to function. Isn’t that right, sir?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Sir, wait a minute. Ah, you see, I want to get it at quickly. You know what a drum is, don’t you, the big one and the little one. It’s empty and the skin is tightly drawn across it and kept in tune. When you strike on it, it gives an instant tone, and that tone is always right if the skin is rightly taut and you strike it rightly. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: This is so, isn’t it? Now, can the mind be that way? You understand what…?
Q: Can the mind what?
K: Be that way, so that there is no thinking at all, but giving right response always, whether you’re in an office, at home, playing, climbing, walking, enjoying, looking. We know what the whole process of thinking is, which is fairly mechanical. If you know… if you have read anything or watched a computer working, you would know what is involved in thinking. That is, association, ideas, the background, the response to any challenge – that… all the computers are doing; that’s… they are doing very well because they are… the computers are given tremendous lot of information on tape and according to that information they act instantly, mathematically – you know? – all the business of it. So our brain, our mind has accumulated infinite knowledge, information and when any question, challenge, is asked to it, is response; the response is thinking. That’s fairly simple; we don’t have to elaborate it.
Q: yes.
K: I respond according to my background, according to my fear, according to my information, according to my knowledge, according to my study, according to what I have learnt, and when you… when there is a challenge I respond to that immediately, or take time. The interval between the challenge and the response, which is the time lag, is the process of mentation, the process of thinking, and then I respond to it. That is fairly simply, isn’t it, or am I pushing too quickly?
Q: (Inaudible)
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Oh, *mon dieu*. [Oh, my God] Did you hear it?
Q: I can’t see clearly if… (inaudible) thought or if it exists in thought.
Q: Do we create the thought…
Q: (Inaudible)… said that she cannot see clearly whether what she thinks in is her thought or whether the thought has existed before.
K: Ah. Is the thought which you think created by you or…
Q: Has it existed before.
K: … or has it existed before. Can you really separate the two? Have you created any thought? Created in the sense original, or you are replying the… to… all thought is the response of the collective memories. (Inaudible). You see, really, unfortunately… all right.
So there are several things involved in it. We have accumulated knowledge for two million years or perhaps more or less. We have acquired tremendous information, it’s stored up, so the past, which is the time, which is accumulation, which is the background, which is our conditioning, that is the past. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: That acts in the present depending what the present is, whether it is important, whether it has significance, whether it has… demands a quick response. So the past is acting through the present and therefore conditioning the future. That’s one state; that’s fairly clear. Then there is this thought and the thinker. Right? The thinker who says, ‘I’m thinking’, or you say ‘the thinking creates the thinker’. ‘*Je* *pense…’, vous savez…* [‘I think…’, you know…] you know that: ‘I think I am, therefore I am’. If I didn’t think, I’m not.
So there is the first problem: the past acting through the present, conditioning the future. Then… — we can go infinite details into that – then there is thought separate from the thinker. This is so, for the most… ‘I think so and so. I feel, or I am angry’ — there is a division between the thinker and the thought. Again that’s fairly clear.
Then there is also the question whether thought can be quiet, thought can be still completely so that it doesn’t project, interfere, which is the… Can the mind, which is the organism, which is… with its brain and so on and so on and so on, can that… the totality of that be quiet, including the brain, including the nerves, including all the cells in the brain be completely still? So there are these three problems. You understand, sir?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Right? Shall we go on?
Q: Yes.
Many: (Inaudible).
K: Am I going on or you going on?
(Laughter)
K: You see, what is of real significance is whether… what takes place when the nerves, the cells of the brain and the totality of consciousness, which is fairly trivial, when all that is completely quiet, if it is possible. We’ll come to that. So let us first consider what we first said, which is, the past acting through the present and so creating a future which must be conditioned or modified according to the present which is shaping… which the past is shaping. That’s it. Right? Please see how important to understand each one of these completely, these three, otherwise what we are going to come to will be confusing.
The past is my conditioning. I… the past is, if you’re born in a particular culture with all its racial, economic, religious, social environment, if you’re born in the Christian culture you have certain beliefs, certain concepts, certain superstitions, scientific, mathematical, religious, economic, climate, food. And if I am born in India and my conditioning is the climate, the food, the environment, the family, the tradition, the economic condition, the… the Upanishads, the Vedas all that, which I… which the mind has inherited as well as acquired, in both cases, which, what happens in communist Russia and China. Now, that is always contradicting or adjusting or denying the present. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: So there is a peculiar neurosis, a contradiction – I don’t know if you have… — the past interfering with the present and therefore creating a contradiction, and therefore there is the split mind – the past and the present, and so this mind can never completely understand the present, and so there is a contradiction which I don’t quite understand why this contradiction arises, it becomes a greater and greater and greater problem and thereby I develop a peculiar neurosis.
(Sound of aeroplane)
K: It’s very good to have this aeroplane going over us. If we are attentive – I’m saying this to myself as well as to you – if we are attentive there is no contradiction between that noise and what is being said, only it prevents one from going into it quickly.
So the past becomes the rooted element in me… in the mind. The past then becomes the *I*, the memories, the various forms of demands, urges, contradictions, demands of self-fulfilment, fear – you follow? – arises from this past with which thought has identified itself, which becomes the *me* as my house, my wife, my family, my husband, my… and so on and on and on and on. So, having rooted itself in the past it cannot meet totally in the present, and all its encounter with the present is partial and not total and therefore problems. Right? This is clear, isn’t it?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: And therefore I’m afraid of what’s going to happen day after tomorrow. So there is this whole cycle of a mind that is rooted in the past, the mind being the result of time of the past; past being my tradition, my race, my culture, my history, my family, my name, experience, knowledge, study, what I have been taught and so on and so on and so on. The whole of that is the *me*, the *me* which thought has identified itself as a separate entity, which it calls itself as the *I*. From that *I* I function. This is fairly clear. And as long as that *I* is strong, violent, aggressive, expressing, demanding, pushing, driving, ambitious, the greater the conflict. And that *I* is being encouraged all the time through society, through competition, through success, through various forms of psychological impressions that society pushes upon it. And society is created by this *I*, which is again fairly simple. So the society and the *I* are not two separate states; they are a unitary process. Right?
Q: (Inaudible)?
K: Yes, sir; go ahead, sir. *Avanti*.
Q: Can we get rid of that *I*?
K: Ah, I’m coming to that. I’m coming to that.
(Laughter)
K: If I see that, not verbally, intellectually or emotionally, but as an actual fact. It is a fact. When one sees that actually, that that is what creating problems, not the present, not circumstances, not the death of my wife, or my family or whatever it is. It is that rooted state of mind in the past that creates the problems. And a mind that says, ‘I will not have problems’ – we discussed it a little bit — under no circumstances will I have a single problem because problem implies conflict, conflict implies effort, effort implies contradiction, which is, the *I* responding inadequately to the present. Right? So if I see that a man who has problems, who makes efforts of any kind merely exaggerates, gives importance to the *I,* who is the creator of problems. Right?
Q: Yes sir.
K: If you see that, the whole of that, not merely verbally, but if you see it with your nerves, with your ears, hear it, with your eyes, with all your being you see that a mind that makes an effort is only creating contradiction for itself and therefore furthering more problems — right? — if you see the totality of that, not mere fragments of it, the very act of seeing is the ending of this *I*.
You know – I’ll come to it presently — you know, most people, if they’re at all thoughtful, if they’re at all awake, little sensitive, see this process and so they say, ‘Let me identify myself with something much greater.’ You…? So they substitute God, the state, the nation, a purposeful, ideological utopian future. This is what’s happening right through the world. Gods are no longer important, but the state has become very important, or the family or the demand to identify oneself. You know, this is what’s happening in the world. So when you see this total process, because one sees a mind that has a problem is a dull mind and is never free: the economic problem, family problem, national… any problem, at any level. And problem implies… — you know? – I won’t have to go into all that.
So when you see that, what takes place? Now, we are trying to find out what we mean by seeing, what we mean by understanding. When you see this fact of the *I*, when you see it and then you say, ‘I understand,’ what is there to understand? What is there to see? You’re following…? I wonder if you’re coming with me. There is nothing to understand, nothing to see. It is so. Are you… am I… are you meeting… am I making myself clear?
Q: Yes.
(Sound of aeroplane)
K: There is that aeroplane going over; you hear it, that’s all; but if you resist it, it becomes a problem. Right? I wonder if you are… if I’m making myself clear.
Q: Yes.
Q: It’s very clear, sir.
K: Right, sir?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: (Inaudible). Now, I used the word *see* and *understand*. There is nothing to see or to understand. There is only a complete attention to that fact. Right? I wonder… Am I…? Ah, it’s very… No, no, you all agree; it is very important to see this.
Q: This complete attention… (inaudible).
K: Is…?
Q: (Inaudible)… the plane, I have to forget you…
K: Ah, no, no, no…
Q: (Inaudible)… I have to use my choice; I have to choose… (inaudible).
(Sound of aeroplane)
K: That aeroplane is going back and forth.
Many: (Inaudible).
K: That airplane all the morning is going to make that noise and I’m… we’re going to talk for an hour – where is the choice? Right? You are… you’re listening. There is no choice; you don’t say, ‘By Jove, I must listen to him and not to that’ – then you create a resistance, a conflict; then you have the problem: ‘How am I to be attentive?’ You follow, sir? You know, this demands a tremendous quality of a mind that is very sharp, quick, sensitive, disciplined, otherwise you’ll be caught in that noise and in this noise. Is all that clear?
Q: Yes… (inaudible).
K: Then let’s go to the next part, which is, there is the thought and the thinker, of which each one of us is aware, isn’t it? Right? Need I go…?
Q: No, that’s… (inaudible).
K: There is the observer as the thinker and the observed as the thought. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: ‘I want to go; I don’t want to go; I think this’ — so there is the thinker separate from the thought and the thinker is always trying to control thought, change it, shape it, alter it, give it a continuity — you know? – all that. Is this clear?
Q: Yes.
K: Now, we have accepted this state as the thought and the thinker as two separate entities, or two separate processes, but are they? Or is there only thinking and nothing else?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Beg your pardon?
Q: (Inaudible).
Q: (Inaudible)… very strong feeling that this self that I… (inaudible).
K: You have to be much shorter, madame. You have to make the explanation shorter, otherwise I can’t repeat it.
Q: All right. We have a very strong feeling in us that this *I* is real… (inaudible) and this feeling is very strong.
K: Yes, that’s right.
Q: Yes, and… (inaudible).
K: What makes the *I* so strong in each one of us. That’s all. What makes it strong in you and me? What… why? Ah? It’s so clear, why do you ask…? Ah? Need we go in… need we have to go in that?
Q: No…. (inaudible).
Q: (Inaudible).
K: What, sir?
Q: (Inaudible)… to see that this is thought.
Q: (Inaudible).
Q: (Inaudible).
K: What makes the *I* strong? Because you are feeding it every minute by giving it a continuity. Do, please… It is so: ‘My house, my family, my exercise, my… what I have learnt, what is my….’ — you know? So thought, by thinking about my house, my wife, my sex, my purpose, my fulfilment, my… — you know? – gives it vitality, energy… sustains it, vitalizes it.
Q: (Inaudible)… cannot see that it is not… (inaudible).
K: Yes, you just see this thing as an entity because you haven’t looked at it, you haven’t explored it, torn it to pieces to find out; and which we have done just now. We’ll come back to that a little later. Then there is this division between the thinker and the thought. You…? Listen; listen two minutes. Has thought continuity without the thinker?
Q: (Inaudible).
Q: (Inaudible).
K: What, sir?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: No, you haven’t…
Q: No… (inaudible).
Q: Of course not.
Q: The thinker is the thought.
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Ah?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: No, no. You…
Q: (Inaudible).
K: I said, without the *I*, without a centre, without the observer, has thought continuity.
Q: No.
Q: No.
K: Ah, ah… Please, this is one of the… You know, sirs, this needs A great deal of inquiry, feeling, thinking. You’re so quick in answering this.
Q: (Inaudible)… has continuity.
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Quite right, sir, therefore… therefore please listen. You see, it is terribly important to find out if the mind can be tremendously active, sensitive, alert, awake, completely attentive without effort — you understand? — otherwise it is not alive; otherwise it’s a dull instrument. So to find out if the mind, the totality of the mind can be completely awake and alert, you have to find out whether it can be free of effort — right? — which means the inquiry into duality. Right? And duality must always exist if there is a division between the thinker and thought. Right? You understand? If there is any form of effort, and effort exists, comes into being only when there is a contradiction. So I see — I see, not… — the speaker sees that as long as there is any kind of effort in any direction, at any level, conscious or unconscious, the mind, the totality of the mind is dull, made insensitive.
So the speaker inquires and says can it exist without effort and yet at the same time not vegetate; be astonishingly alert. And the speaker sees that as long as there is a division between the observer and the observed there must be contradiction. So he says: what gives continuity — please listen — what gives continuity to this division? You understand? Are you following what…?
Many: Yes.
K: What gives this continuity? What gives continuity? What sustains this division, this duality? Don’t answer me, please. You have not put the question. I am putting the question to you, so don’t… you have no answer. So I must find out, the speaker must find out what sustains, maintains, gives continuity to this division. Right? Have you heard my question? Please don’t answer it. What gives it continuity?
Q: ((Inaudible)?
K: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear. You see, I’m putting the question to myself. I haven’t put this question before to myself, therefore I must be quiet – you follow? – I must feel around, and what I find must be true, not just a whim, a fancy, a passing idea. I don’t know if you… you’re following? Are you following all what I’m saying? Here is a new problem which I’m putting to myself. What sustains, maintains, gives continuity to this division? And I… I’m feeling around, are you? Ah? All right.
So my concern is not the division between the observer, the thinker and the thought, but what sustains the division. I’ve moved away from — you understand? — I moved away from it altogether. I say what sustains this thing? Obviously… You’ve got the answer? Obviously, desire. Are you waiting for me?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Yes sir, this is the motive. Motive is the desire. Let me talk a little bit, will you? You understand? The mind is corrupt… made corrupt, dull, stupid, insensitive by effort. Effort must exist as long as there is contradiction – self-contradiction or contradiction of… within oneself, outside. And contradiction exists because there is this duality between the thinker and the thought. As long as this duality exists there must be conflict. I see that. Then I say, what sustains this… gives continuity to this division. I said desire. And I say, by Jove, if desire sustains this thing, I must get rid of desire. You follow? Then I begin to find out what is desire. Are you following this?
Q: Yes.
K: I see very clearly how desire arises, as I explained the other day. Need I go into it?
Q: Yes.
Q: Yes.
K: Yes?
Many: No.
K: No. Thank you very much. I don’t have to go into it. Right?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: So, I see that. So I see that thought, thinking about something continuously gives sustenance to this division. If I think about… if there is thought, thinking about my… the house in which I live, the furniture, the carpet, the name, the beauty, the view from the window, it’s ‘my, my, my’ – I’ve given it continuity through desire, haven’t I? Very simple. The same thing with regard to sex, the more I give… there is the pleasure of thinking about it and giving it continuity, the desire. So I say, by… I see very clearly that as long as any sensation is given a continuity, that continuity takes root and becomes the *I*, and that *I* divides itself from the thought and therefore contradiction. Have you got it?
So this inquiry demands a great deal of attention so that at any moment the *I* doesn’t come into being. And if you say, ‘I must get rid of desire,’ then the *I* takes dominance – right? – because in that you give conflict and contradiction and therefore sustain the division. Right? Is this clear?
Q: Yes.
K: We’ll discuss it if it isn’t clear tomorrow or another… we’ve got several days more. Now, if I see the whole mechanism of thought, the past adjusting itself inadequately to the present, and therefore conditioning the future; and also I see completely this division between the thinker and the thought and sustaining this division — you’re following?
Q: Yes.
K: …then I ask myself is it possible to live in this world without either of those two. You…? You…? That is, be completely empty all the time, like the drum, and yet be so attentive that every challenge… demand, response immediately and correctly. You’ve…? You are…? Am I explaining myself?
Unless you have understood the other two you can’t possibly come to this. You can’t say, ‘Well, how am I to empty the mind?’ – that’s the most puerile question. But if you have understood the whole mechanism of thought — oh, you don’t see the beauty of it. Well, I’ll go on – the whole mechanism of thought and the division that thought creates between the thinker and the thought, and all the everlasting conflict. If you see that, not understand it, not see the fact and how to understand the fact and all that stuff, but actually see it, then you will inevitably, naturally, as the water flows down… as that river flows down, you’re bound to come to this, so that your mind is astonishingly awake, as it’s no longer making effort. And then it is constantly empty. Not emptying itself – you can’t. Then if you try to empty it, there is the emptier and the thing to be emptied and therefore contradiction and all the rest of it.
I cannot possibly come… the mind cannot possibly realize for itself this peculiar quality, this strange essence of emptiness unless it has understood logically, sequentially, deeply, this whole fact of the past, the present, and the future as time, and also the thinker and thought and the duality involved in it. If that is not seen… if that is not observed, seen, understood and gone beyond, for there is nothing to understand. It is so.
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Ah?
Q: (Inaudible)… happens spontaneously… (inaudible)?
K: Of course, otherwise it cannot happen any other way. It is not spontaneity; it is clarity, the clarity of a mind that examines this. I have examined it. You may not accept, you may say that’s all too rubbish, it’s too… oriental nonsense or something or other and brush it aside. You’re perfectly right to brush it aside, but you have to look at it, exercising your reason, your capacity, your inquiry, your vitality, attention and from there go to the next. Not sequentially, you… if you are alive you can jump to the right… to the ultimate thing, which is to empty the mind, mind being completely empty.
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Ah?
Q: You know, that lady… (inaudible) spontaneously… (inaudible).
K: Maybe. Ah… it is said that is it that that lady who asked that question of spontaneity, she may have it, come to it naturally. Maybe. (Inaudible).
Q: (Inaudible).
K: Ah?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: All right, you have it, then what? You know, one has to be terribly careful not to be in any kind of illusion. That’s why one must be logic, logically clear every step, otherwise you’ll get lost in a kind of woolly idea. Is that enough for this morning?
Q: (Inaudible).
K: (Inaudible).