Public Discussion 4, Madras, 12 January 1968
Krishnamurti: What shall we, this morning, talk over together?
Questioner: Is not love a method?
Q: Am I right in assuming, sir, to eliminate time and space, we dissolve all problems?
Q: May I know, sir, the difference or the relation between memory and thought?
Q: Sir, last time, we closed with we must have memory in order to live, but memory is… [inaudible]
K: I don’t know if you have heard the previous questions — we had better repeat them. First, has love a method.
Q: Is not love a method.
K: Is not love a method — a lovely idea isn’t it? [Laughter]
What is the other?
Q: The relation between mind and thought.
K: The relation between thought and memory.
And your question, Madame, was?
Q: We must have memory in order live, but memory is an impediment.
K: Yes — memory is necessary in daily existence, in technological development and so on, but is not also memory an impediment?
What shall we…? Any more things that we want to throw in?
Q: Yes, sir: by being aware of thoughts, feelings and thinking, in your discussion freedom lies. It’s machinery that is recording. When the mind is silent it comes… [inaudible]
K: You’d better make it brief, sir — I’ll have to repeat your question.
Q: By being aware of every thought, feeling and action, and these thoughts, actions, those are being recorded and that comes to suppress when the mind is silenced. How does that recording take place?
K: Oh my Lord. Is this really what you are all interested in?
Q: Sir, in our daily living we have disorder. How are we to go about… [inaudible]
K: In daily life — what, sir?
Q: We have disorder.
K: Ah, we have disorder in daily life.
Q: How are we to go about…
K: How are we to go about bringing order — is that right, sir?
Q: No. [Inaudible]… or is it that we have to wait for a change to come of its own…
K: Or have we to wait for change to come of its own accord.
Q: What is clear thinking?
K: What is clear thinking. Right, sir, let’s take that up shall we? And we can answer your question and bring it all in — shall we? Is that all right? Right. What is clear thinking? Shall we discuss that? And relate it, if we can, and we should, to our daily living. What is clear thinking? Is thinking ever clear? We had better not go too quickly — wait, I am sorry.
First of all, let’s find out what we mean by clarity and what we mean by thinking. What do we mean by clarity? Clear — when you look through the water on a lake and see the bottom of that lake or that sea, you see everything very clearly — the pebbles, the fish, the ripple of the water and so on. And you see very clearly in bright light the shape of the tree, the leaf, the branch, the flower. What do we mean by clarity?
Q: A definite impression.
K: Oh no. A definite outlined impression, is that it?
Q: Complete understanding.
K: Clarity means complete understanding. We haven’t come to that level yet. We are talking about what do we mean by that word ‘clear’?
Q: Free of any obstruction.
K: Free of any obstruction.
Q: [Inaudible]
K: Sir, do you know what we are talking about? We are talking about the word, the meaning of the word ‘clear’.
Q: [Inaudible]
Q: To see things as they are; actually see as they are.
Q: To see without space.
K: Oh lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy!
Q: Sir, sometimes we don’t get clarity. For example, if we look at the moon and the cloud, we see the moon moving and not the clouds. Where is clarity there?
K: [Laughs] Sir, the word we are talking about — the word, the meaning of the word, the semantic.
Q: More details, no?
Q: I think it has something to do with lightness, light, sir, seeing.
K: Sir, would you mind just wait a minute and examine before what we say, sir… anything. What do we mean by that word ‘clear’? I see you clearly. I see the trees, the stars of an evening very clearly.
Q: Without obstruction.
K: Without obstruction. When there is no… when my eye, when the eye can see very, very clearly everything. The seeing — that is what we mean, don’t we, that there is no obstruction, no barrier, no screen, no fog, or if your eyesight is short-sighted you put on glasses to see more clearly from the distance, and so on — clarity. Right? Is that clear? I think we are clear with the meaning of that word.
Then what do we mean by thinking? What do we mean, sir, by thinking?
Q: Reasoning, sir.
K: Reasoning. Thinking, sir, what does it mean?
Q: A knowledge about it, sir. The knowledge that interferes about it, about the object of…
K: Sir, look, look, look. The Speaker is asking you a question: what is thinking?
Q: [Inaudible]
K: The Speaker is asking you a question: what is thinking?
Q: Depending on knowledge.
K: Wait.
Q: [Inaudible]
K: The Speaker is asking you what is thinking and you don’t even give space and time to find out what thinking is. It is a question to you, it is a challenge to you. And you bubble over. You don’t say, now, how am I to find out what thinking is? How does thinking take place? What is the origin or the beginning of thinking? It is a challenge and you have to respond to it. And to respond to it you have to — if you want to respond to it adequately you have to examine what thinking is, how it happens. The Speaker asks: you what is thinking? And what does the mind do when it receives this challenge? Do you search?
Q: What we are doing now is thinking.
K: Do listen for a minute — you will have your chance, sir. Give the poor Speaker a chance.
When you are put that question, what is the operation through which your mind goes through? Where do you find the answer to that question?
Q: Mind.
K: Sir, watch it, think it out, go into it. I ask you where you live or what your name is. Your response is immediate, isn’t it? Why is it immediate? Because you have repeated your name umpteen times, thousands of times, and you know where you live. So between the questioning and the answer there is no time interval — right? — it is immediate. Right? I ask you what is the distance between Madras and Delhi or New York and there is a hesitation. Right? So you look into memory, into what you have learnt or what you have read and you say, ‘Well, the distance is so much.’ So you have taken time — between the question and the answer there is a lag of time. Right, sirs? Now, I won’t, we won’t go into that for the moment — it is quite a complex issue. Now, what happens when the question, when there is there is the question: what is thinking? How do you find that out?
Oh Lord!
Q: Application of the mind to bring all the answers.
K: What do you do, sir?
Q: Probe into the memory.
K: Do it! You probe into the memory and what do you get out of it? What is the answer?
Q: We study it a little more and more and then try to gather detail.
K: Sir, sir, look, I am asking you now, this morning, not wait till day after tomorrow when you and I have gone, dead or something, but I am asking you now: what is thinking? And you… either you find out or you don’t know. Right? Right? Which is it?
Q: It is the process of the mind to get an answer.
K: What do you mean by the process of the mind?
Q: Sir, what are you aiming at? We don’t understand.
K: Oh, what am I aiming at?
Q: Correct. Because, sir, we…
K: Just a minute, sir, you have asked a question: what am I aiming at. What I am aiming at is very simple. I want to know when that question is put — what is thinking — I want to find out what it is.
Q: They say it comes…
K: Sir, what… Give the other fellow a chance. Don’t be… answer readily.
I want to find out what thinking is, how does it come, what is the beginning of it. Right? It is very simple, sir. Now what is it, how does it come? That is, you asked me a question, say: what is thinking — and I really don’t know. Right? Or I do know; I know the whole process of it — how it operates, how it begins, what is the mechanism of it. Right? No? Oh for the love of Pete! What do you say, sirs?
Q: Sir, one feels how it operates but unable to explain.
K: One feels how it operates but one is not capable of explanation.
Look, take a very simple thing, sir. I ask you what your name is. Right? You hear the words and then what happens? What happens, sir?
Q: Immediate response.
Q: Reaction.
K: You reply, don’t you? Say your name is so and so. What has taken place there?
Q: I have referred to my memory and the memory responds.
K: That’s right, sir, that’s all, that’s all, that’s all. The question — to that question your memory responds and replies. Right? Now, I ask you what is thinking, and why doesn’t your memory respond?
Q: Because any response is from this thinking, sir.
K: It may be, sir, go into it, find out. Why don’t you reply what thinking is? Either you know or you don’t know. Right? If you know, you will say it. If you don’t know you will all say, ‘Sorry I don’t know.’ Which is it?
Q: I don’t know.
K: The gentleman doesn’t know.
We are trying to answer that question: what is clear thinking? We more or less understood the meaning of that word clarity, clearness, clear, and we are finding it rather difficult to find out what thinking is. We say it is the response of memory to a challenge. Right? And that response comes from the accumulated memories, knowledge, experience. Right? This is simple, sir.
Q: Yes.
K: You learn a language — after having heard it from childhood you can repeat it because you have stored up the word, the meaning of that word, the word in relation to the thing, and so on, so on, so on, and you can repeat it because you have stored up the word, the vocabulary, the structure, and so on, so on. Right. There is memory responding — right? — and the response of memory is thinking. Now what is the origin of thinking, the beginning of thinking? We know after accumulating memory we respond and the response is thought. Now I want to find out also, because in order to find out clear thinking, what is the beginning of memory? Right? Or is that too difficult, too abstract?
Oh, I see…
Q: [Inaudible] …of my experience, sir.
K: Oh, my God, these people…
Q: It is our conditioning.
K: No, I am afraid I am going too fast. Sorry.
Q: [Inaudible]
K: All right, sirs, I won’t go into it — that’s better. What is thinking — we know now. So when you respond, when thought is the response of memory, and memory is the past, the accumulated experience, knowledge, tradition, and so on and so on — that responds. And that response is what we call thinking, whether… it may be logical, illogical, balanced, not balanced, sane, healthy — but it is thinking.
Now, can — please follow the next thing — can thought be clear?
Q: No, it is always conditioned.
K: No, do please find out. Can thought be clear?
Q: [Inaudible]
K: You see, you are just supposing. You know, you live on abstraction, I know that. That is why you can’t be practical. You live on concepts, ideas and theories and when you move out of that field you are completely lost. When you have to answer something directly of yourself you muddle along.
We asked: can thinking, which is the outcome of memory — memory is always the past, there is no living memory — right? — memory is always the past — and can thinking, which is of the past, be ever clear? This is a very interesting question, sirs. Can the past produce clear action? Because action is thought. Right?
Q: Yes, when there is a fact… [inaudible]
K: Sir, have we understood the question? We have more or less analysed the word ‘clear’, and we have also more or less analysed what is thinking. So the next thing we are asking is: can thinking, which is the outcome of great past, which is not living, therefore it is always old — right? — and therefore can that thing which is old, the past, can that ever be clear? You understand, sir? If I do anything out of tradition, which is the past, however noble or ignoble that tradition, however stupid, which is habit, custom — if I do anything out of tradition, can that action be clear?
Q: No, sir. It cannot because memory and tradition belong to the past… [inaudible]
K: I am asking, sir, can the action born out of the past, the doing, which is always the present — right? — the doing, not having done or will do, but the actual doing, can it ever be clear?
Q: Sir, the word ‘clear’ and the word ‘action’ have nothing to do with each other. Clear is to see the depth of it.
K: All right. Can that action be fresh, new, direct? As direct as when you meet fire, you move away. So I am asking: when we live and function in the past, is there any clarity? Leave action out because that disturbs you, because — I know why it disturbs you because you are never used to acting, you are used to conceptual thinking, and when you are faced with action you get confused, because your life is confused — that’s your affair.
So, when you act from the past, from tradition, is it action, is it something living?
Q: If the past action and the present action are the same why should there be any difference of clarity beyond that?
K: Oh, we can discuss this ad naseum — why should it not be there. But I am just asking, sir. You are all traditional, aren’t you? Traditionalists — you put this, or this, or sacred thread, or repeat something or repeat some sloka, and so on, or if you don’t do any of that you have your own tradition, your own experience becomes a habit and you repeat. Right? Now this repetition, does it bring understanding, clarity, freshness, newness?
Q: It is an aid to understand the present situation.
K: Is the past an aid to understand the present?
Q: Things break down…
K: Wait, sir, wait, sir, wait, sir, look at it. Is the past… does the past help you to understand the present?
Q: The past is…
K: Wait, sir, just listen, sir, what she has said. You have had thousands and thousands of wars, has it helped you to prevent all wars? You have had class division — Brahmin, non-Brahmin and all the hate and all the rest of it involved — the past, does it help you now to be free of all caste?
Q: It should.
K: It should — then we are lost. When you say, ‘It should,’ it is an idea, it is not an action. You will still be a Brahmin, you will still be superstitious, you will still be violent.
Q: People want… they don’t want to be free of that. People don’t want to be free of the past.
K: It doesn’t matter if you are free or not — don’t be free of it, live in your misery. But if you want to understand this thing called clear thinking and going beyond, you have to face certain things. If you say, ‘Well, I don’t want to change my…’
Q: Does it not help us to break, at least… [inaudible]
K: We are doing that, sir, we are doing it. Look, sir, if past is a help, the tradition is a help, the culture is a help, to live now, fully, clearly, happily, sanely and flower in goodness, past then has a value — right? But has it? Do you, with all your tradition, live happily?
Q: It’s almost like looking through smoked glass. I think it’s looking at the present with…
K: …past.
Q: Like looking through a glass…
K: That’s right. So the past doesn’t really help you.
Q: A little bit.
K: Don’t say no, because it is just another idea. Unless you do it, cut yourself from the past, you can’t say, ‘Yes, it is no good.’ [Laughs]
Q: Now we have a chance of understanding you because we have an experience over past years. A child doesn’t have any chance… [inaudible]
Q: We have a chance to understand you because we’ve listened to you for forty years. A child has no such chance.
K: Yes, yes, yes. We have the chance to understand you because we have listened to you for forty years — a child hasn’t, and all the rest of it. Why do you bother to listen to the Speaker at all? Even for a day or unfortunately for forty years? How tragic it all is! I don’t know where you people live.
And so let’s get back. When I am always looking over my shoulder to the past, I can never see anything clearly in the present, obviously. I need two eyes to look, but if I am looking over my shoulder all the time I can’t see the present. Right? What I need to do is to look at the present, and I am not capable of looking at that present because I am burdened with the past, with my tradition. The tradition says to me oh, it’s terrible to have a divorced wife, or my respectability says that person is terrible because he is not moral — whatever that may mean. Right? We all do this. So, what happens to my affection, to my kindliness, to that person? My prejudice, which is the tradition, prevents me from being kind, affectionate, all the rest of it, to that person. Therefore the past may help in the field of technology but it does not help in the field of life. Right? I know this is theory now — you will repeat that ad naseum and think you have understood it.
So the question arises then, as thought is of the past and I have to live completely in the present to understand the present, how is the past to be put aside and yet be useful? Right? That’s what your question was. You understood my question, sir?
Q: Yes.
K: [Laughs] I don’t know.
I have to live, to live in this world, and I need technological knowledge to go to the office — you know all that is involved in it — science, bureaucracy, if you are a professor, and so on, or even a labourer. And I also see — I have understood something this morning, that to live completely, fully, the past mustn’t interfere. So I say to myself, how is this possible? How is it possible for me to live in the technological world most efficiently, logically, getting more and more technology, you know, working at the highest speed, and also at another level, or at the same level, without the interference of the past? Right? In the technological field I must have the past. In the other field of life, no past. Do we see this?
Q: Yes, now we have an understanding of it.
K: Ah, good! And I say to myself — don’t laugh, sir — now I say to myself, how is this possible?
Q: Is that double life possible?
K: No, it’s not… You see… you see… you see, you call it ‘double life’ — which is what you are leading! You go to Tirupathi, to the temple, put on ashes, sacred temple, the ringing of bells and all the jingles, and at the same time, technological level. You are leading a double life — and you say, is it possible? Of course it is possible because you are leading it. We are not asking ‘a double life’. We are not talking about a double life. We see the complexity of this problem, that one has to have technological knowledge and also there must be freedom from knowledge — right? — the past. How is it possible? The double life which you are leading now is possible, and therefore we are making a hideous mess of life — go to the temple and at the same time run a machine [laughs]. You follow? Put on ashes or whatever you do, and go to the office. You know, it is like insanity. Right. Now how is this possible? You have understood my question, sirs?
Q: Yes, sir.
K: You tell me how it is possible. Not a double life.
Q: To use the technological knowledge only when it is necessary and not otherwise.
K: But you have to use it all the time — to go to your office, to go to your home, you have to take the road, when you look at a tree, when you do the bureaucratic job, and so on, so on — you have that all the time functioning. Oh, you people don’t see it! You can’t divide it, can you? Slow, go slow, go slow. You can’t divide life into technological life and the non-technological life. Right? Right? That is what you have done and therefore you are leading a double life. So we are asking, is it possible to live so completely the part is included in the whole? Right? You get it? You are getting it? Now we lead double life, the part, we keep it separate, which is going to the office, learning a technology, all that, and going to the church, temple and ringing bells. So you have divided life and therefore there is conflict between life, between the two. And we are asking quite a different thing: to live so that there is no division at all. I don’t know if you — right?
Q: You want us to…
K: No, no, no, I don’t want you to do anything!
Q: [Inaudible]
K: Oh no, sir, you are not meeting the question, sir. Please understand what the Speaker is trying to convey. Don’t go back to something he has said about psychological memory and all the rest of it. That is a new set of words you have learnt. Find out what the Speaker is trying to explain now. Can I live a life in which there is no division at all? Sex, God, technology, getting angry — you follow? — division, fragments.
Q: The moment I realise, there is an end to these things…
K: Sir, please, sir, don’t just throw words.
How am I, who live in fragments — many fragments not just two — technology and the other — my whole life is a fragmentary existence, which is the result of the past, which is the result of my saying, ‘This is right, that is wrong,’ saying, ‘This is sacred, that is not sacred. Technology and all that doesn’t really matter, one has to earn, but going to Tirupathi is tremendously important,’ or to some dirty temple. So can I live without fragmentation? You understand the question, sir, now? Now, how? Not the method because the moment you introduce method you have introduced fragmentation. I don’t know if you follow all this. Right? If one says, ‘How am I to do it?’ and immediately, ‘Tell me the method.’ And the method means a method which you practise as opposed to — you follow? — and therefore the whole thing is back again. So there is no method. But the question of ‘how’ is merely to ask, find out — not the search for the method. Now, how is this possible to so live that there is no fragmentation at all? You understand my question, sir? That means no fragmentation at all at any level of my being, of my existence.
Q: What is dream, sir? Why do we have particular dreams?
K: Oh — what is being. I am sorry we are not discussing that, sir. You see, you are not even paying attention. You pick up at a word like ‘being’, what is the purpose of life, and you go off. But that is not what we are talking about.
Q: [Inaudible]
K: Look, sir, how am I to live so that there is no fragmentation at all? I don’t say, ‘Well I’ll go and meditate’ — which becomes another fragmentation — or say, ‘I must not be angry, I must be this’ — all fragmentation. Can I live without any fragments, without being torn apart? Right, sir? You have understood the question? Now, who is going to answer you? Will you go back to memory? What the Gita said, what the Upanishads said, what Freud said, or somebody said? If you went back and tried to find out what they said about living without fragmentation then that would be another fragment, wouldn’t it?
Q: What of those who don’t seek their aid?
K: What of those who don’t seek their aid. If you do not seek their aid then where are you? How do you find this out? How do you find out to live so that there is no fragmentation at all? Oh, sir, you don’t see the beauty of this.
Q: By integration.
K: I knew you’d answer it! The questioner says by integration — integrating with what? Integrating all the fragments together? Or putting all the pieces together? And who is the entity that is putting all the pieces together? The higher Atman? The cosmos, the God, the soul, the superior, Jesus Christ, and all that? Krishna ? Which is another fragmentation. You follow?
So you have this challenge and how do you respond to it? That is of first importance, sir. You understand? You are challenged; how do you respond to it?
Q: You work it out in your life so then your life becomes a harmonious…
K: Ah, lovely! You work it out in life so that your life becomes harmonious. When?
Q: Every day.
K: Every day. There is no day, everyday.
Q: Every moment.
K: Now, look what you are doing. You are just adjusting yourself to the challenge. You are not answering it. How do you answer this, sir?
Q: It is not a question of answering at all because we are trying to meet you with the word. It’s impossible.
K: Find out, sir, what you are doing, find out. Here is a challenge and you can’t go back to any books. Right? You can’t go back to your authority, the Gita and all that rubbish. So what will you do? You see, I can go on explaining — what, sir? — but you will just accept it as you have accepted so many things, and carry on. All right, sir, let’s look at it.
Here is a new challenge. The challenge being that I have lived in fragments all my life — the past, the present and the future — that is a fragment — the God and the devil, evil and good, happiness and unhappiness, ambition and no ambition, violence, non-violence — it’s fragments, fragments — all my life I have lived that way — hate and love, jealousy and love.
Q: [Inaudible] …so I seek varying means of escape…
K: We have been through all that, sir. We have been through all that, sir. Let the Speaker… give the Speaker two minutes, will you kindly?
Where am I? Yes, yes, yes. So what is the answer? I have lived a fragmentary, destructive, broken life and now I have to live… Now the challenge to me has been put that, can I live without any fragmentation? That is my challenge. Now, how do I respond to it ? I respond to it by saying, ‘I really don’t know.’ Right? I really don’t know. I don’t pretend to know. I don’t pretend to say, ‘Yes, here is the answer.’ Right? When a challenge is put to you, a new challenge, the instinctive response — I mean, not ‘instinctive’ — the right response is humility — I don’t know. Right? But you don’t say that. I really don’t know. Right? Can you honestly say you don’t know? You can — good. Then what do you mean by that feeling ‘I don’t know’?
Q: [Inaudible]
K: Don’t answer it too quickly — find out. Use your brain cells.
Q: The recognition of a fact, sir.
K: I have recognized the fact, otherwise I wouldn’t even answer it.
Q: I have no means of finding out. I find that I have no means of finding what I do not know, and I have no means of finding out.
K: Now, wait — I don’t know — right? Now what is the state of the mind — please follow it, listen quietly — what is the state of the mind that says, ‘I really don’t know’?
Q: Lack of…
K: Oh, there we are! You people are so dull.
Q: [Inaudible]
Q: Highly active.
K: Oh, you are so immature. You are so immature, like children in a class. This is a very serious question we are asking and you just throw in a lot of words. You haven’t even the humility to listen and find out for yourself.
Q: [Inaudible] …I don’t know this.
K: When we say, when you say, as that gentleman said just now, he doesn’t know, what is the state of mind that has replied, ‘I don’t know’?
Q: Humility.
K: You are… Sir, how old are you?
Q: The mind has become very alert.
Q: We said we don’t know, and all the time we answer as if we know. There is a contradiction.
K: Oh, sir, sir, you are so…
When I say I don’t know, I really don’t know. But I am waiting to find out or waiting for somebody to tell me. Right? I am waiting. When I say I don’t know, it isn’t actual fact I don’t know but somebody is going to tell me, or I’ll find out. Right? I don’t know if you follow this. Right. Then you are waiting, aren’t you? Right? Why are you waiting? Who is going to tell you? Your memory? If your memory is going to tell you, you are back again in the same old rut. So what are you waiting for? So you say, ‘By Jove, I won’t wait.’ You follow? You follow, sir? There is no waiting. There is no ‘in the meantime’. You follow this? I wonder if you do. So when you say, ‘I don’t know’, it means nobody knows. Right? Because if anybody told me, he will tell me out of fragmentation. No? So I don’t know, therefore no waiting, and therefore no answer. Right? So I don’t know. Then I find out what is the state of the mind that says, ‘I don’t know’. You are following? It is not waiting, not expecting an answer, not looking to some memory, authority — it ceases — all that has stopped. Right? So the mind — follow it step by step — so the mind is silent in the face of a new challenge. It is silent because it can’t answer the new challenge. I don’t know if you are meeting this. Right, sir? No? No? You don’t understand. Thank God!
You know, when you see a marvellous mountain, the beauty, the height of it, the dignity, the purity of it, forces you to be silent doesn’t it? It may last a second; the very grandeur of it makes you… Right ? And a second later all the reactions begin. Now, if you see the challenge in the same way, which you don’t, therefore your mind is chattering. So you don’t see the importance or the magnitude of this question, which is: can I live — living means now not tomorrow or yesterday, or a second after or a second before — can I live without fragmentation? It is an immense question. Right? Why aren’t you silent?
Q: Because I want to live without fragmentation…
K: Ah — which means what?
Q: I want to be out of it.
K: No, which means what? Go into it. You don’t see the immensity of the question. All that you want to do is to get to another state, therefore you don’t see the magnitude of the question. Why don’t you? Pursue it! You do see it when you see a marvellous mountain, sparkling with snow in the clear blue sky with great, deep shadows, and absolute silence. Right? Why don’t you see this the same way? Because you want to live that way. Right? You are not concerned seeing the full meaning of that question, but you say, ‘For God’s sake tell me quickly how to get there.’
Q: I am so much interested in the solution that I…
K: That’s right. So you are more concerned with the solution than with the question. Which means what?
Q: I won’t get it.
K: No. Which means what? Look at it, look at it, don’t answer it yet — which means what?
Q: [Inaudible]
K: No. Madame, stick to it. You…
Q: [Inaudible]
K: You have understood the question? My question? You don’t see the magnitude of this question because you want to reach it, get it, you are greedy. Right? So your greed is preventing you from seeing the immensity of it. So what is important? Follow it step by step — not the immensity but your greed. Right? Why are you greedy, about something which you don’t understand at all?
You don’t mind, sir, my pursuing your daughter like that?
Q: The dissatisfaction. I separate myself…
K: No, see why. Why are you greedy, when you haven’t even understood what is involved in it? So you say, ‘How stupid of me to be greedy about something when I don’t know what it means.’ Right? So what have I to do is not be greedy but find out the implications, the beauty, the truth, the loveliness of that thing. Right? Why don’t you do that instead of saying, ‘I must get it’?
So now… So you respond to a new question, to a new challenge, invariably from the old. Greed is from the old. Therefore is it possible to cut off the past entirely? You understand? It is the past that is fragmentary, that is bringing about fragmentation, the breaking up of life. So my question is: is it possible to be free of the past totally so that I can live technologically? I don’t know if you follow this. Can I be free from the past, can I be free from being a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, this, that? Not ‘can I be’ — I must be. It is stupid for me to belong to any caste, to any religion, to any group. Out it goes. There is no time to think about it, as you suggested. Out it has gone. You follow? So it is possible to cut the past completely. If you can do it in one direction you can do it totally. Right? Oh no, you don’t…
Sir, can you, from this moment, be free completely of your nationality, of your tradition, of your culture, of your past? If you can’t, you live in fragmentation and therefore everlastingly life becomes a battlefield. Right? And nobody is going to help you to this. [Laughs] No guru, no communist, no — all the rest of it — nobody is going to help you do it. And in your heart of hearts you know this jolly well. Well, sirs?
So, thought — thought — is always old. Right? Discover it, don’t repeat it after me — discover it. And you see what an extraordinary thing you have discovered. Right? So if you discover this, that thought is really old, then all the past — Sankaras, the Buddhas, the Christ, the whole past is gone. No? [Laughs] But you don’t discover it. You won’t make the effort to discover it, you won’t work to discover it.
Q: No, sir, there is a fear of being lost…
K: Well be lost, you are lost anyhow!
Q: We’re not quite lost.
K: But you are lost, sir. What are you talking about? You are terribly lost. It is only lost man that is everlastingly in conflict. But you are lost, but you don’t recognize that you are lost.
So thought is always old. Then what is it — that is too difficult to go into now — which is, I’ll just put it forward and you will see it for yourself — what is it then that sees something new? You understand, sir? If thought — no, not ‘if’ — thought is always old — follow it carefully — whether the Shankara, the Adi Shankara, that old bird, when he said something, his thought was already old. You understand? Right? Therefore what he said is never new. He repeated in his own coin of words something which he had heard. And you repeat it after him. So thought is never new and can never be new. And living now, every day, is something which is active present. Right? It is always active, in the present. Therefore when you try to understand that activity of life in the present, with the past which is thought, then you don’t understand it at all. Then there is a fragmentation, therefore life becomes a conflict. So can you live so completely that there is only the active present now? And you cannot live that way if you haven’t understood and thereby cut yourself off completely from the past. Because you yourself are the past.
You see, you will listen; unfortunately if I happen to come next year you will repeat the same old stuff.
Q: Sir, if we are ignoring the past and the present, the present also will become a past in the future. How are we to know, sir, that we are right?
K: You don’t have to be sure you are right — be wrong! What are you frightened about, being right? Why shouldn’t you be wrong? But your question has no validity at all because you are saying — you are just theorizing. If this happens that would happen. But if you did it then you would know there is no such thing as going wrong.
Q: Sir, when we go back home we get to see our children and the past again comes in.
K: When you go back home you will see our children, so the past comes in.
Q: Shankara may go.
K: I hope it has gone. Shankara may go but the children remain. [Laughter] Are the children the past? They are, in one sense. And as they are living human beings, can you educate them to live so completely, as we are talking about?
Q: Right, sir, you have answered it — sorry. Thank you.
K: That means I have to help them to be intelligent, I have to help them to be sensitive, because sensitivity, highest sensitivity is the highest intelligence. Therefore they must, as there are no schools round you, you have to help them at home to be sensitive, to look at the trees, to look at the flowers, to listen to the birds, to plant a tree if you have a little yard, or if you have no yard, to have it in a pot, a little plant and to look at it, to cherish it, to water it, not to tear its leaves. And as the schools do not want them to be sensitive, educated, intelligent, they only… the schools exist to pass exams and get a job, you have to at home to help them — to help them to discuss with you why you go to a temple, why you do this ceremony, why you read the Bible, the Gita — you follow? — so that they are questioning you all the time, so that you don’t become the authority, or anybody else. But I am afraid you won’t do any of this because the climate, the food, the tradition is too much for you. So you slip back and lead a monstrously ugly life. But I think if you have the energy, the drive, the passion, that is the only way to live.
Right, sirs.