Public Talk 3, Colombo, 20 January 1957

COLOMBO/CEYLON.

SUNDAY, the 20th JANUARY 1957.

It seems to me, considering the world situation, and also the life of each one of us, seeing the extraordinary conflict that is going on without and within, being also aware of all the pressures — economic, social, and traditional pressures and influences — it seems to me that is so essential to bring about a fundamental change in the life of each one of us. I do not think that most of us appreciate the importance of such a revolution, uninfluenced and not dependent on any circumstances. Because the, such a fundamental, radical, change is a change that is not dependent on time and therefore something of the quality of the eternal. But most of us are inclined to wait for change through social reforms, through Governmental legislation and outward scientific progress, and so we are always dependent; the changes which are essential are somehow brought about, we hope, through pressure of society, through some kind of vague educational system, or through social reformation. But I don’t think that any such form of change, which is really an adaptation to circumstances and not really a fundamental radical change, such adaptation, though it has certain values, obviously does not release the mind, does not free the mind to inquire deeply into the reality and the creativity of this thing called life. I think such a revolution, inward change which is not affected by outward compulsion, enforcement or invitation is only possible if we know what self-knowledge is. That is, if I don’t know the ways of my thinking, the movement of my mind, the feeling, the pressures, the motive, the compulsion, the traditions that guide my thought, my feeling, not only consciously but unconsciously. If I don’t know the totality of myself, then every form of change is really a modified continuity of what had been. Without knowing myself, the whole content of myself, change is no change at all; it is merely an adaptation, a convenience, a conformity, following a custom, a tradition. But if you or I, as an individual, really desire, to, bring about a radical change — such radical change is essential when the crisis is totally need and imminent — such a change is only possible through self-knowledge, which is not the knowledge that is learnt from a book, from some philosophy, from some teacher, from a system. But the observation of myself from day to day, from moment to moment, to know how I think, to know the urges, the compulsion, that spring from the unconscious, to be aware of them in my relationships, the way I talk, the way I think, the manner, the gesture, the structure of my thinking, the anatomy of my feeling if I don’t know that, obviously all knowledge is merely then a modified continuity of what has been and conditions our future action. I think it is important for us each one of us to understand this.

Most religions, I think, — because I have not read religions, or studied the systems or teaching of religions — insist that you must the guide of yourself, that you must be the light to yourself and not dependent on another. I think that is clear. But yet, the whole social, religious structure which we have built around us makes us dependent, makes us an instrument of compulsion to ourselves and to another. So religion which should essentially guide man to look to himself and not to the church, not to a saviour, not to a system, not to a light outside oneself, not to an agency beyond oneself. Instead of doing that, they have emphasized — have they not? — the importance of rituals, of systems, of beliefs and dogmas; so we have been taken away from the important and essential fact, which is, to know yourself — then only you can be a guide to yourself. Then when you know yourself totally, you will find that you don’t need a guide, that you yourself are the guide, that there is a total action which operates because the mind then is free from every form of fear, conscious or unconscious; so the mind then is the instrument of this total action, and not the creator of total action.

I don’t know if I am making myself clear. Because most of us are thinking of complete action, we want to act in a manner in which there will be no contradictions, there will be no regrets, no fear, no future punishment. We want to act in a way that every action is a total response of our whole being. I don’t know if you have not felt that. Because, as we act we see the confusion, the misery, the contradiction, the innumerable difficulties that arise from this action, we try to find an action which will be a total action so that this misery, this contradiction never exists. So, the mind is seeking a total action, it enquires, it studies, it suffers, it possesses an idea which, it thinks, is total action. That is why you study philosophy, search for gurus, teachers and all the rest of it; because, you feel that, if you can find away of acting, then all the contradictions, miseries, will not arise. But I say there is a total activity which the mind cannot find except through self-knowledge; when the mind is free, that total action will operate through the mind, the mind then will not seek to be action. I think it is important to understand this. You don’t know yourself. To know the extraordinary capacity of your own mind, to uncover the recesses of your own heart, to know how your mind operates, thinks, whether thinking is mere reaction or whether thinking is action, to know the intricains [intricacies] of the unconscious and all the intimations and hints that the unconscious is putting into the conscious, that is, we are not aware of all this, we are just operating on the surface because this routine of daily existence is on the very surface. You go to the office and work there, you return and you carry on in the old pattern, you do not want any disturbance of that pattern, and so you are superficially satisfied. When you are disturbed superficially, you seek further satisfaction superficially; so your life is very superficial though you may meditate, read books, think of God, it is all on the surface like a gramophone record playing a song which you have heard; but it is not your song, it is the song of another; there may be no your song but only the song.

So it is very important to understand not only the conscious mind but also the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is much more powerful, much more insistent, much more directive and conservative than the conscious mind because the conscious mind is merely the educated mind which responds to the environment and adjusts itself to the environment. I do not know if you have not noticed a priest riding a bus, a priest riding on a motorbike — it is quite contradictory and you cannot think of it! — he is adjusting himself, as you do, to the environment, to the pressure of outside but inwardly he is the same — which is, the unconscious is the residue of the past. Sirs, if I may suggest, watch your own mind; do not listen to mere words, but watch the operations of your own mind; through my words, discover yourselves. I may describe the picture but it is your picture, not my picture.

So please watch yourselves and not merely listen to my words; because, if you really listen in that way, you will find a radical change takes a place in spite of your conscious mind; it is like a seed that is sown in the fertile soil; then the seed will push the earth and come out and blossom. So please, if I may most respectfully and persistently ask you, listen so that through the operation and, the activity of listening you will for yourself find the facts about yourself and the truth of yourself; the discovery of that truth liberates the mind, and you will not have to pursue this truth which will liberate. The unconscious mind is the residue of the part, it is the storehouse of tradition and the inheritance of the race, of all that has been for centuries. And to bring about a change in that is much more difficult, much more radical than changing on the surface. Love [Look] at yourself, Sirs, and you will observe a very simple past; you may have driving cars, you may have modern buses, gramophones, recording machines and all the rest of it, but inwardly you are 1000 or 10,000 years in tradition. The unconscious mind is much more conservative, much more traditional, incapable something of real transformation.

So it is very important to understand the unconscious, not merely scratch on the surface of the mind and think — you understand yourself. To understand the unconscious as well as the conscious mind, there must be a sense of watchfulness which is spontaneous and not enforced. If you watch a child, what happens? The child becomes paralysed if you notice it because you approach the child with condemnation, with encouragement, with a sense of criticism, with a sense of comparison; and the child feels it, free es [freezes?]in its action. You must have noticed it. But whereas if you begin to play with the child, let the child do what he likes, then even though you are there, the child is free to carry on its own play, and then you can study it. In the same way, if you watch your mind or rather, if the mind watches itself, with a sense of condemnative, with a sense of comparison, with a justification and so on, then the thinking process because freezen [frozen], your thoughts become still; but that is not stillness, the mind is afraid to move. Whereas if you watch with the case of spontaneity, with the case of familiarity, without any sense of comparing or justifying, then you will see that the totality of your mind begins to uncover itself. You do not have to uncover its play in your presence, the superficial mind, the conscious mind, does not have to uncover, it will uncover; it will uncover itself as the child begins to because it has confidence in you. So the unconscious as well as the conscious mind begins to uncover itself if you approach it without any sense of direction, opposition or identification. Then you will see from this observation, from this awareness, the mind is learning the content of itself. Learning is not possible if there is accumulation of what has been learnt. Please follow this. There is only the mind learning when there is no accumulation. The moment there is accumulation, which is knowledge, learning ceases because knowledge is interpreting, translating, what is being learnt. Perhaps this is rather difficult, perhaps somewhat need. Therefore, please pay a little attention. You will only know one state, the state of being taught, of being told. A mind that has been taught is not capable of learning. It can only pursue in the direction, in the line of what it has been taught and the teaching may give it an opportunity of inquiring but in a direction, negative or positive. But a mind that is being taught cannot learn because learning is a new process. You cannot learn what is already known. What is there to learn? It is only the mind that does not know, that has not accumulated that is capable of learning. But most of us are not capable of learning because our mind is filled with things known, and the movement in the field of the known is not learning. We think that is learning but that is merely accumulating what has been, or furthering what has been — which is, knowledge. A mind that is capable of learning must be free of this knowledge of what it has been told, of what it has learned. That is why it is tremendously important to know the content of your own mind. So that it is capable of learning. But truth, God or reality, whatever name you like to give it, is not a thing to be learnt; you cannot come to it with knowledge. The mind must be free of the known in order to know the unknowable. And the difficulty for most of us is that we think we can move from the known to the known, the known projecting the known. That is why there must be self-knowledge, there must be the learning about yourself not the learning from what you have known, to know yourself from moment to moment as you live; and you cannot learn about yourself if you move from what you have learnt yesterday and carry on with that to understand move [more?]. There is the possibility of learning about yourself in that way only when there is the death of what you have learnt. Sirs, please pay a little attention because you will find for yourself, there is understanding of yourself; out of that, comes an extraordinary relief, a sense of complete freedom from fear. And this freedom gives an extraordinary vitality and energy, and we need that energy to be in that state of complete silence so that the mind is capable of receiving, inviting, that which is true. You need great energy for the mind to be still — not dull, mind that is still. A petty mind can think about stillness, but that is not stillness; it may meditation silence, but that is not silence. That silence, that peace comes only through understanding and learning about yourself, so that the mind is in that state of energy, and so the mind is still. Then only is there a possibility of the eternal to be.

Please bear in mind that we are considering the problem and not the answer to the problem; because, the solution of the problem lies in the problem itself, and not away from the problem.

QUESTION:– You say that the mind should be free when the thinking process ceases. Hinduism and Buddhism advocate various practices towards this end. What method do you advocate?

KRISHNAMURTHI:– First let us examine this whole question of pursuing a method, first we are learning that, not how to end the process of thinking — we will come to that later. First we are enquiring this idea of pursuing a method in order to achieve a result, a psychological result, not a factual result.

What do you mean by a method? A system which, through practising it, will give you what you want, very subtly or very obviously. I want peace of mind and the religions — Buddhism, Hinduism, and all the rest of it — say ‘to these practices and you will set [get?] it.’ So day after day I practise, I sit, I meditate, hold my thoughts, control, suppress and so on. I go through all this hoping through these practices to arrive at a state of mind which I call peace. What does method do, a system which you practice? What is the effect of that practice, of that system on your mind? What is the effect, of practising a system on the mind, whether it is a first class super-method or the most stupid method? Surely the effect is to make the mind confirm to a pattern of thinking, conform to a system of thought — which means, make the mind, force the mind, discipline the mind which means disciplining of the mind to function in a particular to establish in a thought, force the mind to function in habit. That is all what the methods are concerned with. A mind that is functioning in habit is not of mind at all; it is merely a mechanism that works day after day in the same groove, though that mechanism may promise you bliss, heaven, Nirvana or God. Do please understand this, Sirs, that a method does not free the mind, it only a enslaves the mind to that method; that method promises freedom; but it is not freedom. A mind that practises a method conforms to the method; so the method becomes the mean of making the mind conform to a pattern of thinking, to a habit. A mind that is thinking in pattern, in habit, is not capable of being ever free. So, if you really see the truth of that — not because I say so but because you yourself, by paying attention to what is being said, see the truth that no method can free the mind; on the contrary, it enslaves you to the method however good that method is. Then you will find that you are free from the inquiry of all methods; that all methods are the same, they make you conform. The mind that conforms to any authority ceases to function as a free mind and so enquire as to what is true. I am just showing the fact, I hope it is clear. You can either look at the fact or discard the fact, it is up to you. If you look at the fact and go into it surely, reasonably without any prejudice, you are bound to see that methods enslave the mind, and, through method, the mind can never be free, whether the method is Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity or Islam; all these are conditioning the mind, not freeing the mind.

Then comes the problem: How is one to free the mind from the thinking process? I am using the word, ‘how’, as an enquirer, not asking for a method to pursue that will help to free the mind.

Nor, why do you want thought to end, why do you wish that thought should come to an end? Because, you have been told about it, read about it, and you say ‘I must’, because in ending the thought process I shall come to something much greater. Do you want to end thought because you have been told, or because you are seeking a reward? Or, do you want to end thought because you find the meaning of thinking, you understand the significance of thinking?

We are now trying to find out which is the significance of thinking, and see whether thinking is a means to a real discovery of what is true, what is God, what is beyond the measure of the mind. Then we shall keep thinking, then we must think completely, fully. But if thinking is not the way that opens the door, then obviously we must put away the key.

What do I mean by thinking? When I ask the question, the whole operation, the whole mechanism of thinking, of thought process, is set going. My question awakens a series of associations, a series of memories, that memory responds, then you say your reply. So, thinking is always, not only when a question is asked, the response of memory, and memory must condition thinking. Love [Look?] how you think! You think as a Sinhalese, as a Buddhist, as a Christian, as a man or a woman, as a businessman or a lawyer — the whole mechanism of your mind being conditioned and from that background you think, that is, that background which is memory, which is tradition, response to a challenge, and the response is what you call thinking: the response of memory, through word and communications, you call thinking. This is comparatively simple. As thinking is the response of memory and memory is always conditioned, thinking can never be free, there is no such thing as free thinking because thinking is always associated with the past. You think as a lawyer or as a religious person — which means, you think according to the memories, according to the knowledge which as a lawyer, as a religious person, you have been trained in; the training is the cultivations of memory and that memory responds.

Thinking can never be free. That is a discovery, Sirs, not a statement that you have learnt from me. That is a discovery for you and, if you have really listened, you will find it a tremendous shock and discovery. Then you will find, the mind will realise, that all thinking about a problem whether it is personal or scientific, immediate or in the future, is conditioned by the past, and that a scientist or a human being who will discover something new, must put this aside; he may use memory afterward but to use memory to discover is to be conditioned, it can never discover what is true. So the mind sees the function of thinking as a means, not of discovery but, for what has been discovered to be put into action. Seeing that, the mind says “Thought must end” — not conform thought, not suppose thought, not sublimate thought, but thought as a process must come to an end; then it does only when you understand the whole process of thinking through self-knowledge, and not just say ‘I must end thought’, which is an immature statement without any validity or significance.

A petty mind, a small mind thinks ‘I must end thinking in order to find truth’, such a mind is still a small mind, it will never find truth. But a mind that says ‘I am petty and I must understand this whole process of thinking — which is true self-knowledge — then such a mind is no longer petty; then it understand the significance of thinking and therefore it is capable of being free from the thought-process; then the mind is totally still, then the mind is made need, then the mind is more innocent, fresh. It is only the mind that has put away and is free of the known that is capable of receiving the unknown; then such a mind is not the observer of the unknown, it is not a receptacle of the known, it is the unknown itself.

QUESTION: You say that the conditioning of the mind, with which we approach all our problems, breed conflict and prorcuts and understanding of truth. How can the mind be unconditioned?

KRISHNAMURTHI: It is a fact that a mind which thinks in terms of Buddhism, or Christianity or Communism, or Hinduism or any of the organised beliefs which are called religions — whether they are social-religions or religions about God — such a mind is conditioned. You understand, Sirs. That is simple. You can be conditioned to believe in God, and another group of people can be conditioned not to believe in God. This is obvious; you know the communists do not believe in all this tommyrot, this is all just your being educated; it is an escapism, and you just accept what you have been told — they themselves accept what they have been told because their books, their Marx, their Engel, their Stalin, here conditioned thus that way, and they believe in their God — , and you believe in God or something else. Both minds are conditioned obviously; yours is not a superior conditioning, nor his is inferior. There is no nobler conditioning or less noble conditioning, both minds are conditioned — which is a fact. It is not I say so; you can observe this in daily life in your own minds; your own minds can reveal this if you observe your own minds which is, you think along a certain line as a Buddhist, you will not do certain things; as a Christian, you will not do certain things; as a Communist, you will do certain other things. So your mind is conditioned.

The questioner wants to know how to free the mind from that conditioning. First of all, Sirs, you must know that your mind is conditioned. You cannot free the mind, the mind cannot free itself till we, it, knows it is conditioned — that is, I must know that I am blind before I can do something about my blindness; otherwise, any talking about blindness has very to the value. Similarly, you must know for yourself that your mind is conditioned, and you must also find out for yourself in what manner it is conditioned — which is fairly obvious. You think as a Hindu or a Sinhalese, you have certain disregard for women or regard for somebody else, the contempt for some and the respect for others, the manner of your speech to servants and the manner of your speech with regard to the big man — that is your conditioning. You cannot be aware of the tradition in which you have been brought up, whether that tradition is a year old or ten thousand years old, if you oppose it, if you say it is right or wrong, good or bad, this is noble, this is ignoble, this I will keep, then I will throw out. If the mind approaches the totality of itself, of its conditioning; the very approach to the conditioning will free the mind from conditioning. When you know that you are functioning in tradition, and you realise how stupid it is, it drops away, and you don’t have to struggle against it. But the difficulty is that you find profit, pleasure, in tradition, in being conditioned; you find it is a sage thing. So, the unconscious which very conservative, which is very hesitant, holds you; so, the pleasure, the security, decides whether you condition or not condition yourself. When you realise that conditioning implies the totality of your feeling whether it is pleasure or pain, that you cannot seek pleasure and discard pain, then you will see that conditioning — because you understand the whole import of conditioning — frees the mind, you do not have to do a thing about it. Therefore all effort to un-condition itself is not to un-condition, because effort is born of conditioning, because you have been trained from childhood that you must make an effort in order to do something; but if you understand, there is action, you don’t have to make an effort.

QUESTION: Religions have helped many people towards spiritual life. It is however true that deterioration has set in when these religions become organised. Is it not desirable to revive the great religions and the glorious cultures associated with them?

KRISHNAMURTHI: When there is confusion there is always the desire and the urge to revive the past, because it is the safe thing to do. Don’t you know what is happening in the world? All over the Christian world there is shouting that religion must be revived, and apparently you are doing the same here: the ancient glories, the ancient religions must be revived. Can the ancient religions be revived?

What do you mean by religion? Not the dogma, not the beliefs, not the ritual, not the authoritarian-bound mentality — all that has nothing whatever to do with religion; that is more organisation for profit, either for the few or in the name of the many, not for the few. That is not religion. Religion is something entirely different.

Religion is love, and can love be revived? To love, to be kind, to be generous, not to hate, not to be ambitions, not to be envious, just to love people, to have sympathy, to have compassion — can that be revived? Can you go back and bring all the dead books, dead traditions, to life? Or, is love something that cannot be revived? Because, love is something in the present, not in the future; it is not something that you can get through practise; to love, to be compassionate, is now in the present, in the immediate, like a hungry man that wants food — he does not talk about revival, he wants food. Because you do not love, because you are confused, you want to revive something that is dead. If you really inquire, you will find that love cannot be revived. Because, you have never had love; you may have had the smell or the taste of it, and if you have it, you will never talk about revival. A living man does not talk about revival, he is living. It is a dead man that wants to put life into himself, the life that has made him die.

So, religion is not organisation, religion is not belief, religion is not authority, religion is not dogma, religion is not ritual, religion is not the knowledge accumulated through the past. Religion is a state of living the present, understanding the whole totality of time. Then the mind is free, then only is there no fear, and then that mind knows what it is to love. A mind which loves does not seek God or truth, because love is that truth. This thing — that is, to be attentive — is the good. The mind that pursues virtue, that cultivates virtue, is not a virtuous mind. Love cannot be revived, only dead things can be revived — in the sense that you can pump life into it hoping it will live, it will never either. Let the dead lie dead. Be concerned with living; that is much more difficult because that needs great clarity, great love, sympathy and generosity.