Public Talk 5, Bombay, 24 February 1965

Krishnamurti:

And as I’m going to talk this evening about time, sorrow and death, we must, I think, be very clear that we are not talking about ideas, but only the fact; the fact of that flower, blooming, full of beauty, delicate, with slight fragrance — that’s a fact — and the dying of it, after a few hours, when the wind comes and the sun rises, and the beauty of it even in death — that’s also a fact. So we are going to deal with facts and not with ideas.

You can imagine — if you have got imagination — the colour of those flowers; have a picture, mentally conjure up an image of that creeper with its delicate colours, the flowers of delicate colours, the extraordinary beauty of them; but your image, your idea about the creeper, your feeling about the creeper is not the creeper. The creeper with its flowers is the fact; and your idea about the flower, though it’s a fact, it is not the actual. You are not actually in contact with the flower through an idea. I think this must be borne in mind throughout this talk, that we are dealing with fact and not with ideas, and you cannot touch intimately, directly, concretely, the fact through an idea. Death cannot be experience or come… one cannot come directly into contact with it through an idea. And most of us live with ideas, with formulas, with concepts, with memory and so we never come into contact with anything. We are mostly in contact with our ideas, but not with the fact.

And as we are going to discuss, or rather, I’m going to talk about time, sorrow, and that strange phenomenon called death, we either can interpret them as ideas, as conclusions, or one can come directly into contact with the whole problem of time and the dimension of time. One can come directly into contact with sorrow; that is, that sense of extraordinary grief. And also, to come directly into contact with that thing called death. Either we treat time, sorrow, love and death as a series of conclusions, the inevitableness of death, or the explanations. The explanations, the conclusions, the opinions, the beliefs, the concepts, the symbols have nothing whatsoever to do with the reality, with the reality of time, with the reality of sorrow, with the reality of death and love. And if you are going to merely live or look or come… or hope to come into contact with the dimension of time, sorrow and death through your idea, through your opinion, then what we are going to say will have very little meaning altogether. In fact, you will not be listening at all; you will be merely hearing words and be in contact with your own ideas, with your own conclusions, opinions, and therefore not be in direct contact.

I mean by *contact*: I can touch this table; I am directly in contact with the table. But I am not in contact with the table if I have ideas of how I should touch the table. So the idea prevents me from coming directly, intimately, forcefully in contact. And during this hour, if we are not directly in contact with what is being said, then we will continue living a wasteful life. Because we have this life to live. We are not discussing the future life; we’ll come to that presently. We have this life to live. We live so wastefully, without life itself having a significance. We live in travail, in misery, in conflict and so on, so on, and we are never in contact with life itself. And it would be a thousand pities — at least, I feel so — if you are merely in contact with ideas and not with fact.

So we are going to talk about time, first. I do not know if you have thought at all about this thing called time; not abstractly, not as an idea, as a definition but actually coming into contact with time. You know, when you are hungry, you are in contact directly with hunger; but what you should eat, how much you should eat, the pleasure you’re going to derive from eating and so on and on, those are ideas. But the fact is one thing and idea is another. So to understand this extraordinary question of time, you must be intimately in contact with it; not through ideas, not through conclusions but to be intimately, to be directly, with tremendous intimacy with time. Then we can go into this… then you will be able to go into time and see whether the mind can be free of time.

There is obviously the question of time as by the watch, the chronological time. That’s obvious, that’s necessary; in which is involved the question of memory, planning, design and so on; so that… we are not discussing that, not the chronological time of every day. But we’re going to talk about the time which is not by the watch. We don’t live only by the chronological time; we live much more by time which is not of the watch. Which is, for us, the time which is not chronological is much more important, has much more significance than the time by the watch. That is, though chronological time has importance, what has much more importance, greater significance, greater validity for most people is the psychological time, the time as continuity, time as yesterday, a thousand yesterdays, and tradition; and time not only the present but time as future.

So we have the time as the past — past being the memories, the knowledge, the tradition, the experiences, the things remembered — and the present, which is the passage of yesterday to the time of tomorrow, which is shaped, controlled by the past through the present. So for us that has tremendous significance, not the time by the watch; and in that dimension of time we live. We live with the past in conflict with the present, which creates the tomorrow. This is obvious fact; there’s nothing complex about it. So there is time as continuity and there is time as the future and the past; and the past shapes our thinking, our activity, our outlook and so conditions the future.

And we use time as a means of evolving, as a means of achieving, as a means of gradual changing. Please follow all this. We use time; and we use time either because we are indolent, lazy or we have not found a way of transforming ourselves immediately and therefore we say, ‘I will gradually change.’ Or you are frightened of immediate change and the consequences of that change, therefore we use time as a means of postponement, time as a means of gradually achieving, and time as a means of change. You need time by the watch to learn a technique; if I have to learn a language, I need time, I need a few months. But we use time — the psychological time, the time not by the watch — as a means of changing, and so we introduce the gradual process: ‘I will gradually achieve; I will become; I am this and I will become that through time.’

So we use time. Please bear that in mind. And time is the product of thought. If you did not think about tomorrow — think about it — or look back in thought to the past, you would be living now; there would be neither future nor the past; you would be completely living for the day, giving to the day your fullest, richest, complete attention. And as we do not know how to live so completely, totally, fully, with such urgency in the day, bringing about a complete transformation in the day, we have invented the idea of tomorrow: ‘I will change tomorrow; I will… I must conform tomorrow,’ and so on, so on, so on. So thought creates the psychological time, and thought also breeds fear.

Please follow all this. If you don’t understand these things which I’m talking, you won’t understand at the end of it; it’ll be just words and you will have left with ashes.

Most of us are frightened or have fear: fear of the doctor, fear of disease, fear of not achieving, fear of being left alone, fear of old age, fear of poverty — the outward things. Then, inwardly, there are a thousand and one fears: of public opinion, of death, of being left completely alone so that you have to face life without a companion, the fear of loneliness, the fear of not reaching what you call God. So man has a thousand and one fears. And being frightened, he either escapes in a vast network, subtle or crude, or he rationalises these fears, or he becomes neurotic because he can’t solve it, he can’t understand it, he can’t resolve it, or he so completely runs away from the fear, from various fears through identification of social activity, reformation, joining political parties and so on and on and on.

Please, I am talking not of ideas but of what actually is taking place in each one of you. So you are not listening to my words, but through the words that are being used, you are looking at yourself. You are looking at yourself, not through ideas, but coming directly into contact with the fact that you are frightened; which is entirely different from the idea that you’re frightened.

So unless you understand the nature of fear and are completely free of fear, totally, your gods, your escapes, your doing of all kinds of social work and so on, so on, have no meaning because you are then a destructive human being, exploiting. So one has to resolve this fear. A neurotic human being with his innumerable fears, he can’t, whatever he does, however good he may do, he is always bringing to his actions the seed of destruction, the seed of deterioration because his action is an escape from the fact.

So most of us are frightened, have secret fears; and being afraid, we run away from it. The running away from it, from the fact, the objects to which you run away become much more important than the fact. You understand? If I’m frightened and I have escaped from it through drink, through going to the temple, God and all the rest of it, the god, the temple, the pub, becomes far more important than the fear. I protect the god, the pub much more vigorously because to me they have become extraordinarily important; they are the symbol which give me assurance that I can escape from fear. The temple, the god, the nationalism, the political commitments, the formulas that one has becomes far more important than the resolution of the fear. So unless you dissolve totally fear, you cannot possibly understand what death is or what love is or what sorrow is.

So for a mind that is really religious, a mind that is really socially minded, a mind that is creative has to completely, totally put away or understand, resolve this problem of fear. If you live with fear, you are wasting your life; of any kind, because fear brings darkness. I don’t know if you have not noticed, if you’re really frightened of something, what happens to you: all your nerves, your heart, everything becomes tight, hard, frightened. Haven’t you noticed it? There is not only physical fear but there is much more the psychological fear. The physical fear, which is a self-protective physical response, is natural. When you see a snake, you run away from it, you jump; that’s a natural, self-protective fear. It isn’t really fear; it’s really merely a reaction to live, which is not fear, because you recognise the poison and you move away. So we are talking not only of the physical fear but much more the fear that thought has created.

We are going into this question of fear. Unless you follow it step-by-step, millimetre-by-millimetre, you won’t be able to resolve it; because we are going to come into contact directly with fear, not what you are frightened about. What you are frightened about is an idea, but not fear itself is not an idea. Suppose one is frightened — as most people are, the young and the old — frightened of public opinion or of death — doesn’t matter; take your own example and I will death — I’m frightened. Fear exists only in relationship to something. Fear doesn’t exist by itself; fear does not exist by itself but only in relation to something. I am frightened of public opinion, I’m frightened of death, I am frightened of darkness, of losing a job. So fear arises in connection with something.

Let us say, I am frightened of death. I have seen death. I’ve seen bodies being burned. I’ve seen a dead leaf falling to the ground. I’ve seen so many dead things and I am frightened of dying, coming to an end. Now, there is this fear in relation to death, loneliness or a dozen things. Now, how do I look or come into contact with that fear? Do I come into contact with that fear through an idea or do I come into contact with that fear as I come into contact with the table? Am I making myself clear? To come directly into contact with fear — and I hope you are doing it, not merely listening — to come directly into contact with that emotion, with that feeling called fear, first the word, the thought, the idea must not come in at all. Right? That is, to come into contact with a person, I must touch his hand, I must hold his hand. But I do not come into contact with that person, though I may hold his hand, if I have ideas about that person, if I have prejudice, if I like or dislike. So the image, the idea, the thought, in spite of my holding his hand, prevents me from coming into contact directly with that man.

So, in the same way, to come directly into contact with your fear — with your particular fear, conscious or unconscious — you must come into contact with it not through your idea. So one must first see how the idea interferes with coming into contact. When you understand that idea interferes with coming into contact, you no longer fight the idea. When you understand idea prevents you, naturally the idea goes away — the idea being opinion, the formula and so on, so on, so on — so you are then directly in contact with your fear and therefore there is no escape, either verbally or through a conclusion or through an opinion or through any form of escape. Then you are directly in contact with that fear. When you are in contact with fear, in that sense, then you will find — as you are finding, if you are doing it, what we are discussing, what we are talking about — then you will find fear altogether disappears. And you must… and the mind must be free of this fear, not only the secret fears but the open fears, the fears of which you are conscious. Then only can you look at the thing called sorrow.

You know, man has lived with sorrow for millennia, for many thousands, million years. You. You have lived with sorrow; you haven’t resolved it. Either you worship sorrow as a means to enlightenment, or you escape from sorrow. We put sorrow on a pedestal, symbolically identified with a person, or you rationalise it or you escape from it. But sorrow is there.

I mean by *sorrow* the loss of someone, the sorrow of failure, the sorrow that comes upon you when you feel that you are inefficient, incapable; the sorrow that you find when you have no love in your heart, that you live entirely by your ugly little mind. There is the sorrow of losing someone whom you think you love. And we have lived with this sorrow, night and day, never going beyond it, never ending it. Again, a mind burdened with sorrow becomes insensitive, becomes enclosed; it has no affection, it has no sympathy; it may show words of sympathy, in itself, in its heart it has no sympathy, no affection, no love. And sorrow breeds self-pity. And most of us carry this burden all through life and we don’t seem to be able to end it.

And there is the sorrow of time — you understand? — that we carry this sorrow to the end of our life, not being able to resolve it. That’s a much greater sorrow: to live with something that you can’t understand, which is eating your heart and mind, darkening our life. And to end sorrow. And also, there is the sorrow of loneliness, being completely alone, lonely, companionless, shut off from all contacts, ultimately leading to neurotic states and mental illness and psychosomatic diseases.

So there is vast sorrow, not only of a human being but also the sorrow of the race. Now, how do you resolve sorrow? Because unless you resolve it, like fear, there is no future; you can invent future; there is no future for man, as a man living with intelligence, sensitive, alive, young, fresh, innocent. So you must solve fear; you must end sorrow.

Again, to end sorrow is to come into contact with that extraordinary feeling, without self-pity, without opinion, without formulas, without explanation; just to come directly into contact with it, as you would come into contact with the table. And that’s one of the most difficult things for people to do: to put away ideas and come into contact.

Then there is the problem of death. Then, with that problem of death, the problem of old age. We all know that death is inevitable; inevitable through senility, through old age, through disease, through accident. It is inevitable; though scientists are trying to prolong life another fifty years or more, it is inevitable; and why they want to prolong this agonising existence, God only knows, but that’s what we want. And to understand death — I mean to come into contact with death — demands a mind that is not afraid, that is not thinking in terms of time, that is not living in the dimension of time — which I explained — and to live with death; I’m going to go into it.

You know, we have put death at the end of life; it is somewhere there in the distance; trying to put it as far away as possible, as long as possible. And we know there is death, so we invent the hereafter; because we say, ‘I have lived, I have built a character, I have done things. Will all things end in death? Therefore, there must be a future.’ The future of… afterlife, the reincarnation — all that is an escape from the fact of today, from the fact of coming into contact with death. Because your life, what is it, actually? Look at it, your life which you want to prolong — what is your life? A constant battle, a constant confusion, an occasional flash of pleasure, a boredom, sorrow, fear, agony, hope, despair, jealousy, envy, ambition — that’s your life actually, with disease, with pettiness. That is your life, and you want to prolong that life after death.

And if you believed in reincarnation — as you are supposed to believe; as your scriptures talk about it — then what matters is what you are now. Because what you are now is going to condition your future. Right? So what you are, what you do, what you think, what you feel, how you live matters infinitely, if you do believe in reincarnation; and if you do not even believe it — this is the only life — then it matters tremendously what you do, what you think, what you feel, whether you exploit, whether you don’t exploit, whether you love, whether you have a feeling, whether you’re sensitive, there is beauty — that matters. But, you see, to live like that, you have to understand death, and not put it far away at the end of life, at the end of a life which is sorrow, which is a life of fear, a life of despair, a life of uncertainty. So you have to bring death close; that is, you have to die.

You know what it is to die? You have seen them enough; you have seen a man being carried to a burning place where he’ll be destroyed. You have seen death. And most people are frightened of that. And death is, as that flower dies, that creeper with all those Morning Glories, with that beauty, with that delicacy, and it dies without regret, without argument; it comes to an end. But for us, we use death, or rather we escape from death through time; that is, ‘It’s over there. I have a few more years to live and I shall be born next life,’ or, ‘This is the only life, therefore let’s make the best of it; let’s have all the greatest fun. It’s the greatest show.’ And so we never come into contact with that extraordinary thing called death; that is, to die to everything of the past, die to your pleasure.

Have you ever tried, without argument, without persuasion, without compulsion, without necessity to die to a pleasure? A pleasure; and you’re going to die inevitably; and to die today, easily, happily to a pleasure, to your remembrances, to your hates, to your ambitions, to your urgency to gather money, money, money. That’s all what you want in life: money, position, power and the envy of another. And to die to them, without any argument, without any explanation, to easily die to the things that you know. Please bear in mind that you are not hearing a few words and ideas but actually coming into contact with a pleasure, your sexual pleasure; coming into contact with it and die to it. That’s what you’re going to do anyhow: die to everything you know: your body, your mind, the things that you have built up. And so we say, ‘Is that all? Is all my life to end in death? All the things I have done: the service, the books, the knowledge, the experience, the pleasures, the affections, the family, all end in death?’ That is facing you. Either you do it now or you do it, inevitably, when the time comes. An intelligent man who understands this whole process… — and the intelligent man is the only religious man and not t he man who takes the *sanyasi* robes, grows beards, goes to temple, runs away from life; he’s not a religious man.

The religious man is one who dies every day, to be reborn every day, so that his mind is young, innocent, fresh. To die to your sorrow, to die to your pleasure, to die to the things that you hold secretly in your heart — do it and you will see you will not waste your life. Then you will find something that is incredible, that no man has ever perceived. This is not a reward; there is no reward. Either you die willingly or you die inevitably. And to die naturally to every day, as that flower dies, blooming, rich, full, and then to die that beauty, to that richness, to that love and to the experience as knowledge; and to die so that you are reborn, so that you have a fresh mind.

Sir, you need a fresh mind, otherwise you don’t know what love is. If you don’t die, your love is merely memory; your love is then caught in jealousy, envy. And to die every day, to everything you know: to your hatred, to your insults, to your flatteries; die to them, and then you will see that time has no meaning. There is no tomorrow then; there is only the now that is beyond the yesterday and the today and the tomorrow. And it is only in the now there is love. And a human being that has no love cannot approach what truth is. Without love, do what you will — do all your sacrifices, your vows of celibacy, your social work, your… — nothing has any value. And you cannot love without dying every day to your memory. For love is not of memory; it’s a living thing and a living thing is a movement, and that movement cannot be caged in words or in thought or in a mind that is merely self-seeking.

Only the mind that has understood time, that has ended sorrow, that has no fear, only such a mind knows what death is, and therefore such a mind there is love.