Public Talk 5, London, 19 June 1962

Krishnamurti: This is the last talk. It seems to me it would be a great pity if we went away after these talks and discussions that we’ve had, here and elsewhere, to go away with mere ideas, concepts or conclusions because as I pointed out, ideas, concepts do not fundamentally change the human mind and we need tremendous psychological revolution. The outward changes are more rapid than the change itself. The outward events, politically, economically, socially and commercially, things are taking place and the rapidity is more important than the thing that is being changed. And apparently we can’t keep up psychologically with it. We are what we have been for centuries, in conflict… . To discover what is true, all conclusions, every form of comparison and condemnation must be put aside, and that is a very difficult thing for most of us to do because we are educated, conditioned to condemn, to justify. When we have a problem, we try to find an answer instead of understanding the problem itself, and the answer is in the problem, not away from the problem. For most of us, change is merely a change of pattern, and if you consider it, you will see that a change of pattern is no change at all. Any change within the field of time is the same movement modified and continued.

Now, I am talking not about a change of pattern but about a deep psychological revolution, which means breaking away completely from the psychological structure of society. Change within the pattern of society is a movement from the known to the known, is it not? I am this and I want to become that, which is my ideal, so I struggle to change. But the ideal is a projection of the known, and the pursuit of the ideal is still no change at all.

…of what has been and what should be. Revolution implies, surely, a total awareness of the whole psychological structure, conscious as well as unconscious, and being completely free, without thinking of becoming. Unconsciously most of us have established patterns of thought, patterns of activity, patterns of way of life and when we desire to bring about a change in our life, unconsciously we accept certain patterns that have already been established of which we may not know, and this we think is a change. As we were saying the other day, without understanding the unconscious, every psychological change is merely a conformity to the pattern established by the unconscious. And not only the present crisis, outwardly, but the crisis in consciousness demands revolution. Not the revolution, economic or social, which are very superficial, but we’re talking of a revolution in the unconscious, a complete breaking away from the psychological structure of society, the breaking away totally from ambition, from greed, envy, from the desire for power, position and prestige, and so on. To break away totally, and that is the revolution, because without that revolution, no new thing can be. Then, without that revolution, we merely indulge in ideas, in concepts, and without that revolution, there will always be sorrow. And there is an ending to sorrow only when there is this total revolution.

And the question is, really, having understood somewhat of this problem, because we have discussed this enough here as well as in other halls: how to bring about this change, this revolution. If we make conscious effort, a deliberate, conscious endeavour, then we bring conflict into being, struggle, and a thing that is born of struggle, conflict is of little importance because it’s only productive of further conflict, further misery. So how is this possible: to bring about a revolution within the psyche without conscious effort? We have very carefully explained that the unconscious is the storehouse of the past, not only of the individual experiences and responses according to his background, but also it is the storehouse of the race, of the culture, of all the endeavour of man, his search for God and his denial of God and his substitutions for God as the state, as the nation, as an idea. The totality of all that is the past, is the unconscious, is the background of each one of us, and to consciously break down through analysis, through examination will not obviously bring about a revolution. You can modify, you can bring about a reformation but reformation needs further reformation. It is not a revolution, a complete breaking away from the past, and it is only when one can break away psychologically from the past, there is the new. And we need a young, fresh, innocent mind.

So how is this revolution to take place without endeavour, without trying to do something about it? I think it is important to understand how effort, how a struggle to bring about a change involves a contradiction, and that contradiction emphasizes the conflict and therefore it is not a change at all. You can only perceive something new… there can only be a state of innocency only when the past has ceased to have any significance.

You know, it’s one of the demands of modern society, which has lived through a great deal of suffering, guilt, anxiety, and enormous pain and fear; to such a mind, innocency is a great thing. It is demanding it, but their demand is still very superficial. The innocency of which they talk about is the opposite of complexity, the opposite of sorrow, of all the experiences, misery, strifes, confusion. Innocency, like love, is not the opposite. Love is not the opposite of hate. Love comes into being only when hate in every form ceases; hate as jealousy, hate as fragmentation of society, as one nation opposed to the other nation — all that form of antagonism, when that ceases there is… then there’s a possibility of love. In the same way, innocency — and there must be innocency; the mind must be innocent though it has gone through every form of experience. To bring about or to realize that state of innocency, every form of experience must come to an end, which is still the past, which is still the totality of the unconscious. Now, how is this to be done?

The religious people say you must turn to God and be in a state of receptivity, be in a state where the grace of God can come into being. And that every form of religious — I was going to use the word *chicanery* — to persuade the human mind, to influence, to control the human mind so that it will in some form or another achieve this innocency. And there are those who try various forms of drugs to achieve this extraordinary state of bliss, of innocency where there is a heightened sensitivity, perceptivity and listening. Neither the drug nor all the various forms of yoga, of every form of belief and denial of belief, or waiting for the grace of God can bring about this innocency because all that implies effort; all that implies the seeking, the escape from the fact of *what is.* And that innocency can only come into being when there is freedom from the known, the dying to the known, dying to the past, to the pleasures, to the memories, to the ideas, to the things that one has cherished, built, put together as character.

But we do not want to die to anything We would rather find a substitution, escape, find an illusion, but we never want to die to anything which gives us pleasure, to things that we have known, cherished, to any memory. But one must die for that innocency to be. And this dying is not a verbal statement, a verbal conclusion, a comfort. There must be an actual dying. But one can’t die if you have a motive to die, for motive has root in time, and time is thought, and thought is the response of this totality of consciousness, which is the known. And a man who has gone through or understood this whole process of influence, of conditioning, for we’re all conditioned, as a British or a Russian, a Hindu, as a Catholic, Buddhist and so on. We are shaped by society, by environment; we are the environment.

Most of you undoubtedly believe in God or in some form of super-state because you have been brought up in it. Like in Russia they don’t believe in any of that nonsense. That’s their conditioning as this is your conditioning, without realizing all that conditioning – not through analysis because that takes time. A conditioning can only be broken immediately, and the totality of conditioning is the consciousness, the known and it can be broken. And it can only be broken when it is approached negatively, and this negation is not the opposite of the positive. As love is not the opposite of hate, this negation is not the opposite of what we call the positive, the positive being the analysis, the examination, the trying to change what is, trying to conform to the pattern or try to change the pattern — all that we consider the positive. That which we are talking about as negation, negative, is not the opposite of that. It is the denial of the opposite; it is not a synthesis. A synthesis implies the coming together of the opposites, which is further productive of more opposites. But we are denying the positive altogether, this approach to change, the psyche, through effort, through analysis. When you deny that totally, which is our conditioning, then the mind is in a state of negation and it is only then possible that an innocency can be. It is this innocency which is really the religious mind.

The religious mind isn’t the mind that believes, that goes to church every day, or three times a day or once a week or once a month; it is not the religious mind that has dogma; it is not the religious mind that has innumerable beliefs and superstitions. The religious mind is the scientific mind which is able to observe the fact without distortion, the fact of its own inquiry and the falseness of that inquiry, to see itself as it is. To see our conditioning requires a scientific mind, not a believing mind, not an accepting mind, not a doubting mind, but a mind that is capable of seeing rationally, sanely the fact that unless there is a total breaking away from the psychological structure of society which we are, there is no innocency, and therefore such a mind can never be a religious mind.

A religious mind is not a fragmentary mind. It comprehends the totality of life, the life of sorrow, the life of pain, the life of joy and the passing entertainment of life, the totality of life and the comprehension of that — not in departments, not in fragmentation, but the totality of… the whole of life. Such a mind is the religious mind, and it’s the religious mind only that can go beyond, not the believing mind, not the mind that says there is a beyond, there is a God, or have a hypothesis about God. It’s only the religious mind that can go beyond, in the sense that it’s only the religious mind that can break away totally from the psychological structure of ambition, greed, envy, competition, the demand for more psychologically. It’s only such a mind that can be innocent. And then there is a possibility for such a mind to find out if there is or if there is not that which is immeasurable.

The word *God* is not God; the concept of what one calls God is not God. To find that, if there is that, all verbal concepts, all verbal formulation, all ideas, and, in fact, thought, which is the response of memory, must come totally to an end. Then only is there innocency. And then you will find out for yourself without any deception, without any wanting, without any desire, because such a mind is no longer seeking experience. The mind that seeks experience is an immature mind. Such a mind which is innocent is no longer concerned with experience. Then, being free of the word, the word being the capacity to recognize, recognize from the known because otherwise you cannot recognize anything. Recognition implies association, either verbal or actual through experience and therefore a religious mind is free of the word, concepts, formulas, patterns, and such a mind alone can find out for itself if there is or if there is not the immeasurable.

Perhaps now as this is the last talk you will ask some questions relevant to what we have been talking about.

Questioner: (Inaudible)… I have tried to earnestly and thoughtlessly to understand… (inaudible) does not move… (inaudible)?

K: The gentleman asks – I have to repeat the question, sir, and if I repeat it wrongly, please correct me — the gentleman asks: I have tried to put an end to thought and I don’t seem to succeed — is that it, sir? — and what is the essence or the mainspring of your talks — is that it?

Q: Yes.

K: As I’ve tried to explain, not only this evening but in the past talks and discussions, that trying, trying to be, to become is utterly futile; it is the result of resistance, of conflict, of contradiction. It may produce a certain tension and out of that tension a certain result, but that is not a revolution, a change. And the gentleman wants to know also: ‘What is the essence of your teaching?’ That’s rather difficult to put into words, in a few words. As I’ve been trying to explain, listening is an act; listening is the most factual act, but we don’t listen. We never listen because what we hear, we are translating according to our pleasure or pain, to our like or dislike, to our concepts, to our formulas, to what we already know. We never listen, nor do we ever see anything, because what we see, actually, visually is interpreted as this or that, so we never see, we never listen. We see a flower botanically, but we never see the flower non-botanically — and then only you will see the essence of that flower. When you can look at something naturally, not trying to look non-botanically, then you see the very essence of the whole beauty, the loveliness.

In the same way, if you have listened to all these talks, because you can’t possibly understand by coming to one talk and picking up a few ideas or concepts or opinions. I’m afraid that would be of very little meaning. Either you take the whole or you take none; you can’t take parts of it. And if you have listened to the whole of what we have been talking about, then you will see for yourself the essence without asking me what is the essence. This is not a clever turning the table on you, sir, but this is the actual fact, that you can’t put the whole ocean, or capture the wind in your fist. But you can listen to the deep murmuring, to the storm, to the violence of the ocean, of the sea, and you can also feel the enormity of the wind, its power, its beauty, its destructiveness. For you must destroy totally for something new to be.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: The gentleman wants to know what is the small voice of God. Is that it, sir?

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Silence, voice of…?

Q: (Inaudible).

K: The gentleman wants to know the small voice of one’s conscience. I am afraid that small voice of conscience is to be distrusted utterly…

(Laughter)

K: …as one must utterly distrust and doubt the voice of God within one. That voice speaks to all the saints, to all the generals, to all the warmongers, as well as to you and to me. Such a voice must be totally denied because such voices lead us terribly astray, because such a voice for most people is their own desire, their own longing, their own identification with their own country, or with a particular idea, and it’s very easy to produce a voice of God in yourself, too terribly easy. And if you have a certain capacity of speech, a certain form of tradition, then you become a leader, and you… (inaudible) lead people to destruction, to greater misery.

Q: (Inaudible)… what is it about the state of beyondness, of which you often talk… (inaudible)… what is it about it that makes you direct these words so often back into this world of memories… (inaudible)? In other words, what keeps you talking from this state into this world of memory? What is this complex that so many mystics… (inaudible)?

K: What is this complex — please correct me, sir, I haven’t quite captured… got your meaning — what is this strange thing that so many mystics have, to jump between the known and the unknown. No?

Q: No. What is it that makes you jump from the known back into… (inaudible) why do you keep trying to talk to us?

K: Why do you keep talking to us, jumping from the known — is that it?

Q: Yes.

K: First of all, why do I talk at all?

(Laughter)

K: What is communication? Look, we can commune with each other, either verbally, intellectually or silently. Most of us prefer to commune either silently or verbally, because if one can commune silently, then you can preserve all one’s pet ideas, all one’s beliefs, one can remain in one’s own ivory tower. But if one begins to commune verbally, intellectually, then the trouble begins, because we have to understand each other’s words, the meaning of words. We have to establish a certain relationship, and we can understand each other only when we meet together at the same level, at the same time. And we are talking because, not to bring about any change within you or to push you to any form of revolution, psychological revolution, but one can’t help talking about something which is so imminent, which is so real, which is so actual. You want to tell somebody to look at the cloud when you yourself see the extraordinary beauty and the light and the shape of that cloud. That’s all. That’s why I… one talks. At least I do.

And the other question is: ‘Why do you always go back to the known? Why don’t you keep on talking about the unknown and from there, from the unknown, talk?’ Most of us function and have our being in the known. We don’t know the unknown. You cannot know the unknown. You can only know something which you have already experienced, which means that you are able to recognize. The unknown is not recognizable, and for that immensity, the known must end. There must be freedom from the known. That’s why one is constantly talking about the known, to break it down. But, you see, you cannot possibly talk about the unknown. No words, no concept can ever bring it within the framework of the known. The word is not the thing, and the thing must be seen directly without the word. And that is extraordinarily difficult: to see something out of innocency, to see something out of love, love which has never been contaminated by jealousy, by hate, by anger, by possession, attachment. And one must die to attachment, to possession, to jealousy, to envy; die without reason, die without cause, without motive. And it’s only then, in this freedom from the known, the other thing may be.

Q: Sir… (inaudible).

K: I didn’t capture the beginning of that word…

Q: I asked if you believe in the usefulness of mantra… (inaudible).

K: Do I believe a repetition of words, however holy, in meditation. First of all, as we were talking about the other day, meditation is an extraordinary thing, but it cannot come about through repetition of words — what the Indians… Hindus call mantras; here, prayer. These words, prayers and mantras only put the mind to sleep; by constantly repeating over and over and over again, you can put yourself to sleep very nicely, and that’s what most of us do. In that soporific condition we feel we have achieved most extraordinary things, but that’s not meditation. That is drugging yourself through words. You can drug yourself through chemicals, or by drinking, or by various other ways, but that’s not meditation. Meditation is something extraordinary, and one must do it, as you would wash your mouth every day. But meditation is not something separate from life. It’s not something you do in the morning and forget for the rest of the day, or remember it and let that remembrance guide your life. That’s not meditation.

Meditation is an awareness of every thought, of every feeling, of every act, and that awareness can only come into being when there is no condemnation, no judgment, no comparison; just to see everything as it is, which means to be aware of your own conditioning, and to be aware of your own conditioning, conscious as well as unconscious, without distorting, without trying to alter it is also meditation. But meditation is just a beginning of being aware of all the responses, reactions, opinions, motives, urges within oneself – that’s only just the beginning. But you must, if you would have the religious mind, meditate. To be aware of your thoughts and feelings, be sensitive to every movement of thought — which is not concentration. Concentration is very easy, every schoolboy learns it. But meditation is not being absorbed into something. A boy, a small child is absorbed by the toy, and when he’s absorbed by the toy, he’s very quiet, he’s completely with the toy. And that’s what most of us want, to be absorbed, identified with a toy, which is an idea, which is a belief, which is a concept. And that’s not meditation. Meditation is something far beyond all this immature thinking. Meditation is that state of awareness in which there is attention to every thought and every feeling, and out of that attention there is silence — not disciplined, not controlled. A silence that is brought about through control, through discipline is the silence of death, decay. But there is a silence that comes into being naturally, effortlessly, without your being even conscious of it when there is this attention in which there is no experiencer, no observer, no thinker. And when one has… when that silence has come into being, which is really innocency, then, without being invited, without asking, without seeking, the unknowable, the unknown may come.

Q: Sir, you said… (inaudible) but do you mean that in order to achieve this, we must have physical death?

K: The gentleman asks: ‘You have said that one must die to the past. Does it mean that we must die physically? It’s rather difficult to die, even physically, because we so cling to the physical. We’re not talking about dying physically. That, I’m afraid, for all of us is inevitable. We may live for another fifty years more if the scientists discover something, new chemical, but we’ll be still the same at the end of another hundred years, with our pettiness, with our worries, with our problems, with our jealousies; with our attempt to be sensitive, to become beautiful, and all the rest of it. We are talking dying in terms of the psychological structure of which you are, to die. To die to your envy, sir, because most of us are envious. Society is based on envy, the more, which is comparative: more knowledge, more influence, more power, everything more, more, more, which is the essence of envy. And to die to that, to die to it without argument, to die to it without persuasion, to die to it not knowing what will be when you do die to envy, and that is real death because out of that death there is innocency. That which ends has a beginning, not that which has continuity. A thought, which is in its essence the result of continuity, the past, it can be modified, it can be changed, it can become a new thought, it can create a new series of ideas, formulas, concepts, but thought which has continuity can never know what it is to end and out of that ending, an innocency. Thought can never know what innocency is, however reasonable, however logical, because thought can never be free.

Q: Mr Krishnamurti… (inaudible).

K: Oh no, sir…

Q: And my question, sir, you said that the avoidance of a problem was preferable to the finding of a solution… (inaudible).

K: I’m afraid I did not say that, sir. I did not say the avoidance of a problem is the solution to the problem.

Q: I believe you said… (inaudible) was preferable to the finding of a solution.

K: No sir. I’m sorry, I did not say all that.

Q: Sir…

K: Let me finish that, sir. You see, most of us have problems of every kind, inward and outward, and we’re always seeking an answer, a way out of it. All outward, mechanical problems have an answer, but psychological problems have no answer. They have to be understood, and a mind that is seeking an answer to a psychological problem is incapable of understanding the problem. If I have a psychological problem, say, in relationship, and if I try to find an answer, then I am avoiding the problem of that relationship. I’m concerned with the answer, and the concern with the answer prevents me from looking at the fact of the problem itself. So to understand the problem I have to look at the fact without opinion, without demanding an answer.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: I’m afraid I can’t hear, madame.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: *Je ne comprends pas.* I’m afraid I don’t hear. You mean… is this right? You’re saying ‘Let us experience’?

Q: I said if time permits, may we experience together… (inaudible)?

K: The lady asks if time permits, may we sit together quietly for a few minutes. You know, that’s one of the most dangerous things to do.

(Laughter)

K: Because you have been sitting together for an hour, listening, and while you’re listening, you were supposed to have been silent. And if you have not been silent during that hour, or even for a few minutes, in the act of listening, then sitting quietly together and experiencing silence will only lead to various forms of illusions.

(Laughter)

K: See… Please, silence is one of the most difficult and arduous things; it’s not to be played with. It isn’t a thing that you buy in a book, or by listening to a talk, or by being together, or by going into a wood or into a monastery. I’m afraid it is none of those things that will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense work, psychological work. You have to be intensely aware, burningly aware — aware of your speech, aware of your thought, aware of the snobbism, aware of your fears, anxieties, guilt; and when you’re dead to all that, then out of that beauty comes silence.

Q: Sir, may I… (inaudible)?

Q: (Inaudible)… the difference between meditation and contemplation?

K: The gentleman wants to know, asks what is the difference between meditation and contemplation. First of all, I do not know the technological meaning of contemplation, the technical meaning of a Christian who says, ‘I contemplate’, so I don’t know what he means. But if contemplation implies the observer, the entity contemplating, the entity, the thinker, the *me* endeavouring to contemplate, endeavouring to bring all his mind, all his capacity into a focus, and that state where there is still the observer contemplating, then it is the same as the person who tries to meditate in order to achieve a result. The person who says, ‘I must meditate in order to be quiet, in order to find God, in order to find an answer’ – that is not meditation, not contemplation. As long as there is an observer, a thinker, an experiencer, there can possibly be no meditation. And so meditation isn’t a thing that you just pick up from a book or practice for a few years; there is no practice, there is no discipline because you cannot discipline a living thing. You can discipline a dead thing, and we have disciplined our minds so much that we are dead, and within that pattern we try to meditate. It is breaking down the pattern, and the breaking down of the pattern is the beginning of meditation.

Q: How is it possible to be intensely aware if one is engaged… (inaudible) with a particular job?

K: How is it possible to be intensely aware if one is occupied with a particular job. I do not see the difficulty. Why cannot one be aware intensely while you are doing the job?

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Wait, wait; I’m going to answer that point, sir. You are doing a particular job, a mechanical job or a scientific job, or a bureaucratic job. In being intensely aware while you are doing that particular job, you not only do it efficiently, perhaps more efficiently but also you begin to be aware why you are doing it, what is the motive behind your efficiency. While you are intensely aware, you are beginning to find out if you’re afraid of your boss, how you talk to your underlings and how you talk to your boss. You’re intensely aware of your companionship with others, whether you are creating enmity, jealousy, hatred. You are intensely aware of all relationship, whether in a bus, here, or in your office, or in the factory. All that implies intense awareness. And if you are intensely aware, you might give up that job also.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Wait a minute, sir. And therefore most of us don’t want to be intensely aware, because what we are doing is intensely boring…

(Laughter)

K: …and we want to break away from the thing which bores so we try to find a job which will be less boring, but that soon becomes routine. So we are caught in habit: habit of going to the office every morning, habit of smoking, sexual habit, habit of ideas, habit of concepts, the habit of an Englishman, and so on. We function in habit, and to be aware intensely of that habit is its own danger, and we’re afraid of danger, because not to know, not to be certain. There is great beauty in not being certain, there is great vitality – not insanity; it doesn’t become a psychotic thing to be totally, completely insecure. But none of us want that. We’d rather break one habit and create a more pleasant habit.

Q: Sir, the state of childhood or… (inaudible)?

K: How is it applicable, if I understand the question rightly, to the state of the child. How can the child be in a state of revolution — is that the question, sir?

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Ah, I did not say innocence of childhood. The child is not innocent. The child is ignorant. The child is craving for more experience as he grows, matures. We are not talking of the childhood innocency; that’s for the poets. We are talking of innocency of a mature mind, a mature mind that has gone through the agonies, the travail, the suffering, the intense anxieties, doubts, and has left them all behind, has died to all that. It is that innocency, not the innocency of a symbol. I’m afraid we must stop. I’m sure you must be tired because if you have listened rightly, to listen rightly for an hour and a quarter is enough. But if you have not listened, we can go on talking for the next two hours and that will be of little value. I hope we shall meet again next year.

(Applause)