Students Talk 1, Ojai, California, 3 November 1966

Krishnamurti: I think I first came to Ojai in 1922. Forty-four years ago. Mr Sherman Thacher used to invite me here very often, and he used to come over where we used to live. A lot of things have happened since then; not only has this school grown enormously, out of all recognition; I don’t think I’ve been here for many, many years, and all this is totally new. And I don’t know how seriously you want to talk about things; or do you want a casual talk? I don’t know. So we’ll try both.

I’ve been to many parts of the world, except behind the Iron Curtain — South America and all over the… different places — and I’ve talked to a great many people, boys and girls all over the world; and it seems to me, wherever one is, there is an important question being asked right throughout the world. The question is: what is education? Why do we live at all? What is the meaning of all this utter chaos in the world? Because, as you know, historically, there have been fourteen or fifteen thousand wars since 5,500 B.C. That means two and a half wars every year. And war has been going on, and nobody has been able to stop it. Religions have tried it, to tame man, his violence, his aggression, his brutality, and it has not succeeded; and I believe only there has been one religion, which is Buddhism, that has had no wars in its name; and after that, Hinduism. And, of course, Christianity and Islam have had I don’t know how many wars.

So education has not stopped wars, nor education has given peace to the world. You may have peace in Ojai, or America, but there is no peace in the rest of the world. There is no peace either in this country. The whole of Asia has not enough food, over-population. I go to different parts of India, to the villages and so on, and there you notice enormous poverty, poverty which is really crushing, destructive. And they are extraordinarily happy, gay. They work all day long in a burning sun, in fields that produce hardly anything, and the evening you see them with a flute, dancing, completely oblivious of their hard life. Probably they have, oh, one meal a day… one meal a day; I doubt even that. And they don’t revolt, because they have not enough energy. Even if they did revolt, what? Because there is such enormous population.

Communism, in Russia and in China, as one sees it, hasn’t solved the problem either; nor socialism. They have tried all these methods. And in India and in Asia, certain parts of Asia, they have had dictatorship — not in India — and democratic rule, but that hasn’t produced enough food. Over-population, there has been no control, birth-control and so on, so on. Technological development in this country, the know-how, is spreading all over the world: Japan, in parts of Asia, and in India; and technology has not solved the problem either. And I have talked to some scientists, and there was a time when we thought science would solve everything, because science can produce enough food, clothing and shelter for millions and millions of people. But nationalism, sovereign governments prevent that solution.

Religions have divided man: Christianity, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and, oh, there are so many of these. They have divided the earth, and nationalities have divided the earth, and everyone practically is at each other’s throat. The hectic competition in this country, and the frightening competition in Russia, in Germany, which is going on. And all this is going on in the world, though man is supposed to be more advanced, having been educated, there are so many universities, so many museums, hundreds of concerts, oh, I don’t know how many books there are printed all over the world, serious, flippant — I personally read only detectives occasionally, and nothing else; no philosophy, no religious books, no statistics and so on. But I’ve got a great many friends in different parts of the world, intellectuals, scientists, artists, musicians and so on.

And the central problem, it seems to me, which we all have to face, is what is going to happen to man? What is happening? Man is becoming more and more obedient. Society is becoming — society being organised state — is becoming more and more strong. Propaganda is something horrific. One can be convinced through propaganda of anything. Religions have done that throughout the world: two thousand years of Christian propaganda, ten thousand years of propaganda of the Hindus and the Buddhists, and so on.

So man is becoming more and more obedient, because he’s seeking security, he wants to be safe, comfortable, assured of his job, of his position, of his house, of his family, of his job, and so on, so on. And one asks — not only in this country, because we have recently spoken at the New Social Research in New York and in Harvard and so on — one asks, what is it all about? Why are we educated at all? What’s the point of it all? Just to go to the office for the next forty years after you get a job, fall into the trap and never, never possibility of breaking through? Getting a technological knowledge, and then functioning in that groove for the rest of one’s life. Or a scientist, one becomes a scientist, and one can perhaps invent new things or see new phases of life and so on; but even the scientists are beginning to, kind of, throw… beginning to despair.

So wherever one goes this question is always asked by the young or the old: what is it all about? And the more clever, the more sensitive, the more bright one is, the greater the question, the greater the urgency. And as no-one answers that question — and really one has lost faith in the older structure of society, with its priests and leaders, all the rest of it — so one takes to drugs, LSD, because that seems to open a door to some new experience. But that doesn’t solve the problem either.

You know, in India at one time, many centuries ago, they found a leaf, and they called it the soma, and they used to eat that. It was a kind of drug, like the Mexican miracle mushroom. And that leaf died, and since then they have invented I don’t know how many drugs, always trying to escape from this terrifying, utter meaningless existence of life. And in this country now the LSD — of which probably some of you know — is the fashion, the rage. We met several people in New York who are very prominent leaders in that direction, and they seem to think that’s going to solve the whole problem of life. There’s going to be peace in the world, there are going to be no race-riots, no wars. Obviously one can see that, why, because when you take all these drugs, you lose greater and greater energy, you become more and more lethargic, dull, stupid; and naturally you don’t want to fight anybody. (Laughs)

(Laughter)

And that’s what is happening. The more clever one is, the more alert, sensitive, demanding; and there’s no answer. Religions haven’t answered it. Science hasn’t answered it. Technology, of course, cannot possibly answer it. And one thinks one has some kind of drug that will answer this whole mystery. Of course it’s not going to answer it, either.

So what is it all about? Not only in this country, where there’s immense prosperity, which is very self-centred. And you have no idea what poverty is. We have been all through it in India when we were young: famine, hardly anything to eat. And they have, because of the climate, because of certain faith, certain urgency, they accept life. They say, ‘This is our’ — to use a Sanskrit word — *karma*. This is our… we can’t do anything about it.’ And with that belief they live and die and propagate a few children or many children. And here, as in Europe, there is extraordinary prosperity. I cannot tell you what it does to one, when you come from the East, what a shock it is to see that everybody is clothed, fed, bathed, has a house — doesn’t matter, even in the slums — over-fed, strong, tall. The whole of Asia is under-nourished. They are small people, but with very good brains. Especially from India, there is a caste, there is a class of people — they are fast disappearing — called the Brahmans. My father used to belong to that. They cultivated the brain and had a marvellous capacity to discuss, to argue, study philosophy; they were the really bright people who laid the foundation of Hinduism.

And when you go through, coming from the East, come to this country, you really are rather appalled by it all. I hope I’m not depressing you, because I’m just showing you the facts. We’re not being depressed or elated, but just the facts. And when one grows up, one is caught in this machine, in this trap; and you soon get married, children, responsibility, and there you are; had it. And one never asks fundamental questions; one daren’t ask, because one hasn’t the time nor the inclination nor the intelligence to find out. Having asked fundamental questions, we haven’t the energy to answer it. Fundamental questions, not intellectual questions. That is very easy; anybody can ask intellectual questions. But fundamental questions: what is it all about? What does death mean? What does living mean? What does love mean? Is there such thing as man has sought after for millennia, which is, is there anything called God? What is the individual? What is a human being?

If, I feel, if these questions are not answered, not by professors, not by philosophers, not by theologians or the priests and all those people, but answered by each human being, then society, of which each human being is, soon becomes rotten, becomes utterly superficial — as it is taking place in the world. Because the world is now concerned more and more with amusement, wanting to be entertained; and you go… I saw the other day an advertisement where… or a picture — I forget now which it was — of inside a church where they are dancing. You understand what it means? Being entertained in a church. I don’t think you see the import of that, the importance of that.

So I know a boy, he has taken the highest possible degrees, extraordinarily bright boy — Ph.D. in mathematics, Ph.D. in law, in England, and I don’t know how many of them — he goes back to India and wants a job, because he has to support his father, mother, sister, brother, and there are many of them. Because in India there is no organised structure; every family has to support itself. So he hunted jobs all over India, got little jobs for a hundred dollars or less than that every month. So he came to see me one day, and he said, ‘Sir, I don’t know what to do. I have to support my father, my mother, educate my younger brothers and sisters.’ We talked about it, and a friend of mine gave him a job, but he couldn’t live on that; he couldn’t support the rest of his family. So one day his father wrote to me that he had committed suicide. I know several people like that. Either they go off their head, become neurotic or commit suicide. This is going on right through the world.

So what does education mean? Is it just to get through some exams, learn a technology, become a Ph.D? And the Ph.Ds have their way of life, or the businessman their way of life, and so on — and what? So it seems to me, unless as human beings we answer this question, our society — whether this society or the society in Russia or in Germany or in India — will soon decay, which it is decaying. Unless one sees the whole, the totality of existence — you understand? — the totality. That is, that one must be educated, that one must do… earn a livelihood, that one must live with a family, righteousness, morality, ethics, goodness — all that, totally, not just take fragmentary parts of this whole existence. Unless one does that, and deal with the whole of life — not just partial life as a business man or as a scientist or as a this or that — I don’t see how human beings are going to come out of this frightful mess.

Because nowadays nobody believes in anything — I am not advocating that one should — in nothing, perhaps except one’s own fulfilment — whatever that may mean — getting a job in this hectic competition and holding on to it. And, if you observe right through the world, nobody is happy about it all, either. Nobody has a smile, a natural smile on his face. Except when one is young, one can smile happily, looking at the sunset or at somebody, or laugh easily; but as one grows older it is something… they have lost all that.

So is it possible for human beings — that is you, me — to completely transform ourselves? Transform, not according to any particular pattern. You know, revolutions — French and Russian and all the rest, all these revolutions — they revolted against a pattern and established another pattern, so they never escaped from living in a pattern. The Russians, under Stalin and company, I don’t know how many millions and millions they have killed, because of an idea, because they had a concept of an utopia. And, after that slaughter, revolution, they are repeating… coming back to the same old pattern: competition, aggressiveness, acquisitiveness, and all the rest of the circus that the old capitalist societies have cultivated for centuries.

So unless, it seems to me, education, which is the cultivation of the total man, not mere acquisition of knowledge, not swatting up some books and passing some exams, but the total man, his sensitivity, his capacity to think freely — if there is such a thing as… can thought ever be free at all? To do what is right, irrespective of what society thinks; to have enough vitality, energy to pursue something which is true. Unless a few or many in the community that does this, that community — as history has shown — will soon wither away.

So it seems to me, having looked at all the world, looked at all… concerned with the problems of India, Europe and this country, seeing the appalling divisions, racial hatreds, the butchery that’s going on, unless politically, which is, the bringing about unity of man, that’s the only problem, politically; there is no other problem. Because we’re all the same, whether we live in China, Russia, America or India or in Europe or here; we have all the same problems, we have all the same agonies, despairs. Unless all the national barriers, religious divisions disappear completely, we shall be at each other’s throats, and there won’t be any peace in the world. And it’s only when there is peace you can love somebody.

So to come back, one has to ask, it seems to me, why one is educated at all. And what does education mean? Does it mean just to conform to a pattern which has been established? Or to set up a new pattern, in which one is caught again? Or can man be educated to be free of patterns? Free to function not as an American, Russian, with his formulas, with his prejudices, with his… all the rest of it. Again, if we don’t, we’ll only bring more confusion, more chaos in the world. If that is meant to be, that’s the way of life, if war is the way of life, if this confusion is the way of life, all right. But to accept it seems to me the utter limit of folly. And can one break away from it? Not by wearing long hair, tight trousers, this, that, God knows; that’s all too obviously silly. But to break away from the whole structure and become a new human being. And that, to become… to bring about a different state of mind, that is a tremendous affair; that’s not the occasion now to go into it. They have tried that in the East especially, through meditation, through Zen, through various forms of compulsive disciplines; but they haven’t brought about a mutation of the mind.

So living, as you mostly do, in this extraordinarily lovely valley, seeing the beauty of the hills of an evening and the utter stillness in the night, and entering into a world that is full of problems, not only economic, social, but much deeper problems — man’s relationship to man.

So as I’ve talked enough, I think, perhaps you would ask questions and we’ll talk about it.

Questioner: You said to become a totally new human being. Could we kind of define that statement?

K: Sir, definitions are easy — right? — fairly easy, but definitions and explanations are not the thing. I can explain in words what is involved in it, but mere acceptance of a definition or a formula, doesn’t bring about the change. I… So that’s a fact: the word is not the thing. Right? The word *table* is not the table.

Now, what does a new… what does… how does a new thing come into being? When the old has ceased to be. When I cease to be a Hindu, when I cease to be greedy, competitive, unafraid, when security isn’t all my goal; I’m not… when… totally indifferent to what propaganda says. Then out of that clarity comes a different state of mind altogether. Yes sir?

Q: (Inaudible)

K: *Comment,* sir? I can’t hear.

Q: (Inaudible) …then we’d assume there wouldn’t be any challenges in life, and would this make life worth living?

K: Ah. I don’t know; have I understood it rightly? You’re saying if there is peace in the world, there will be no challenge; and would life be worth living then? Is that the question, sir?

Q: Well, the state of peace, with no prejudice, no starvation, no war.

K: I see. Yes, yes. Yes, that’s what I’m…. Yes. As it is, actually as it is in the world, what is living? Not your idea and my idea of what living is; what is the fact, the actual fact of what’s going on in the world? What is going on in the world actually is war, national divisions, tremendous prejudices, race against race, colour against colour and so on; and the appalling exploitation of the organised religions; and the conflict, both outward and inward. That’s what we call living; and in that living, in that field, there are a great many challenges; and those challenges precipitate actions which are more competitive, more aggressive, more despairing. These are all facts. And is it possible to understand this whole structure and go beyond it, transcend it, and have peace? And if there is peace, why should you have challenges? A man who sees things very clearly, why should he have challenges? Because his clarity itself denies every challenge. It’s only the man who is asleep, who is confused, needs challenge; and his response is according to his sleepiness, according to his confusion. So when you live rightly, in quotes — that one has to go into very, very deeply — then why should you have challenges of any kind, because you are alive, you’re not confused. Then you are beyond all challenges. Please sir, I’m not trying to be dogmatic but… (laughs) going into it.

Q: You just said that everybody should break out of any pattern…

K: Ah…

Q: …and not have any established pattern that they feel they have to follow or should follow. Do you think if everybody did this, do you think there’s some sort of natural order that would keep them from coming into conflict with each other, even then?

K: Yes sir. Sir, to break out of a pattern, one must understand first the pattern. You can’t just break out of it. One must know what the pattern in which one is caught; the whole structure of this pattern, the so-called capitalist, communist, socialist, or the religious, whatever it is, the patterns. And the pattern is oneself. You are not different from this pattern which society has created. You are part of that pattern. And without understanding completely the whole pattern, you can’t escape from it. And when you understand it completely, not as a reaction, then you won’t create… won’t fall into another pattern, another groove. And after all, society, as it exists, is afraid of our human beings to be free. Freedom is generally said to be against order. Society demands order at any price; and the order is always within the pattern. And within the pattern there is no freedom. So does freedom deny order? Or there is order only when there is freedom? And that depends what we call freedom.

Freedom is obviously not revolt, not a reaction, not a blind denial of what has been. Freedom can only come, it seems to me, when you have understood this whole psychological structure of society of which one is; understand it, not verbally, intellectually, emotionally, but really go into it. Then out of that, one has freedom. Therefore that freedom is tremendous order. Because to go into this psychological structure of which we are, is in itself tremendous discipline; and discipline not imposed by authority, by somebody as the society, as the professor, as the parent, or as the… and so on; but order can only exist when there is the understanding of the social structure of which we are; and the very understanding of it is the discipline. And where there is freedom, there is order. (Laughs) Sorry. Yes sir?

Q: You spoke a moment ago about man achieving a clarity of vision, an orderly mind, so that he does not need challenge any longer because no challenge… because his clarity of vision would surpass any challenge. It seems to me that the only way a man could achieve this state of clarity of vision is to achieve perfection.

K: Ah… All right, sir.

(Laughter)

I wonder what we mean by that word *perfection*. *Perfection* implies — generally, isn’t it? — perfect and the perfection is a goal, and that perfection is already pre-conceived. You must know what that perfection is. Right? Can you know already what that perfection is, when one is imperfect?

I am confused. Right? *Mettons…* I mean, suppose, I am confused. And it’s no good my saying, ‘Well, out of that confusion I conceive something perfect.’ It’s born out of confusion, therefore the thing which I have conceived is still confused.

(Laughter) And the thing will cease to be confused when I am not confused, when I can think clearly about everything, see its values, its relationship to another. Because every problem is interrelated. So my first responsibility is not the perfection, but rather to realise, become aware of my confusion and see if I can do something about it.

Yes sir?

Q: Before you start a talk, what do you think you’re going to accomplish? And after you finish, what have you accomplished?

K: Quite right, sir. Quite right.

(Laughter)

That’s a good question. I’m afraid, nothing. I didn’t come here to accomplish something; I didn’t come here to convince you or anybody of something. When I talk under there, under those trees there, I’m not doing propaganda. I’m not out to convince anybody of anything, which is silly nonsense, to convince somebody about something. And, when I leave — as I shall leave in a few minutes here — it’s up to you. If you want to do something, do it; if you don’t, all right.

(Laughter)

I’m not a propagandist, for God’s sake. I have a horror of all that. So a man with a motive is always a dangerous man (laughs) — you follow? — avoid him like a pest.

(Laughter)

Sir… somebody has to… (Laughs) There are too many people; I don’t know… He was first before you, please sir.

Q: If one accepts…

K: May I take my coat off?

Many: Yes.

(Laughter)

Q: If one can accept the totality, then does one have to also accept evil as being necessary if there’s to be good, or war to have peace?

K: Sir, it’s not a question of accepting totality. You can’t… You don’t have to accept this marvellous view when you look; you don’t have to accept it, it is there; only you have to look. Right? Now, what place, when you look there, has ugliness? There is this extraordinary beauty, and you see the whole of it, and you say, ‘Where is the ugliness in that?’ (Laughs) You follow, sir?

Q: Well, I was thinking, if you… just… to see that that is beautiful…

K: Ah, no. You see the whole of it — you see the trees, the village, the smoke, the roofs, the people, the competition, the ugliness, the lying, the cheating, the deception, the… — you see the whole of the hills and the man, and man’s relationship. Right? You see that, and you say… and then you ask, ‘Where is evil in this?’ Evil is there. Right? Because evil is destruction of man, or the animal, destruction, violence, aggression — it is there. What relationship is that to the whole? Unless one understand the whole, merely to tackle that particular aggression has no meaning.

Look sir, there are many politicians who we have met all over the world, very clever ones. They are doing… supposed to be doing a lot of good to people, which they’re not; and they are only concerned with a little part — you understand? — a little country, a little party, little… the lobby and so on. And they’re not concerned with the wide world of man. And they say, ‘Unless you solve this problem, what’s the good of considering the whole?’ And unless you see the whole and relate the particular to the whole, the particular has no meaning.

What were you going to say, sir?

Q: When a person reaches the clarity of mind you were speaking of, does this bring him closer to God or does it eliminate a need for God?

K: (Laughs) Sir, first of all, that word is heavily loaded. Right? Everybody uses that word. The politician — right? — Hitler, Mussolini, the Pope; everybody uses that word; and everybody says, ‘My God and your God.’ Right? The Christian God, the Hindu God, the Muslim God; the Buddhists have no God, but they have their own concept of what they think is the highest, and so on, so on.

Now, if you want to find out what God is, and if there is such thing — right? — one must be free of all these concepts. Right? Which means one must be free of all fear; because these concepts have been created by man through fear: fear of my dying, fear of losing a job, fear of my wife running away with somebody else, and so on, so on, so on. So to find out if there is such thing or not, as that word implies, God, one must first be totally… psychologically be free of fear. Then your mind can look; and that look is out of clarity.

Yes sir?

Q: When you state that you can’t define perfection without actually being in that state yourself, how can you define the perfect existence of man without having being in that state yourself?

K: First of all, sir, let us clear all the obvious things that bring about a conflict in man: war, nationalities, religious prejudices, racial prejudices, the aggressive, competitive urge to be better than somebody else, position, prestige and all the rest of it. Let’s remove all that — psychologically, inwardly — then you’ll find out for yourself whether there is such state of mind which is really peaceful, really clear. But to remove all the impediments requires tremendous awareness. That we won’t go into; that’s… great deal of inquiry, that is.

Q: If you take two people who have reached the state of clarity, so to speak, will they each believe in their own individual idea; and if so, what about conflict? I guess…

K: (Laughs) Quite right, sir. But look, if you and I look at that same thing, at that microphone, and we both know that’s a microphone not an animal, there is no conflict. But we must both see the same thing. Right? What matters is that you and I see the thing actually as it is, not as you think it is, as I think it is. Then you and I are not in conflict. But if you think there is God, and I don’t think there is God, then we’re at each other’s throat. But if we say, look, let’s find out; which means no fear.

Q: Yes, but you say that the individual idea is good, and you should…

K: Ah, no, no, no. (Laughs) I didn’t say individual idea is good. First… look, I… what is the individual? Is there, first of all, such thing as an individual? What is an individual, I? What am I? All the prejudices, the family superstitions — you follow? — religious conditioning and economic conditioning, climatic, food, clothes, education. The social structure — in which there is the religious, economic, cultural framework — in that I have been brought up and you have been brought up, and that we call the individual. But really we are the whole of that conditioning. In Russia, they don’t believe in God — some of them least — they have been told, dinged into them that, ‘There is no God. Don’t be a child,’ and they are rather ashamed of being children and say, ‘There is no God.’ Here we have been brought up to believe in God. But if both of us saw, see to it that we are not afraid, then we can both inquire, examine, go into it.

Yes sir?

Q: Well, if… the world is a balance between good and evil, and I don’t quite see how then if you destroy all evil you can prevent destruction of all good.

K: Ah, this is a supposition that balance is between good and evil. I don’t know who thinks that. Marvellous idea, but actually it isn’t so.

(Laughter)

I love to think… world is perfect; it is… there is war, there is peace, there is starvation, there is well-fed people, people with enormous money, comfortable, good houses, and other people who have nothing at all. If I say, ‘Yes, this is a marvellously organised world, perfect harmony’ — I’m not laughing at you, sir — then there is no answer. But if you say, ‘Look, my God, there are these people who have absolutely nothing, and somebody else everything. Somebody who has lost his brother, his wife, his son, dead, and somebody doesn’t even know what death means.’

This sir… (Laughs) I’m afraid this idea that in the world there is harmony, it’s a nice philosophical, theological idea, but actually it is not. You are clever, I am not; you are aesthetic, you have got refinement, sensitivity, you can see things clearly and I can’t, so I compete to be like you, because you have more money; it gives you money, position, prestige; it makes you get up on a platform and talk. (Laughs) And the other fellow has no… he’s just lost. Sir, harmony can only exist when there is a certain sense of affection. But we have no affection; we have no love. We are full of hate, jealousy, occasionally a feeling of kindliness, occasionally not self-centred thought. But that’s a tremendous problem to go into; perhaps this is not the occasion for that. Yes sir?

Q: I think perhaps this next question should be the last one… (inaudible)

K: Whatever you like, sir.

Q: In order to break out of these patterns, in order to escape from the technological grooves and all the other evils that you spoke of, you say that it is possible to do it by understanding it. Is it also possible to do it, once you’ve understood it, by trying to change the things themselves? Or does one only understand it?

K: Sir, I think one has to understand the word… the meaning of that word *understand*. I don’t know if… What do we mean by *understand*? When I say, ‘Yes, I have understood something; it’s very clear,’ what does it mean? It is not an intellectual clarity — right? — it isn’t a mental clarity, nor an emotional, enthusiastic acceptance of something which I don’t quite comprehend. So when we use that word, we mean a total comprehension. It’s neither intellectual nor emotional nor sentimental nor… You follow? It is a something that you see the thing quickly, immediately; and the immediacy of seeing is the immediacy of action.

If I see something dangerous, there is immediate action. And out of that understanding, you not only… there is not only psychological change inwardly, but change in relationship with another.

Right sir?

Q: Thank you very much.

K: Yes sir.