Students Talk 3, New York City, 5 October 1968

Krishnamurti: I wonder why we go to meetings at all, especially of this kind. Is it that one goes to be stimulated intellectually, or stirred up emotionally, or provoked to thinking? If it is that we are provoked to thinking then I’m afraid this meeting, or this gathering, will have no meaning whatsoever. Or if it is merely to be stimulated, that too, it seems to me, will have little value. And of course, to be emotional about anything, sentimental, is obviously, if I may point out, rather stupid. So one wonders why one goes to any meeting at all.

As we were saying the other day that we met here, thought, the whole process of thinking, is really rather old-fashioned, though it is greatly worshipped, greatly looked upon as the only instrument to resolve all our multitudinous problems. Thought, if one has at all gone into it, has never resolved anything except perhaps going to the moon, how to live under the waters or how to kill somebody. And, as we were saying, thought is always old. Thought can never be new, fresh, alive, innocent. And it is only when the mind is highly sensitive, has become innocent, fresh, then we can look at all the problems that one has and totally resolve them.

We are going to, as we said the other day, we are going to examine together the question of fear. But before we go into it, we have to look at one or two other things. That is, what is freedom? Is freedom something that comes by if one is capable of resisting, capable of building a wall round oneself, isolating, resisting? Or is freedom something entirely different? It is not a result. It’s only the man that is bound, a slave to custom, habit, tradition, to certain patterns of thought — he’s always thinking of freedom, like a prisoner. And is freedom a negative state or is it a product of thought?

Is it a bit too early in the morning? [Laughter] Because what we are going to enter, explore together, needs rather efficient attention and not a sleepy Saturday morning state of mind.

Freedom is necessary, not only from tyranny, dictatorship, but also freedom from words, from symbols, from conceptual thinking. We want political freedom, freedom to travel, to do what one likes, but it is always such freedom within the limits of one’s own desires, one’s own demands and pursuits. But freedom, it seems to me, is not an idea. Idea is, after all, organised thought, and thought cannot bring about freedom under any circumstances. One must be liberated from thought in order to be free, to look, to examine, to explore; and in the exploration, the act of exploration itself is joy. The learning in that exploration brings its own energy, and out of that comes freedom. But freedom is not a mental process, a product of mentation. It’s not a philosophy; it’s an actual state. But there is no such freedom if there are all the contentions, struggles, problems, the heavy burden of sorrow — how can a man be free at all?

So in the negation of disorder there is order. Order is not a thing put together by the clever policeman or the army or by the church or the priest or a belief. Order, which is essentially freedom, comes about when we understand, completely, disorder. Out of negation comes the positive. And the negation of disorder — the disorder of this society, the disorder outwardly, the disorder and confusion inwardly — in negating that, not intellectually, not verbally, not as an idea, but actually, then out of that, without seeking it, comes total order, an order which is as mathematical, clear as the movement of the stars in the sky. So freedom can only come into being when there is the cessation, both at the conscious level as well as at the unconscious level, all absence of disorder. I think that must be very clearly understood, that a disorderly man living in a disorderly society, seeking order or freedom, has no meaning whatsoever. It is in the realm of ideation, in the realm of some mystical, philosophical state. It’s like a man who has his hand in another man’s pocket and talks about honesty.

So to understand and resolve this question of fear we must go into it very carefully, step by step, not analytically but total observation at each moment. We are so used to the analytical way, the analytical process, and what we are suggesting is that to understand this question of fear there must be a perception of the whole causation/effect of this structure of fear, totally. That is, to see the whole nature of fear, not a particular fear. When you see the whole nature of fear then you can go, enter into the details. But to pick up a particular fear and try to resolve it has no meaning. After all, a wheel is made up of many spokes and to be concerned with a particular spoke you do not see the whole wheel. So, to look at this question of fear and totally resolve it needs a quality of mind that can see at each moment the total implications of every perception.

Are we communicating each other? Understanding — to understand something is not an intellectual process, is it? It’s not an emotional state which says, ‘I understand.’ There is understanding only when the mind is completely quiet and looks, looks without any bias, without any conclusion, without any sentimentality or emotionalism, and it is capable of looking out of depth of silence. And it is only then that it is possible to see the total nature of fear, both the unconscious and the conscious. I do not know why we give such importance to the unconscious. That has become the fashion. The unconscious is as trivial, petty as the conscious. The conscious mind may be extraordinarily cultivated in technology, capable of various activities in various fields. And the unconscious, that is, the deeper, hidden state of the mind, is the outcome of tradition.

Please, don’t merely listen to the speaker — observe, if I may suggest, your own mind, your own state of mind. Discover it for yourself so that it’s yours, not the speaker’s, not the result of some specialist who has gone into it from his particular point of view with his particular prejudices and conditionings. We are talking over together this question of the unconscious. You have to understand that to comprehend fear.

As we were saying, the unconscious is the residue of the past. Yes, it is. If you are born in India, there you have the whole of the community, racial residue, with all the superstitions, with all the authoritarian organised belief. You have there, if you are a Hindu and are caught in it, the tradition of centuries upon centuries, the motives, the family pursuits, and so on, so on, so on. And if you’re born in this country, conditioned by the culture, by the society, by this enormous successful prosperity with all its superstitions — all that is the unconscious — the sexual drive, the taboos about this and that, the respectability of the past, the fears, the aspirations, this drive for success — all that and more, into which we cannot go now because that’ll take too long, is the unconscious, is that which is not being discovered by the conscious. And when you look at it, it’s rather tawdry, shoddy affair, confused, miserable, as the conscious mind which is constantly struggling, pursuing, being dominated, wanting to dominate, seeking power, position, you know, all that. Both the unconscious — I don’t like to use that word ‘unconscious’ because too many people use it; it has its own… that word is so heavily loaded by the analysts and so on. We will use a word which is not so heavily loaded: as the mind that is somewhat hidden. Now, both the hidden mind as well as the conscious mind is seeking to become, and so there is the fear of not becoming and of not being. Right?

Please, observe your own state, not what I am talking about. As we said the other day, the speaker is of no importance whatsoever. He is not an authority nor a specialist — God forbid! — but he’s merely opening the door for you to look, to look into yourself. And it’s your responsibility to look, not mine. And if you don’t want to look, don’t look, but don’t make a problem of it [laughter] because we have enough problems as it is already — don’t add another.

So, there is the fear of not being and the fear of not becoming. The fear of not being brings about this constant struggle for identification — identification with the community, with the group, with the nation, with the family, with an ideology, with a belief in God or no God. And the fear of not becoming is the worship of success, the worship of being somebody, the continuous struggle to achieve, to achieve a perfect state, a perfect quality of mind in which there is this or that. So, becoming and not being, which are both the pursuits of the conscious as well as the unconscious… as well as the hidden mind, is one of the major problems of fear. So, identification with its commitment — like a man who believes in communism, he’s committed to that, and he pursues that line, afraid to break away from it. And a Catholic or a Protestant has his own particular belief and is committed to that belief. And to break away from that, which is not being, brings about another form of fear, and so on and on and on. There is the fear, not only of death, which is not being, and also there is the fear of a life which is always becoming, and therefore there’s a fear of ending. We’re not for the moment talking over together the question of death — we’ll do that another day — but we are trying to talk over together this question of fear. And there is also the fear of not being, which is the fear of loneliness. Right? Are we communicating with each other?

Audience: Yes.

K: Are we travelling together?

Most of us are lonely people. We never want to be lonely, which is, in essence not being — not being identified with the family, with a friend, with having no relation, and so on. This sense of loneliness, which I’m sure most of us have felt. And that’s why we cling, depend, hold on to our particular relationships, however unpleasant, because the known is better than the unknown. So there is that question, of fear of not being, which is this complete loneliness. Loneliness is different, completely different, which has nothing whatsoever to do with aloneness. To be alone is the highest form of intelligence. And we are never alone because we are the product of the society in which we live. We are so heavily conditioned by the past, by various memories, of the personal, the individual and the communal, so that we don’t know what it means to be free of all that, and to be completely alone in its purest sense of that word. And so there is the fear of loneliness with all its attachments, jealousies, anxiety, guilt, and so on.

Then there is the fear of not being loved. Because we all want to have love. We want to be loved, which is again a form of not being. Wanting to be loved is a form of becoming, in which there is implied so many things. Perhaps we can go into it when we’re talking over together the question of love, but that is not… this is not the occasion for that.

So there is this fear, and there is the physical fear of survival. And that physical fear of survival has made us survive; therefore, that fear is intelligence. Every animal, if you have observed animals, the instinct is to survive, physically. But for us, physical survival has become so extraordinarily important. We have invented the family, the community, the society, the nation, and each nation wants to survive and therefore is willing to kill another nation, and so on. The human survival — not organised survival as a resistance against another nation; we’re not talking of that — the physical survival of a human being is necessary and it is the result of great intelligence. If we cannot survive, have food, clothes and shelter for all human beings, not just prosperous America. You know, prosperity without austerity leads to disorder, leads to violence — those who have everything and the others who have nothing. You know that better than I do — the whole of the East is starving, uneducated, undeveloped, miserable physically. And physical survival is a necessity and therefore it is… intelligence must be used to survive, but if it is limited to survival of a few individuals as a community, as a society opposed to others, then nationality destroys the physical survival of each one of us. You can see what is happening in the world. So… And the fear of not being and becoming is psychological, inward, which has its effect on the outer. Right? If one is ambitious, greedy, seeking power and position as the highest form of expression and life, you will and are bound to create a society in which there is disorder, which in turn destroys physical survival. I think that’s fairly clear. What you are inwardly, you create a society outwardly, and that society then controls you, shapes you, encourages what you are inwardly.

So, there is fear — fear of darkness, fear of public opinion, fear of tomorrow, fear of what has happened yesterday, fear of the unknown, and also the fear of the known — and all the subtleties of fear. Now, the problem is how to… is it possible to be free of it? Free of psychological fears, both at the hidden state of the mind and the conscious mind, so that you walk out of this room completely rid of all fear, so that you’re a fresh human being, innocent. That is the problem. Right? Is the question clear now?

A: Yes.

K: One is afraid of so many things, dozens of things: the wife, the husband, afraid of love, afraid of living, afraid of death, and so on. There is this whole field of fear. If we break it up into various categories of fear, you will not be able to solve it, because each fragment is created by thought, and thought is always fragmentary, it’s not complete. Therefore, to see this whole picture of fear at a glance, the whole of it, is to have a mind that can look at it freely, without resistance, without escape. Right? So we are going to look at it without any escape, without any resistance. So that you don’t say, ‘I’m going to cultivate courage,’ which is the most stupid way of looking at it, which is merely resistance; or escape from it, through drink, through churches, through rituals, through all the rest of the rubbish. So, can we look at it freely? That means to be related to it completely, to be in contact with it totally.

If you take your particular fear, whatever it is — please, don’t… this is not a confession [laughter] — if you take a particular fear of your own and if you look at it closely, it is related to all other fears. Like every problem is interrelated to all other problems — there is no such thing as an isolated psychological problem. In the same way, an isolated fear, and to look at it as a fragment would not bring about a total abandonment of fear. But by understanding one particular fear, looking at it very closely, you will see it is related to everything.

Now, first of all, to look at fear most intimately; naming it, calling it fear is an escape from the fact. Are you getting all this? Are we communicating together? If you listen to the speaker and say, ‘Well, he’s a Hindu with his own particular philosophy and he’s telling about that philosophy,’ give him an etiquette, a label, a name, then you’re not looking at it, then you’re not listening. In the same way, if you look at fear by naming it, you’re not in contact with it. Right? Is that…? So, to understand fear, to look at it, all verbalisation of that fact must come to an end. Right? This is quite a difficult thing to do because whatever we see we want to name immediately. And so the word brings about a division between the observer and the observed — the word, the symbol, the memory. One has been afraid before and there is the remembrance of that fear, and when that… another fear arises today, you name it and therefore relegate it to the past, and therefore there is no looking at it. I don’t know if you are following all this. Am I making myself clear? Please, this is important. If it’s not clear, stop me.

If you call a Russian a communist you have already given him a label and that label has whole content of prejudice, resistance and so on, therefore you’re not looking at the human being, you’re only looking at the label. In the same way, if you look at fear — please do listen to this — if you look at fear with the remembrance of the word… a word evokes, and the word with its associations, when you look at that fear, which is now, with all the past, then you do not see that fear. This needs great discipline, not imposed; but the very act of understanding this and seeing the truth of this is discipline. Right? Are we somewhat together in this? That the word is the past, and the past with all its memories, associations, struggles, prevents you from looking. Therefore the word is not the thing. The description of the thing is not the described. And to be free of the description and the word, and to look. When you put aside the word and the description you have energy — I don’t know if you are following all this — you have energy to look. And you have no energy to look if the word, the description, the memory, prevents you from looking, which is merely a resistance from looking. Phew! All right? [Laughter, clapping]

Please, this is very serious what we are talking about — don’t clap — because we are dealing with something that one must be completely be free. Because without… if you have fear you cannot possibly love. If you have fear you cannot possible live at peace. Fear is darkness, a terrible thing, and through fear the politician, the dictator, the businessman uses the human being. So one must be free of this fear. Then, sirs, truth is with you. You don’t have to go to your church, you don’t have to read any book, follow anybody. Then you are a light to yourself. So it is very important to be completely, inwardly, totally free of this thing called fear.

So, is it possible to look without association, without the memory of the past? You have to find that out; you have to work hard to find out. Then you will see the resistance and the conflict against fear comes to an end. There is no escape. Escape is a form of resistance, whether the escape be an entertainment, drink, or God are the same. And not to escape but to look is only possible when the word doesn’t interfere, the knowledge doesn’t come in between the observer and the observed. Then — do go into it — then you will see for yourself. Then the observer and the observed ceases altogether; there is only observation, which is complete attention. When you give complete attention, that is, your whole of your being, both the hidden mind and the conscious mind, your heart, your nerves, your… everything that you have you give to observe, then you will find there is no fear at all, there is only a state of observation and attention, which is the highest form of intelligence. And it is this intelligence that operates all the time if there is no fear.

[Pause]

Perhaps now, if we may suggest and if you are willing, we can discuss or talk over what we have just said. The questions must naturally be relevant. And as I have to repeat your question would you kindly make it brief? Yes, sir?

Questioner: Fear itself makes me afraid to look at fear.

K: Fear itself makes me afraid of fear. Fear itself makes me — listen carefully please, to the question itself because in the question itself is the answer — fear makes me afraid to look at fear. Who is the ‘me’ that’s afraid? Right? Who is the entity that says, ‘I’m afraid to look’? Right? Right? Have we understood the question? Who is ‘me’ that’s afraid to look, and therefore afraid of the very fear that I am looking at? Is this clear? Now, who is the ‘me’ that is looking?

What do you say?

Q: Fear is the ‘me’, the conditioned process.

K: No, do, please… don’t throw a lot of words in. Do look at it, please. Take trouble a little bit, be patient. Who is the ‘me’ that’s afraid to look?

Q: Thought.

K: Without ‘me’ is there fear?

Q: Fear is my inattention.

K: Yes, sir, fear of my own shadow. If there is no ‘me’ is there fear? So, what is the ‘me’? Do please… this is not a philosophical question. I don’t know if you have ever asked that question of yourself. That is, who is ‘me’ — the centre, the thinker, the experiencer, the observer, the one who struggles, fights, resists, ambitious, greedy, jealous, envious, brutal, violent — who is the ‘me’?

Q: I have created fear.

K: Please, un instant. The ‘me’ is all that, isn’t it? The ‘me’ that is violent, the ‘me’ that is suspicious, greedy, distrustful, ungenerous. That is the ‘me’ who thinks the ‘me’ is the soul, the ‘me’ is the God, the ‘me’ as the American, the ‘me’ identified itself with the family, with the name, with the memories — the ‘me’ is all that, isn’t it? Please, watch it very carefully. All that, all those things are words, aren’t they? No?

Q: [Inaudible]

K: So the word… we are living on words, and when you look at the ‘me’, which has become so extraordinarily important, and you find the ‘me’ is all this. It says, ‘I love,’ ‘I hate,’ who is aggressive, brutal, who invents the non-violence, the ideology, the gods — all that is the ‘me’, and that ‘me’ is fear. When you say, ‘My wife,’ ‘my husband,’ ‘my job,’ ‘my house,’ the house, the job, the wife, the husband is me. So the ‘me’ is all that — the struggle, the sorrow, the pain, anxiety, the immense sorrow unresolved, full of tears and aches — and to look at fear the ‘me’ must come to an end. And when the ‘me’ has come to an end is there fear? Just, please, do… this is quite a… this has to be examined very closely. When I say, ‘I am a Hindu,’ — and I am not — when I say, ‘I am a Hindu,’ the ‘me’, the ‘I’, is all the tradition, the inheritance of that race, with all the superstitions, with their gods, with their customs, with their ugliness — all that is me. And how can that ‘me’ which has separated itself, and is always separating itself, know what love is?

So it is not, ‘I am afraid to look at fear,’ because I am fear. As I say, ‘I am love,’ when you say, ‘I am fear, I am love,’ then there is no love. Right?

Q: Sorry, but isn’t Man’s greatest fear not the actually the ‘me’ but the depersonalisation of the ‘me’. Man’s greatest fear in actuality is not really the ‘me’ but the depersonalisation of the ‘me’ which… [inaudible]

K: Man’s greatest fear is the depersonalisation of the ‘me’. Are you a person? Are you?

Q: [Inaudible]

K: Wait, sir, wait, sir, wait, sir, let me finish that question.

Q: Sure.

K: Are you? Yes, sir, I know, I know.

Q: The word is a very abstract word.

K: Of course, sir. That’s why words, though they have a content of abstraction, one has to bear always in mind the word is not the thing, is never the thing. The door, the word ‘door’ is not the door, and therefore it is not an abstraction. When I point to that door and use the word ‘door’ that door is an actuality, it is not an abstraction. But if we use the word abstractly it has no reality. So, when we say one is afraid of depersonalisation, first of all, to be depersonalised — my goodness, what a difficult word! [Laughter] — what does that mean? Who is going to depersonalise me? The Government [laughter] making me join the army? The business world? The world of propaganda, advertisement? The family? The education? They have all contributed to destroy me — have they not? — to destroy the human being. And we complain we are afraid to be depersonalised. To be a human being implies that you are free, free from fear, free from this brutal world. Which means that you yourself are not brutal; means that you yourself have real compassion, that you yourself do not belong to society, which implies no ambition, no greed, no search for power, position, prestige, and therefore you’re not a slave to propaganda, a slave to advertisements. Then you’re a human being, which no… nothing on earth can dehumanise you.

Q: Man creates words… [inaudible] …then the words create the man.

K: Man creates the word and the word creates the man. [Laughs] You know, we can make any number of these statements. I’m not being rude, madame, I’m just saying it. What does it mean? At the end of it are you free of fear? Can you leave this hall with a full mind and a heart that is rich with the flowering of goodness? But, you see, we listen to all this and the truth of all this, and go back to our daily life which is shoddy, ugly, painful, confused. And all that is the outcome of — partly — outcome of fear, of this total disorder outwardly and inwardly, which we call morality. Can one walk out this hall free of all that? That is the real question.

Q: Is feeling beyond me?

K: Is feeling beyond me. Is feeling different from thought? Is there a feeling without thought? And can you separate thought from feeling? I get angry because thought has created an image about myself, and when you touch or attack that image I get angry and say, ‘The feeling is the feeling different.’ Sir, do you know what love is? When you say, ‘I love my wife, my husband, my family, my country, my God, my state,’ do you know what that means? Is it that you are loving yourself through your wife, through your country, through your God, through your nation and so on? And is there love when there is jealousy, attachment, possession, domination, fear? And I’m afraid most of us are caught in this word with all its connotations, and therefore life is a constant battle ending in death. And we accept it as we accept the sunshine. We never question the fundamental things and find answers for ourselves, not from another. And to find answers, to resolve these questions, one must be extraordinarily serious, earnest, not occasionally, not when it is profitable, but all the time — which doesn’t mean you can’t go to a cinema.

Yes, sir?

Q: Is it not possible that at times fear can be of a positive nature and bring people to understanding? Lectures that I heard of yours on the radio two years ago dealt with less — what I feel — less practical purpose for America today. I feel that with your talk today you would not have reached as many people here with the subject of fear then. But the fears that many people have, have shaken them out of their complacency about their understanding of others and generosity.

K: Yes, sir. Do you think fear is something recent? [Laughter] Like sex — they talk a great deal about sex nowadays — is it something that you have just discovered? [Laughter] The fear, death, love, oh, for God’s sake, the fundamental things of life, they are the… to understand them and to resolve them is the most practical thing. Without understanding them, do what you will, create new League of Nations and all the rest of it, organise, you will never bring about peace. One must ask fundamental questions, whether it was ten years ago or last year or this year. Because when everything is so safe, quiet, we become safe and quiet and dull and stupid. When we are disturbed then we begin to ask. And the disturbance is not asking, is not questioning. The disturbance when you question indicates that you want to find a way not to be disturbed.

Q: May we go back to love?

K: May we go back to love. [Laughter]

Q: I wish to finish my question; that was just a tester.

K: I am afraid we’ll have to stop now.

Q: Mr Krishnamurti…

K: We’re going to talk about it…

Q: …I feel that love is freedom… [inaudible] …and freedom is love. That is the explanation.

Q: The lady feels that love is freedom and freedom is love.

K: Love is freedom, freedom is love. Bien — that is stated. Where am I? Where are you at the end of that statement?

Q: We neither have love or freedom.

K: You have neither freedom nor love. So, please, the description is not the described. The word is not the thing. And we are so easily carried away by words. How sad it is, isn’t it? Here you are, most highly educated, sophisticated, prosperous world, and you don’t know, live, in freedom or you don’t know what love means. We said love is not pleasure, love is not desire. It is something totally different, at a different dimension. That’s why we talked of freedom and fear this morning because without freedom and fear the other thing cannot possibly exist.

Right, sir.

[Applause]