Krishnamurti on Krishnamurti

Episode Notes

‘I am nobody. It is as simple as that. I am nobody.’

This week’s episode on Krishnamurti has seven sections.

The first extract (2:33) is from the first talk in Saanen 1972, titled ‘I know why I am here’.

The second extract (11:11) is from Krishnamurti’s second talk in Ojai 1981, titled ‘I am not a teacher’.

The third extract (17:54) is from an interview by Roy Tuckman in Ojai 1983.

The fourth extract (25:26) is from the third question and answer meeting in Saanen 1983, titled ‘Krishnamurti’s experiences’.

The fifth extract (36:15) is from the second question and answer meeting in Madras 1981, titled ‘Has Krishnamurti performed miracles?’

The sixth extract (41:32) is from the first question and answer meeting in Ojai 1984, titled ‘Have you designated someone to carry on your teachings?’

The final extract (46:33) this in this episode is from the third question and answer meeting in Saanen 1981, titled ‘Who are you?’

Part 1

I Know Why I Am Here

I wonder why you have all come. I think that is a good question to ask you: whether you have come out of curiosity, or you have problems that you want solved by someone else, or you are serious, profoundly concerned with the happenings in the world, and being serious, desirous, earnest, to solve these appalling, frightening problems that one has around one. So one must ask oneself, it seems to me, why you are here – curiosity, wanting your personal problems solved, or seeing the extraordinary things that are going on in the world, the sorrow, the violence, the division of nationalities, political, religious, separative issues. So one must be, it seems to me at least, very clear for oneself why you are all here.

I know why I am here: I want to say something very clearly and very definitely. I have spoken for the last fifty years all over the world, except in Russia and China, and in observing all these years the state of the world, the state of human beings and their relationship with each other, one sees very clearly that the problem is not only external but much more deeply inward. And without solving the complex, inward issues, merely being concerned with the outward phenomenon has very little significance. And I feel, observing all this, that one must take a totally different action, enter into a totally different dimension, neither belonging to any organised religion or any country, any politics, totally uncommitted so that one can look clearly, objectively, sanely at all the phenomenon that is going on around us and within us. That is why I happen to be here.

Obviously, one cannot tell why you are here. It may be out of habit – it is a nice place, Saanen, lovely mountains, a holiday in the beautiful mountains with snow – you know, all that. But if you are here, and I hope you are, for a serious purpose, then we have a relationship with each other. Otherwise, we have no relationship whatsoever. That is clear, isn’t it? If you and I are both serious about understanding this whole phenomenon of existence, not only the outward but much more deeply inward, and are totally concerned with the resolution of this problem, then you and I, the speaker and you who listen, have relationship. Then we can move together, then we can think together, then we can share together. And sharing, thinking together, investigating together, and therefore creating together, is communication. I hope I am making myself clear. We cannot communicate with each other if you are interested merely in trying to solve a particular little problem of your own – which we will deal with presently, later on during these talks – or if you are merely curious what the chap has to say from India with his strange philosophy or exotic nonsense. Then I am afraid you and I will have no communication because the speaker is not bringing or talking about any particular system of philosophy.

Philosophy implies the understanding of truth in daily life, in daily action, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism or any culture.

Part 2

I Am Not a Teacher

I would like to point out that this is not entertainment – intellectual, romantic, emotional or sensational. We are rather serious, and if you are at all serious too, we can explore together into the nature of this crisis. It is not a crisis somewhere else; it is in our minds, in each one of our minds, in our hearts, in our relationship with each other. The crisis, as we said, is in our consciousness. This consciousness is common to all mankind. Wherever you go, man is suffering, uncertain, insecure, lonely, neurotic, depressed, elated, chasing one fad after another, especially in this part of the world. And this crisis is brought about by thought. Thought has put together the content of our consciousness.

Please, if one may again point out very clearly, we are not explaining, we are observing together. The speaker is not a teacher. There is no teacher, except in mathematics, or if you want to be a good carpenter. But in the world of psychology, there is no teacher and there is no disciple, there is no leader or follower. We are together observing the nature of man, what has happened to him, why we are as we are now, violent, neurotic, lonely, terribly uncertain, confused. And to this confusion the philosophers are adding; the religious people are adding to it, the evangelists, the scholars, and so on.

So we are learning or observing our own state of mind. That is where real education begins – self-education. We have learnt so much from others about ourselves. We are always looking for others to lead us, not only outwardly but especially in the psychological realm, inwardly. If there is any trouble, any disturbance, we immediately go after somebody who will help us to clear it away. We are addicted to institutions, we are addicted to organisations, hoping that they will settle our problems, help us to clarify our own minds. So we are always depending on somebody, and dependence will inevitably bring about corruption.

So here we are not depending on anybody, including on the speaker – especially on the speaker because there is no intention to persuade you to think in any particular direction, to stimulate you by fanciful words and theories, but rather to observe what is actually going on in the world, and all the confusion within.

Part 3

Interview by Roy Tuckman

Roy Tuckman: I was wondering – I’m sure a lot of people are – what your daily life is? Do you get up in the afternoon? What do you do on a normal day?

Krishnamurti: What do I do? I get up around half past five, get ready and do some sort of yoga, some of the yoga the top yoga teachers in India showed me. Some of them. So I do that for an hour.

RT: This would be hatha yoga exercise?

K: No, no, it’s called… Yes, probably. It’s not quite Hatha yoga, it’s some form of yoga. Then I write or dictate – not letters; I’m writing now something or other. And then breakfast, then write some more. Then bathe, lunch, rest, and see a lot of people, groups of people all the time. That is my day. And it is the same in England, same in India.

RT: And you travel. Every year you go to visit these schools and…

K: In India, not only schools – I go to Delhi, talk, you know, I talk all over India – Delhi, near Benares, then last year I talked in Calcutta, then Madras, and so on. Then I go back to England, and then I come here.

RT: You’ve been talking for maybe seventy years now.

K: Over sixty years.

RT: Sixty years, and do you ever get tired of talking? Does it seem to be a repetitive ritual to you anytime?

K: What do you mean by ritual?

RT: You talk against falling into the trap of doing the same thing, the same life plan…

K: Yes. No, this is not a trap to me. I’ve stopped talking. I’ve stopped travelling.

RT: You have stopped?

K: I have, so I’m always careful that it doesn’t become a habit, a routine, something that has to be done over and over again.

RT: It’s something you enjoy doing?

K: No, I wouldn’t call it ‘enjoy’ – it’s something that… it’s like… how shall we put it? Perhaps it is… you do what you think is right, without any feeling of getting some kind of reward or self-fulfilment, all that nonsense.

RT: So it’s just…

K: It’s like a teacher who loves teaching – whether people listen or they don’t listen, whether they understand or don’t understand, the thing you are doing you love to do. It’s not rewarding or for self-fulfilment, which would be terrible.

RT: What do you get your self-fulfilment from?

K: No, no, it’s not self-fulfilment.

RT: The speaking isn’t, but is there something that gives you self-fulfilment? Or do you reject the concept?

K: No, I reject that totally, that concept, that you derive fulfilment from talking or painting or… I think self-fulfilment is like – what? You desire something and get it. You fulfil. You have urges and you fulfil those urges. You want to be a rich man and you strive to be rich. But it isn’t at all like that. On the contrary, the denial of the self – not self-fulfilment. This is rather complicated because everyone wants to be somebody.

RT: Almost everybody.

K: Almost everybody. Not ‘almost’ – you can say practically everyone wants to be somebody, follow somebody, be known, you know, all that kind of business. I’m afraid I don’t belong to that category.

RT: So it is not everybody, but almost everybody. But you already are somebody. You were brought up, from an early age, to be somebody very special, and you were given very special treatment and very special attention and prepared for the role of messiah, which you rejected.

K: No, I think that… No, you see, the word messiah was given in America, really. There was the whole idea that from the… when they adopted my brother and myself, there was this feeling that when they found this boy that, ‘One day you will be a great teacher.’ I was educated abroad in England, France and Italy, but we had a very big organisation of which I was the head, with castles and enormous pieces of land all over the place. I returned them all and I said to be a really religious person, property is not important, money isn’t important.

RT: I have a good friend who said about you, ‘Krishnamurti has given away what most gurus would give their left chakra to get.’

K: (Laughs)

Part 4

Krishnamurti’s Experiences

Question: From what we read, you have had strange and mysterious experiences. Is this kundalini or something greater? And we read also that you consider the so-called process that you have undergone to be some sort of expansion of consciousness. Could it be instead a self-induced, psychosomatic thing, caused by tension? Is not K’s consciousness put together by thought and words?

Krishnamurti: Somebody is interested in this, so I must answer it. You are interested in this? Of course. This is much more exciting than talking about desire. I wish you would be simple about all this.

K apparently has had various experiences. They may be psychosomatic, induced by tension, or a pleasurable projection of his own desires, and so on. In India, the word kundalini has great meaning. They have written books about it, and several claim they have awakened that. I won’t go into it all. Don’t be mesmerised by this word. A kind of release of energy so that energy is inexhaustible – that is the meaning of that word. But it has other meanings and different types. Just the fact is to awaken the energy and to let it function completely. And the so-called ‘process’ may also be imagination, and so on. Do all these things matter?

One is able to read other people’s thoughts. They are experimenting with that in Russia, so Andropov can read Mr Reagan’s thought, or Mr Reagan can read Mr Andropov’s thought. Then the game is over! And if you can read my thoughts and I can read your thoughts, then life becomes terribly complex and rather tiresome. They have experimented with this at Duke University in America; they have proved telepathy exists, that thought can control matter, and so on. This is the old Indian tradition.

Perhaps K has done some of these things, but is this at all important? It is like having a good bath. After a hot day, having a good, clean, healthy bath, with a clean towel and good soap – at the end of it you are clean. What matters is that you are clean. Put all this at that level. Don’t give all this importance. It is not important. K has been through all this. He knows a great deal about all this. But he treats all this as not necessary.

There is the energy which has been misused by us, in fights, in quarrels, in pretensions, trying to say mine is better than yours, I have reached this platform, and so on. It is far more important to inquire why human beings behave as they do now, not all this triviality. This is triviality. We have discussed this matter with some of the people who claim all this awakening. You know, you have a little experience and then you set up shop. You know what that means, setting up shop? I have a little experience of this kind and then I become a guru. I am in business then. I have disciples, I tell them what to do, I have money, I sit in a posture, and I am very… – you follow? – all that tommy rot!

So one has to be terribly careful of one’s own little experiences. But what is important, really important, is to find out sanely, rationally, logically, how you waste your energy by conflict, by quarrels, fear and pretension. When all that energy that is being wasted is not wasted, you have all the energy in the world – as long as your brain is not deteriorating through conflict, through ambition, through strife, fighting loneliness, depression and all the rest of it, which we have gone into. When the brain is free of all that, you have abundant energy. But if you release some kind of little energy, then you do infinite harm to others. Is this question answered? Can we go on to the next?

So please don’t fall into the trap of those gurus who say, ‘I know, you don’t know, I will tell you.’ There are various centres in America, and probably in Europe and India, where one or two people are saying, ‘I have awakened this peculiar stuff, and I will tell you all about it. I will teach you.’ You know, the good old game! It all becomes so trivial when man is fighting man, the world is degenerating, disintegrating, and you are talking about footling little experiences.

And also the questioner says: is not K’s consciousness put together by thought? Every consciousness with its content is the result of the movement of thought. Your consciousness with its content of fear, belief, loneliness, anxieties, sorrow, following somebody, having faith, saying, ‘My country is more… the highest culture,’ and all that business – it is part of your consciousness. It is what you are. If you are free of that then you are in a totally different dimension. It is not expansion of consciousness; it is the denying of the content of consciousness. Not expanding, becoming more and more self-centred.

Part 5

Has Krishnamurti Performed Miracles?

Question: What is your stand with regard to miracles? We are told even you performed what you would normally be called miracles. Do you deny this fact?

Krishnamurti: How do you know the speaker has performed miracles? How do you know? Somebody has told you about it? Naturally. And is it very important? In the Christian world, miracles are very important. Jesus is supposed to have performed many miracles, and that has become one of the factors. Is it very important to perform miracles? That is, to change something out of nothing, to cure somebody without medicine, without surgery, without going through all that misery, to heal somebody. Which is more important, to heal somebody physically, or heal psychologically? You are not interested in all that; you are interested only in miracles that will give you more money.

You see how sad all this is, how childish all this is? Isn’t it very sad what human beings have reduced themselves to, to be so easily satisfied by miracles? Obviously, you can produce miracles. What? What’s important about it? The speaker has probably healed somebody. All right. Physically. All right. What? A doctor heals somebody. They do. Surgeons heal people. You don’t give them importance. But a man who does something without medicine, without this and without that, that is a miracle and you are astonished and you worship that person. It is all becoming so childish, immature.

So one asks, not what is the fact, but why we have become so childish about all these matters. The world is going to pieces. In this country there is such degeneration. You are degenerating, you are corrupt, you are making things ugly in life. To change that is the miracle, not some silly person doing some kind of tricks. This is the greatest miracle that can happen to a human being: to completely change and flower into something extraordinary. That is possible. But you are not interested in that – you want somebody to do everything for you. Nobody is going to help you psychologically.

Part 6

Have You Designated Someone To Carry On Your Teachings?

Question: Have you designated a special teacher or person to carry on your teachings after you have gone? Someone is claiming this position.

Krishnamurti: Where? Someone is claiming this position. I wonder why he is claiming this position. I know this is happening. I know the various people who are doing this kind of rubbish. But what are they claiming? Why do they want to follow after somebody? Suppose – not suppose – K is going to die. The speaker is going to die. That is certain, as all of us are going to die. That is one absolute, irrevocable fact, whether you like it or not. Fortunately or unfortunately, he has said many things, written some books and become somewhat… may I use the word notorious? Not as a criminal but some kind of freak or religious teacher, another freak or some kind of biological exception. And because of that, the sense of reputation in the world – which is so ugly, and it has no meaning: reputation – someone wants, or feels, or thinks himself that he is going to carry on K’s work. Why? Probably it is very profitable financially, and you can say, ‘I can collect a lot of silly people.’ This is happening in the world. In the church there is the apostolic succession – you know, handed down. They have it too in India, in a different way.

So we all love authority. We all want to follow someone who says, ‘I know.’ And we are all so gullible. We never say, ‘I just want to live, I want to find out what you say, what you are, not what you represent, or your symbol, and all the rest of it – what you are.’ And you begin to doubt, question what you are. And you soon discover that it is nothing very much.

So K is saying, the speaker is saying he has designated no one, no teacher or anyone to represent after he has gone… to England, where he is going next week! It is all rather silly, isn’t it?

Part 7

Who Are You?

Question Who are you?

Krishnamurti: Is that an important question? Or would you say, ‘Who am I?’ Not, ‘Who are you?’ but, ‘Who am I?’ And if I tell you who I am, what does it matter? It would be out of curiosity, wouldn’t it? It is like reading a menu at the window – you have to go into the restaurant and eat the food. Merely standing outside and reading the menu won’t satisfy your hunger. So, to tell you who I am is really quite meaningless.

First of all, I am nobody. That’s all. It is as simple as that. I am nobody. But what is important is: who you are. What are you?

When they ask, ‘Who are you?’ – in that question is implied you are somebody very great, therefore I am going to imitate you: the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you brush your teeth, or whatever it is! I am going to imitate you. Which is part of our pattern. There is the hero or the man who is enlightened, or the guru, and you say, ‘I am going to copy everything you do’ – which becomes so absurdly silly. It is childish to imitate somebody. And are we not the result of a lot of imitations? The religions have said – they don’t use the word imitate – but give yourself over, surrender yourself, follow me, I am this, I am that; worship. All this is what you are. In school, you imitate. Acquiring knowledge is a form of imitation. And of course there is fashion – short dress, long dress, long hair, short hair, beard, no beard; imitate, imitate, imitate. And also we imitate inwardly. So we all know that.

But to find out who you are – who you are, not who the speaker is – is far more important. And to find out who you are, you have to inquire. You are the story of mankind. If you really see that, it gives you tremendous vitality, energy, beauty, love because it is no longer a small entity struggling in the corner of the earth. You are part of this whole humanity – it has tremendous responsibility, vitality, beauty, love. But most of us won’t see this, as most of us are concerned with ourselves, with our particular little problem, particular little sorrow, and so on. And to step out of that narrow circle seems almost impossible because we are so conditioned, so programmed, like the computers, that we cannot learn something new. The computer can but we can’t. See the tragedy of it. The machine that we have created, the computer, can learn much faster, infinitely more than I can, than the brain can. The brain invented that, and that has become an ultra-intelligent machine. Whereas our brain is sluggish, slow, dull because we have conformed, we have obeyed, we have followed. There is the guru, there is the priest, there is the ritual. And when you do revolt, as the revolutionaries and the terrorists do, it is still very superficial – changing the pattern of politics, of so-called society.

Society is merely the relationship between people, and we are talking of a revolution, not physical but the psychological revolution in which there is no, at depth, conformity. You may put on trousers because you are in this country, and in India it is different clothes. That is not conformity; that is nothing, childish. But inwardly, not a feeling of conformity. Conformity exists when there is comparison. For a mind to be totally free from comparison, that is to observe the whole history which is embedded in you.