Krishnamurti on ‘What Is’

Episode Notes

‘There is only ‘what is’, and not the changing of ‘what is’. The changing of ‘what is’ is the movement of thought in time.’
This week’s episode on What Is has four sections.

The first extract (2:38) is from Krishnamurti’s second talk in Ojai 1983, titled: ‘What is’ and ‘what should be’.

The second extract (29:30) is from the third talk at Brockwood Park in 1978, titled: ‘What is’ has no opposite.

The third extract (40:20) is from the eighth discussion in Saanen 1970, titled: ‘What is’ contains the past, present and future.

The final extract in this episode (59:55) is from Krishnamurti’s fourth talk at Brockwood Park in 1973, titled: The cessation of ‘what is’.

Part 1

‘What Is’ and ‘What Should Be’

We are questioning together – you and another friend are questioning – whether we are individuals at all. Or we are like the rest of humanity. The rest of humanity is unhappy, sorrow-ridden, fearful, believing in some fantastic romantic nonsense – they go through great suffering and uncertainty, like you. Our reaction, which is part of our consciousness, is similar to the other’s. This is an absolute fact. You may not like to think about it; you might like to think that you are totally separate from another, which is quite absurd. So your consciousness, which is you – what you think, what you believe, your conclusions and prejudices, your vanity, arrogance, aggression, pain, grief and sorrow – is shared by all humanity. That is our conditioning whether a Catholic or a Protestant or whatever you are.

So our consciousness is your essence, what your life is. That is the truth. So you actually share with the rest of humanity. You are the rest of humanity. You are humanity. This is a tremendous thing to realise. You may believe in a certain form of a saviour, and the other believes in a certain form of ideologies and so on, but belief is common to all of us; fear is common to all of us; loneliness, the agony of loneliness is shared by the rest of humanity. When one realises the truth of that, becoming, that is, to change from ‘what is’ to ‘what should be’ – has a totally different meaning.

The other friend says, ‘I don’t understand that at all. What do you mean by that?’ The friend says I don’t quite know, but let’s examine it.’ I hope you are all following all this because it is your life, not mine. It is your daily life – whether you live in this valley, New York or other big cities, all the cities of the world – it is our life. We have to understand that, not from another, but to examine the facts of our life; to look at ourselves as you look at yourself when you comb your hair or shaving – objectively, sanely, rationally, without any distortion, seeing things as they are, and not be frightened or ashamed; but to observe.

So the friend says, ‘All my life I have tried to change from ‘what is’ to ‘what should be’. I know violence, disorder, I’ve known all that very well. And that disorder and violence I’ve tried to change; that is, to move from violence to non-violence; from disorder to order.’

‘Now is there’ – the other friend says – ‘is non-violence a fact? Or just an imaginary conclusion, a reaction from the fact of violence?’ I hope we understand each other. I am violent; I project the idea of non-violence, because that is part of my conditioning. I have lived in disorder and I try to seek order; that is, to change ‘what is’ to ‘what should be’. That is part of becoming, and that may be the cause of conflict. And so let’s examine that carefully. You are examining it, not the speaker is examining it. One must constantly remember that. And the speaker will constantly remind his friend that it is not a one-sided conversation. It is not one-sided communication – both of us friends, you and the speaker are observing all this. The speaker is expressing it in words, but you are also observing it; not only the words but the fact. So the friend says, ‘Can this violence end?’ Not become non-violent. Can envy, greed, fear, end? Not become courageous, free from this or that. That is the question. So the other friend says, ‘I’ll show it to you. Perhaps this may be new to you, so please kindly listen most attentively.’

First realise what we are doing. That is: ‘what is’ to become the ideal, ‘what should be’. The ideal is non-existent, is non-fact. But ‘what is’ is a fact. So let’s understand ‘what is’ and not the idea of non-violence, which is absurd. This has been preached by various people in India, beginning with Tolstoy and others. This is our tradition; this is our conditioning; this is our attempt to become something. And we have never achieved anything. We have never become non-violent. Never. So let’s examine carefully whether it is possible to end that ‘which is’, to end that disorder or violence. End, not become something. I hope we understand each other. The becoming implies time. This is very important to understand. When we talk about fear, which shall presently, we’ll go into the question of time; which is extraordinarily complex.

So, let’s understand whether it is possible to end ‘what is’; not to change ‘what is’ into that which we would like to be. We will take the question of violence, and if you prefer disorder, both are the same; it doesn’t matter what you take.

Violence is inherited from beyond all time, from the animal, from the ape, to us. We have inherited it. That is a fact: we are violent people. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be killing anybody, we wouldn’t be hurting anybody, we wouldn’t say a word against anybody – but we are by nature violent. Now, what is the meaning of that word? To hold that word, feel the weight of that word, the complications of that word. Not merely physical violence: the terrorist throwing bombs, those terrorists who want to change society through various forms of disturbance and bombing and so on – they have never changed society. And there are the terrorists who do it for the fun of it. Violence is not only physical but psychological, much more. Violence is conformity because it is conforming to something – not understanding ‘what is’ but to conform, imitate. And violence must exist as long as there is division outwardly and inwardly. Conflict is the very nature of violence.

The friend says, ‘Yes, I see that. That’s fairly clear. Now how do you end it? How do you end the whole complex question of violence?’ He says, ‘I understand very well that to become non-violent is a part of violence. It’s part of violence because you have projected from violence non-violence. And I understand that very clearly, that projection is really illusion. So I have rejected that concept, or that idea, that feeling that you must become non-violent.’ He says, ‘I understand that very clearly. There is only this fact. Now, what am I to do?’

And other friend says, ‘Don’t ask me – listen carefully – don’t ask me, but let’s look at it.’ The moment you ask what to do, or how to do, you put the other fellow as your guide. You make him your authority; therefore friendship ceases. So together let’s look at it. Being free altogether from the idea of non-violence, observe what is violence, look at it, give attention to the fact, not escape from it, not rationalise it. Don’t say why you shouldn’t be violent – it is part of myself. But if that is part of yourself, you will always create wars of different kinds: wars between yourself and your wife, wars between… killing others and so on.

So look at it without conflict. Look at it as though it was not separate from you. You understand all this? This is rather difficult. Which is, violence is part of you: you are violent, like you are greedy. Greed is not separate from you. Suffering is not separate from you. Anxiety, loneliness, depression, all that is you. But our tradition, our education has said you are separate from that. So where there is separation, where there is duality, there must be conflict. Like the Jew and Arab – I’m taking that; probably you will understand that better – between the conflict of two great powers: division, and so on. So, it is you; you are that. You are not separate from that. The analyser is not different from the analysed.

The friend says, ‘I follow this a little more. Go on, explain a bit more.’

We observe the tree, the mountains. You observe your wife and your children. Who is the observer, and who is the observed? Please, I am going into it carefully – follow this. Is the observer different from the tree? Of course he is different, I hope! The observer is different from that mountain. The observer is different from the computer. But is the observer different from anxiety? The anxiety is a reaction, put into words as ‘anxiety’, but the feeling is you. The word is different, but the word is never the thing. The thing is the feeling of anxiety, the feeling of violence. The word ‘violence’ is not that. So watch carefully that the word doesn’t entangle your observation because our brain is caught in a network of words. When I say, ‘You are an American,’ you feel very proud. When I call myself South African, I feel – you follow? – something totally different. So one must be very careful that the language doesn’t condition our thinking. This is quite a different problem.

So the friend says to the other: observe this feeling without the word. If you use the word, you strengthen the past memories of that particular feeling. This is the act of observation in which the word is not the thing and the observer is the observed. The observer who says, ‘I am violent,’ that observer is violence. So the observer is the observed; the thinker is the thought – the experiencer who says, ‘I must experience nirvana,’ or heaven or whatever is the experience. The analyser is the analysed, and so on. So look at that fact of that feeling without a word, without analysing it – just look. That is, be with it. Be with this thing as is. Which means you bring all your attention to it. By analysing, examining, that is all a waste of energy, whereas if you give your total attention, which is, give all your energy to the feeling, then that feeling has total ending.

The friend says, ‘Are you mesmerising me by being so vehement, by being so passionate about it?’ I say no. I am not stimulating you; I am not telling you what to do. You yourself have realised that non-violence is non-fact, is not real. What is real is violence. You yourself have realised it. You yourself have said, ‘Yes, I am violent,’ not ‘I am separate from the violence.’ The word separates. But the fact of the feeling is me. Me is my nose, my eyes, my face, my name, my character, my… that is me. I am not separate from all that. When you separate, you act upon it, which means conflict. Therefore, you have fundamentally erased the cause of conflict when you are that, not separate from that.

So the friends have learned something. I have learned a great phenomenon, which I have never realised before. Before, I have separated my feelings as though I was different from my feelings. Now I realise the truth that I am that. Therefore I remain with it. And when you remain with it, hold it, you are out of that. That gives you tremendous energy, and that energy dissipates, ends that violence completely. Not for a day, not while you are sitting here, but it is the end of it.

Part 2

‘What Is’ Has No Opposite

As long as we live in opposites – jealousy and non-jealousy, the good and the bad, the ignorant and the enlightened – there must be this constant conflict in duality. Of course there is duality: man, woman, light and shade, light and darkness, morning and evening and so on, but psychologically, inwardly we are asking whether there is an opposite at all.

Is goodness the outcome of that which is bad? If it is the outcome of that which is bad, evil – I don’t like to use the word ‘evil’ because that is so appallingly misused, as is every other word in the English language – if goodness is the opposite of the bad then that very goodness is the outcome of the bad, therefore it is not goodness. Do we see in ourselves, not as an idea, as a conclusion, as something somebody has suggested to you, but actually do we see anything born out of an opposite must contain its own opposite? So if that is so, then there is only ‘what is’, which has no opposite.

Right? Is somebody meeting me? We are meeting each other?

So as long as we have an opposite, there cannot be freedom. Goodness is totally unrelated to that which is evil, which is bad – in quotes ‘bad’. As long as we are violent, to have the opposite which is non-violent, creates a conflict, and the non-violence is born out of violence. The idea of non-violence is the outcome of being aggressive, abrasive, anger and so on. So there is only violence, not its opposite. Then we can deal with violence. As long as we have an opposite, then we are trying to achieve the opposite.

So, is freedom the opposite of non-freedom? Or freedom has nothing whatsoever to do with its opposite. Please, we have to understand this very carefully because we are going to go into something, which is: is love the opposite of hate, the opposite of jealousy, the opposite of sensation? So as long as we are living in this habit of opposites, which we are – I must, I must not; I am, I shall be, I have been, and in the future something will take place – all this is the activity, the movement of the opposites.

So we are asking: is freedom totally unrelated to that which we call non-freedom? If it is then how is that freedom to be lived, understood and acted, from which action takes place? We have always acted from the opposites. I am in prison, and I must be free of it; I must get out. I am in bondage to a habit, psychologically as well as physiologically, and I must be free of it to become something else. So we are caught in the habit of this everlasting corridor of opposites, and so there is never an ending to conflict, to struggle, to be this and not that.

I think this is fairly clear. Can we go on from there? You are not listening to me: you are discovering this for yourself. If you are, it has significance, meaning and can be lived daily, but if you are merely accepting the idea of it from another, from the speaker, then you are merely living in the world of ideas, and therefore the opposites remain. The word ‘idea’, the root meaning of it, from Greek and so on, is to observe. See what we have made of that word! Just to observe, and not conclude or make an abstraction from what you have observed into an idea. So we are caught in ideas, and we never observe. If we do observe, we make an abstraction of it into an idea.

So we are saying freedom is unconnected with bondage, whether it is the bondage of habit – physical or psychological – the bondage of attachment and so on. So there is only freedom, not its opposite. If we understand the truth of it, we will deal only with ‘what is’ and not with ‘what should be’, which is its opposite.

Have you got it? Are we meeting each other somewhere? Right?

Questioner: Yes.

Krishnamurti: May we go on?

Q: Yes.

K: So that is very clear, that there is only the fact, the ‘what is’ and there is no opposite to ‘what is’. If you understand that basically, the truth of it, you are dealing with facts, unemotionally, unsentimentally, and then you can do something. The fact itself will do something. But as long as we move away from the fact, the fact and the opposite will continue. So we are asking now if that is clear, not because somebody said so but because you have discovered this for yourself, fundamentally – it is yours, not mine.

Part 3

‘What Is’ Contains the Past, Present and Future

Now we are going to find out, learn together, what happens to a mind and to the brain – the brain, the mind, the whole being, that is the psychosomatic, the body, the brain, the heart, the mind, the whole thing – what takes place when a mind is tremendously attentive.

To understand that very clearly or find out, learn about it for oneself, one must first see that the description is not the described. One can describe the tent, this tent, with all the holes and everything involved – the tent. But the description is not the tent; the word is not the thing, and of that we must be absolutely clear from the beginning, that the explanation is not the explained. To be caught in descriptions and explanations is the most childish form of living, which I’m afraid most of us do – we are satisfied with the description, with explanation, with saying that is the cause, and just float along. Whereas what we are going to do is to find out for ourselves the quality of a mind, or what has happened to the mind – mind being the brain as well as the whole psychosomatic structure – what happens to the mind when there is this extraordinary attention, when there is no centre as this observer or as the censor.

To understand that, to really learn about it, not be merely satisfied with the speaker’s explanation of it, one has to find out, one has to begin with the understanding of ‘what is’. ‘What is’ not ‘what should be’ or ‘what has been’, but ‘what is’. Please go with me, let’s travel together – it is great fun if we move together in learning. Obviously there must be tremendous changes in the world and in ourselves. The ways of our thought and action have become so utterly immature, so contradictory, so diabolical, if one can say so. You invent a machine to kill, and then there is an anti-machine to kill that machine – anti, anti, anti – that is what they are doing in the world, not only socially but also mechanically.

A mind that is really concerned, involved in the seriousness of psychological as well as outward change, must go into this problem of the human being with his consciousness, with his despairs, with his appalling fears, with his ambitions, with his anxieties, with his desire to fulfil in some form or another. So to understand all this – and we cannot go back to begin all over again because we have been through it – we must begin with seeing ‘what is’. ‘What is’ is not only what is in front of you but what is beyond. To see what is in front of you, you must have a very clear perception, uncontaminated, not prejudiced, not involved in the desire to go beyond it, but just to observe it. Not only to observe ‘what is’ but ‘what has been’, which is also ‘what is’. The ‘what is’ is the past, the present and the future. Do see this. So the ‘what is’ is not static; it’s a movement. And to keep with that movement, with the movement of ‘what is’, you need to have a very clear mind. You need to have an unprejudiced, not distorted mind. That means there is distortion the moment there is an effort. I can’t see ‘what is’ and go beyond it. The mind can’t see it if the mind is in any way concerned with the change of ‘what is’, or trying to go beyond it, or trying to suppress it.

To observe ‘what is’ you need energy. To observe attentively to anything, you need energy. To listen to what you are saying, I need energy – that is, I need energy when I really, desperately want to understand what you are saying. But if I am not interested and casually listen, you know, that is a very slight energy that soon dissipates. So to understand ‘what is’ you need energy. Now, these fragmentations of which we are, are the division of these energies – I and the ‘not I’, anger and the not anger, violence and the not violence, they are all fragmentations of energy. When one fragment assumes authority over the other fragments, it is an energy that functions in fragments.

Are we meeting each other? Are we communicating? Communication means learning together, working together, creating together, seeing together, understanding together; not just I speak and you listen and say, ‘Well, intellectually I grasp it.’ That is not understanding. The whole thing is a movement in learning and therefore in action.

So the mind sees that all fragmentations – as nation, not nation, my god, your god, my belief and your belief – is fragmentation of energy. There is only energy and fragmentation. This energy is fragmented by thought. And thought is the way of conditioning, which we have gone into, which we won’t go into now because we must move further.

So consciousness is the totality of these fragmentations of energy. And we said this fragmentation of energy, one of the fragmentations is the observer, the ‘me’, the monkey that is incessantly active. Bearing in mind the description is not the described, that you are watching yourself, watching yourself through the words of the speaker. But the words are not the thing. Therefore the speaker becomes of very little importance. What becomes important is your observation of yourself, how this energy has been fragmented – jealousy, non-jealousy, hate – you know.

Now to see that, which is ‘what is’, can you see that without a fragment as the observer? Can the mind see these many fragmentations which make up the whole of consciousness, and these fragmentations are the fragmentations of energy – energy – can the mind see this without an observer who is part of the many fragments? It is important to understand this. When we are talking of attention, if the mind cannot see the many fragments without, or sees through the eyes of another fragment, then you will never understand what attention is.

The mind sees what fragmentation does outwardly and inwardly. Outwardly: sovereign governments with arms and all the rest of it; outwardly the division of nationalities, beliefs, religious dogmas. Division: my god, your god, my belief; outwardly in social action, division, political action, division, the Labour Party, the Conservative, the communist, non-communist, the socialist, the capitalist – all created with the desire of thought which says, ‘I must be secure.’ Thought thinks it will be secure through fragmentation, and so creates more fragmentations. Do see this, not verbally but actually, as a fact – the young and the old, the rich – this constant division – death and living – do see this movement of fragmentation by thought which is caught in the conditioning of these fragmentations. Does the mind see this whole movement of fragmentation, without a centre which says, ‘I see them’? The moment you have a centre, that centre becomes the factor of division – me and ‘not me’, which is you. And thought has put together this ‘me’ through the desire or through the impulse to find security, safety. In its desire to find safety, it has divided energy as the ‘me’ and ‘not the me’ and therefore bringing to itself insecurity. Now can the mind see this as a whole? It cannot see it as a whole if there is a fragmentation which observes.

We are asking: what is the quality of the mind that is highly attentive, in which there is no fragmentation? That is where we left off yesterday. What is the quality of the mind? I don’t know if you have gone through it, inquired or learned from yesterday – and the speaker is not a professor teaching you or giving you information – but to find that out, there must be no fragmentation, obviously, which means no effort. Effort means distortion, and as most of our minds are distorted, you cannot possibly understand what it is to be completely attentive and find out what has happened to a mind that is so utterly aware, utterly attentive.

Part 4

The Cessation of ‘What Is’

We are investigating what time is because without understanding that, if the mind is not free of time it cannot possibly look into something which is timeless, which may be sacred. So the mind must clearly understand what time is. All this is meditation – you understand? Not just one part: the whole of this talk is the movement in meditation.

What is time, apart from chronological time? Time is movement from here to there, psychologically as well as physically – from here to that house. So the movement between this and that is time. The space between this and that, the covering of that is time; the movement to that is time. So all movement is time, both physically going from here to Paris or New York or wherever you will, which requires time; and also psychologically to change ‘what is’ into ‘what should be’ requires time, the movement. At least we think so. So time is movement in space created by thought as ‘this’ and achieving ‘that’. Thought then is time. Thought is movement in time

Does this mean anything to any of you? We are journeying together? I’ll go on; I won’t ask anymore. Please, this requires tremendous attention, care, a sense of non-personal, non-pleasure, where desire doesn’t enter into it at all. This requires great care, and that care brings its own order, which is its own discipline.

So thought is movement between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’. Thought is time to cover that space. As long as there is the division between ‘this’ and ‘that’ psychologically, the movement is time of thought. So thought is time as movement. And is there time as movement, as thought, when there is only observation of ‘what is’? Which is observation not as the observer and the observed but only the observation without the movement of going beyond ‘what is’.

Are you getting this? Are you all paralysed? It is very important for the mind to understand this because thought can create most marvellous images of that which is sacred and holy – which all religions have done. All religions are based on thought. All religions are the organisation of thought, in belief, in dogma, in ritual. So unless there is complete understanding of this thought as time and movement, the mind cannot possibly go beyond itself.

As we said, we are trained, educated, drilled into changing ‘what is’ into ‘what should be’ – the ideal. The word ‘ideal’ comes from the word ‘idea’ which means to see – only that, not draw an abstraction from what you see but actually remain with what you see. So we are trained to change ‘what is’ into ‘what should be’. And that training is the movement of thought to cover the space between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’, and that takes time. That whole movement of thought in space is time necessary to change ‘what is’ into ‘what should be’.

The observer is the observed; therefore there is nothing to change because there is only ‘what is’. The observer doesn’t know what to do with ‘what is’, therefore he tries various methods to change ‘what is’, control ‘what is’, tries to suppress actually ‘what is’. But the observer is the observed; the ‘what is’ is the observer, like anger or jealousy. Jealousy is the observer; there isn’t jealousy separate from the observer – both are one. So when there is no movement to change ‘what is’, movement as thought in time, when thought perceives that there is no possibility of changing ‘what is’, then that which is ‘what is’ ceases entirely because the observer is the observed. Go into this very deeply; you will see yourself; it is really quite simple.

I dislike someone, so the dislike is different from the me and the you. The entity that dislikes is dislike itself; it is not separate. When thought says, ‘I must get over my dislike,’ then it is movement in time to get over that which actually is, which is created by thought. So the observer, the entity and the thing called dislike are the same. Therefore there is complete immobility, which is not the immobility of staticism; it is completely motionless, therefore completely silent.

So time as movement, time as thought, achieving a result, has come totally to an end, therefore action is instantaneous. So the mind has laid the foundation and is free from disorder. Therefore there is the flowering and the beauty of virtue. That is the basis. In that foundation is the relationship between you and another. In that relationship there is no activity of image; there is only relationship, not the image adjusting itself to the other image. There is only ‘what is’, and not the changing of ‘what is’. The changing of ‘what is’ or transforming of ‘what is’ is the movement of thought in time.

Then when you have come to that point, the mind and the brain cells also become totally still. The brain, which holds the memories, experiences and knowledge, can and must function in the field of the known. But now the mind, that brain, is free from the activity of time and thought. Then the mind is completely still. All this takes place without effort; all this must take place without any sense of discipline, control – all that belongs to disorder.

You know, what we are saying is something that is totally different from what your gurus, your masters, your Zen philosophy, all that, because in this there is no authority, there is no following another. If you follow somebody you are not only destroying yourself but also the other. Therefore a religious mind has no authority whatsoever. But it has got intelligence, and it applies that intelligence. In the world of action, there is the authority of the doctor, the scientist, the one who teaches you how to drive; but otherwise there is no authority, there is no guru.

So the mind then – if you have gone as deeply as that – the mind having established order in relationship – and that order is virtue – then understanding the whole complex disorder of our lives, of our daily lives, and in the comprehension, in the awareness of that disorder in which there is no choice, out of that comes the beauty of virtue, which is not cultivated, which is not brought about by thought. Therefore that virtue is love and order. If the mind has established that with deep roots, which is immovable, unchangeable, then you can inquire into this whole movement of time, as we somewhat did. Then the mind is completely still: there is no observer, there is no experiencer, there is no thinker.

And coming to that point, there are various forms of sensory and extra-sensory perceptions, clairvoyance, healing – all kinds of things take place – but they are all secondary issues. A mind that is really concerned in the discovery of what is truth, what is sacred, will never touch all that because they are secondary issues.

So the mind then is free to observe. Then there is that thing which man has sought through centuries: the unnameable, the timeless, and no description, no verbal expression of it. The image that is created by that, by thought, completely and utterly ceases. There is no entity that wants to express it in words. That, the mind, your mind can only discover or come upon, when you have this strange thing called love, compassion, not only to your neighbour but to the animal, to the trees, to everything. Then such a mind itself becomes sacred.