Is the observer different from the thing which he observes?

You, the observer, are observing the fact, which you term as being lonely. Is the observer different from the thing which he observes? It is different only as long as he gives it a name; but if you do not give it a name, the observer is the observed. The name, the term, acts only to divide; and then you have to battle with that thing. But, if there is no division, if there is an integration between the observer and the observed, which exists only when there is no naming - you can try this out and you will see - , then the sense of fear is entirely gone. It is fear that is preventing you from looking at this when you say, you are empty, you are this, you are that, you are in despair. And fear exists only as memory, which comes when you term; but when you are capable of looking at it without terming, then, surely, that thing is yourself. So, when you come to that point, when you are no longer naming the thing of which you are afraid, then you are that thing. When you are that thing, there is no problem, is there? It is only when you do not want to be that thing, or when you want to make that thing different from what it is, that the problem arises. But if you are that thing, then the observer is the observed, they are a joint phenomenon, not separate phenomena; then there is no problem, is there? Please, experiment with this, and you will see how quickly that thing is resolved and transcended, and something else takes place. Our difficulty is to come to that point, when we can look at it without fear; and fear arises only when we begin to recognize it, when we begin to give it a name, when we want to do something about it. But, when the observer sees that he is not different from the thing which he calls emptiness, despair, then the word has no longer a meaning. The word has ceased to be, it is no longer despair. When the word is removed, with all its implications, then there is no sense of fear or despair. Then, if you proceed further, when there is no fear, no despair, when the word is no longer important, then, surely, there is a tremendous release, a freedom; and in that freedom there is creative being, which gives a newness to life. To put it differently: We approach this problem of despair through habitual channels. That is, we bring our past memories to translate that problem; and thought, which is the result of memory, which is founded upon the past, can never solve that problem, because it is a new problem. Every problem is a new problem; and when you approach it, burdened with the past, it cannot be solved. You cannot approach it through the screen of words, which is the thinking process; but when the verbalization stops - because you understand the whole process of it, you leave it - , then you are able to meet the problem anew; then the problem is not what you think it is. So, you might say at the end of this question, "What am I to do? Here I am in despair, in confusion, in pain; you haven't given me a method to follow, to become free." But, surely, if you have understood what I have said, the key is there: a key which opens much more than you realize if you are capable of using it.

J. Krishnmaurti/The Collected Works, Vol. V Ojai 4th Public Talk 24th July 1949

Action

Without understanding comprehensively the full significance of action, merely to be concerned with a particular form of action seems to me very destructive. Surely, if we are concerned only with the part and not with the whole, then all action is destructive action. But if we can understand action as a total thing, if we can feel our way into it and capture its significance, then that understanding of total action will bring about right action in the particular. It is like looking at a tree. The tree is not just the leaf, the branch, the flower, the fruit, the trunk, or the root. It is a total thing. To feel the beauty of a tree is to be aware of its wholeness - the extraordinary shape of it, the depth of its shadow, the flutter of its leaves in the wind. Unless we have the feeling of the whole tree, merely looking at a single leaf will mean very little. But if we have the feeling of the whole tree, then every leaf, every twig has meaning, and we are sensitive to it. After all, to be sensitive to the beauty of something is to perceive the totality of it. The mind that is thinking in terms of a part can never perceive the whole. In the whole the part is contained, but the part will never make up the whole, the total. In the same way, let us see if we can rather diligently and with a sense of humility go into this whole question of what is action. Why does action create so much conflict? Why does action bring about a state of contradiction? And what is the totality of action? If we can sensitively and with hesitancy begin to understand the nature of total action, then perhaps we shall be able to come down to the particular. But very few of us are sensitive - sensitive to the sunset, sensitive to a child in the street, sensitive to the beauty of a face, sensitive to an idea, to a noise, to everything in life. Surely, it is only a humble mind, a mind which does not deny or accept - it is only such a mind that is sensitive to the whole. The mind is not sensitive if it has no humility; and without humility there is no investigation, exploration, understanding. But humility is not a thing to be cultivated. Cultivated virtue is a horror, it is no longer a virtue. So, if we can, with that natural feeling of humility in which there is sensitivity, go into this whole question of action, then perhaps a great deal will be revealed of which we are now unaware. You see, the difficulty with most of us is that we want a definition, a conclusion, an answer; we have an end in view. I think such an attitude prevents inquiry. And inquiry into action is necessary, surely, because all living is action. Action is not departmental, or partial; it is a total thing. Action is our relationship to everything: to people, to nature, to ideas, to things. Life cannot be without action. Even though you retire to a monastery, or become a sannyasi, or a hermit in the Himalayas, you are still in action, because you are still in relationship. And action, surely, is not a matter of right and wrong. It is only when action is partial, not total, that there is right and wrong.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works, Vol. XI New Delhi 3rd Public Talk 21st February 1960

Sorrow has an ending

Sorrow follows us like our shadow, and we do not seem to be able to resolve it

Sorrow has an ending, but it does not come about through any system or method. There is no sorrow when there is perception of 'what is'. When you see very clearly what is whether it be the fact that life has no fulfilment, or the fact that your son, your brother, or your husband is dead; when you know the fact as it actually is, without interpretation, without having an opinion about it, without any ideation, ideals, or judgements, then I think there is the ending of sorrow.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XI, p 284

Not escaping from sorrow

When there is sorrow it is a great shock to the nervous system, like a blow to the whole physiological as well as psychological being. We generally try to escape from it by taking drugs or drinks or through every form of religion. Or we become cynical or accept things as inevitable.

Can we go into this question very deeply, seriously? Is it possible not to escape from sorrow at all? Perhaps my son dies, and there is immense sorrow, shock, and I discover that I am really a very lonely human being. I cannot face it, I cannot tolerate it. So I escape from it. And there are many escapes, religious, or philosophical. This escape is a waste of energy. Not to escape in any form from the ache, the pain of loneliness, the grief, the shock, but to remain completely with the event, with this thing called suffering is that possible? Can we hold any problem hold it and not try to solve it try to look at it as we would hold a precious, exquisite jewel? The very beauty of the jewel is so attractive, so pleasurable that we keep looking at it. In the same way if we could hold our sorrow completely, without a movement of thought or escape, then that very action of not moving away from the fact brings about a total release from that which has caused pain.

J.. Krishnamurti/That Benediction is Where You Are, pp 60-61

Hold it as a precious jewel

Can one remain with that pain? Can I look at that pain, hold it, hold it as a precious jewel not escape, not suppress, not rationalize it, not seek the cause of it, but hold it as a vessel holds water? Hold this thing called sorrow, the pain, that is, I have lost my son and I am lonely, not to escape from that loneliness, not to suppress it, not to intellectually rationalize it, but to look at that loneliness, understand the depth of it, the nature of it.

J. Krishnamurti/Mind Without Measure, p 57

Confusion

So I, me, is confusion, not that I realize I am confusion, or that I have been told that I am confusion, but the fact is: I, as a human being, am in a state of confusion. Right? Any action I do will bring more confusion - right? You understand? So I am in a state of total confusion. And all the struggle to overcome it, suppress it, to be detached, all that is gone - right? I wonder if it has! You see how difficult it is for our minds to be precise in this, to learn about it, to be free to have the leisure to learn. Then what takes place? I am confusion; not I realize I am confusion. You see the difference? I am that. Therefore what has happened? All movement of escapes, suppression, have completely come to an end - right? If it has not, don't move from there. Be free first of all escapes, of all verbal, symbolic escapes but remain totally with the fact that you are, as a human being, in a state of confusion - right? Then what has taken place? We are two friends talking this over, this is not a group therapy, or any of that nonsense, or psychological analysis. It is not that. Two people talking over together, saying now we have come to that point, logically, rationally, unemotionally, therefore sanely. Because to be sane is the most difficult thing. So we have come to that point: that is I am that. What has taken place in the mind? Right, can we go on from there?

J. Krishnamurti /Brockwood Park 3rd Public Talk 6th September 1980

The Marvelous Earth

As you walked on the beach the waves were enormous and they were breaking with magnificent curve and force. You walked against the wind, and suddenly you felt there was nothing between you and the sky, and this openness was heaven. To be so completely open, vulnerable - to the hills, to the sea, and to man - is the very essence of meditation. To have no resistance, to have no barriers inwardly towards anything, to be really free, completely, from all the minor urges, compulsions, and demands, with all their little conflicts and hypocrisies, is to walk in life with open arms. And that evening, walking there on that wet sand, with the sea gulls around you, you felt the extraordinary sense of open freedom and the great beauty of love which was not in you or outside you - but everywhere.

J. Krishnamurti/All The Marvelous Earth Brockwood Park 3rd Public Talk 6th September 1980

Is the observer different from the thing which he observes?

You, the observer, are observing the fact, which you term as being lonely. Is the observer different from the thing which he observes? It is different only as long as he gives it a name; but if you do not give it a name, the observer is the observed. The name, the term, acts only to divide; and then you have to battle with that thing. But, if there is no division, if there is an integration between the observer and the observed, which exists only when there is no naming - you can try this out and you will see - , then the sense of fear is entirely gone. It is fear that is preventing you from looking at this when you say, you are empty, you are this, you are that, you are in despair. And fear exists only as memory, which comes when you term; but when you are capable of looking at it without terming, then, surely, that thing is yourself. So, when you come to that point, when you are no longer naming the thing of which you are afraid, then you are that thing. When you are that thing, there is no problem, is there? It is only when you do not want to be that thing, or when you want to make that thing different from what it is, that the problem arises. But if you are that thing, then the observer is the observed, they are a joint phenomenon, not separate phenomena; then there is no problem, is there? Please, experiment with this, and you will see how quickly that thing is resolved and transcended, and something else takes place. Our difficulty is to come to that point, when we can look at it without fear; and fear arises only when we begin to recognize it, when we begin to give it a name, when we want to do something about it. But, when the observer sees that he is not different from the thing which he calls emptiness, despair, then the word has no longer a meaning. The word has ceased to be, it is no longer despair. When the word is removed, with all its implications, then there is no sense of fear or despair. Then, if you proceed further, when there is no fear, no despair, when the word is no longer important, then, surely, there is a tremendous release, a freedom; and in that freedom there is creative being, which gives a newness to life. To put it differently: We approach this problem of despair through habitual channels. That is, we bring our past memories to translate that problem; and thought, which is the result of memory, which is founded upon the past, can never solve that problem, because it is a new problem. Every problem is a new problem; and when you approach it, burdened with the past, it cannot be solved. You cannot approach it through the screen of words, which is the thinking process; but when the verbalization stops - because you understand the whole process of it, you leave it - , then you are able to meet the problem anew; then the problem is not what you think it is. So, you might say at the end of this question, "What am I to do? Here I am in despair, in confusion, in pain; you haven't given me a method to follow, to become free." But, surely, if you have understood what I have said, the key is there: a key which opens much more than you realize if you are capable of using it.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works, Vol. V Ojai 4th Public Talk 24th July 1949

Action

Without understanding comprehensively the full significance of action, merely to be concerned with a particular form of action seems to me very destructive. Surely, if we are concerned only with the part and not with the whole, then all action is destructive action. But if we can understand action as a total thing, if we can feel our way into it and capture its significance, then that understanding of total action will bring about right action in the particular. It is like looking at a tree. The tree is not just the leaf, the branch, the flower, the fruit, the trunk, or the root. It is a total thing. To feel the beauty of a tree is to be aware of its wholeness - the extraordinary shape of it, the depth of its shadow, the flutter of its leaves in the wind. Unless we have the feeling of the whole tree, merely looking at a single leaf will mean very little. But if we have the feeling of the whole tree, then every leaf, every twig has meaning, and we are sensitive to it. After all, to be sensitive to the beauty of something is to perceive the totality of it. The mind that is thinking in terms of a part can never perceive the whole. In the whole the part is contained, but the part will never make up the whole, the total. In the same way, let us see if we can rather diligently and with a sense of humility go into this whole question of what is action. Why does action create so much conflict? Why does action bring about a state of contradiction? And what is the totality of action? If we can sensitively and with hesitancy begin to understand the nature of total action, then perhaps we shall be able to come down to the particular. But very few of us are sensitive - sensitive to the sunset, sensitive to a child in the street, sensitive to the beauty of a face, sensitive to an idea, to a noise, to everything in life. Surely, it is only a humble mind, a mind which does not deny or accept - it is only such a mind that is sensitive to the whole. The mind is not sensitive if it has no humility; and without humility there is no investigation, exploration, understanding. But humility is not a thing to be cultivated. Cultivated virtue is a horror, it is no longer a virtue. So, if we can, with that natural feeling of humility in which there is sensitivity, go into this whole question of action, then perhaps a great deal will be revealed of which we are now unaware. You see, the difficulty with most of us is that we want a definition, a conclusion, an answer; we have an end in view. I think such an attitude prevents inquiry. And inquiry into action is necessary, surely, because all living is action. Action is not departmental, or partial; it is a total thing. Action is our relationship to everything: to people, to nature, to ideas, to things. Life cannot be without action. Even though you retire to a monastery, or become a sannyasi, or a hermit in the Himalayas, you are still in action, because you are still in relationship. And action, surely, is not a matter of right and wrong. It is only when action is partial, not total, that there is right and wrong.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works, Vol. XI New Delhi 3rd Public Talk 21st February 1960

Sorrow has an ending

Sorrow follows us like our shadow, and we do not seem to be able to resolve it

Sorrow has an ending, but it does not come about through any system or method. There is no sorrow when there is perception of 'what is'. When you see very clearly what is whether it be the fact that life has no fulfillment, or the fact that your son, your brother, or your husband is dead; when you know the fact as it actually is, without interpretation, without having an opinion about it, without any ideation, ideals, or judgements, then I think there is the ending of sorrow.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XI, p 284

Not escaping from sorrow

When there is sorrow it is a great shock to the nervous system, like a blow to the whole physiological as well as psychological being. We generally try to escape from it by taking drugs or drinks or through every form of religion. Or we become cynical or accept things as inevitable.

Can we go into this question very deeply, seriously? Is it possible not to escape from sorrow at all? Perhaps my son dies, and there is immense sorrow, shock, and I discover that I am really a very lonely human being. I cannot face it, I cannot tolerate it. So I escape from it. And there are many escapes, religious, or philosophical. This escape is a waste of energy. Not to escape in any form from the ache, the pain of loneliness, the grief, the shock, but to remain completely with the event, with this thing called suffering is that possible? Can we hold any problem hold it and not try to solve it try to look at it as we would hold a precious, exquisite jewel? The very beauty of the jewel is so attractive, so pleasurable that we keep looking at it. In the same way if we could hold our sorrow completely, without a movement of thought or escape, then that very action of not moving away from the fact brings about a total release from that which has caused pain.

J. Krishnamurti/That Benediction is Where You Are, pp 60-61

Hold it as a precious jewel

Can one remain with that pain? Can I look at that pain, hold it, hold it as a precious jewel not escape, not suppress, not rationalize it, not seek the cause of it, but hold it as a vessel holds water? Hold this thing called sorrow, the pain, that is, I have lost my son and I am lonely, not to escape from that loneliness, not to suppress it, not to intellectually rationalize it, but to look at that loneliness, understand the depth of it, the nature of it.

Mind Without Measure, p 57

To be intimate with sorrow

Sorrow is not to be ended by the action of will. Do please understand this. You cannot get rid of it. Sorrow is something that has to be embraced, lived with, understood; one has to become intimate with sorrow. But you are not intimate with sorrow, are you? You may say, I know sorrow, but do you? Have you lived with it? Or, having felt sorrow, have you run away from it? Actually, you do not know sorrow. The running away is what you know. You know only the escape from sorrow.

Just as love is not a thing to be cultivated, to be acquired through discipline, so sorrow is not to be ended through any form of escape, through ceremonies or symbols, through the social work of the do-gooders, through nationalism, or through any of the ugly things that man has invented. Sorrow has to be understood, and understanding is not of time.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XI, p 287

Observing bodily pain

All of us know physical pain a little or a great deal and we can deal with it medically and in other ways. You can observe pain with a mind that is not attached, with a mind that can observe bodily pain as though from the outside. One can observe one's toothache and not be emotionally, psychologically involved in it. When you are involved emotionally and psychologically with that pain in the tooth, then the pain becomes more; you get terribly anxious, fearful. I do not know if you noticed this fact.

The key is to be aware of the physical, physiological, biological pain, and in that awareness not get involved with it psychologically. Being aware of the physical pain and the psychological involvement with it which intensifies the pain and brings about anxiety, fear and keeping the psychological factor entirely out requires a great deal of awareness, a certain quality of aloofness, a certain quality of unattached observation. Then that pain doesn't distort the activities of the mind; then that physical pain doesn't bring about neurotic activity of the mind.

J. Krishnamurti/On Love and Loneliness, p 132

Suffering is not the way to God

Suffering perverts and distorts the mind. Suffering is not the way of truth, to reality, to God, or whatever name you like to give it. We have tried to ennoble suffering, saying it is inevitable, it is necessary, it brings understanding, and all the rest of it. But the truth is that the more intensely you suffer, the more eager you are to escape, to create an illusion, to find a way out. So it seems to me that a sane, healthy mind must understand suffering, and be utterly free from it. And is it possible?

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XII, p 176

How does one deny?

How does one deny? Does one deny the known, not in great dramatic incidents but in little incidents? Do I deny when I am shaving and I remember the lovely time I had in Switzerland? Does one deny the remembrance of a pleasant time? Does one grow aware of it, and deny it? That is not dramatic, it is not spectacular, nobody knows about it. Still this constant denial of little things, the little wiping's, the little rubbing's off, not just one great big wiping away, is essential. It is essential to deny thought as remembrance, pleasant or unpleasant, every minute of the day as it arises. One is doing it not for any motive, not in order to enter into the extraordinary state of the unknown. You live in Rishi Valley and think of Bombay or Rome. This creates a conflict, makes the mind dull, a divided thing. Can you see this and wipe it away? Can you keep on wiping away not because you want to enter into the unknown? You can never know what the unknown is because the moment you recognise it as the unknown you are back in the known. The process of recognition is a process of the continued known. As I do not know what the unknown is I can only do this one thing, keep on wiping thought away as it arises. You see that flower, feel it, see the beauty, the intensity, the extraordinary brilliance of it. Then you go to the room in which you live, which is not well proportioned, which is ugly. You live in the room but you have a certain sense of beauty and you begin to think of the flower and you pick up the thought as it arises and you wipe it away. Now from what depth do you wipe, from what depth do you deny the flower, your wife, your gods, your economic life? You have to live with your wife, your children, with this ugly monstrous society. You cannot withdraw from life. But when you deny totally thought, sorrow, pleasure, your relationship is different and so there must be a total denial, not a partial denial, not a keeping of the things which you like and a denying of the things which you do not like.

J. Krishnamurti/ On Education, Talk to Teachers, Chapter 4 The Collected Works

Peace within

A mind that has understood the nature of pleasure and fear is no longer violent and can therefore live at peace within itself and with the world.

J. Krishnamurti/Talks and Dialogues Saanen 1967

Can we stop war by praying for peace?

Question: Can we stop war by praying for peace?

Krishnamurti: I do not think that war can be stopped by prayer. Isn't praying for peace merely a particular form of emotional release? We think that we are incapable of preventing war and so we find in prayer a release from this horror. Do you think that by merely praying for peace you are going to stop violence in the world? Prayer only becomes an escape from actuality. That emotional state which results in prayer can also be worked upon by propagandists for the purposes of war, hatred. As one eagerly prays for peace, so, equally enthusiastically, one is persuaded about the beauties of nationalism and the necessity of war. Prayer for peace is utterly useless. The causes of war are manufactured by man, and it is of no value to appeal to some outside force for peace. War exists because of psychological and economic reasons. Until those causes are fundamentally altered, war will exist, and praying for peace is of no value.

J. Krishnamurti/Ojai 8th Talk in the Oak Grove 24th May, 193

What is the Central Core of Your Thinking?

What is the Central Core of Your Thinking? Is it not, therefore, an obvious fact that what I am in my relationship to another creates society and that, without radically transforming myself, there can be no transformation of the essential function of society? When we look to a system for the transformation of society, we are merely evading the question, because a system cannot transform man; man always transforms the system, which history shows. Until I, in my relationship to you, understand myself I am the cause of chaos, misery, destruction, fear, brutality. Understanding myself is not a matter of time; I can understand myself at this very moment.

J. Krishnamurti/The First and Last Freedom Chapter 1

It is essential to deny thought as remembrance

How does one deny? Does one deny the known, not in great dramatic incidents but in little incidents? Do I deny when I am shaving and I remember the lovely time I had in Switzerland? Does one deny the remembrance of a pleasant time? Does one grow aware of it, and deny it? That is not dramatic, it is not spectacular, nobody knows about it. Still this constant denial of little things, the little wiping's, the little rubbing's off, not just one great big wiping away, is essential. It is essential to deny thought as remembrance, pleasant or unpleasant, every minute of the day as it arises. One is doing it not for any motive, not in order to enter into the extraordinary state of the unknown. You live in Rishi Valley and think of Bombay or Rome. This creates a conflict, makes the mind dull, a divided thing. Can you see this and wipe it away? Can you keep on wiping away not because you want to enter into the unknown? You can never know what the unknown is because the moment you recognize it as the unknown you are back in the known. The process of recognition is a process of the continued known. As I do not know what the unknown is I can only do this one thing, keep on wiping thought away as it arises. You see that flower, feel it, see the beauty, the intensity, the extraordinary brilliance of it. Then you go to the room in which you live, which is not well proportioned, which is ugly. You live in the room but you have a certain sense of beauty and you begin to think of the flower and you pick up the thought as it arises and you wipe it away. Now from what depth do you wipe, from what depth do you deny the flower, your wife, your gods, your economic life? You have to live with your wife, your children, with this ugly monstrous society. You cannot withdraw from life. But when you deny totally thought, sorrow, pleasure, your relationship is different and so there must be a total denial, not a partial denial, not a keeping of the things which you like and a denying of the things which you do not like.

Krishnamurti On Education, Talk to Teachers, Chapter 4