There is no loss of energy in being in love

Q: Is it possible for a man and a woman to live together, to have sex and children, without all the turmoil, bitterness and conflict inherent in such a relationship? Is it possible for there to be freedom on both sides? I don't mean by freedom that the husband or wife should constantly be having affairs with someone else. People usually come together and get married because they fall in love, and in that there is desire, choice, pleasure, possessiveness and tremendous drive. The very nature of this in-loveness is from the start filled with the seeds of conflict.

Krishnamurti: Is it? Need it be? I very much question that. Can't you fall in love and not have a possessive relationship? I love someone and she loves me and we get married - that is all perfectly straightforward and simple, in that there is no conflict at all. (When I say we get married I might just as well say we decide to live together - don't let's get caught up in words.) Can't one have that without the other, without the tail as it were, necessarily following? Can't two people be in love and both be so intelligent and so sensitive that there is freedom and absence of a centre that makes for conflict? Conflict is not in the feeling of being in love. The feeling of being in love is utterly without conflict. There is no loss of energy in being in love. The loss of energy is in the tail, in everything that follows - jealousy, possessiveness, suspicion, doubt, the fear of losing that love, the constant demand for reassurance and security. Surely it must be possible to function in a sexual relationship with someone you love without the nightmare which usually follows. Of course it is.

J. Krishnamurti/Krishnamurti Foudation Trust Bulletin 3, 1969 Krishnamurti Foudation Trust Bulletin 4, 1969

Opening the door to creation

Learning in the true sense of the word is possible only in that state of attention, in which there is no outer or inner compulsion. Right thinking can come about only when the mind is not enslaved by tradition and memory. It is attention that allows silence to come upon the mind, which is the opening of the door to creation. That is why attention is of the highest importance. Knowledge is necessary at the functional level as a means of cultivating the mind, and not as an end in itself. We are concerned, not with the development of just one capacity, such as that of a mathematician, or a scientist, or a musician, but with the total development of the student as a human being. How is the state of attention to be brought about? It cannot be cultivated through persuasion, comparison, reward or punishment, all of which are forms of coercion. The elimination of fear is the beginning of attention. Fear must exist as long as there is an urge to be or to become, which is the pursuit of success, with all its frustrations and tortuous contradictions. You can teach concentration, but attention cannot be taught just as you cannot possibly teach freedom from fear; but we can begin to discover the causes that produce fear, and in understanding these causes there is the elimination of fear. So attention arises spontaneously when around the student there is an atmosphere of well-being, when he has the feeling of being secure, of being at ease, and is aware of the disinterested action that comes with love. Love does not compare, and so the envy and torture of `becoming' cease.

J. Krishnamurti/Life Ahead Saanen 4th Public Dialogue 3rd August 1974.

Living in the past

Now, one sees all that by observing, by being aware, watching, one is aware of all this. Then out of that awareness you see there is no division between the observer and the observed. It is a trick of thought which demands security. Please don't madam, please. And by being aware it sees the observer is the observed, that violence is the observer, violence is not different from the observer. Now how is the observer to end himself and not be violent? Have you understood my question so far? I think so. Right? The observer is the observed, there is no division and therefore no conflict. And is the observer then, knowing all the intricacies of naming, linguistically caught in the image of violence, what happens to that violence? If the observer is violent, can the observer end, otherwise violence will go on? Can the observer end himself, because he is violent? Or what reality has the observer? Right sir? Is he merely put together by words, by experience, by knowledge? So is he put together by the past? So is he the past? Right? Which means the mind is living in the past. Right? Obviously. You are living in the past. Right? No? As long as there is an observer there must be living in the past, obviously. And all our life is based on the past, memories, knowledge, images, according to which you react, which is your conditioning, is the past. And living has become the living of the past in the present, modified in the future. That's all, as long as the observer is living. Now does the mind see this as a truth, as a reality, that all my life is living in the past? I may paint most abstract pictures, write the most modern poems, invent the most extraordinary machinery, but I am still living in the past.

J. Krishnamurti/Saanen, Switzerland, 5 August 1973

Only observation

Q: You tell us to observe our actions in daily life but what is the entity that decides what to observe and when? Who decides if one should observe?

Krishnamurti: Do you decide to observe? Or do you merely observe? Do you decide and say, `I am going to observe and learn'? For then there is the question: `Who is deciding?' Is it will that says, `I must'? And when it fails, it chastises itself further and says, `I must, must, must; in that there is conflict; therefore the state of mind that has decided to observe is not observation at all. You are walking down the road, somebody passes you by, you observe and you may say to yourself, `How ugly he is; how he smells; I wish he would not do this or that'. You are aware of your responses to that passer-by, you are aware that you are judging, condemning or justifying; you are observing. You do not say, `I must not judge, I must not justify'. In being aware of your responses, there is no decision at all. You see somebody who insulted you yesterday. Immediately all your hackles are up, you become nervous or anxious, you begin to dislike; be aware of your dislike, be aware of all that, do not `decide' to be aware. Observe, and in that observation there is neither the `observer' nor the `observed' - there is only observation taking place. The `observer' exists only when you accumulate in the observation; when you say, `He is my friend because he has flattered me', or, `He is not my friend, because he has said something ugly about me, or something true which I do not like,. That is accumulation through observation and that accumulation is the observer. When you observe without accumulation, then there is no judgement. You can do this all the time; in that observation naturally certain definite decisions are natural results, not decisions made by the observer who has accumulated.

J. Krishnamurti/5th Public Talk Saanen 26th July 1970

Look and be simple

Surely, since you have burnt yourself in politics, your problem is not only to break away from society, but to come totally to life again, to love and to be simple. Without love, do what you may, you will not know the total action which alone can save man. "That is true, sir: we don't love, we aren't really simple." Why? Because you are concerned with reforms, with duties, with respectability, with becoming something, with breaking through to the other side. In the name of another, you are concerned with yourself; you are caught in your own cockleshell. You think you are the center of this beautiful earth. You never pause to look at a tree, at a flower, at the flowing river; and if by chance you do look, your eyes are filled with the things of the mind, and not with beauty and love. "Again, that is true; but what is one to do?" Look and be simple.

J. Krishnamurti/Commentaries on Living Series III

The immeasurable

The earth and everything upon it became holy. It was not that the mind was aware of this peace as something outside of itself, something to be remembered and communicated, but there was a total absence of any movement of the mind. There was only the immeasurable.

J. Krishnamurti /Commentaries on Living Series III

To see the truth in the false

The craving for experience is the beginning of illusion. As you now realize, your visions were but the projections of your background, of your conditioning, and it is these projections that you have experienced. Surely this is not meditation. The beginning of meditation is the understanding of the background, of the self, and without this understanding, what is called meditation, however pleasurable or painful, is merely a form of self-hypnosis. You have practised self-control, mastered thought, and concentrated on the furthering of experience. This is a self-centred occupation, it is not meditation; and to perceive that it is not meditation is the beginning of meditation. To see the truth in the false sets the mind free from the false. Freedom from the false does not come about through the desire to achieve it; it comes when the mind is no longer concerned with success with the attainment of an end. There must be the cessation of all search, and only then is there a possibility of the coming into being of that which is nameless.

J. Krishnamurti/J. Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series III

Is there such thing as transformation?

Q: Is there such a thing as transformation? What is it to be transformed? Krishnamurti: When you are observing, seeing the dirt on the road, seeing how politicians behave, seeing your own attitude towards your wife, your children and so on, transformation is there. Do you understand? To bring about some kind of order in daily life, that is transformation; not something extraordinary, out of this world. When one is not thinking clearly, rationally, be aware of that and change it, break it. That is transformation. If you are jealous watch it, don't give it time to flower, change it immediately. That is transformation. When you are greedy, violent, ambitious, trying to become some kind of holy man, see how it is creating a world of tremendous uselessness. I don't know if you are aware of this. Competition is destroying the world. The world is becoming more and more competetive, more and more aggressive, and if you change it immediately, that is transformation. And if you go very much deeper into the problem, it is clear that thought denies love. Therefore one has to find out whether there is an end to thought, an end to time, not philosophize over it and discuss it, but find out. Truly that is transformation, and if you go into it very deeply, transformation means never a thought of becoming, comparing; it is being absolutely nothing.

J. Krishnamurti/Krishnamurti Foudation Trust Bulletin 42, 1982

The essence of goodness

The essence of goodness is a mind that is not in conflict. Examine it, look at it. Goodness cannot flower through another, through a religious figure, through dogma, through belief, it can only flower in the soil of total attention in which there is no authority. You are following all this? Is this all too complex? And goodness implies great responsibility. You cannot be good and allow wars to take place. So a man that is really good is totally responsible for all his life.

J. Krishnamurti/This Light in Oneself, conversation 1316, Ojai, April 1979

Goodness, love and intelligence

The only thing that really matters is that there be an action of goodness, love and intelligence in living. Is goodness individual or collective, is love personal or impersonal, is intelligence yours, mine or somebody else? If it is yours or mine then it is not intelligence, or love, or goodness. If goodness is an affair of the individual or of the collective, according to one s particular preference or decision, then it is no longer goodness. Goodness is not in the backyard of the individual nor in the open field of the collective; goodness flowers only in freedom from both.

J. Krishnamurti/The Urgency of Change, Conversation 5.

Goodness has no opposite

Goodness has no opposite. Most of us consider goodness as the opposite of the bad or evil and so throughout history in any culture goodness has been considered the other face of that which is brutal. So man has always struggled against evil in order to be good; but goodness can never come into being if there is any form of violence or struggle.

J. Krishnamurti/Letters to the Schools vol I

Goodness shows itself in behaviour

Goodness shows itself in behaviour and action and in relationship. Generally our daily behaviour is based on either the following of certain patterns - mechanical and therefore superficial - or according to very carefully thought-out motive, based on reward or punishment. So our behaviour, consciously or unconsciously, is calculated. This is not good behaviour. When one realizes this, not merely intellectually or by putting words together, then out of this total negation comes true behaviour.

J. Krishnamurti/Letters to the Schools vol I

Order and sleep

If you take stock of the day as you go to bed and lie down—don’t you do this?—saying “I should have done this, I should not have done that”, “It would have been better that way, I wish I hadn’t said this”—when you take stock of the things that have happened during the day, then you are trying to bring about order before you go to sleep. And if you don’t make order before you go to sleep, the brain tries to do it when you are asleep. Because the brain functions perfectly only in order, not in disorder. If functions most efficiently when there is complete order, whether that order is neurotic or rational; because in neurosis, in imbalance, there is order, and the brain accepts that order.

So, if you take stock of everything that has been happening during the day before you go to sleep, then you are trying to bring about order, and therefore the brain does not have to bring order while you are asleep: you have done it during the day. You can bring about that order every minute during the day, that is if you are aware of everything that’s happening, outwardly and inwardly.

The Awakening of Intelligence, pp 62-63

What is goodness?

Goodness can flower only in freedom. It cannot bloom in the soil of persuasion in any form, nor under compulsion, nor is it the outcome of reward. It does not reveal itself when there is any kind of imitation or conformity, and naturally it cannot exist when there is fear. Goodnessshows itself in behaviour and this behaviour is based on sensitivity. This goodness is expressed in action. The whole movement of thought is not goodness. Thought, which is so very complex, must be understood, but the very understanding of it awakens thought to its own limitation.

J. Krishnamurti/J. Krishnamurti Letters to Schools Volume One 1st September, 1978

There is disorder when we are pursuing ideals

What is the nature and structure of disorder? There is disorder, isn't there? Where there is contradiction saying one thing and doing something totally different there is bound to be disorder. I wonder if one is aware of this. Then, there is conflict, disorder, when we are pursuing ideals or our own projection of what we think we ought to be. That is, where there is division between actually what is happening in ourselves and neglecting that and pursuing an idea; that is one of the causes of disorder. Another cause in the psychological, so-called inward life, is to pursue authority, the authority of a book, the authority of a guru, the authority of so-called spiritual people.

J. Krishnamurti/Mind Without Measure, pp 52-53

Disorder is essentially conflict

We are trying politically, legally and socially to bring order in the outer world in which we are living, and inwardly we are confused, uncertain, anxious and in conflict. Without inward order there will always be danger to human life.

What do we mean by order? The universe in the supreme sense has known no disorder. Nature, however terrifying to man, is always in order. It becomes disordered only when human beings interfere with it and it is only man who seems to be from the beginning of time in constant struggle and conflict. The universe has its own movement of time. Only when man has ordered his life will he realize the eternal order.

Why has man accepted and tolerated disorder? Why does whatever he touches decay, become corrupt and confused? Why has man turned from the order of nature, the clouds, the winds, the animals and the rivers? We must learn what is disorder and what is order. Disorder is essentially conflict, self-contradiction and division between becoming and being.

J. Krishnamurti/Letters to the Schools vol II, pp 11-12

Are you aware that your life is disorderly?

…Are you aware of the daily routine, the monotony, the boredom of going to the office? Are you aware of the quarrels, of the brutalities, of the nagging and the violence, of everything which is the result of a culture that is total disorder, which is your life? You can’t pick and choose out of that disorder what you think is order. Are you aware that your life is disorderly and if you haven’t got the interest, the passion, the intensity, the flame to find order, then you will pick and choose what you think is order out of the disorder. Can you observe yourself with great honesty, without any sense of hypocrisy or double talk, know for yourself that your life is disorderly, and can you put all that aside to find out what order is. You know, putting aside disorder is not so very difficult; we dramatize it, make much of it. But when you see something very dangerous, a precipice, a wild animal, or a man with a gun, you avoid it instantly, don’t you? There is no arguing, no hesitation, no temporizing, there is immediate action. In the same way, when you see the danger of disorder, there is instant action which is the total denial of the whole culture which has brought about disorder, which is yourself.

J. Krishnamurti/The Awakening of Intelligence, pp 313-314

To put everything in its proper place

The word "art" means to put things in their proper place, not giving one or the other undue importance. If you give too much importance to technology, then other ways of existence are given too little; therefore there is disharmony. If you give sex the highest, all-consuming importance, make it the only thing that matters in life, as most people do perhaps there are exceptions then again you exaggerate and bring about disharmony. If you rate money as all important, again contradiction takes place or if you say power, domination is all important, again contradiction occurs. To live harmoniously, therefore, means to put everything in its proper place. Will you do this not give your body the tremendous importance the West gives it, how you look, how you dress? which doesn't mean you mustn't dress properly, decently. Will you do all this? If you don't, why do you talk about order? There is no point at all. But if one wants to live in order and therefore in harmony with a sense of great beauty, perhaps also peace, then you must have order.

J. Krishnamurti/On Conflict, p 87

Why does the mind think about sex at all?

Why does the mind think about sex at all? Why? Why has it become a central issue in your life? When there are so many things calling, demanding your attention, you give complete attention to the thought of sex.. What happens, why are your minds so occupied with it? Because that is the way of ultimate escape, is it not? It is a way of complete self-forgetfulness. For the time being, at least for the moment, you can forget yourself—and there is no other way of forgetting yourself. Everything else you do in life gives emphasis to the “me”, to the self. Your business, your religion, your gods, your leaders, your political and economic actions, your escapes, your social activities, your joining one party and rejecting another—all that is emphasizing and giving strength to the “me”. That is, there is only this one act in which there is no emphasis on the “me”, so it becomes a problem, does it not?

J. Krishnamurti/The First and Last Freedom, pp 228-229

To sit under a tree

You see, you are not educated to be alone. Do you ever go out for a walk by yourself? It is very important to go out alone, to sit under a tree—not with a book, not with a companion, but by yourself—and observe the falling of a leaf, hear the lapping of the water, the fishermen’s song, watch the flight of a bird, and of your own thoughts as they chase each other across the space of your mind. If you are able to be alone and watch these things, then you will discover extraordinary riches which no government can tax, no human agency can corrupt, and which can never be destroyed.

J. Krishnamurti/This Matter of Culture, p 89