Give it a thumb 
subscribe INWARD FLOWERING
DIALOGUE WITH STUDENTS AND STAFF - BROCKWOOD PARK 1976
We should ask, I think, not only now as students at Brockwood, but also as educators, whether we are inwardly and perhaps also outwardly - they are really related - whether we are growing, not physically taller or stronger, but inwardly, psychologically, flowering.
I mean by that word flowering that nothing hinders us, nothing blocks or prevents us from actually growing deeply, inwardly. Most of us hardly ever flower, grow, bloom. Something happens in the course of our life which stultifies us, deadens us, so that there is no deep inward nourishment.
Perhaps it is because the world around us demands that we become specialists - doctors, scientists, archeologists, philosophers and so on; perhaps that may be one of the reasons why, psychologically, we don't seem to grow... immensely.
I think that is one of the questions that we should talk over together. As a small community of teachers and students living here together what is it that is preventing us from flowering? Is it that we are so deeply conditioned - by our society, by our parents, by our religion, and even by our knowledge? Are all these environmental influences really preventing, or blocking, or hindering this blossoming? Do you understand my question? You don't understand? Look! If I am a Catholic, my mind, my brain, my whole psychological structure, is already conditioned, isn't it? My parents tell me I am a Catholic, I go to church every Sunday; there is Mass, with all its beauty, the scent, the perfume, the people with new hats and dresses, watching each other, there is the intoning of the priest - all that conditions the mind, and there is never a flowering. You understand? I move along in a certain groove, a certain path, within a certain system, and that very path, that very system, that very activity is limiting - and therefore there is never a blossoming. Do you now understand my question? Is that what is happening here?
Are we so heavily conditioned by the many accidents and incidents and pressures and assertions - of parents, society, and all the rest of it - that we are prevented from flowing easily, happily, from growing? If that is it, then does Brockwood, here, help us to break down our conditioning? You follow my question now? If it does not, then what's the point of it? What's the point of Brockwood if you're going to turn out like the many millions of people who have never felt, or enquired, or lived, in the sense of this vast deepening, flowing, flowering? You understand my question?
Student: Outside, there is too much pressure, you know.
Krishnamurti: You say there is too much pressure. Go into it slowly, enquire into it. If you had no pressure would you do anything? Would you pay attention, now? I am pressing you, you understand? I am not actually pushing you into a corner, but I am pointing something out to you - and that, to you, will also be a pressure because you do not want to look. You want to have fun in life, you think that you are a special person, that you want to do something special and therefore you neglect everything else. If you received no pressure at all of any kind would you be active? Or,would you become more and more lazy, indifferent and in the end, wither away? Though you may have a husband or a wife, children, a house, a job and all the rest of it - inwardly does the flowering ever take place?
So, is one receiving here the right kind of pressure? You understand? The right kind. Not the compulsive pressure, not the pressure to imitate, not the pressure of success, climbing the ladder, becoming somebody, but the pressure that helps you to grow, inwardly. Are you following? Because if there is no flowering, then one lives an ordinary mundane life and dies at the end of sixty or eighty years. That is the usual life of the average person - have you noticed it? And when you observe all this, what is your reaction, what do you say about it?
Student: One asks if it is meaningful to live like that.
Krishnamurti: Look, my friend. You can see, as you grow older, that very few people are happy; there is too much pressure, competition, a thousand people after one job, there is overpopulation. Everything in the world is becoming more and more dangerous. You understand? And, when you observe all this, what is your response?
Student: I can see my parents getting older, they are running around without any need to, because there is a fear of looking at all that.
Krishnamurti: So you are saying that most people in the world are seeking physical security and perhaps, psychological security. Will security, biological or psychological, give you this sense of flowering? You understand? I use the word `flowering' in the sense of growing - like a flower growing in a field without any hindrance. Now, are you seeking security, both outwardly and inwardly? Are you psychologically depending on somebody, depending on a belief, on identification with a nation, with a group, or learning a specific technological subject and working at it, so that it will also give you inward security? Are you seeking psychological security in some kind of knowledge?
You have to ask all these questions in order to find out, haven't you? You have to ask if there is such a thing as psychological security? Do you understand my question? Look - I depend on my husband, my wife, for many, many reasons - for comfort, sex, encouragement, when I feel lonely, depressed, to have somebody who says, "lt's all right. You're doing very well", who gives me a pat on the back and says how nice I am, so that gradually I feel more comfortable and so eventually become attached and increasingly depend on him or her. in that relationship there is a certain feeling of security, but actually, is there security in that relationship at all?
Student: The relationship is very fragile.
Krishnamurti: It is very fragile, but is there permanent security in any relationship at all? You will fall in love - whatever those words may mean - and for a few years you will be attached to each other, you will depend on each other in every way, both biologically and psychologically, and in that relationship you are seeking the continuity of that feeling all the time, aren't you? Aren't you? At least, you hope for it. But before you completely tie yourself in a knot, which you call `falling in love', mustn't you enquire whether there is any security in any relationship between human beings? - which doesn't mean a hopeless, depressing loneliness.
You are lonely, uncomfortable by yourself, insufficient in yourself, afraid that you cannot live alone, and so gradually you begin to attach yourself to someone or something, because you are frightened. And so what happens? When you are attached you are equally frightened, because you may lose the object of your attachment. Right? That person may turn away from you, may fall in love with somebody else. So I think it is very important to be clear as to whether there is any security in relationship.
What, in relationship,is love? You are following? Is love in relationship a sense of great satisfaction, of great security? If you find there is no security in relationship, then you will have to ask - is there security in love? You understand? No, you haven't understood? All right, let us look at it again.
I am attached to you, I like you, I `fall in love' with you, I want to marry, have children. But is this attachment permanent? Is it lasting? Or is it very fragile, shaky, uncertain? I want to make it certain, yet in reality it is very uncertain. Right? So that is one point in relationship. And we say that in relationship there is love. Now is there security in love? And what do we mean by love? Are we going along together in this?
So to go back to my first question: I want to find out whether it is possible to bloom, to grow and to live completely - you know: over the hills and dancing! That is what I want to find out in life. Or is life always to be depressing, lonely, miserable, violent, stupid? You follow? That is the first thing one wants to find out. And is Brockwood helping you to bloom?
In Brockwood there is relationship with each other - as there is everywhere. You can't help it. You see each other every day. And, in this relationship you might fall in love with somebody. Yes? And you get attached to that person. When you are attached you want that attachment to continue, don't You? You want it to last endlessly - until both of you collapse at the end of it! And you have to find out whether in that relationship there is anything permanent. Is that relationship permanent? [A shaking of heads.] So, you say it is not permanent. How do you know it is not permanent?
You may get married, in a Church or a Registry Office, but, in that relationship is there a continuity of real freedom, without any conflict, without any quarrels, isolation, dependence - all that? You say "No", but why do you say no? I want to find out why you say it. Will you say this when you are in love and married, in the first year? Will you say then that there is no security in this? Will you? Or after only a few years, five years or a dozen years, will you say, "Oh, my God! There's no security at all!"?
And also you have to find out whether in this relationship of insecurity, of uncertainty, with always the fear, the boredom, the moments of happiness, the repetition - seeing the same face over and over again for ten, twenty, fifty years - whether in that relationship you will blossom. Will you grow? Will you be a most extraordinarily beautiful, total, entity? And also you have to find out, when you are so-called `in love' - which is a much used word, and spoilt, degraded - whether, in that feeling you will blossom.
Student: it seems that when we have a relationship with someone we do not give sufficient time for an investigation - to know if there is security in it, or not; because perhaps the relationship will be much more between two `images.'
Krishnamurti: Are you saying that we have images about each other - as a man and a woman - and that in those images there are conclusions? And we want those conclusions to continue permanently.
Student: There is too much of the superficial thing in that relationship, and there is no time for investigation into what is the real, taking the image apart.
Krishnamurti: What we are talking about is, first of all: does one see the importance that one must flower? The importance of it, the truth of it, the reality of it, the necessity of it, the beauty of it? - that one must flower. And does relationship, as it is now between two human beings, help you to flower? That is one point. And we also said that we love each other. Will that love nourish the flowering of the human mind, the human heart, the human qualities? You understand?
We are also asking, does being here at Brockwood help you to grow, to flourish not technologically, not by just becoming a specialist in this or that, but inwardly, psychologically, under-the-skin, inside you? Do you see that there is nothing that blocks you, hinders you, that you are not neurotic, lopsided, but a whole complete human being growing, flowering?
So, we have to ask now, what is love? Right? What do you think it is? There is a problem here. You love your parents, and your parents love you. At least, they say so and you say so. Are we on dangerous ground! Are we? My question is: Do they?
If they love you they will see to it, from the moment you are born that you are unconditioned, that you flower, because you are a human being, because you are the world. Because, if you do not flower, you are caught in the world, you are destroying other human beings. If your parents loved you they would see that you are properly educated - not technologically, not merely to get a job - but inwardly so that you have no conflict. All this is implied when I say I love my daughter or my son. You understand all this? Or, I don't want him to become a first-class businessman, making a lot of money. What for? Or a marvellous specialist - even though he may help a little bit here and there outwardly - building better bridges, becoming a better doctor, and all the rest of it.
So, what is love? Isn't it very important to find out? Please, don't you want to find out? Surely you have observed the people around you, parents, friends, grandmothers - the world around you. They all use the word `love'. And yet, they quarrel, there is competition, they are willing to destroy each other. You follow? Is that love? What is love to you, then?
Student: It is difficult to talk about.
Krishnamurti: What do you feel? What is love to you? I am sure you all use the word `love' don't you - a great deal! So what does it mean? You know the word `hate', the meaning of that word. And you know the feeling of it, don't you - antagonism, anger, jealousy - all that is part of hate isn't it? And competition is part of hate. Right? So you know the feeling of what it means to hate people. And you can put it down in words very well. Now, is love the opposite of hate?
Student: The feelings are opposite.
Krishnamurti: So can you have both in your mind, in your heart - hate and love? Stick to it! Do you have such feelings, hate and love, together? Or not together? One is kept in one corner and the other in another corner. I hate somebody, and I love somebody. Right? But, if you have love, can you hate anybody? Can you kill people, can you throw bombs, and all the other things that are happening in the world?
So let us go back to the first question: do we feel, both the educator and the educated, do we all see the great importance, the necessity, that each human being, all of us, should grow, and flower - not merely mature physically, but mature deeply, inwardly? If you don't, then what is the point of it all? What is the point of your getting educated? Passing some exams and getting a degree, getting a job, if you're lucky, setting up house - will all that help you, help each human being, each one of you, to blossom?
So, if you were my daughter or my son, that is the first thing I would talk to you about. I would say, look, look around you, at your friends in the school, at the neighbours - see what is happening around you - not according to what you like or don't like, but just look at the fact. See exactly what is happening, without distortion. People who are married are unhappy, have quarrels, endless strife, you know all that goes on. And the boy and the girl - they also have their problems. And see the division of people into races, groups - national groups, religious groups, scientific groups, business groups, artistic groups - you follow? Everything is broken up. Do you see that? Then the next question is, who has broken it up? Do you follow? Human beings have done this. Thought has done it. Thought that says, "I am a Catholic", "I am a Jew", "I am an Arab", "I am a Muslim", "I am a Christian". Thought has created this division. So, thought, in its very nature, in its very action, is seen to be divisive, bringing about fragmentation. Do you see that thought must bring about fragmentation, not only within yourself, but outwardly? Is this too difficult?
I am asking, do you actually see the fact that thought, in its very nature and activity, must bring about fragmentation? And, if you say you see it, do you see it as a fact, or do you only see the idea? You follow? Which is it? Is it an idea or a fact?
Student: It's an idea.
Krishnamurti: So, why do you make of it into an idea? I say to you: Look around you, the wars, the terror, the bombs, the violence, and in every house the constant disturbance between relationships - the competitive society, the commercial society - do you see all this as real as this table is? Or is it an abstraction, which is called an idea? And, if it is an idea, why do you make it so when it is obviously a fact?
Student: Perhaps thought is limited because of the structure within which it works. It takes things from the past and compares them with other things.
Krishnamurti: Why is thought, in itself, fragmentary, broken up limited? In itself not merely its results. Isn't thought the result of time? Observe it, find out! Isn't thought the result of the movement of time? Thought is the result of memory, surely. You see that. It is the result of memory, experience, knowledge; and all that is the past, isn't it? It is modified in the present, and goes on. So, it is movement in time. So because thought is of the past and of time, it must be fragmentary. It is not, and never can be, the whole.
Listen! from the age of nine I have learnt English - and other languages. That's memory, isn't it? It has taken me a few years to learn them, and they are stored up in the brain - the words, the syntax, how to put sentences together - all that took time, didn't it? And any thought springing from that period of time is limited. So thought is not the whole, not complete. Thought can never be complete because it is always limited. Please see this, not as an idea but as an actuality. We said thought is the response of memory. Memory is stored up in the brain; it is experience and the constant accumulation of knowledge. And when you are asked something - memory responds. So thought must be limited, because memory is limited, knowledge is limited, time is limited.
It is thought that has created division in the world. You are Dutch and I am German, he is British and the other Chinese. Thought has created this division. Thought has created the religions - the thought that says "Jesus is the greatest Saviour; then go to India and they say, "Sorry, who is that gentleman? I don't know him at all. We have our own God who is best of all". Thought has created the wars and the instruments of war. Thought is responsible for all this. Right?
Student: All these ideas, of which you have given examples.... Krishnamurti: They are not ideas these are facts
Student: Yes, yes, but....
Krishnamurti: I want to stick to this. I'm asking you if you see this fact that you are from one country and I am from another. We have a different colour, different culture, and all the rest of it. Do you see the divisions in India - the Muslim, the Hindu? Who created them?
Student: I see the divisions but I, personally, don't care because they're superficial.
Krishnamurti: You may not care, but some people do care, and they hate each other. So what is behind this divisive thought? Conditioning, isn't it? My parents have said to me, "You are a Brahmin", "You are a Hindu", and your parents have said, "You are a Christian".
Student: There is the instinct to belong to a group.
Krishnamurti: Why is there the instinct to belong to a group - why? Because it is much safer. To belong to a community, to identify yourself with a small group gives you a sense of security. But why don't you identify yourself with all the human beings in the world, with a total human being? Why the small group?
So I am pointing out that thought has created all these human, psychological and worldly problems. There is no denying it. Do you see this as a fact and not just as an idea? It is as much a fact as when you have toothache. You don't say, "It's an idea that I have toothache"!
So let's put it this way. Is thought love? Can thinking bring about love?
Student: If you love somebody, you have to think.
Krishnamurti: What I am asking you is: Can love be cultivated by thought? We have said that thought is fragmentary - will always be fragmentary.
And the next question. Thought, being fragmented, must in its activity and its action bring about fragmentation - then can thought cultivate and bring about love?
Now when you say "No" - be careful, for I'm going to trip you on this! When you say, "No, thought is not love" - is it again an idea, or an actuality? If it is an actuality, something that is so... then, where love is concerned, there is no movement of thought.
Is this a little too much? Do you understand this, not up here [touching head] but deeply, inwardly.
Be very, very careful. If love is not thought, if it is not based on thought, then what is relationship? If thought is not love, then what do you do with the actual relationships that you have now?
I say to myself that I see the fact, not the idea, that thought is not love. But I am married, I've got children, I've got my mother - we all have images about each other. That interacting relationship is the action of images - images which I have made about my mother, my wife, my children. And this I call `love'. I say - "I love my mother", "I love my wife, my children".
Now I am saying that I see this relationship is based on thought, on the image. And also I see very clearly that love is not the product of thought, that love cannot be thought. Then what happens to my relationship with my mother, my wife, my children?
Student: How do you see this?
Krishnamurti: There is no `how' - it isn't a mechanical thing. Don't you see it, actually? - that love has nothing to do with thought - full stop. I see very clearly that thought is a movement in fragmentation. I see it very clearly. It is a fact, an actuality - not an idea.
But I am married, I have children, I've got a mother, and when I see, realize, that my relationship has been based on my images, on thought, then what takes place?
Student: That relationship between images used to be called `love', but you are saying love is something different from that. Krishnamurti: I have said: I fell in love, I have been married a number of years and I have children. I have an image about my wife. Right? I have created it. She nags me, she has bullied me, dominated me. And she has an image about me - that I have bullied and dominated her. There is this interaction going on, sexually and in every way. I have built a picture about her and she has built a picture about me. That's a fact. Please see this! See that this image-building is the movement of thought. Don't move from there unless you see it! Don't move from that fact.
Now, you come along and tell me that thought is a movement of fragmentation. You explain to me very carefully why it is - because it is bound by time, bound by memory, bound by knowledge, so it is very limited. I see that. And the next step is - when I have seen that, in relationship with my mother, my wife, my children - what am I to do?
So what happens? When I realize that my relationship with my wife, my husband, with a girl or a boy, whoever it is, is a movement of time and fragmentation - what happens?
If you see it - then what is love? Is love the same as this? Is love fragmentation? Is love a picture, an image made by thought, a remembrance?
Student: At first with the feeling of being in love you see something beautiful. Then you would like to crystalize that.
Krishnamurti: Do you see something beautiful? Do you? Do you actually see something beautiful?
When you look at that beautiful tree on the lawn, or a woman, or a cloud, or a sheet of water and see that it is extraordinarily beautiful - can you just remain with that? Or do you turn it into an idea - an idea that it is beautiful? What takes place at that moment of seeing?
Student: There is no word.
Krishnamurti: Which means what? No word, no thought. So beauty takes place when there is no movement of thought. You agree to this? [Heads nod.] You are all together in agreeing! How extraordinary! So, when you see something beautiful there is the absence of thought. Now, can you stay in that moment and not wander away from it? Watching that cloud the mind is not chattering because there is no thought in operation. Thought is totally absent when you see something extraordinarily beautiful
Now watch it carefully, listen carefully, please listen carefully. The cloud, with its light, its splendour, its immensity, has taken you over. Do you see this? The cloud has absorbed you. Which means you, in that absorption, are absent. Next step. A child is absorbed by a toy. Remove the toy and he is back to his mischief. That is exactly what has happened. The cloud has absorbed you, and when the cloud goes away you are back to yourself.
Can you, without being absorbed by the mountain, by the cloud, by the tree, by the sound of a bird, by the beauty of the land, be totally empty in yourself?
Remove the toy, and the child is back to his naughtiness - yelling and shouting, but give him a toy and the toy takes him over. I'm asking you, without the toy, and therefore nothing to absorb you - can there be... an absence of yourself. Oh do see the beauty of this! You understand?
So beauty is, when you are not. Beauty is, when thought is absent.
Now - love is not thought, is it? Are you beginning to see the connection?
I love you - you have absorbed me - I want you, you look nice, you smell nice, you have nice hair, my glands demand all kinds of things, sex, and so on. You have absorbed me. I have fallen in love with you. That is the absorption. And I cling to you. I Love you. But in time my old self asserts itself and says - yes, that was very nice two years ago, but now I dislike her. I fell in love with her - but now look what has happened!
Please see the truth of this - that where there is beauty there is a total absence of thought. So, love is the total absence of... `me'. Got it? If you have got it you have drunk of the fountain of life. Student: Does the feeling include the being absorbed?
Krishnamurti: What is feeling? If there is no thought would you have feelings? Look at it carefully. Look at it! Is beauty feeling? We said beauty is without thought. And is there a feeling when there is no thought? Get the kernel of it, the insight into it. Leave all the details, the details can come later. See the truth of this one thing, which is: where there is beauty there is no thought. Where there is love there is the absence of `me'... the `me' who is chattering, chattering, full of problems, anxiety, fear. When there is the absence of `me', there is love.
Student: You look at a cloud, and it goes, and you fall back into yourself.
Krishnamurti: Have you seen the little boy give the little girl a doll? She's perfectly happy, quiet, not restless, not crying. Give the boy a complicated toy and he'll spend an hour playing with it. He's forgotten to be naughty. The doll, the toy, have become all-important. And, when you see the cloud, the bird flying across the sky, when you see that, what takes place? Your chattering stops. And when you see a Western film, or any other film, you are looking at it. You are not thinking about all your problems, your worries, your fears. You are just absorbed by the film. Stop the film and you're back to yourself!
So you see, if you push this much further, ideas are your toys, ideals are your toys, and they take over all of you. Religions are your toys. When these things are questioned you are back to yourself and you become disturbed, frightened.
Student: Is there not one thing which is out of it, out of the world of toys?
Krishnamurti: I've shown it to you. Please listen carefully. We have said that thought has created this world. The wars, the businessman, the politician, the artist, the crook - society has made all this. Society is our relationship with each other - which is based on thought. So thought is responsible for this awful mess. Is it so? Or is it an idea? If you say it is an idea, then you are not looking at the actual fact.
So, move from that. Thought, we said, is broken up; whatever it does will break up. Do you see that as something as real as the fact that I am sitting here?
Student: That is all mechanical thought, but is there something behind it which uses it?
Krishnamurti: You have nothing else but mechanical thought. When that mechanical thought stops - then there is something else. But you can't say, "Yes, that is mechanical thought, so let us look at the other". Thought has to stop. And it stops, for instance, when you see beauty, when you see a vast range of mountains with snowcovered peaks; the majesty of it, the grandeur of it takes you over. And when that mountain is not there you are back with your quarrels, with your thoughts. Please find out for yourself. Sit down, meditate, go into it.
Student: It's all very well, but....
Krishnamurti: It's all very well you say, but I've got to go back to my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my grandmother, and to earn money, and all the rest of it. And that's the problem with all of us. So what are you going to do? When you realize, when you see, actually, that, except technologically and in practical matters, thought is the most mischievous thing, that it is the most deadly thing in relationship, therefore destroying love... then what are you going to do? You have to earn money, get a livelihood, which demands thought. So there you exercise thought. When you have got to go to the dentist, you exercise thought. When you have to buy a suit, a dress, you compare - this is better material than that, and so on - that requires thought. But you realize that thought is deadly in relationship. That's all. Pax.