Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

SAN DIEGO - 20TH FEBRUARY 1974
5TH CONVERSATION WITH DR. ALLAN W. ANDERSON
ORDER

K: I think we were talking about freedom, responsibility and relationship. And before we go any further we thought we'd talk over together this question of order. What is order in freedom? As one observes all over the world, there is such extraordinary disorder.

A: Oh yes.

K: Outwardly and inwardly. One wonders why there is such disorder. You go to India and you see the streets filled with people, bursting with population. And you see also so many sects, so many gurus, so many teachers, so many contradictory lies, such misery. And you come to Europe: there is a little more order but you see when you penetrate the superficial order there is equal disorder. And you come to this country and you know what it is like, better than I do, there is complete disorder. You may drive very carefully, but go behind the facade of so-called order and you see chaos, not only in personal relationship but sexually, morally, so much corruption. All governments are corrupt, some more, some less. But this whole phenomenon of disorder, how has it come about? Is it the fault of the religions that have said, do this and don't do that? And now they are revolting against all that?

A: Yes.

K: Is it governments are so corrupt that nobody has any trust in governments? Is it there is such corruption in business, nobody wants to look at it even, any intelligent man, any man who is really serious. And you look at family life, and there is such disorder. So taking the whole phenomenon of disorder, why is there such disorder? What has brought it about?

A: Doesn't it appear that there is a sort of necessary, almost built in progression in terms of the way we have mentioned necessity earlier, once order so conceived is superimposed upon an existing situation, not only does it not effect what is hoped for but it creates a new situation which we think requires a new approach. And the new approach is still the super imposition.

K: Like the communists are doing in Russia and China. They have imposed order, what they call order, on a disordered mind. And therefore there is revolt. So looking at all this, it's very interesting, looking at all this phenomenon of disorder, what is order then? Is order something imposed, order as in the military on the soldier, imposed order, a discipline which is a conformity, suppression, imitation? Is order conformity?

A: Not in the sense that it's artificially imposed, yes,

K: In any sense. If I conform to an order I am creating disorder.

A: Yes, yes, I understand what you mean. In our use of the word conform we sometimes mean by it a natural relation between the nature of a thing, and the activities that are proper to it or belong to it. But then that use of the word conform is not the use that is usual and the one that we are concerned with here.

K: So is order conformity? Is order imitation? Is order acceptance, obedience? Or because we have conformed, because we have obeyed, because we have accepted, we have created disorder. Because discipline, in the ordinary, accepted sense of that word, is to conform.

A: Yes, we say in English, don't we, to someone who appears to be undisciplined, or who in fact is undisciplined, we say, straighten up.

K: Straighten up, yes.

A: The images that we use to refer to that correction are always rigid, aren't they.

K: Yes.

A: Yes. yes.

K: So that authority, whether the communist authority of the few, or the authority of the priest, or the authority of someone who says, I know and you don't know, that is one of the factors that has produced disorder. And one of the factors of this disorder is our lack of real culture. We are very sophisticated, very sophisticated, very so-called civilized, in the sense we are clean, we have bathrooms, we have better food and all that, but inwardly we are not cultured. We are not healthy, whole human beings.

A: The inner fragmentation spills out into our operations externally.

K: So unless we understand disorder, the nature of disorder, the structure of disorder, we can never find out what is order. Out of the understanding of disorder comes order. Not first seek order, and then impose that order on disorder. I don't know if I make myself clear.

A: Yes. I'm thinking as you are speaking of the phenomenon in the world of study and the world of teaching and learning as we understand them conventionally. I've noticed in our conversations that you always suggest that study some disfunction. We are never invited really to do that we, we are given the notion that the thing to study is the principle involved. The argument for that, of course, is that one refers to health in order to understand disease.

K: Quite, quite.

A: But then the reference to health, when that is said, is received purely conceptually.

K: Quite right.

A: So what we are studying now is a concept.

K: Is a concept rather than the actuality, that the 'what is'.

A: And we slip out of the true task. There is a difficulty in grasping the suggestion that we study the disorder simply because disorder by its own condition is without an ordering principle. Therefore it sounds when it comes out as though I am being asked to study something that is unstudyable. But to the contrary.

K: On the contrary.

A: Yes. Now I'll stop. You go ahead. On the contrary. You were about to say something.

K: On the contrary. There must be an understanding of disorder, why it has come about. One of the factors, sir, I think, is basically that thought is matter, and thought by its very nature is fragmentary. Thought divides, the 'me' and the 'not me', we and they, my country and your country, my ideas and your ideas, my religion and your religion and so on. The very movement of thought is divisive, because thought is the response of memory, response of experience, which is the past. And unless we really go into this question very, very deeply the movement of thought and the movement of disorder...

A: That seems to me to be a key word, from my understanding, in listening to you, movement. To study the movement of disorder would seem to me to take it a step deeper than the phrase, to study disorder. With the word movement we are dealing with act.

K: Movement.

A: Exactly. The career of disorder.

K: The movement.

A: Yes, If that is what we are directed upon then I think the objection that the study of disorder is to undertake an impossible pursuit is not made with any foundation. That objection loses its force precisely at the point, when one says, no, no it's not disorder as a concept we are dealing with here, it's the movement of it, it's its own career, it's its passage, it's the whole corruption of the act as such. Yes, yes, exactly. I keep on saying this business about act all the time, and perhaps it seems repetitious.

K: Oh that's absolutely right.

A: But you know hardly, hardly ever is that taken seriously...

K: I know, sir.

A: ...by our species. Of course the animals are on to that from the beginning, but we don't.

K: No. You see we deal with concepts, not with 'what is', actually what is. Rather than discuss formulas, concepts and ideas, 'what is' is disorder. And that disorder is spreading all over the word, it's a movement, it's a living disorder. It isn't a disorder that is dead. It is a living thing, moving, corrupting, destroying.

A: Yes. Exactly, exactly.

K: So.

A: But it takes, as you pointed out so often, it takes an extreme concentration of attention to follow movement and there is a rebellion in us against following movement which perhaps lies in our disaffection with the intuition that we have. The transition is unintelligible.

K: Of course. Quite, quite.

A: And we don't want that. We can't stand the thought that there is something that is unintelligible. And so we just will make that active attention.

K: It's like sitting on the bank of a river and watching the waters go by. You can't alter the water, you can't change the substance or the movement of the water. In the same way this movement of disorder is part of us and is flowing outside of us. So, one has look at it.

A: And there is no confusion in the act at all.

K: Obviously not. First of all, sir, let's go into it very, very carefully. What is the factor of disorder? Disorder means contradiction, right.

A: Yes. And conflict. Yes.

K: Contradiction. This opposed to that. Or the duality, this opposed to that.

A: The contention between two things to be mutually exclusive.

K: Yes. And that brings about this dual, duality and the conflict. Is there a duality at all?

A: Certainly not in act, there is not a duality. That simply couldn't be. There certainly could be said, not even with respect, don't you think, to thought itself and its operation that there is a dualism. But the duality, of course, is present in terms of distinction, but not in terms of division.

K: Division, that's right.

A: Not in terms of division.

K: Not in terms.

A: Yes, yes. I follow.

K: After all there is man woman, black and white and so on, but is there an opposite to violence? You've understood?

A: Yes, yes I'm listening very intently.

K: Or only violence. But we have created the opposite. Thought has created the opposite as non-violence, and then the conflict between the two. The non-violence is an abstraction of the 'what is'. And thought has done that.

A: Yesterday I had a difficult time in class over this. I made the remark that, vice is not the opposite of virtue. Virtue is not the opposite of vice, and somehow I just couldn't, it seems, communicate that because of the insistence on the part of the students to deal with the problem purely in terms of a conceptual structure.

K: You see sir, I don't know if you want to go into it now, or if it is the right occasion: from ancient Greece, you must know, measurement was necessary to them. Measurement. And the whole of western civilization is based on measurement, which is thought.

A: This is certainly true in continuous practice. It is certainly true. And the irony of it is that an historian looking at the works of the great Greek thinkers turn around and say at this point, well now just wait a minute. And we would say some things about Aristotle and Plato that would suggest that no, no, no, there's a much more organic grasp of things than simply approaching it in a slide rule way, but that doesn't come to terms with what you are saying. You see that's right.

K: Sir, you can see what is happening in the world, in the western world: technology, commercialism, and consumerism is the highest activity that is going on now.

A: Exactly.

K: Which is based on measurement.

A: Yes it is. Oh yes.

K: Which is thought. Now look at it a minute, hold that a minute and you will see something rather odd taking place. The east, especially India, India exploded over the east in a different sense, they said measurement is illusion. To find the immeasurable, the measurement must come to an end. I'm putting it very crudely and quickly.

A: No. But it seems to me that you are putting it precisely well with respect to this concern we have with act.

K: Yes.

A: It's not crude.

K: It's very interesting because I've watched it. In the west, technology , commercialism and consumerism, god, saviour, church, all that's outside. It is a plaything. And you just play with it on Saturday and Sunday but the rest of the week...

A: Yes.

K: And you go to India and you see this. The word 'ma' is to measure, Sanskrit, and they said, reality is immeasurable. Go into it, see the beauty of it.

A: Yes, oh yes, I follow.

K: The measurement can never find - a mind that is measuring, or a mind that is caught in measurement can never find truth. I'm putting it that way. They don't put it that way, but I'm putting it. So they said, to find the real, the immense, measurement must end. But they use thought as a means to - thought must be controlled, they said.

A: Yes, yes.

K: You follow?

A: Yes, I do.

K: So, in order to find the immeasurable you must control thought. And to control, who is the controller of thought? Another fragment of thought. I don't know if you follow.

A: Oh, I follow you perfectly, yes I do.

K: So, they use measurement to go beyond measurement. And therefore they could never go beyond it. They were caught in an illusion of some other kind, but it is still the product of thought. I don't know if I'm conveying it?

A: Yes, yes. What flashed over my mind as you were speaking, was the incredible irony of their having right in front of them, I'm thinking now of this profound statement: "That is full", meaning anything that I think is over there. "That's full, this that I've divided off from that, this is full. From fullness to fullness issues forth". And then the next line, "If fullness is taken away from the full, fullness indeed still remains." Now they are reading that, you see, but if they approach it in the manner in which you have so well described, they haven't read it in the sense of attended to what's being said, because it's the total rejection of that statement in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that would be involved in thought control.

K: Yes, of course, of course. You see that's what I've been trying to get at. You see, thought has divided the world physically: America, India, Russia, China, you follow, divided the world. Thought has fragmented the activities of man, the businessman, the artist, the politician, the beggar, you follow?

A: Yes.

K: Fragmented man. Thought has created a society based on this fragmentation. And thought has created the gods, the saviours, the Jesuses, the christs, the Krishnas, the Buddhas - and those are all measurable, in a sense. You must become like the christ, or you must be good. All sanctioned by a culture which is based on measurement.

A: Once you start with forecasts, as we have classically, then we are going to necessarily move to five six, seven, 400, 4000 an indefinite division. And all in the interest, it is claimed, of clarity. All in the interest of clarity.

K: So, unless, unless we understand the movement of thought, we cannot possibly understand disorder. It is thought that has produced disorder. It sounds contradictory, but it is so - thought is fragmentary, thought is time, and as long as we are functioning within that field there must be disorder. Which is, each fragment is working for itself, in opposition to other fragments. I, a Christian, am in opposition to the Hindu, though I talk about love and goodness and all the rest of it.

A: I love him so much I want to see him saved so I will go out and bring him into the fold.

K: Saved. Come over to my camp!

A: Yes, yes.

K: One of the, probably the basic cause of disorder is the fragmentation of thought. I was told the other day, that in a certain culture, thought means the outside.

A: That's very interesting.

K: When they use the word outside, they use the word thought.

A: And we think it's inside.

K: That's the whole... you follow.

A: How marvelous. How marvelous.

K: So thought is always outside. You can say, I am inwardly thinking. Thought has divided the outer and the inner. So to understand this whole contradiction, measurement, time, the division, the fragmentation, the chaos, and the disorder, one must really go into this question of what is thought, what is thinking. Can the mind, which has been so conditioned in fragments, in fragmentation, can that mind observe this whole movement of disorder, not fragmentarily?

A: No, but the movement itself.

K: Movement itself.

A: Movement itself. Yes. But that's what's so terrifying - to look at that movement. It's interesting that you've asked this question in a way that keeps boring in because measure is, and I'm going to put something now in a very concise, elliptical way, is possibility, which is infinitely divisible. It only comes to an end with an act, with an act. And as long as I remain divided against act, I regard myself as a very deep thinker. I'm sitting back exploring alternatives which are completely imaginary, illusory. And in the business world men are paid extremely high salaries to come up with what is called a new concept.

K: Yes, new concept.

A: And it's called by its right name, of course, but it isn't regarded correctly as to its nature. It isn't understood as to what's being said when that happens.

K: That brings up the point, which is, measurement means comparison. Our society and our civilizations are based on comparison. From childhood, to school to college and university, it is comparative.

A: That's right.

K: And comparison between intelligence and dullness, between the tall and the black, white and purple and all the rest of it - comparison in success. And look at also our religions. The priest, the bishop, you follow, the hierarchical outlook, ultimately Pope or the archbishop. The whole structure is based on that. Compare, comparison, which is measurement, which is essentially thought.

A: Yes. The Protestants complain about the Catholic hierarchy, and yet their scripture, their Bible is what some Catholics call their paper pope.

K: Of course.

A: Yes, of course. With the very rejection of something, something takes its place which becomes even more divisive.

K: So, is it possible to look without measurement, that is without comparison? Is it possible to live a life - life, living, acting, laughing, the whole life, living, crying, without a shadow of comparison coming into it? Sir, I'm not boasting, I'm just stating a fact. I have never compared myself with anybody.

A: That's a most remarkable thing. Most remarkable thing.

K: I never thought about it even - somebody much cleverer than me, somebody much more brilliant, so intelligent, somebody greater, spiritual - it didn't enter. Therefore, I say to myself, is measurement, comparison, imitation, are they not the major factors of disorder?

A: I've had a very long thought about what you said a few conversations ago, about when you were a boy, and you never accepted the distinctions that were employed in a dividing way...

K: Oh, of course, of course.

A: ...and within the social order. And I had to think about my own growing up, and accept the fact that I did accept this distinction in terms of division, but I didn't do it with nature. But that set up conflict in me, because I couldn't understand how it could be the case that I'm natural as a being in the world but I'm not somehow related to things the way things are, in what we call nature. Then it suddenly occurred to me later that in thinking that way I was already dividing myself off from nature, and I'd never get out of that problem.

K: No.

A: And the thing came to me some years ago with a tremendous flash, when I was in Bangkok in a temple garden. And of an early morning I was taking a walk and my eye was drawn to a globule of dew resting on a lotus leaf and it was perfectly circle. And I said, where's the base. How can it be stable. Why doesn't it roll off. By the time I got to the end of my 'whys' I was worn out, so I took a deep breath and, I said, now shut up and just keep quiet and look. And I saw that each maintained its own nature in this marvelous harmony without any confusion at all. And I was just still.

K: Good.

A: Just still. I think that's something of what you mean about the fact. That was a fact.

K: Just remain with the fact. Look at the fact.

A: That marvelous globule on that leaf is the fact, is what is the act, is what is done.

K: That is correct.

A: Right. Yes.

K: Sir, from this arises, can one educate a student to live a life of non comparison - bigger car, lesser car, you follow?

A: Yes.

K: Dull, you are clever, I am not clever. What happens if I don't compare at all? Will I become dull?

A: On the contrary.

K: I'm only dull, I know I'm dull only through comparison. If I don't compare, I don't know what I am. Then I begin from there.

A: Yes, yes. The world becomes infinitely accessible.

K: Oh, then the whole thing becomes extraordinarily different. There is no competition, there is no anxiety, there is no conflict with each other.

A: This is why you use the word total often, isn't it.

K: Yes.

A: In order to express that there's nothing drawn out from one condition to the other. There is no link there, there is no bridge there. Totally disordered. Totally order.

K: Absolutely.

A: Yes, and you use the word 'absolute' often, which terrifies many people today.

K: Sir, after all mathematics is order. The highest form of mathematical investigation, you must have a mind that is totally orderly.

A: The marvelous thing about maths too, is that whereas it's the study of quantity, you don't make passage from one integer to another by two getting larger. Two stops at two. Two and a half is no more two. Somehow that's the case.

K: Yes.

A: But a child when he is taught mathematics is never introduced to that - that I've ever heard of.

K: You see, sir, our teaching, our everything is so absurd. Is it possible, sir, to observe this movement of disorder, with a mind that is disorderly itself, and say, can this mind observe disorder, this mind which is already in a state of disorder. So disorder isn't out there but in here. Now can the mind observe that disorder without introducing a factor of an observer who is orderly?

A: Who will superimpose.

K: Yes. Therefore observe, perceive disorder without the perceiver. I don't know if I am making sense at all.

A: Yes, yes you are, yes you are making sense.

K: That is, sir, to understand disorder we think an orderly mind is necessary.

A: As over against the disorderly mind.

K: Disorderly mind. But the mind itself has created this disorder, which is thought and all the rest of it. So can the mind not look at disorder out there, but at the maker of disorder which is in here?

A: Which is itself the very mind as disorder.

K: Mind itself is disordered.

A: Yes. But as soon as that is stated conceptually...

K: No, no. Concepts are finished.

A: Yes. But we are using words.

K: We are using words to communicate.

A: Exactly. What I'm concerned with, just for a second, is what are we going to say when we hear the statement that it is the disordered mind that keeps proliferating disorder, but it is that disordered mind that must see, it must see.

K: I'm going to show you, you will see in a minute what takes place. Disorder is not outside of me, disorder is inside of me. That's a fact. Because the mind is disorderly all its activities must be disorderly. And the activities of disorder is proliferating or is moving in the world. Now can this mind observe itself without introducing the factor of an orderly mind, which is the opposite?

A: Yes it is. Of course it is the opposite.

K: So can it observe without the observer who is the opposite?

A: That's the question.

K: Now watch it, sir, if you are really interested in it.

A: I am. I am deeply interested in it.

K: If you will see. The observer is the observed. The observer who says, I am orderly, and I must put order in disorder. That is generally what takes place. But the observer is the factor of disorder. Because the observer is the past, is the factor of division. Where there is division there is not only conflict but disorder. You can see, sir, it is happening actually in the world. I mean all this problem of energy, all this problem of law, peace, and all the rest, can be solved absolutely when there are not separate governments, sovereign armies, and say, look let's solve this problem all together, for god's sake. We are human beings. This earth is meant for us to live on - not Arabs and Israelis, and America and Russia - it is our earth.

A: And it's round.

K: But we will never do this because our minds are so conditioned to live in disorder, to live in conflict.

A: And vocation is given a religious description in terms of the task of cleaning up the disorder with my idea of order.

K: Order. Your idea order is the fact that has produced disorder.

A: Exactly.

K: So, it brings up a question, sir, which is very interesting: can the mind observe itself without the observer? Because the observer is the observed. The observer who says, I will bring order in disorder, that observer itself is a fragment of disorder, therefore it can never bring about order. So can the mind be aware of itself as a movement of disorder, not trying to correct it, not trying to justify it, not trying to shape it, just to observe? I said previously to observe, sitting on the banks of a river and watch the waters go by. You see, then you see much more. But if you are in the middle of it swimming you will see nothing.

A: I've never forgotten that it was when I stopped questioning, when I stood before that droplet of dew on the leaf, that everything changed totally, totally. And what you say is true. Once something like that happens there isn't a regression from it.

K: Sir, it is not once, it is...

A: ...forever. Yes.

K: It's not an incident that took place. My life is not an incident, it is a movement.

A: Exactly.

K: And in that movement I observe this movement of disorder. And therefore the mind itself is disorderly and how can that disorderly, chaotic, contradictory, absurd little mind bring about order? It can't. Therefore a new factor is necessary. And the new factor is to observe, to perceive, to see without the perceiver.

A: To perceive without the perceiver. To perceive without the perceiver.

K: Because the perceiver is the perceived.

A: Yes.

K: If you once grasp that then you see everything without the perceiver. You don't bring in your personality, your ego, your selfishness. You say, disorder is the factor which is in me, not out there. The politicians are trying to bring about order when they are themselves so corrupt. You follow sir? How can they bring order?

A: It's impossible. It's impossible. It's one long series of...

K: That's what's happening in the world. The politicians are ruling the world - from Moscow, from New Delhi, from Washington, wherever it is, it's the same pattern being repeated. Living a chaotic, corrupt life, you try to bring order in the world. It's childish. So that's why transformation of the mind is not your mind or my mind, it's the mind, the human mind.

A: Or the mind trying to order itself, even. Not even that.

K: Now how can it, it is like a blind man trying to bring about colour. And he says, well that's grey. It has no meaning. So can the mind observe this disorder in itself without the observer who has created disorder? Sir, this brings up a very simple thing. To look at a tree, at a woman, at mountain, at a bird, or a sheet of water with the light on it, the beauty of it, to look without the see-er. The moment the see-er comes in, the observer comes in, he divides. And division is all right as long as it's descriptive. But when you are living, living, that division is destructive.

A: Yes, what was running through my mind was this continuous propaganda that we hear about the techniques that are available to still the mind.

K: Oh, sir

A: But that requires a stiller to do the stilling.

K: No, I wouldn't...

A: And so that is absolutely, I'm using your words, absolutely and totally out, of any possibility of attaining.

K: But yet you see that's what the gurus are doing.

A: Yes, yes I do understand.

K: The imported gurus and the native gurus are doing this. They are really destroying people. You follow, sir. We'll talk about it when the occasion arises. What we are now concerned is, measurement which is the whole movement of commercialism, consumerism, technology, is now the pattern of the world. Begun in the West, and made more and more perfect in the West and that is spreading all over the world. Go to the smallest little town in India or anywhere, the same pattern being repeated. And the village you go and they are so miserable, unhappy, one-meal-a-day stuff. But it is still within that pattern. And the governments are trying to solve these problems separately, you follow. France by itself, Russia by itself. It's a human problem, therefore it has to be approached not with, with a Washington mind, or a London, mind, or a Moscow mind, with a mind that is human that says, look this is our problem and for god's sake lets get together and solve it. Which means care, which means accepting responsibility for every human being. So we come back: as we said, order comes only with the understanding of disorder. In that there is no superimposition. In that there is no conflict. In that there is no suppression. When you suppress you react. You know all that business. So it is totally a different kind of movement, order. And that order is real virtue. Because without virtue there is no order. There's gangsterism.

A: Oh yes.

K: Politically or any other way, religiously. But without virtue, virtue being conduct, the flowering in goodness everyday. It is not a theory, sir, it actually takes place, when you live that way.

A: The hexagram in the I Ching called conduct is also translated treading.

K: Treading.

A: Treading. Meaning a movement.

K: Of course.

A: A movement. And that's a vastly different understanding of the usual notion of conduct. But I understand from what you have said that your use of the word conduct as virtue, as order is precisely oriented to act, movement.

K: Yes sir. You see, a man who acts out of disorder is creating more disorder. The politician, look at his life, sir, ambitious, greedy, seeking power, position.

A: Running for election.

K: Election, all the rest of it. And he is the man who is going to create order in the world. The tragedy of it and we accept it. You follow?

A: Yes, we believe it's inevitable. We do.

K: And therefore we are irresponsible.

A: Because he did it and I didn't. Yes. Yes.

K: Because we accept disorder in our life. I don't accept disorder in my life. I want to live an orderly life, which means I must understand disorder, and where there is order the brain functions much better.

A: There is a miracle here, isn't there.

K: Absolutely, that's the miracle.

A: There is a miracle here. As soon as I grasp the movement of disorder...

K: The mind grasps it.

A: Yes, yes. Behold, there's order. That's truly miraculous. Perhaps it's the one and only miracle.

K: There are other miracle but...

A: I mean in the deepest sense of the word, all of them would have to be related to that or we wouldn't have any of them, is what I meant, the real heart, the real core.

K: That's why, sir, relationship, communication, responsibility, freedom and this freedom from disorder, has a great sense of beauty in it. A life that is beautiful, a life that's really flowering in goodness. Unless we create, bring about such human beings the world will go to pot.

A: Yes.

K: This is what is happening. And I feel it's my responsibility. And to me I've a passion for it, it's my responsibility to see that when I talk to you, you understand it, you live it, you function, move in that way.

A: I come back to this attention thing, The enormous emphasis that you've made on staying totally attentive to this. I think I begin to understand something of the phenomenon of what happens when a person begins to think that they are taking seriously what you are saying. I didn't say, begins to take it seriously, they think they are beginning to. As a matter of fact, they begin to watch themselves lean in to it. Of course nothing is started yet. But something very strange happens in the mind when this notion that I am leaning in. I start to get terribly afraid. I become terribly fearful of something. Next time could we discuss fear?.