Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

The Observer Is the Observed

Madras, India. Public Talk 30th November, 1947

I talk about it at every meeting and at every discussion we have, because it seems very important to me to establish the right communication between ourselves. The moment you approach another with the attitude of getting something profitable out of him, either financially or spiritually, surely you will cut off all communication. Does the false respect that we show, indicate understanding? You show me respect sometimes but most of the time for your servants and wives and neighbours there is contempt, disrespect, indifference, or callousness. So what is important? To show respect to a man who you think has something to give you and to be contemptuous, hard and brutal to others? And does learning constitute the whole of existence? If it did, we would certainly misinterpret existence. But if we can understand from moment to moment the whole significance of existence, then perhaps there will be joy, there will be happiness. But if you are out merely to learn, to accumulate, through which accumulation you translate further experience, then life becomes a series of monotonous tragedies, despair, ugliness and darkness. Then you are concerned merely with accumulating, and acquiring a stan- dard by which to live. Surely you do not call that living?

As it is, our existence is pretty awful and merely to understand verbally what is being said and use it as a pattern to translate everyday existence will not bring about understanding. Understanding comes when there is no effort, when there is a freshness. When you suddenly see something, is that because of accumulation of learning or of acquisition? Surely not. It comes in freedom. So we ought to establish right relationship not only between ourselves but also in our daily existence. Then we will see how extraordinarily swift life is and also how painful it is, and how our existence leads us nowhere. So, to understand the whole purpose of existence we must understand effort, because life or existence is sorrowful as we know it. There is nothing joyous. We are not happy people. Look at the strain, the turmoil that we go through. We are always in strife, we are always in struggle, there is never a moment's deep happiness when we can say `we are happy'. Do we know such moments? We are in constant battle with ourselves and with our neighbours. We are hedged in and bound and our whole existence is a strife; and as it is a constant effort, a constant battle, what is it all meant for? And as we do not know happiness, except at rare intervals, we have completely forgotten it. We do have rare happy moments when our everyday strife, struggle and phenomena stop, but we do not know how to sustain it. It seems to me that until we know how, our life will have no meaning.

I think we will understand the significance of life if we understood what it means to make an effort. Does happiness come through effort? Have you ever tried to be happy? It is impossible, is it not? You struggle to be happy and there is no happiness. Is there? Joy does not come through suppression, through control or indulgence. You may indulge, but there is bitterness at the end. You may suppress or control but there is always strife in the hidden. So, happiness does not come through effort, nor joy through control and suppression and still all our life is a series of suppressions, series of controls, a series of regretful indulgences. Also there is a constant overcoming, a constant struggle with our passions, our greed and our stupidity. So is not the strife, the struggle, the effort that we make, in the hope of finding happiness, finding something which will give us a feeling of peace, a sense of love? Yet, does love or understanding come by strife? So, I think it is very important to understand what we mean by struggle, strife or effort.

First we must be free to see that joy and happiness do not come through effort. Is creation through effort or is there creation only with the cessation of effort? When do you write, paint or sing? When do you create? Surely when there is no effort, when you are completely open, when on all levels you are in complete communication, completely integrated. Then there is joy and then you begin to sing, or write a poem or paint or make a form. The moment of creation is not born of struggle.

So, we must very clearly understand this whole problem of struggle and strife. I know there are many, many ramifications, many different sides to it. But if we can understand the core of the problem of effort and its significance, then we can translate that into our daily life. But, if you merely approach the central issue through the part, I am afraid you will not understand the significance of effort. Does not effort mean a struggle to change `what is' into what it is not, or into what it should be or should become? That is, we are constantly struggling to avoid facing `what is', or we are trying to get away from it or to transform or modify `what is'. A man who is truly content is the man who understands `what is', gives the right significance to `what is'. That is true contentment; it is not concerned with having few or many possessions, but with the understanding of the whole significance of `what is' and that can only come when you recognize what is, when you are aware of it, not when you are trying to modify it or change it.

So, effort is a strife or a struggle to transform that which is into something which you wish it to be. I am only talking about psychological struggle, not the struggle with a physical problem like engineering or some discovery or transforma- tion which is purely technical. I am talking only of that struggle which is psychological and which always overcomes the technical. You may build with great care a marvellous society, using the infinite knowledge science has given us. But as long as the psychological strife and struggle and battle are not understood, and the psychological overtones and currents are not overcome, the structure of society, however marvellously built is bound to crash, as has happened over and over again.

So, effort is a distraction from `what is'. Sirs, if I may suggest, think it over and you will see. The moment I accept `what is' there is no struggle. Any form of struggle or strife is an indication of distraction and distraction which is effort must exist as long as psychologically I wish to transform `what is' into something it is not. Take for example `anger'. Can anger be overcome by effort, by various methods and techniques, by meditations and various forms of transforming `what is' into what is not? Now, suppose that instead of making an effort to transform anger into non-anger, you accepted or acknowledged that you are angry, what would happen then? You would be aware that you are angry, What would happen? Would you indulge in anger? Please follow what I am talking about and you will see. If you are aware that you are angry, which is `what is', and knowing the stupidity of transforming `what is, into what is not, would you still be angry? If instead of trying to overcome anger, modifying or changing it, you accepted it and looked at it, if you were completely aware of it, without condemning or justifying it, there would be an instantaneous change. But this is extremely difficult because our whole tendency is to transform or deny. We deny ugliness thinking that we shall achieve beauty.

Surely virtue is not the denial of vice; virtue is only the recognition of vice. The moment I know that I am angry and I do not try to transform my anger I cease to be angry. You try it, you experiment with yourself and you will see how extraordinary it is, how extraordinary is the creative quality of understanding `what is'. Similarly there cannot be freedom if there is no virtue.

As I said last Sunday the stupid man is an unvirtuous man. He is disorderly. He creates havoc in society, not because he is unvirtuous but because he is stupid and to be virtuous requires the highest form of intelligence; to bring order within yourself requires an extraordinary capacity to see things as they are. When you recognize the false as false there is freedom. That is, freedom can only be approached negatively, not positively and to see the false is to see the true and there can only be freedom in virtue, in understanding, and not in becoming which is but the transforming of `what is' into something else. This is the process of becoming: `I will become this or that today or ten lives from now', `I will become a pupil in my next life', `I will be virtuous the day after tomorrow', and so on. Surely all such ways of thinking are indicative of real stupidity, because they imply transforming `what is' into something it is not. Surely you cannot make `anger' into `non-anger'. If you understand anger, that is, if you are aware of it fully, without condemnation, justification or identification, just aware that you are angry, that you are jealous, that you are greedy, that you are full of ill will, then you will see an extraordinary thing taking place; your anger or jealousy drops away. It drops away spontaneously. It is only when we are not aware of exactly `what is', that we make the effort to transform it.

So, effort is non-awareness. The moment you are aware, which is neither to condemn nor justify, the moment you accept, look and observe what is, there is no effort; then the thing that you observe, that which is, that which you are aware of, has an extraordinary significance. If you pursue that significance through, you complete that thought and therefore the mind is freed from it. So, awareness is non-effort, awareness is to perceive the thing as it is without distortion. Distortion exists whenever there is effort. When you love completely, every thought comes with such joy, clarity and happiness. This can only happen when there is integration and when there is no effort. Maturity or integration can only come when there is complete awareness of `what is'.

Many questions have been sent to me. As I said before, you can ask innumerable questions, but you will not have the right answer if the questioner himself is not in earnest. As I leave, you give me your questions in writing or ask them verbally but I am afraid most of you are not aware of what you are asking. To find the right answer to a question we must study the problem, not merely wait for an answer. Life is not a series of conclusions, of `yes' or `no'. Life is a series of responses and challenges and it depends on you how you respond. To know how to respond requires immense study; immense self-knowledge gained not through tricks, not through gurus, but by yourself in your every day action and thought. My answers are only indications towards self-revelation. If you wait for a conclusion or an assertion from me you are going to be disappointed. But if together we study the problem, we will see and understand its many implications. So, please bear in mind that in answering these questions I am not offering you any conclusions, because that which is concluded is not the truth. Life is movement, not continuity, and if we seek a conclusion or an answer, `yes' or `no' we are making life very small; and we want `yes' or `no' because our minds are small. If we recognize with our minds our smallness we can then proceed.

Question: I am very seriously disturbed by the sex urge. How am I to overcome it?

Krishnamurti: Sirs, this is an enormous problem. The implications are extraordinarily profound and wide. There are many, many things involved in this question, not merely sex, which is only of secondary importance. So, please bear with me if I do not tell you how to overcome the sex urge; but we are going to study the problem together, to see what is involved and as we study the problem, you will find the right answer for yourself. First, let us understand the problem of overcoming. How am I to overcome anger, jealousy? What happens when you overcome an enemy? It is always possible to overcome him. I may overcome you because I am stronger, but you may be stronger presently and you will overcome me. So, it is a game of constantly overcoming. That which can be overcome has to be overcome or conquered over and over again. Please see the significance of that simple statement. Whereas if you understand something, it is over. Take the wars that have been going on in Europe, the overcoming of one country by another; they have been doing that for the past two thousand years all over the world. But, if they had said `let us sit down and understand and not fight and kill each other', surely there would have been an understanding of peace.

So, there is overcoming, but understanding is much more difficult than conquering, than controlling, because understanding requires thought, wise observation, examination and tentative approach, which means intelligence. A stupid man can always overcome something. The advice that you must strive and overcome is a real folly, which does not mean that you must give in, indulge, which is the opposite and therefore equally foolish, if there is a problem, as the questioner has, of sex, we must understand it and not merely ask: how can it be overcome? That which has been overcome has to be conquered and reconquered again and again. Have you ever conquered? Did you not have to repeat it over and over again because it reappeared in ten other ways? So, surely that is not the way to understand the problem. Where there is a justification of overcoming, where there is condemnation or identification, surely there can be no understanding. You will have understanding only when you consider the problem, when you accept it, look at it, become aware of its significance completely, and even love it. Then it will yield you its significance. Then, in it there is creativeness.

Because all our pleasures are mechanical, sex has become the only pleasure which is creative. Religion has become mechanical. Authority has bound us mentally and emotionally and therefore you are blinded and blocked there. There is no creativeness in thinking about God. Is there? You do not find joy in thinking about God? It gives you emotional satisfaction. One has to be happy and joyous, which is surely the highest form of religion. But merely following authority, tradition, going to the temple, repeating mantrams, attending to the priests, surely that is not religion. That is mere repetition and what happens if you repeat? Your mind becomes dull, there is no joy in it. So emotionally and intellectually we are starved. We are merely repeating. This is a fact. I am not saying something extraordinary. Emotionally we are machines carrying out a routine and the machine is not creative. A man may have habits but thereby he is not creative. He may recite mantrams, practise japams and all the rest of that nonsense, but he is not creative. Such a repetitive man has merely destroyed his clarity, the power to think, the power to perceive, to understand.

See what society has done to us - our education, our routine of business, the gathering of money, the performing of awful duties and so on. In all this, is there a sense of joy? There is only perfect boredom. So, as we are hedged all-round by uncreative thinking, there is only one thing left to us, and that is sex. As sex is the only thing that is left, it becomes an enormous problem, whereas if we understood what it means to be creative religiously and emotionally, to be creative at all moments, when you love, when you cry; when you are aware of that directly, surely then sex would become an insignificant problem.

But you see the difficulties. Passion or the biological urge is so strong, that religious societies through their tradition and laws have held you in restraint, but now that tradition and laws have little significance, you merely indulge in it.

Another enormous thing which we have lost through this struggle and through this regimentation, is love. Sirs, love is chaste and without love merely to overcome or indulge in sex has no meaning. Without love, we have become what we are today, mere machines. If we look at our faces in the mirror we can see how unformed they are, how immature we are. We have produced children without love. Often we are emotionally driven without love and what kind of civilization do you expect to produce in that way? I know the religious books say that you must become a Brahmacharya to find God. Do you mean to say that you can find God without love? Brahmacharya is merely an idea, an ideal to be achieved. Surely that which you achieve through will, through condemnation, through conclusion will not lead you to reality, to God. What shows us the way to reality, to God, is understanding and not suppression, not substitution. To give up sex for the love of God, is only substitution, only sublimation, it is not understanding. So, if there is love there is chastity; but to become chaste is to become ugly, vicious and immature.

So, look at our lives and see what we have done. We do not know how to love. Our life is merely an aspiring for position, for the continuance of ourselves through our families, through our sons and so on. But without love what is our life? Surely, mere suppression of passion does not solve anything, neither the brutal sex passion, nor the passion to become something. Surely they are both the same. You may suppress sex, but if you are ambitious to be something it is the same urge in another direction. It is equally brutal, equally vicious, equally ugly. But a man who has real love in his heart has no sorrow and to him sex is not a problem. But since we have lost love, sex has become a great problem and a difficult one because we are caught in it, by habit, by imagination and by yesterday's memory which threatens us and holds us. And why are we held by yesterday's memory? Again, because we are not creative human beings. Creation is constant renewal. That which was yesterday will never be again. There can only be today; not memory to which you give life. Memory is not creation, memory is not life. Memory does not give understanding, yet we hold on to it, to all the excitements of sex through memory. That gives us an extraordinary exhilaration, for that is the only thing we have. We are starved, empty; and the only thing we think of is to repeat, to recollect. What happens to a thing that is repeated over and over again? It becomes mechanical. There is no joy in it, and there is no creation.

We are hedged in by fear, by anxiety, by the desire for security; but in order to understand this problem we must look at it from every side, consider all its aspects through the everyday excitements in newspapers and cinemas, the search for pleasure and all the luxuries, the sins, the half - hints, the education that we receive, which stifles all thinking, which prepares us to become something, which is the height of stupidity. We become lawyers, glorified clerks, but this education does not give us the culture of integration, the joy in living. We do not know how to look at a tree, we merely talk about it. And religiously, what are you? You go to the temple, you perform all the ceremonies and rituals. What are they? They are mere repetitions, vain repetitions. And our politics are mere gossip, cunning deceptions. Our whole existence being all that, how can there be creation for a man who is blind? How can he see? Surely he could see if he would throw off all the rotten rubbish around him. It would be like a storm that comes and sweeps away things that are not firm, and from that freedom there would be creation. But not only do we not want freedom, we do not want revolution either - I am not talking about political or outward revolution - we do not want the inward revolution. We prefer to go on with this monotonous uncreative existence. We are afraid of what we might find.

So, the problem can only be solved in understanding ourselves and the utterly uncreative state we live in; and it is only through self-knowledge that creation can come into being, and that creation is reality or God, or whatever you may call it. It cannot come into being through repetition, through pleasurable habits, either religious or sexual. To understand ourselves is extremely arduous. If you go into this problem and become aware of its significance you will see what it reveals and that is what I have just now shown - a series of imitations, a series of habits, a series of clouds, and memories. This is what this question reveals, whether you like it or not. It is a fact, that occasionally a break in the clouds through which you see. But most of the time we are enclosed in our own cravings, wants and fears and naturally the only outlet is sex, which degenerates, enervates and becomes a problem. So, while looking at this problem, we begin to discover our own state, that is, `what is', not how to transform it, but how to be aware of it. Do not condemn it, do not try to sublimate it or find substitutions, or overcome it. Be simply aware of it, of all it means; your going to the temple, your sacred thread, your repetition, your family and so on. See how monotonous, how uncreative all of it is; how stupid it is. These are facts and you must be aware of them. Then you will feel a new breath, a new consciousness and the moment you recognize `what is', there is an instantaneous transformation; seeing the false as false is the beginning of wisdom but we cannot see the false if we are not aware of every moment of the day, of everything we say, feel and think, and you will see that out of that awareness comes that extraordinary thing called love and a man who loves is chaste, a man who loves is pure and knows life.

Question: What are your views about the implications of the belief in reincarnation?

Krishnamurti: Again, this is a vast subject. Again, as a means of self-discovery we will examine the problem; not to find a `yes' or `no' answer but as a means of understanding ourselves. There is so much to say and I must be brief. I can only give hints, point out certain significances, I cannot go into the whole problem, because it is immense. I do not know whether you see it in the same way I do. First of all, let us put aside the superficial responses and reactions to this question, one of which is that the person who wants a good time does not bother about reincarnation, about life after death. The person has a good time anyway, which means that he is not afraid to act as he pleases or else he is so stupid that he feels no responsibility for his actions. After all if you have to pay for your actions you are going to be very careful. If, in the business world, you know a mistake will make you lose, whether a small or a large amount, you will be very, very careful. So, fear has been used as a means to control man; that is what religions have done, what society does through its code of morality. For the moment we are not concerned with that aspect of the question. Neither are we concerned with belief, because belief, to a man who is seeking truth, has no significance whatever, as belief is merely a security, an anchorage, a haven. A man who seeks truth must travel the uncharted seas; he has no harbours, he has no havens, he must go out to explore. So, we can put aside also this aspect of the problem.

Two things are implied in this question: continuation, and cause and effect. With regard to continuation, we must consider the idea that there is in each one of us a spiritual essence which continues. Now let us examine that idea. First, it is said in books and you also feel that there is a spiritual structure which continues after death. Please do not be on the defensive; I want to find out the truth about it. To accept an authority is to stop all thinking process. So, we are not going to accept what the sacred books say nor what you feel because after all what you feel is based on your desire for security. Now, is there a spiritual essence in man? Please consider the implications. All that is spiritual is in essence timeless, it is eternal. Surely, if that is so, the timeless, the eternal is beyond birth and death it is beyond time and space. So, you need not worry about things that are beyond time. It is not your concern. If it is timeless, if it is eternal, it is birthless and deathless, it has no time. If it has no time, it means there is no continuity; then why do you hold on to it? If it is timeless, it would not be continuous. But to you it is of time, because you cling to it. Therefore, it is not timeless. Therefore it is not spiritual in essence; because you have created it, therefore you cling to it. If it were real, it would be beyond your control. If it is true, you do not know it and, as I said before, if you know it, it is not true, and yet you cling to it. You say that there is a spiritual essence, which is the I, and that it continues, and at the same time you say it is timeless. So you have to understand the problem of continuity, which implies death, in order to know whether there is a spiritual entity or not. You have to understand death, which means you have to understand the whole problem of continuity. What continues in our everyday life? Memory through your own continuity, through your family, your belief; and as we seek continuity, psychological and physiological, we are afraid of death. Therefore, we want continuity. If continuity of this physical existence is denied us, we seek continuity in what we call `God.' Therefore, when we talk of reincarnation, we actually seek continuity.

Now, what is it that continues? You, that is, your thinking, your memories, your day to day experiences. I identify myself with my memories, my property, my family, my beliefs and I continue and I want to be sure that that which continues, goes on. Therefore, I do not want to die, yet I know that I am going to die. So, how can I find continuity? Therefore, my problem is not to discover the truth about reincarnation, but to ensure my continuity. What is it which we say continues? What is that to which we hold on so desperately, so fearfully, so anxiously? Are they not memories? Sirs, remove your memories, and where are you? And those memories are given life by constant accumulation and by constant recollection. Memory in itself has no substance, no vitality. The moment I say `I remember' I am identifying myself with the past. That is, as long as a man who is the result of the past, is concerned with the results of the past, there must be continuity. And what happens to that which continues. Nothing, for it is only a habit. Habit is the only thing that can continue, and to which you give life from time to time. So, the thing which continues is memory, a dead thing to which you give life, which means that through a series of habits, accumulations and idiosyncrasies, the experiences are translated to produce all that you wish to have continued. Moreover, that which continues decays. That which is continuous is non-creative.

So, this is what is principally involved in the question of reincarnation and this is the truth of it; not what a man says about it that it is a fact. If we really go into it, if we are aware of its significance, we will find that, that which is spiritual is timeless and therefore beyond our reach and therefore beyond continuity; for continuity is time - yesterday, today and tomorrow. And the more we cling to that spiritual essence, the more we are really distracted from it by false action, because the timeless cannot be known by the known. You talk about the spiritual essence, which is the I, therefore you must know it, therefore it is not the truth. I am not describing something which is not. Memory by itself is a dead thing. We give it life because it gratifies us. But where there is gratification there must be continuity, and gratification soon ends, but we revive it in another form, and so we keep going. And what is continuous is not immortal, what is continuous does not renew itself. It merely continues as a habit. It is only in renewal that there is creation, there is reality; but only in ending there is renewal, not in continuity. See the trees, they drop their leaves and fresh leaves come. They do not continue. Because we are afraid, we cling to our memories and a man who is living as a continuity is a dead man and I am afraid that is what we are doing.

In this question there is also the problem of cause and effect. Are cause and effect two separate things or are they interrelated? The effect becomes the cause. So, there is never a moment which is alone either effect or cause. So, cause and effect are completely interrelated. They are not two separate processes; they are one because the effect has become the cause, and what was cause has become effect; but when we view cause apart from effect, there is an illusory time interval which leads us to the wrong conclusion and on this wrong conclusion all your philosophies are based. The cause passing through time becomes modified. The moment there is an effect, the cause cannot be in the distance. They are together although you may take time to perceive it. But the effect is where the cause is, that is, the moment you are aware of `what is,' which is the cause, the effect is also there. Therefore there is transformation. Please think over the implications and the real beauty of this. It means that if you understand `what is' there is immediate transformation. Therefore, there is a timeless change, not a change in time. We have been trained to believe, and we expect to change, in time, to become something tomorrow. But if you perceive the cause becoming the effect all the time and the effect becoming the cause all the time, then there is immediate understanding, therefore immediate `cessation' of cause. That is, Sirs, to make it very simple, when you are angry, instead of saying that you will do something about it tomorrow, if you would see immediately the cause of anger and recognize it, be aware of it, there would be immediate transformation, because then you are free from this idea, this illusion, this wrong way of thinking that only in time you can produce a result. The cause is in the effect. The end is in the means and so when we consider reincarnation we can consider it from both points of view, that of the believer and that of the non-believer, for both are caught in their beliefs, in their stupidity, and are therefore incapable of finding what is true. We must regard the problem as it is to ourselves. In being aware of this problem we see how marvellous a thing is self-knowledge, which is the beginning of wisdom. Self-knowledge, or seeing what is false in the I, is the beginning of intelligence; being aware of the stupid ways of thinking, is the beginning of understanding.

Question: From your talks it seems clear that reason is the chief means to acquire self-knowledge. Is this so?

Krishnamurti: What do you mean by reason? Can reason be separated from feeling? You have done it, because you have developed the intellect and nothing else. it is like a three-legged object, one leg of which is much longer than the others and therefore it cannot stay balanced. That is what has happened to us. We are highly intellectual. We are trained to be such. Our education, our way of life is geared to intellectual capacity in the highest degree. And we have used intellect as a means of finding reality. The books you read, the practices you follow, everything you do helps you to develop the intellect and therefore reason has become extraordinarily important in your life, in your devices and your actions. But intellect is only a part, not the whole. To understand reality and to reason are two different things. Without reason - at least what I mean by reason - we cannot live. Reason is balance, integration. Reason must understand reason to find reality. But reason as we know it now, is intellection and it can never yield anything but disruption, as is being seen all over the world just because the world worships intellect. Intellect is producing such havoc, degradation and misery, but that is not reason, it is merely intellectuality concerned only with the superficial, responding to the immediate challenge. But there is a reason which is integration, maturity, which is completeness. Reason must go beyond itself to find reality. To put it differently, as long as there is thinking there cannot be the real, because thinking is the product of the past, thinking is of time, the response to time, therefore thinking can never be the timeless. Thinking must come to an end. Then only can the timeless be. But the thinking process cannot be violated, suppressed, disciplined; the mind must understand itself as being the result of emotions, of memory, of the past. The mind must be aware of itself and its activities. When the mind is aware of its being, you will find that there comes an extraordinary silence, a stillness, when that which is the result of the past no longer functions, in conjunction with the present. Then there is only silence, not a hypnotic silence, but the silence which is stillness. It is in this state that creativeness can take place, and it is the real. To find this stillness, reason must transcend itself. Mere intellectuality which has no significance, has nothing to do with reality and a man who is merely logical, reasonable, who uses intellect very carefully, can never find that which is. A man who is integrated has a different kind of reasoning process, which is intelligence yet even his intelligence, his reasoning must transcend itself. Then there is stillness which is happiness, which is ecstasy.