| The very living spreads its perfume Posted: Question: I would like to help you by doing propaganda for your teachings. Can you advise the best way? Krishnamurti: To be a propagandist is to be a liar. (Laughter.) Don't laugh, Sirs. Because, propaganda is merely repetition, and repetition of a truth is a lie. When you repeat what you consider to be the truth, then it ceases to be the truth. Say, for instance, you repeat the truth concerning man's relationship to property, the truth which you have not discovered for yourself; what value has it? Repetition has no value; it merely dulls the mind, and you can only repeat a lie. You cannot repeat truth, because truth is never constant. Truth is a state of experiencing, and what you can repeat is a static state; therefore it is not the truth. Please do see the importance of this. We are so used to being propagandists, to reading newspapers, to telling others about everything. The propagandist is a mere repeater, not a teller of truth; therefore, propaganda does infinite damage in the world. The lecturer who goes out doing propaganda for an idea is really a destroyer of thought, because he just repeats his own or somebody else's experience. But truth cannot be repeated, truth must be experienced from moment to moment by each one. Now, with that understanding, what can you do to help this teaching, to further this teaching? All that you can do is to live it; however little you understand, however tiny a part, live it completely - not superficially, but deeply, fully, as vitally, as intrinsically, as enthusiastically as possible. Then, like a flower in a garden, that very living spreads its perfume. You don't have to do propaganda for the jasmine. The jasmine itself does the propaganda; its beauty, its perfume, its loveliness, tells the story. When you have not that loveliness, that beauty, you do propaganda for it, but the moment you have understood a little, you talk about it, preach it, shout it; because of your own understanding, you help another to understand, and therefore understanding spreads more and more, it moves further and further afield. Surely, that is the only way to do what you call `propaganda' - which is an ugly word. Sir, how does a new thought spread, a living thought, not a dead thought? Surely, not through propaganda. Systems spread through propaganda, but not a living thought. A living thought is spread by a living person, one who lives that thought. Without living it, you cannot spread a living thought; but the moment you live it, you will see. It is like the bees coming to the flower. The flower need not do propaganda for its honey - the bees know it, they come because there is nectar. But without that nectar, to do propaganda is to deceive people, to exploit people, to cause division among people, to create envy and antagonism. But if there is that nectar of understanding, however little, then it spreads like fire. You know how honey is secured, how many journeys a bee makes from the beehive to the flower, how it collects honey a little at a time. Similarly, if there is nectar, if there is beauty, if there is understanding in our hearts, that itself will perform the miracle of completely revolutionizing the world. - Bombay 10th Public Talk 14th March, 1948 Commentaries On Living |
| Meditation, prayers and freedom Posted: The whole of the Orient is mesmerized by the word meditation, and in the Occident, the word prayer is of tremendous importance. It is essential to find out whether the mind - which is so very complex, and then caught in a system of what is called meditation, or in a repetition of words, however ancient, however meaningful as prayer - whether the mind can actually know what meditation is, or what lies beyond the word prayer, and discover an actual state that is really silent. It is only when the mind is silent that we can understand anything. If I want to understand somebody, my mind must be quiet, not chattering, not prejudiced, not having innumerable opinions and experiences, for they prevent the observation and the understanding. One can see directly that it is only when the mind is very quiet that there is a possibility of clarity; and the whole purpose of meditation in the East is to bring about such a state of mind. That purpose is the controlling of thought - which is the same purpose in constantly repeating a prayer - so that in that quiet state one may hope to understand one's problems. One has to understand these problems, one has to be free of the anxieties and fears which they entail, otherwise one cannot really be a human being, one is a tortured entity, and the tortured entity obviously cannot see anything serious very clearly. Unless one lays the foundation - which is to be free from fear, free from sorrow, anxiety, and all the traps that consciously or unconsciously one lays for oneself - I do not see how it is possible for a mind to be actually quiet. This is one of the most difficult things to communicate, or even to talk about. - Talks in Europe 1967 4th Public Talk Paris 27th April 1967 Collected Works Volume 4 |
| Sex and Love Posted: Questioner: Can there be sex without this desire of thought? Krishnamurti: You have to find out for yourself. Sex plays an extraordinarily important part in our lives because it is perhaps the only deep, firsthand experience we have. Intellectually and emotionally we conform, imitate, follow, obey. There is pain and strife in all our relationships, except in the act of sex. This act, being so different and beautiful, we become addicted to, so it in turn becomes a bondage. The bondage is the demand for its continuation - again the action of the centre which is divisive. One is so hedged about - intellectually, in the family, in the community, through social morality, through religious sanctions - so hedged about that there is only this one relationship left in which there is freedom and intensity. Therefore we give tremendous importance to it. But if there were freedom all around then this would not be such a craving and such a problem. We make it a problem because we can't get enough of it, or because we feel guilty at having got it, or because in getting it we break the rules which society has laid down. It is the old society which calls the new society permissive because for the new society sex is a part of life. In freeing the mind from the bondage of imitation, authority, conformity and religious prescriptions, sex has its own place, but it won't be all-consuming. From this one can see that freedom is essential for love not the freedom of revolt, not the freedom of doing what one likes nor of indulging openly or secretly one's cravings, but rather the freedom which comes in the understanding of this whole structure and nature of the centre. Then freedom is love. - J. Krishnamurti The Urgency of Change, |
| The mind is always seeking something Posted: Question: I have listened to you for many years and I have become quite good at watching my our thoughts and being aware of every thing I do, but I have never touched the deep waters or experienced the transformation of which you speak. Why? Krishnamurti: I think it is fairly clear why none of us do experience something beyond the mere watching. There may be rare moments of an emotional state in which we see, as it were, the clarity of the sky between clouds, but I do not mean anything of that kind. All such experiences are temporary and have very little significance. The questioner wants to know why, after these many years of watching, he hasn't found the deep waters. Why should he find them? Do you understand? You think that by watching your own thoughts you are going to get a reward: if you do this, you will get that. You are really not watching at all, because your mind is concerned with gaining a reward. You think that by watching, by being aware, you will be more loving, you will suffer less, be less irritable, get something beyond; so your watching is a process of buying. With this coin you are buying that, which means that your watching is a process of choice; therefore it isn't watching, it isn't attention. To watch is to observe without choice, to see yourself as you are without any movement of desire to change, which is an extremely arduous thing to do; but that doesn't mean that you are going to remain in your present state. You do not know what will happen if you see yourself as you are without wishing to bring about a change in that which you see. Do you understand? I am going to take an example and work it out, and you will see. Let us say I am violent, as most people are. Our whole culture is violent; but I won't enter into the anatomy of violence now, because that is not the problem we are considering. I am violent, and I realize that I am violent. What happens? My immediate response is that I must do something about it, is it not? I say I must become non-violent. That is what every religious teacher has told us for centuries: that if one is violent one must become non-violent. So I practise, I do all the ideological things. But now I see how absurd that is, because the entity who observes violence and wishes to change it into non-violence, is still violent. So I am concerned, not with the expression of that entity, but with the entity himself. You are following all this, I hope. Now, what is that entity who says, `I must not be violent'? Is that entity different from the violence he has observed? Are they two different states? Do you understand, sirs, or is this too abstract? It is near the end of the talk and probably you are a bit tired. Surely, the violence and the entity who says, `I must change violence into non-violence', are both the same. To recognize that fact is to put an end to all conflict, is it not? There is no longer the conflict of trying to change, because I see that the very movement of the mind not to be violent is itself the outcome of violence. So, the questioner wants to know why it is that he cannot go beyond all these superficial wrangles of the mind. For the simple reason that, consciously or unconsciously, the mind is always seeking something, and that very search brings violence, competition, the sense of utter dissatisfaction. It is only when the mind is completely still that there is a possibility of touching the deep waters. - Ojai 6th Public Talk 21st July 1955 |
| It is only the innocent mind that can be spontaneous Posted: Questioner: Is spontaneous action right action? Krishnamurti: Do you know how difficult it is to be really spontaneous? When we are so conditioned by society, when we live on memory, on the past, how can we possibly be spontaneous? Surely, to do something spontaneously is to act without motive, without calculation, without any self-interested feeling. It is not self-centred action. You just do it out of the fullness of your being. But to be really spontaneous requires stripping yourself completely of the past. It is only the innocent mind that can be spontaneous. - Saanen 9th Public Talk 25th July 1963 Collected Works |
