Krishnamurti - Talks and Dialogues Saanen 1967

Talks and Dialogues Saanen 1967

Copyright 1968 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.

J. KRISHNAMURTI

TALKS AND DIALOGUES

SAANEN

1967

CONTENTS

TEN TALKS AT SAANEN

We are going to have ten talks so that we can take things quietly, patiently and intelligently. It behoves those of us who are serious and who have not merely come for one or two talks, out of curiosity to understand the various complications and problems that each human being has, for to understand is to resolve them and be completely free of them.

There are certain things which must be taken for granted. First we must understand what we mean by communication, what the word means to each one of us, what is involved, what is the structure, the nature, of communication. If two of us, you and I, are to communicate with each other there must not only be a verbal understanding of what is being said, at the intellectual level, but also, by implication, listening and learning. These two things, it seems to me, are essential in order that we may communicate with each other, listening and learning. Secondly, each one of us has, obviously, a background of knowledge, prejudice and experience, also the suffering and the innumerable complex issues involved in relationship. That is the background of most of us and with that background we try to listen. After all, each one of us is the result of our culturally complex lifewe are the result of the whole culture of man, with the education and the experiences of not only a few years, but of centuries.

I do not know if you have ever examined how you listen, it doesnt matter to what, whether to a bird, to the wind in the leaves, to the rushing waters, or how you listen to a dialogue with yourself, to your conversation in various relationships with your intimate friends, your wife or husband. If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult, because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate we hardly listen to what is being said. In that state there is no value at all. One listens and therefore learns, only in a state of attention, a state of silence in which this whole background is in abeyance, is quiet; then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate.

Several other things are involved. If you listen with the background or image that you may have created about the speaker, and listen as to one with certain authoritywhich the speaker may, or may not, havethen obviously you are not listening. You are listening to the projection which you have put forward and that prevents you from listening. So again, communication is not possible. Obviously, real communication or communion can only take place when there is silence. When two people are intent, seriously, to understand something, bringing their whole mind and heart, their nerves, their eyes, their ears, to understand, then in that attention there is a certain quality of silence; then actual communication, actual communion, takes place. In that there is not only learning but complete understandingand that understanding is not something different from immediate action. That is to say, when one listens without any intention, without any barrier, putting aside all opinions, conclusionsall the rest, experiencesthen, in that state one not only understands whether what is being said is true or false, but further, if it is true, there is immediate action, if it is false, there is no action at all.

During these ten talks we are going not only to learn about ourselves, which is of primary importance, but also to learn that in the very process of learning there is action. It is not a matter of learning first and acting afterwards, but rather the very act of learning is the act of doing.

For us, as we are, learning implies the accumulation of ideasideas being rationalized and carefully worked-out thought. As we learn we formulate a structure of ideas and having established a formula of ideas, ideals or conclusions, then we act. So there is action separate from idea. This is our lifewe formulate first and then try to act according to that formulation. But we are concerned with something entirely different, which is, that the act of learning is action; that in the very process of learning action is taking place and that therefore, there is no conflict.

I think it is important to understand from the very beginning that we are not formulating any philosophy, any intellectual structure of ideas or of theological or purely intellectual concepts. We are concerned with bringing about in our lives a total revolution which has nothing whatever to do with the structure of society as it is. On the contrary, unless we understand the whole psychological structure of society of which we are part, which we have put together through centuries, and are entirely free from that structure, there can be no total psychological revolutionand a revolution of that kind is absolutely essential.

You must know what is taking place in the world; of the enormous discontent boiling over and expressing itself in different waysof the hippies, the beatniks, the provos in Americaand of the wars going on, for which we are responsible. It is not only the Americans and the Vietnamese, but each one of us, who are responsible for these monstrous warsand we are not using the word responsible casually. We are responsible, whether they take place in the Middle East, or in the Far East, or anywhere else. There is great starvation going on, inefficient government and the piling up of armaments, and so on. Observing all this, one demands, naturally and humanly, that there must be change, that there must be a revolution in the way of our thinking and living. When is that revolution to begin? It has always been thought by the Communists, by the Nationalists, by all organized religious authorities, that the individual doesnt matter at all; the individual can be persuaded in any direction. Though they assert common freedom for man, they do everything to prevent that freedom. The organized religions throughout the world brainwash people to make them conform to a particular pattern, which they call religious ideas and rituals. The Communists, the Capitalists, the Socialists are not concerned with the individual at all, although they talk about him; but I dont see how a radical change can come about except through the individual. For the individual human being is the result of the total experience, knowledge and conduct of manit is in us. We are the storehouse of all the past, the racial, the family, the individuals experience of lifewe are that, and unless in the very essence of our being there is a revolution, a mutation, I do not see how a good society can come about.

When we talk about the individual, we are not opposing him to, or setting him against, the collective, the mass, the whole of mankind, because the human individual is the whole of mankind. Unless you feel that, such a statement becomes merely an intellectual concept. Unless each one of us recognizes the central fact that we as individual human beings represent the whole of mankind, whether they live in the Orient or the Occident, we shall not see how to act.

We human beings, as individuals, are totally responsible for the state of the world. Warswe are responsible for wars by the way we lead our lives, for we are nationalistic, German, French, Dutch, English, American, Russian; we are Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, belonging to Zen or this or that sect, dividing, quarrelling, fighting each other. Our gods, our nationalities, have divided us. When one realizes, not intellectually but actually, as actually as you would recognize that you are hungry, that you and I as human beings are responsible for all this chaos, for all this miserybecause we contribute to it, we are part of itwhen one realizes that, not emotionally, not intellectually, not sentimentally, but actually, then the problem becomes tremendously serious. When that realization has become so serious, you will act. Not until then, not until you feel that you are completely responsible for this monstrous society, with its wars, with its divisions, with its ugliness, brutalities, greeds, and so on, not until each one of us realizes that, will we act. And you can only act when you know how this structure, not only outwardly, but inwardly, has been put together. That is why one must know more about oneself and the more one knows about oneself the more mature one is. Immaturity lies only in ones ignorance of oneself.