Krishnamurti - Beyond Violence

T ALKS IN S ANTA M ONICA , C ALIFORNIA , M ARCH 1970

Existence

Technologically, man has advanced incredibly, yet he remains as he has been for thousands of years, fighting, greedy, envious, burdened with great sorrow.

I would like to talk about the whole problem of existence. Probably you know as well as the speaker what is actually taking place in the worldutter chaos, disorder, violence, extreme forms of brutality, riots ending up in war. Our lives are extraordinarily difficult, confused and contradictory, not only in ourselves, inside the skin as it were, but also outwardly. There is utter destruction. All the values are changing from day to day, there is no respect, no authority, and nobody has faith in anything whatsoever; neither in the Church, nor in the establishment, nor in any philosophy. So one is left absolutely to oneself to find out what one is to do in this chaotic world. What is the right action?if there is such a thing as right action.

I am sure each one of us asks what is the right conduct. This is a very serious question, and I hope those of you who are here are really serious, because this is not a gathering for philosophical or religious entertainment. We are not indulging in any theory, in any philosophy, or bringing from the East some exotic ideas. What we are going to do together is to examine the facts as they are, very closely, objectively, non-sentimentally, unemotionally. And to explore in that way, there must be freedom from prejudice, freedom from any conditioning, from any philosophy, from any belief; we are going to explore together very slowly, patiently, hesitantly, to find out. It is like good scientists looking through a microscope and seeing exactly the same thing. Because if you are a scientist in the laboratory using a microscope, you must show what you see to another scientist, so that both of you see exactly what is. And that is what we are going to do. There is not your microscope, or the speakers: there is only one precision instrument through which we are going to observe and learn in the observationnot learn according to your temperament, your conditioning, or to your particular form of belief, but merely observe what actually is, and thereby learn. And in the learning is the doing; learning is not separate from action.

So what we are going to do first is to understand what it means to communicate. Inevitably we have to use words, but it is much more important to go beyond the words. Which means that you and the speaker are going to take a journey of investigation together, where each one of us is in constant communion with the other; that is sharing together, exploring together, observing together. For that word communication means partaking, sharing. Therefore there is no teacher or disciple, there is not the speaker to whom you listen, either agreeing or disagreeingwhich would be absurd. If we are communicating, then there is no question of agreement or disagreement, because both of us are looking, both of us are examining, not from your point of view, or from the speakers point of view.

That is why it is very important to find out how to observe, how to look with clear eyes, how to listen so that there is no distortion. It is your responsibility as well as the speakers to share together; we are going to work together. This must be very clearly understood from the beginning: we are not indulging in any form of sentimentality or emotionalism.

If this is clear, that you and the speaker, being free from our prejudices, from our beliefs, from our particular conditioning and knowledge, are free to examine, then we can proceed, bearing in mind that we are using a precision instrumentthe microscopeand that you and the speaker must see the same thing; otherwise it will not be possible to communicate. As this is a very serious matter, you must not only be free to examine it but free to apply it, free to test it out in daily life; not keep it merely as a theory or as a principle towards which you are working.

Now let us look at what is actually going on in the world; there is violence of every kind, not only outwardly but also in our relationship with each other. There are infinite nationalistic and religious divisions between people, each against the other, both politically and individually. Seeing this vast confusion, this immense sorrow, what are you to do? Can you look to anybody to tell you what to do: to the priest, to the specialist, to the analyst? They have not brought about peace or happiness, joy, freedom to live. So where are you to look? If you assume the responsibility of your own authority as an individual, because you no longer have any faith in outward authoritywe are using the word authority advisedly in a particular sense of that wordthen you as an individual, will you look for your own authority inwardly?