Krishnamurti - Talks with American Students

Talks with American Students

Copyright 1970 by the Krishnamurti Foundation, London

TALKS WITH

AMERICAN STUDENTS

J. KRISHNAMURTI

CONTENTS

TALKS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO,

SAN JUAN

Most of us in this confused and brutal world try to carve out a private life of our own, a life in which we can be happy and peaceful and yet live with the things of this world. We seem to think that the daily life we lead, the life of struggle, conflict, pain and sorrow, is something separate from the outer world of misery and confusion. We seem to think the individual, the you, is different from the rest of the world with all its atrocities, wars and riots, inequality and injustice and that this is something entirely different from our particular individual life. When you look a little more closely, not only at your own life but also at the world, you will see that what you areyour daily life, what you think, what you feelis the external world, the world about you. You are the world, you are the human being that has made this world of utter disorder, the world that is crying helplessly in great sorrow. It is you, the human being that has built this world. So that world outside you is not different from the world in which you live your private life.

This division between the individual and society does not really exist at all. When one tries to carve out a life of ones own, the individual is not different from the community in which he lives. For the individual, the human being, has constructed the community, society. I think we ought to be very clear from the beginning that this division is artificial, utterly unreal.

In bringing about a radical change in the human being, in you, you are naturally bringing about a radical change in the structure and the nature of society. I think it must be very clearly understood, that the human mind, with all its complexity, its intricate work, is part of this external world. The you is the world and, in bringing about a fundamental revolutionneither Communist, nor socialist, but a totally different kind of revolution, within the very structure and nature of the psyche, of yourselfyou will bring about a social revolution. It must begin, not outwardly but inwardly, because the outer is the result of our private, inner life.

When there is a radical revolution in the very nature of thought, feeling and action, then obviously there will be a change in the structure of society. This complete change in the structure of society must come about. Social morality is not moral. To be completely moral one must deny social morality. This means that the individual, the you has to go into the whole structure of himself; he must understand himself, not according to any philosopher, nor priest, nor analyst, whoever he may be. He must understand himself as he is, not according to somebody else. When we understand ourselves, the authority of any specialist, psychosociological or any other, comes to an end. I feel this must be understood by each one of us before we go any further. Because most of us, unfortunately, are slaves to other peoples ideas. Most of us are so easily persuaded, influenced by the specialist, by authority. Especially when we are going into this question of understanding ourselves, which is of primary importance, there is no authority whatsoever, because you have to understand yourself and not somebody else or what somebody else says about you. I think this is really a very important thing to grasp, because, as I said just now, we easily accept, we so easily obey, conform, and acquiesce in authority, whether it is the authority of the Church or of some spiritual leader or some analytical specialist. I think one has to discard all that, totally, because the authority that has been exercised and the obedience on the part of each one of us to a conceptual ideal, has brought about a great deal of misery in the world.

I do not know if you have observed how the world is divided into nationalities, religious groups, various categories of races, prejudices, with one religion against another, one God opposed to another God. You must have observed this. And yet having observed, knowing how this creates misery, conflict and division throughout the world, you go on adhering to your particular nationality, your particular religious concepts, your beliefs which all bring about division between man and man. Unfortunately, we accept the authority established by the tradition of society or the Church, the dictates of the authoritarian hierarchy of organized religion. But we do refuse to accept political tyranny. We do not accept that anybody should deny us the right to speak freely or to think what we wish to think. Unfortunately we do not exercise that same freedom with regard to spiritual matters. This has led throughout the world to untold misery and division among people.

If we would understand ourselves, which is absolutely essentialbecause without understanding ourselves we have no basis for thought or for clear perceptionif we want to think rationally, sanely, we have to know ourselves, we have to search out the causes which make us think and do certain things, to find out why we are aggressive, brutal, acquisitive, dominating, possessive, as these characteristics are all causes of conflict between human beings. And when we wish to bring about a social change, which must take place, surely it must begin in the human mind, not in the outward structure of society. Once again, this must be clearly understood, that to bring about a radical change in the social structureso that human beings can be free, so that there are no more wars, no more division of peoples into Christians, Hindus, Muslims and so onthere must be true self-understanding, through understanding ourselves, how we are made, both biologically and psychologically. Then in the very process of understanding ourselves we shall bring about a change which will be natural, not a bloody revolution. All political, religious and economic revolutions, have produced great misery and confusion in the world. You see what is going on in the Communist world, the repression, and the return to a bourgeois state.

Seeing all this, wars, tyranny, oppression, social injustice, starvation in the East, contrasted with extreme riches, seeing all this, not merely intellectually but actually, observing it in yourself, in your daily life, you must inevitably see that there must be a radical revolution in the very activity of your daily existence. And to bring about such a change there must be self-knowledgeknowing yourself as you are, the causes of your actions, why you are aggressive, brutal, envious, full of hate, which expresses itself in the outer world. I hope this is clear, not only logically, verbally, rationally, but also because you feel it. If you do not feel acutely, intensely, the actual state of the world, the actual state of your own life, then there is escape into ideologies and theories.

You know, ideologies have no meaning whatsoever, whether they are Communist, socialist, capitalist, or religious. Ideologiesconceptual thinking with its wordshave separated man and man. You all have different ideologies, and do not see clearly for yourselves the idiocy of having ideologies. They prevent seeing what actually takes place, what actually is. Why should we have ideologies of any kind, knowing how they have divided man against man, whether of Christian, Hindu, Muslim or any other religion, each holding desperately to his belief? Why? We never question, we accept ideologies. If you question and probe deeply into this problem of ideologies you will see that they exist in order to escape from the actual.

Take for instance the whole question of violence, which is spreading throughout the world at an astonishing speed. We are violent: human beings, right through the world are violent, aggressive, brutal. That is a fact, derived, inherited from the animal world. We are violent people. We do not deal with that violence, we do not find out why we are violent and go beyond it. But we have ideas about violence, ideologies about it. We say that we should be non-violent, we should be kind, we should be gentle, we should be tender and so on; this is merely conceptual thinking, which prevents us from coming into contact with ourselves when we are violent. That is fairly clear, isnt it?