Krishnamurti - The Impossible Question

The Impossible Question

Copyright 1972 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd

The Impossible Question

Krishnamurti

We are always putting the question of what is possible. If you put an impossible question, your mind then has to find the answer in terms of the impossiblenot of what is possible.

CONTENTS

PART ONE

If you are really serious, then when you look the old momentum comes to an end.

The dependence on any form of subjective imagination, fantasy or knowledge, breeds fear and destroys freedom.

Analysis is never complete; the negation of that incomplete action is total action.

A problem only arises when life is seen fragmentarily. Do see the beauty of that.

If one is going to understand and be free of fear, one should also understand pleasure; they are interrelated.

A mind that has understood the whole movement of thought becomes extraordinarily quiet, absolutely silent.

Religion is the quality that makes for a life in which there is no fragmentation whatsoever.

PART TWO

PART ONE

Talks and Questions

THE ACT OF LOOKING

If you are really serious, then when you look the old momentum comes to an end.

In a world that is so utterly confused and violent, where there is every form of revolt and a thousand explanations for these revolts, it is hoped that there will be social reformation, different realities and greater freedom for man. In every country, in every clime, under the banner of peace, there is violence; in the name of truth there is exploitation, misery; there are the starving millions; there is suppression under great tyrannies, there is much social injustice. There is war, conscription and the evasion of conscription. There is really great confusion and terrible violence; hatred is justified; escapism in every form is accepted as the norm of life. When one is aware of all this, one is confused, uncertain as to what to do, what to think, what part to play. What is one to do? Join the activists or escape into some kind of inward isolation? Go back to the old religious ideas? Start a new sect, or carry on with ones own prejudices and inclinations? Seeing all this, one naturally wants to know for oneself what to do, what to think, how to live a different kind of life.

If during these talks and discussions we can find a light in ourselves, a way of living in which there is no violence whatsoever, a way of life which is utterly religious and therefore without fear, a life that is inwardly stable, which cannot be touched by outward events, then I think they will be eminently worthwhile. Can we give complete and sensitive attention to what we are going to discuss? We are working together to find out how to live in peace. It is not that the speaker tells you what to do, what to thinkhe has no authority, no philosophy.

There is the difficulty that ones brain functions in old habits, like a gramophone record playing the same tune over and over again. While the noise of that tune, of that habit is going on, one is not capable of listening to anything new. The brain has been conditioned to think in a certain way, to respond according to our culture, tradition and education; that same brain tries to listen to something new and is not capable of it. That is where our difficulty is going to lie. A talk recorded on a tape can be wiped out and begun again; unfortunately the recording on the tape of the brain has been impressed on it for so long that it is very difficult to wipe it out and begin again. We repeat the same pattern, the same ideas and physical habits, over and over again, so we never catch anything fresh.

I assure you one can put aside the old tape, the old way of thinking, feeling, reacting, the innumerable habits that one has. One can do it if one really gives attention. If the thing one is listening to is deadly serious, tremendously important, then one is bound to listen so that the very act of listening will wipe out the old. Do try itor rather do it. You are deeply interested, otherwise you would not be here. Do listen with full attention, so that in the very act of listening the old memories, the old habits, the accumulated tradition, will all be wiped away.

One has to be serious when confronted with the chaos in the world, the uncertainty, warfare and destruction, where every value has been thrown away in a society which is completely permissive, sexually and economically. There is no morality, no religion; everything is being thrown away and one has to be utterly, deeply serious; if you have that seriousness in your heart, you will listen. It depends on you, not on the speaker, whether you are sufficiently serious to listen so completely as to find out for yourself a light that can never be put out, a way of living that does not depend on any idea, on any circumstance, a way of life that is always free, new, young, vital.

If you have the quality of mind that wants to find out at any price, then you and the speaker can work together and come upon this strange thing that will solve all our problemswhether they be the problems of the daily monotony of life or problems of the most serious nature.

Now how do we go about it? I feel there is only one way, that is: through negation to come to the positive; through understanding what it is not, to find out what it is. To see what one actually is and go beyond that. Start looking at the world and all the events of the world, at the things that are going on; see if ones relation to that is either with or without separation. One can look at the worlds events as though they did not concern one as an individual, yet try to shape them, try to do something about them. In that way, there is a division between oneself and the world. One can look that way with ones experience and knowledge, with ones particular idiosyncrasies, prejudices and so on; but it is looking as one separated from the world. One has to find out how to look so that one sees all the things that are happening, outside or inside oneself, as a unitary process, as a total movement. Either one looks at the world from a particular point of viewtaking a stand verbally, ideologically, committed to a particular action and therefore isolated from the restor one looks at this whole phenomenon as a living, moving process, a total movement of which one is a part and from which one is not divided. What one is, is the result of culture, religion, education, propaganda, climate, foodone is the world and the world is oneself. Can one see the totality of thisnot what one should do about it? Does one have this feeling of the wholeness of mankind? It is not a question of identifying oneself with the world, because one is the world. War is the result of oneself. The violence, the prejudice, the appalling brutality that is going on, is part of oneself.

So it depends on how you look at this phenomenon, both inwardly and outwardly, and also on how serious you are. If you are really serious, then when you look, the old momentumthe repetition of the old patterns, the old ways of thinking, living and actingcomes to an end. Are you serious to find out a way of life in which all this turmoil, this misery and sorrow does not exist? For most of us the difficulty lies in being free of the old habits of thought: I am something, I want to fulfil myself, I want to become, I believe in my opinions, This is the way, I belong to this particular sect. The moment you take a stand you have separated yourself and have therefore become incapable of looking at the total process.

As long as there is the fragmentation of life, both outwardly and inwardly, there must be confusion and war. Do please see this with your heart. Look at the war that is going on in the Middle East. You know all this; there are volumes written explaining it all. We are caught by the explanationsas though any explanation is ever going to solve anything. It is essential to realize that one must not be caught in explanations, it does not matter who gives them. When you see what is it does not demand an explanation; the man who does not see what is is lost in explanations. Please do see this; understand this so fundamentally that you are not caught by words.