Krishnamurti - Truth and Actuality

Truth and Actuality

Copyright 1977 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd

J. Krishnamurti

TRUTH AND ACTUALITY

E DITORS N OTES AND I NSCRIPTIONS

In Part I the discussions are taken from a series between J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm, professor of Theoretical Physics at London University. Part II is the Authentic Report of Talks and Dialogues at Brockwood Park which took place in the autumn of 1975. The Questions and Answers in Part II come from Talks at Saanen given in 1975 and 1976.

What is the relationship between truth and reality? Reality being, as we said, all the things that thought has put together. Reality means, the root meaning of that word is, things or thing. And living in the world of things, which is reality, we want to establish a relationship with a world which has no thingswhich is impossible.

Actuality means What is ... Are you facing in yourself what actually is going on ... You dont take actuality and look at it.

Man has been concerned throughout the ages to discover or live in Truth.

C. and G. W D.

CONTENTS

Part I

Chapter

What is truth and what is reality? Is there any connection? Reality as res, thingthe content of thought and consciousness.

Reality independent of thought: nature. Illusion, the false, as part of reality.

Actuality, the fact. Every thing conditioned and determining every other thing: all interrelated. Thought is part of this. Reality as experienced cannot be independent of man.

Consciousness as reality can run straight or crookedly.

The sane, whole mans thread runs straight. The sane, whole man is truth.

Truth includes all that is, it is one. Reality is multiple, conditioned. The true man comprehends reality and its conditioning.

What is the relation of the scholars knowledge of reality to truth? Can human consciousness, which is adulterated and runs false, comprehend truth? The false mirror of consciousness.

Reality creates its own energy. What is the energy of truth? Truth comprehends reality (not vice versa): then reality runs true. Meditation is not moving from one reality to another.

Insightaction not of thought but of truth.

Attempt to convey insight means a time-process. The action of reasoned thought is different from insight. Is there a thinking which is non-verbal? Has thought through which insight works a different order from other thought?

How does insight take place? There must be insight before thought realizes its limitations.

The energy and force of insight; the weight of habit and conditioning.

Thought cant dissolve conditioning. What will? Example: insight into the observer is the observed (the thinker is the thought).

Truth is different from reality but men are tied to reality. Is the energy of truth different from that of reality? The gulf between reality and truth. You come along with a basketful and I do not know how to receive it.

No path to truth in the field of reality. The drum vibrates because it is empty. Reality is everything; truth is no-thingness.

The mind must be an empty house. What is the action of that emptiness in my life?

We need truth and actuality, but our minds are occupied with reality. We seek security in reality; in nothingness there is complete security. Psychological and physical security discussed. A mind rooted in nothingness operates in the field of reality with intelligence.

To depend for security on the world of reality brings about inward disorganization.

The seed. A mystery which thought cannot touch; it is beyond the field of reality.

Limitless progress is possible in the field of reality, but the essence escapes. The truth of that mystery empties the mind. Order in reality brings a certain silence to the mind, but this is not the total silence in which the truth of that mystery is.

Part II

What is right action in this disintegrating world? The word religious. The fragmentary nature of thought. Freedom from all the things thought has created in us. The tricks of thought. You cannot go through reality to come to truth. Thought and the content of consciousness. Can there be order in the world of reality? To be aware of disorder. Reality and truth. About asking questions.

Questions: (1) Order and disorder; total perception. (2) Observation without the division caused by the me. (3) Must we always live in crisis and challenge? (4) Facing a terrible void; has life significance? (5) Thought is afraid not to think.

Can one be free of fear? Energy; the energy of duality; thought as a process of friction. Is there another kind of energy? Desire and its arising. Why is there the inward sense of lack or want? Trying to fill the void; the movement of desire as thought, time and measure.

Failure to face what is. Does desire create fear? The root of fear. Psychological time; is it a projection of thought? Thought as becoming in psychological time. Fragmentary divisions of thought.

To observe but not to analyse. Observing fear without naming, rationalizing. Pursuit of desire and pleasure. Suffering and the consciousness of man. We love God and kill human beings. Suffering; to remain solidly with it.

Another energy.

Questions about the biography (The Years of Awakening). The idea of the Bodhisattva or Avatar; the unconditioned mind.

Awareness. The question of choice. Awareness as total sensitivity. Awareness is choiceless. Attention and responding from a centre. Is there an activity which is not mechanical? Functioning from conditioning and from past experience.

Thought is mechanical. Is there a part of the mind untouched by conditioning? The mechanical must be understood first. Hurts; being hurt and past hurts.

Image-forming. Clinging to the known, the image. Seeking security in words and images. Awareness without the observer. Security and being nothing.

Questions: (1) I cannot see the whole of the observer because I only see in fragments. (2) Attention requires tremendous vitality that we dont have.

Observation must begin in relationship. To be related means to respond accurately; accuracy means with care. But one is related through images built by thought; inaccurate response. Are we aware of the images?

Are images necessary? Is life a process of infinite conflicts? Chaos caused by images. Attention, inattention and image-forming. Relationship between one with images, another without. Changing one image for another (gurus). Can thought dispel images? Burdened with the past. First step: be aware you have images. Learn about yourself, actually as you are. Dont look from the past. No authority. Psychologically the guru is me. Lack of attention and paying attention to inattention.

Three active principles: fear, pleasure, suffering. Physical and psychological suffering. Suffering distorts and darkens. Factors of suffering; attachment to ideas, persons, to the past. To remain totally with suffering. Looking at suffering without the observer. Compassion gives a different kind of energy. The creative mind. The consciousness of the world.

Death. Can time have a stop? Psychological time. The me is the essence of time. Reincarnation; resurrection. Immortality, eternity. What happens at death with the me and not me unresolved? The stream of human consciousnessthe movement of time in which all human beings are caught. The mutation in consciousness.

Questions: (1) To transform consciousness: is this an ideal? (2) The Christian message and your message: there is no message.

Truth and its world of reality. Religion as a gathering together of energy. Reality is the world of things built on thought which is material and mechanical. Truth has no place there. Need to bring about order in the world of reality. Thought has created disorder; how will order come about? The observation of disorder without thought. Can thought as time and measure come to a stop? Freedom and authority. The art of pure listening, seeing, learning. Control, comparison and attention: is a mutation possible? There is no ending in the world of reality of time. Stillness and the timeless. Significance of meditation.