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The purpose of this video
is to introduce the teachings of J. Krishnamurti.
The video doesn't cover the whole of Krishnamurti's teachings
but rather offers a glimpse of his unique approach
to the resolution of many problems that burden humanity.
The following short excerpts have been taken
from some of Krishnamurti's public talks.
J. Krishnamurti was born in Madanapalle,
north of Madras, India, on May 12th 1895.
He was the eighth child of a poor Brahmin family
and at that time his father worked for the Theosophical Society,
a vast international spiritual organisation
with tens of thousands of members.
The Society, whose goal is the unification
of the main world religions,
had predicted the coming of a World Teacher,
through whom a revolutionary spiritual teaching
would come into being.
Krishnamurti's mother died in 1905,
leaving the father in charge of their five surviving children.
In 1909 the family settled in Adyar,
close to the Society's headquarters.
Not long after, Krishnamurti,
while playing on the beach with his brother Nitya,
was discovered by the Theosophists
who claimed that his aura showed extraordinary features
and a total absence of selfishness.
From that day on Krishnamurti was educated with great care
to become the World Teacher.
He was a shy and vulnerable child, often aloof,
and his educators decided that his brother Nitya
would remain with him as a caring companion.
In 1914 the two brothers were sent
to London to complete their studies.
Krishnamurti's reputation was spreading rapidly
through the Theosophical world
and he soon became the subject of growing worship.
However, in 1921 at the age of 26 and at the same time
that his responsibilities within the organisation
had increased considerably,
he was beginning to have serious doubts about his role
and began to question the basic Theosophical teachings.
In 1924, during a stay in Ojai, California,
Krishnamurti underwent a deep and revealing spiritual experience
which completely transformed him.
The following year the unexpected death of his brother Nitya
had a revealing effect on him
with regard to the functioning of the human psyche,
which further increased his doubts about the role
the Theosophists wanted him to play.
Nevertheless, Krishnamurti continued performing his function
as World Teacher with the Theosophists until 1929
when he decided to sever all links with the organisation.
The speech he gave at the Ommen convention
finalised the break
and constitutes the basis of the teachings
he would be developing through the rest of his life.
'I maintain that truth is a pathless land
and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever,
by any religion, by any sect'.
In his speech, Krishnamurti develops the notion that truth,
being infinite, unconditioned, cannot be organised,
because any organisation created for this purpose
becomes a crutch for those who use it as a shelter,
thereby destroying their freedom.
From 1929, and for the rest of his life,
Krishnamurti went on a solitary crusade throughout the world,
developing the various themes of his teachings
and drawing ever larger audiences.
As the years passed a number of activities were created
in the wake of Krishnamurti,
such as the recording and publishing of his talks,
interviews, conversations, and writings,
as well as several schools based on his teachings.
Foundations and committees were created
in various parts of the world
for the sole purpose of sustaining
and protecting these activities
and ensuring the integrity of the teachings.
The theme of freedom can be found
throughout Krishnamurti's teachings.
The following are a few excerpts
of what he said on this subject in his talks,
conversations, and dialogues
that may illuminate the real meaning of freedom
in one's own life
and also point the way for one to realise it.
For most of us, we demand freedom
politically, or religiously,
or to think what we like,
and there is the freedom of choice.
Political freedom is all right,
and one must have it,
but for most of us we never demand and find out
whether it is at all possible to be free inwardly.
Our mind is a slave to its own projections,
to its own demands,
to its own desires and fulfilments;
the mind is a slave to its cravings,
to its appetites.
And apparently we never ask
whether it is at all possible to be free inwardly,
but we are always wanting freedom outwardly,
to go against the society,
against a particular structure of society.
What is society?
Who created the bally thing?
Who is responsible for all this?
The church, the temple, the mosque - you follow? -
all the circus that goes on inside it -
who is responsible for all this?
Is the society different from you?
Or you have created the society,
each one of us,
through our ambition, through our greed,
through our envy, through our violence,
through our corruption, through our fear,
wanting our security in the community, in the nation.
You follow?
We have created this society,
and then blame the society for what it demands.
So this is really a very serious question one must ask of oneself:
whether freedom is from bondage or from the prison
which we have created for ourselves,
away from the prison
and therefore it is still within the area of the prison.
If one is in a prison,
both physically and inwardly, subjectively,
then physical control,
being enclosed within a certain area,
and to escape from that, one calls freedom.
And psychologically one has built
a prison for oneself,
by one's own desires, by one's own anxieties,
loneliness, and so on.
And freedom from that is still
within the area of that psychological prison,
therefore it is not freedom at all.
So is there a freedom that is not a reaction
- a freedom per se, for itself,
not away from something or from something?
So one must understand for oneself
why we are always trying to escape,
or to rationalise, or to go beyond that which is.
If one understands that which is,
understand not merely intellectually, verbally
but see the depth of it, see the truth of it,
the substance of it, the vitality of it,
then observe, perceiving that, and remaining with that,
and explore into that movement,
learning, not memorising
- from that, if one goes very deeply,
then there is freedom per se.
While Krishnamurti's teaching points to the way
self-centred thought in search of individual security
creates the fear and mental disorder
which block access to freedom,
his teachings also emphasise
that when there is a profound understanding
of the source and nature of these thought-created blocks
it's possible for a human being to end them,
and that freedom then may come uninvited.
Regarding fear, Krishnamurti begins by seeking its causes.
So let's go into this question: what is the root of fear?
Is it thought?
Thought being the accumulated memories
born of knowledge, experience.
And thought born of knowledge,
and knowledge being limited,
so thought is limited.
Is fear,
subjectively first, inwardly first,
is that fear born of thought
- thinking about tomorrow,
thinking about what might happen?
One's wife may run away.
Thinking in terms of not the actual present
but in terms of the future or the past.
Is that the cause of fear - thought?
If it is the cause of fear
- which the speaker says is, and please don't accept it -
then what will you do with thought?
And then one asks:
is there another cause of fear?
Time.
Time is a movement, a series of movements.
And time, which is tomorrow
- I might lose my job,
I might become blind, all the rest of it - tomorrow.
So time is a factor of fear.
Right?
So time and thought are the roots of fear.
Krishnamurti shows how the root
of human insecurity, fear and violence,
is found in self-centred psychological thought.
Krishnamurti also points to the useful role of thought
in one's daily activities and its necessary role
in creating and organising technology,
and science, and so on.
Thought has created the most marvellous world technologically
- right? - the incredible things thought has done,
in the world of medicine, surgery, in homeopathy
- all right? -
in producing instruments of war,
and so on - the computer.
We will talk about the computer a little later. Great fun, that!
And thought also has created a division between you and me,
my wife and me - you follow? -
this whole process of division is going on throughout life.
Is thought the cause of it?
Please look at it carefully, let's find out.
If thought is the cause of this divisive process
then we will have to ask a question
which is much more serious:
whether thought can ever function in one area completely,
in the physical world, in the daily world,
but completely end in the psychological world.
For Krishnamurti this character of psychological thought
with its division and resulting fragmentation
can only lead to conflict.
So what is our responsibility
- we will come very near home -
what is our responsibility when you see this thing going on?
If I belong to a certain tribe, called nationalism,
a certain religious sect,
which brings about division and therefore conflict,
I either accept that conflict
and follow the usual traditional path
or I no longer belong to any country
- actually not belong to any country,
to any tribe, to any group,
to any sect - right? - or to any religion,
because they are the factors of division
and therefore conflict.
According to Krishnamurti,
true understanding of human psychological blocks
may take place only when one sees oneself with an eye
that is choicelessly aware,
with a perception wherein the observer
is seen to be not different from the observed.
Therefore it is very important, imperative,
that one understand oneself deeply,
understand all the responses,
the conditioning,
the various temperaments,
characteristics, tendencies
- just to watch without the observer.
We are meeting now?
To observe without the observer.
And that is the act of learning.
And so that is the action.
One of Krishnamurti's priorities is education.
He replied as follows to a question
put to him on this subject.
Apparently this is a question
that is asked by every parent in the world:
children, and how can we help them to be intelligent,
and free, and responsible human beings in today's world?
Are the parents intelligent and free?
Are the teachers intelligent, and free, and responsible?
Is the society, the educational system helping them
to be free, and responsible, and intelligent?
So, education means
a holistic approach to life,
cultivating the brain technologically
and also cultivating the brain
to be free of its own petty little self.
That requires teachers who understand this,
who are committed, who are responsible.
And the parents, they must love their children.
Krishnamurti approaches the question of death
from a new point of view.
Notwithstanding physical death, which is fairly obvious,
he relates the phrase 'the death of the ego'
to the end of attachments.
Time is contained - the past, the future is now.
So death is now.
That means if I am attached to my wife,
to my something or other, to my furniture
- aren't you attached to something? -
and death comes and says: 'That is the end of it' - cuts it.
So can you be free of the attachment?
Therefore you are living then, living and dying at the same time.
You understand this? Oh, no! (Laughter)
Do it, sir, you will see what an extraordinary thing it is then.
If you are attached to your memories, to your experience,
to your failure, to your ambition,
all that is going to come to an end.
So can you live with death, which is to end your ambition now?
And to live without ambition means tremendous energy
- not to do more mischief.
So death and life always march together.
Then you will see...
then there is that sense of absolute freedom,
from the little travail of myself.
And that is necessary
to understand that which is timeless,
if there is such thing as eternity.
We will talk about it another time,
but to see all this as a movement of life
- dying and living.
Therefore in that sense things become...
you will never kill another,
never deliberately hurt another.
The outcome of this search is freedom,
which is realised in ongoing meditation
and leads to the discovery of love,
a discovery of the true religious mind.
And to understand what love is - not understand,
you know, have the depth of it, the greatness of it,
the flame of it, the beauty of it -
how can there be jealousy,
how can there be ambition,
aggression, violence?
And can there be...
can one be free completely of all these things?
Please do ask this question.
Where there is love then there is...
do what you will, it will be right action,
it will never bring conflict in one's life.
So it is important to see
that jealousy, antagonism, conflict,
and all the pain of relationship has no place in love,
where there is love.
And can one be free of all that,
not tomorrow, now?
Now, to find out what is the religious mind,
what is the truth of religion,
one must be free from all authority, of all belief, faith,
not belong to a thing.
Right?
There must be a sense of total... being free.
So meditation is something... to be totally free,
from all bondage, from all measurement, from all conflict,
so the brain becomes quiet, utterly still.
And that silence, stillness has its own beauty,
its own truth, its absolute sense of...
immeasurable thing.
So meditation is not a reward,
is not something that you get illumined by practising,
which is all so childish.
So truth is something which is not to be measured
and it has no path to it.
And that is beauty, that is love.
Krishnamurti pursued his activities
until the very end of his life.
He died in February 1986, and to this day
Krishnamurti foundations and schools
continue his teachings.