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Discipline comes naturally when there is learning
Jiddu Krishnamurti, Ojai 1966, 2nd of 6 talks

California has one of the most beautiful climates in the world, perhaps rather hot, especially in the south; and it seems to me it should produce a marvoulous society, a society which is totally different from that which it is now; a society which is highly disciplined - I am using that word with great care, and we shall go into the meaning of the word presently - a society that's not wholly materialistic, as it is now; a society that is not self-centered in its progressive acquisitiveness; a society that has deep inward life, not everlasting entertainment, amusement, and various forms of thrills.

It seems to me (...), the world is looking and more or less copying America, trying to bring about prosperity. The world of cinema, the world of entertainment, football (...) are being imitated all over the world. And one asks oneself, if one is at all serious, (...) this real question. What is America producing, apart from cars, going to the moon, technological advancement, prosperity, great concerts, museums, (...); what is it actually giving? Apart from literature, which is a form of entertainment, apart from new sectarian dogmatism, or experimentation in the field of narcotics and LSD (...), what actually is this country bringing about?

Shouldn't we know, shouldn't we ask, shouldn't we demand, not only of ourselves, but also of those people who are attempting to create a different world, a different society, especially the politician? And the politician, obviously will never create a new world, nor the priests. One has to ask oneself, (...), and ask oneself not out of curisity but out of some deep despair and anxiety, ask oneself what it is all about. Where are human beings going?

We have asked this question of some very prominent people, Americans, and unfortunately they have no answer; nor have they an answer in the East, either. They have some speculative formula, a hope; but you cannot build a society on hope, or on a formula.

A society can only be built by a small group of people, a dedicated people who are not persuaded by ambition, greed, by the principle of pleasure. And so, as you are ging to listen to these talks and discussions, (...), I wonder what your own answer is - not a speculative answer, not an answer based on hope, on some fantastic myth.

If you examine the world, (...), surely one asks oneself where the new seed is taking place - a new culture, a new society, a new mind, not fashioned by the mold of the old pattern, not belonging to any particular religion, class, sect, nor doing all the immature things that one does. (...) But of those who have perhaps put this question to themselves seriously, especially in a climate like this, where there is a great deal of leisure, where you can sit under a tree and look at the blue sky, where the climate is gentle, where there is plenty of food, clothing, great prosperity; what is the outcome of this? Is it lost? Is this country already on the decline, never having matured? And that's a difficult word also, maturity.

And who is going to answer this question? Some philosopher? Some scientist? Someone who has studied history deeply and has all the information, what this society should be, what it will become? Or shall one turn to some clairvoyant, some visionary, some phony individual with some ideas? Who is going to answer this? And it seems to me, we human beings right through the world have no faith in anything anymore, neither in the gods that man has invented out of his fear, nor in the scientist, nor in the politicians, nor in the books and the theologians with their conditioned thoughts.

As one cannot possibly put faith in any of these people, and having no fundamental faith in oneself because one is so uncertain, confused, torn by innumerable desires; as one cannot possibly allow oneself to be led by another, or follow anohter, one has to find an answer for oneself as a human being.

If you answer it as an individual, (...) then you are answering it from an inclination, from a temperament, from a conditioned, narrow little individual experience, a narrow little hope; and your answer will invariably be rather infantile, immature; it has no meaning at all because the problem is much greater than the individual mind that is tackling it.

The challenge is immense, and to meet that challenge one has to meet it with the understanding of the whole of the human world: the wars, the starvation, the underdeveloped countries, the overpopulation, the extravagance of the rich and the difference of the poor class, and so on - the world, what is going on in the world actually at the present time. If one can look at it totally, (...), look at the whole phenomenon totally, then I think we shall find the answer - which may not be according to your like and dislike, what you want it to be. Otherwise, if one doesn't find a real, significant answer to this, our live become rather shoddy, meaningless.

To understand this thing - I mean by that word understand not an intellectual comprehension; that's fairly easy, intellectually to see why all the civilisations, cultures have ended, and from that study come to a conclusion and say, "America should be this," or "The world should be that." That's not understanding. That's merely an intellectual analysis of what should be. Nor does understanding come into being with an emotional, sentimental, hopeful outlook. Understanding has nothing whatsoever to do either with the intellect or the emotions; and as most people are rather emotional, their response is sentimental, rather cruel, thoughtless.

We are using that word understanding. This takes place only when the crises is great and you have no answer to it, and therefore your mind becomes completely silent; and in that silence there is an understanding. This must have happened to all of us. When you are faced with something to which you cannot possibly find an answer, you try everything; you consult, you talk it over, you inquire, you go through all the analyses, and so on, and yet there is no answer. Suddenly, when you have put it aside, as it were, there is an understanding, there is clarity, because the mind at a certain moment has become extraordinarily quiet with regard to that problem, and it is only then that there is an understanding.

But to answer this question, which is a tremendous challenge that's going on right through the world, you have no answer. You can pretend you have an answer, or answer according to the Catholic or the Protestant ideas; then we are back again with the same old issue. But to understand this immense problem, to bring about that complete quiescence of the mind so that it can observe, not from a particular individualistic point of view, demands great discipline.

We are using that word discipline not in the military sense, nor in the orthodox religious sense. Generally that word implies conformity, cultivating certain habits, suppressing, forcing, adjusting; and all that is implied in that word discipline, generally, but we are using that word quite differently. The root meaning of that word discipline is to learn. Because if there is no right discipline, the mind cannot possibly find an answer to this, the answer in which is implied the meaning, the structure, the whole of life.

To understand there must be discipline. (...) Understanding is not the outcome of the intellect, or of emotion, of sentiment. As we said understaning comes when the mind is really very, very quiet, has no movement at all in any direction. When you observe a tree, if you have ever done it, when you look at a tree, your mind never observes the tree. It observes the image it has created about the tree, and that image is always moving; it is never quiet. It is being added to and taken away from. It is only when the mind is very quiet, really observant, without any movement, that it observes the actual fact of the tree.

Any problem, especially this problem that is confronting us, the crisis in the whole consciousness of man, can only be understood, and therefore answered radically, when that understanding is the outcome of discipline; and by discipline we do not mean drill, conformity, enforcement, adjustment through fear, through punishment, all that. Discipline comes naturally when there is learning. So, one has to go into this question of what learning is. Learning, surely, is always in the active present. I am always learning, always in the present, active. That active present of learning ceases when it has become the past: I have learned. (...)

What we generally do is, having learned, having accumulated knowledge, a technology and so on, with that we act; or in that acting after we have learned, we learn more, and add more to what we have already known. Right? This is what we are doing all the time. I learn from an experience and store that experience as memory, as knowledge, and a further experience is translated according to what I have accumulated, and so I'm always adding and therefore never learning. Learning is an active present: and therefore learning is action- not having learned, act. Then action has a totally different meaning. Then you are always learning; therefore, life is always new; therefore, there is never a moment of having learned and action from that past, and therefore conflict with the present or with the future.

That demands great attention, great awareness. It's very easy for most of us, having gathered information, experience, storing that up, which we call knowledge, and from that knowledge to act. That's mechanical. That doesn't need great energy. That doesn't need great attention, awareness, intensity. But if one understands the meaning of that word learning, then it is an actual movement in the present all the time, and therefore never a moment of accumulated knowledge, and action from that.

To learn is to be extraordinarily aware, not aware of what you already know, which becomes-please follow all this- the so-called unconscious. You are following this? Is this all rather a puzzle? Bien. To me there is no unconscious. The unconscious is one of the fashionable things nowadays - to investigate it, to go into it, to examine it, examine your dreams, you know all that circus that goes on. There is only consciousness. It's like a field. Either you take the whole field into view, into observation, or you take one corner of it and call that the unconscious, this the conscious, this action, that something else, which we'll go into.

Learning becomes extraordinarily vital, and it brings great energy because in that there no conflict. You follow? Because now our energy is dissipated, lost between what has been accumulated through learning, through experience, through information, and so on, and the action; and hence there is a contradiction, there is a waste of energy; and our life is a contradiction, and therefore it is a constant dissipation of energy.

Please, I hope you are not merely listening to the words, but rather observing your own activity of your own mind. Because it will be utterly meaningless to listen to these talks, just hearing the words, going away either appreciating it or saying, "Well, that's old stuff." But if you are aware, not only of what the speaker is saying, but also of youself in relation to what is being said, then the act of listening has great significance; then you are discovering for yourself actually what is taking place. It is of great importance also to find out how to listen. We hardly ever listen. Either we are too occupied with our own problems, with our own point of view, with our own amusements, with guarding ourselves, protecting ourselves - the 'ourselves' being the image that we have built about ourselves - or, when we do listen, we are interpreting, agreeing or disagreeing, coming to a conclusion, or comparing with what we already know. So actually you're never in the act of listening. If you are aware of all this, that very awareness is discipline. As we said, the word discipline implies learning - never having learned. That's what modern education is doing - having learned, apply. But learning (...) demands a great deal of awareness - awarenes of the machinery of your own thought and feeling; awareness without choice, obviously. The moment you choose, or say, "This I like, this I don't like," you are introducing a factor of choice. Whereas, if you are merely aware of your own machinery of thought, feeling, pleasure, displeasure, experience, knowledge, and all the rest of it, just to be aware without any choice, then you are in a state of learning; and in that state there is no dissipation of energy. On the contrary, your mind becomes astonishingly alert, alive, and therefore very sensitive; and such a mind that is alive, sensitive, learning, and so energetic, needs no drug of any kind, no stimulation, because then learning is a challenge itself, and the response to that challenge is the act of learning.

Such a mind can answer this question, this challenge: Is there actual significance to living, not an invented significance, either of the existentialists, of the Catholics, or of the drug friends, and so on and so on, but an actual deep significance which you have found out for yourself? Then out of that a different society can come into being.

Our society, as it is, has no meaning - three meals a day, a house, comforts, and all the rest of it. If you would go further into this, one has to understand this whole principle of pleasure. (...)

Question: If it's a question of the individual learning for himself, doing for himself, by learning what the necessary thing is in the moment as it arises, if he's busy, occupied in that, how can he be going after life?(...)

K: Sir, life is learning, isn't it. Life is a movement, an endless movement. It's like a vast river of great depth, with a great volume of water, moving endlessly. And to learn about it is to observe it choicelessly, to be with it endlessly; and that movement of being with it is the creation of a new society. You don't have to learn and then go out. You see, sirs, one does not actually (...) observe what one is thinking, feeling, one's motives. When one is aware of all that, if there is an awareness, and if it is a discriminative awareness, then it ceases to be awareness. Awareness is to be aware of everthing: to be aware of the people sitting here, the colors, the trees, the light on the leaf, the noise, to see the mountains, the movement of wind among the leaves. Awereness is not concentration. Again we can't go into that now. But to separate life and the individual, and to learn about the individual, is to create a chasm of contradiction and misery. The individual, the human being is life, is you and me. Unfortunately that life has been divided into nationalities, into groups, into sects, into beliefs (...).

To learn about the whole movement of existence is to be aware of this vast field. The question is not a division between life and action, learning and creating, but rather how to look at this whole field of life. You understand, sirs? I hope my question is clear. (...) You know, to look at the whole world (...), to look at this world as a whole (...), to see this whole enormous movement - which is the human movement, the agony, the despair, the love, the tragedies, the jealousies, oh, all the travail of human anxiety - just to see the whole of that, that is the real problem. Is it possible to see the whole of it, not intellectually? If you see the whole of it at one look, with one glance, then you'll have the answer. Then you are no longer looking at the world as an individual; then you are no longer thinking of the world in terms of East and West, communist and noncommunist...

The question is: Is it possible for us to look at this whole thing, this whole division, contradiction, this misery, this battle, as a whole? If you are capable of looking at it as a whole, totally, then the answer will be total, not particular. And it's only that answer that's going to solve any problem, whether it's an individual problem, or a political, economic problem - but to see the whole of it demands your complete attention.

When you are really very attentive - we mean by that word when you are giving your mind, your heart, your nerves, your ears, your eyes, your brain, your mind, everything - in that attention there is no observer at all, and therefore the observer is the observed. There is only attention. (...)

Question: I would like to know, along with the quiet, still mind, what happens to the body?

K: The body is also quiet. We divide the body, the mind, the brain, the heart, the feeling and thought - you follow? You know sirs, this is really a very complex question. You can still the body by doing various kinds of tricks: by tranquilizers, pills, or your own particular tranquilizer, by thought, repetition of words and sitting in a certain posture, breathing in a certain way; you can absolutely bring about a quietness of the body. That has been done, but the mind remains at the end of it equally petty and shoddy. We are concerned with the whole process, not just one part of it. (...)



Jiddu Krishnamurti, October 30, 1966, The Collected Works, part 17, p.56.
Available as audio-CD: Real Revolution disc 3 of 10, http://www.pathless.com/

2 opmerkingen:

Unknown zei

Krishnamurti will expose you to other demons who are roaming around waiting for someone to devour. He was an agent for Satan - a very clever one at that. Satan, can sometimes appear as “an angel of light”. The only way to SALVATION is through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ - John 3: 16. Are you a KRISHNAMURTI - ZOMBIE?
PEACE BE WITH YOU
MICKY

Unknown zei

Thank you Micky for finding this blog on inquiry of the human mind.

I accept your final wish of peace as a gift, but I choose to give back the other gifts.

I hope one day we can sit together and talk things over, find out the truth about all this, Jezus Christ, Krishnamurti, etc.

Love
Joost