Tradition and Revolution

 Krishnamurti

J. Krishnamurti Tradition and Revolution Preface by Pupul Jayakar and Sunanda Patwardhan New Delhi 11th May 1972

Since 1947 J. Krishnamurti, while in India, has been regularly meeting and holding dialogues with a group of people drawn from a variety of cultural backgrounds and disciplines - intellectuals, politicians, artists, sannyasis. During these years, the methodology of investigation has richened and taken shape. What is revealed in these dialogues, as if through a microscope, is the extraordinarily fluid, vast and subtle mind of Krishnamurti and the operational process of perception. These dialogues are, however, not questions and answers. They are an investigation into the structure and nature of consciousness, an exploration of the mind, its movements, its frontiers and that which lies beyond. It is also an approach to the way of mutation.

There has been in these dialogues a coming together of several totally varied and conditioned minds. There has been a deep challenging of the mind of Krishnamurti, a relentless questioning that has opened up the depths of man's psyche. One is a witness not only to the expanding and deepening of the ``limitless'' but also to its impact on the limited mind. This very enquiry leaves the mind flexible, freeing it from the immediate past and from the grooves of centuries of conditioning.

In these dialogues Krishnamurti starts questioning from a totally tentative position, from a state of ``not-knowing'', and in a sense, therefore, he starts at the same level as the participants. During the discussion, various analytical enquiries are made; tentative and exploratory. There is a questioning without seeking immediate solution: a step by step observation of the processes of thought and its unfoldment - a movement of penetration and withdrawal, every movement plunging attention deeper and deeper into the recesses of the mind. A delicate wordless communication takes place; an exposure of the movement of negation as it meets the positive movement of thought. There is the ``seeing'' of fact, of ``what is'', and the mutation of ``what is''. This is again perceived from various directions to examine its validity.

The nature of duality and non-duality are revealed in simple language. In that state of questioning, a state when the questioner, the experiencer has ceased, in a flash, ``truth'' is revealed. It is a state of total non-thought.

The mind which is the vessel of movement, when that movement has no form, no ``me'', no vision, no image, it is completely quiet - In it there is no memory. Then the brain cells undergo a change - The brain cells are used to movement in time. They are the residue of time and time is movement; a movement within the space which it creates as it moves - When there is no movement, there is tremendous focus of energy - So mutation is the understanding of movement, and the ending of movement in the brain cells themselves.''

The revelation of the instant of mutation, of ``what is'', provides a totally new dimension to the whole field of intellectual and religious enquiry.

There may be repetitions in the dialogues but they have not been eliminated, because to do so would have inhibited the understanding of the nature of consciousness and the method of enquiry.

We feel that these discussions will be of major significance and of assistance to those seeking a clue to the understanding of the self and of life.

J. Krishnamurti Tradition and Revolution Dialogue 1 New Delhi 12th December 1970 `The flame of sorrow'

We were walking in the open gardens near a huge hotel. There was a golden blue in the western sky and the noise of the buses, cars went by. There were young plants full of promise, watered daily. They were still building, creating the gardens and a bird was hovering in the sky, fluttering its wings rapidly before it plunged to the earth; and in the east, there was the nearing of the full moon. What was beautiful was none of these things but the vast emptiness that seemed to hold the earth. What was beautiful was the poor man with his head down, carrying a small bottle of oil.

Krishnamurti: What does sorrow mean in this country? How do the people in this country meet sorrow? Do they escape from sorrow through the explanation of karma? How does the mind in India operate when it meets sorrow? The Buddhist meets it in one way, the Christian in another way. How does the Hindu mind meet it? Does it resist sorrow, or escape from it? Or does the Hindu mind rationalize it?

Questioner P: Are there really many ways of meeting sorrow? Sorrow is pain - the pain of someone dying, the pain of separation. Is it possible to meet this pain in various ways?

Krishnamurti: There are various ways of escape but there is only one way of meeting sorrow. The escapes with which we are all familiar are really the ways of avoiding the greatness of sorrow. You see, we use explanations to meet sorrow but these explanations do not answer the question. The only way to meet sorrow is to be without any resistance, to be without any movement away from sorrow, outwardly or inwardly, to remain totally with sorrow, without wanting to go beyond it.

P: What is the nature of sorrow?

Krishnamurti: There is personal sorrow, the sorrow that comes with the loss of someone you love, the loneliness, the separation, the anxiety for the other. With death there is also the feeling that the other has ceased to be, and there was so much that he wanted to do. All this is personal sorrow. Then there is that man, ill-clad, dirty, with his head down; he is ignorant, ignorant not merely of book knowledge, but deeply, really ignorant. The feeling that one has for the man is not self-pity, nor is there an identification with that man; it is not that you are placed in a better position than he is and so you feel pity for him, but there is within one the sense of the timeless weight of sorrow in man. This sorrow has nothing personal about it. It exists.

P: While you have been speaking, the movement of sorrow has been operating within me. There is no immediate cause for this sorrow but it seems like a shadow, always with man. He lives, he loves, he forms attachments and everything ends. Whatever the truth of what you say, in this there is such an infinitude of sorrow. How is it to end? There appears to be no answer. The other day you said in sorrow is the whole movement of passion. What does it mean?

Krishnamurti: Is there a relationship between sorrow and passion? I wonder what sorrow is. Is there such a thing as sorrow without cause? We know the sorrow which is cause and effect. My son dies; in that is involved my identification with my son, my wanting him to be something which I am not, my seeking continuity through him; and when he dies all that is denied and I find myself completely emptied of all hope. In that there is self-pity, fear; in that there is pain which is the cause of sorrow. This is the lot of everyone. This is what we mean by sorrow.

Then also there is the sorrow of time, the sorrow of ignorance, not the ignorance of knowledge but the ignorance of one's own destructive conditioning; the sorrow of not knowing oneself; the sorrow of not knowing the beauty that lies at the depth of one's being and the going beyond. Do we see that when we escape from sorrow through various forms of explanation, we are really frittering away an extraordinary happening?

P: Then what does one do?

Krishnamurti: You have not answered my question, ``Is there, a sorrow without cause and effect?'' We know sorrow and the movement away from sorrow.

P: You have talked of sorrow free of cause and effect. Is there such a state?

Krishnamurti: Man has lived with sorrow from immemorial times. He has never known how to deal with it. So he has either worshipped it or run away from it. They are both the same movement. My mind does not do either, nor does it use sorrow as a means of awakening. Then what takes place?

P: All other things are the products of our senses. Sorrow is more than that. It is a movement of the heart.

Krishnamurti: I am asking you what is the relationship between sorrow and love.

P: They are both movements of the heart.

Krishnamurti: What is love and what is sorrow?

P: Both are movements of the heart, the one is identified as joy and the other as pain.

Krishnamurti: Is love pleasure? Would you say joy and pleasure are the same? Without understanding the nature of pleasure, there is no depth to joy. You cannot invite joy. Joy happens. The happening can be turned into pleasure.

When that pleasure is denied, there is the beginning of sorrow.

P: At one level it is so, but it is not so at another level.

Krishnamurti: As we said, joy is not a thing to be invited. It happens. Pleasure I can invite, pleasure I can pursue. If pleasure is love, then love can be cultivated.

P: We know pleasure is not love. Pleasure may be one manifestation of love but it is not love. Both sorrow and love emerge from the same source.

Krishnamurti: I asked what is the relationship between sorrow and love? Can there be love if there is sorrow - sorrow being all the things that we have talked about?

P: I would say ``yes''.

Krishnamurti: In sorrow, there is a factor of separation, of fragmentation. Is there not a great deal of self-pity in sorrow? What is the relationship of all this to love? Has love dependency? Has love the quality of the ``me'' and the ``you''?

P: But you talked of passion......

Krishnamurti: When there is no movement of escape from sorrow then love is. Passion is the flame of sorrow and that flame can only be awakened when there is no escape, no resistance. Which means what? - Which means, sorrow has in it no quality of division.

P: In that sense, is that state of sorrow any different from the state of love? Sorrow is pain. You say when in that pain there is no resistance, no movement away from pain, the flame of passion emerges. Strangely in the ancient texts, kama (love), agni (fire), and yama (death) are said to be the same; they are placed on the same level; they are all identical; they create, purify and destroy to create again. There has to be an ending.

Krishnamurti: You see, that is just it. What is the relationship of a mind which has understood sorrow and therefore the ending of sorrow? What is the quality of the mind that is no longer afraid of ending, which is death?

When energy is not dissipated through escape, then that energy becomes the flame of passion. Compassion means passion for all. Compassion is passion for all.

J. Krishnamurti Tradition and Revolution Dialogue 2 New Delhi 14th December 1970 `Alchemy and mutation'

Questioner P: I was considering whether it would be worthwhile to discuss the ancient Indian attitude to alchemy and mutation and to see whether the findings of alchemy have any relevance to what you are saying. It is significant that Nagarjuna, one of the great propounders of Buddhist thought, was himself an alchemist Master. The search of the alchemist in India was not directed so much to turning base metal into gold, as to an investigation into certain psychophysical and chemical processes in which, through mutation the body and mind could be made free of the ravages of time and the processes of decay. The field of investigation included mastery of breath, the partaking of an elixir brewed in the laboratory, a substance wherein mercury played a vital part, and a triggering of an explosion in consciousness. The action of the three leads to a mutation of body and mind. The symbolism used by the alchemist was sexual; mercury was the male seed of Shiva, mica the seed of the goddess; the union of the two, not only physically and in the crucibles of the laboratory but in consciousness itself, brought into being a mutation; a state that was free of time and the processes of ageing, a state that was unrelated to the two constituents that in total union had triggered the mutation. Has this any relevance to what you are saying?

Krishnamurti: You are asking about the state of consciousness which is out of time.

P: In every individual one can see the male and female element in operation.

The alchemist saw the need of union, of balance. Is there any validity in this?

Krishnamurti: I think one can observe this in oneself. I have often observed that in each one of us there are the male and female elements. Either they are in perfect balance or in a state of imbalance. When there is this complete balance between the male and the female, then the physical organism never really falls ill; there may be superficial illness but deep within there is no disease which destroys the organism. This is probably what the ancients must have sought - identifying it with mercury and mica, the male and the female and through meditation, study, and perhaps through some form of medicine tried to bring about this perfect harmony. One can see very clearly in oneself the operation of the male and female going on. When one or the other gets exaggerated, the imbalance creates disease; not superficial ailments but disease at the depths.

I have noticed personally within myself under different situations and climates, with different people who are aggressive, violent, the female takes over and becomes more prominent. This prominence, the other uses to assert himself. But when there is too much femininity around one, the male does not become aggressive but withdraws without any resistance.

S: What are the male and female elements?

Krishnamurti: The male is generally aggressive, violent, dominating and the female is the quiet, which is taken for submissiveness and then exploited by man. But submissiveness which is taken to be the quality of the female, is really gentleness which gradually conquers the other.

When the female and the male are in complete harmony, the quality of both changes. It is no longer male or female. It is something totally different, in relation to what is considered as male and female. The male and the female as the positive and negative because of their very nature are dualistic, whereas the complete balance, a harmony of the two has a different quality. May I say something? It is like the quality of the earth in which everything lives but is not of it. I have noticed this operating very often. When the whole mind withdraws from the physical and the environment, it is as though it is very far away; far away not in space and time, but a state which nothing can touch. This state is not an abstraction nor a withdrawal but an inward, absolute, non-being. When this perfect harmony takes place, because there is no conflict, it has its own vitality. It does not destroy the other. So conflict is not only in the outer but also in the inner and when this conflict completely comes to an end, there is a mutation which is not touched by time.

P: The alchemist called this the birth of Kumara, of the magical child - he who never grows old, he who is completely innocent.

Krishnamurti: It is very interesting - but alchemy has become synonymous with so much phoney magic.

P: But the alchemists, the Masters who were known as rasa siddhas - the holders of the essence - maintained that what they described they had seen with their own eyes, that what they recorded was not from hearsay nor from the dictation of a teacher. There is another factor of interest. A great deal of attention was paid in alchemy to the instrument, the vessel. The science of metallurgy developed out of this - one of the vessels or yantras was known as the garbha yantra, the womb vessel. It is a key word in alchemy.

Is there such a thing as preparing the womb of the mind? in which time is involved.

P: The alchemists were also conscious that at the point of mutation, of the fixation of mercury, of the birth of the timeless, time was not involved.

Krishnamurti: Do not use the word preparation. Let us put it this way. Is there a necessary state, a necessary background, a necessary vessel which can contain this?

I should say no, because when they found the boy Krishnamurti, the people who were supposedly clairvoyant for the time being, saw that he had no quality of selfishness and therefore he was worthy of being the vessel and I think that has remained right through.

S: That may be so, but what about ordinary people like us? Is this a privilege given only to a very very few, one in a thousand years or more, or can this happen to people who are concerned with all this, who are committed to all this, who are really serious in this enquiry?

Krishnamurti: To answer this question certain physical factors and psychological states are necessary. Physically there must be sensitivity. Physical sensitivity cannot possibly take place when there is smoking, drinking, eating meat. The sensitivity of the body must be maintained. That is absolutely essential. Traditionally such a body generally remains in one place supported by disciples, by the family. The body is not shocked or exposed.

Can a man who is very serious in all this, can he with a body which has gone through the normal brutalizing effects, can he make that body highly sensitive? And also the psyche that has been wounded through experience, can it throw off all the wounds and marks and renew itself so that there is a state in which there is no hurt? These two are essential - sensitivity and the psyche not having a mark. I think this can be achieved by any person who is really serious.

You see the womb is always ready to conceive. It renews itself.

P: Like the earth, the womb has that inbuilt quality of renewal.

Krishnamurti: I think the mind has exactly the same quality.

P: The earth is dormant, the womb is quiet and in both there is this inbuilt capacity for renewal.

Krishnamurti: The earth, the womb and the mind are of the same quality. When the earth lies fallow and the womb is empty and the mind without any movement, then renewal takes place. When the mind is completely empty, it is like the womb; it is pure to renew, receive.

P: This then is the vessel, the receptacle.

Krishnamurti: Yes, this is the vessel, but when you use the word vessel and receptacle, you must be exceedingly careful.

This inbuilt quality of the mind to renew itself can be called eternal youth.

P: It is known as kumara vidya.

Krishnamurti: So what makes the mind old? Obviously the movement of the self makes the mind old.

P: Does the self wear away the cells?

Krishnamurti: The womb is always ready to receive. It has a quality of purifying itself all the time, but the mind which is burdened with the self - friction is self - has no space to renew itself. When the self is so occupied with itself and its activities, the mind has no space in which to renew itself. So space is necessary, both for the physical and the psyche. How does this go with alchemy?

P: The language they use is different. They talk of mutation through union.

Krishnamurti: All that implies effort, friction.

P: How does one know?

Krishnamurti: If it implies any form of process, any form of achievement, it implies effort.

J. Krishnamurti Tradition and Revolution Dialogue 3 New Delhi 15th December 1970 `The containment of evil'

Questioner P: One of the most vital problems that has concerned man is the necessity of containing evil. It appears as if at certain times in history, because of various circumstances, evil has had a wider field within which to operate. The manifestations of evil are so wide, the problems of evil so complex that the individual does not know how to deal with them.

What would you say is the way of dealing with evil? Is there such a thing as evil independent of good?

Krishnamurti: I wonder what you mean. The bush with so many thorns - do you call that evil? Do you call a serpent with poison, evil? No savage animal is evil - neither the shark nor the tiger.

So what do you mean by the word evil? Something harmful? Something that can bring tremendous grief, something that can bring great pain, something that can destroy or prevent the light of understanding? Would you call war evil? Would you call the generals, the rulers, the admirals evil because they help to bring about war, destruction?

P: That which thwarts the nature of things can be called evil.

Krishnamurti: Man is brutal, is he evil?

P: If he is thwarting, if he through malignant intention makes certain things deviate....

Krishnamurti: I was just wondering what that word evil means. What does evil mean to an intelligent mind; a mind that is aware of all the horrors in the world?

P: Evil is that which diminishes consciousness, that which brings darkness.

Krishnamurti: Fear, sorrow, pain do that. Would you say that evil is the encouragement of fear? Is evil a means to further sorrow? Is evil social or environmental conditioning which perpetuates war? All these limit consciousness and create darkness and sorrow. Evil, according to the Christian idea, is the devil. Does the Hindu have any idea of evil? If he has an idea of evil, what would it be? Personally I never think of evil.

Would you say that in the flowering of goodness, there is no evil at all? That this state does not know evil? Or is evil an invention of the mind which breeds fear and creates the good?

P: May I say something? If you go deep down into the recesses of the human mind, into the history of mankind, there has always been the sorcerer, the witch who subverts the laws of nature, who brings fear and darkness. It is one of the strangest elements in the human mind. It is because of this terrible fear of the unknown, that darkness without limit, without end, that prevails through the history of man, that the human being has cried out for protection; a cry that echoes through human consciousness. It is this which is the unknown, un-named matrix of fear. It is not enough to suggest that it is fear. It is all that and more.

Krishnamurti: Are you saying that deep in man, in the inner recesses of the mind, there is the fear of the unknown, of something that man cannot touch or imagine? Being afraid so deeply, he demands protection of the gods and anything that brings an awakening of that danger, any intimation of that hidden thing, he calls evil?

P: This darkness exists deep in human consciousness all the time.

Krishnamurti: Is evil the opposite of the good, or is it totally dependent of the good?

P: It is independent of the good.

Krishnamurti: You are saying it is independent. So, is evil something that is in itself unrelated to the beautiful, to love? Against evil, man has always sought protection, as he would against an animal. There is this hidden dark danger. Man is aware of it, he is frightened and seeks through incantations, rituals, prayers and so on to put it away and be guarded. The bush that is so full of thorns protects itself against the animal and the animal would call that evil as it cannot get at the leaves. Is there such a force, such an embodiment of evil which is totally apart from the good, the beautiful? There is this whole idea that evil is fighting good. This evil is seen as embodied in people and evil is always fighting the good and the gentle. I am asking, is evil totally independent of the good? You must be very careful not to become superstitious.

P: ``Fear'' of something is opposed to goodness. But the darkest fears are not ``of anything''.

S: It is not only protection and fear and the fear involved in evil, but protection in order to move forward.

P: The demand for protection, the mantras as spells, the mandalas as magical diagrams and the mudras as magical gestures were intended to provide protection against evil.

Krishnamurti: You see when you go deeply into consciousness, you reach a point where the unknown appears as the dark, and there you stop, because you get frightened. The mind penetrates deeply up to a point, and below that point there is this feeling of dark emptiness. Because of the darkness, you have prayers, incantations, and because of the fear of the dark, you ask for protection.

Can the mind go through the darkness, which means can the mind not be afraid? Can it operate so that the darkness becomes light? Can you penetrate the darkness of which you are afraid, which you have named ``evil''? Can you penetrate that so completely that darkness does not exist? Then, what is evil?

P: When the ritual mandala is drawn, the entry into the mandala is through spell and mudra. In this entry into the darkness, what is the spell which will open the gates?

Krishnamurti: Consciousness as thought, investigates itself - its depth. As it enters it comes upon this darkness. This investigation is not a process of time. And you are asking what is the spell or energy that will penetrate to the very bottom of the darkness, what is that energy and how is it to come into being?

The very energy which started investigating is still there, more heavy, vital as it enters, penetrates. Why do you ask whether there is need of greater energy?

P: Because energy dries up. We penetrate up to a point and do not go further.

Krishnamurti: Because of fear, because of apprehension of something we do not know, we dissipate energy instead of bringing it into focus. I want to penetrate into myself. I see entering into myself is the same movement as the outer. It is entering into space. In entering into space, there is a certain demand, a certain energy. That energy must be without any effort, without any distortion. As it enters, it gathers momentum. If it has no passage through which it can escape, it is not distorted. It becomes deeper, wider, stronger. Then you reach a point where there is darkness. And how does one enter that darkness with this tremendous energy? (pause)

P: The first question with which we started was how is evil to be contained. You have said as one penetrates the sea of darkness, darkness is not; light is. But when there is evil in human beings, in certain situations, in certain happenings, is there any action which can contain this evil?

Krishnamurti: I would not put it that way. Resistance to evil strengthens evil. So, if the mind is living in goodness, then there is no resistance and evil cannot touch it. Therefore there is no containing of evil.

P: Is there only goodness then?

Krishnamurti: We have to go back to something else - the mind has gone into darkness and it is finished with darkness. But is there evil which is independent of all that? Or is evil part of goodness?

You see in nature there is the big living on the little, the bigger on the big. I would not call that evil. The deliberate desire to hurt another; is that part of evil? I want to hurt another; is that part of evil? I want to hurt you because you have done something to me; is that evil?

P: That is part of evil.

Krishnamurti: Then that implies will. You hurt me, and, because I am proud, I want to retaliate. Wanting to retaliate is an action of will. Whether it is the will to react or to do good, both are evil.

P: Again coming back to the mandala; evil can enter when the gateways are not protected. Here, your eyes and ears are the gateways.

Krishnamurti: So you are saying when the eyes see clearly, ears hear clearly, then evil cannot enter.

To go back, the deliberate intention, the collection of intentions, the thinking it over, which is all the deep intention to hurt, is part of will. I think that is where evil is - the deliberate act to hurt. You hurt me, I hurt you; I apologize and it is finished. But if I hold, retain, strengthen deliberately, follow a policy to hurt you, which is part of the will in man to do harm or good, then there is evil.

So is there a way of living without will? The moment I resist, evil must be on one side, and the good on the other and there is relationship between the two. When there is no resistance, there is no relationship between the two. And love then is an open space, without any words, without any resistance. Love is action out of emptiness. As we had been discussing yesterday, when the male elements deliberately become assertive, demanding, possessive, dominating, man invites evil. And the female, yielding, yielding, yielding and deliberately yielding in order to dominate, also invites evil.

So, where there is the cunning pursuit of domination, which is the operation of will, there is the beginning of evil.

You see against that evil we try to protect ourselves. We are ourselves creating evil and yet we draw a circle a diagram round the doorstep of the house to seek protection from evil, and inwardly the serpent of evil is operating.

Keep your house clean. Forget all the mantras; nothing can touch you.

We ask protection of the gods whom we have created. It is really quite fantastic.

All these wars, all the racial hatreds, all the accumulated hatreds which man has been storing up, that must have a collected hatred, a gathered evil. The Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the Stalins, the concentration camps, the Atillas; all that must be stored, must have a body somewhere.

So also, the feeling of ``do not kill, be kind, be gentle, be compassionate'' - that also must be stored somewhere.

When people try to protect themselves against the one, the evil, they are protecting themselves against the good too, because man has created these two. So, can the mind enter into darkness and the very entrance into it, is the dispelling of darkness?

J. Krishnamurti Tradition and Revolution Dialogue 4 New Delhi 16th December 1970 `The awakening of energy'

Questioner P: You have said when we were discussing Tantra, that there is a way of awakening energy. The Tantrics concentrate on certain psychic centres, and thereby release the dormant energy in those centres. Would you say there is any validity in this? What is the way of awakening energy?

Krishnamurti: What you said just now, concentrating on the various physio-psychical centres, implies, does it not, a process of time? So I would like to ask, can that energy be awakened without a process of time?

P: In this whole process, the traditional way demands correct posture and an equilibrium of breath. If the body does not know how to sit erect, and how to breathe rightly, there can be no ending of thought. To bring body and breath to an equilibrium, a process of time becomes inevitable.

Krishnamurti: There may be a totally different approach to this problem. Tradition starts from the psychosomatic, the posture, the breath control and gradually through various forms of concentration to the full awakening of energy. That is the accepted way. Is there not an awakening of this energy without going through all these practices?

P: It is like the Zen-Masters who say the real master is one who puts aside effort, and yet in Zen to master archery a tremendous mastery over technique is necessary. It is only when there is total mastery that effort drops away.

Krishnamurti: You are beginning at this end rather than at the other - this end being time, control, energy, perfection, perfect balance.

All this seems to me like dealing with a very small part of a very vast field. Tradition gives great importance to the past, to breathing, to the right posture. All these are limited to a corner of the field and through that corner you hope to have enlightenment. The corner then becomes a trick. Through some kind of psychosomatic acrobatics, it is hoped that you will capture the light, the whole universe. I do not think enlightenment is there - not through one corner. It is like seeing the sky through a small window and never going outside to look at the sky. I feel that way is an absurd way of approaching something totally vast, timeless.

P: Even you would admit that correct posture and right breathing strengthen the structure of the mind.

Krishnamurti: I want to approach all this quite differently. In approaching it entirely differently, it is necessary to throw out all that has been said. I see the corner is like a candle in sunshine. The candle is being lit very carefully in brilliant sunshine. You are not concerned with sunshine, but work away at lighting the candle.

There are other things involved; there is the awakening of energy which has been dissipated so far.

To centralize energy, to gather the whole of it, attention is involved, and the elimination of time altogether.

I think there are these major factors - time, attention which is not forced, which is not concentration, which is not centred round a part, and the gathering of energy. I think these are the fundamental things one has to understand because enlightenment must be and is the comprehension and understanding of this vast life - life being living, dying, loving; the whole travail and going beyond it.

The traditional Masters would also agree that you have to have attention to go beyond time. But they are the worshippers of the corner. They use time to go beyond time.

P: How Sir? I take a posture and direct my attention. What is the time involved in this?

Krishnamurti: Is attention the result of time?

P: No. You ask a question and there is immediate attention. Is this attention the product of time?

Krishnamurti: No, certainly not.

P: Your question and my attention being there, is there time involved? If you would regard this as so, the self-knowing process which is going on all the time also involves time. My mind twenty years ago would not have known the present quality. This state had no existence then.

Krishnamurti: Let us go slowly. We are trying to understand something which is out of time.

P: The tradition says prepare the body and mind.

Krishnamurti: Through time you prepare the body and mind to receive, to comprehend, to be free of time. Through time can you do this?

P: The tradition also posits that through time you cannot go beyond time.

Krishnamurti: I am asking, when you say through time you perfect the instrument, is it so? I question that. Through time can you perfect the instrument? Now first of all who is it that is perfecting the instrument? Is it thought?

P: It would be invalid to say only thought. There are many other factors involved.

Krishnamurti: Thought, the knowing of thought, intelligence, are all maintained by thought. To say thought must end and intelligence must come into being is again an action of thought. The statement, thinker and thought are one, is again an action of thought.

You are saying perfect the instrument through thought. To me the traditional approach to perfect the instrument through thought and so to go beyond, and the act of cultivating intelligence and the going beyond time - all these are still in the area of thought. That is so. Therefore in that very thought there is the thinker. That thinker says this must happen, this must not happen. That thinker has become the will of achievement. The will to perfect the instrument is part of thought.

P: In this circle which you are talking; about, in that which you are describing just now, is also implied the questioning of the very instrument which is thought.

Krishnamurti: But the questioner is part of thought; the whole structure is part of thought. You can divide, subdivide, change, but it is all within the field of thought, and that is time. Thought is memory, thought is material; the material is memory. We are still functioning within the area of the known and the man who is cultivating thought says he will go to the unknown through the known, perfect the known and get enlightenment. Again all this is thought.

P: If everything is thought, it must then be necessary to give birth to a new instrument.

Krishnamurti: When thought says it must become silent and becomes silent it is still thought. What the traditionalists do is to work within the field of thought which is the corner of the field. But it is still the result of thought. Atman is the result of thought. The brahman to which man looks up, is the result of thought. The man who experienced it had nothing to do with thought. It just happened, whereas his disciples came along and said do this, do that. It is all within the field of thought.

P: Then there is no proceeding.

Krishnamurti: See how thought plays tricks upon itself - I must have balance, I must have the right posture in order that the life energy flows through. Right? I say thought is of the past. Thought can create the most marvellous instrument - it can go to the moon, to Venus; but thought can never possibly touch ``the other'' because thought is never free, thought is old, thought is conditioned. Thought is the whole structure of the known.

P: What do you mean by ``the other''?

Krishnamurti: That is not it.

P: That is not what?

Krishnamurti: This is within the field of time; thought which is time. That is within the field of silence. Therefore find out if sorrow can end. Come out of the corner. Find out what life is, what death means, what it means to end sorrow. If you have not come upon this, playing tricks upon thought has no meaning. You can awaken all the kundalinis, but to what purpose?

Therefore a man teaching how to awaken the kundalinis or making man proficient in archery in the Zen way or in the practice of the various forms of Tantra are all within the bondage of time, which is thought. I see that and I see that it is going round in circles. The circle may be higher but it is still a circle, a bondage, which is time.

So I would not touch it. I would not touch it because I see the nature, structure and order of this corner. The corner has no meaning to me. When there is the marvellous sun, all the siddhis and powers are like many candles.

Can the mind, listening to this, wipe it away? The very listening is the wiping away. Then you have it. Then there is attention, love; everything is there. You see, logically, this holds whereas the other does not. The exercise of the brain is to find the truth and the false; to see the false as the false. You see when the boy Krishnamurti saw the truth, it was over. He gave up all organizations, etc. He had no training ``to see''.

P: But you had training. You were put through a vigorous training of the body.

Krishnamurti: So they tell us. Because the body was neglected. And so they said if he was not looked after he would fall ill.

P: But Sir, apart from physical discipline, there were instructions as to how to bring up that boy.

Krishnamurti: It was like combing the hair, doing asanas, pranayama; it was all at that level.

B: It is very subtle. I am not saying that what happened had any relationship to the illumination, but it is necessary to look after the body.

Krishnamurti: Yes, it is necessary to keep the body healthy.

P: Sir, if I may say so, you have the way of the yogi, you look like a yogi, your body takes the pose of a yogi. You have been doing asanas, pranayama, every day for so many years. Why?

Krishnamurti: That is not important. It is like keeping my nails clean. I am saying the other is so childish; spending years in perfecting the instrument. All that you have to do is ``to look''.

P: But if one is born blind, only when a person like you comes and says, look, something happens. Most people would not understand what you are talking about.

Krishnamurti: Most people would not listen to all this. They would brush it aside.

B: The other is easier. It gives something whereas this gives nothing.

Krishnamurti: This gives everything if you touch it.

B: But the other is easier.

Krishnamurti: You see I am terribly interested in this. How has the mind of Krishnamurti maintained this state of innocence?

P: What you are saying is not relevant. You may be an exception. How did the boy Krishnamurti come to it? He had money, organization, everything and yet he left everything. If I were to take my grand-daughter and leave her with you and she had no other companion but you, even then she would not have it.

Krishnamurti: No, she would not have it. (pause) Wipe out all this.

P: When you say that, it is like the Zen koan; the goose being out of the bottle. Did you have a centre to wipe away?

Krishnamurti: No.

P: So you had no centre to wipe away? You are unique and therefore you are a phenomenon, and so you cannot tell us you did this and so it happened. You can only tell us ``This is not it'' and whether we drown or not, no one else can tell us. We see this. We may not be enlightened, but we are not unenlightened.

Krishnamurti: I think it is tremendously interesting - to see that anything that thought touches is not the real. Thought is time. Thought is memory. Thought cannot touch the real.

J. Krishnamurti Tradition and Revolution Dialogue 5 New Delhi 19th December 1970 `The first step is the last step'

Questioner P: Yesterday, while you were on a walk, you said the first step is the last step. To understand that statement, I think we should investigate the problem of time and whether there is such a thing as a final state of enlightenment. The confusion arises because our minds are conditioned to think of illumination as the final state. Is understanding or illumination a final state?

Krishnamurti: You know, when we said that the first step is the last step, were we not thinking of time as a horizontal or a vertical movement? Were we not thinking of movement along a plane? We were saying yesterday, when we were walking, if we could put aside height, the vertical and the horizontal altogether, and observe this fact that wherever we are, at whatever level of conditioning, of being, the perceiving of truth, of the fact, is at that moment the last step.

I am a clerk in a little office, with all the misery involved in it; the clerk listens and perceives. The man listens and at that moment really sees. That seeing and that perception is the first and the last step. Because, at that moment he has touched truth and he sees something very clearly.

But what happens afterwards is that he wants to cultivate that state. The perception, the liberation and the very perception bringing about liberation; he wants to perpetuate, to turn it into a process. And therefore he gets caught and loses the quality of perception entirely.

So, what we are saying is that any process involves finality. It is a movement from the horizontal to the vertical; the vertical leading to a finality. And therefore we think that perception, liberation is a finality; a point which has no movement. After all, the methods, the practices, the systems imply a process towards a finality.

If there were no conceptual idea of finality, there would be no process.

P: The whole structure of thought is built on a horizontal movement and therefore any postulation of eternity has to be on the horizontal plane.

Krishnamurti: We are used to reading a book horizontally. Everything is horizontal - all our books.

P: Everything has a beginning and an ending.

Krishnamurti: And we think the first chapter must inevitably lead to the last chapter. We feel all the practices lead to a finality; to an unfoldment. It is all horizontal reading. Our minds, eyes and attitudes are conditioned to function on the horizontal and at the end, there is a finality. The book is over. You ask if truth or enlightenment is a final achievement; a final point beyond which there is nothing?

P: From which there can be no slipping back. I might for an instant perceive, and the quality of that, I understand. A little later, thought arises again. I say to myself ``I am back in the old state''. I question whether that ``touching'' had any validity at all. I put a distance, a block between myself and that state - I say, if that were true, thought would not arise.

Krishnamurti: I see; I perceive something that is extraordinary; something that is true. I want to perpetuate that perception; give it a continuity so that perception - action continues throughout my daily life. I think that is where the mistake lies. The mind has seen something true. That is enough. That mind is a clear, innocent mind, which has not been hurt. Thought wants to carry on that perception through the daily acts. The mind has seen something very clearly. Leave it there. The next step is the final step. The leaving of it is the next final step. Because my mind is already fresh to take the next final step. In the daily movement of life, it does not carry over. The perception has not become knowledge.

P: The self as the doer in relation to thought or seeing has to cease.

Krishnamurti: Die to the thing that is true. Otherwise it becomes memory, which then becomes thought, and thought says how am I to perpetuate that state. If the mind sees clearly, and it can only see clearly when the seeing is the ending of it, then the mind can start a movement where the first step is the last step. In this there is no process involved at all. There is no element of time. Time enters when, having seen it clearly, having perceived it, there is a carrying over and the applying of it to the next incident.

P: The carrying over is the not seeing or perceiving.

Krishnamurti: So, all the traditional approaches which offer a process must have a point, a conclusion, a finality and anything that has a finality, a final point, is not a living thing at all.

It is like saying there are many roads to the station. The station is fixed.

Is truth a finality that once you have achieved it, everything is over - your anxieties, your fears and so on? Or does it work totally differently? Does it mean that once I am on the train, nothing can happen to me? Does it mean that I expect the train will carry me to my destination? All these are horizontal movements.

So a process implies a fixed point. Systems, methods, practices all offer a fixed point and promise man that when he achieves it, all his troubles are over. Is there something which is really timeless? A fixed point is in time. It is in time because you have postulated it. Because there has been thinking over of the final point, and the thinking of it is time. Can one come upon this thing which must have no time, no process, no system, no method, no way?

Can this mind which is so conditioned horizontally, can this mind, knowing that it lives horizontally, perceive that which is neither horizontal nor vertical? Can it perceive for an instant?

Can it perceive that the seeing has cleansed and end it?

In this is the first and the last step because it has seen anew.

Your question is, is such a mind ever free of trouble? I think it is a wrong question. You are still thinking in terms of finality, when you put that question. You have already come to a conclusion, and so are back again into the horizontal process.

P: The subtlety of it is that the mind has to ask fundamental questions but never the ``how''.

Krishnamurti: Absolutely. I see very clearly; I perceive. Perception is light. I want to carry it over as memory, as thought, and apply it to daily living and therefore I introduce duality, conflict, contradiction.

So I say how am I to go beyond it? All systems offer a process, a fixed point and the ending of all trouble.

Perceiving is light to this mind. It is not concerned with perception any more because if it is concerned, it becomes memory. Can the mind, seeing something very clearly, end that perception? Then, here the very first step is the last step. The mind is fresh to look. To such a mind, is there an end to all troubles? It does not ask such a question. When it happens, it will see. See what takes place. When I ask the question ``Will this end all trouble?'' I am already thinking of the future and therefore I am caught in time.

But I am not concerned. I perceive. It is over. I see something very clearly - the clarity of perception. Perception is light. It is over. Therefore the mind is never caught in time. Because I have taken the first step, I have also taken the last step each time.

So we see that all the processes, all the systems, must be totally denied because they perpetuate time. Through time you hope to arrive at the timeless.

P: I see that the instruments used in what you are saying are the fact of seeing and listening. These are sensory movements. It is through sensory movements that conditioning also comes into being. What is it that makes one movement totally dissolve conditioning and another to strengthen it?

Krishnamurti: How do I listen to that question? First of all, I do not know. I am going to learn. If I learn in order to acquire knowledge, from which I am going to act, that action becomes mechanical. But when I learn without accumulating - which means perceiving, hearing, without acquiring - the mind is always empty. Then what is the question?

Can the mind which is empty ever be conditioned and why does it get conditioned? A mind which is really listening, can it ever be conditioned? It is always learning, it is always in movement. It is not a movement from something towards something. A movement cannot have a beginning and an ending.

It is something which is alive, never conditioned. A mind that acquires knowledge to function is conditioned by its own knowledge.

P: Is it the same instrument which is operating in both?

Krishnamurti: I do not know. I really do not know. The mind which is crowded with knowledge sees according to that knowledge, according to that conditioning.

P: Sir, seeing is like switching on light. It has no conditioning in itself.

Krishnamurti: The mind is full of images, words, symbols. Through that, it thinks, it sees.

P: Does it see?

Krishnamurti: No. I have an image of you and I look through that image. That is distortion. The image is my conditioning. It is still the same vessel with all the things in it, and it is the same vessel which has nothing in it.

The content of the vessel is the vessel. When there is no content, the vessel has no form.

P: So it can receive ``what is''.

Krishnamurti: Perception is only possible when there is no image. That is very simple. You see, to go back, perception is only possible when there is no image - no symbol, no idea, word, form, which are all the image. Then perception is light. It is not that I see light. There is light. Perception is light. So perception is action. And a mind which is full of images cannot perceive. It sees through images and so is distorted.

What we have said is true. It is logically so. I have listened to this. In the factor of listening there is no ``I''. In the factor of carrying it over, there is the ``I''. The ``I'' is time'

J. Krishnamurti Tradition and Revolution Dialogue 6 New Delhi 21st December 1970 `Energy and transformation'

Questioner P: Science and yoga both maintain that when a living organism is exposed to tremendous energy there is a mutation. This happens when there is excessive exposure to radiation - it may lead to a mutation in the genes. It also happens according to yoga, when thought is placed in consciousness before the fire of energy. Do you think this has meaning in terms of what you are teaching?

B: Radiation brings deformity. There can be destructive mutation. A laser beam pierces steel and flesh. It has the power to destroy as well as to heal.

Krishnamurti: What would you say is human energy? What is energy in human beings? Let us keep it very simple.

P: Energy is that which makes movement possible.

B: Energy is at different levels. There is the energy at the physical level. Then the brain itself is a source of energy; it sends out electrical impulses.

Krishnamurti: All movement, radiation, any movement of thought, any action is energy. When does it become intense? When can it do the most astonishing things? When can it be directed to do incredible things?

P: When it is not dissipated. When it is brought into focus.

Krishnamurti: When does that happen? Does it happen in anger, hatred, violence? Does it happen when there is ambition, when there is tremendous desire? Or does it happen when a poet has the urge, the vitality, the energy to write?

P: Such energy crystallizes and becomes static.

Krishnamurti: We know this form of energy. But the energy we know does not bring about a change in the human mind. Why? This energy becomes intense when there is fulfilment in action. When does it move to a different dimension? An artist or a scientist, using his talent, intensifies energy and gives expression to it. But the quality of his mind, of his being, is not transformed by this energy.

P. We are missing something in all this.

Krishnamurti: You are asking whether there is a quality of energy which transforms the human mind? That is your question. Now, why does it not take place in the artist, in the musician, in the writer?

P.: I think it is because their energy is one-dimensional.

Krishnamurti: The artist still remains ambitious, greedy, a bourgeois.

S: Why do you say that greed would come in the way of energy operating? Man may be ambitious but he is also good. These are the elements which structure his self.

Krishnamurti: We are asking why, when man has that energy, that energy does not bring about a radical change?

P: Man has energy to operate in his environment. But there are large areas of his being where there is no movement of energy.

Krishnamurti: Man uses energy, operates fully in one direction, and in the other he is dormant. Energy is dormant in one part of his existence, and in the other part it is active.

P: Even man's sensory instruments are utilized partially.

Krishnamurti: He is a fragmentary human being. Why does this division take place? One fragment is tremendously active, the other does not function at all. One fragment is ordinary, bourgeois, petty. When do these two fragments coalesce to become harmonious energy? An energy which is not fragmented? An energy which does not function fully at one level while at another level its voltage is low?,

P: When the sensory instruments operate fully.

Krishnamurti: When does this take place? Do they operate completely when there is a tremendous crisis?

P: Not always, Sir. The action of crisis can also be partial; you can jump when you see a snake but you can jump into a bush of thorns.

Krishnamurti: When does the fragment cease to be a fragment? Are we not thinking in terms of movement, in terms of action, in terms of change? We have accepted the movement to be, the movement of becoming. We have accepted fragmentation. The movement of becoming is always a movement in fragments. Is there a movement which does not belong to these categories? See what happens if there is no movement at all.

P: I have always found it difficult to understand this question of yours. The nature of the very question suggests the other, the opposite.

S: One really does not know the dormant movement.

Krishnamurti: At the beginning we said there was fragmentation. One fragment is very alive and the other is not alive.

B: The energy of the artist, the whole of his being, operates one-dimensionally. There is non-awareness.

Krishnamurti: I am not at all sure. One fragment is alive. You are saying the other fragment is not aware of itself at all.

P: The artist paints, he also has an affair with a woman. He does not see these actions as fragments.

Krishnamurti: We have gone beyond that. We see he is fragmented. He operates in fragments - one is active and the other is dormant. In that dor- mancy there is action going on. One is very active and the other is action in a minor key. We see this.

Now the question is, can this energy heighten to bring about a mutation in the brain cells?

P: Can it take the sluggish part along and alter its very structure so that there is a transformation in both?

Krishnamurti: I may be a great sculptor. A part of me is dormant. You ask, can there be a mutation not only in the dormant but also in that energy which goes into the making of the sculptor?

The question is, am I willing to accept that I may cease to be a sculptor? Because that may happen. When I go into this problem of a change in the very brain cells themselves, it is possible I may never be a sculptor. But it is very important for me to be a sculptor. I do not want to let that go.

Krishnamurti Foundations