The Observer Is The Observed

J. Krishnamurti

• Publisher: Krishnamurti Foundation America
• eBook ISBN: 9781621126751
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

In these Talks, given in India and Saanen, Krishnamurti speaks to the necessity for a new way of looking, thinking and being in the world. "What is the effect or value of an individual changing? How will that transform the whole current of human existence? What can an individual do?...... there is no such thing as an individual consciousness; there is only consciousness of which we are a part. You might segregate yourself and build a wall of a particular space called the `me'. But that `me' is related to the whole, that `me' is not separate. And in transforming that particular section, that particular part, we will affect the whole of consciousness. And I think this is very important to realize: that we are not talking about individual salvation or individual reformation, but about being aware of the particular in relation to, the total. Then out of that realization comes action which will affect the whole."

Madras, India, 1947

First Talk in Madras

The present world crisis is of an extraordinary nature; there have been probably few such catastrophes in the past. This present crisis is not the usual kind of disaster that occurs so often in the life of man. This chaos is worldwide; it is not Indian nor European but stretching into every corner of the world. Physiologically and psychologically, morally and spiritually, economically and socially, there is disintegration and confusion. We are standing on the edge of a precipice and wrangling over our petty affairs. Few seem to realize the extraordinary character of this world crisis, how profound and how vastly disturbing. Some, realizing the confusion, are active in rearranging the pattern of life on the edge of the precipice, and being themselves confused, are only bringing more confusion. Others try to solve the problem through a particular formula or a system of the extreme left or of the right, or through formulas that lie between the extremes.

These inevitably fail, for a problem, a human problem, is never static, whereas formulas, systems are. Revolution according to a formula ceases to be a revolution. The intellectual professionals, specialists, will never save the world; and the intellect, which is only a part of the total process of man, will always fail as its answers are ever partial and so not true. Systems, formulas, organized thought, can never save man.

As the crisis, the problem, is ever new, a new approach is essential—a living, dynamic approach that is not anchored to any organization, to any system. A human problem is ever undergoing transformation; it is not static, and a mind that is burdened with a conclusion, with a formula, can never comprehend a living problem. To such a mind, the problem, the complex human entity is not significant; but the system, the formula forces the living into the static, so creates more confusion, more misery for man.

This catastrophic disaster has not come into being through some action of chance; it has been created by each one of us—by our everyday activities of envy and passion, of greed and the craving for power and domination, of competition and ruthlessness, of sensate and immediate values. We are responsible for this appalling misery and confusion, not another, but you and I. Because you are thoughtless, unaware, wrapped up in your own ambitions, sensations, and pursuits, wrapped up in those values that are immediately gratifying, you have created this immense, engulfing disaster. War is a spectacular and bloody expression of our daily life, our life of competition, ill will, social and national division, and so on. You are responsible for this chaos, not any particular group, not any individuals, but you; you are the mass, you are the world. Your problem is the world’s problem.

As the problem is new you must approach it anew; there must be revolution in thinking. This revolution is not based on any formula but on self-knowledge, knowledge of the total process of your whole being. Neither the specialization of the part nor the study of the part can lead to the whole. Through self-knowledge there is right thinking which is revolutionary and creative. Individual and individualistic action are two different and opposing things. Individualistic action is action based on greed, envy, ill will, and so on, action of the part; and individual action is action based on the understanding of this total process. Individualistic action is anti-social, antagonistic, or opposed to another. Individualistic activities have brought man to this present chaos and misery. In reaction to individualistic activities, collectivism of many varieties has sprung up. In understanding the total process of our being—only in self-knowledge is there salvation.

To understand the total process there must be no condemnation, judgment, nor identification. If you would understand your son, you must observe him, study him without comparison, without condemnation; similarly if you would understand yourself, you must be aware of your activities, emotions, and thought without condemnation. This is very difficult and arduous, for our education and training have conditioned us to condemn, to judge. This condemnation puts an end to understanding, so we have to be aware of this conditioning. Freedom does not come through effort, but it is the perception of truth that liberates. Truth is liberating, not your effort to be free. Creative thinking which comes through self-knowledge is the solution for our miseries, for it reveals truth, which is the breath of happiness. Right thinking based on self-knowledge leads to meditation in which creation, truth, God, or what you will takes place. Meditation is not self-hypnosis, as is the general case, but that in which the uninvited comes into being. What is invited is self-projected, so transitory and illusory. Reality or God must come to you and you cannot go to it. Without this reality, life is full of misery, chaotic and destructive. During these talks, with those who are earnest, we shall experiment and cultivate right thinking, which alone can solve our problems permanently. Earnestness is not dependent on moods and circumstances. The problem itself demands earnestness for in the problem itself is its solution.

Question: The communist believes that by guaranteeing food, clothing, shelter to every individual, and abolishing private property, a state can be created in which man can live happily. What do you say about it?

KRISHNAMURTI: The end is the means; they are not separate; through right means the right end is established. To create the right state, right means must be employed. Right means is not separate from right thinking. Right thinking comes with the understanding of the total process of man, of yourself. The cultivation of the part is not the comprehension of the whole. Obviously food, clothing, shelter should and must be available for everyone; there should be a world pool of man’s essential needs and right organization for distribution. There is sufficient scientific knowledge to produce the essential needs of man, but greed, nationalistic spirit, craving for prestige and power, prevent the production of the essentials for all human beings. We are not concerned with feeding, clothing, and sheltering man but are engrossed in a particular system which will guarantee food, clothing, and shelter for all. The extreme left or the right are wrangling over the formula that will assure man security; so they are not concerned with man’s happiness, but with which formula will guarantee him happiness.

It is these formulas and systems of the intellect, the nationalistic spirit and greed, the craving for power and position that are preventing the organization of a world pool so that every human being has food, clothes, and shelter. Instead of spending the necessary money to find ways and means to feed, clothe, and shelter man, vast sums are spent in armaments, in blasting each other, in atomic bombs, preparing for the inevitable war that is coming. All this indicates that those who are dedicated to conclusions, to particular countries, to property, are not concerned with man’s happiness.

Besides, does man live by bread alone? Does his happiness lie in the sensate alone? Surely in giving overemphasis to that which is of secondary importance, we bring confusion and misery. The psychological factors are destroying the organization of bread, and without understanding these factors, merely to lay emphasis on bread is to prevent physical security for man. The more we seek security in the physical, the more insecurity there will be, for where there should be insecurity—psychologically, spiritually—there we seek permanency, security.

So in order to assure man of food, clothing, shelter, we must lay emphasis on the psychological values that man has established for himself. In freeing man from his psychological, spiritual conditioning, he will inevitably organize a society that will assure for every man food, clothing, and shelter.

What is the state but that which we create in our daily relationship; if we are possessive, envious, ruthless, then we will create a state that will represent us. Man is a very complex entity, and to emphasize one part of him, however much that part may need attention, is to jeopardize man himself.

Question: Mahatma Gandhi and others believe that the time has come when men of goodwill, the sages, the wise men, should join together and organize to fight the present crisis. Are you not escaping from this duty, like most of our spiritual leaders are doing?

KRISHNAMURTI: It seems an obvious necessity that men of goodwill should come together, but unfortunately men of goodwill are also human beings with their passions, with their vested interests, with their formulas and plans. The pure of heart are few. Again in organizing the means to overcome the crisis, the men of goodwill seem to lose their goodness. The means seem to become the all-important, and not goodness.

Spiritual leadership is contrary to spirituality. Reality, in which alone there is happiness, is pathless and no one can lead you to it. If any leads, he does not know truth. You have to liberate yourself from all those bondages that cause antisocial actions, that prevent the visitation of truth. You are your own savior and not another. You have to fundamentally and radically transform yourself to go beyond and above the present crisis. No organization, no leader, spiritual or political, can save you from the abyss of catastrophe. You must be your own light. The leader is as confused as the led, and there is no hope in the things made by the hand or by the mind. We are not escaping; we are pointing out that any activity on the edge of the precipice can only precipitate the fall, and there is only safety and happiness away from the precipice. The few who realize this must form centers of enlightenment, away from the abyss.

There is a way out of our present crisis and from all human problems—a way that is not an escape, a way that leads to eternal bliss.

Question: Young men have asked me again and again, “We are frustrated; we do not know what we are to do in the present crisis—our leaders are unable to give us a lead because they themselves are confused. We expected so much from political independence and from the settlement with the Muslim League.”

KRISHNAMURTI: As there are several questions involved, let us take them one by one. What do we mean by frustration? To be frustrated is to be psychologically prevented from gaining or achieving that upon which our mind and heart are set. We want something—an ideal, a success, a position, the gratification of an urge, and so on—and when we are thwarted we feel frustrated, a despair, a feeling of being nothing, a miserable failure, and so on. The desire to be has in it, inherently, the seed of frustration. We do not like the ache of loneliness, that peculiar fear of being nothing, that void that is hidden under all our activities. Being aware of it, consciously or unconsciously, we try to cover it or avoid it or run away from it through social activities, through the search for personal happiness or through asceticism or through the search for God and so on. When the activities or the search is questioned, or they fail to achieve their desired result, this void, this emptiness shows itself. The awareness of the void we call frustration.

Now can you ever fill or find a substitution for the void? Having failed to fill it in one direction, are not all attempts to fill it futile? Can it ever be filled? To find out, stop filling it, stop running away from it and understand what this emptiness is; to understand there must be no condemnation nor identification. We have never asked ourselves if this void can ever be filled through any means; we are only concerned with the means of filling it. You may escape from it but you have not understood it, so the void is still there. What would you think of a man who is trying to fill with water a bucket with a hole in it? So, similarly, this void may be without a bottom, and the more you fill it, the more empty it appears.

The despair of frustration we all know, and instead of understanding and so transcending the cause, we pursue one object of hope after another, ever failing, ever in misery. The other issue raised in the question is that “our leaders are unable to give us a lead as they themselves are confused.” The leader is created by the follower, by you, and since you yourself are confused, you can only create a confused leader. Circumstances, forces, help to bring about the leader, but you are responsible for the forces, for the circumstances; a man who is enlightened, clear, does not need a leader, he does not create him, but he who is confused demands a leader and so creates him out of his own confusion. Why do you want a leader? Does he not come into being to tell you what you should or should not do, to direct your conduct? Because you cannot understand the confusion, you look to another to lead you out of it. Being confused, you can only hear the voice of confusion. Confusion is bred by you, you are responsible for it, within and so without, and you alone can clear it up, not another, political or religious. There is confusion, there is misery, and instead of facing it we want someone to direct us. This desire for authority arises when you seek an easy way of life, when you are lazy, when you are thoughtless. It is this very thoughtlessness that has brought about this aching confusion, and you only perpetuate it by seeking authority, by following. What you are, that you project, and not another can save you. No formula nor the embodiment of a formula, the so-called leader, can save you. You need a revolution in thinking, and so in action, and not a revolution to change the leaders. Right thinking comes from self-knowledge and not from a book, not from a system, and right thinking alone can save you from this crisis.

And then there is the third part of this question: “We expected so much from political independence and from the settlement with the Muslim League.”

The forces of greed and exploitation do not cease because you have gained self-government; freedom from envy, ill will, and worldliness does not come through change of governments. Greed and exploitation may by legislation and compulsion be stopped at one level, but will show themselves at another; through compulsion and legislation, psychological facts are not abolished, and if we do not take them into account, we shall reap greater misery and disaster. Exploitation of man by man is not only on the economic level, but has its roots in deeper psychological facts which must be understood and transcended to live sanely and happily in this world. Possessiveness and dependence arise out of psychological insufficiency, incompleteness which manifests itself in so many antisocial actions. The cause is in us, and it cannot be abolished through compulsion or legislation, save through self-knowledge and right thinking.

When once you admit division between man and man, then you open the door to a host of evils; war is a major evil, and once a country indulges in it, it has opened the door to every kind of secondary evil and misfortune. This communal difference, this class and racial division—the Brahmin and the non-Brahmin and all the absurdities of the high and the low, the powerful and the weak, and so on—have caused misery for man. Organized religions with their dogmas and beliefs are responsible for the untold misery of man. Political divisions, the conflict of the left and the right systems—in all these divisions and bloody wrangles, man, you, is forgotten. Systems become more important than man. Until you are free from class and racial, political and national divisions, and from the separation that organized religions bring about, there is no happiness; there will be chaos and misery.

October 22, 1947

Second Talk in Madras

Life is a complex problem, and to understand it there must be patient analysis of the problem and not jumping to a comforting conclusion; there must be a sane detachment to understand the actual, the existing problem. So let us take the journey of understanding. In making this journey do not let us jump to any conclusion and action; we shall act, not based upon any conclusion but upon truth. If we are attached, committed to any form of action, we shall not be capable of understanding the complex process of living; if we are too close to the problem, we are incapable of right observation and comprehension. If we are to understand life, there must be no conclusion, for conclusion puts an end to right thinking. As living is a vast process, any conclusion would be petty and biased. So let us discuss together, if we can, seriously and earnestly, the problem of living and not merely listen superficially to a series of talks; though I may talk, it is your life that is concerned, your joys and pains, your sorrows and strifes.

As every phase of life is interrelated, we must not approach it through any exclusive, specialized path; the merely intellectual or merely the emotional, the psychological or the merely physiological, prevents the understanding of the total process, which is life. In emphasizing the one path, the one phase, we only create conclusions which prevent the understanding of the whole. If we only study or specialize in one corner of the picture, we shall not comprehend the significance of the whole. If you specialize in economics and try to comprehend life from that limited point of view, you will inevitably miss the deeper and wider significance of life and so bring about greater confusion. For the time being put aside your specializations and look at life as a whole. The more we specialize, the more limited, destructive, we shall become. Our human problems are not to be solved by specialists, by experts, the few that can comprehend the entire picture, the whole process of life—they will be the saviors and not the specialists, not the experts.

Life, living and action, is a very complex problem which, if you would understand, must be approached very simply. If you would understand a child, a complex entity, you must not impose upon it your conditioning; you must observe without condemnation. If you see a lovely sunset and you compare it with other sunsets you have seen, then the present sunset has no joy. To understand, there must be a mind that is simple, not an innocent mind, but that which perceives directly, and not translates it according to its conditioning. This is one of our major difficulties in the right approach to the comprehension of life.

What is your relationship to the present degradation and chaos, to the prevailing despair? Perhaps you are not deeply aware of this degradation and despair. Everywhere, here and Europe, we see the utter failure of religion and education, the collapse of systems, either of the left or of the right. What is your relationship to this frightful confusion, to this destructive chaos? If you would bring order out of this chaos, where would you begin? Obviously with yourself, for your relationship with this crisis, with this degradation is direct. Let us not put the blame of this disaster on the few unbalanced leaders or on the systems, for you have created this confusion, and to bring order and peace out of it, you must begin with yourself; you must put order in your own house. Do not let us consider the rightness or wrongness of systems and formulas which promise hope; do not let us consider theories nor outer revolutions; we must begin with ourselves, for we, you and I, are responsible for this disaster, for this confusion. Without you there is no world; you are the world, you are the problem. This assertion is not an intellectual formulation but an actual fact. Do not set it aside, which only indicates your desire to escape from it. When you recognize your obvious responsibility for the strife and sorrow, what you think, feel, and do, what you are becomes vitally significant, and because you are unwilling to face it, you look to systems, to formulas, to comforting escapes. It is a fact that you are the world, and you are responsible for this aching confusion, and our talks must be based on this fact. Because you are the problem and there is no independent problem apart from you, you have to understand yourself if you would bring peace and order. When you are aware of this fact, you have to act positively and vigorously, and because you are afraid of such an action, you look to systems and to leaders. The only essential and starting point is you. Your individual responsibility is denied, smothered, by giving importance to systems, whether the left or the right or whether it be religious. Systems or formulas to save man become more important than man himself, than you. Organized society takes away individual responsibility; it makes him confo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Talks in The Oak Grove, Ojai, California
• Talks in The Oak Grove, Ojai, California
• Talks In Madras, India
• Talks in Bombay, India
• Questions