The Mirror of Relationship

J Krishnamurti

• Publisher: Krishnamurti Foundation America
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781912875115
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The answer to the question, 'What are you Seeking?', is simple: We want to find truth, God, everlasting peace. The real question, says Krishnamurti, is: 'Why do you seek at all?' Knowing conflict, repression, self-doubt, and fear as consistent companions, we naturally wish for them to come to an end. So begins the search for relief, the search for everlasting peace--through ideas, religions, self-help, self-analysis, etc., and we think of this search as a right action towards finding what we are looking for. But do we know what we are looking for, or are we merely seeking relief from what is happening presently? Are we seeking at that point only an idea, the supposed opposite of the emotion that we are experiencing now? It is the search that maintains the present emotion and its projected opposite in a state of mutually co-existent conflict, inherently.

Ojai, California, 1944

First Talk in The Oak Grove

Amidst so much confusion and sorrow it is essential to find creative understanding of ourselves, for without it no relationship is possible. Only through right thinking can there be understanding. Neither leaders nor a new set of values nor a blueprint can bring about this creative understanding; only through our own right effort can there be right understanding.

How is it possible then to find this essential understanding? From where shall we start to discover what is real, what is true, in all this conflagration, confusion, and misery? Is it not important to find out for ourselves how to think rightly about war and peace, about economic and social conditions, about our relationship to our fellow men? Surely there is a difference between right thinking and right or conditioned thought. We may be able to produce in ourselves imitatively right thought, but such thought is not right thinking. Right or conditioned thought is uncreative. But when we know how to think rightly for ourselves, which is to be living, dynamic, then it is possible to bring about a new and happier culture.

I would like during these talks to develop what seems to me to be the process of right thinking so that each one of us is truly creative, and not merely enclosed in a series of ideas or prejudices. How shall we then begin to discover for ourselves what is right thinking? Without right thinking there is no possibility of happiness. Without right thinking our actions, our behavior, our affections have no basis. Right thinking is not to be discovered through books, through attending a few talks, or by merely listening to some people’s ideas of what right thinking is. Right thinking is to be discovered for ourselves through ourselves.

Right thinking comes with self-knowledge. Without self-knowledge there is no right thinking. Without knowing yourself, what you think and what you feel cannot be true. The root of all understanding lies in understanding yourself. If you can find out what are the causes of your thought-feeling, and from that discovery know how to think-feel, then there is the beginning of understanding. Without knowing yourself, the accumulation of ideas, the acceptance of beliefs and theories have no basis. Without knowing yourself you will ever be caught in uncertainty, depending on moods, on circumstances. Without knowing yourself fully you cannot think rightly. Surely this is obvious. If I do not know what my motives, my intentions, my background, my private thoughts-feelings are, how can I agree or disagree with another? How can I estimate or establish my relationship with another? How can I discover anything of life if I do not know myself? And to know myself is an enormous task requiring constant observation, meditative awareness.

This is our first task even before the problem of war and peace, of economic and social conflicts, of death and immortality. These questions will arise, they are bound to arise, but in discovering ourselves, in understanding ourselves, these questions will be rightly answered. So, those who are really serious in these matters must begin with themselves in order to understand the world of which they are a part. Without understanding yourself you cannot understand the whole.

Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. Self-knowledge is cultivated through the individual’s search of himself. I am not putting the individual in opposition to the mass. They are not antithetical. You, the individual, are the mass, the result of the mass. In us, as you will discover if you go into it deeply, are both the many and the particular. It is as a stream that is constantly flowing, leaving little eddies, and these eddies we call individuality, but they are the result of this constant flow of water. Your thoughts-feelings, those mental-emotional activities—are they not the result of the past, of what we call the many? Have you not similar thoughts-feelings as your neighbor?

So when I talk of the individual, I am not putting him in opposition to the mass. On the contrary, I want to remove this antagonism. This opposing antagonism between the mass and the you, the individual, creates confusion and conflict, ruthlessness and misery. But if we can understand how the individual, the you, is part of the whole, not only mystically but actually, then we shall free ourselves happily and spontaneously from the greater part of the desire to compete, to succeed, to deceive, to oppress, to be ruthless, or to become a follower or a leader. Then we will regard the problem of existence quite differently. And it is important to understand this deeply. As long as we regard ourselves as individuals, apart from the whole, competing, obstructing, opposing, sacrificing the many for the particular or the particular for the many, all those problems that arise out of this conflicting antagonism will have no happy and enduring solution; for they are the result of wrong thinking-feeling.

Now, when I talk about the individual, I am not putting him in opposition to the mass. What am I? I am a result; I am the result of the past, of innumerable layers of the past, of a series of causes-effects. And how can I be opposed to the whole, the past, when I am the result of all that? If I, who am the mass, the whole, if I do not understand myself, not only what is outside my skin, objectively, but subjectively, inside the skin, how can I understand another, the world? To understand oneself requires kindly and tolerant detachment. If you do not understand yourself, you will not understand anything else; you may have great ideals, beliefs, and formulations, but they will have no reality. They will be delusions. So you must know yourself to understand the present and through the present, the past. From the known present, the hidden layers of the past are discovered and this discovery is liberating and creative.

To understand ourselves requires objective, kindly, dispassionate study of ourselves, ourselves being the organism as a whole—our body, our feelings, our thoughts. They are not separate, they are interrelated. It is only when we understand the organism as a whole that we can go beyond and discover still further, greater, vaster things. But without this primary understanding, without laying right foundation for right thinking, we cannot proceed to greater heights.

To bring about in each one of us the capacity to discover what is true becomes essential, for what is discovered is liberating, creative. For what is discovered is true. That is, if we merely conform to a pattern of what we ought to be or yield to a craving, it does produce certain results which are conflicting, confusing, but in the process of our study of ourselves, we are on a voyage of self-discovery, which brings joy.

There is a surety in negative rather than positive thinking-feeling. We have assumed in a positive manner what we are, or we have cultivated positively our ideas on other people’s or on our own formulations. And hence we depend on authority, on circumstances, hoping thereby to establish a series of positive ideas and actions. Whereas if you examine you will see there is agreement in negation; there is surety in negative thinking, which is the highest form of thinking. When once you have found true negation and agreement in negation, then you can build further in positiveness.

The discovery that lies in self-knowledge is arduous, for the beginning and the end is in us. To seek happiness, love, hope, outside of us leads to illusion, to sorrow; to find happiness, peace, joy within requires self-knowledge. We are slaves to the immediate pressures and demands of the world, and we are drawn away by all that and dissipate our energies in all that, and so we have little time to study ourselves. To be deeply cognizant of our motives, of our desires to achieve, to become, demands constant, inward awareness. Without understanding ourselves, superficial devices of economic and social reform, however necessary and beneficial, will not produce unity in the world but only greater confusion and misery.

Many of us think that economic reform of one kind or another will bring peace to the world; or social reform or one specialized religion conquering all others will bring happiness to man. I believe there are something like eight hundred or more religious sects in this country, each competing, proselytizing. Do you think competitive religion will bring peace, unity, and happiness to mankind? Do you think any specialized religion, whether it be Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity, will bring peace? Or must we set aside all specialized religions and discover reality for ourselves? When we see the world blasted by bombs and feel the horrors that are going on in it; when the world is broken up by separate religions, nationalities, races, ideologies, what is the answer to all this? We may not just go on living briefly and dying and hope some good will come out of it. We cannot leave it to others to bring happiness and peace to mankind; for mankind is ourselves, each one of us. Where does the solution lie, except in ourselves? To discover the real answer requires deep thought-feeling, and few of us are willing to solve this misery. If each one of us considers this problem as springing from within and is not merely driven helplessly along in this appalling confusion and misery, then we shall find a simple and direct answer.

In studying and so in understanding ourselves, there will come clarity and order. And there can be clarity only in self-knowledge, which nurtures right thinking. Right thinking comes before right action. If we become self-aware and so cultivate self-knowledge from which springs right thinking, then we shall create a mirror in ourselves which will reflect, without distortion, all our thoughts-feelings. To be so self-aware is extremely difficult as our mind is used to wandering and being distracted. Its wanderings, its distractions are of its own interests and creations. In understanding these—not merely pushing them aside—comes self-knowledge and right thinking. It is only through inclusion and not by exclusion, not through approbation or condemnation or comparison, that understanding comes.

Question: What is my right in my relationship to the world?

KRISHNAMURTI: It is an interesting and instructive question. The questioner seems to put himself in opposition to the world and then asks himself what are his rights in relationship to it. Is he separate from the world? Is he not part of the world? Has he any right apart from the whole? Will he, by setting himself apart, understand the world? By giving importance to and strengthening the part, will he comprehend the whole? The part is not the whole, but to understand the whole, the part must not set itself in opposition to it. In understanding the part, the whole is comprehended. When the individual is in opposition to the world, then he claims his rights; but why should he put himself in opposition to it? The attitude of opposition, of the ‘I’ and the not ‘I’, prevents comprehension. Is he not part of the whole? Are not his problems the problems of the world? Are not his conflicts, confusions, and miseries those of his neighbor, near or far? When he becomes aware of himself, he will know that he is part of the whole. He is the result of the past with its fears, hopes, greeds, aspirations, and so on. This result seeks a right in its relationship to the whole. Has it any right so long as it is envious, greedy, ruthless? It is only when he does not regard himself as an individual but as a result and a part of the whole that he will know that freedom in which there is no opposition, duality. But as long as he is of the world with its ignorance, cruelty, sensuality, then he has no relationship apart from it.

We should not use the word individual at all, nor the words mine and yours because they have no meaning, fundamentally. I am the result of my father and my mother and the environmental influence of the country and society. If I put myself in opposition, there is no understanding; the combination of opposites does not produce understanding. But if I become aware and observe the ways of duality, then I will begin to feel the new freedom from opposites. The world is divided into the opposites, the white and the dark, the good and the bad, mine and yours, and so on. In duality there is no understanding, each antithesis contains its own opposite. Our difficulty lies in thinking of these problems anew, to think of the world and yourself from a different point of view altogether, observing silently, without identifying and comparing. The ideas which you think are the result of what others have thought in combination with the present. Real uniqueness lies in the discovery of what is true and being in that discovery. This uniqueness, joy, and liberation which comes from this discovery is not to be found in the pride of possessions, of name, physical attributes, and tendencies. True freedom comes through self-knowledge which brings about right thinking; through self-knowledge there is the discovery of the true, which alone puts an end to our ignorance and sorrow.

Through self-awareness and self-knowledge peace is found, and in that serenity there is immortality.

May 14, 1944

Second Talk in The Oak Grove

Last Sunday I was trying to explain what is right thinking and how to set about it. I said that unless there is self-awareness, self-knowledge of all the motives, intentions, and instincts, thought-feeling has no true foundation, and that without this foundation there is no right thinking. Self-knowledge is the beginning of understanding. And as we are—the world is. That is, if we are greedy, envious, competitive, our society will be competitive, envious, greedy, which brings misery and war. The state is what we are. To bring about order and peace, we must begin with ourselves and not with society, not with the state, for the world is ourselves. And it is not selfish to think that each one must first understand and change himself to help the world. You cannot help another unless you know yourself. Through self-awareness one will find that in oneself is the whole.

If we would bring about a sane and happy society, we must begin with ourselves and not with another, not outside of ourselves but with ourselves. Instead of giving importance to names, labels, terms—which bring confusion—we ought to rid the mind of these and look at ourselves dispassionately. Until we understand ourselves and go beyond ourselves, exclusiveness in every form will exist. We see about us and in ourselves exclusive desires and actions which result in narrow relationship.

Before we can understand what kind of effort to make in order to know ourselves, we must become aware of the kind of effort we are now making. Our effort now consists, does it not, in constant becoming, in escaping from one opposite to another? We live in a series of conflicts of action and response, of wanting and not wanting. Our effort is spent in becoming and not becoming. We live in a state of duality. How does this duality arise? If we can understand this then perhaps we can transcend it and discover a different state of being. How does this painful conflict arise within us between good and bad, hope and fear, love and hate, the ‘I’ and the not ‘I’? Are they not created by our craving to become? This craving expresses itself in sensuality, in worldliness, or in seeking personal fame or immortality. In trying to become, do we not create the opposite? Unless we understand this conflict of the opposites, all effort will bring about only different and changing sorrowful conditions. So we must use right means to transcend this conflict. Wrong means will product wrong ends; only right means will produce right ends. If we want peace in the world, we must use peaceful methods, and yet we seem invariably to use wrong methods hoping to produce right ends.

Unless we understand this problem of opposites with its conflicts and miseries, our efforts will be in vain. Through self-awareness, craving to become, the cause of conflict, must be observed and understood; but understanding ceases if there is identification, if there is acceptance or denial or comparison. With kindly dispassion, craving must be deeply understood and so transcended. For a mind that is caught in craving, in duality, cannot comprehend reality. Mind must be extremely still, and this stillness cannot be induced, disciplined, compelled through any technique. This stillness comes about only through the understanding of conflict. And you cannot compel conflict to cease. You cannot by will bring it to an end. You may cover it up, hide it away, but it will come up again and again. A disease must be cured, but to treat merely the symptom is of little use. Only when we become aware of the cause of conflict, understand and transcend it, can we experience that which is. To become aware is to think out, feel out the opposites as much as you can, as widely and deeply as possible, without acceptance or denial, with choiceless awareness. In this extensional awareness you will find there comes a new kind of will or a new feeling, a new understanding which is not begotten out of the opposites.

Right thinking ceases when thought-feeling is bound, held in the opposites. If you become aware of your thoughts and feelings, your actions and responses, you will find that they are caught in the conflict of opposites. As each thought-feeling arises, think it out feel it out fully, without identification. This extensional awareness can take place only when you are not denying, when you are not rejecting nor accepting nor comparing. Through this extensional awareness there will be discovered a state of being which is free from the conflict of all opposites.

This creative understanding is to be discovered, and it is this understanding which frees the mind from craving. And it is this extensional awareness in which there is no becoming, with its hope and fear, achievement and failure, with its self-enclosing pain and pleasure, that will free thought-feeling from ignorance and sorrow.

Question: How is it possible to learn real concentration?

KRISHNAMURTI: In this question many things are involved, so one must be patient and listen to the whole of it. What is real meditation? Is it not the beginning of self-knowledge? Without self-knowledge can there be true concentration, right meditation? Meditation is not possible unless you begin to know yourself. To know yourself you must become meditatively aware, which requires a peculiar kind of concentration—not the concentration of exclusiveness which most of us indulge in when we think we are meditating. Right meditation is the understanding of oneself with all one’s problems of uncertainty and conflict, misery and affliction.

I suppose some of us have meditated or have tried to concentrate. What happens when we are trying to concentrate? Many thoughts come, one after the other, crowding, uninvited. We try to fix our thought upon one object or idea or feeling and try to exclude all other thoughts and feelings. This process of concentration or one-pointedness is generally considered necessary for meditation. This exclusive method will inevitably fail, for it maintains the conflict of the opposites; it may momentarily succeed, but as long as duality exists in thought-feeling, concentration must lead to narrowness, obstinacy, and illusion.

Control of thought does not bring about right thinking; mere control of thought is not right meditation. Surely we must first find out why the mind wanders at all. It wanders or is repetitive either because of interest or of habit or of laziness or because thought-feeling has not completed itself. If it is of interest then you will not be able to subdue it; though you may succeed momentarily, thought will return to its interests and hence its wanderings. So you must pursue that interest, thinking it out, feeling it out, fully, and thus understand the whole content of that interest, however trivial and stupid. If this wandering is the result of habit, then it is very indicative; it indicates, does it not, that your mind is caught up in mere habit, in mere patterns of thought and so is not thinking at all. A mind that is caught up in habit or in laziness indicates that it is functioning mechanically, thoughtlessly, and of what value is thoughtlessness, though well under control? When thought is repetitive, then it indicates that thought-feeling has not fulfilled itself, and until it has it will go on recurring. Through becoming aware of your thoughts-feelings, you ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Talks in The Oak Grove, Ojai, California
• Talks in New York City, New York
• Talks in Eddington, Pennsylvania
• Talks at Ommen Camp, Holland
• Talks in Madras, India
• Talks at Ommen Camp, Holland
• Talks at Ommen Camp, Holland
• Talks in The Oak Grove, Ojai, California
• Talks in The Oak Grove, Ojai, California
• Questions