A: Chaste.
K: Therefore purity can be cut into a million pieces and it will remain still pure. It is not my purity, or your purity, it is pure. Like pure water, it remains pure water.
K: So you see sir, that's very interesting from this conversation what has come out. The thing is, we are frightened of being alone. Which is, we are frightened of being isolated. But every act a human being does is isolating himself. That is, his ambition is isolating himself. When he is nationalistic he is isolating himself. When he says, it is my family - isolating himself. I want to fulfil, isolating himself. When you negate all that, not violently, but see the stupidity of all that, then you are alone. And that has tremendous beauty in it. And therefore that beauty, you can spread it everywhere, but it still remains alone. So the quality of compassion is that. But compassion isn't a word. It happens, it comes with intelligence. This intelligence will dictate if my sister is attacked, at that moment. But it is not intelligence if you say, what will you do if - such a question and an answer to that is unintelligent. I don't know if you see.
K: Sir, wait a minute. I have given you all my money because I trust you. And you won't give it to me; I say, please, give me a little of it. You won't. What shall I do? What is the act of intelligence? You follow, sir? Act of affection, act of compassion that says, what will it do? You follow my question? A friend of mine, during the second world war, he found himself in Switzerland. He had quantities of money, plenty of money. And he had a great friend from childhood. And to that friend he said, he had to leave the next minute because... something, you know, the war took place and he had to leave the country and all the rest of it. So he took all the money and he said, here my friend, keep it for me. I'll come back. I'll come back when the war is over. He comes back and says, please. He says, what money?
A: Goodness me.
K: You follow, sir? So, what should he do? Not theoretically. You are put in that position. You give me something. You entrust me with something. And I say, yes, quite right, you have given me, now whistle for it. What is your responsibility? Just walk away?
A: No. If there were a means to recover it then that would be done upon the instant.
K: Intelligence.
A: Intelligence would take over.
K: Therefore, that's what I am saying. Love is not forgiveness - you follow? - I forgive and walk away. Love is intelligence. And intelligence means sensitivity, to be sensitive to the situation. And the situation, if you are sensitive, will tell you what to do. But if you are insensitive, if you are already determined what to do, if you are hurt by what you have done, then insensitive action takes place. I don't know if I...
A: Yes, yes, of course. yes of course. This raises very, very interesting questions about what we mean about conscience.
A: Yes, yes, of course. yes of course. This raises very, very interesting questions about what we mean about conscience.
K: Yes.
A: And the word 'conscience', it seems to me has invited an astonishing amount of...
K: ...rubbish.
K: I don't know if there is time now, but that requires - we'll do it tomorrow, another day: what is consciousness and what is conscience, and what is the thing which tells you to do or not to do?
A: Consciousness in its relation to relationship is something that when we have a chance, I should like to explore with you. I remember years ago in graduate school being very arrested by coming across the statement that was made by an American thinker, I think Montague was his name, when he said, consciousness has been very badly understood because it has been thought that there is something called 'ciousness'. But there is no such thing as 'ciousness'. We've got to get the 'con' in there, the together, the relationship. And without that we have had it. I do hope that next time when we have the opportunity in our next conversation we could explore that.
K: We have to discuss this question, living - living, love and this enormous thing called death. You follow? Are they interrelated or are they separate - living, existing, is it different from love?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A: The very construction: love-making, making love.
K: It's a horrible thing! I feel... It gives me a shock, 'love-making' as though that was love. You see, sir, I think this is very important, the western civilisation has put this over the whole of the earth, through cinemas, through books, through pornography, through every kind of advertisements, stories, this sense of love is identification with sex - which is pleasure, basically.
K: So, then our whole social, moral structure is immoral.
K: I mean, sir, this is a thing that is appalling. And nobody wants to change that. On the contrary, they say, yes, let's carry on, put on a lot of coating on it, different colours more pleasant, and let's carry on. So, I mean if a man is really concerned to come upon this thing called love he must negate this whole thing, which means he must understand the place of pleasure, whether intellectual pleasure, acquisition of knowledge as pleasure, acquisition of a position as power, you follow? The whole thing. And how is a mind that has been trained, conditioned, sustained in this rotten social conditioning, how can it free itself before it talks about love? It must first free itself of that. Otherwise your talk of love, it's just another word, it has no meaning!
K: Yes, so you see this thing - sex - has become, I don't know, of such enormous importance right through the world now. In Asia they cover it up. They don't talk about it. If you talk about sex it is something wrong. Here you talk endlessly about it. But there you don't, you know, certain things you don't talk about. You talk about it in the bedroom, or perhaps not even in the bedroom. But you never... I mean it's not done. And when I talk in India, I bring it out. (Laughs) They are a little bit shocked because a religious man is not supposed to deal with all that kind of stuff.
K: He is supposed to be, but he mustn't talk about it. That's one of the things, sir, why has sex become so important? You see, love is, after all, a sense of total absence of the 'me', total absence of the me - my ego, my ambitions, my greed, all that, which is me, total negation of all that. Negation, not brutal denial or surgical operation but the understanding of all that. When the 'me' is not, the other is. Obviously. It's so simple! You know, sir, the Christian sign, the cross, I was told is a very, very ancient symbol, previous to Christian acceptance of that symbol.
K: So when we are enquiring into this question of love we must enquire into pleasure, pleasure in all its varieties, and its relationship to love, enjoyment to love, real joy, this thing which can never be invited, and its relation to love. So we had better begin with pleasure. That is, the world has made sex into an immense thing. And the priests right through the world, have denied it. They won't look at a woman, though they are burning inside, with lust and all kinds of things. They shut their eyes. And they say, only a man who is a celibate can go to God. Think of the absurdity of such a statement! So anybody who has sex is damned for ever.
K: So it is never free. So intellectually I am a slave. Emotionally I become romantic. I become sentimental. And the only escape is sex, where I am free, if the woman or the man agrees, if they are compatible and all the rest of it then it is the only road, only door through which I say, for god's sake, at least I am free here. In the office I am bullied - you follow, sir? - in the factory I just turn the wheels. So this is the only escape for me. The peasant in India, the poor villager in town or in villages, look at them, that is the only thing they have. And religion is something else: I agree we should be celibate, we should be all the rest of it but for god's sake, leave us alone with our pleasures, with our sex. So if that is so, and it looks like that, that we are intellectually, morally, spiritually crippled human beings, degenerate, and this is the only thing that gives us some release, some freedom.
A: The chaste mind would never be hurt.
K: Never. And therefore an innocent mind. Which has no picture of the woman or the man or the act. None of that imagination.
K: So, you see sir, we have to understand this killing too. The western civilisation has made killing a perfect art. The war, science of war. They have taught the whole world this. And probably the Christians are the greatest killers, after Muslims, and I believe the real religious, the original Buddhists were really non-killers.
K: Just, sir, when we talk about love, we must also talk about violence and killing. We kill, we have destroyed the earth - you understand, sir? - polluted the earth. We have wiped away species of animals and birds, we are killing baby seals, you've seen them on television?
A: When you say one will never kill if he loves, you mean within the context of this image-making activity where one kills by design.
K: Yes, not only... Sir, suppose, sir, my sister - I have no sister - but my sister is attacked, a man comes to rape her. I will act at that moment.
A: Precisely.
K: My intelligence, because I love, have compassion, that compassion creates that intelligence, that intelligence will operate at that moment. If you tell me, what will you do if your sister is attacked, I will say, I don't know. I will know then.
K: I don't know. I saw the other day on the television in the Red Square there was an enormous intercontinental missile, shot off to kill god knows, blind killing. And the Americans have it, the Indians have it, the French have it, you follow? (Laughs)
K: So can the mind be free of this urge to kill? Which means can the mind be free of being hurt? So, when there is hurt it does all kinds of neurotic things. Is pleasure love? Is desire love? But we have made pleasure, desire into love. I desire god. (Laughs) You follow, sir? I must learn about god. You follow? - the whole thing. God is my invention, my image, out of my thought I have made that image, and so go around in circles. So I must know what enjoyment is. Is enjoyment pleasure? When I enjoy a good meal, or a good sunset, or see a beautiful tree or woman, whatever it is, at that moment if it doesn't end it becomes pleasure. You understand? If the mind, thought carries over that enjoyment and wants it to be repeated the next day it has become pleasure, it is no longer enjoyment. I enjoy and that's the end of it.
A: William Blake has very, very beautifully, it seems to me, pointed to this. And, of course, he was regarded as a madman (laughs), as you know. I might not remember the words precisely but I think part of his little stanza goes: 'he who kisses a joy as it flies, lives to see eternity's sunrise'.
K: Yes, yes.
A: It's the joy that he kisses as it flies, not the pleasure.
K: No, no.
A: And it's, as it flies. And what you said is, that if he won't let it fly, holds it, then we have fallen out of the act of joy into this...
K: ...pursuit of pleasure. A: ...endless, repetitive in the end mournfully boring thing.
K: And I think, sir, that is what is happening in this country, as well as in Europe and India, primarily in this country, the desire to fulfil instantly - the pleasure-seeking principle. Be entertained, football - you follow? - be entertained.
* * *
Krishnamurti: If I had only a salary of 12 rupees I would not attempt to raise six boys and six girls; that is the first thing. Secondly, if I were a professor it would be a dedication and not a job. Do you see the difference? Teaching at any level is not a profession, it is not a mere job; it is an act of dedication. Do you understand the meaning of that word `dedication'? To be dedicated is to give oneself to something completely, without asking anything in return; to be like a monk, like a hermit, like the great teachers and scientists - not like those who pass a few examinations and call themselves professors. I am talking of those who have dedicated themselves to teaching, not for money, but because it is their vocation, it is their love.
* * *
When Bob Marley wrote "Concrete Jungle," he was broke and stranded in a foreign country. While writing the song, he most likely reflected upon his time in the impoverished neighborhoods of Jamaica. One of the lyrics says, “No chains around my feet But I’m not free.” This line depicts Marley being ensnared in the troubles of poverty with no way out. Furthermore, "Concrete Jungle" focuses around the ghetto-like slums of West Kingston, Jamaica. West Kingston was often called the “Jungle” or “Concrete Jungle.” During his song, Marley focuses on the poverty and brutality that has plagued West Kingston, and implies his desire to spread his messages to audiences other than Jamaica.
Comments
Post a Comment