excerpts

Question: I happen to be a successful business man of considerable means. I dropped by casually last Sunday to hear your talk, and I saw at once that what you are saying is perfectly true. It has created in me a serious conflict, for my whole background and occupation are diametrically opposed to the kind of life which I now realize is essential. I don't see how I can return to my business. What am I to do?

Krishnamurti: I wonder why some of you laughed? Was it a nervous reaction to cover up your our conflict of a similar kind?

This man has asked a serious question, and you brush it off with a laugh. He is concerned, he wants to know what to do. What should he do?

If he is serious and not carried away by words, by the mere sensation of a pleasant morning, obviously he has to act drastically, has he not? He may have to give up his business, because what he has realized is much more important than the business, than making money, than position, prestige, family, property.

Can he go back to an occupation which is not what he wants, which he realizes is not his life? But we generally cover up this struggle, this discontent, by words, by explanations, justifications, and slip back to the former state.

We realize that the life we have been leading as a business man, or what you will, is unworthy, corrupting, destructive - we realize that, we feel it in our bones and blood.

But instead of acting, thinking it out, pursuing what we think, we are afraid of the consequences; and so there is an everlasting conflict going on between what we have realized and what we should do according to the dictates of society.

So we invite psychosomatic diseases, we invite the deterioration of the mind, the conflict under ground. You have felt the stirring of something real, of something which you know to be true, but you are caught in a machine of making money, or ritualism, or what you will.

If you fully realize that, and not just verbally accept it, then there will be drastic action, a breaking away from the old habits. But you see, very few ever come to that realization. We are getting old, our habits are settled, we want comfort, we want people to appreciate us, to love us, to be kind in the pattern of action to which we are accustomed.

So, instead of taking the drastic action, we cover up our conflict and get lost in words, in explanations. The more you are attached to possessions, to responsibilities, the vaster are the implications and the more difficult it is to act.

But if you realize that it has to be done, there is the end of the matter, you will do it. When you perceive what is true, that very perception is action.