excerpts

Question: There is deep discontent in me, and I am in search of something to allay this discontent. Teachers like Shankara and Ramanuja have recommended surrender to God. They have also recommended the cultivation of virtue, and following the example of our teachers. You seem to consider this futile. Will you kindly explain.

Krishnamurti: Why are we discontented, and what is wrong with discontent? Obviously we are discontented because, to put it very simply, we want to be something.

If I am a good painter, I paint in order to be better known; if I write a poem, I am dissatisfied because it is not good enough, so I struggle to improve. If I am a so-called religious person, there too I want to be something. I follow the example of the various saints, and I want to have as good a reputation as they have.

From childhood I have been told I must be as good as or better than somebody else. I have been brought up in comparison, competition, ambition, so my whole life is burdened with discontent. After all, discontent is envy; and our culture, religious and social, is based on envy. We are encouraged to be something for the sake of God.

On the one hand, discontent is stimulated, and on the other, we try to find ways and means to overcome that discontent. Being discontented economically, socially, we turn to religious examples to find satisfaction; we meditate, practise disciplines, in order to have no discontentment and to be at peace. This is what is happening with all of you, and I say it is a futile business, it has no meaning at all. To follow, to imitate, to have authority in religious matters, is evil, just as it is evil to have tyranny in government, because then the individual is completely lost.

At present you are not individuals, you are merely imitative machines, the product of a particular culture, of a particular education. You are the collective, not the individual - which is again fairly obvious. You are all Hindus or Christians, this or that, with certain dogmas, beliefs, which means that you are the product of the mass; therefore you are not individuals.

You must be totally discontented to find out; but society does not want you to be discontented, because then you would be vital, you would begin to inquire, to search, to discover, and therefore you would be dangerous.

Unfortunately, discontent with most of you is based on the demand for satisfaction, and the moment you are satisfied, your discontent goes. Then you wither and decay.

Have you not observed how people who are discontented when they are young, lose their discontent the moment they have a good job? Give the communist a good job, and it is all over. It is the same with religious people. Don't laugh, it is the same with you. You want to find the right master, guru, the right discipline - which is a cage that will smother you, destroy you; and this destruction is called the search for truth.

That is, you want to be permanently satisfied so that you will have no disturbance, no discontent, no sense of inquiry. That is what has actually happened; and the more ancient the culture, the more destructive it is, because tradition invariably breeds mediocrity.

So we see that discontent, as we know it now, is merely the desire to find permanent satisfaction.

And is there such a thing as permanent satisfaction, a permanent state of peace? Or is there only a state in which nothing is permanent?

Only the mind that is totally impermanent, that is, totally uncertain, can discover what is true; because truth is not static. Truth is always new, and it can be understood only by a mind which is dying to all accumulation, to all experience, and is therefore fresh, young, innocent.

Now, is there a discontent which has no object, no motive? Do you understand? A mind whose discontent has a motive will find a conclusion that will satisfy it and destroy its discontent; and such a mind decays, withers. All our discontent is based on a motive, is it not?

But now we are asking quite a different question. Is there a discontent which has no motive, which is not the product of a cause? Must you not inquire into this and find out?

Surely, such a discontent is necessary - or let us use a different word, it does not matter; let us call it a movement which has no cause, no motive. I think there is such a movement, and it is not mere speculation, or a hopeful idea.

When the mind understands the discontent that has a motive, the discontent that is born of the demand for satisfaction, for permanency - when the truth of that discontent is really seen then the other is. But the other cannot be understood or experienced if there is discontent with a motive, and at present all our discontent has a motive: I cannot get what I want, my wife does not love me, I am no good as I am so I must be different, and so on. There is this endless multiplication of cause and effect, out of which comes the thing we call discontent.

Now, if the mind is aware of that whole process and understands it totally, sees the truth of it, then you will find there is a movement which has no motive at all. It is a movement, an action, it is not static, and it may be called God, truth, or what you will. In that movement there is enormous beauty, and that movement may be called love.

Because after all, love is without motive. If I love you and want something from you, it is not love - though I may call it by that name - , because there is a motive behind it. Social or religious activity based on a motive, though it is called service, is not service at all; it is self-fulfilment.

So, can one find out what it is to love without motive? It must be discovered, it cannot be practised. If you say, `How am I to get that love?', you are asking a question which has no meaning, because in wanting to get it you have a motive. When you use a method in order to get that love, the method only strengthens the motive, which is the 'you'. Then 'you' are important, not love.

If you will go into this very deeply - which is quite hard work, and which in itself is meditation - I think you will find that there is a movement without motive, a movement which has no cause; and it is such a movement that brings peace to the world, not your discontented movement with a cause.

The man in whom there is this movement without a cause, is a religious man; he is a man who loves, therefore he can do what he will. But the politician, the social reformer, the man who cultivates virtue in order to be happy, or to know God, whose efforts are the result of a motive at whatever level - the activities of such a man only breed hatred, antagonism, and misery.

That is why it is very important for each one of us to find out for ourselves, and not follow Shankara, Ramanuja, Buddha, or Christ. To find out for ourselves, to discover something, we must be free; and we are not free if we merely quote Shankara, or some other authority. If we follow we shall never find.

So freedom is at the beginning, not at the end. Liberation is now, not in the future. Liberation means freedom from authority, from ambition, from greed, from envy, and from this smothering of real discontent by the discontent which has a motive and demands an end.

It is essential for a revolution to take place which is not within the pattern of society, but within each one of us, so that we become total individuals, and not little Shankaras, little Buddhas, little Christs. We must undertake the journey by ourselves, completely alone, without support, without influence, without encouragement or discouragement; because that way there is no motive.

The journey itself is the motive, and only those who undertake that journey will bring something new, something uncorrupted to this world - not the social reformers, the do-gooders, not the masters and their pupils, nor the preachers of brotherhood.

Such people will never bring peace to the world. They are mischief makers. The man of peace is the man who puts aside all authority, who understands the ways of ambition, of envy, who cuts himself off totally from the structure of this acquisitive society, and from all the things that are involved in tradition.

Only then is the mind fresh; and you need a fresh mind to find God, truth, or what you will, not a mind that is put together by culture, by influence.