excerpts

I wonder if we can discover what it is that most of us are seeking, and whether what we are seeking has any validity, and real basis.

Perhaps we are seeking something which we cannot properly articulate to ourselves. Or we may hope to find something that will be deeply satisfactory, that will give us some measure of happiness or certainty.

Until we have discovered what it is that we are seeking, I think our lives must be uncertain, chaotic, and contradictory. It is really very difficult to find out what we are seeking, because we do not know for ourselves the motives, the urges, the drives that are forcing us to seek at all.

Obviously, as you have all come here to listen, you are seeking something. But to know what it is we are seeking, we must find out, must we not?, what the drive is behind our search.

Most of us are well settled in life; we have homes, families, responsibilities, some position, a job, and so on. But our lives are generally humdrum, routine; there is boredom, a sense of frustration, and we want something more than mere logical conclusions, religious beliefs and ideologies.

So I think it would be worthwhile if we could spend this evening trying to find out what it is we are groping after. What is the urge behind this search?

We are concerned, not only with the more superficial urges, compulsions and fears, but we want to know what it is we are seeking with our whole life, our total existence.

If we are old we want peace, security, comfort, and if we are young we want pleasure, excitement, success. And if we cannot have success, then we want some kind of self-assertion. So each one of us is groping for something.

What an interesting comment! - if we could be free from compulsion, then we might find that there's no desire to search at all. Instead, a new focus: simply a sense of being free, enjoying one’s own existence.

I think that when the urges within one have become very clear to oneself, then life has quite a different meaning. When the mind is free from the compulsion, the drive, the confusion which now exists, there may be no search at all, but something entirely different - the sense of being free.

So, can we find out for ourselves what is the drive that is making us seek, that has made us come here to listen? Or are there so many different urges, so many pleasures, that we cannot separate them to find out which is the primary urge? I think it is important to discover the primary urge, otherwise our search has no meaning.

Many people are everlastingly talking about seeking God, seeking truth, seeking immortality, virtue, and all the rest of it; but this search has very little meaning, it becomes just a fad.

I think it is significant that so few of us who seek have so far discovered for ourselves anything that has real depth and significance. Is it happiness that we are seeking, a sense of self-fulfilment? If we seek without understanding what is behind this urge, our lives remain shallow, for self-fulfilment becomes very important; and to self-fulfilment there is no end. The moment you fulfil yourself, there is always something more in which to be fulfilled.

It is a function of society and of government to help to bring about outward security. But the difficulty is that we also want to be secure psychologically, inwardly, and therefore we identify ourselves with the nation, with a religion, an ideology, a belief. We never question whether there is such a thing as inward security at all,... Can the mind which is seeking permanency in everything - in `my country', `my religion', through innumerable dogmas, beliefs, ideas - discover for itself whether there actually is such a thing as permanency, inward security?

We have never questioned whether there can ever be security inwardly; and perhaps there is no such thing. It may be this very desire to seek security, permanency for ourselves, both inwardly and outwardly, which is conditioning the mind and preventing the understanding of what is true.

So, can the mind free itself from this urge to be secure? It can do so, surely, only when it is completely uncertain - not uncertain in opposition to security, but when it is in a state of not-knowing and not-seeking.

After all, one can never find anything new so long as one's mind is burdened with the old, with all the beliefs, fears and hidden compulsions which bring about this search for security.

So long as we are seeking security in any form, inward or outward, there must be chaos and misery. And if we observe ourselves, that is what we are doing all the time.

Through property, through money, through virtue, position, fame, we are constantly trying to bring about a sense of permanency for ourselves. And is it not important to find out whether the mind can be free of that whole process?

Can we actually experience for ourselves the significance of the compulsion behind the urge to be secure? Can we experience it directly, not later on, at another time, but now, as we are discussing? Can we look at this urge to be secure and find out if it has any validity, and from what source it springs?

And when we do look, what happens? We feel, do we not?, that if we were not inwardly secure, if we did not identify ourselves with innumerable ideals, ideologies, beliefs, nationalisms, we would be nothing, we would be empty, we would be of no account.

So our immediate response is to escape from that sense of emptiness by seeking some form of inward richness, some sense of fulfillment; and we set up leaders to follow, we look for teachings and authorities which we can obey.

But the misery, the inward poverty continues; there is everlasting struggle; and we never experience directly, actually, that state of inward insufficiency, inward emptiness. But if we could look at it, experience it directly, which means not running away from it by picking up a book, turning on the radio - you know the innumerable things we do in order to escape - , if we could experience completely what it is, then I think we would find that that emptiness has quite a different significance.

But all the time we try to escape, do we not? - through the church, through patriotism, through an ideology or a belief. Whereas, if we could understand the futility of running away from this sense of inward poverty, and would look at it, examine it patiently, without any condemnation, then perhaps it would reveal something totally different.

But it is very difficult, is it not?, to be free of the desire to escape from this sense of emptiness, and to be free of fear, ambition, envy. At present we are forever trying to establish our own security through identifying ourselves with something greater, whether it be a person or an idea.

But if one is really serious in the endeavour to find truth, reality, or God, one must first of all totally free oneself from all conditioning. This means that one must be able to stand completely alone and look at the truth of what is without seeking any escape.

If you will experiment with this you will find that the mind which is willing to go into this whole problem of the search for security, which is willing to look at its own emptiness completely, totally, without any desire to escape that such a mind becomes very quiet, alone, free, creative.

This creativeness is not the outcome of struggle, of effort, of search; it is a state in which the mind, seeing the truth about its own fears and envies, is completely alert and silent. That state may be, and I think it is, the real.

Question: Why do you go about the world giving talks? Is it for self-fulfilment, or is it because you think you can help people in that way?

Krishnamurti: If I went about talking in order to help people, you would all become followers, would you not? Is that not what is happening throughout the world today? We are all seeking leaders, teachers, to help us out of our confusion, and the only result is that we get more confused, more chaotic. I do not believe in such help, I only believe in total understanding. We all want to be helped, we all want guides, leaders, someone to follow; politically, socially and religiously, that is what we want. And that leads to exploitation, does it not? It leads to the totalitarian spirit - the leader and the led. So long as we depend upon another for inward peace, we shall not find it, for dependence only breeds fear. It is not for that reason I am talking. And is it for self-fulfilment, to have the feeling that one is doing something for others, to feel gratified, popular, and so on? I say it is not. Then why is one talking? I do not think there is any answer to that question, any more than there is an answer if one asks of a flower, "Why do you glow in the sunshine?"

If I were trying to help you, or trying to fulfil myself, it would put me in the position of being the one who knows, and you in the position of not knowing; so I would be using you, and you would be using me. Whereas, I think that the moment one is conscious that one knows, one does not know. When a person is aware of his virtue, his humility, or what you will, he is no longer virtuous. What we are trying to do here is to understand ourselves, for self-knowledge alone brings reality. We are not trying to discover who knows, who can help, and who does not know. After all, what is it that we really know? Very little, I think. We may have a lot of technical knowledge, we may know how to build a bridge, how to paint, and so on; but we know very little about ourselves, about the ways of the mind and the urge of ambition, envy. Only the mind that is aware that it does not know, that is totally aware of its own ignorance - only such a mind can be at peace. The mind that has merely gathered experience, accumulated knowledge, or acquired a lot of technical information, is everlastingly in conflict.