25. The Wholeness of Life

First published in the spring of 1978, The Wholeness of Life opens with a series of seven fascinating discussions in which Krishnamurti and David Bohm are joined by the American psychiatrist David Shainberg.

These intense sessions took place over four days in an intimate setting at Brockwood Park. Passionate and vibrant, Krishnamurti challenges Shainberg with difficult questions, drawing out answers without losing his grip.

Bohm ensures the logical consistency of the dialogue. He easily follows K's reasoning and patiently clarifies his wording for Shainberg.

The result is a charged yet accessible package that inspires us listeners to think about our own life and our collective destiny in a fresh and thorough way. In seven hours, they address many issues, but there is actually one essential question: Can human beings change?

The whole series was released on DVD under the title Transformation of Man, with a 10-minute introduction that is well worth watching. It was recorded after the final meeting, so everyone knew what had been discussed.

Bohm and Shainberg introduce themselves and explain how they became involved with K and his teachings.

Bohm begins by recounting how he became acquainted with K, stating that he has always been interested in the deeper questions such as the nature of time, space, matter, causality, and what lies behind all this. He found that very few of his colleagues shared his interest.

David Shainberg says that he is a practising psychiatrist in New York City who has read K's work since the late 1940s. He was especially interested in the question of the observer and the observed. During his time at medical school, he tried to understand the differences between K's ideas and those of Western psychiatry and psychology. It took him five years to start applying K's teachings in his work, largely thanks to discussions with his friend David Bohm.

"In psychiatry, all theories deal with fragmentation and the relationships between fragments. They don't have any understanding of the holistic action. Most theories analyse and break things down and break them into pieces which collaborate with the very problems that our patients present us with."

Krishnamurti's work helped Shainberg see that the relationship between the observer and the observed is very important in the doctor–patient relationship, and that theories about the mind are part of the problem itself.

K is then asked how the viewer can best participate in the dialogue and get the most from this experience. K's words about taking things seriously and his strong emphasis on sharing blew my mind when I first heard them in 1977, and they still inspire me today.

"I think it all depends on how serious you are. How serious in the sense of how deeply you want to go into these questions, which is after all your life. We are not discussing theoretically some abstract hypotheses; we are dealing with the actual daily life of every human being. We are dealing with the actual facts of fear, pleasure, sorrow, death, and if there is anything sacred in life, because if you don't find something real, something that is true, life has very little meaning.

If you are serious to go into these matters with care, with attention, with affection, then you can share a great deal. You have to do this right through your life, every day of your life. If you care to find out how to live properly, what is right relationship between human beings, then you will share completely what we discuss."

Life Is More than Me

K begins the series by asking, what the most important thing is that they can talk about together.

Shainberg says he was very impressed when K once said that it is important to realise that life comes first, not thought and work. He has noticed that most people live second-hand lives.

Bohm wants to discuss the question of wholeness. K suggests that they would talk about both, not speculating, but being very practical.

It is easy to see that most people are very fragmented and not whole, and that they are not aware of it. We assume that we view the world holistically, but actually, we see ourselves and our lives through a small hole and interpret everything according to our likings.

Many seem to feel that there is nothing wrong with being fragmented: it is just what we are!

We only become aware of our fragmentation when something goes wrong in our life. This happens when we have unfulfilled desires or opposing wants, when we don't get what we want, or when we feel dissatisfied. We may also feel that the world is not as we want it to be and feel disappointed.

We are only dimly aware of our fragments. We don't seem to see the root cause of our fragmentation. In fact, we don't even realise that there is a root cause.

The reason we feel and say that we are fragmented is because there is a centre inside us, an ego that is aware of the fragments. This same centre is the cause of fragmentation and tries to bring integration and wholeness.

Without the ego, there would be no fragmentation. However, our ego does not recognise this because we have separated ourselves from our thoughts.

Trouble begins when one fragment claims to be whole and elevates itself above the others. Conflict arises when it tries to control or lead other fragments.

As well as this internal conflict, there is also external conflict between us and other people. I may think I am important, but when other people do not recognise my excellence, it bothers me. They often
feel the same way about me.

The whole world is broken into a trillion pieces, each of which thinks it is important. Our lives depend on these fragments.

There are two ways to understand these fragments. Either we do not see them at all, or we only perceive them intellectually. We assume that fragmentation is due to external factors, but we fail to recognise that it stems from the way we think. We create and maintain these fragments.

The root of fragmentation is our desire for both biological and psychological security. In order to feel safe, we want to belong to a group, sect or organisation. This is, of course, only an illusion of safety, but we either don't see this or simply don't care because we want to feel safe and secure.

The need for physical security is hardwired into our bodies. We need food, clothes and shelter. However, this need is prevented because we want to be psychologically secure, and we belong to groups that fight each other.

"If there were no nationalities, no ideological groups, we would have everything we want. That is prevented because I am a Hindu, you are an Arab, he is a Russian", K argues.

The basic source of this process is knowledge. Knowledge is the past, yet it seems to be in the present. We impose this partial knowledge on the whole, hoping that we will overcome fragmentation through knowledge. That, of course, is an illusion.

Knowledge has a place in driving a car or learning a language, but when it is used psychologically, it assumes to understand the whole. While we don't explicitly think that we understand the whole, we implicitly assume that we do.

This is evident in our interaction with others. We meet others with fixed ideas about who we are and who they are. We are only partially open to the new. Any human being is far more complex than we could ever truly know. An image based on past experiences does
not reveal everything about a person.

Knowledge spills from practical matters into the psychological field because, to us, psychological security is even more important to us than biological security. We seek security in knowledge, ideas, pictures, images, and conclusions. However, these do not produce biological security for us and our children; rather they prevent it. We are ready to kill others based on our thoughts about them.

So the 'me' becomes the essence of our life: my position, my happiness, my house, my god, my wife. We build our lives around ideas and become second-hand people with no actual contact with reality.

Lost in Concepts

The first session ended with the statement that we try to find security in the 'me', but this is a delusion. The second meeting will continue to explore this issue.

We take psychological security for granted. If we fail to feel safe, we may collapse. Our fundamental longing is to feel safe, and to know that life goes on – even after death.

We may hope that one day we will achieve our goals and dreams.

However, we know from experience that these hopes for security are often false because everything is in constant flux. Nevertheless, we are reluctant to accept the harsh reality that there is no such thing as psychological security or permanence in life.

Bohm gives two examples.

"If I could really believe that after dying I would go to heaven, make quite sure of it, then I would be very secure anywhere, no matter what happens. I wouldn't really have to worry; it would be
a temporary trouble; I would be pretty sure that in time it was all going to be good. Or if I am a Communist, I think that in time Communism is going to solve everything, we are going through
a lot of troubles now but in the end, everything will be all right."

There is security in the anticipation that everything will be all right in the future, in the projected belief or comforting concept. We focus on making life good. This may seem a healthy reaction to having experienced so many disappointments and sufferings in the past.

However, these are vain and false hopes. We cannot count on our feelings, our health, money or anyone or anything. Anything might happen. We could lose everything at any moment, and sooner or later, that will happen. There is no security in reality.

So what is wrong with beliefs, hopes and ideals?

Firstly, they are an escape from reality. If we are not living in reality, we cannot act correctly.

Secondly, they cause us constant conflict. If we base our life on ideas and images, it is impossible to have healthy relationship with others. As long as there is a sense of self, we will act in a fragmented way.

We must ask ourselves again why ideas have become so fantastically real to us – more real than marbles and hills. Why do we persist in building our lives on something unreal that brings endless conflict and suffering?

The answer is that we need and must have a sense of order.

To forget our uncertainty, we fill our days with various activities and keep ourselves busy. This mechanical order only satisfies us for a short time. Soon, we become bored and go after entertainment.

An occupied brain tends to become disorganised, and there is no way to prevent that. We can take a pill, but the problem lurks in the background, waiting to take hold.

The brain finds order in mechanical processes, in being occupied. But why don't we see that this mechanical order is essentially disorderly, delusional and dangerous? We want to hold on to our beliefs and hope that others will leave us alone. But life won't leave us alone.

The only way out of this mechanical mindset is to stop it instantly. This means that the past meets the present and ends there. Then something totally different takes place.

As K puts it: "If I meet you with the past, with my memories, but you might have changed in the meanwhile, so I never meet you. But if I am fully aware of this, then it stops and I meet you as though for the first time. It is like a new flower coming out."

Still Crazy after All These Years

Despite various proposals for solving human problems, the same old game goes on. Why do we human beings live in such an appalling way we do? This opens the third meeting.

Looking at this panorama of horror, many people become cynical and start to think that one person cannot do anything about it. Human nature is like this, they say, and it cannot be changed.

Many things have been tried without understanding human nature. Marxists argue that human nature can be improved, but only once the whole economic and political system has been altered.

We will not succeed unless we address the root cause. The ego wants to change itself, but it cannot; all attempts are doomed to fail.

Therefore, we try to find someone to help us to achieve balance in our life. Disorder creates the need for authority - or actually, the impression that we need authority.

Once we see this, we reject all authority and begin to become sane. We now have much more energy and can focus on investigating, finding out. If we don't turn to anyone for help, we develop a tremendous sense of integrity.

We may realise that we are neurotic because we have beliefs and conclusions. Can we examine the nature of the belief without using words, so that thought is aware of itself? Then a radical change happens.

Thought is not fixed; it is a process that can change in perception. According to quantum theory, the mere act of observation changes the object being observed: looking at something through a microscope affects it, meaning that it cannot be observed without affecting it.

Similarly, in psychotherapy, being with the patient changes both parties. Also, awareness of thoughts stops irrelevant ones.

To Live, You Must Leave

One reason why human beings have not changed is that, if we were to transform our conditioning, we might face real insecurity rather than imagined insecurity. If we reject society, society will reject us. The common logic is that if you don't think like us, you are against us.

So, we are frightened of not belonging to a group. We would rather cling to the known misery than enter the world we don't know. Belonging to a group makes us feel safe. If we change, we will be left alone, which is something we don't want.

To be free, we must stop identifying with a group and step out of the confusion and disorder that belonging brings. However, we are too afraid to liberate ourselves because the idea of being alone frightens us. So we would rather stay in our little pond than face isolation.

In primitive tribes, banishment from the group was the worst punishment. We are afraid of being rejected by others. This may be one more reason why we don't change.

One reason is that we are heavily conditioned to accept things as they are. When we feel uncertain, we readily accept an easy answer from someone else and believe what an authority figure tells us.

Religions tell us that this world is transient and that there is a better one to aspire to. Communists, on the other hand, say that there is no next world, let's make the best of this one. So, whom do we choose to believe? On what grounds?

It seems that we don't fully realise our own role in creating this confusion. We tend to view problems as existing independently of us, being out there somewhere. We tend to attribute the chaos to something outside of ourselves.

The alternative is to blame ourselves. In both cases, we think there is an 'I' separate from our thoughts taking care of thinking. Thought acts as if it were an independent agent not in charge of what it is doing.

We have divided our thinking into two entities: the thinker and the thought. Once we realise that they are part of the same process, a click happens in our mind. The question then becomes not why we don't change, but why thinking does not stop and goes on endlessly.

If the movement of thought stops, there is no me, no fear, and no sorrow left. Something new takes place, something we have never looked at, seen or experienced before. When we remain totally with this fact, we have extraordinary energy.

Two Rails Never Meet

K begins the fifth dialogue by asking Shainberg why we divide consciousness and who invented the concept of the unconscious. To K, the division between the hidden and the open is not real; it is merely an invention of a fragmented mind.

However, once the division is made, however, it becomes real and affects our thinking. The most influential factor here is not the line between the hidden and open parts of our mind, but how our mind works as a whole.

All grown-ups have an image of themselves, and that image gets hurt. The value of everything depends on this self-image being accurate. If we never formed any images, we would never get hurt. Nothing could get hurt or be hurt. It would be like putting a pin in the air.

If I have an image of myself and others, my relationships are between those images, and they are not real. Therefore, there is no real relationship because the image is the dominant factor. The image may be active all the time, but once we pass a critical point, it takes over. It's like being tied to a rope. As soon as we reach the end of the rope, we realise that we are stuck.

If we have an image of someone, we don't actually see that person. We only see a fragment and want to keep that person within the confines of that fragment. Society does this to every human being. Every culture around us creates images of us.

Image-making is one of the contents of our consciousness, and it may be our dominant operating process. However, it is possible to stop this destructive pattern.

As long as the process of image-making goes on, it is not possible to truly care for someone. If it doesn't stop, we destroy each other and the planet on which we are meant to live happily and enjoying life.

Our consciousness is filled with images. As long as this is the case, there will be no peace or love in the world. However, if we accept this fact and don't allow our thoughts to interfere, our mind will undergo a transformation.

Occupied by Acute Matters

In the sixth session, K asks Bohm, what will change a human being. What will bring about a radical transformation in the consciousness of humanity? And what is the energy or the drive that is lacking?

Bohm advises to start with our daily relationships in the office, at the factory, on the golf course or at home, and to observe the images moving in our minds. We must realise that having right relationship is of the greatest importance.

Therefore, we must be willing to give up things that waste our energy, such as drinking, smoking, endless chattering, crawling from pub to pub. Without energy, everything will go to pieces and we will create havoc around us.

It must also be clear that no one else can do this for us. What someone else does won't really affect our relationship.

Thirdly, our relationship must be free from image. Having an image of someone prevents us from seeing the of relationship. If we have an image of someone, we either expect them to act according to that image or try to change them.

Most of us are not serious. We want an easy life. We don't have time to engage in serious discussions, not even for two minutes. We have our own plans and acute interests. If we are not in the mood to listen, we ask them to come back when we have time.

Our self-image occupies most of our consciousness. We are mostly preoccupied with it. All our images are centred on the self. They all aim to make us feel right and correct. The self is regarded as all-important. This gives it tremendous energy.

However, we are now being asked to free ourselves from the self, to empty our consciousness, and to stop creating images. Even if we ask how to do this, it is still the 'me' asking for a way to change itself.

The 'me' is the result of my past: comprising my personal memories, experiences, and recollections. I am the past, and from the past I project the future.

The whole point of an image is that it imitates an actual fact. We get the feeling that the self is as factual as a mountain or a chair. It is not. Reality is merely thought, and thought is the past. There is no thinker without thought. If there is no experiencer, there is no experience.

Sensing the Sacred

In the last session, K takes the lead.

"After this morning, you have left me completely empty, without any future, without any past, without any image. I have been left with a sense of a blank wall. I have rejected all the systems, all the gurus and all the systems of meditation, because I have understood the meditator is the meditation. But have I solved my problem of sorrow, do I know what it means to love, do I understand what compassion is? And you haven't shown me what death is."

If the self is merely an image, what is it that dies in death? Ending of an image is nothing much; it's like turning off a television. Death must have much greater significance. Image-making is like a wave on the surface of the stream of human suffering, it is a shallow affair.

There is a constant flow of image-making. When we die, image-making does not stop; it continues to manifest in other people if we have an image at the moment of death. These images don't originate in one brain; they are, in some sense, universal. They manifest in people as they are born, K says.

Death opens up a sense of enormous, endless energy with no beginning and no end – a life that of infinite depth. The image-maker – the 'thought-maker' – blocks this energy.

Beyond our images, there is a universal sorrow in which man has lived for millions of years. It is much more than pain or the loss of a loved one. It is much more than the sum of all the sorrows of
different people. Individual sorrow is self-pity, but there is a much deeper sorrow, which is universal. The perception of that sorrow is compassion.

When we witness the tremendous ignorance of human beings living like this, we want to do something. This is the energy of compassion.

A person in sorrow can never have this. To penetrate into this, the mind must be completely silent. This silence is neither the product of control nor brought about through will.

"In that silence, there is this sense of something beyond all time, all death, all thought. Beyond that there is something more. There is something beyond compassion, which is sacred. It is a living thing. You cannot examine it, you can only examine a dead thing. That may be the origin of everything, of all matter, all nature."

To come to this point, you must empty your consciousness of its content. To do so, you must be burning to find out the truth and not getting caught up in words.

Talking about life and the sacred can be a process of clever argumentation, the expression of ideas and opinions, or it can be deeply penetrating meditation. Sharing this means going beyond the words. Then there is no sharing, only being in that dimension.

The whole series, especially the last two discussions, point to something immense that cannot be explained, but can be felt.

The Perfume of Truth

The second part of the book consists of talks given in 1977 in Ojai, Saanen, and Brockwood Park. The third part contains two conversations in 1977, with people working at the Krishnamurti Foundation in England, America and India. These were published in the 2011 book The Perfume of the Teachings.

The first discussion was about the source of Krishnamurti's teachings. Do they stem from the silence of truth, or from the noise of illusion, which K considered to be truth? How can one know, and who is going to judge?

K suggests that first you must eliminate the influence of personality and his reputation, be sceptical and free of all assumptions. Even logic does not help. A sensible-sounding answer may be wrong. It is easy to deceive oneself, especially when one wants to be sure of the answer.

What would Bohm say if someone asked him whether Krishnamurti's teachings were true or not. And why should we trust his answer?

Bohm is there, so he is asked this question.

He replies: "When we discussed these things, it was from the emptiness, and I felt it was a direct perception."

This does not convince K, who has heard a disciple of some guru say exactly the same thing.

Bohm adds that every claim must be examined with logically to establish its validity. In addition to words, actions must be examined too.

K says that we are in a dangerous area and must be extremely careful when drawing conclusions. We must proceed like scientists, bearing in mind that every claim could be proved false on closer examination.

Direct perception requires logic, of course, but clear thinking alone is not enough to produce an immediate understanding. This topic will be continued in the next session, where K will surprise the audience.

Demand Excellence!

Direct and deep perception is only possible if your daily life is in order. This is not the case when you are afraid or seeking reassurance from external sources. The mind is distorted when it separates the observer from the observed.

K states unequivocally that he has never considered himself to be a separate being. This has always been an obvious fact to him, so he has not had to think about it.

People don't seem to realise that one can live without the self. Instead, we settle for mediocrity, for a life without passion, and for the temporary satisfaction of our ever-changing desires.

K says that, in order to have total perception, we must seekthe essence of excellence in our lives as a whole, not just in a particular area. An artist or a scientist, for example, may seek excellence in their work.

"I demand the excellence of goodness, I demand the excellent flower of goodness", says K. "It is not a demand which means asking, a demand that means imploring, wanting. To demand does not mean begging or praying, getting something from somebody."

"There is this passion in a human being who demands the supreme excellence, the feeling of it. Mediocrity is lack of great passion. Total insight brings this passion, it is the flame of passion which wipes away all confusion."

When You Are Not

Finally, the group discusses what K means when he says: "I am the world and the world is me". He replies that he feels it.

"You don't even have to accept that. See the fact. There is no me. I live in this world, I have to earn my living and insure my house, but there is no me which is seeking a higher position."

The same applies to us: there is no me as a separate being. You and I are both results of society.

"You and I are the results of man's misery and selfishness. Insight brings about a quality in which you and I don't exist. That means compassion, which is intelligence."