29. Thinking Together

In the spring of 1980, Krishnamurti delivered ten talks in Ojai.

In his opening address, he emphasised how important it is to think together in a world torn by conflict. He said that our collective human consciousness is in crisis.

Although our brains are capable of healing themselves and ending both internal and external conflict, but he had observed that most people's brains are stuck. We are irrational and live in a world of concepts.

Seeing all this has an effect on our minds, but we don't see it directly. Our minds are overloaded with other people's thoughts. We crave more experiences and information because our lives feel empty.

The false sense of security that we get from knowledge lulls us to sleep. We try to analyse the situation, using cause and effect to determine what is wrong. This is neither direct perception nor thinking together.

In another talk, K says that we are consciousness, not separate from it. We have collected the contents of consciousness and stored all kinds of things in our brains. This collected information feels like it is our own, but we have received it from others. From this, we form an image of ourselves that gives us a sense of security.

K asks if it is possible to live without that image, without that wall of security. While we need different skills for our work, what purpose does the psyche serve, and what use is our psychological knowledge? It limits what we do and creates a conflict between us and the world.

In the last talk, K asks if there is an activity that is not based on knowledge, that is, imagination. To answer this question, we need to understand ourselves. The mind must be free of motives in order to investigate. This is what the mind is like when it is in a meditative state. It is then free from self-centredness and ambition. It is empty of all consciousness and is bursting with energy.

The mind then transcends energy.

Action that Is Always Right

In the summer of 1980 in Saanen, K began a series of seven talks by asking why our brains have not evolved to solve the problem of conflict. Religions have tried to tame human beings and make us more considerate by preaching love and peace.

K argues that the idea of separation is a grave mistake with serious consequences in the world. The way the human brain works does not depend on where you happen to be born or what you believe.

We have evolved into our current form over millennia. But is it possible to break free from this cycle? Our bodies change as we age, but can our minds remain alert and fresh, fully aware of the world around us at all times?

Because we are afraid to be what we are, we want to become something else. Desire is the movement of thought in time. What we want to be or have, is almost irrelevant. When our actions are based on desire, they are limited.

K asks: what is an action that is right in all circumstances? It is not based on concepts, values or principles. Right action is based on seeing the facts, on what is.

When we see correctly, there is no observer or the object of observation, and therefore no contradiction. It is direct, timeless observation. However, as a product of time, the brain cannot see anything directly; it breaks everything down into its own mould.

The Perfect Order

It takes time to become something, but to be something is immediate. When the brain stops moving in time, it changes. The ending of time breaks the pattern of time.

This change is radical. The brain then has no centre or pattern; it functions according to the situation. This order is the same as that of the universe, which is perfect.

Conflicts create and maintain disorder. This is caused by thinking, based on concepts. Thought creates opposition and contradiction.

When we face violence, we create an opposite which is not true, it is the product of our own mind. When life is miserable, we create the idea of happiness. It is only a dream.

Violence stems from opposites. When the brain realises this deeply and directly, it stops moving in time and becomes connected to the actual reality without trying to change anything. It becomes sensitive and begins to perceive its own actions without distortion.

This is all about seeing and ending sorrow. This involves breaking all patterns of thinking. When there is no separation, it is a kind of voluntary death.

In the final talk, K reflects on the nature of love. Love does not fit into a mind filled with images. The content of consciousness must be emptied of everything collected. Then the mind is filled with something else; something that cannot be experienced or evaluated. It is a combination of beauty and truth.

Can the Brain Change Itself?

The Brockwood Park series in August 1980 began with a reflection
on what it means to take real action and take responsibility for the state of the world.

In the second talk, K asked whether the brain can change itself. Consciously, it cannot, but direct perception naturally and without effort changes the brain.

The final talk explored the nature of the religious mind and true meditation. A common theme throughout was that there is no contradiction between the thinker and the thought.

In Sri Lanka in November 1980, K first spoke in Colombo about relationship, and then about reading the book of life correctly. He referred to the three elements of the art of living: the art of seeing, listening and learning.

The third talk was about death, and the fourth talk about the vastness of the mind – the wordless space where all the petty worries of the world disappear.

The programme in India in winter 1981 consisted of six talks in Madras and six in Bombay. K sang the good old song that says the most important thing in life is to know yourself, not defined by others, but as you really are.

Thought is the only instrument with which we can examine ourselves. However, it can give us a distorted view of ourselves. The world is not an abstract concept, but the real truth: timeless and sacred.

Differences Are Superficial

In Ojai in May 1981, K said that understanding is the key to solving the world crisis. First, we must understand how thought creates our internal and external problems. We use thought to solve problems without realising that it is the cause of them.

Secondly, we must realise that thinking is not personal; it is based on a common foundation that we all share. We all identify ourselves with different things, but ultimately, we all identify with something. We fear and mourn different things, but we all fear and mourn something.

We all have an idea of who and what we are, but our differences are superficial. Of course, our skills and wealth differ, but we should not rank each other on that basis.

Our interactions can highlight either our individual differences or co-operation, working together. One approach is based on images and around the self; the other is all about us. It should not be difficult to see which produces a better outcome.

Programmed to Repeat

At Saanen in July 1981, K spoke of the network of thought in which we are stuck in. We are programmed both physically and mentally. We are held captive by our brain's programming, and we are not thoroughly and directly aware of it.

Our brains reproduce what we learn in the same way that computers do. Our own 'hard drive' is made up of experiences that we have given special meaning to. The consciousness of a businessman differs from that of an artist or a priest, yet they all exhibit similar thought patterns and influence each other fundamentally.

Thinking is the movement of memory in time and space. We imagine that time is needed to solve our problems. However, this is only the case when we imagine ourselves as individuals living in time. In the present moment, there is no time, no separation, or no problem to solve. We ourselves have created the problem we are trying to solve. Understanding this instantly breaks the pattern of thinking.

Our brains are accustomed to solving problems. When looking for a solution, they don't realise that they are chasing their own tail. This realisation requires a learning mind – one that observes and reacts immediately, rather than simply collecting and storing information.

K stresses that it is not enough to just talk or convince others; we must take action. The old formula must be abandoned. According to K, this is a turning point in life where meanings are revolutionised, affecting the consciousness of humanity as a whole.

In the third talk, K discusses impersonal perception. One must be free to observe together with others. Prejudices must be abandoned, as must reliance on the understanding of others. One must be free
of any contradiction. But is that possible?

Time will not solve this problem. It is enough to detect something without naming or registering it. Then thought neither moves, nor defines the object.

The fourth talk will build on this idea. We define ourselves and our own space, and we do the same for others. Our brains are conditioned to create and maintain conflict. They see conflict as inevitable and perceive it everywhere.

So why don't we doubt all this and try to get rid of it?

Because our brains only work partially. We focus on something and draw a conclusion. We then react to this conclusion, rather than to the moving object itself. This mechanism confuses the image with the object, which our brain does not understand.

An even more serious mistake is to imagine that the self really exists. It feels like a very real living being. This would be revealed if we could properly observe it, but we cannot. To make matters worse, we are fed with the idea of a separate self.

It is this imaginary self that we struggle with and try to come to terms with. Calls for direct observation fall on deaf ears. The self effectively and without hesitation rejects the idea.

True observation reveals that there is no centre or observing self. Instead, there is only the timeless beauty of the fact itself, in which the brain is completely immersed. This is meditation in its purest form.

The Brain in Action

The world's problems were also the starting point for the Brockwood Park talks in the autumn of 1981.

What should we think about them, and what can we do? The danger is obvious, so why don't we act? What is holding us back?

We're buried in our own potholes, unable to see our place in the world correctly. How on earth can you, as an individual, be responsible for things you can't do anything about?

"We only use a small part of our brain," says K. "Our thinking is limited, so we create problems."

The real problem is not outside us, it is inside us. It is a problem for everyone, not just a select few. Suffering is collective. It is not localised, it is everywhere we look.

We shouldn't approach the whole thing as a problem, because then our brain will start looking for a solution. First, we must identify the root cause, and then decide what to do about it.

The culprit is the concept of thinking that divides the whole into arbitrary parts. This concept of separation is perpetuated by thinking. This is the source of the contradiction that we are trying to solve with the wrong tool. Thinking only makes the situation worse.

In September 1981, K gave two talks in Amsterdam, then flew to India. He gave four talks in New Delhi in November, followed by six talks in Madras at the turn of the year, followed by a further six in Bombay between January and February 1982.

What Is Enough of Self?

After delivering two talks at Carnegie Hall in New York in March 1982, K travelled to Ojai, where he discussed with David Bohm, the biologist Rupert Sheldrake, and the psychiatrist John H. Hidley. They had four dialogues about the nature of the mind.

K begins on a heavy note: "Self-centred activity is the very source of disorder. The egotistic attitude towards life, the sense of the individual, and the emphasis on individual happiness and salvation
is the origin of all disorder inside and outside."

Hidley is not sure. He concedes that these are the symptoms, but questioned whether it is justified to claim that they are the source.

"Psychiatrists and psychologists look at this that the problem is to have an adequate self, defining normality so that the self is functioning sufficiently."

To K, this means furthering more misery. Bohm feels that their purpose is that a properly organised self could get together with other properly organised selves and make an orderly society.

As a biologist, Sheldrake believes that the context is broader. There is disorder in nature, too. Animals suffer, and there are conflicts between the forces of nature and between animals, even in the plant world when they compete for light.

Bohm opposes. The phenomena described are not disorder; they are at least different from disorder in consciousness. Hidley has seen that all people suffer to various degrees, but it does not have to be so.

K puts a question: Are human beings destined to live in agony and suffer? Physical suffering is obvious, but we can forget it if we don't give it continuity in thought.

Sheldrake insists that we inherit the pecking order and selfish activity from animals.

"There have always been wars and conflicts, and there always will be. The most we can do is to try to minimise their effects or make them liveable with."

K wants to enquire, whether it is possible to change this conditioning. This would mean changing ourselves rather than trying to change society, as communists tried to do.

Bohm clarifies that K is talking about a fundamental change, not just a superficial transfer of the object of aggression.

K then asks Hidley, what he, as a psychiatrist, tries to do: free people from conditioning, or accept and modify it. When Hidley answers that he is modifying it, K wants to know why. Hidley explains:

"Conditioning is seen as biological and therefore fixed. A person is born with a certain temperament. It is not clear to therapists that the problem can be dealt with as a whole but as particulars."

Psychologists are concerned with solving individual problems; they do not consider human suffering as a whole, nor do they think there is anything wrong with this approach.

K puts more pressure on Hidley: "So you are emphasising his particular suffering and so sustaining it. You are helping him to be more selfish, self-concerned, self-committed!"

Hidley claims that he can help the patient to be less self-concerned, but admits that he leaves the self intact.

Bohm points out that people generally try to improve the self, and that a certain amount of self-centredness is normal.

To K, this means that we are merely modifying selfishness, which he considers to be irrational and impractical. Most people shut their ears at this point and don't want to listen any further. However, there may be few who want to investigate this and find out if there is a way out of selfish outlook.

The first step is to make the relationship with life right. If that is not right, how can we hope to understand something that is immensely beyond this? We must be honest with ourselves and not be satisfied with mere explanations. We must go beyond the 'me' and not depend on anybody. To do so, we must explore dependence.

We depend on things because we want security, believing that we will find it in ideas, principles, faith, dogmas, a house, furniture or a wife or husband. If we don't find security in one area, we will continue to seek it elsewhere.

From an Animal to Human

In the second session, Hidley asks Bohm for his comment on biological conditioning and psychological security.

"In the higher animals, there is some memory, but in humans, memory becomes very significant. Animals forget bad experiences, but humans may quarrel with each other for hundreds of years. Memory itself would not cause any trouble, but it produces fear, anger, and all sorts of disturbances. Most animals cannot form an image of the other animals, but humans can remember insults and
exact revenge on families over many centuries."

While biological facts are not a serious problem in themselves, it is very difficult to stop thinking about negative incidents.

The purpose of thinking is to provide security and avoid suffering. We look for thoughts that would make us feel good, but some memories are very disturbing and haunt us. We then decide that feeling better is more important than finding out what is true. However, we adopt the wrong approach to feeling good by trying to force our mind into a comfortable mood.

We know that this doesn't work. There is no effective way to force our feelings. Our thoughts take the place of reality, and self-deception plays a significant role.

One thing that threatens our mental state is the feeling of being hurt.

Psychological hurt causes us to act in all kinds of neurotic ways. For example, we feel hurt when we have an inflated sense of our own importance, and someone tells us that we are idiots. We invest a lot of our feelings and emotions in our image. This image feels very real, but it is merely a symbol, never the real thing.

The essence of our image is identification with something greater. We identify with our nation, family, house, furniture, gods, ideas, ideologies, and beliefs. We build this image because we feel inadequate inwardly.

In doing so, we build a wall around ourselves, which leaves us feeling lonely and isolated. We are not satisfied and want more. So, we begin the process of becoming or being more. This means escaping what is through time.

According to Sheldrake, identification is a biological fact. As we are social animals, we must defend our family members and rush to defend them. It is our reciprocal obligation to help others.

K asks Sheldrake to extend this obligation to communities and nations to see what happens: "We are killing each other in the name of security. That is damned stupid!"

Sheldrake defends his standpoint by saying that we have not killed all others, there are more people alive than ever been before. K is not convinced. To him, isolation prevents security.

Clearing the Confusion

The third meeting is about the need for security. We can see that identification and isolation are destroying us, yet we continue. The way we seek security is not working.

The ego is unstable. This may be one reason why there is in us this anxiety for security. The self is in a state of movement; when we feel uncertain and impermanent, we invent something permanent
and create the idea of God.

K is almost harsh in saying: "To be secure is really a disgusting desire. To be secure in what? About what? Personally, I never thought about security. I need food, clothes and shelter, but I don't want security."

The demand for security increases when our existence is based on division: when we think we are different from the content of our consciousness. Many people disagree for they have not considered it.

We create the division when we act out of fear, anger, violence, desire or suffering. We create the conflict and keep it up with thinking. All these disturbances block our mind and shrink us.

When we are afraid or in sorrow, we cannot think or act rationally. We have no tools with which to clear up the chaos that we made. We try to do something because we don't realise that we are the chaos!

"To realise that, is total attention. Then the chaos in consciousness does not exist anymore. It is inattention that creates the problems", says K.

"I listen not only with the sensual ear, but with the other ear. In attention there is no centre."

We do not listen because we like our dependencies more than we want to use the chance to be free.

Healthy Mind Is Whole

Krishnamurti begins the fourth discussion by pointing out the difference between analysis and observation. In analysis, there is an analyser observing something that he thinks is separate from himself. This division is created by thought, and thought continues to create conflict. If this is deeply understood, psychological problems end.

There are then no separate individuals. We have established a right kind of relationship to all people.

Sheldrake says that it is easy to have a good relationship with people we know, but "how about the enemies like the Russians, whom we have never met?".

K asks: who is an enemy to us? Is it someone who disagrees with us, with whom we have definitive ideological differences? This kind of phrasing is tribalism!

"We are human beings, not labels! We represent all humanity. We are like the rest. If hundreds of us all over the world really had a non-tribalistic attitude towards life, we would be acting like a light in the midst of darkness. But we don't."

Despite the chaos in the world, nobody seems willing to delve deeply into this issue. We say we don't have time for this, yet we find time for many things we regard as all-important. We also say that this is too difficult, not practical, as though everything we do is practical.

Even in a neurotic world, it is possible to have a healthy, whole, and holy mind. To achieve it, the mind must be free: not attached, not confused, not groping, not floundering, not demanding or asking.

"We are so superficial and it seems to satisfy us. We are educated to be cruel to each other", says K.

"A healthy mind is without any conflict. Then it is a holistic mind. Then there is a possibility of that which is sacred to be."

The 'Me' First, Second and Third?

The Ojai series in April 1982 began with an account of the world's acute turmoil and a plea for people to stop postponing a solution to this tragedy.

"How have we become like this, even though we have lived in a beautiful and wonderful world?"

A divided world is all our fault. Wars and pollution do not happen by themselves. Science helps in many ways, but theories do not solve human problems. Religions bring hope and comfort, but they also divide people. In politics, self-interest comes first.

All of this is the content of our consciousness and shapes our lives. Life is relationship. We are all connected to everything, and our relationships make up what we call society.

In June 1982, the recently opened Barbican Centre in London hosted two talks, but they were not particularly successful.

The first talk had audio problems and was released as an audio only.

The second talk was more successful, beginning with the statement that the difference between the observer and the object of observation is a trick of the mind that disappears when its source is realised.

Two Options

A series of talks at Saanen in the summer of 1982 began with K saying that, unlike the tennis matches and circus that were taking place in the neighbouring village of Gstaad at the same time, he was not
trying to entertain his audience.

The purpose of the talks was to explore together what was happening to humanity. There are two possible futures: either we destroy each other, or we change the way we live.

Evil has a long tradition and takes many forms, such as anger, prejudice, oppression, and isolation.

Human consciousness is the same all over the world. We all wrestle with the same problems, yet we think we are unique individuals. That is just a superficial perception. We are all the same water, connected like drops in the ocean. The basis is common, differences are minor.

If you see it this way, you will feel responsible for the whole of humanity; you don't limit responsibility to yourself. When you feel connected, there is no difference between your and my problems. They are both based on thinking, and thinking breaks the world into pieces, causing conflict.

Thinking has created gods, religious rituals, customs, and boundaries. It creates separateness, and it believes in it. Our thoughts stem from the knowledge and experiences we have accumulated. None of this
is sacred; rather, it is self-deception.

At the Crossroads

K begins the second talk by saying that we are not aware of how we fragment our lives. This habit robs us of our freedom and makes us vulnerable. When connection with others becomes exploitation and profit, life becomes a struggle and a pursuit of self-interest.

We have two options: we can either acknowledge this process and stop it, or we can quietly accept it and live in endless conflict.

If you realise that thinking is the root of all evil, you will want to do something about it. Once again, we are at a crossroads where we must make the right choices. One path leads to error, the other to truth.

The crucial question is how we perceive the danger of thinking: as an idea or directly?

Seeing it as an idea means that we have reached the intrinsically logical conclusion, based on intellectual observation, that thinking causes our problems. Seeing it directly means that we have the power to stop the movement of thinking. There is no delay between perception and action.

The difference between words and deeds is that words can always be reversed, but actions are irreversible. Words are knowledge; deeds are not. While knowledge can certainly influence how we act, it is easy to deceive ourselves by saying things we don't mean.

Thought is information that can influence our actions. It is created in our heads, although it is often based on our perception. We are driven by emotions, which are based on the images our minds create, more than we would like to admit. Emotions colour our reality and it is easy to lose ourselves in the game.

"Can you see the world as it is?" K asks. "You can't when you're dominated by images."

The mind becomes foggy when emotions take over. Most emotions are buried so deeply in the mind that they cannot be accessed. Many of our traumas are passed down through generations, inherited from our ancestors.

The quickest way to break this cycle is to recognise it. Then the cause no longer becomes the effect. Why? Because you see the danger, such as patriotism or religiosity.

Recognising the danger of separateness is the insight that overcomes stupidity. This perception is not personal; it is a universal human quality in which the self plays no part.

Insight Works, or It Does Not

The third talk continues to explore the nature of insight.

First, K says that insight has neither cause nor motive. It cannot be sought. Insight is personal; you cannot get it from someone else.

A thought has a cause and an effect. Thought is based on something old and leads to something. It is the movement of time from past to future. It is a progression from one thing to another.

Thoughts often have an alternative or opposite. Insight has not. Anger has an opposite, love does not. When anger stops, something else emerges. When there is no fear, the mind works differently.

Insight puts an end to conflict because it is based on neither thought nor time. Either insight works now, or it doesn't; there are no alternatives or in-betweens, no cause or effect.

Something Wonderful

At the beginning of the fourth talk, K considers the need to become something, and asks what would happen if you gave that idea up.

Becoming is a time-related process. It builds on what has been learned in the past. Therefore, it is limited, conditioned, and isolating.

The second option is to observe what is, not by analysing and judging, but as it actually is. Seeing the false as false is insight. K asks if you can look at a friend or listen to music without giving any form to what you are experiencing. You simply look or listen, feel what is happening. Then something wonderful happens in the mind.

There is no experiencer in direct experience. The self arises when the experience is given some meaning. In perception, there is no perceiver, only the perception of the movement of life. If you can perceive your fears or desires without naming them, the mind is freed from its patterns.

In the fifth talk, K talked about the art of listening. True listening involves the whole mind and all the senses, not just the brain, which mechanically gathers information from observations. This kind of listening is small, limited, repetitive. It involves comparison, which means shrinking the object.

When we see something majestically beautiful, it leaves an imprint on our mind. The mind turns it into a memory and makes it personal. This memory can be recalled, but it is no longer the same as the original observation.

Memories easily become important. By remembering, we fill the empty moments in life.

The final talk is about religion and meditation. Both are only possible in freedom, in a timeless space. However, religion has turned into heretical superstition, and meditation has been reduced to a method to be practised. Both can make people neurotic because they create mental clutter.

Freedom, love and insight go hand in hand. When the brain stops racing, in that silence the sacred, timeless and boundless come to life.

The Answer Is Freedom

At Brockwood Park in August 1982, K began by saying that he is nervous because he does not know what he is going to talk about.

However, by his second sentence, he had reverted to his usual self, emphasising the importance of being aware of the state of the world and taking action. The world has become our common problem.

People have suffered throughout the ages, yet the same thing goes on. Enough is enough!

We are just fixing the consequences without solving the underlying cause, which is in our consciousness, our way of thinking and in our relationships with each other. We live in a world of images, and the most important of these is our perception of ourselves.

We define ourselves, creating a sense of self that is different and separate from others. This is a mistake that leads to problems.

We try to solve these problems by developing an ideal, a desired state of affairs. This creates a new problem: a conflict between reality and imagination. The mind gets stuck.

If we cannot find a solution ourselves, we turn to experts. Each of them offers their own model.

K suggests sticking firmly to the facts, to what is. Don't build your life on dreams; that is escapism, a medicine that may relieve symptoms but won't cure the disease.

The answer lies in freedom, in total detachment from everything that thinking has developed. Thinking is bound; it can never be free. It is a disease for which there may be no antidote. Thought creates sadness and fear, and clings to them. To be free of the cause is to be free of the consequence.

Freedom has no opposite, just as love has no opposite. It is not an endpoint, nor can it be described or aspired to.

Practising does not bring us closer to the truth because the truth is everywhere – except in a mind that lives in time.

Meditation means being aware of life; it is not a conscious effort, but movement without a mover. We cannot experience what we don't understand. We cannot have silence. Silence is when there is no self.

In November 1982, K spoke in New Delhi and Calcutta. The year changed again in Madras and then in Bombay. From India, K flew to America, giving two talks in New York and San Francisco in April, followed by the Ojai series in May.