30. The Future of Humanity

In June 1983, Krishnamurti and David Bohm held two fascinating discussions about the future of humanity at Brockwood Park. On this occasion, Bohm is a curious questioner rather than an equal partner in the conversation. He asks questions as if he was representing what K is saying to people who do not know, understand or believe him.

This role of Bohm does not bother K too much; he keeps his course and explains patiently. There is, of course, no reason to suspect that K and Bohm disagree on the conclusions. They think alike about the problem and its solution.

The discussions were videotaped in colour and stereo sound and shown at a psychoanalysts' conference in Switzerland. For reasons unknown, the small book The Future of Humanity was not published until three years after K's death in 1986. Much later, in 2014, it was finally published as a reasoned part of the new edition of The Ending of Time.

In a short foreword, Bohm writes that these two dialogues were profoundly affected by the fifteen sessions held three years earlier and provide important additional insights into the human problems. He adds that these dialogues might serve as a useful introduction to The Ending of Time.

The starting point was the critical course of humanity. According to Bohm, this is "of vital concern, because modern science and technology have opened up immense possibilities of destruction".

Bohm believes that the ultimate origin of this situation is in the generally confused mentality of humankind, which has not fundamentally changed throughout the whole of recorded history. If there is ever to be any possibility of diverting humanity from its very dangerous course, it is essential to enquire deeply into the root of this difficulty.

Bohm writes, "At first sight, it implies that a solution must involve time in a fundamental way. Yet, as Krishnamurti points out, psychological time, or "becoming" is the very source of the destructive current that is putting the future of humanity at risk."

Questioning time means questioning the adequacy of knowledge and thought, as a means of dealing with this problem. This raises the question of whether the mind is limited by the brain of mankind, with all the knowledge accumulated over the ages.

Knowledge has conditioned us deeply, producing an irrational and self-destructive programme in which the brain seems helplessly been caught up.

Bohm points out that K does not regard our limitations as inevitable. Instead, he emphasises that the mind is essentially free of the distorting bias inherent the conditioning of the brain, and that insight arising from undirected attention without a centre can change the cells of the brain and remove the destructive conditioning.

He adds that it is "crucially important that there be this kind of attention and that we give to this question the same intensity of energy that we generally give to other activities of life that are really of vital interest to us".

Bohm is optimistic about the possibility of profound change in human beings through insight.

"Modern research into the brain and nervous system actually gives considerable support to Krishnamurti's statement that insight may change the brain cells. Thus, for example, it is now well known that there are important substances in the body, the hormones and the neurotransmitters, that fundamentally affect the entire functioning of the brain and nervous system. These substances respond, from moment to moment, to what a person knows, thinks, and to what all this means to him."

"It is by now fairly well established that in this way the brain cells and their functioning are profoundly affected by knowledge and thought, especially when these give rise to strong feelings and passions. It is thus quite plausible that insight, which must arise in a state of great mental energy and passion, could change the brain cells in an even more profound way."

Life Is a Live Broadcast

K begins the dialogue by stating that the world has become tremendously dangerous. Terrorism, wars, the national and racial divisions, some dictators who want to destroy the world, economic, and ecological crises all make the future look very grim, depressing,

dangerous and uncertain for both the present and the coming generations.

According to Bohm, to find a solution, we must stand back from our personal problems and urgent needs and take a much wider view.

First, we must understand that our future is in the present, in the way we live now. Our big mistake is to think in terms of evolution.

In the material world there is growth and development, progress or decay – being more or less. Species have evolved into what they are today, and an acorn grows into an oak tree. Physically, movement in time is a valid and natural process.

Psychological progress is something we have invented. It is real only because we think it is. Our psyche is our past; a recollection of things we have experienced and adopted. Therefore, our future is determined by our past.

Although we can make some modifications and choose differently, everything still happens within the confines of our past. We can, of course, learn more and new things, but our knowledge is still limited. We can never know everything.

While we need knowledge in practical matters, in the realm of the psyche it is divisive and separative. Thought remains within the same small circle, creating its own world. Thought divides the world into parts and concludes that these parts are separate.

It is quite all right and usually harmless to divide the material world. I am different from a tree or a table. My body is unique; otherwise, it would be difficult to recognise myself.

Difficulties arise when I identify myself with certain ideas or experiences and make them important. When I feel that I am better than you, I start a dangerous process leading to undesirable consequences.

Thought is necessary in science, art, culture, technology, medicine, travel, communication and surgery. However, the sense of separation that thought creates is an illusion that causes a colossal mess in the world.

"The master is this limited psyche, and not the rational structure of technology", comments Bohm.

"In fact, technology then becomes a dangerous instrument. If the psyche is not in order, then the rest is useless."

Basic disorders in the psyche are common to us all, but we may have the potential for something else.

Although our bodies are different entities and in different places, K says it is an illusion to think that consciousness is individual.

"We are sticking to something that is not true. The sense of separateness is insanity."

It is our conditioning to think that we are separate. From childhood, we are taught this. This is the activity of thought, which in its very nature is divisive and therefore we think we are fragments.

Thinking is a movement in time. We know physical movement and assume that psychological movement is of the same kind.

"Hope is time. Becoming is time. Achieving is time. I want to become nonviolent. That is altogether a fallacy", K says. "Nonviolent state cannot exist when there is violence. That is just an ideal. Violence is the only state."

So the idea of self-improvement is fatally wrong, to K it is "something utterly ugly". The idea that I need time to be enlightened creates division in the psyche and hence conflict.

We are so accustomed to living with conflict that we do not even consider living without it. But is it even possible to transcend thought and live without conflict? Can we have peace on earth?

K says that this activity is the highest form of intelligence, which means being free of conditioning. There must also be freedom from suffering, which means the ending of 'me'.

It may seem to us that suffering is separate from the self, comes and goes independently, but K emphasises that it originates from thought.

Secondly, many people feel that they learn through suffering. According to K: no, they don't!

Our third misconception is that suffering is personal, 'my suffering'. It is common to all humanity. It is in the human consciousness.

Intelligence is free from programming and has nothing to do with memory or experience. To understand intelligence, we must be free from suffering. As long as suffering, fear, and the pursuit of pleasure exist, there cannot be love and intelligence.

Being free from suffering means the ending of the self. It is not my suffering; suffering is common to all mankind. We have not ended it

because we treat it as personal. Suffering is part of our common consciousness. I am the world; I am my brother's keeper.

Many religions have said this, but they do not embody it, they do not live it in their hearts. Religions have prevented us from truly understanding the phrase 'I am the world' because they all have their own particular beliefs, gods, and organisations.

"The ending of suffering means love. Without love and compassion there is no intelligence. And you cannot be compassionate if you are attached to some religion, if you are tied to a post like an animal."

So, what is the future of humanity? Is anybody concerned about that, or is each person, each group only concerned with their own survival and therefore all these perpetual wars?

"Those in power will not even listen to you. They are creating more and more misery; the world is becoming more and more dangerous."

We people live in a sense as if we were asleep, caught in an illusion, in a state that is not related to the real world.

"How does one make others see all this?" K asks. "They haven't time, they haven't the energy; they haven't even the inclination. They want to be amused. How does one make X see this whole thing so clearly that he feels responsible? I think that this is the tragedy of those who see and those who don't."

End the Tyranny of Thought!

K begins the second dialogue by questioning whether psychologists are really concerned with the future of humanity. Are they merely conforming human beings to the present-day society, or are they striving to go beyond it?

"The evolution of consciousness is a fallacy. There is no psychological evolution, or evolution of the psyche."

Bohm adds that the future of humanity depends on the psyche, and will not going be determined by actions in time. What is it that we can do then?

K says that, first, we should distinguish between the brain and the mind.

There are many views on this. Materialists claim that the mind is merely a function of the brain. Another view is that they are two distinct entities.

To K, they are different things that interact with each other. By observing the activity of our own brain, we can see that it is like a programmed computer with memory. It is conditioned by past generations, by society, by the newspapers and all the external activities. It is made to conform to a certain pattern. It lives entirely on the past, modifying itself in the present and going on.

While some conditioning is useful and necessary, conditioning that determines the self or the psyche may not only be unnecessary, but also harmful. Giving importance to the self can cause great damage.

Thought is limited and therefore causes conflict. The movement of thought is illusory. It is like the movement on the screen which is projected from the camera. No objects are actually moving across the screen, the only real movement is the turning of the projector.

When we are thinking of the self, something is happening physically and chemically in the brain. The brain projects the self. We don't realise that the self is the result of conditioning.

"The conditioning of the brain is the involvement with an illusion which we call the self", Bohm formulates.

When we constantly assert that the self is real, the brain begins to believe it is. Seeing the consequences of this illusion raises the question: can conditioning be dissipated neuro-physiologically?

At first glance, this seems unlikely. Not much seems to have changed within us. Yet some scientists believe that we may discover drugs, new genetic changes, or deep knowledge of the structure of the brain.

K has a blunt view: "It might in the future, but in the meantime, man is going to destroy himself."

Bohm asks K what the point is of talking about the change, if it is not going to affect anyone, and certainly not in time to make a big difference. He answers:

"Because this is the right thing to do, independently. It has nothing to do with reward and punishment. We say: there is no other way."

Some psychologists feel that, by inquiring into this sort of thing, we could consider an evolutionary transformation of consciousness.

K questions that. This does not happen over time; it only leads to illusion and self-deception. Any form of becoming is an illusion, and the notion of becoming implies time, time for the psyche to change.

The brain is a physical, chemical, complex process in time but the mind is not. The brain is conditioned and not free to enquire in an unbiased way. It must be free; otherwise, it becomes caught in its own ideas.

The mind is not subject to the brain's conditioning. The mind is not located inside the body or in the brain.

To change the brain cells, insight is needed. This insight is an activity of the mind, not of the brain. Insight changes the brain cells. In this way, the brain is a kind of instrument of the mind when the brain is not self-centred.

Conditioning occupies all of the brain's capacities and prevents it from operating within a broader area.

Instead, it only operates within a very small area, running on its own programme like a computer. Ideally, the brain would respond to the mind, but it cannot do so unless it is free from thought.

There can be no compassion as long as that conditioned program dominates the brain. Compassion and intelligence originate from beyond the brain. They can only exist when the brain is quiet.

This quietness is the natural outcome of understanding one's own conditioning. Then the mind can function through the brain.

"My thought has created the belief that I am different from you, because my body is different from yours, my face is different from yours. We extend that same thing into the psychological area. That division is an illusion."

So it is very crucial to understand not the mind itself, but conditioning and whether it can ever be dissolved.

There is a universal mind that lives in space and silence not invented by thought.

Meditation is necessary for the brain to be aware of the mind. Although the word generally implies that there is a meditator meditating, meditation really takes place when the brain is quiet. So it is an unconscious process, not a conscious one.

All conscious action is the activity of thought. If we meditate consciously, we force the brain to conform to a series of patterns. Controlling thought is not freedom. Attention must be given without the attempt to attend. In attention, the self is not. Attention is undirected. Thought has no place in it.

A programmed brain has no space or silence because it is preoccupied with itself. However, when it is quiet, however, there is insight and intelligence.

Intelligence is perception of what is.

Almost everything that humankind does or has tried to do is based on thought. Thought has created the wars, the misery, the confusion. And it has become prominent in human relationships.

Nevertheless, thought can never change brain cells or end suffering. Our instrument of action is worn out. In fact, it was never adequate.

Mutation in the brain cells wipes out the whole structure of that makes us suffer.

Given that thought has created chaos both externally and internally, we must ask: is there an ending to this? If thought cannot end it, then what can? What new instrument will put an end to all this misery?

Is there a way to communicate this subtle and very complex issue to someone steeped in tradition?

Scientists and politicians won't listen to this, nor will idealists, totalitarians or deeply dogmatic religious people. The rich won't listen, and the poor want bread first. They have all come to their
own conclusions. All of this must affect humanity.

The new instrument is intelligence. It operates in the mind but affects the brain. When the brain is quiet, the self is not. Then there is beauty, silence, space and intelligence born out of immense compassion.

His Last Journal

After the success of Krishnamurti's Journal, K was asked to continue writing a diary. However, by the age of 87, his hand had become so shaky that he could no longer write. He was therefore advised to dictate it.

After returning from India in February 1983, K made the first entry into a new Sony tape recorder at Brockwood Park. He usually dictated in the mornings, after breakfast and while still in bed,
when he would be undisturbed.

In the foreword to the published book, Mary Lutyens writes that "his dictations were not as finished as his writings and some slight editing was necessary for the sake of clarity".

Healed in Nature

K begins by describing a tree by the river that he had observed day after day for several weeks. In the evenings, the tree glows golden, and during the day, its leaves dance in the sunlight. By midday, its shadow has deepened, providing protection from the sun. The tree is his companion.

"If you establish a relationship with it, then you have relationship with mankind. You are responsible then for that tree and for the trees of the world. But if you have no relationship with the living things on this earth you may lose whatever relationship you have with humanity, with human beings."

The tree has its own sound, but it is so subtle that you must be extraordinarily sensitive to hear it. It is not the sound of the wind through the leaves, but the sound of the trunk and the roots.

"The healing of the mind takes place if you are with nature, with that orange on the tree, and the blade of grass that pushes through the cement, and the hills covered, hidden, by the clouds."

Humans are killing whales, birds, and each other. The slaughter has not stopped. K says that war is organised murder.

The Earth Is Smiling

Three days later, K is in Ojai, remembering the flight at 41,000 feet. He feels "strange aloofness, deep silence, and the vast spreading of slow time".

He enters the house where he has lived for sixty years, where he can almost touch the holy air. The "earth is smiling with such delight, with some deep, quiet understanding of its own existence".

In order to comprehend something that is not of time, the brain must be quiet and empty itself of all knowledge. However, the mind seems to demand occupation, moving from one thing to another, from one action to the next.

On 11 March, K wonders why people do not realise that they can live peacefully, without wars and violence. How long will it take him to realise this? From the past centuries of a thousand yesterdays, he has not yet learned this. What he is now, will be his future.

A Better 'Me' Is a Lie

K often points out that there is no separate self. Your brain is not yours; our consciousness is the consciousness of humanity, evolved and grown through many centuries. The gods and rituals in that consciousness are the product of human thought. The self is put together by thought. This thinking is not individual thinking, but shared by all human beings.

On 17 March, K says: "We want the psyche to evolve, grow, expand, fulfil, turn into something more than what it is. But actually, there is no psychological evolution. Conceit and arrogance cannot grow into better and more conceit, nor can selfishness. This movement is an illusion, is really, if one can use the word, a lie. The me can never become a better me. There is no becoming of the self, there is only the ending of selfishness, of anxiety, of pain and sorrow."

We think we need time to change. Time is thought; the past, motive. Where there is a motive, there is no change. The ending has no time.

On 19 April, K asks: Can time have a stop? If it is does, what happens, what is the reward? Who is asking this?

"Meditation is a movement without any motive, without words and without the activity of thought. In meditation there is the very action of that which is most noble, most sacred and holy."

Man Is to Be Dreaded

On 26 April, K saw a bird dying after being shot by a man.

"Man is the only animal that is to be dreaded", he says. Then he tells the old story about meeting with a tiger. He got so close that he could feel the energy, the vitality of that wild animal."

K wonders if humans will ever live peacefully on this earth. Conflict has always been the way of our life, both in the psyche and society.

"Probably love has totally disappeared from this world. Love implies generosity, care, not to hurt another, not to make another feel guilty, to be generous, courteous, and behave in such a manner that your words and thoughts are born out of compassion."

Language Doesn't Condition Us

On 9 May, K says, "It seems that language really doesn't condition the brain; what does is the theory of the language, the abstraction of a certain feeling and the abstraction taking the form of an idea, a symbol, a person – not the actual person but a person imagined, or hoped for, or projected by thought. All those abstractions, those ideas, condition the brain. But the actual, like the table, never does."

On 27 March, K drives along the coast road from Los Angeles Airport to Ojai Valley. He writes about religion and education, and how they should teach children to live in peace.

"It seems so urgent and important that we bring about a new generation, even half a dozen people in the world would make a vast difference. But the educator needs education. It is the greatest vocation in the world."

Die With Dignity

In his final dictation on 30 March 1984, less than two years before his own passing, K writes about death.

"Why do human beings die so miserably, so unhappily, with a disease, old age, senility, the body shrunk, ugly? Why can't they die naturally and as beautifully as this leaf? What is wrong with us? In spite of all doctors, medicines and hospitals, operations and all the agony of life, and the pleasures too, we don't seem able to die with dignity, simplicity, and with a smile."

K believed that, just as we teach children mathematics or reading, we should also teach them the dignity of death.

"Old men and women waste away their life with incessant conflict, which only exercises and gives strength to the self, the me, the ego. The child with his curiosity can be helped to understand death."

Everything on earth comes into being and withers away. Grasping this requires intelligence, love and compassion.

"As one looked at that dead leaf with all its beauty and colour, maybe one would very deeply comprehend, be aware of, what one's own death must be. Death isn't something to be avoided or postponed, but rather something to be with day in and day out. And out of that comes an extraordinary sense of immensity."