31. The New Agenda

31. The New Agenda

Is it possible to live in peace? This was the theme of the Saanen gatherings in July 1983.

We need peace in order to flower and grow. We talk about it, yet the world is torn by many conflicts. People hate and kill each other because of their ideas and beliefs are different.

We don't even have inner peace. We seek it because we do not have it. We take sides, defend our own values, and protest against those who think differently.

Our brains are programmed to react in a biased way. We identify with one group and reject others. Few of us are interested in truth and freedom because they seem too abstract.

K urges us to examine our own brains. This is made difficult by conditioning, which is largely hidden. We don't recognise the programming in our brains; we confuse imagination with reality. We turn everything into a concept and operate with that concept. We react to words because they evoke a feeling in us.

We explain everything because we don't want to live in a state of confusion. Yet we are gullible. Various conspiracy theories sink in and confuse us.

If we want to change the world, we must first change our own mind. K asks whether it is possible to dismantle the wrong programming of the brain and, if so solve external problems and bring peace of mind.

Attention to the Actual

In the second talk, K says that the chaos in the world is caused by self-centredness. Our desire to fulfil ourselves and achieve our own goals leads to competition, which distorts the brain. This makes us operate within a narrow circle in which the self is all-important.

The brain is the centre of our consciousness. It stores the content of our consciousness, and it is from this content that we act. Our identity is the key feature of this content. However, it is limited and false because there is more to life than just the self.

Our identity is based on contradiction. Love, however, is not based on either; it flows when the 'me' is not. Then the brain changes radically. This is what K talks about in the third talk.

Seeing false as false causes a mutation in the brain cells. When the brain no longer clings to what it has learned, attention turns to what is factual.

Perception does not require time. There is no difference between seeing and doing. Intelligence operates from moment to moment, which is the theme of the fourth talk. This is the natural result of negation: we reject what is neither smart nor right – conflict, war and killing are not!

K says that perpetual conflict has caused the brain to deteriorate. Instead of seeing things as they are, we are full of strange opinions and prejudices. We reject facts by turning them into concepts.

The Mutation Is a Must!

The fifth talk is about changing the brain cells and the future of humanity. What will happen to our brains when computers outsmart us?

As we are not separate, it is not enough for individuals to mutate themselves. Mutation must happen in the collective consciousness of humanity.

In the final talk, K asks what is the instrument that can probe beyond thought. Is there something that thought cannot see?

Thinking is caught up in an illusory process that prevents us from realising what cannot be thought. When the process of thinking stops, we can see this, and it is extraordinarily beautiful and uplifting. This is direct perception without the self.

Three Thresholds

In his first talk at Brockwood Park in August 1983, K asked what could cause a mutation in brain cells, and how we could find that out.

First, we must realise how our mind is conditioned and how memories affect our actions. Then, we must find out if there is an observer that is distinct from our memories. Once we recognise that there is only one movement of thought, we can ask whether that movement can end. If it can, the mutation will occur.

To achieve this, we must cross three thresholds: first, see the conditioning; second, we must identify the observer; and third, eliminate it. The brain resists all three of these thresholds because it lives in the reality created by the self and seeks refuge in thought. When someone says the self is a fiction, our brain becomes confused. It has a different idea encoded in the brain cells.

A mutation is needed to burst this bubble. This is not a slow process, but rather a sudden crash or shock, whereby the brain connects with reality in a new way. Separation disappears and there is no observer or object of observation.

The one who remembers is the past. It watches reality through a screen of memories, with the "old brain". Memory is useful for many things, but in the psychological field it is a nuisance. We cannot choose what we remember and what we forget. If we could, we wouldn't have to experience any trauma.

Usually, we are at the mercy of our memories. They constantly influence what we see and experience. We are not aware of this because the brain works automatically. The self does not need to be triggered; it activates automatically when we wake up in the morning.

Nor can it be stopped by willpower. In his second talk, K explains how the brain works with this.

Stuck In an Illusion

First, he points out that a mutation in the brain cells is needed to resolve both internal conflicts in our minds and external chaos. So, it's a big deal.

K asks if we are separate from other people. Is life just about seeking our own happiness, experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain, or is it about a shared consciousness and living together with everything?

We have been conditioned to assume that we are individuals. Although we all look different, know different things, speak different languages and were born at different times, our brains all work using the same mechanism.

The brain creates perceptions, gives them shape, and influences how we relate to life and the people we meet. Our brains create the world, but they are definitely not separate from it.

Together, we form a network called society, and countries form what is called the world.

"We are caught in the illusion of individuality," says K, because "all life is relationship; with nature, with the universe, with the tiniest little flower in the field, and also relationship with another human being."

Failing to recognise this distorts reality. The observer makes himself the central character by colouring everything he sees. He evaluates himself and perceives himself as something based on his perceptions. Others call him by name and treat him a certain way.

The observer does not recognise his own fragmentation. We legitimise our own individuality and separateness. We think this is a good thing and part of being human. It doesn't occur to most people to doubt this.

K asks if the memory itself can end, and what would happen if it did. "Don't answer me", says K but "end it and find out. Only by doing can you know."

K continues with this idea in his fourth talk.

In order to understand something, the brain must have space and order. A self-centred person is stick in his own narrow pattern. K suggests that we must start by 'being nothing'.

The self is a limited state based on thinking, that is to say, experiences and knowledge.

If the mind has a limit, it is not whole and contains the seeds of contradiction. Truth, of course, has no boundaries or measure.

Therefore, the search for truth is futile because a limited mind cannot recognise the limitless.

This is what we fail to understand. When we cannot find truth, we invent a substitute. The mind wants to know, to understand and to explain. When the brain doesn't try to solve the mystery of life, but confronts it, there is holiness.

Our House Is on Fire

In November, K gave five talks in New Delhi. The new year came in Madras, and in February, K gave four talks in Bombay.

The spring programme included talks to scientists in Los Alamos in March and at the United Nations headquarters in New York in April.

To the scientists, K spoke of the importance of knowledge, and of our inability to solve the fundamental human problem. When misused, knowledge can be destructive. An atomic bomb, for example, can kill thousands of innocent people and create chaos and confusion.

"We never look at life as a whole, but as a scientist, a physician or a psychiatrist," K argues.

The subsequent discussion demonstrated the impossible task that K faced in trying to explain his perspective on creativity to the scientists. The following day, K answered written questions.

At the United Nations, K began by saying that no organisation has succeeded in bringing lasting peace to a world where nationalism is glorified.

Religions and ideologies have caused hundreds of wars, and they will continue to do so as long as our minds are not fundamentally changed, and war is not eradicated. This change must take place in the brain cells because that is where conflict originates and gains its power.

"Our house is burning and society declining, and we have done practically nothing. A mutation is needed to end the wars. We are responsible for every war. Peace begins when we live without conflict."

The first questioner says that Krishnamurti's view of the world is bleak and pessimistic. Does he see any positive signs?

K replies that it would be possible for us to abolish war, but we have not done so because we cling to our nationalistic ideas. Talking about peace does not bring peace. We need tremendous intelligence in our daily life.

"Peace must begin with each one of us", says K.

The fundamental question is this: "Why has man remained inwardly primitive? Is it because we have looked for the outer to change the inner? It hasn't worked out. We must find people who are concerned completely with this inner psychological fundamental change."

Brains Are Shrinking

In early May, K gave two talks in San Francisco, after which he went on to Ojai, where he gave a further four talks. He began by asking the audience to doubt everything, to be sceptical and to find out what is true. You should not be satisfied with someone else's description. Different experts try to convince us of different things.

There are many channels of propaganda and you can choose whichever one you like. But how do we make a choice? On what basis do we decide that a particular view is correct?

By reasoning based on brain programming, rather than facts. We often make mistakes that we only recognise as such too late. We make decisions with incomplete information. A conditioned brain shrinks and becomes mechanical.

Our desire to be safe drives the program in our brain. In order to be safe, we give up our freedom. We want to control our lives, even though this is not always possible. Life will surprise us.

Although our inner program may loosen its grip on us for a while, it will always return because we are never satisfied with what life has to offers us. We want to be more or less than we are. In the world of our images, everything is relative.

Direct awareness of the facts breaks this cycle and stops the brain's program. Then we use the mind only for what we need it for, and nothing else. We don't act to get a reward or to avoid punishment.

"Attention is like a fire; there is no sorrow, loneliness, pain, anxiety and tears, all that disappears in the flame of attention."

It is a kind of death where memories cease to have an impact, and the movement of time ends.

The final talk began with a reflection on the nature of freedom. There is freedom from something, but there is also a kind of freedom that cannot be pursued or cultivated. Total freedom is impossible as long as we are programmed individuals. The brain then works within a pattern, judging everything based on its own background.

A free person wants nothing; she neither lives in the past nor in the future. A free mind lives in beauty and truth, without the self and its noise. It does not compare or seek, nor is it afraid, because it knows love.

The Right Foundation

The so-called 'Brain Seminar' took place at Brockwood Park in June 1984. Three of the discussions were videotaped and are available to watch on YouTube.

The Saanen 1984 gatherings began with the question of why we have reduced the immensity of life to something so petty and destructive in our minds, rendering it utterly meaningless. Why have words and ideals become so important to us?

To understand life, we must approach it very in a simple and direct manner. We must lay the right foundation and the first brick is to realise the significance of time.

All time is now. We live by time, both outwardly and inwardly. If we understand the nature of time, perhaps we will see what is beyond it.

There is time as measured by a watch, and there is time experienced inwardly. An apprentice becoming a master, or from a clerk to the manager, takes time.

The past time is memory and the future time is imagination; they both are based on thought. If we realise this, we understand that there is no psychological evolution or becoming something.

However, as we don't understand this, we build our lives around time. We are born, we die, and in between, we reflect on what we are. Our psyche thinks in terms of becoming.

The ending of time transforms the mind, causing a mutation in the brain cells. They no longer live in memories and dreams.

The self in time is revealed to be a product of imagination, of brain's own creation.

"All time is now, so there is no future, only this moment", K summarises.

But can the brain free itself from the idea of time, and what would the consequences be?

If it does so, all attention is focused on the present moment. Then memories become irrelevant. There is no need to talk or nothing to fear. Seeing means acting immediately, without procrastination.
K will continue to discuss this in the second talk.

Life Is on the Move

Living in time involves conflict and problems, and is a waste of energy. We worry, we fear, we long for the past, and we dream of better times.

Life goes on, but we only perceive a small part of it. Our brains are preoccupied with problems. Why is this? Because our brain lives in time. It acts when challenged, when we must do something. It has to react to conflicts and try to solve them in the best possible way.

Our whole consciousness is made up of problems, whether they are our own or shared by everyone. It is difficult to distinguish between our own problems and those of others because we are empathetic and worry about them, too.

It is even harder to distinguish self-inflicted problems from real ones. This requires intelligence and love.

In the last talk, K discusses how to build a life on solid foundation. Self-liberation is necessary if you want to live in freedom and truth. There must be no image of the self.

There Is No Switch

At Brockwood Park in August 1984, K said that people were wasting their energy on conflict. We have adopted a destructive way of living. Our relationships with others are inflamed. We treat others with even more cruelty and indifference than we treat ourselves.

We look for solutions outside ourselves, from others. But how can another person help us connect to life? There is no switch to flip. Once you realise what the self is and what it does, the problem disappears as if by itself.

In November 1984, K spoke in Rajghat and in February in Bombay.

In April 1985, K made his second visit to the United Nations to celebrate the 40th anniversary of world peace. This time, he spoke about self-knowledge.

K began by stating that there was still no peace in the world, "there are forty wars going on right now". It is justified to ask whether peace is possible, despite there being no evidence of it.

"There can only be peace when there is no conflict between you and me. It would affect every person in the world."

This would require self-knowledge: the ability to understand the living self as it is, not as it is interpreted by someone else, whether professionals or amateurs.

After the presentation, someone asked K what the UN should do to bring peace to the world. He replied that he did not know, and suggested asking the leaders of the UN organisation instead.

Another person asked how a change in one person could affect the whole of humanity.

K replied: "Change, and you will see what happens."

Once all the questions had been answered, K was presented with the Peace Medal. He placed it on the table and 'forgot' to take it with him.

The Foam on the Surface

In April 1985, K gave two talks in Washington. He hoped that his listeners would join him in examining the state of the world.

Society is put together by humans. We are all contributing. Ideologies fight for power and oppress people. We defend ourselves, our beliefs, our God and our country with words and weapons.

There are too many complex problems to be solved easily or instantly. The important thing to understand is that problems originate from deep within a shared consciousness. Individual problems are very superficial.

Secondly, realise that you don't have to accept or reject facts. You don't have to do anything except understand them. Facts are what they are; there are no alternatives.

We are eager to trust the description of a person or a book. Our consciousness distorts everything, including the so-called truth. Truth cannot and need not be embraced, or defended. Nor can it be spread – only lies can.

Is it possible to live free of all psychological images? This would mean living without a self. The self lives in time. It is a slave to time.

What is there when there is no time? When the movement of time ends, everything else remains. When the past disappears, there is a mutation in the brain. The self does not live in imagination, in its delusions.

Thinking is the key. We must understand it; we must see the movement of thought directly. Thoughts manifest as words, sounds and images. A reaction occurs. Memory reacts and gives the perception a shape, transforming it into information.

Clearly, this perception is limited. It is part of the structure of the self. It is difficult to perceive that the experience is created by the experiencer. K will come back to this in another talk.

K reminds the audience that he does not want to stimulate them. To see things properly, we must look at them dispassionately. Direct perception does not include an emotional charge. Experiencing beauty is not self-centred. It is a completely selfless attention. It is the ending of sorrow and fear.

Personal grief is often accompanied by self-pity and the pain of letting go. The self does not want to lose its affections and pleasures. However, there is a type of love that does not involve affection. There is direct contact with the object.

Yet we only recognise the contact between images, building our lives around them. When we become attached to people and objects, the idea of giving them up feels unpleasant.

But in death, we must give everything up. We try to comfort ourselves by believing in life after death.

While it is obvious that life continues after our death, there is no evidence that the self has any form of continuity. Yet many people believe it does.

The 'me' is anxious when it thinks of its own end, so it wants to know what will happen. Fear lurks in the background of our life, and we escape it through entertainment, whether secular or religious. Our restless minds are temporarily calmed when something fascinating happens, but then we are struck by an inner emptiness.

"Complete freedom is to have limitless space. When there is that space and emptiness, and therefore immense energy, which is passion, love and intelligence, there is that most holy, most sacred truth. People have sought that from time immemorial. Truth does not lie in any temple, mosque or church. There is no path to it except through

understanding of oneself, enquiring, studying, learning. Then there is that which is eternal."

Order and Harmony

In Ojai in May 1985, K began again by saying that we humans have made the world a dangerous place. Tyrannies are brutally oppressing people, and armies are preparing for new wars. People demonstrate, but hardly anyone expresses a desire to eliminate all conflicts.

We have not learned to live together in harmony. Brutality runs rampant, and people are cruelly exploited. Yet K says he asks nothing from anyone.

There must be order in our life, but not according to some ideology or ideal, as is the case in totalitarian states. The truth cannot be harnessed, not even under the pretext of order.

In the second talk, K discusses the possibility of mutation. For mutation to occur, something must end in consciousness. The brain is the centre of thinking. It creates the concept of separateness and gathers information, leading us to conclude that we are individuals.

Can this process end? This is something we must find out for ourselves. How would interaction change if people did not act in a self-centred and ideological manner? How would that change the way we treat others if we felt that we are one?

Thinking has brought many good things into the world, but it is also behind every conflict. Why has thinking become so important to us, and how does it cause our problems? What are we missing to see in our own thinking?

Like a Magnet

In his first talk at Saanen in July 1985, K said that the brain collects information like a magnet, becoming fanatical about what it gathers. We use the content of consciousness irrationally and almost arbitrarily. Concepts are important to us, even sacred. We react conditionally to every challenge, creating new problems.

K said that, as long as the Swiss and Germans remain divided into two groups, conflict will be inevitable. By belonging to any group, we create a wall between ourselves and others.

We are also divided internally into roles. We behave differently at home, at work and in our hobbies. We have ideals and dislikes. We say one thing and do another. We talk about peace, yet we fight. We lie and cheat, yet we expect honesty from others.

K asks whether we realise that we are part of the collective consciousness of humanity, and whether we are willing to take responsibility for our actions. Is this just an appealing idea to us, or does it influence our every action? Seeing this changes our life.

Break the Cycle of Time

We cannot leave the responsibility for humanity to politicians. They have their own interests. We are responsible for our own disorder, even if we inherited it from our ancestors. It is encoded in our brains. We must start from there.

K suggests that, rather than looking for order, we should focus our attention on disorder. Disorder is caused by thinking. We are programmed to think in a certain way, but not aware of this process.

The brain lives in time, storing memories of the past and harbouring hopes for the future. It is at the mercy of circumstances. When the cycle of time is broken, brain cells behave differently. Rather than projecting their own images into the mind, they react to reality. Their mode of operation has changed.

Nobody Owns the Sky

The third talk begins with a request for everyone to focus on the issue at hand, and forget the person of the speaker and themselves.

Looking at the beautiful blue sky is easy because there is nothing personal about it. The sky is what it is, whether we look at it or not. We cannot own it. A wall forms between people, preventing them

from seeing things together. The 'I' is the centre of that wall. It judges what is useful to us and what is not. We are quick to take a stand for or against something.

Seeing the facts as they are should not be particularly difficult. I'll make it that way. We look at almost everything through tinted glasses. Our worldview is shaped by everything we experience, and it holds us in its grip. Our deep convictions often remain the same throughout our adult life.

But what would break this pattern, and why should it be broken? First, we need to understand how it comes about. We do not consciously create it, it goes unnoticed. We become so used to it that we don't question its validity unless something shocking happens.

The theme of the fourth talk is beauty. Beauty is found when there is no self. Beauty perceived by the self is limited and always subjective. K then moves on to sorrow and death, and from there on to love and creation.

In the final talk in Saanen, K once again asks whether it is possible for the mind to undergo a complete mutation. It is possible, if we could listen without interpreting or comparing, to listen directly. This would mean rejecting spiritual traditions and our own versions of the truth. This requires seeing rightly and dying to all lies.

"Is there a meditation which has no direction? Find out. That requires great energy, attention and passion. Then that very passion is silence, the immense silence in which time, space is not. Then there is that which is unnameable, which is holy, eternal."

Time to Stop

After five talks, K answered questions from the audience for three consecutive days. He began the first session by saying that many people were sad to hear that this would be the last Saanen gathering. He commented: "If one is sad, it is about time that we leave."

He also asked whether people had come out of curiosity, because of his fame, for the beautiful scenery, or because they really wanted to live without any problems overshadowing their lives. Did they expect him to tell them how to live and behave, or were they ready to explore what lies beyond thinking?

The first question was about other spiritual teachers. How are Krishnamurti's teachings different?

K urges everyone to be sceptical and to doubt all gurus and their experiences. The words may be the same, but the truth is never found in them.

If we really study our own brains, we cannot rely on what others say. Direct seeing does not include an explanation. It cannot be compared to anything else. Perception cannot be taught or learned. There is no observer. Therefore, observation has no beginning or end and is unique.

Similar in Different Ways

The second session asks why K distinguishes between the brain and the mind. He does not give a direct answer. We know what the brain does. We use it to get through our daily lives. It reacts automatically according to its content, without our conscious input.

It is important to recognise that the brain is limited and self-centred.

Human consciousness works on the same principle, regardless of our status. We are all similar in different ways: we all are afraid, suffer, feel ashamed, exaggerate and underestimate.

We are not separate. K mentions that an American general once told his superior officer who was facing an enemy at the front: "We arethat enemy."

Awareness of this will profoundly change the way we think. This is not an intellectual or emotional outburst, a romantic fling, but a capacity for insight that we all naturally possess.

The Most Important Arts

K begins the final discussion session by asking which of the following three arts is the most important in life: listening, seeing, or learning.

All three require freedom. Living in constant conflict destroys our ability to think clearly and prevents us from living in truth.

The final question is: "How can our limited brain grasp the unlimited, which is beauty, love and truth?"

K answers: "It cannot, because it is limited."

Although our brain is small, it has an immense capacity to delve very deep within, yet self-interest limits this capacity. It hides behind every illusion and make-believe. No matter how hard it tries, a limited brain can never grasp the unlimited.

"Beauty and love exist when the self is not. There must be the great silence in one. Silence means emptiness of everything. In that there is vast space and unlimited energy."

K spoke at Saanen every summer from 1961 to 1985. He made the decision to stop was before there was any information about his cancer. The plan was to hold all his European talks at Brockwood Park instead. However, the series of talks held there in August 1985 turned out to be his last.

There was no sense of farewell. The BBC was present and interviewed K and other people. The result of which was a nice documentary called The Role of a Flower.

At the end of the fourth and final talk, K said that the mind is outside the brain. Such a mind is connected to infinity. The brain is too insignificant to understand the universe. This requires a truly religious mind.