32. The Future is Now

Krishnamurti's last talks and discussions in India were compiled in the 1988 book The Future is Now. The book begins with a lengthy foreword by Radhika Herzberger, detailing what K did in India after arriving from England in October. He first headed to Benares, where he held three conversations with three Buddhists before giving talks to campers.

By the time K arrived in Rishi Valley in November, his health had deteriorated and his daily walks were shorter. Nevertheless, he continued to speak to the students and teachers at the Krishnamurti School. He spoke to the children about fear and freedom, and to the teachers about goodness and integrity.

In December, K travelled to Madras, where he delivered his final three talks, concluding on 4 January 1986.

Thought Behind Us All

In his first talk in Benares, K said that humans have remained barbarians for over a million years. We may be more hygienic now and have better transportation now, but we still kill each other with words and gestures. We are unashamedly competitive and self-centred.

The facts are the same for everyone. It is important for all of us to be able to observe and think together. The point is not to agree or accept someone else's opinions, but simply to look at the facts as they are.

Thinking is behind all human problems. We need thinking for many everyday tasks, but is it necessary to collect experiences that build our identity?

Thinking causes problems because it is limited. Life shrinks in our heads. When you realise this, you ask yourself if you can free yourself from thinking.

If you can, what kind of person would you then be?

Beauty Beyond the Self

In the second talk, K points out that he does not want to convert or entertain his listeners, let alone force them to look at anything. He is talking about a serious subject that concerns everyone. Surprisingly, K then starts to talk about listening and beauty.

"One has to listen – not only to our own inward thoughts, feelings, opinions and judgements, but also to the sound of what other people are saying."

Outward beauty is rather easy to spot, and it can shock the mind. However, there is also inner beauty, which K sums up as follows:

"When the self is not, there is beauty. Like a child with a toy, as long as the toy is complex and he plays with it, the toy absorbs him. The moment the toy is broken, he's back to whatever it was he was doing."

To see both the beauty and the ugliness, we must be able to see things simply. However, we cling to the sensations we experience and store them in our memory. This is how the self is born.

When we want something that we don't have or are afraid of losing what we have, a process in the brain can easily consume us entirely. We need to break this cycle, and it can only be done now.

"If there is no mutation now, you'll be exactly the same as you've been before. It is not my theory; it is a fact. You can end it if you put your brain, your heart into it – completely, not partially. Time is the factor of fear and thought. If you don't change now, you won't ever change, it is constant postponement."

In the third talk, K continues with the same theme for a while, but then moves on to discuss love, goodness, sorrow, death and meditation, as he often did in his final talks.

"Meditation is not sitting and looking – that's childish. This demands not only a great deal of intellect, but insight. The physicist, the artist, the painter, or the poet have a limited insight. We are talking about timeless insight. This is meditation, this is religion, and this is the way to live, if you want to, all the rest of your days."

The Energy of Love

The Madras talks were condensed into three, with the first one not being included in the book.

In the second talk, on 1 January 1986, K began by saying that we must start from where we are now and recognise that every thought requires energy. The energy we use in our daily lives is based on thought.

"Is there an energy which is not put together by thought?", K asked.

To answer this question, we must first understand what the energy of thinking is and how it differs from the energy of life. Thought creates both fear and our experience, but it cannot create love.

In order to understand life, we must reject everything man-made and die to the content of consciousness. This happens anyway in the death of the body, regardless of what we believe. When we die, the brain ceases to function and memories decay.

Can a person abandon all that he is attached to while still alive? If so, each day is a new beginning, and one is confronted with tremendous energy and vitality of life.

"It requires finding out what love is," K concludes at the end of the talk.

Limitless and Timeless

Krishnamurti's talk on 4 January 1986 in Madras was his last ever.

He began by saying that he abominates personality cults, urging people to participate in the talk and rather than simply following what he says.

He wanted his listeners to seriously ask themselves what life is, what is its origin. They must not expect him to provide the answers. Neither words nor so-called sacred books provide the right answer.

Religions have offered their own versions, but perhaps life has no beginning or end. Humans do. We are born, and we die. At some point, we develop a sense of self that lives in time. This self feels, thinks, experiences and acts all day and night.

It is also important to distinguish between the brain and the mind. The brain is the centre of our nervous system, operating conditionally based on information, containing theories, opinions and prejudices. This is why it is limited.

The mind, however, is something beyond the brain. As well as thinking, it encompasses many other things. This other stuff is not

accessible to the brain because of its limited understanding. The finite cannot understand the infinite. The mind has no limits, and it is not the property of the individual. It is not limited by knowledge.

Then K talks about computers, comparing the brain with them. Computers can invent gods and rituals and shape our thinking. What will we be as human beings when computers and genetic engineering converge?

Our brain is a machine that processes information. New creations always take place within its confines. The absolute is something the brain can never grasp.

The next topic is meditation. It is not a conscious effort to achieve something. Ordinary meditation is mechanical and amounts to self-deception, some kind of self-hypnosis. Real meditation is absolute silence.

K refuses to describe it, saying that "the image of the moon is not the moon, and the painting of the Himalayas is not the Himalayas".

"It Ends"

When the brain is quiet, it has infinite space, and it is in this space that true creation takes place.

Life manifests in trees and grass. For us humans, it manifests in meditation, where there is neither meditator nor experiencer. The experiencer repeats itself; it cannot create anything new.

"What is creation? What is life? What gives life to that blade of grass in the cement? Not all the things that we go through – power, position, prestige, fame, or no fame, but shame; that's not life, that's part of our mishandling of life."

Life does not end when one life – with its ego – ends. Only that which has begun can end. We can kill one bird, but not all birds. The timeless has no beginning and no end.

The last talk concluded a long career with two touching, almost whispered words: "It ends."