Truth and Actuality

Chapter 8
3rd Public Talk Brockwood Park
13th September 1975
Suffering - The Meaning of Death

May we go on with what we were discussing the other day? We were saying that the crisis in the world is not outward but the crisis is in consciousness. And that consciousness is its content: all the things that man has accumulated through centuries, his fears, his dogmas, his superstitions, his beliefs, his conclusions, and all the suffering, pain and anxiety. We said unless there is a radical mutation in that consciousness, outward activities will bring about more mischief, more sorrow, more confusion. And to bring about that mutation in consciousness a totally different kind of energy is required; not the mechanical energy of thought, of time and measure. When we were investigating into that we said there are three active principles in human beings: fear, pleasure and suffering. We talked about fear at some length. And we also went into the question of pleasure, which is entirely different from joy, enjoyment, and the delight of seeing something beautiful and so on. And we also touched upon suffering.

I think we ought this morning to go into that question of suffering. It is a nice morning and I am sorry to go into such a dark subject. As we said, when there is suffering there can be no compassion and we asked whether it is at all possible for human minds, for human beings right throughout the world, to put an end to suffering. For without that ending to suffering we live in darkness, we accept all kinds of beliefs, dogmas, escapes, which bring about much more confusion, more violence and so on. So we are going this morning to investigate together into this question of suffering, whether the human mind can ever be free from it totally; and also we are going to talk about the whole question of death.

Why do we accept suffering, why do we put up with it psychologically? Physical suffering can be controlled or put up with; and it is important that such physical suffering does not distort clarity of thought. We went into that. Because for most of us, when there is physical pain, a continued suffering, it distorts our thinking, it prevents objective thinking, which becomes personal, broken up, distorted. If one is not actively aware of this whole process of physical suffering, whether remembered in the past, or the fear of having it again in the future, then neurotic habits, neurotic activities take place. We spoke of that briefly the other day.

We are asking if it is at all possible for human beings to end suffering at all levels of their existence, psychological suffering. And when we go into it in ourselves deeply, we see one of the major factors of this suffering is attachment - attachment to ideas, to conclusions, to ideologies, which act as security; and when that security is threatened there is a certain kind of suffering. Please, as we said the other day, we are sharing this together, we are looking into this question of suffering together. You are not merely listening to a talk, if I may point out, and gathering a few ideas and agreeing or disagreeing, but rather we are in communication, sharing the problem, examining the question, the issue, actively; and so it becomes our responsibility, yours as well as the speaker's, to go into this question.

There is also attachment to persons; in our relationships there is a great deal of suffering. That is, the one may be free from this conditioning of fear and so on, and the other may not be and hence there is a tension. The word attachment means "holding on", not only physically but psychologically, depending on something. In a relationship, one may be free and the other may not be free and hence the conflict; one may be a Catholic and the other may not be a Catholic, or a Communist and so on. Hence the conflict that breeds continuous strain and suffering.

Then there is the suffering of the unknown, of death; the suffering of losing something that you were attached to in the past, as memory. I do not know if you have not noticed all these things in yourself? And is it possible to live in complete relationship with another without this tension, which is brought about through self-interest, through self-centred activity, desire pulling in different directions, and live in a relationship in which there may be contradictions, for one may be free, the other may not be? To live in that situation demands not only what is called tolerance - that absurd intellectual thing that man has created - but it demands a much greater thing, which is affection, love, and therefore compassion. We are going to go into that.

We are asking whether man can end suffering. There are various explanations: how to go beyond it, how to rationalize it, how to suppress it, how to escape from it. Now we are asking something entirely different: not to suppress it, not to evade it, nor rationalize it, but when there is that suffering to remain totally with it, without any movement of thought, which is the movement of time and measure.

One suffers: one loses one's son, or wife, or she runs away with somebody else; and the things that you are attached to, the house, the name, the form, all the accumulated conclusions, they seem to fade away, and you suffer. Can one look at that suffering without the observer? We went into that question of what the observer is. We said the observer is the past, the accumulated memory, experience and knowledge. And with that knowledge, experience, memory, one observes the suffering, so one dissociates oneself from suffering: one is different from suffering and therefore one can do something about it. Whereas the observer is the observed.

This requires a little care and attention, the statement that, "the observer is the observed". We don't accept it. We say the observer is entirely different; and the observed is something out there separate from the observer. Now if one looks very closely at that question, at that statement that the observer is the observed, it seems so obvious. When you say you are angry, you are not different from anger, you are that thing which you call anger. When you are jealous, you are that jealousy. The word separates; that is, through the word we recognise the feeling and the recognition is in the past; so we look at that feeling through the word, through the screen of the past, and so separate it. Therefore there is a division between the observer and the observed.

So we are saying that when there is this suffering, either momentary, or a continuous endless series of causes that bring about suffering, to look at it without the observer. You are that suffering; not, you are separate from suffering. Totally remain with that suffering. Then you will notice, if you go that far, if you are willing to observe so closely, that something totally different takes place: a mutation. That is, out of that suffering comes great passion. If you have done it, tested it out, you will find it. It is not the passion of a belief, passion for some cause, passion for some idiotic conclusion. It is totally different from the passion of desire. It is something which is of a totally different kind of energy; not the movement of thought, which is mechanical.

We have a great deal of suffering in what is called love. Love, as we know it now, is pleasure, sexual, the love of a country, the love of an idea, and so on - all derived from pleasure. And when that pleasure is denied there is either hatred, antagonism, or violence. Can there be love, not just something personal between you and me or somebody else, but the enormous feeling of compassion - passion for everything, for everybody. Passion for nature, compassion for the earth on which we live, so that we don`t destroy the earth, the animals, the whole thing... Without love, which is compassion, suffering must continue. And we human beings have put up with it, we accept it as normal. Every religion has tried to find a way out of this, but organized religions have brought tremendous suffering.

Religious oganizations throughout the world have done a great deal of harm, there have been religious wars endless persecution, tortures, burning people, especially in the West - it wasn't the fashion in those days in the East. And we are speaking of - not the acceptance of suffering, or the putting up with suffering - but remaining motionless with that suffering; then there comes out of it great compassion. And from that compassion arises the whole question of creation.

What is creation, what is the creative mind? Is it a mind that suffers and through that suffering has learnt a certain technique and expresses that technique on paper, in marble, with paint - that is, is creativeness the outcome of tension? Is it the outcome of a disordered life? Does creativeness come through the fragmentary activity of daily life? I don't know if you are following all this? Or must we give a totally different kind of meaning to creativeness, which may not need expression at all?

So one has to go into this question within oneself very deeply, because one's consciousness is the consciousness of the world. I do not know if you realize that? Fundamentally your consciousness is the consciousness of the speaker, of the rest of the world, basically. Because in that consciousness there is suffering, there is pain, there is anxiety, there is fear of tomorrow, fear of insecurity, which every man goes through wherever he lives. So your consciousness is the consciousness of the world, and if there is a mutation in that consciousness it affects the total consciousness of human beings. It is a fact. So it becomes tremendously important that human beings bring about a radical transformation, or mutation in themselves, in their consciousness.

Now we can go into this thing called death, which is one of the major factors of suffering. As with everything else in life we want a quick, definite answer, an answer which will be comforting, which will be totally satisfactory, intellectually, emotionally, physically, in every way. We want immortality, whatever that may mean, and we want to survive, both physically and psychologically. We avoid death at any price, put it as far away as possible. So we have never been able to examine it closely. We have never been able to face it, understand it, not only verbally, intellectually, but completely. We wait until the last moment, which may be an accident, disease, old age, when you can't think, when you can't look, you are just "gaga". Then you become a Catholic, a Protestant, believe in this or that. So we are trying this morning to understand, not verbally, but actually what it means to die - which doesn't mean we are asking that we should commit suicide. But we are asking, what is the total significance of this thing called death, which is the ending of what we know as life.

In enquiring into this we must find out whether time has a stop. The stopping of time may be death. It may be the ending and therefore that which ends has a new beginning, not that which has a continuity. So first can there be an ending to time, can time stop? - not chronological time by the watch, as yesterday, today, and tomorrow, the twenty-four hours, but the whole movement of time as thought and measure. That movement, not chronological time, but that movement as thought, which is the whole process of comparing, of measurement, can all that process stop? Can thought, which is the response of memory, and can experience as knowledge - knowledge is always in the past, knowledge is the past - can that whole momentum come to an end? Not in the technological field, we don't even have to discuss that, that is obvious. Can this movement come to an end? Time as hope, time as something that has happened to which the mind clings, attachment to the past, or a projection from the past to the future as a conclusion, and time as a movement of achievement from alpha to omega - this whole movement in which we are caught. If one said there is no tomorrow, psychologically, you would be shocked, because tomorrow is tremendously important: tomorrow you are going to be happy, tomorrow you will achieve something, tomorrow will be the fulfilment of yesterday`s hopes, or today's hopes, and so on. Tomorrow becomes extraordinarily significant - the tomorrow which is projected from the past as thought.

So we are asking, can all that momentum come to an end? Time has created, through centuries, the centre which is the "me". Time is not only the past as attachment, hope, fulfilment, the evolving process of thought until it becomes more and more refined. But also that centre around which all our activities take place, the "me", the mine, we and they, both politically, religiously, economically and so on. So the "me" is the conclusion of time, adding to itself and taking away from itself, but there is always this centre which is the very essence of time. We are asking, can that movement come to an end. This is the whole problem of meditation, not sitting down and repeating some mantra, some words, and doing some tricks - that is all silly nonsense. I am not being intolerant but it is just absurd. And it becomes extraordinarily interesting to find this out, enquire into this.

Then what is death? Can that be answered in terms of words, or must one look at it not only verbally but non-verbally? There is death, the organism dies, by misuse, by abuse, by overindulgence, drink, drugs, accident, all the things that the flesh is heir to - it dies, comes to an end, the heart stops, the brain with all its marvellous machinery comes to an end. We accept it - we are not afraid of the physical organism coming to an end but we are afraid of something totally different. And being afraid of that basically, we want to resolve that fear through various beliefs, conclusions, hopes.

The whole of the Asiatic world believes in reincarnation, they have proof for it - they say so at least. That is - watch this, it is extraordinary - the thing that has been put together by time as the "me", the ego, that incarnates till that entity becomes perfect and is absorbed into the highest principle, which is Brahman, or whatever you like to call it. Time has created the centre, the "me", the ego, the personality, the character, the tendencies, and so on, and through time you are going to dissolve that very entity, through reincarnation. You see the absurdity? Thought has created something as the "me", the centre, and through the evolutionary process, which is time, you will ultimately dissolve that and be absorbed into the highest principle. And yet they believe in this tremendously. The other day I was talking to somebody who is a great believer in this. He said, "If you don't believe it you are not a religious man", and he walked out. And Christianity has its own form of continuity of the "me", the resurrection - Gabriel blowing the trumpet and so on (laughter). When you believe in reincarnation, what is important is that you are going to live another life and you suffer in this life because of your past actions. So what is important is, if one is actually basically committed wholly to that belief, it means that you must behave rightly, accurately, with tremendous care now. And we don't do that. That demands superhuman energy.

There are several problems involved in this. What is immortality and what is eternity - which is a timeless state - and what happens to human beings who are still caught in this movement of time? We human beings live extraordinarily complex, irresponsible, ugly, stupid lives, we are at each other's throats, we are battling about beliefs, about authority, politically and religiously, and our daily lives are a series of endless conflicts. And we want that to continue. And because our lives are so empty, so full of meaningless words, we say there is a state where there is no death, immortality - which is a state where there is no movement of time. That is, time through centuries has created the idea of the self, of the "me" evolving. It has been put together through time, which is a part of evolution. And inevitably there is death and with the ending of the brain cells thought comes to an end. Therefore one hopes that there is something beyond the "me", the super-consciousness, a spark of God, a spark of truth, that can never be destroyed and that continues. And that continuity is what we call immortality. That is what most of us want. If you don't get it through some kind of fame, you want to have it sitting near God, who is timeless. The whole thing is so absurd.

Is there something which is not of time, which has no beginning and no end, and is therefore timeless, eternal? Our life being what it is, we have this problem of death; and if I, a human being, have not totally understood the whole quality of myself, what happens to me when I die? You understand the question? Is that the end of me? I have not understood, if I have understood myself totally, then that is a different problem, which we will come to. If I have not understood myself totally - I am not using the word "understand" intellectually - but actually to be aware of myself without any choice, all the content of my consciousness - if I have not deeply delved into my own structure and the nature of consciousness and I die, what happens?

Now who is going to answer this question? (laughter). No, I am putting it purposefully. Who is going to answer this question? Because we think we cannot answer it we look to someone else to tell us, the priest, the books, the people who have said, "I know", the endless mushrooming gurus. If one rejects all authority - and one must, totally, all authority - then what have you left? Then you have the energy to find out - because you have rejected that which dissipates energy, gurus, hopes and fears, somebody to tell you what happens - if you reject all that, which means all authority, then you have tremendous energy. With that energy you can begin to enquire what actually takes place when you have not totally resolved the structure and the nature of the self, the self being time, and therefore movement, and therefore division: the "me" and the "not me" and hence conflict.

Now what happens to me when I have not ended that conflict? You and I and the rest of the world, if the speaker has not ended it, what happens to us? We are all going to die - I hope not soon but sometime or other. What is going to happen? When we live, as we are living, are we so fundamentally different from somebody else? You may be cleverer, have greater knowledge or technique, you may be more learned, have certain gifts, talents, inventiveness; but you and another are exactly alike basically. Your colour may be different, you may be taller, shorter, but in essence you are the same. So while you are living you are like the rest of the world, in the same stream, in the same movement. And when you die you go on in the same movement. I wonder if you understand what I am saying? It is only the man who is totally aware of his conditioning, his consciousness, the content of it, and who moves and dissipates it, who is not in that stream. Am I making this clear? That is, I am greedy, envious, ambitious, ruthless, violent - so are you. And that is our daily life, petty, accepting authority, quarrelling, bitter, not loved and aching to be loved, the agonies of loneliness, irresponsible relationship - that is our daily life. And we are like the rest of the world, it is a vast endless river. And when we die we'll be like the rest, moving in the same stream as before when we were living. But the man who understands himself radically, has resolved all the problems in himself psychologically, he is not of that stream. He has stepped out of it.

The man who moves away from the stream, his consciousness is entirely different. He is not thinking in terms of time, continuity, or immortality. But the other man or woman is still in that. So the problem arises: what is the relationship of the man who is out to the man who is in? What is the relationship between truth and reality? Reality being, as we said, all the things that thought has put together. The root meaning of that word reality is, things or thing. And living in the world of things, which is reality, we want to establish a relationship with a world which has no thing - which is impossible.

What we are saying is that consciousness, with all its content, is the movement of time. In that movement all human beings are caught. And even when they die that movement goes on. It is so; this is a fact. And the human being who sees the totality of this - that is the fear, the pleasure and the enormous suffering which man has brought upon himself and created for others, the whole of that, and the nature and the structure of the self, the "me", the total comprehension of that, actually - then he is out of that stream. And that is the crisis in consciousness. We are trying to solve all our human problems, economic, social, political, within the area of that consciousness in time. I wonder if you see this? And therefore we can never solve it. We seem to accept the politician as though he was going to save the world, or the priest, or the analyst, or somebody else. And, as we said, the mutation in consciousness is the ending of time, which is the ending of the "me" which has been produced through time. Can this take place? Or is it just a theory like any other?

Can a human being, can you actually do it? When you do it, it affects the totality of consciousness. Which means in the understanding of oneself, which is the understanding of the world - because I am the world - there comes not only compassion but a totally different kind of energy. This energy, with its compassion, has a totally different kind of action. That action is whole, not fragmentary.

We began by talking about suffering, that the ending of suffering is the beginning of compassion; and this question of love, which man has reduced to mere pleasure; and this great complex problem of death. They are all interrelated, they are not separate. It isn't that I am going to solve the problem of death, forgetting the rest. The whole thing is interrelated, inter-communicated. It is all one. And to see the totality of all that, wholly, is only possible when there is no observer and therefore freedom from all that.

Questioner: I'd like to ask a question. You said towards the beginning that it is important for each individual to transform his consciousness. Isn't the fact that you say that it is important an ideal, which is the very thing to be avoided ?

Krishnamurti: When you see a house on fire, isn't it important that you put it out? In that there is no ideal. The house is burning, you are there, and you have to do something about it. But if you are asleep and discussing the colour of the hair of the man who has set the house on fire...

Q: The house on fire is in the world of reality, isn't it? It is a fact. We are talking about the psychological world.

K: Isn't that also a factual world? Isn't it a fact that you suffer? Isn't it a fact that one is ambitious, greedy, violent - you may not be, but the rest - that is a fact. We say the house is a fact, but my anger, my violence, my stupid activities are something different; they are as real as the house. And if I don't understand myself, dissolve all the misery in myself, the house is going to become the destructive element.

Q: Sir, as I understand it, your message and the message of Jesus Christ seem to reach towards the same thing, although stated differently. I had always understood your message and Jesus Christ's message to be quite different in content. About two years ago I was a Christian, so it is very difficult to get rid of statements that Jesus made, such as, "No man cometh to the Father but by me". Although I find more sense in your message at the moment, how do you equate this?

K: It is very simple. I have no message. I am just pointing out. That is not a message.

Q: But why are you doing it?

K: Why am I doing it? Why do we want a message? Why do we want somebody to give us something? When everything is in you.

Q: It is wonderful.

K: No, it is not wonderful (laughter). Please do look at it. You are the result of all the influences, of the culture, the many words, propaganda, you are that. And if you know how to look, how to read, how to listen, how to see, the art of seeing, everything is there, right in front of you. But we don't have the energy, the inclination, or the interest. We want somebody to tell us what there is on the page. And we make that person who tells us into an extraordinary human being. We worship him, or destroy him, which is the same thing. So it is there. You don't need a message. Do look at it please. Is the book important, or what you find in the book? What you find in the book, and after you have read it you throw it away. Now in these talks, you listen, find out, go into it, and throw away the speaker. The speaker is not at all important. It is like a telephone.

The other question is, "Why do you speak?" Does that need answering? Would you say to the flower on the wayside, "Why do you flower?" It is there for you to look, to listen, to see the beauty of it and come back again to look at the beauty of it. That is all.

Q: (partly inaudible) We have the same message, the same words, we have it in ourselves, the guru.

Q: (repeating) We have a guru in ourselves.

K: Have you? Guru means in Sanskrit, the root meaning of that word means "heavy".

Q: He said heaven.

K: Heaven, it is the same thing, sir. Have you a heaven in yourself? My lord, I wish you had! (laughter). In yourself you are so confused, so miserable, so anxious - what a set of words to use - heaven! You can substitute God into heaven, heaven as God and you think you are quite different. People have believed that you had God inside you, light inside you, or something else inside you. But when you see actually that you have nothing, just words, then if there is absolutely nothing there is complete security. And out of that, everything happens, flowers.

Chapter 9
4th Public Talk
Brockwood Park
14th September 1975
The Sacred, Religion, Meditation

I would like this morning to talk about the question of what is sacred, what is the meaning of religion and of meditation. First we must examine what is reality and what is truth. Man has been concerned throughout the ages to discover, or live in truth; And he has projected various symbols, conclusions, images made by the mind or by the hand and imagined what is truth. Or he has tried to find out through the activity and the movement of thought. And I think we should be wise if we would differentiate between reality and truth and when we are clear what reality is then perhaps we shall be able to have an insight into what is truth.

The many religions throughout the world have said that there is an enduring, everlasting truth, but the mere assertion of truth has very little significance. One has to discover it for oneself, not theoretically, intellectually, or sentimentally, but actually find out if one can live in a world that is completely truthful. We mean by religion the gathering together of all energy to investigate into something: to investigate if there is anything sacred. That is the meaning we are giving it, not the religion of belief, dogma, tradition or ritual with their hierarchical outlook. But we are using the word "religion" in the sense: to gather together all energy, which will then be capable of investigating if there is a truth which is not controlled, shaped, or polluted by thought.

The root meaning of the word reality is thing or things. And to go into the question of what is reality, one must understand what thought is. Because our society, our religions, our so-called revelations are essentially the product of thought. It is not my opinion or my judgement, but it is a fact. All religions when you look at them, observe without any prejudice, are the product of thought. That is, you may perceive something, have an insight into truth, and you communicate it verbally to me and I draw from your statement an abstraction and make that into an idea; then I live according to that idea. That is what we have been doing for generations: drawing an abstraction from a statement and living according to that abstraction as a conclusion. And that is generally called religion. So we must find out how limited thought is and what are its capacities, how far it can go, and be totally aware that thought doesn't spill over into a realm in which thought has no place.

I don't know if you can see this? Please, we are not only verbally communicating, which means thinking together, not agreeing or disagreeing, but thinking together, and therefore sharing together; not the speaker gives and you take, but together we are sharing, therefore there is no authority. And also there is a non-verbal communication, which is much more difficult, because unless we see very clearly the full meaning of words, how the mind is caught in words, how words shape our thinking, and can go beyond that, then there is no non-verbal communication, which becomes much more significant. We are trying to do both: to communicate verbally and non-verbally. That means we must both be interested at the same time, at the same level, with the same intensity, otherwise we shan't communicate. It is like love; love is that intense feeling at the same time, at the same level. Otherwise you and I don't love each other. So we are going to observe together what is reality, what are the limitations of thought, and whether thought can ever perceive truth. Or is it beyond the realm of thought?

I think we all agree, at least most of us do, even the scientists, that thought is a material process, is a chemical process. Thought is the response of accumulated knowledge as experience and memory. So thought is essentially a thing. There is no sacred thought, no noble thought, it is a thing. And its function is in the world of things, which is technology, learning, learning the art of learning, the art of seeing and listening. And reality is in that area. Unless we understand this rather complex problem we shall not be able to go beyond it. We may pretend, or imagine, but imagination and pretension have no place in a human being who is really serious and is desirous to find out what is truth.

As long as there is the movement of thought, which is time and measure, in that area truth has no place. Reality is that which we think and the action of thought as an idea, as a principle, as an ideal, projected from the previous knowledge into the future modified and so on. All that is in the world of reality. We live in that world of reality - if you have observed yourself you will see how memory plays an immense part. Memory is mechanical, thought is mechanical, it is a form of computer, a machine, as the brain is. And thought has its place. I cannot speak if I have no language; if I spoke in Greek you wouldn't understand. And learning a language, learning to drive a car, to work in a factory and so on, there thought is necessary. psychologically, thought has created the reality of the "me". "Me", "my", my house, my property, my wife, my husband, my children, my country, my God - all that is the product of thought. And in that field we have established a relationship with each other which is constantly in conflict. That is the limitation of thought.

Unless we put order into that world of reality we cannot go further. We live a disorderly life in our daily activities; that is a fact. And is it possible to bring about order in the world of reality, in the world of thought, socially, morally, ethically and so on? And who is to bring about order in the world of reality? I live a disorderly life - if I do - and being disorderly, can I bring about order in all the activities of daily life? Our daily life is based on thought, our relationship is based on thought, because I have an image of you and you have an image of me, and the relationship is between those two images. The images are the product of thought, which is the response of memory, experience and so on. Now can there be order in the world of reality? This is really a very important question. Unless order is established in the world of reality there is no foundation for further enquiry. In the world of reality, is it possible to behave orderly, not according to a pattern set by thought, which is still disorder? Is it possible to bring about order in the world of reality? That is, no wars, no conflict, no division. Order implies great virtue, virtue is the essence of order - not following a blueprint, which becomes mechanical. So who is to bring order in this world of reality? Man has said, "God will bring it. Believe in God and you will have order. Love God and you will have order." But this order becomes mechanical because our desire is to be secure, to survive, to find the easiest way of living - let us put it that way.

So we are asking, who is to bring order in this world of reality, where there is such confusion, misery, pain, violence and so on. Can thought bring about order in that reality - a world of reality which thought has created? Do you follow my question? The Communists say control the environment, then there will be order in man. According to Marx the State will wither away - you know all that. They have tried to bring order but man is in disorder, even in Russia! So one has to find out, if thought is not to bring about order, then what will? I don`t know if this is a problem to you, if it really interests you? So one has to ask, if thought, which has made such a mess of life, cannot bring clarity into this world of reality, then is there an observation in the field of reality, or of the field of reality, without the movement of thought. Are we meeting each other about this? A human being has exercised thought, he says there is disorder, I will control it, I will shape it, I will make order according to certain ideas - it is all the product of thought. And thought has created disorder. So thought has no place in order, and how is this order to come about?

Now we will go into it a little bit. Can one observe this disorder in which one lives, which is conflict, contradiction, opposing desires, pain, suffering, fear, pleasure and all that, this whole structure of disorder, without thought? You understand my question? Can you observe this enormous disorder in which we live, externally as well as inwardly, without any movement of thought? Because if there is any movement of thought, then it is going to create further disorder, isn't it? So can you observe this disorder in yourself without any movement of thought as time and measure - that is, without any movement of memory?

We are going to see whether thought as time can come to an end. Whether thought as measure, which is comparison, as time, from here to there - all that is involved in the movement of time - whether that time can have a stop? This is the very essence of meditation. You understand? So we are going to enquire together if time has a stop, that is, if thought as movement can come to an end. Then only is there order and therefore virtue. Not cultivated virtue, which requires time and is therefore not virtue, but the very stopping, the very ending of thought is virtue. This means we have to enquire into the whole question of what is freedom. Can man live in freedom? Because that is what it comes to. If time comes to an end it means that man is deeply free. So one has to go into this question of what is freedom. Is freedom relative, or absolute? If freedom is the outcome of thought then it is relative. When freedom is not bound by thought then it is absolute. We are going to go into that.

Outwardly, politically, there is less and less freedom. We think politicians can solve all our problems and the politicians, especially the tyrannical politicians, assume the authority of God, they know and you don't know. That is what is going on in India, freedom of speech, civil rights, have been denied, like in all tyrannies. Democratically we have freedom of choice, we choose between the Liberal, Conservatives, Labour or something else. And we think that having the capacity to choose gives us freedom. Choice is the very denial of freedom. You choose when you are not clear, when there is no direct perception, and so you choose out of confusion, and so there is no freedom in choice - psychologically, that is. I can choose between this cloth and that cloth, and so on; but psychologically we think we are free when we have the capacity to choose. And we are saying that choice is born out of confusion, out of the structure of thought, and therefore it is not free. We accept the authority of the gurus, the priests, because we think they know and we don't know. Now if you examine the whole idea of the guru, which is becoming rather a nuisance in this country and in America, the world over - I am sorry I am rather allergic to gurus (laughter), I know many of them, they come to see me (laughter). They say, "What you are saying is the highest truth" - they know how to flatter! But we are dealing, they say, with people who are ignorant and we are the intermediaries: we want to help them. So they assume the authority and therefore deny freedom. I do not know if you have noticed that not one single guru has raised his voice against tyranny.

A man who would understand what freedom is must totally deny authority, which is extraordinarily difficult, it demands great attention. We may reject the authority of a guru, of a priest, of an idea, but we establish an authority in ourselves - that is "I think it is right, I know what I am saying, it is my experience. All that gives one the authority to assert, which is the same thing as the guru and the priest.

Can the mind be free of authority, of tradition, which means accepting another as your guide, as somebody to tell you what to do, except in the technological field? And man must be free if he is not to become a serf, a slave, and deny the beauty and depth of the human spirit. Now can the mind put aside all authority in the psychological sense? - if you put aside the authority of the policeman you will be in trouble. That requires a great deal of inward awareness. One obeys and accepts authority because in oneself there is uncertainty, confusion, loneliness, and the desire to find something permanent, something lasting. And is there anything lasting, anything that is permanent, created by thought? Or does thought give to itself permanency? The mind desires to have something it can cling to, some certainty, some psychological security. This is what happens in all our relationships with each other. I depend on you psychologically - because in myself I am uncertain, confused, lonely - and I am attached to you, I possess you, I dominate you. So living in this world is freedom possible, without authority, without the image, without the sense of dependency? And is it freedom from something or freedom per se?

Now can we have freedom in the world of reality? You understand my question? - can there be freedom in my relationship with you? Can there be freedom in relationship between man and woman, or is that impossible? - which doesn't mean freedom to do what one likes, or permissiveness, or promiscuity. But can there be a relationship between human beings of complete freedom? I do not know if you have ever asked this question of yourself? You might say it is possible or not possible. The possibility or the impossibility of it is not an answer, but to find out whether freedom can exist, absolute freedom in our relationships. That freedom can only exist in relationship when there is order: order not according to you, or another, but order in the sense of the observation of disorder. And that observation is not the movement of thought, because the observer is the observed; only then there is freedom in our relationship.

Then we can go to something else. Having observed the whole nature of disorder, order comes into being in our life. That is a fact, if you have gone into it. From there we can move and find out whether thought can end, can realize its own movement, see its own limitation and therefore stop. We are asking, what place has time in freedom. Is freedom a state of mind in which there is no time? - time being movement of thought as time and measure. Thought is movement, movement in time. That is, can the brain, which is part of the mind - which has evolved through centuries with all the accumulated memories, knowledge, experience - is there a part of the brain which is not touched by time? Do you understand my question? Our brain is conditioned by various influences, by the pursuit of desires; and is there a part of the brain that is not conditioned at all? Or is the whole brain conditioned and can human beings therefore never escape from conditioning? They can modify the conditioning, polish, refine it, but there will always be conditioning if the totality of the brain is limited, and therefore no freedom.

So we are going to find out if there is any part of the brain that is not conditioned. All this is meditation, to find out. Can one be aware of the conditioning in which one lives? Can you be aware of your conditioning as a Christian, a Capitalist, a Socialist, a Liberal, that you believe in this and you don't believe in that? - all that is part of the conditioning. Can a human being be aware of that conditioning? Can you be aware of your consciousness? - not as an observer, but that you are that consciousness. And if you are aware, who is it that is aware? Is it thought that is aware that it is conditioned? Then it is still in the field of reality, which is conditioned. Or is there an observation, an awareness in which there is pure observation? Is there an act, or an art of pure listening?

Do listen to this a little bit. The word "art" means to put everything in its right place, where it belongs. Now can you observe without any interpretation, without any judgement, without any prejudice - just observe, see purely? And can you listen, as you are doing now, without any movement of thought. It is only possible if you put thought in the right place. And the art of learning means not accumulating - then it becomes knowledge and thought - but the movement of learning, without the accumulation. So there is the art of seeing, the art of listening, the art of learning - which means to put everything where it belongs. And in that there is great order.

Now we are going to find out if time has a stop. This is meditation. As we said at the beginning, it is all in the field of meditation. Meditation isn't something separate from life, from daily life. Meditation is not the repetition of words, the repetition of a mantra, which is now the fashion and called transcendental meditation, or the meditation which can be practised. Meditation must be something totally unconscious. I wonder if you see this? If you practise meditation, that is follow a system, a method, then it is the movement of thought, put together in order to achieve a result, and that result is projected as a reaction from the past and therefore still within the area of thought.

So can there be a mutation in the brain? It comes to that. We say it is possible. That is, a mutation is only passible when there is a great shock of attention. Attention implies no control. Have you ever asked whether you can live in this world without a single control? - of your desires, of your appetites, of the fulfilment of your desires and so on, without a single breath of control? Control implies a controller: and the controller thinks he is different from that which he controls. But when you observe closely the controller is the controlled. So what place has control? In the sense of restraint, suppression, to control in order to achieve, to control to change yourself to become something else - all that is the demand of thought. Thought by its very nature being fragmentary, divides the controller and the controlled. And we are educated from childhood to control, to suppress, to inhibit - which does not mean to do what you like; that is impossible, that is too absurd, too immature. But to understand this whole question of control demands that you examine the desire which brings about this fragmentation; the desire to be and not to be. To find out whether you can live without comparison, therefore without an ideal, without a future - all that is implied in comparison. And where there is comparison there must be control. Can you live without comparison and therefore without control - do you understand? Have you ever tried to live without control, without comparison? Because comparison and control are highly respectable. The word "respect" means to look about. And when we look about we see that all human beings, wherever they live, have this extraordinary desire to compare themselves with somebody, or with an idea, or with some human being who is supposed to be noble, and in that process they control, suppress. Now if you see this whole movement, then one will live without a single breath of control. That requires tremendous inward discipline. Discipline means actually to learn, not to be disciplined to a pattern like a soldier. The word "discipline" means to learn. Learn whether it is possible to live without a single choice, comparison, or control. To learn about it; not to accept it, not to deny it, but to find out how to live.

Then out of that comes a brain which is not conditioned. Meditation then is freedom from authority, putting everything in its right place in the field of reality, and consciousness realizing its own limitation and therefore bringing about order in that limitation. When there is order there is virtue, virtue in behaviour.

From there we can go into the question, whether time has a stop. Which means, can the mind, the brain itself, be absolutely still? - not controlled. If you control thought in order to be still, then it is still the movement of thought. Can the brain and the mind be absolutely still, which is the ending of time? Man has always desired throughout the ages to bring silence to the mind, which he called meditation, contemplation and so on. Can the mind be still? - not chattering, not imagining, not conscious of that stillness, because if you are conscious of that stillness there is a centre which is conscious, and that centre is part of time, put together by thought; therefore you are still within the area of reality and there is no ending in the world of reality of time.

Man has made, whether by the hand or by the mind, what he thinks is sacred, all the images in churches, in temples. All those images are still the product of thought. And in that there is nothing sacred. But out of this complete silence is there anything sacred? We began by saying that religion is not belief, rituals, authority, but religion is the gathering of all energy to investigate if there is something sacred which is not the product of thought. We have that energy when there is complete order in the world of reality in which we live - order in relationship, freedom from authority, freedom from comparison, control, measurement. Then the mind and the brain become completely still naturally, not through compulsion. If one sees that anything which thought has created is not sacred, nothing - all the churches, all the temples, all the mosques in the world have no truth - then is there anything sacred?

In India, when only Brahmins could enter Temples and Gandhi was saying that all people can enter temples - I followed him around one year - and I was asked, "What do you say to that"? I replied, God is not in temples, it doesn't matter who enters. That was of course not acceptable. So in the same way we are saying that anything created by thought is not sacred, and is there anything sacred? Unless human beings find that sacredness, their life really has no meaning, it is an empty shell. They may be very orderly, they may be relatively free, but unless there is this thing that is totally sacred, untouched by thought, life has no deep meaning. Is there something sacred, or is everything matter, everything thought, everything transient, everything impermanent? Is there something that thought can never touch and therefore is incorruptible, timeless, eternal and sacred? To come upon this the mind must be completely, totally still, which means time comes to an end; and in that there must be complete freedom from all prejudice, opinion, judgement - you follow? Then only one comes upon this extraordinary thing that is timeless and the very essence of compassion.

So meditation has significance. One must have this meditative quality of the mind, not occasionally, but all day long. And this something that is sacred affects our lives not only during the waking hours but during sleep. And in this process of meditation there are all kinds of powers that come into being: one becomes clairvoyant, the body becomes extraordinarily sensitive. Now clairvoyance, healing, thought transference and so on, become totally unimportant; all the occult powers become so utterly irrelevant, and when you pursue those you are pursuing something that will ultimately lead to illusion. That is one factor. Then there is the factor of sleep. What is the importance of sleep? Is it to spend the sleeping hours dreaming? Or is it possible not to dream at all? What are dreams, why do we dream, and is it possible for a mind not to dream, so that during sleep, the mind being utterly restful, a totally different kind of energy is built in?

If during waking hours we are completely attentive to our thoughts, to our actions, to our behaviour, totally aware, then are dreams necessary? Or are dreams a continuation of our daily life, in the form of pictures, images, incidents - a continuity of our daily conscious or unconscious movements? So when the mind becomes totally aware during the day, then you will see that dreams become unimportant, and being unimportant they have no significance and therefore there is no dreaming. There is only complete sleep; that means the mind has complete rest: it can renew itself. Test it out. If you accept what the speaker is saying, then it is futile; but not if you enquire and find out if during the day you are very very awake, watchful, aware without choice - we went into what it is to be aware - then out of that awareness when you do sleep, the mind becomes extraordinarily fresh and young. Youth is the essence of decision, action. And if that action is merely centred round itself, round the centre of myself, then that action breeds mischief, confusion and so on. But when you realize the whole movement of life as one, undivided, and are aware of that, then the mind rejuvenates itself and has immense energy. All that is part of meditation.

Part 3
Questions from Public Dialogues Saanen

Chapter 10
Question From the 7th Public Talk Saanen
25th July, 1976
Right Livelihood

Questioner: Is a motive necessary in business? What is the right motive in earning a livelihood?

Krishnamurti: What do you think is the right livelihood? - not what is the most convenient, not what is the most profitable, enjoyable, or gainful; but what is the right livelihood? Now, how will you find out what is right? The word "right" means correct, accurate. It cannot be accurate if you do something for profit or pleasure. This is a complex thing. Everything that thought has put together is reality. This tent has been put together by thought, it is a reality. The tree has not been put together by thought, but it is a reality. Illusions are reality - the illusions that one has, imagination, all that is reality. And the action from those illusions is neurotic, which is also reality. So when you ask this question, "What is the right livelihood", you must understand what reality is. Reality is not truth.

Now what is correct action in this reality? And how will you discover what is right in this reality? - discover for yourself, not be told. So we have to find out what is the accurate, correct, right action, or right livelihood in the world of reality, and reality includes illusion. Don't escape, don't move away, belief is an illusion, and the activities of belief are neurotic, nationalism and all the rest of it is another form of reality, but an illusion. So taking all that as reality, what is the right action there?

Who is going to tell you? Nobody, obviously. But when you see reality without illusion, the very perception of that reality is your intelligence, isn't it? in which there is no mixture of reality and illusion. So when there is observation of reality, the reality of the tree, the reality of the tent, reality which thought has put together, including visions, illusions, when you see all that reality, the very perception of that is your intelligence - isn't it? So your intelligence says what you are going to do. I wonder if you understand this? Intelligence is to perceive what is and what is not - to perceive "what is" and see the reality of "what is", which means you don't have any psychological involvement, any psychological demands, which are all forms of illusion. To see all that is intelligence; and that intelligence will operate wherever you are. Therefore that will tell you what to do.

Then what is truth? What is the link between reality and truth? The link is this intelligence. Intelligence that sees the totality of reality and therefore doesn't carry it over to truth. And the truth then operates on reality through intelligence.

Chapter 11
Question From the 3rd Public Talk Saanen
15th July, 1975
Will

Questioner: I wish to know if effort of will has a place in life.

Krishnamurti: Has the will a place in life? What do we mean by life? - going to the office every day, having a profession, a career, the everlasting climbing the ladder, both religiously and mundanely, the fears, the agonies, the things that we have treasured, remembered, all that is life, isn't it? All that is life, both the conscious as well as the hidden. The conscious of which we know, more or less; and all the deep down hidden things in the cave of one's mind, in the deepest recesses of one's mind. All that is life: the illusion and the reality, the highest principle and the "what is", the fear of death, fear of living, fear of relationship - all that. What place has will in that? That is the question.

I say it has no place. Don't accept what I am saying; I am not your authority, I am not your guru. All the content of one's consciousness, which is consciousness, is created by thought which is desire and image. And that is what has brought about such havoc in the world. Is there a way of living in this world without the action of will? That is the present question.

I know this, as a human being I am fully aware of what is going on within my consciousness, the confusion, the disorder, the chaos, the battle, the seeking for power, position, safety, security, prominence, all that; and I see thought has created all that. Thought plus desire and the multiplication of images. And I say, "What place has will in this?" It is will that has created this. Now can I live in this without will? Biologically, physiologically, I have to exercise a certain form of energy to lean a language, to do this and that. There must be a certain drive. I see all this. And I realise - not as a verbal realization, as a description, but the, actual fact of it, as one realizes pain in the body - I realize that this is the product of thought as desire and will. Can I, as a human being, look at all this, and transform this without will?

Now what becomes important is what kind of observation is necessary. Observation to see actually what is. Is the mind capable of seeing actually "what is"? Or does it always translate into "what should be", "what should not be", "I must suppress", "I must not suppress", and all the rest of it? There must be freedom to observe, otherwise I can't see. If I am prejudiced against you, or like you, I can't see you. So freedom is absolutely necessary to observe - freedom from prejudice, from information, from what has been learned, to be able to look without the idea. You understand: to look without the idea. As we said the other day, the word "idea" comes from Greek; the root meaning of that word is to observe, to see. When we refuse to see, we make an abstraction and make it into an idea.

There must be freedom to observe, and in that freedom will is not necessary; there is just freedom to look. Which means, to put it differently, if one makes a statement, can you listen to it without making it into an abstraction? Do you understand my question? The speaker makes a statement such as, "The ending of sorrow is the beginning of wisdom". Can you listen to that statement without making an abstraction of it? - the abstraction being: "Is that possible?", "What do we get from it?,', "How do we do it?". Those are all abstractions - and not actually listening. So can you listen to that statement with all your senses, which means with all your attention? Then you see the truth of it. And the perception of that truth is action in this chaos.

Chapter 12
Question From the 5th Public Talk Saanen
22nd July, 1975
Emotions and Thought

Questioner: Are emotions rooted in thought?

Krishnamurti: What are emotions? Emotions are sensations, aren't they? You see a lovely car, or a beautiful house, a beautiful woman or man, and the sensory perception awakens the senses. Then what takes place? Contact, then desire, Now thought comes in. Can you end there and not let thought come in and take over? I see a beautiful house, the right proportions, with a lovely lawn, a nice garden: all the senses are responding because there is great beauty - it is well kept, orderly, tidy. Why can't you stop there and not let thought come in and say, "I must have" and all the rest of it? Then you will see emotions, or sensations, are natural, healthy, normal. But when thought takes over, then all the mischief begins.

So to find out for oneself whether it is possible to look at something with all the senses and end there and not proceed further - do it! That requires an extraordinary sense of awareness in which there is no control; no control, therefore no conflict. Just to observe totally that which is, and all the senses respond and end there. There is great beauty in that. For after all what is beauty?

Chapter 13
Question From the 5th Public Talk Saanen
22nd July, 1975
Beauty

Is beauty in the world of reality? Or is it not within the movement of thought as time? Please follow this carefully because we are investigating together. I am not laying down the law. I am just asking myself: does beauty lie within the movement of thought as time? That is, within the field of reality. There are beautiful paintings, statues, sculpture, marvellous cathedrals, wonderful temples. If you have been to India, some of those ancient temples are really quite extraordinary: they have no time, there has been no entity as a human being who put them together. And those marvellous old sculptures from the Egyptians, from the Greeks, down to the Moderns. That is, is it expression and creation? Does creation need expression? I am not saying it does, or does not, I am asking, enquiring. Is beauty, which is both expression outwardly and the sense of inward feeling of extraordinary elation, that which comes when there is complete cessation of the "me", with all its movements?

To enquire what is beauty, we have to go into the question of what is creation. What is the mind that is creative? Can the mind that is fragmented, however capable, whatever its gifts, talent, is such a mind creative? If I live a fragmented life, pursuing my cravings, my selfishness, my self-centred ambitions, pursuits, my pain, my struggle - is such a mind (I am asking) creative? - though it has produced marvellous music, marvellous literature, architecture and poetry - English and other literature is filled with it. A mind that is not whole, can that be creative? Or is creation only possible when there is total wholeness and therefore no fragmentation? A mind that is fragmented is not a beautiful mind, and therefore it is not creative.

Chapter 14
Question From the 6th Public Talk Saanen
24th July, 1975
The Stream Of "selfishness"

One can see that thought has built the "me", the "me" that has become independent, the "me" that has acquired knowledge, the "me" that is the observer, the "me" that is the past and which passes through the present and modifies itself as the future. It is still the "me" put together by thought, and that "me" has become independent of thought. That "me" has a name, a form. It has a label called X or Y or John. It identifies with the body, with the face; there is the identification of the "me" with the name and with the form, which is the structure, and with the ideal which it wants to pursue. Also with the desire to change the "me" into another form of "me", with another name. This "me" is the product of time and of thought. The "me" is the word: remove the word and what is the "me"?

And that "me" suffers: the "me", as you, suffers. The "me" in suffering is you. The "me" in its great anxiety is the great anxiety of you. Therefore you and I are common; that is the basic essence. Though you may be taller, shorter, have a different temperament, different character, be cleverer, all that is the peripheral field of culture; but deep down, basically we are the same. So that "me" is moving in the stream of greed, in the stream of selfishness, in the stream of fear, anxiety and so on, which is the same as you in the stream. Please don't accept what I am saying - see the truth of it. That is, you are selfish and another is selfish; you are frightened, another is frightened; you are aching, suffering, with tears, greed, envy, that is the common lot of all human beings. That is the stream in which we are living, the stream in which we are caught, all of us. We are caught in that stream while we are living; please see that we are caught in this stream as an act of life. This stream is "selfishness" - let us put it that way - and in this stream we are living - the stream of "selfishness" - that expression includes all the descriptions of the "me" which I have just now given. And when we die the organism dies, but the selfish stream goes on. Just look at it, consider it.

Suppose I have lived a very selfish life, in self-centred activity, with my desires, the importance of my desires, ambitions, greed, envy, the accumulation of property, the accumulation of knowledge, the accumulation of all kinds of things which I have gathered - all of which I have termed as "selfishness". And that is the thing I live in, that is the "me", and that is you also. In our relationships it is the same. So while living we are together flowing in the stream of selfishness. This is a fact, not my opinion, not my conclusion; if you observe you will see it, whether you go to America, to India, or all over Europe, modified by the environmental pressures and so on, but basically that is the movement. And when the body dies that movement goes on... That stream is time. That is the movement of thought, which has created suffering, which has created the "me" from which the "me" has now asserted itself as being independent, dividing itself from you; but the "me" is the same as you when it suffers. The "me" is the imagined structure of thought. In itself it has no reality. It is what thought has made it because thought needs security, certainty, so it has invested in the "me" all its certainty. And in that there is suffering. In that movement of selfishness, while we are living we are being carried in that stream and when we die that stream exists.

Is it possible for that stream to end? Can selfishness, with all its decorations, with all its subtleties, come totally to an end? And the ending is the ending of time. Therefore there is a totally different manifestation after the ending, which is: no selfishness at all.

When there is suffering, is there a "you" and "me"? Or is there only suffering? I identify myself as the "me" in that suffering, which is the process of thought. But the actual fact is you suffer and I suffer, not "I" suffer something independent of you, who are suffering. So there is only suffering... there is only the factor of suffering. Do you know what it does when you realize that? Out of that non-personalised suffering, not identified as the "me" separate from you, when there is that suffering, out of that comes a tremendous sense of compassion. The very word "suffering" comes from the word "passion".

So I have got this problem. As a human being, living, knowing that I exist in the stream as selfishness, can that stream, can that movement of time, come totally to an end? Both at the conscious as well as at the deep level? Do you understand my question, after describing all this? Now, how will you find out whether you, who are caught in that stream of selfishness, can completely step out of it? - which is the ending of time. Death is the ending of time as the movement of thought if there is the stepping out of that. Can you, living in this world, with all the beastliness of it, the world that man has made, that thought has made, the dictatorships, the totalitarian authority, the destruction of human minds, destruction of the earth, the animals, everything man touches he destroys, including his wife or husband. Now can you live in this world completely without time? - that means no longer caught in that stream of selfishness.

You see there are many more things involved in this; because there is such a thing as great mystery. Not the thing invented by thought, that is not mysterious. The occult is not mysterious, which everybody is chasing now, that is the fashion. The experiences which drugs give are not mysterious. There is this thing called death, and the mystery that lies where there is a possibility of stepping out of it.

That is, as long as one lives in the world of reality, which we do, can there be the ending of suffering in that world of reality? Think about it. Look at it. Don't say yes, or no. If there is no ending of suffering in the world of reality - which brings order - if there is no ending of selfishness in the world of reality - it is selfishness that creates disorder in the world of reality - if there is no ending to that then you haven't understood, or grasped, the full significance of ending time. Therefore you have to bring about order in the world of reality, in the world of relationships, of action, of rational and irrational thinking, of fear and pleasure. So can one, living in the world of reality as we are, end selfishness? You know it is a very complex thing to end selfishness, it isn't just, "I won't think about myself".... This selfishness in the field of reality is creating chaos. And you are the world and the world is you. If you change deeply you affect the whole consciousness of man.

Chapter 15
Question From the 7th Public Talk Saanen
27th July, 1975
The Unifying Factor

What is the unifying factor in meditation? Because that is one of the most necessary and urgent things. Politicians are not going to bring this unity however much they may talk about it. It has taken them thousands of years just to meet each other. What is that factor? We are talking about a totally different kind of energy, which is not the movement of thought with its own energy; and will that energy, which is not the energy of thought, bring about this unity? For God's sake, this is your problem, isn't it? Unity between you and your wife or husband, unity between you and another. You see, we have tried to bring about this unity; thought sees the necessity of unity and therefore has created a centre. As the sun is the centre of this world, holding all things in that light, so this centre created by thought hopes to bring mankind together. Great conquerors, great warriors, have tried to do this through bloodshed. Religions have tried to do it, and have brought about more division with their cruelty, with their wars, with their torture. Science has enquired into this. And because science is the accumulation of knowledge, and the movement of knowledge is thought, being fragmentary it cannot unify.

Is there an energy which will bring about this unity, this unification of mankind? We are saying, in meditation this energy comes about, because in meditation there is no centre. The centre is created by thought, but something else, totally different, takes place, which is compassion. That is the unifying factor of mankind. To be - not to become compassionate, that is again another deception - but to be compassionate. That can only take place when there is no centre, the centre being that which has been created by thought - thought which hopes that by creating a centre it can bring about unity, like a fragmentary government, like a dictatorship, like autocracy, afl those are centres hoping to create unity. All those have failed, and they will inevitably fail. There is only one factor, and that is this sense of great compassion. And that compassion is when we understand the full width and depth of suffering. That is why we talked a great deal about suffering, the suffering not only of a human being, but the collective suffering of mankind. Don't understand it verbally or intellectually but somewhere else, in your heart, feel the thing. And as you are the world and the world is you, if there is this birth of compassion you will inevitably bring about unity, you can't help it.