From: Raj.Subramani@newcastle.ac.uk (D. Subramani)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: What are we seeking - J KRISHNAMURTHI
Summary: The Problems of Living
Keywords: Philosophy
Date: 30 Dec 92 09:36:31 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU



This is an extract from "The Krishnamurthi Reader", a throughly satisfying
book which I reccomend to all those interested. It has particular significance
in these troubled times. Its a rather longish posting so I apologize for any
inconvenience that may cause. Have a Happy New Year.


********************* What are we seeking? J Krishnamurthi*********************

 What  is  it that most of us are seeking?  What is it that each one of
 us wants?  surely it is important to find out.  Probably  most  of  us
 are  seeking  some  kind  of happiness, some kind of peace; in a world
 that is ridden with turmoil, wars contention, strife, we want a refuge
 where there can be some peace.  I think that is what most of us  want.
 So  we  pursue,  go  from  one  leader  to another, from one religious
 organization to another, from one teacher to another.

 Now  is  it that we are seeking happiness or is it that we are seeking
 gratification of some kind from which we  hope  to  derive  happiness?
 There  is  a  difference between happiness and gratification.  You can
 SEEK happiness?  Perhaps you can find  gratification  but  surely  you
 cannot FIND happiness.  Happiness is derivative; it is a by-product of
 something  else.  So, before we give our minds and hearts to something
 which demands a great deal of earnestness, attention,  thought,  care,
 we  must  find  out,  must  we  not?, what its is that we are seeking;
 whether it is happiness, or gratification.  I am afraid most of us are
 seeking gratification.  We want to be gratified, we  want  to  find  a
 sense of fullness at the end of our search.

 After  all,  if one is seeking peace one can find it very easily.  One
 can devote oneself blindly to some kind of cause, to an idea, and take
 shelter  there.   Surely  that  does  not  solve  the  problem.   Mere
 isolation  in an enclosing idea is not a release from conflict.  So we
 must find out, must  we  not?,  what  it  is,  inwardly,  as  well  as
 outwardly,  that  each  of  us wants.  If we are clear on that matter,
 then we do not have to go anywhere, to any teacher, to any church,  to
 any  organization.   But  our  difficulty is, to be clear in ourselves
 regarding our intention.  Can we be clear?  And does that clarity come
 through searching, through trying to find out what  others  say,  from
 the  highest  teacher  to  the ordinary preacher in a church round the
 corner?  Have you got to go to somebody to find out?  Yet that is what
 we are doing, is it not?  We read innumerable books,  we  attend  many
 meetings  and  discuss, we join various organizations - trying thereby
 to find a remedy to the conflict, to the miseries in our lives.  Or if
 we don't do all that, we think we have found; that is, we say  that  a
 particular  organization,  a  particular  teacher,  a  particular book
 satisfies us; we have found everything we want in that; and we  remain
 in that, crystallized and enclosed.

 Do  we  not  seek  through  all  this  confusion, something permanent,
 something lasting, something which we call real?  - God,  truth,  what
 you  like - the name doesn't matter, the word is not the thing surely.
 So don't let us be caught in words.  Leave that  to  the  professional
 lecturers.   There  is a search for something permanent is there not?,
 in most of us - something we can cling to, something which  will  give
 us  assurance,  a  hope,  a  lasting enthusiasm, a lasting certainity,
 because in ourselves we are so uncertain.  We do not  know  ourselves.
 We  know  a lot of facts, what the books have said; but we do not know
 for ourselves, we do not have a direct experience.

 And  what  is  it  that  we  call  permanent?   What is it that we are
 seeking, which will, or which we hope will give us permanency?  Are we
 not  seeking  lasting  happiness,   lasting   gratification,   lasting
 certainity?   We  want something that will endure everlastingly, which
 will gratify us.  If we strip ourselves of all the words and  phrases,
 and  actually  look  at  it,  this is what we want.  We want permanent
 pleasure, permanent gratification - which we call truth, God  or  what
 you will.

 Very  well,  we  want  pleasure.   Perhaps  that maybe putting it very
 crudely, but that is what we actually want - knowledge that will  give
 us  pleasure,  experience  that will give us pleasure, a gratification
 that will not wither away by tomorrow.  And we have experimented  with
 various  gratifications, and they have all faded away; and we hope now
 to find permanent gratification in reality, in God.  Surely,  that  is
 what  we  are  seeking  -  the  clever  ones  and the stupid ones, the
 theorist and the factual person who is striving after something.   And
 is  there  a  permanent  gratification?  Is there something which will
 endure?

 Now,  if you seek permanent gratification, surely you must understand,
 must you not?, the thing you are seeking.  When you say, 'I am seeking
 permanent happiness' - God, or truth, or what you like - must you  not
 understand  the  thing  that  is  searching, the searcher, the seeker?
 Because there may be no such thing as  permanent  security,  permanent
 happiness.   Truth may be something entirely different; and I think it
 is  utterly  different  from  what  you  see,   conceive,   formulate.
 Therfore,  before  we  seek  something permanent, is it not absolutely
 necessary to understand the seeker?  Is the seeker different from  the
 thing  he  seeks?   When  you  say,  ' I am seeking happiness', is the
 seeker different from the  object  of  his  search?   Is  the  thinker
 different  from  the thought?  Are they not a joint phenomenon, rather
 than seperate processes?  Therefore it is essential, is  it  not?,  to
 understand  the  seeker,  before  you try to find out what is it he is
 seeking.

 So  we  have come to the point when we ask ourselves, really earnestly
 and profoundly, if peace, happiness, reality, God, or what  you  will,
 can  be  given to us by someone else.  Can this incessant search, this
 longing, give us that extra-ordinary sense  of reality,  the  creative
 being,   which  comes  when  we  really  understand  ourselves?   Does
 self-knowledge come through search, through  following  someone  else,
 through  belonging  to  any  particular  organization, through reading
 books, and so on?  After all, that is the main issue, is it not?, that
 so long as I do not understand myself, I have no  basis  for  thought,
 and all my search will be in vain.  I can escape into illusions, I can
 run  away  from  contetion, strife, struggle; I can worship another; I
 can look for my salvation through somebody else.  But so long as I  am
 ignorant  of  myself,  so long as I am unaware of the total process of
 myself, I have no basis for thought, for affection, for action.

 But  that  is  the last thing we want: to know ourselves.  Yet that is
 the only foundation on which we  can  build.   Before  we  can  build,
 before  we  can  transform,  before we can condemn or destroy, we must
 know that which we are.  If we are petty, jelous, vain, greedy -  that
 is what we create about us, that is the society in which we live.

 It seems to me that before we set out on a journey to find reality, to
 find  God, before we can act, before we can have any relationship with
 another, which is society, it is essential that we begin to understand
 ourselves first.  I consider the earnest person to be the one  who  is
 completely  concerned  with  this, first, and not how to arrive at any
 particular goal, because, if you and I do  not  understand  ourselves,
 how  can  we,  in  action, bring about a transformation in society, in
 relationship, in anyting that we do?  And it does not mean, obviously,
 emphasis on the individual, the me, as opposed to the mass, as opposed
 to another.

 Now  without knowing youself, without knowing your own way of thinking
 and why you think certain things, without knowing  the  background  of
 your  conditioning  and  why  you  have  certain beleifs about art and
 religion, about your country and your neighbour  and  about  yourself,
 how  can  you  think  truly  about  anything?   Without  knowing  your
 background, without knowing the substance of your thought  and  whence
 it  comes  -  surely  the search is utterly futile, your action has no
 meaning?

 Before  we  can  find out what the end-purpose of life is, what it all
 means - wars, natinal antagonisms, conflicts, the whole mess - we must
 begin with ourselves, must we not?  It sounds so  simple,  but  it  is
 extermely  difficult.   To  follow  oneself,  to see how one's thought
 operates, one has to be extra-ordinarily alert, so  that as one begins
 to be more and more alert to the intricacies of one's own thinking and
 responses and feelings, one begins to have greater awareness, not only
 of oneself but of another with whom one is in relationship.   To  know
 oneself  is  to  study  oneself in action, which is relationship.  The
 difficulty is that we are so impatient; we want to get on, we want  to
 reach an end, and so we have neither the time nor the occasion to give
 ourselves the opportunity to study, to observe.  Alternatively we have
 committed  ourselves  to various activities - to earning a livelihood,
 to rearing children - or to have  taken  certain  responsibilities  of
 various  organizations;  we  have  so committed ourselves in different
 ways that we have hardly any time for self-reflection, to observe,  to
 study.   So  really  the  responsibility  of  the  reaction depends on
 onself, not on another.  The pursuit, all the world over, of gurus and
 their systems, reading the latest book on this and that,  and  so  on,
 seems  to  me  so utterly empty, so utterly futile, for you may wander
 all over the earth but you have to come back  to  yourself.   And,  as
 most of us are totally unaware of ourselves, it is extremely difficult
 to  begin  to  see clearly the process of our thinking and feeling and
 acting.

 The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is.  Self-knowledge
 has  no  end  -  you  don't come to an acheivement, so don't come to a
 conclusion.  It is an endless river.  As one studies it, as  one  goes
 into  it  more  and  more,  one  finds  peace.   Only when the mind is
 tranquil  -   through   self-knowledge   and   not   through   imposed
 self-discipline - only then, in that tranquility, in that silence, can
 reality  come  into  being.   It is only then that there can be bliss,
 that there can be creative action.  And it seems to  me  that  without
 this  understanding, without this experience, merely to read books, to
 attend talks, to do propoganda, is so infantile  -  just  an  activity
 without  much  meaning;  whereas if one is able to understand oneself,
 and thereby bring about that creative happiness, that experiencing  of
 something  that  is  not  of  the  mind,  then  perhaps  ther can be a
 transformation in the immediate relationship about us and  so  in  the
 world in which we live.
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