Excerpted from a 1984 small-group discussion at Rishi Valley. Krishnamurti turns the question of an ordinary educated person facing sorrow, anxiety, and the complexity of existence into a starting point for self-knowledge through relationship.
Transcript
RD: Sir, I was discussing with someone this morning, how is it that there are a number of people who have themselves experienced no... they have lived very happy lives, they have no sorrow which is so obvious to most people, and they come upon these questions, and go seriously into these questions. K: Yes, sir, but those people are exceptional. We began by asking, if I was an ordinary man, fairly educated, so-called ‘educated’, where would I begin to understand the very complex problem of existence, all the activities of thought, suffering, pain, anxiety, all that. Where would I begin to understand the very complex society in which I live? That is the real question which Mrs Jayakar began with. PJ: You see, we take it that listening to Krishnaji, the beginning must start within. We all take it that way. We have all taken it that way, that the beginning has to start within. As we have said through these years, discovery of what one is. We have never looked at the outside, and seen the outside as the same movement. Therefore, the callousness, therefore, the lack of... K: Why have we neglected, discarded or despised all the things round us – nature? It means nothing to us. PJ: Because we divide, Krishnaji, the outer world as the world of desire and the inner world... K:...is the real world. PJ: The outer world is desire, to us. K: Also, according to the Buddhists and to many Hindus, the outside world is Maya, an illusion, it doesn’t matter. We’re saying the contrary, therefore he says, ‘I can’t understand’. So I feel it’s important to understand one’s relationship to nature, to the outward world, to the world in which all the misery, confusion, bribery and corruption are going on – I would look at that, first. And from the outer move to the inner, not start with the inner, because you have no judgement then, you can’t see clearly. I think this is partly responsible for religious establishments – worship God, follow Jesus, or some other deity. And that’s what is called religion, their rituals, their paraphernalia, that’s called religion. Personally, one feels one must start with things that we see, hear, feel outside how I look at my wife, my children, my parents, and all the rest of it, which are outside. I see somebody carrying a dead body. In India, it’s very simple, not like in Europe with a hearse, all that. I see it here in this country – two or three people carrying a dead body, and death is there, outside of me. But I begin to say, ‘What is death?’ and I begin to enquire. I can’t just go off by myself into a mountain cave and say, ‘What is death?’ I can imagine all kinds of things. Or, ‘What is God?’ If I have not established right relationship with nature, with another person, whether wife, husband or whatever, or my friends, if you haven’t established right relationship there, how can you establish right relationship with the immensity of the universe? KJ: Krishnaji, two things come to my mind. One is, in looking at the outer you’re saying the brain quickens. In looking at, in hearing the outside, the brain quickens. K: Becomes more sensitive. KJ: Therefore, it can look at the inner without distortion. Yes, but half the world, the West, has always treated the outer as very, very concrete. All their energies have moved outward. But that doesn’t seem to have brought about the inward movement, either. K: So we come to a much more serious question. Would you allow it? What makes a man change? Right? Would you begin with that? I am this – brutal, violent, angry, jealous, hating people, envious, uncertain, confused, sorrowful, I’m that. I’m the result of 8,000 years, or 50,000 years. Why have I not changed? That’s one of the basic questions.