The Essential Works of U. G. Krishnamurti. U. G. Krishnamurti
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there, teaches you just the same if only you let it do what it can. You must let that do. I have to put it that way. Although "let that do" may imply that there is some kind of volition on your part, that's not what I mean.
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Q: What is life?
UG: You will never know what life is. Nobody can say anything about life. You can give definitions, but those definitions have no meaning. You can theorize about life, but that is a thing which is not of any value to you — it cannot help you to understand anything. So you don't ask questions like "What is life?" you know. "What is life?" — there is no answer to that question, so the question cannot stay there any longer. You really don't know, so the question disappears. You don't let that happen there, because you think there must be an answer. If you don't know the answer, you think there may be somebody in this world who can give an answer to that question. "What is life?"— nobody can give an answer to that question — we really don't know. So the question cannot stay there; the question burns itself out, you see. The question is born out of thought, so when it burns itself out, what is there is energy. There's a combustion: thought burns itself out and gives physical energy. In the same way, when the question is burnt, along with it goes the questioner also. The question and the questioner are not two different things. When the question burns itself out, what is there is energy. You can't say anything about that energy — it is already manifesting itself, expressing itself in a boundless way; it has no limitations, no boundaries. It is not yours, not mine; it belongs to everybody. You are part of that. You are an expression of that. Just as the flower is an expression of life, you are another expression of life. What is behind all this is life. What it is, you will never know.
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You are not different from the animal — you don't want to accept that fact. The only difference is that you think. Thinking is there in the animal also, but it has become very complex in the case of man — that's the difference. Don't tell me that animals do not think; they do think. But in man it has become a very complex structure, and the problem is how to free yourself from this structure and use it only as an instrument to function in this world — it has no other use at all — it has only a contingent value, to communicate something, to function in the workaday world — "Where is the railway station? Where can I get tomatoes? Where is the market?" — that's all. Not philosophical concepts — that has no meaning at all. Wanting anything other than the basic needs — food, clothing and shelter — that is where your self-deception begins, and there is no end to your self-deception there. So all this thinking has no meaning at all; it is just wearing you out.
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Thinking is unnecessary except to communicate with somebody. Why do I have to communicate with myself all the time? What for? "I am happy," "I am unhappy," "I am miserable," "That is a microphone," "This is a man," "He is something" — you see, why are we doing it? Everybody is talking to himself — only, when he begins to talk aloud you put him in the mental hospital. (Laughter)
Q: I think you are suggesting — and I agree with you — that it is a very tiresome thing to do. It is wearing us out, so naturally we seek methods to end it.
UG: It is wearing you out, and all methods that we use are adding more and more to that, unfortunately. All techniques and systems are adding to that. There is nothing you can do to end thinking.
Q: Alright then, how did you do it?
UG: "How not to think?" is your question. Do you know what that question implies? You want some way, some method, some system, some technique — and you still continue to think.
Q: I don't want to think. If this question is wrong, perhaps you could suggest a better question.
UG: I am not sure that you do not want to think. You see, you have to come to a point where you say to yourself "I am fed up with this kind of thing?" Nobody can push you there.
Q: So either you can do it, or you can't do it?
UG: You see, even then you'll find that you can't do it. You see, thought is there when there is a demand for it. When there is no demand for it you don't know whether it is there or not. I am not concerned whether it is there or not. But when there is a need for it, when there is a demand for it, it is there to guide you and to help you communicate with someone. What decides that demand is not here; it is out there. The situation demands its use; it is not self- initiated.
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We are all talking of thought. Is it possible for you to look at thought? No, there is another thought which is looking — that is the tricky part, you see - it divides itself into two — otherwise you can't look at thought. When one thought looks at another thought, there are not two thoughts, but one thought. It gives you the impression that there are two thoughts, but actually there is only one movement. So, what creates the division? The division is created by thought — that is the beginning of your thinking. It is a very tricky business. It is one movement, and what is looking at what you call 'thought' is all the definitions you have of thought.
"What is thought?" — you pose that question to yourself. So, how can you look at that? The question is thought, you see. "What is thought?" — there's no answer to that; any answer you give is only a definition. You can say "Thought is this".... (I have been saying so many things: "Thought is time; thought is space; thought is matter.") "Thought is this; thought is that" — you know, that's all you can say.
But if you want to directly look at thought and find out for yourself, you have no way of looking at it. You have no way of finding out what thought is for yourself, because you cannot experience thought; you can experience thought only through the knowledge you have about thought. What happens when you do not accept the answers given by others? Something has got to happen to that question "What is thought?" The question burns itself out, because it has no answer except the answer we know. That question burns itself out, and what you have in place of the question is the answer, energy. This question, thought, is matter. When thought burns itself out, what is there is energy, which is the manifestation of life. In other words, 'life' and 'energy' are synonymous terms.
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Where does thought come from? Is it from inside, or outside? Where is the seat of human consciousness? So, for purposes of communication, or just to give a feel about it, I say there is a 'thought sphere'. In that 'thought sphere' we are all functioning, and each of us probably has an 'antenna', or what you call an 'aerial' or something, which is the creation of the culture into which we are born. It is that that is picking up these particular thoughts.
You have no way at all of finding out for yourself the seat of human consciousness, because it is all over, and you are not separate from that consciousness. Even with all the experiments that the brain physiologists and psychologists are doing, wasting millions and millions of dollars just to find out the seat of human consciousness, they will never be able to find it out at all. I am not making a dogmatic statement or any such thing.
Q: There is a certain capability of picking up thoughts through the 'antenna'. Now, without knowing what exactly this 'antenna' is, can we increase this capability?
UG: Why do you want to increase it? I accept the limitations as a fact, you know. I am (to use your scientific term) genetically speaking limited in my capacity. I think the capacity of the individual is very limited — I don't know — genetically determined.
Q: But even that genetic potentiality — we are using only a fraction of it.
UG: Just a fraction. For some reason or the other the culture has limited the possibility of the potential evolving into its completeness and wholeness. Somewhere along the line probably thought was necessary, but it has become the enemy of man now. It has become