The Essential Works of U. G. Krishnamurti. U. G. Krishnamurti
Читать онлайн книгу.
conversation visited UG while attending J. Krishnamurti's annual Saanen camp, nearby UG's Swiss home.)
Q: We want to understand this problem of sorrow.
UG: Look here. Not getting what you want is sorrow — it doesn't matter what you want — happiness, good health, enlightenment — it changes, you know. So, not getting what you want is sorrow.
Q: And that makes us neurotic?
UG: The very nature of mind (if there is a mind) is neurotic, because it wants two things at the same time, so every individual is a neurotic individual. As long as you want two things, you are in a state of neurosis. And when you can't get it, you become psychotic, you become wild. Not that you necessarily go and beat somebody; but you are destroying yourself, because the violence is there inside of you.
What makes you unhappy is the search for a thing that does not exist. Happiness does not exist at all. Similarly, there is no such thing as enlightenment. You may say that every teacher and all the saints and saviours of mankind have been asserting for centuries upon centuries that there is enlightenment and that they are enlightened. Throw them all in one bunch into the river! I don't care. To realize that there is no enlightenment at all is enlightenment. (Laughter)
Thought doesn't stop. Thoughts will always be there, because thought and life are not two different things. Don't imagine that you will be free of thoughts; thoughts may be there or not, but you don't identify yourself with the thoughts at all — there is nothing here to identify itself with a particular movement of thought. They may be there or they may not be there — they are going to be there because life and thought are not two different things — you cannot do a thing about it. When you see that this instrument is not the thing to use to understand anything, then it somehow slows down and falls into its natural rhythm, then it does not become a problem or a burden to you.
You are trying to understand the teaching of somebody through this instrument which is a product of this thinking. You do not, while you are listening to somebody, understand that you are using a wrong instrument. Through this, you cannot understand what somebody is saying — that is the first thing you must understand. Whatever you are doing is a barrier to whatever you want to get, it doesn't matter what you want to get. You see, whatever you are doing is adding fuel, adding momentum to that. So, how is that going to slow down or stop, and when are you going to do that? Tomorrow or the day after? You say "Tomorrow I will understand." There is no tomorrow: this is not going to happen tomorrow; it must happen now or never. So, "I am determined to see what prevents me from understanding what I want to understand." What prevents you from understanding what you want to understand is this very thing which you are using to understand things. This is not my teaching or anybody's teaching, but this is the only
thing: You are trying to understand something through an instrument which is not the instrument to understand.
So, the only thing that keeps you trying is the hope — "If I discuss this matter with this chap tomorrow, probably I'll be able to understand" — but that is not the way. If I don't understand, I don't understand: "I don't know, I don't seem to have any way of resolving this problem." They have given the example of a dog chasing its own tail — it goes on and on and on, and you feel you are getting somewhere. This is the unfortunate situation: you are not getting anywhere; that is not the way at all. Then what is the way? There is no way. Anything I say, you turn into a way and add to the momentum. That is not the way, that is not the path, it has to be yours. So all paths must go. As long as you follow somebody else's path, the path is the product of thought, so it is actually not a new path; it's the same old path, and you are playing the same old game in a new way. It is not a new game; it is the same old game that you are playing all the time, but you think you are playing a new game. When you see the absurdity of what you are doing, maybe you'll realize "What the hell have I been doing for thirty years, forty years, fifty years!"
Do I need twenty years to look at that mountain? I don't need twenty years. I don't know how to look at it. (Somebody is explaining a natural state of his being which is yours, not mine.) What happens when you are in front of the thing that you call a 'mountain', you don't know. (I am describing that state, what actually happens — that is the action
I am talking about.) That acts on you. How that action takes place inside of you, and what happens when it acts on you, is a thing you'll never understand. You have to live through this in order to understand what I'm saying. If you had lived through that, you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't ask all these questions. Either you look at it now, or never. And what keeps you trying is the hope "Maybe next moment I'll be able to understand." You are trying to focus your eyes on what you are looking at and see something more with more clarity than you saw yesterday. So, all the tricks you are playing — that if you look more carefully, with total attention, there is more clarity in what you are looking at — all this is only deception, because all you are doing is clarifying your thinking; you are not looking at anything. You can't look at anything that way; it doesn't take time. So, "What am I to do with this?" Somebody says "Look at a flower," so you look at every line, every petal, the color, the depth and so on and so on. If that is not the way, what is the way, and when are you going to look at it that way?` You must come to a point where you say "I simply can't look at it the way that chap is describing. Really, I don't know. Really, I don't seem to be able to look at it any way other than the way I am looking at it" — first you must come to that point. That means that what the other chap says must go — all he's told you about how to look at the flower must go — then you can deal with the way you are looking at the flower. Then you are stuck with it: you really don't know what to do about this at all. you have to come to a point where you can't do anything at all: "This is an impossible task!" You must first deal with this, rather than with what you want to be.
`A perception without the perceiver' — it's a concept, so the only thing that you can do is think about it: "What does this mean — 'a perception without the perceiver'"? Or `seeing without the seer'.... I do not use those words. I say there is no translator who is translating the sensations; they stay pure and simple sensations; there is not even the knowledge that they are sensations. Seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, hearing — these are all the sensations — these five senses are functioning. What happens when these sensations remain as sensations without the translating, you will never know. You are translating all these sensations. So, "How to stop doing it"? You are lost if you ask "How am I going to stop the translation?" You can't stop the translation; you are the product of translation. There may not be any stoppage. If somebody says there is a stoppage, "To hell with what he is saying. This chap is either a cuckoo or some far out, freaked out ape. He is talking about things that are not real to me." You don't have the courage. You don't want to accept the reality of yourself. What I am saying is something totally unrelated to the way you are functioning. Tomorrow,
you say, you want to look at things the way I say I'm looking at them. Maybe I'm deceiving myself. So, "This is the way I'm looking at it. This seems to be the only thing I know; I do not know the perceptions of that chap." So leave that chap alone — it's no use blaming that man or anybody. Nor is there any point in blaming yourself. What is the good of blaming yourself? This is the way you are functioning. So then naturally it has to stop —not stop; it has to slow down. You don't know. You come to a point where you don't know what to do about the whole business: "I can't do anything. This is the only way I know; I don't know any other way; what the other chap says makes no sense to me". So, he says "Give it a try," and you give it a try, but you don't seem to get anywhere. So, the hope keeps you going — "Tomorrow maybe I'll be able to understand what that chap says, maybe I'll succeed in doing what he wants me to do: — but you will spend the rest of your life trying to understand. But if you see the futility of it all, maybe it will stop — not really stop, but slow down.
Q: (Inaudible, but probably an attempt to compare the 'teachings' of UG and JK.)
UG: I can use various similes: the flower,