The Teachings of U. G. Krishnamurti. U. G. Krishnamurti
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the moral codes of conduct. They have a social value. They are essential for the smooth functioning of society. You have to have some code of conduct to function in this world intelligently. Otherwise there will be utter chaos in this world. That is a social problem. It is not an ethical problem, nor a religious problem. You see, you have to separate the two things, because we are living in a different world today. We have to find another way of keeping ourselves in harmony with the world around us. As long as you are in conflict within yourself, it will not be possible for you to be in harmony with the society around you. You are yourself responsible for that.
I am afraid if you translate the statements that I am making within the framework of your religious thinking you are really missing the point. It has nothing to do with religion at all. I am not suggesting that you should change yourself into something other than what you are. It is just not possible. I am not trying to free you from anything. I don't think there is any purpose in this talking. You can brush aside my description and say it is nonsense -- that's your privilege. But maybe it will occur to you that the image you have of your goal or the image of what you are going to do one day, through all the effort and will which you are using, has absolutely no relationship whatsoever with what I am describing. What I am describing is not really what you are interested in.
I was telling you the other day, I wish I could give you just a glimpse of it. Not glimpse in the sense in which you use the word "glimpse". A touch of it. You wouldn't want to touch this at all. And what you want, what you are interested in doesn't exist.
You can have a lot of petty experiences, if that is what you are interested in. Do all the meditations, do everything you want, you will have lots of them. It's a lot easier to experience those things by taking drugs. I am not recommending drugs, but they are the same, exactly the same.
The doctors say that drugs will damage the brain, but meditation will also damage the brain if it is done very seriously. They have gone crazy, jumped into a river and killed themselves. They did all kinds of things -- locked themselves up in caves -- because they couldn't face it.
You see, it is not possible for you to watch your thoughts, it is not possible for you to watch every step you take. It will drive you crazy. You can't walk. That's not what is meant by this idea that you should be aware of everything -- watch every thought -- how is it possible for you to watch every thought of yours -- and for what do you want to watch your thoughts? What for? Control? It's not possible for you to control. It is a tremendous momentum.
When you succeed in your imagination, that you have controlled your thoughts and experienced some space between those thoughts or some state of thoughtlessness, you feel that you are getting somewhere. That is a thought-induced state of thoughtlessness, a space between two thoughts. The fact that you experience the space between two thoughts and the thoughtless state means that the thought was very, very much there. It surfaces afterwards like the river Rhone which flows through France, disappears and then it comes up again. It has gone underground. The river is still there. You can't use it for purposes of navigation, but ultimately it comes up again. In exactly the same way, all these things which you are pushing down into the subterranean regions (feeling that you are experiencing something extraordinary), surface again -- and then you will find that those thoughts are welling up inside of you.
You are not aware that you are breathing now. You don't have to be conscious of your breathing. Why do you want to be conscious of your breathing? To control your breathing, to expand your lungs, to do what you like with your chest -- that's a different matter. But why do you want to be aware of the movement of breath from the origin to the end? You suddenly become conscious of your breathing. Your breath and thought are very closely related. That's why you want to control your breath. And that, in a way, is controlling the thought for a while. But if you hold your breath for long, it is going to choke you to death in exactly the same way that anything you do to hold or block the flow of thoughts is going to choke you to death, literally to death, or damage something. Thought is a very powerful vibration, an extraordinary vibration. It is like an atom. You can't play with those things.
You are not going to reach your goal of completely controlling your thought. Thought has to function in its own way, in its disconnected, disjointed way. That is something which cannot be brought about through any effort of yours. It has to fall into its normal rhythm. Even if you want to make it fall into a normal rhythm, you are adding momentum to that. It has a life of its own which has, unfortunately, established a parallel life within the movement of life. These two are always in conflict. That will come to an end only when the body comes to an end.
Thought has become the master of this body. Thought has totally mastered the whole thing. It is still trying to control everything that is there. You cannot pull the servant out of the household, no matter what you do. If you forcibly do it, he will burn the whole household, even knowing very well that he will also be burned. It's a foolish thing for him. But that's what you are going to do if you try. Don't push these similes to their logical conclusion, but find out for yourself when you do these things, not just take them lightly. Or, take them lightly and play with them, it's all right. Toys.
Q: Just float along? Nothing to pursue, just float?
U.G.: Even that "floating" is not a voluntary thing on your part. You don't have to do a thing. You are not separate from that. That's all that I am emphasizing. You cannot separate yourself from the thought and say "these are my thoughts." That is the illusion you have, and you cannot be without any illusion. You always replace one illusion with another illusion. Always.
Q: And I accept that as well.
U.G.: You accept that you are always replacing one illusion with another illusion; so your wanting to be free from illusion is an impossibility. That itself is an illusion. Why do you want to be free from illusions? That's the end of you. It's not that I am frightening you, I am just pointing out that it is not just a lighthearted game to play. That is you, you as you know yourself. When that knowledge you have of yourself is not there any more, the knowledge you have about the world also is not there any more. It can't be there any more. It is not going to come to an end that easily. It will always be replaced by another illusion.
You don't want to be a normal person, you don't want to be an ordinary person. That is really the problem. It is the most difficult thing to be an ordinary person. Culture demands you must be something other than what you are. That has created a certain momentum -- a tremendous, powerful movement of thought which demands that you should be something other than what you are. That's all that it is. You can use it to achieve something; otherwise it has no use.
The only use you have for thought is to feed this body and to reproduce. That's all the use you have for thought. It has no other use at all. It cannot be used to speculate.
You can build a tremendous philosophical structure of thought, but that has no value at all. You can interpret any event in your life, and build up another philosophical structure of thought, but it [thought] is not intended for that.
At the same time, you forget that everything you have around you is the creation of thought. You are yourself born out of the thought, otherwise you would not be here at all. In that sense it has a tremendous value, yet it is the very thing that will destroy you.
That's the paradox. Everything that you have created in this world has become possible through the help of that thought, but unfortunately that very thing has become the enemy of man, because you are using thought for purposes for which it is not intended. It can be used for solving the technical problems very well and efficiently, but it cannot be used to solve the problems of life.
Positive thinking, positive living, very interesting, you know. You can't always be positive. How can you be positive? Anything that does not suggest your positive thinking, you call it negative. But positive and negative are only in the field of your thinking. When the thought is not there, it [what is there] is neither positive nor negative. As I was saying, there is no such thing as a negative approach at all. It's a gimmick.
I am telling you to stand on your own -- you can walk, you can swim, you are not going to sink. That's all that I can say. As long as there is fear, the danger of your sinking is almost certain. Otherwise, there is a buoyancy there in the water that keeps you afloat. The fear of sinking