The Teachings of U. G. Krishnamurti. U. G. Krishnamurti
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not realize that the questions which you are asking are born out of the answers you already have, and that they are not your answers at all. The answers have been put in there.
So, why are you asking these questions, why are you not satisfied with the answers that are already there? That is my question. Why? If you are satisfied, yes, it's alright, you see. [Then you would say:] "I don't want any answers." Still, the question is there inside of you. Whether you go and ask somebody or expect an answer from some wise man, it is still there. Why is it there?
What happens if the question comes to an end? You come to an end. You are nothing but the answers. That's all that I am saying. If you understand that there is no questioner who is asking the questions, the answer that is there is in great jeopardy. That is why it does not want any answer. The answer is the end of that answer you have, which is not yours.
So, what the hell if it is gone. The answers you have are already dead, they have been given by dead persons. Anybody who repeats those answers is a dead person. A living person cannot give any answer to those questions, because any answer that you get from anybody is a dead answer, because the question is a dead question. That's the reason why I am not giving any answer to you at all. You are living in a world of dead ideas.
All thoughts are dead, they are not living. You cannot invest them with life. That's what you are trying to do all the time: you invest them with emotions. But they are not living things. They can never touch anything living. The spiritual and psychological problems you think you have are really living problems.
So, the solutions that you have are not adequate enough to handle the living problems. They are good enough to discuss in a classroom or in some sort of question- and-answer ritual -- repeating the same old dead ideas -- but those things can never, never touch anything living, because the living thing will burn out the whole thing completely and totally.
So, you are not going to touch anything living at any time. You are not looking at anything; you are not in contact with anything living, as long as you use your thoughts to understand and experience anything. When that is not there, there is no need for you to understand and experience anything. So anything you experience only gathers momentum -- adds to that -- that's all. There is nothing that you can call your own.
I have no questions of any kind. How come you have so many questions? I am not giving any answers. I repeat this same point day after day, day after day. Whether you understand it or not is of no importance to me.
What exactly do people mean when they talk of consciousness? There is no such thing as unconsciousness. Medical technology can find out the reason why a particular individual is unconscious, but the individual who is unconscious has no way of knowing that he is unconscious. When he comes out of that unconscious state, he becomes conscious. So do you think you are conscious now? Do you think you are awake? Do you think you are alive?
It is your thinking that makes you feel that you are alive, that you are conscious. That is possible only when the knowledge you have about things is in operation. You have no way of knowing or finding out whether you are alive or dead. In that sense, there is no death at all, because you are not alive. You become conscious of things only when the knowledge is in operation. When the knowledge is absent, whether the person is dead or alive is of no importance to this movement of thought which comes to an end before what we call "death" takes place.
So, it really doesn't matter whether one is alive or dead. Of course, it does matter to one who considers that it [being alive] is very important and those who are involved with that individual, but you have no way of finding out whether you are alive or dead, or whether you are conscious or not. You become conscious only through the help of thought. But unfortunately it is there all the time. So, the suggestion that it is not possible to experience anything makes no sense to you at all, because you have no reference point there when this movement is absent. When this movement is absent, all those questions about consciousness are not there. That is what I mean when I say that the questions are absent.
How can you bring about a change in consciousness which has no limits, which has no boundaries, which has no frontiers? They can spend millions and millions and millions of dollars and do every kind of research to find the seat of human consciousness, but there is no such thing as the seat of human consciousness at all. They can try -- and they are going to spend billions of dollars to try to find out -- but the chances of their succeeding in that are slim. There is no such thing as a seat, located in any particular individual. What there is is thought.
Whenever a thought takes its birth there, you have created an entity or a point, and in reference to that point you are experiencing things. So, when the thought is not there, is it possible for you to experience anything or relate anything to a non-existing thing here?
Every time a thought is born, you are born. Thought in its very nature is shortlived, and once it is gone, that's the end of it. That is probably what the traditions meant by rebirth -- death and birth and death and birth. It is not that this particular entity, which is non-existing even while you are living, takes a series of births. The ending of births and deaths is the state that they are talking about.
But that state cannot be described in terms of bliss, beatitude, love, compassion and all that poetic nonsense and romantic stuff, because you have no way of experiencing what is there between these two thoughts.
The world you experience around you is also from that point of view. There must be a point and it is this point that creates the space. If this point is not there, there is no space. So, anything you experience from this point is an illusion.
Not that the world is an illusion. All the Vedanta philosophers in India, particularly the students of Shankara, indulge in such frivolous, absolute nonsense. The world is not an illusion, but anything you experience in relationship to this point, which itself is illusory, is bound to be an illusion, that's all. The Sanskrit word "maya" does not mean illusion in the same sense in which the English word is used. "Maya" means to measure. You cannot measure anything unless you have a point. So, if the center is absent, there is no circumference at all. That is pure and simple basic arithmetic.
This point has no continuity. It comes into being in response to the demands of the situation. The demands of the situation create this point. The subject does not exist there. It is the object that creates the subject. This runs counter to the whole philosophical thinking of India. The subject comes and goes and comes and goes in response to the things that are happening there. It is the object that creates the subject and not the subject that creates the object. This is a simple physiological phenomenon which can be tested. For example, if there is no object there, there is no subject here. What creates the subject is the object.
There is light. If the light is not there you have no way of looking at anything. The light falls on that object, and the reflection of that light activates the optic nerves, which in turn activate the memory cells. When the memory cells are activated, all the knowledge you have about that object comes into cooperation. It is that process which is happening there that has created the subject. And the subject is the knowledge you have about it. The word "microphone" is the eye. There is nothing there other than the word microphone. When you reduce it to that you feel the absurdity of talking about the self -- the lower self, the higher self and self knowing, self-knowledge, knowing from moment to moment is absolute rubbish, balderdash! You can indulge in such absolute nonsense and build up philosophical theories, but there is no subject there at all at any time. There is no subject creating the object.
So, not only the "I" but all the physical sensations are involved in this. Sound, the olfactory nerves, smell, and the sense of touch, the operation of any one of these sensations necessarily creates the subject. It's not one continuous subject which is gathering all these experiences, piling them up together, and then saying "this is me," but everything is discontinuous and disconnected. The sound is one, the physical seeing is one, the smelling is one. (Unfortunately man, they say, has developed 4,000 olfactory nuances which are worthless for the purpose of the survival of the living organism.)
So, the sense of touch means the vibration of the sound, which creates the subject there. So it comes and goes, comes and goes, comes and goes. There is no permanent entity there at all. What is there (what you call "I") is only a first person