


Rajghat 1963

Rajghat 3rd Public Talk 8th December 1963

After talking for about half an hour or so, perhaps we can discuss the problems, with which, I am sure, most of us consciously or unconsciously are concerned.

There is the question of deterioration - the decline, not only physiologically but also psychologically; the decline of the body, the organs; the decline of the mind; the decline, the disintegration of strong, passionate feelings; the decline of clarity, of the capacity to observe. If one has enough vitality when one is young, one has the capacity to observe the things about one, the everyday events of life, the dirt, the squalor, the misery; one has the capacity to question, the capacity of the enquiring mind. If one observes, one will naturally be aware not only of the decline of this capacity but also of the disintegration about one in every field of life.

One must have asked, or enquired, or tried to find out what is the cause of all this - what is the cause of the decline of the mind. Obviously, it is very clear why the body disintegrates: through old age, lack of right food, and the purely physical strain of disease, all the various physical pressures, adjustments. That, one can expect; that, one sees, is inevitable. The scientists and the doctors may discover some kind of medicine or some kind of food that will prolong physical existence, but there will still be decline - the physical organ wearing itself out through constant use. One has naturally, sanely, to accept this. But is it also necessary for the mind to disintegrate, to decline?

I am going to go into that, if I can, this morning - not as a mere descriptive analysis with which you either agree or disagree. We are not here, I hope, in a state of mind which agrees or disagrees. We are investigating, we are enquiring - not merely verbally, not merely intellectually as a passing amusement for an hour, but actually investigating - into this very process of decline. This investigation has to be in ourselves, rather than the investigation of words and opinions, because mere analysis and examination of opinions has very little value. You have your opinion and I may have mine; but opinions do not bring about the understanding of what is true; they have never brought it about, nor will they ever bring it about.

So, we are going actually to investigate, to enquire into this process of decline. To enquire, you have to watch yourself, you have to observe your own decline, if you are in a state of decline - obviously, not accepting or rejecting, but enquiring. And that is one of the most difficult things to do, because we are not used to enquire into ourselves. We never question the activities, the responses, the thoughts of ourselves. We accept them, or our prejudices dictate; so there is no enquiry at all. This morning, if we can, we are going together to enquire into this whole process of decline, the psychological decline, the disintegration of a mind which should be healthy, which should have the capacity to function at all the levels of its being - not to have any dark, concealed, hidden corner; but to be totally aware - and to discover the root of this decline.

So, that is what we are going to do this morning. Naturally I have to talk, but the words do not act as an enquiry. Words have little meaning unless you use the words and go beyond the words - then the enquiry becomes extraordinarily interesting and alive. One sees within oneself various strains at various levels, tensions, pressures - the family pressures, the strain of being with people, the strain of going to the office, the strain of relationships of various kinds at various levels. In modern civilization, these pressures are increasing more and more. Unless we understand and resolve these pressures, the strains, there must be disintegration. That is an obvious fact, that is clear. A machine which is not well-oiled, does not function perfectly, and it wears itself out very rapidly - that is an obvious mechanical fact. In the same way, a mind, a consciousness, declines, which is constantly under strain, constantly in friction at all levels, not just at one level.

And all the levels at which the mind functions are covered by the word relationship. As long as there is friction of any kind in relationship - relationship with ourselves or relationship with the world at any level, at any time - , there must be disintegration. Is it ever possible to be free, totally not partially, of the strains, to be completely conscious of the strains, of the conflicts, of the innumerable pressures, conscious as well as unconscious? Is it possible to be completely aware of them and to be free of them?

To find out, one has to go into this question of action; because life is action, life is relationship which is action, everyday action, from the action of cleaning your teeth to the most absurd or complicated action. Life is a series of either related or unrelated activities; the more sane it is, the more related it is; the more unbalanced the life is, the more disjointed it is. Please follow all this, not verbally but inwardly. We are dealing with life, not with words; we are dealing with activities, facts, everyday incidents; we are dealing with everyday life. And without understanding that life completely, totally, you cannot go very far. You may spin a lot of words about God, religion, silence, and so on - it has no validity at all; it has no substance, it has no foundation; it is just an escape from the actuality.

You are dealing with everyday activity, the activity of any movement of your hands, of your gesture, of an opinion, the activity of what to do and what not to do, the activity of various desires, compulsions, urges - not a sublime, grand, super-act; not a heroic act. If you do not understand that, if you are not fully aware of the whole significance of a particular act, either an act related with all the other series of acts or merely a disjointed act, if you do not understand action, obviously, there must be not only friction, strain, but also distortion, an illusion. When a man believes in God, it is an absolute illusion. Whether there is God or not, he has to find out; to have a belief is obviously immature, obviously without any substance.

We are dealing with action at all the levels of our being - not only the physical act, but the emotional, the psychological, the mental, the unconscious, the conscious act - because that is life. Life is all relationship or action. You cannot escape from these two facts, though action and relationship are synonymous. By `action' we mean that which was done, and that which has to be done, and that which is going to be done. It is a movement, either a continuous movement or a disjointed movement. With most of us, it is disjointed. We live at different levels; there is the office; there is the family; there is public opinion; there are my fears and my gods, my opinions, my judgments, my conditioning; and there are the various pressures, influences of society and so on. We live at different levels, disjointed, unrelated with each other. The man who talks everlastingly about God - his life, his way of thinking is complex.

We are enquiring into action - that is, that which is to be done, that which has happened and which has acted, and the future act to do which is not only physical but also psychological. If you observe, you will see that act is based upon an idea, the idea being a reasoned out thought or merely an impulse or an idea formulated or concealed through fear, through ambition, through anxiety. We get the pattern of an idea, the idea being not only words put together but a thought according to certain prejudices, desires, pressures, demands. We create the pattern of an idea - an ideological, sublime pattern, or a stupid, illusory pattern - and according to that idea we act or we try to act. That is our whole life.

Please, this is very important to understand: that, for us, the idea, the formula, the pattern, the concept, is far more important than action; and for us, what is important is to act according to the pattern, the ideal. If you observe, you will find that is what is taking place all the time, there is no instant when this is not taking place unless there is a crisis. If the crisis is tremendously great, there is an immediate response - not of an idea according to which you are acting, but immediate action. If you see something cruel, or if a house is on fire, or if a child is in danger, there is then an immediate challenge and an immediate response. Otherwise, we are always functioning according to a pattern, or we are attempting to act according to a formula, to an idea. Please do relate what we are saying actually to yourself, and see if it is so.

So, there is the idea and there is the action, two different things. Then, we ask ourselves how to carry that idea out in action, how to approximate that action to the idea; and so there is always a strain, a conflict between the action and the idea. That is, to put it differently, there is always an observer and the thing observed; there is always the experiencer and the thing experienced; the thinker and the thought. So long as there is this division between the idea or the pattern and action, there must be conflict. Please do follow this. A mind functions perfectly, as is the case with a machine, only when there is no friction; then it cannot possibly wear itself out, it cannot possibly disintegrate or degenerate. It is only when there is a strain of any kind, when there is friction, that it begins to wear itself out.

So, is it possible to live without any friction, without any strain? If it is not possible, then you cannot possibly go any further, you cannot possibly enquire, except verbally. But actually to enquire and go into what is reality, if there is something beyond the measure of thought, it is necessary to realize this absolute fact: that as long as the mind is in conflict of any kind, conscious or unconscious, it cannot possibly go beyond its own limits. It is very important to find out and to be aware of this fact of the idea or the concept and action.

I mean by that word `aware' something very simple - to be aware of this room, of this hall; to be aware of the people with their coats and various colours; to be aware of the light on the leaf outside the window; just to be aware, not to say, "I like this", "I do not like this", "This is nice", "This is not nice", "This is right", "This is wrong; just to be aware of the outline of the leaf, the outline of these pillars. All that is factual, you cannot alter it. `To be aware' means: to observe and then to be aware of one's reactions to all the things one observes. You have to be aware of your reaction to that noise of the train going across the bridge, to be aware of the people coughing, yawning; you have to watch, to be aware of all that, seeing what is outside and also the responses which you give to it. And if you begin very simply, you can go very far in this awareness.

So, when you are aware of this division between idea and action, what it involves - which is, to suppress, to approximate, constantly to try and adjust action with a pattern - you see that there is never a moment when action is for itself. For me, that is one of the fundamental reasons for this disintegration, the degeneration of the mind that is in conflict, that is constantly in friction with itself.

Now, when you observe why the idea becomes important, when you are aware why the pattern has assumed such an extraordinary significance, you can see why it does. Because, first of all, it tends to postpone action: I am violent and I have this marvellous idea of non-violence which is an ideal, and I can pursue that ideal and not act, because I am still trying to be non-violent. Therefore, it is an escape from the fact of violence. If I have no ideal of non-violence, I can deal with the fact. So, the ideal becomes a distraction; the ideal is a fiction, a myth; it is not a reality. The reality is `what is' which is violence. And we think that by having an ideal like non-violence, we can push violence out of ourselves - which never takes place, which can never take place. Because when we deal with facts alone, there is an operation, not when we deal with ideas. So that is one of the reasons: an idea or a pattern offers a means of postponing of escaping, from the fact; and the idea becomes important to give continuity to a particular act. I did this yesterday, I will do this today and tomorrow - it gives a continuity or becomes a habit which prevents action. This is merely carrying out a certain formula and therefore it becomes mechanical. Life is not mechanical; it has to be lived, it is action changing every minute.

So, ideas offer a means of postponing action. Therefore the more the ideas, the more ideals you have, the more inactive you are. Please do see this: when you act from an idea you are not active, because you are living your life in a world of fiction without any reality. So, escape, postponement, offering a continuity which gives you a habit, and functioning from a habit - that is memory and therefore mechanical. So, you can see ideas do not bring passion. I think it is very important to understand this: to act, you must have passion; to do, you must have strong feelings; otherwise, it becomes mechanical. You cannot have strong, intense, immediate feeling and passion if you have ideas. And you can only act when you are passionate, when you feel very strongly; otherwise, it becomes merely an idea which creates friction.

So, one has to see the whole significance of this psychological process of bringing about a formula according to which one wants to live and function. In being aware of all this, we see that our whole life, from the moment we are born to the moment we die, is a constant battle; and to escape from this we create an idea; we never face the battle, we never understand it and we are never free of it. And we cannot be free of it as long as we have an idea, and function within the pattern of that idea. A man who would have a very clear perceptive mind, a mind that is without friction, without fear, without any form of suppression and therefore without any friction, must totally comprehend that this process of fabricating patterns, however pure, however lovely, however noble, is the central fact of disintegration and degeneration.

It is only when the mind is not functioning in the pattern of ideas but is only concerned with action - which is to be completely cognizant of the fact and therefore to be passionate - that it can go beyond, it is only such a mind that can find out if there is or if there is not something everlasting.

Questioner: Is it true that literature is the criticism of life?

Krishnamurti: We are talking of something else, not of literature. Perhaps you would keep that question for the day when we all meet the students. We are discussing something which is not literature and perhaps we should confine ourselves to the things that we have talked about this morning.

Questioner: We are infants in observation. Should we not have some help from people. who know how to observe?

Krishnamurti: Why don't we talk simply? Now, who is going to help you? Your guru, your teacher - what you call the double lines like the railway? Listen very carefully. We want double lines, so that we will always function mechanically on those two lines. An engine is never free; it functions only on those two lines. That is what you want.

`To observe' - what does it mean? To observe, to see, to listen - it is very simple, is it not? You observe the trees, the flowers, the birds, the squalor, the dirt on the road, the poor people, the rich people. You just observe. Nobody can teach you how to see; you just see. And you have to find out for yourself whether you see what is there, or whether you see or you think you see what is not there. We think we see with our eyes, but we see much more with our mind actually. The eyes see a certain amount, but the mind actually sees much more than the eyes.

If you are not alert, watchful, looking, you never see. Most of us do not see at all even the obvious things: the size of this hall, the people who sit next to us, the colour, the shape of the window. And we say, "Teach me how to look at that window" - which means, "Teach me how to love". Can any one teach you how to love? The books, the saints, the so-called teachers say what love is: love is this, love is that, love is not that. And you have therefore an idea of what love is and you try to conform to that pattern; and then you are dead - that is not love. Nobody can teach you - it is a hideous idea that somebody can teach you what love is; it is a monstrous, ugly brutal thing.

You have to feel. And you can only feel when you observe. You see every day the squalor of the filthy streets and you get used to it, because you have never watched, because you have never looked. When you look, you can never possibly get used to anything. The guru, the teacher, cannot teach you what love is. If they teach you what love is, do not follow them.

When you begin to observe, you will become sensitive, you will become alive. And from that sensitivity, you will have feeling. When that feeling becomes strong, you will be a flame. And from that flame there is action. And that is real compassion. And only that can alter this world, not all the infinite planning by the clever politicians, by the engineers building new dams - they are necessary, but they are not going to create a new world. And we need a new world, a new mind.

Questioner: When you wrote `At the Feet of the Master', did you not follow the double lines?

Krishnamurti: The gentleman asks, "When you wrote `At the Feet of the Master', did you not follow the double lines?" Look, sirs, those double lines have been forgotten and they have gone down the river, long ago. We are no longer children; but we want to be perpetual children to be told what to do. Whether it is by the Master, or by the saint, or by God, we want to be told, because we do not want to go wrong, because we are frightened.

A mind that is frightened, a mind that complies, obeys and follows - such a mind is a dead mind.

Questioner: What is the right understanding for the attainment of bliss?

Krishnamurti: All that we have been saying this morning has to be understood. If we understand this whole structure of conflict within and without and therefore we are free of that conflict, then there is bliss. But a mind which is in conflict and speculates about bliss, will never know what bliss is. So, we must first find out what we mean by that word `understand'. When do you say, "I understand"?

If you have said, "I really understand something", do you know what it means to understand something? What do we mean by that word `understand'? I understand the verbal meaning; because I know English, I understand the words that you have used. Is that what we mean by `understand'? You have only understood the meaning connoted by those words - we do not mean that. If you and I know English, and if I say that this is a microphone, you understand. This is verbal. Surely we do not mean merely that. When we use the word `understand', it has much more significance. A man who superficially just runs about with a lot of words, may be satisfied with hearing some statements verbally.

But to a man who says, "I really understand what you are talking about", the word `understand `has a very deep significance. He has not only heard the words but also related those words to action. The mind has understood the relationship of the words and action upon itself - which means: it is being aware of the whole content, the significance of all the implications; and the understanding of those implications, conscious or unconscious, is a total thing not just a verbal understanding. We are talking of a total understanding. When you understand something totally, there is immediate freedom. It is only a partial understanding that is so destructive.

One has to understand the whole psychological structure of one's own being - ` being' not with a capital `B' - that is, the being of everyday life, everyday aspirations, fears, anxieties, worries, jealousies, pains, pleasures. When one understands that completely, totally, then one can proceed to find out what bliss is. A petty mind, a small mind, asking what bliss is, can only find what is its own pettiness - which it calls bliss. The pettiness of the dull, weary mind has to be broken down; then only can it proceed. Then perhaps, there is nowhere to go. Then, the thing is there when all search, all demand, all seeking comes to an end.

Questioner: At certain periods, the mind is very alert, sees everything, sees every detail, the ants, the flowers, the birds and so on, with clarity, with simplicity, with care; it sees everything. At other moments it is dull, weary. Why?

Krishnamurti: The state of mind may depend on what you have eaten, on your not having enough sleep and therefore being wearied, on your being self-concerned, perpetually in conflict with yourself. For a single minute, when all that has come to an end, you are watching; and out of that simplicity, out of that freedom from self-concern, you see everything in detail. And you cannot see if there is no affection, if there is no feeling. For most of us, life is such a drab, dull, weary process within the petty limits of our own thoughts and feelings; naturally that predominates, and there are very rare moments when the other takes place.

Questioner: Is the conflict within oneself not better than the conflict outside? Is it not more significant, better manageable, more worthwhile, more significant than the conflict in society outside?

Krishnamurti: So, you say that there is society outside, and there is the `you' with its own conflict separated from society. Now, are you not society, are you not the environment? You are a part of the whole social structure: you are a Hindu, a Mussulman, or a Buddhist, or a Christian. You have been educated within the pattern. You have withdrawn from this total consciousness, and then you say that this battle within that limited consciousness is better than the battle outside. How can one separate oneself? Is that not an illusion? One has to understand the total consciousness which is the human consciousness - not yours which you have separated through segregation, and which you say is yours. The mind is the total. You cannot possibly exist away from society. You are the result of all the conflicts, the wars, the historical events, the pressures, the religious propaganda; all that you are.

One has really to understand the nature of conflict - not your conflict or the world conflict; but the conflict of a human being, the conflict of the human being next to you and of the human being which you are. To separate the inside and the outside seems to me to be an illusion leading nowhere. As you are a part of society educationally and religiously, and as you are also psychologically that structure, you have to understand that structure. And to understand it, you have to understand the outside as well as the inside, you cannot separate the two; they are one movement, and in understanding the one, you are understanding also the other.

Questioner: If life is continuous action, how can there be inaction?

Krishnamurti: This is a verbal limitation. I said life is action. But one can make that life inactive, as most of us have done. One can live in a world of friction or fiction and say, "I am active". But I say that living in the world of idea, pattern, formula, is inaction. There is action only when the mind is free from the formulation of ideas, patterns or systems. That is all.

Questioner: We understand you intellectually, but we do not really understand you. What can we do about it?

Krishnamurti: Nothing. Is this not an extraordinary idea that you understand me intellectually, but not really? What you mean is: you have heard the words and you understand the meaning of those words. This you call intellectual understanding. I wonder whether you have got intellectual understanding! At least that means you have thought over it. But you haven't thought. You use a very important word `intellectual' for that something which every schoolboy understands: which is to understand the meaning of the word. Either you understand intellectually and emotionally, with all your being, or you do not understand at all.

Questioner: How does one get that alert mind which you talk about?

Krishnamurti: You cannot get it by a method. I have explained it very clearly. You cannot get it through any system. Because if you have a system, you are caught again in the pattern and therefore you are not free. You can have that alert mind only when you observe yourself, when you observe the trees, the birds, the people, the ways of your thought, your feelings, how you sit, how you yawn, how you eat. Then out of that observation, your mind becomes sensitive. Then when you are sensitive, there is feeling. You cannot stimulate feeling by a system, by saying, "Do this, and you will get it".

Questioner: What is the function of a teacher in a school or in a college?

Krishnamurti: Apparently in a school, in a college, as it is, it is merely to give information. You know some books, and the poor chap does not know; you tell him about the books. As he has to pass an examination in order to get a job, he repeats what you have told him. He is asked some questions and he becomes a B.A. or M.A. or Ph.D. That is what the parents are concerned with and what the professors and teachers are mostly concerned with. But a real teacher is something entirely different, surely, not your gurus. A teacher implies the one who teaches, who helps another to learn.

There is only learning, there is no teaching; you can give information, but you cannot help another to learn. There is information and there is learning. So, do not let us confuse them. To learn implies a mind which is not accumulating. You cannot learn if there is accumulation. If there is accumulation, then it becomes merely memory which is mechanical; then that mechanical memory makes you rather an imperfect computer. Do you know what a computer is? It is an electronic machine built on the same principles as the human brain and it functions according to what it has been told - the information, the memory, the reaction through association. When you give those electronic machines a lot of information, they store it up; and when you ask a question, they reply according to what they have been told. This is what all of you, ladies and gentlemen, do. That is all.

But really to find out, really to learn, you must go beyond the mechanical method of adding, cultivating memory.

Questioner: How can we avoid the decline, the disintegration of the mind, due to old age and disease?

Krishnamurti: The brain is a part of the mind; and when the brain is diseased, you cannot function. So, how can you prevent the disintegration of the physical organism?

There is such a thing as psychosomatic disease. Physically, what kind of mental life you lead, what kind of mental efforts, strains, you have - that affects the system, the organism, the brain. So, when there is a cessation of conflicts, struggles, fears, then the body becomes more healthy. The physical body may not last for three hundred years, but only for twenty years; but it will live those twenty years a strong healthy life. That is all.

Questioner: The individual is related to society. And when there is so much conflict within society, how can an individual be completely free from it?

Krishnamurti: We are talking about the psychological relationship of the one with the many, which is society - not about the relationship of everyday activity. The question is when the many are in conflict, will not the one be affected and therefore disintegrate?

Is it possible psychologically to free oneself from society? That is the real question. Society being the structure of authority, of power, with all the implications such as greed, envy, ambition, corruption, is it possible for one to free oneself from that? Is it possible for you living in a society which is greedy, which is acquisitive, which is insisting on power, position, to be free, for yourself, from greed, not to seek power ? I know power gives you position, money, cars, corruption and all the other evil things of all power. Power, whether it is the minister's power or spiritual power, is essentially evil. Surely, one can free oneself from that, can't one ?, and not seek power - not seek power over anybody, one's wife, one's husband, one's children, one's servants; not seek any form of power, which means not only physical power, but power through ideas; not try to dominate any one through any form of compulsion, ideationally or subtly not want to be in a position of leadership. Can't every person work with that, and free himself from that? Surely that is possible; then you are free from the psychological structure of society.

Questioner: You see some persons very rich and others very poor. Don't you want to do something about it?

Krishnamurti: The gentleman says that when you see luxury, poverty, you want to do something about it; but you cannot deal with this enormous poverty, the poverty not only outside but within. When you see the poverty, the starvation outside the skin, and all this enormous poverty within, and when you cannot do anything with it, the questioner says, you are in conflict.

Please look at all the implications! You want to do something to prevent, to bring about the cessation of, the starvation in this country. Then what happens? You join the socialist, the communist, or the capitalist movement; you are caught in that; you will become a member of the party, and you will always postpone doing something about starvation. Then, what are you to do? If you join a party, socialist or communist, what happens? Each party wants to solve poverty, starvation, according to its ideas, according to its patterns; and so each party wants to start from its pattern. So, the two parties are at war with each other and the poor chap in the meantime is hungry everlastingly. So, what is one to do?

Is that a problem of yours, an actual problem like being hungry? Do not bring in your personal issues. You realize that no one in the world is interested vitally, strongly, in completely eradicating poverty. They all say they are interested, but their interest is ideational, not actual. So, what do you do when you feel actually, vitally, that starvation should be stopped? You give what you have, what little you have. What else can you do? You talk, you find out what are the reasons, the causes, that prevent human beings all over the world acting together to stop this starvation right through the world. Of the several causes that are preventing this, the first is nationality: to belong to a nation, as an Indian, as a Buddhist, as a Christian, as a Communist, as a Capitalist. Then there is the desire on the part of each one to be psychologically secure - not physically secure, because physically one must be secure. The more you demand psychological security, the more darkness you create, the more uncertainty you create, in the world. So, you have to tackle your thinking; you have to do all the things you can to prevent the separative sovereign States, nationalities, linguistic States and all such things that are going on in the world.

Questioner: Is what you have said any different from what the Gita says?

Krishnamurti: I am afraid I do not know what the Gita says, I have not read it; you apparently have read it and you say, "Is what is said in the Gita any different from what you are saying?". Look at what has taken place within your own mind! You have read it, you have certain interpretations about it, or you have read the interpreter's interpretation of it and that is fixed in your mind. Then you come here and you listen. But you do not really listen. You hear a series of words, you know the meaning of those words; and then you compare and say, "Are they any different?". What value has that statement `are they different?'? What has value is whether you have understood, whether you love - not what the Gita says.

One of the best things that can happen to this country is to burn all the books and start again. Then you are forced to think for yourself, you have to work for yourself, to find out - not quote everlastingly some book. I do not know why one particular book should have much more significance than any other book.

Do you see, sir, what you have done in this process? You have lost all sense of enquiry. What the Gita says is quite enough for you, and you repeat it and become sterile. You are destroyed by authority; you have not enquired, you have not gone into yourself; you do not question, you do not ask. You never question if there is God - that would be terrible. But the Gita says, "There is", or some other book says, "There is", and this is quite enough for you. So, you lose all sense of enquiry.

There is great beauty in enquiry. And to enquire, you must be astonishingly alive, watchful.

Questioner: If I watch violence passionately with care, will that free me from violence?

Krishnamurti: The question of violence - has the questioner tried it, or is it merely an idea to him: if I do this, will I get that?

What does `watching passionately' mean? To watch with care, as when you watch a child with care. What happens when you watch a child with care? You do not condemn it, do you? You do not say that child is not so clever as the other child. Probably you do - which means you really do not care. You do not watch that child when you are comparing, when you are condemning, when you are judging. When you condemn violence through non-violence as an idea and when you want to get rid of it, you do not observe all the psychological implications and the structure of violence. It is only when you observe completely, there is an end to violence. You can do this; if you do, then you will find out for yourself. Do not ask anybody, but do it and find out.

Questioner: Can the mind be in such a state that it is free from ideas?

Krishnamurti: I have just explained the whole thing.

Questioner: What is philosophy and is it useful for us?

Krishnamurti: For most of us, philosophy is learning all that the other philosophers including yourself have said. It certainly is not philosophy - dealing with ideas and systems of ideas. Philosophy means obviously, as we were talking the other day, love of wisdom. Neither have we love, nor do we listen. We talk, we discuss in philosophic terms; but we do not know what wisdom is and we do not know what love is. You cannot buy wisdom; and no teacher, no guru, no book will give you wisdom.

Wisdom begins when sorrow ends. Wisdom is a thing that comes through self-knowing: knowing yourself, knowing every movement of your thought, every feeling, every reaction. And as you understand all about yourself, there is that emptiness; and in that emptiness there is wisdom.

Love cannot be taught; nor is it to be found in any book. It comes stealthily, unknowingly, when you begin to observe, to see, to feel, to hear the things and the mutterings of the world. And out of that there comes sensitivity; and then there is the beginning of that which is called love.

December 8, 1963


Rajghat 1963

Rajghat 3rd Public Talk 8th December 1963

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