Saxakali Magazine 2:2 Spiritual Issues: Jiddu Krishnamurti's Talk in NYC

Saxakali Magazine V2N2
Spiritual Issues:

Saxakali magazine will reprint, in forthcoming issues, a series of excerpts from a talk made by
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986) in New York City on March, 27th, 1982.

New York Talk, Excerpt #2

This is not a lecture; you are parttaking, sharing, in this observation. We are not using any particular jargon, or any special linguistic references. We are using simple, daily English. Communication is only possible when both of us are together - one must emphasize the word ‘together’ - all the time as we examine our lives and why we are what we have become.

What place has knowledge in the transformation of man? Has it any place at all in that transformation? Knowledge it necessary in daily living, going to the office, exercising various skills and so on; it is necessary in the technological world, in the scientific world. But in the transformation of the psyche, of which we are, has knowledge any place at all?

Knowledge is the accumulation of past experience which is called tradition. That tradition is handed down to each of us. We have accumulated not only individual, personal, psychological knowledge, but the psychological knowledge that has been handed down and conditioned humans through millenia. We are asking whether that psychological knowledge can ever transform humans radically, so that one is a totally unconditioned human being. Because if there is any form of conditioning, psychicall, inwardly, truth cannot be found. Truth is a pathless land, and it must come to ome when there is total freedom from conditioning.

There are those who accept and say that the conditioning of humans is inevitable, and that one cannot possibly escape from it. Humans are conditioned and you can no more than ameliorate or modify that conditioning. There is a strong element of Western thought that maintains this position. Humans are conditioned by time, by evolution, genetically and by society, by education, and by religion. That conditioning can be modified but humans can never be free from it. This is what the Communists and others maintain, pointing out that historically and factually that we are all conditioned, by the past, by our education, by our family and so on. They say that there is no escape from that conditioning, and therefore humans must always suffer, always be uncertain, always follow the path of struggle.

So, first we must look at our consciousness, what it is made of, what is its content. We must question whether that content of consciousness, with which we identify ourselves as individuals, is in fact individual consciousness. Or is it this individual consciousness, which each one of us maintains as separate from others, individual at all? Or is it the consciousness of mankind?

Please, listen to this first. You may totally disagree. Do not reject, but observe. It is not a question of being tolerant - tolerance is the enemy of love; just observe, without any sense of antagonism what we are saying: the consciousness with which we have identified ourselves as individuals, is it individual at all? Or is it the consciousness of humanity?

That is, consciousness, with all its content of pain, remembrance, sorrow, nationationalistic attitudes, faith, worship, is constant right throughout the world. Everywhere you go, humans are suffering, striving, struggling, anxious, full of uncertainty, agony, despair, depression, believing all kinds of superstitious religious nonesense. This is common to all mankind, whether in Asia or here in the West.

So, your consciousness, with which you have identified yourself as your ‘individual’ consciousness, is an illusion. It is the consciousness of the rest of mankind. You are the world and the world is you.

Please, consider this, see the seriousness of it, the responsibility that is involved in it. You have struggled all you life, as an individual, something separate from the rest of humanity, and when you discover that your consciousness is the consciousness of the rest of mankind, it means you are mankind, you are not an individual. You may have your own particular skill, tendency, idiosyncrasy, but you are actually the rest of mankind, because your consciousness is the consciousness of every human being.

That consciousness is put together by thought. That consciousness is the result of millenia upon millenia of thought. Thought has always been most extraordinarily important in our lives. Thought has created modern technology, thought has created wars, thought has divided people into nationalities, thought has brought about separate religions, thought has created the marvellous architecture of ancient cathedrals, temples and mosques. The rituals, the prayers, all the circus - if I may use that word - that goes on in the name of religion, is put together by thought.

(To be continued)

Be at Home with the World