Questioning Krishnamurti: J. Krishnamurti in dialogue

First Conversation With David Bohm at Brockwood Park, 11 June 1983

J.Krishnamurti: I Thought We Were Going to Talk About

JK: Of course. That's why, Sir, I feel if once we grasp the nature of thought, the structure of thought, how thought operates; what is the source of thought, and therefore it is always limited, if we really see that, then...

DB: Now the source of thought is what? Is it memory?

JK: Memory. Memory is the remembrance of things past, which is knowledge and knowledge is the outcome of experience and experience is always limited.

DB: Yes, well, thought includes, of course, also the attempt to go forward, to use logic, to take into account discoveries and insights, you know.

JK: As we were saying some time ago, thought is time.

DB: Yes. All right. Thought is time. Now, that requires more discussion too, because you see the first experience is to say time is there first, and thought is taking place in time.

JK: Ah, no.

DB: For example if we say that movement is taking place, the body is moving, and this requires time.

JK: To go from here to there needs time.

DB: Yes, yes.

JK: To learn a language needs time.

DB: Yes. To grow a plant needs time.

JK: You know, the whole thing. To paint a picture takes time.

DB: We also say to think takes time.

JK: So we think in terms of time.

DB: Yes. You see the first point that one would tend to look at is to say just as everything takes time, to think takes time -- right? Now you are saying something else, which is thought is time.

JK: Thought is time.

DB: That is psychically speaking, psychologically speaking.

JK: Psychologically, of course, of course.

DB: Now how do we understand that?

JK: How do we understand what?

DB: Thought is time. You see it is not obvious.

JK: Oh yes. Would you say thought is movement and time is movement.

DB: That's movement. Now these are... you see time is a mysterious thing, people have argued about it. We could say that time requires movement. I could understand that we cannot have time without movement.

JK: Time is movement.

DB: Time is movement. Now...

JK: Time is not separate from movement.

DB: Now I don't say it is separate from movement, but you see to say time is movement, you see if we said time and movement are one.

JK: Yes I'm saying that.

DB: Yes. They cannot be separated - right?

JK: No.

DB: Because that seems fairly clear. Now there is physical movement which means physical time - right?

JK: Physical time, hot and cold, and also dark and light, sunset and sunrise. All that.

DB: Yes. Now then we have the movement of thought. Now that brings in the question of the nature of thought. You see is thought nothing but a movement in the nervous system, in the brain? Would you say that?

JK: Yes, yes.

DB: Some people have said it includes the movement of the nervous system but there might be something beyond.

JK: What is time, sir, actually? Actually, what is time? Time is hope.

DB: Psychologically.

JK: Psychologically. I am talking entirely psychologically for the moment. Becoming is time. Achieving is time. Now take the question of becoming: I want to become something, psychologically. I want to become non-violent - take that, for example. That is altogether a fallacy.

DB: Yes, well, we understand it is a fallacy but the reason it is a fallacy is that there is no time of that kind, is that it?

JK: No. No sir. Human beings are violent.

DB: Yes.

JK: And they have been talking a great deal, Tolstoy, and in India, of non-violence. The fact is we are violent.

DB: Yes, but...

JK: Just a minute, let me. And the non-violence is not real. But we want to become that.

DB: Yes but you see it is again an extension of the kind of thought that we have with regard to material things. You see if you see a desert, the desert is real and you say the garden is not real, but in your mind is the garden, which will come when you put the water there. So we say we can plan for the future when the desert will become fertile. Now we have to be careful, we say we are violent but we cannot by similar planning become non-violent.

JK: No.

DB: Now why is that?

JK: Why? Because the non-violent state cannot exist when there is violence.

DB: Yes.

JK: That's an ideal.

DB: Well one has to make it more clear because in the same sense the fertile state and the desert don't exist together either. You see I think that you are saying that in the case of the mind when you are violent it has no meaning.

JK: That is the only state.

DB: That is all there is.

JK: Yes, not the other.

DB: The movement towards the other is illusory.

JK: Illusory.

DB: Yes.

JK: So all ideals are illusory, psychologically. The ideal of building a marvelous bridge is not illusory.

DB: No that...

JK: You can plan it but to have psychological ideals...

DB: Yes, if you are violent and you continue to be violent while you are trying to be non-violent...

JK: ...it is so obvious...

DB: ...it has no meaning.

JK: No meaning and yet that has become such an important thing. So the becoming, which is either becoming 'what is' or becoming away from 'what is'.

DB: 'What should be', yes.

JK: I question both.

DB: Yes, well if you say there can be no sense to becoming in the way of self-improvement, that's...

JK: (laughs) Self-improvement is something so utterly ugly. So we are saying, sir, that the source of all this is a movement of thought as time. When once we admit time psychologically all the other ideals, non-violence, achieving some super state and so on and so on become utterly illusory.

DB: Yes. Now when you talk of the movement of thought as time, it seems to me that to say that that movement of thought, that time which comes from the movement of thought is illusory, is it?

JK: Yes.

DB: We sense it as time but it is not a real kind of time.

JK: That is why we asked: what is time?

DB: Yes.

JK: I need time to go from here to there. I need - if I want to learn some engineering, I must study it, it takes time. That same movement is carried over into the psyche. We say I need time to be good. I need time to be enlightened.

DB: Yes, that will always create a conflict.

JK: Yes.

DB: One part of you and another. So that movement in which you say I need time also creates a division in the psyche.

JK: Yes, that's right.

DB: Say between the observer and the observed.

JK: Yes, that's right. We are saying the observer is the observed.

DB: And therefore there is no time.

JK: That's right.

DB: Psychologically.

JK: The experience, the thinker, is the thought. There is no thinker separate from thought.

DB: All that you are saying, you know, seems very reasonable, but I think that it goes so strongly against the tradition that we are used to...

JK: Of course, of course.

DB: ...that it will be extraordinarily hard for people to really, generally speaking, to...

JK: No, most people, sir, don't want - they want a comfortable way of living: 'Let me carry on as I am, for God's sake, leave me alone.'

DB: Yes, but that is the result of so much conflict...

JK: So much conflict.

DB: ...that people are worn out by it, I think.

JK: But in escaping from conflict, or not resolving conflict, conflict exists, whether you like it or not. So is it - that is the whole point - is it possible to live a life without conflict? Can we have peace on this earth?

DB: Yes, well, it seems clear from what has been said that the activity of thought cannot bring about peace; psychologically, it inherently brings about conflict.

JK: Yes, if we once really see or acknowledge that, our whole activity would be totally different.

DB: But are you saying there is an activity, which is not thought then?

JK: Which is not?

DB: Which is beyond thought?

JK: Yes.

DB: And which is not only beyond thought but which does not require the co-operation of thought?

JK: Certainly not.

DB: That it is possible for this to go on when thought is absent?

JK: That is the real point. We have often discussed this, whether there is anything beyond thought. Not something holy, sacred -- I am not talking of that. I am talking: is there an activity, which is not touched by thought? We are saying there is. And that activity is the highest form of intelligence.

DB: Yes, well, now we have brought in intelligence.

JK: I know, I purposely brought it in! So intelligence is not the activity of cunning thought. There is intelligence to build a table.

DB: Yes well intelligence can use thought, as you have often said.

JK: Intelligence can use thought.

DB: Yes, that is thought can be the action of intelligence - would you put it that way?

JK: Yes.

DB: Or it could be the action of memory?

JK: That's it. Either it is the action born of memory and therefore memory is limited, therefore thought is limited and it has its own activity, which then brings about conflict.

DB: Yes, I think this would connect up with what people are saying about computers. You see every computer must eventually depend on some kind of memory, on memory, which is put in, programmed. And that must be limited - right?

JK: Of course.

DB: Because the - therefore when we operate from memory we are not very different from a computer; the other way around perhaps, the computer is not very different from us.

JK: I would say once a Hindu has been programmed for the last five thousand years to be a Hindu, or in this country you have been programmed as British, or as a Catholic or as a Protestant. So we are all programmed up to a certain extent.

DB: Yes, now then we could say there - you are bringing in the notion of an intelligence which is free of the programme, which is creative perhaps and...

JK: Yes, that's right. That intelligence has nothing to do with memory and knowledge.

DB: Yes. It may act in memory and knowledge but it is has nothing to do with it...

JK: Yes it can act through memory, etc. That's right. I mean how do you find out whether it has any reality, not just imagination and romantic nonsense, how do you find out? To come to that one has to go into the whole question of suffering, whether there is an ending to suffering, and as long as suffering and fear and the pursuit of pleasure exists, there cannot be love.

DB: Yes, well there are many questions there. Now the first point is say suffering, or including pleasure, fear, suffering and I suppose we could include anger and violence and greed in that.

JK: Of course, otherwise...

DB: We could say first of all that all those are the response of memory.

JK: Yes.

DB: They are nothing to do with intelligence.

JK: That's right, sir, they are all part of thought and memory.

DB: And that as long as they are going on, it seems to me that intelligence cannot operate in thought.

JK: That's right.

DB: Through thought.

JK: So there must be freedom from suffering.

DB: Yes, well that is a very key point. Now...

JK: That is really a very serious and deep question. Whether it is possible to end suffering, which is the ending of me.

DB: Yes again, it may seem repetitious but the feeling is that I am there and I either suffer or don't suffer. I either enjoy things or suffer.

JK: Yes, I know that.

DB: Now, I think you are saying that suffering arises from thought, it is thought.

JK: Identified.

DB: Yes. And that...

JK: Attachment.

DB: So what is it that suffers? It seems to me, that memory may produce pleasure and then when it doesn't work and is frustrated, it produces pain and suffering.

JK: Not only that. Suffering is much more complex, isn't it?

DB: Yes.

JK: Suffering - what is suffering?

DB: Yes, well, that is...

JK: The meaning of the word is to have pain, to have grief, to feel utterly lost, lonely.

DB: Well it seems to me that it is not only pain, but a kind of a total pain, a very pervasive...

JK: But suffering is the loss of someone.

DB: Or the loss of something very important.

JK: Yes, of course. Loss of my wife, or loss of my son, brother, husband, or whatever it is, and the desperate sense of loneliness.

DB: Or else just simply the fact that the whole world is going into such a state.

JK: Of course, sir. I mean all the wars. And the wars have been going on for thousands of years. That is why I am saying we are carrying on with the same pattern of the last five thousands years or more, of wars.

DB: Yes now one can easily see that the violence and hatred in wars will interfere with intelligence.

JK: Obviously.

DB: Now it is not quite so obvious, I think, you see some people have felt that by going through suffering people become...

JK: ...intelligent?..

DB: ...purified, like going through the crucible, the metal is being purified in the crucible - right?

JK: I know. That through suffering, you learn. You are purified. This is, through suffering your ego is vanished, dissolved.

DB: Yes dissolved, refined.

JK: It doesn't. People have suffered immensely. How many wars, how many tears and the destructive nature of governments?

DB: Yes, they've suffered any number of things.

JK: One can multiply them - unemployment, ignorance...

DB: ...ignorance of disease, pain, everything. But you see what is suffering really? Why does it destroy intelligence, or interfere or prevent it? Why does suffering prevent intelligence? What is going on really?

JK: Suffering is a shock -- I suffer, I have pain, it is the essence of the 'me'.

DB: Yes, the difficulty with suffering is that it is the 'me' that is there that is suffering. And this 'me' is really being sorry for itself in some way.

JK: My suffering is different from your suffering.

DB: That isolates itself, yes.

JK: Yes.

DB: It creates an illusion of some kind.

JK: We don't see suffering is shared by all humanity.

DB: Yes, but suppose we see it is shared by all humanity?

JK: Then I begin to question what suffering is. It is not my suffering.

DB: Yes, well, that is important. In order to understand the nature of suffering, I have to get out of this idea that it is my suffering because as long as I believe it is my suffering, I have an illusory notion of the whole thing.

JK: And I can never end it.

DB: Well, not if you are dealing with an illusion - you can do nothing with it. You see why - we have to come back. Why is suffering the suffering of many? At first it seems that I feel pain in the tooth, or else I have a loss, or something has happened to me, and the other person seems perfectly happy.

JK: Happy, yes, that's right. But also he is suffering too, in his own way.

DB: Yes. At the moment he doesn't see it, but he has his problems too.

JK: So suffering is common to all humanity.

DB: Yes but the fact that it is common is not enough to make it all one.

JK: It is actual.

DB: Yes, but I want to say, are you saying that the suffering of mankind is all one, inseparable?

JK: Yes sir. That is what I have been saying.

DB: As is the consciousness of mankind.

JK: Yes, that's right.

DB: That when anybody suffers the whole of mankind is suffering.

JK: If one country kills hundreds and thousands of human beings - no, the whole point is we have suffered, from the beginning of time we have suffered, and we haven't solved it.

DB: Now, that's clear that it hasn't been solved. We haven't solved it.

JK: We haven't ended suffering.

DB: But I think you have said something, and the thing you said is that the reason we haven't solved it because we are treating it as personal or as in a small group where it cannot - that is an illusion. Any attempt to deal with an illusion cannot solve anything.

JK: That is why - all the problems that humanity has now, psychologically as well as in other ways, is the result of thought. And we are pursuing the same pattern of thought, and thought will never solve any of these problems. So there is another kind of instrument, which is intelligence.

DB: Yes, well that opens up an entirely different subject.

JK: Yes, I know.

DB: And you also mentioned love as well.

JK: Yes.

DB: And compassion.

JK: Without love and compassion there is no intelligence. And you cannot be compassionate if you are attached to some religion, like an animal tied to a post.

DB: Yes well, as soon as your self is threatened then it all vanishes, you see.

JK: Of course. But you see, self hides behind...

DB: ...other things. I mean noble ideals.

JK: Yes, yes. It has immense capacity to hide itself. So what is the future of mankind? From what one observes it is leading to destruction.

DB: That is the way it seems to be going, yes.

JK: Very gloomy, grim, dangerous and if one has children what is their future? To enter into all this? And go through all the misery of it all? So education becomes extraordinarily important. But now, education is merely the accumulation of knowledge.

DB: Yes well every instrument that man has invented, discovered, or developed has been turned toward destruction.

JK: Yes sir. Absolutely. They are destroying nature, there are very few tigers now.

DB: They are destroying forests and agricultural land.

JK: Over population. Nobody seems to care.

DB: I think people - there are two things: one is people are immersed in their own problems - right?

JK: Immersed in their own little plans to save humanity!

DB: Well, some; most people are just immersed in their plans to save themselves.

K: Of course (laughs).

DB: But those others have plans to save humanity, but I think also there is a tendency toward despair implicit in what is happening now in that people don't think anything can be done.

JK: Yes. And if they think something can be done they form little groups and little theories.

DB: Yes, well there are those who are very confident in what they are doing and those who...

JK: Most Prime Ministers are very confident. They don't know what they are doing really.

DB: Yes but then most people haven't much confidence in what they are doing.

JK: I know, I know. If you have tremendous confidence, I accept your confidence and go with you. So what then is the future of man, mankind, the future of humanity? I wonder if anybody is concerned with it. Or each person, or each group is only concerned with its own survival?

DB: Well I think the first concern almost always has been with survival, of either the individual or the group. You see that has been the history of mankind.

JK: Therefore perpetual wars, perpetual insecurity.

DB: Yes, but this, as you said, is the result of thought which makes the mistake on the basis of being incomplete to identify the self, you know, with the group and so on.

JK: You happen to listen to all this. You agree to all this; you see the truth of all this. Those in power will not even listen to you.

DB: No.

JK: They are creating more and more misery, more and more - the world becoming dangerous, how do you then - what is the point of you and I agreeing, seeing something true? This is what people are asking: what is the point of you and I seeing something to be true and what effect has it?

DB: Yes, well, it seems to me that if we think in terms of the effects, we are bringing in the very thing, which is behind the trouble -- time. That is, the first response would be we must quickly get in and do something to change the course of events.

JK: Therefore form a society, foundation, organisation and all the rest of it.

DB: But you see our mistake is to feel that we must think about something, and that thought is incomplete. We don't really know what is going on and people have made theories about it, but they don't know.

JK: No, but come down to it: if that is a wrong question, then as a human being, who is mankind, what is my responsibility?

DB: Well I think it is the same...

JK: Apart from effect and all the rest of it.

DB: Yes, we can't look toward effects. But it's the same as with 'A' and 'B', that 'A' sees, and 'B' does not - right? Now suppose 'A' sees something and most of the rest of mankind does not. Then it seems, one could say mankind is in some way dreaming, asleep, you know, it's dreaming.

JK: It is caught in illusion.

DB: Illusion. And the point is that, if somebody sees something, then his responsibility is to help awaken the others out of the illusion.

JK: That is just it. I mean this has been the problem. That is why the Buddhists have projected the idea of the Bodhisattva, who is compassionate and is the essence of all compassion, and he is waiting to save humanity. It sounds nice. It is a happy feeling that there is somebody doing this. But in actuality we won't do anything that is not comfortable, satisfying, secure, both psychologically and physically.

DB: Yes, well that is the source of the illusion, basically.

JK: How does one make another see all this? They haven't time, they haven't the energy, they haven't even the inclination. They want to be amused. How does one make 'X' see this whole thing so clearly that he says, 'All right, I have got it, I will work. And I see I am responsible...' and all the rest of it. I think that is the tragedy of those who see and those who do not.