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Ommen 8th Public Talk 10th August, 1937

Ommen 8th Public Talk 10th August, 1937

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Hate is not dissolved through experience nor through any accumulation of virtue, nor can it be overcome by the practice of love. All these merely cover up fear hate. Be aware of this and then there will be a tremendous transformation in your life.

Questioner: What relationship has the illusion of this psychological growth to the growth which we see around us?

Krishnamurti: We see that which is capable of growth is not enduring. But to our psychological growth each one of us clings, as something permanent. If we felt deeply and so were aware that all things are in continual change, a constant becoming, then perhaps we should be able to free ourselves from the conflict which exists in ourselves and so with the neighbour, with society.

Questioner: It seems to me I cannot jump from hate to love, but I can transform my antipathy slowly into a feeling of understanding and like.

Krishnamurti: We cannot wipe the mind clean of past conditioning and start anew.

But we can be aware what it is that maintains fear, hate. We can be aware of the psychological causes and reactions that prevent us from acting integrally. The past is dominating us, with its beliefs, hopes, fears, conclusions, memories; this prevents us from integral action. We cannot wipe out the past, for in its essence the mind is of the past. But by being aware of the accumulations of the past and their effect on the present, we shall begin to free ourselves without violence from those values which cripple the mind and heart.

Is this, the past with its dominating influences, fears, an acute problem to you, personally?

Life as it is, breeding wars, hatreds, divisions, despoiling unity - is this a problem to you? If it is, then, as you are a part of it, you will comprehend it only through your own sufferings, ambitions, fears. The world is you and its problem is your intimate problem. If it is an acute problem, as I hope it is with each one of you, then you will never escape into any theories, explanations, "facts", illusions. But that requires great alertness, one has to be intensely aware; so we prefer the easier way, the way of escape. How can you solve this problem if your mind and heart are being diverted from it?

I do not say that this problem is simple. It is complex. So you must give your mind and heart to it. But how can you give your whole being to it if you are running away from it, if you are being diverted through various escapes which the mind has established for itself?

Questioner: But we do not see it at the moment of escape.

Krishnamurti: We are attempting to understand ourselves, to open up the hidden corners of the mind, to see the various escapes, so that spontaneously we shall face life, deeply and fully. Any form of overcoming one habit by another, overcoming hate by virtues, is a substitution, and the cultivation of opposites does not do away with those qualities from which we desire to free ourselves. We have to perceive hate, not as an antithesis of love, but as in itself poisonous, an evil.

Questioner: Don't you think that we can see the different escapes? We can know that hatred is poisonous, and at the same time we know that we are going on with it. But I think that if we would comprehend it fully, then we must be willing to leave everything home, wife, everything; we must shake hands and say goodbye and go to a concentration camp.

Krishnamurti: Do not think of the consequences of being without hate, but consider if you can free yourself from it. Do you say to yourself that you are incapable of getting rid of hate?

Questioner: We can only try; we do not know.

Krishnamurti: Why do you say you do not know?

Questioner: Because it is not our actual problem.

Krishnamurti: Though hate exists in the world, in you and about you, yet you say that it is not an acute problem to you. You are not conscious of it. Why are you not conscious of it? Either because you are free from it, or you have so entrenched yourself, so cunningly protected yourself, that you have no fear, no hate, for you are certain of your own security.

Questioner: We do not feel hate at this moment.

Krishnamurti: When you are not here, then you do feel it, then it is a problem to you. Here you have momentarily escaped from it, but the problem still exists. You cannot escape from it, either here or in any other place. It is a problem to you, whether you want it or not. Though it is a problem, you have put it away, you have become unconscious of it. And therefore you say that you do not know how you will act with regard to it.

Questioner: We often wish that life itself would directly act, and take away from us those things we cherish though we know their worthlessness. Is this also an escape?

Krishnamurti: Some people seem relieved in time of war. They have no responsibilities; their life is directed by the War Office. In this lies one of the main reasons why authority temporal or spiritual, flourishes and is worshipped. Death is preferable to life.

We have been trained to think that hate is inevitable, that we must go through this stage, that it is part of human heritage, instinct.

We are used to thinking that hate cannot be got rid of immediately; that we must go through some kind of discipline to overcome hate. Thus there is a dual process going on within us, violence and peace, hate and affection, anger and kindliness.

Our effort goes towards bridging these two separate forces, or overcoming one by the other, or concentrating on one so that its opposite shall disappear.

Whatever effort you make to destroy hate by love, is in vain, for violence, fear, reveal themselves in another form. We have to go much deeper than mere discipline; we have to find out why this duality of hate and affection exists within us. Until this dual process ceases, the conflict of opposites must continue.

Questioner: Perhaps hate does not really belong to me?

Questioner: Is our love too poor then?

Krishnamurti: These questions are very revealing, they show how the mind is conditioned.

Whatever effort the mind makes must be part of that from which it is trying to get away.

The mind finds that it does not pay to hate, for it has discovered that there is too much suffering involved in it, and so it makes an effort to discipline itself, to overcome hate by love, to subdue violence and fear by peace. All this indicates the fundamental desire merely to escape from suffering; that is, to guard itself in those virtues and qualities that will not give it pain, that will not cause disturbance. Until this desire, this craving for self-protective security, ceases, fear must continue, with all its consequences. Mind cannot get rid of fear. In its attempt to do so it cultivates the opposites, which is part of fear itself. Thus the mind divides itself, creates within itself a dual process. All effort on the part of the mind must maintain this duality, though it may develop tendencies, characteristics, virtues, to overcome that very duality.

Questioner: I do not quite see how the mind has divided itself into love and hate.

Krishnamurti: There is good and evil, the light and the dark. Light and darkness cannot exist together. One destroys the other.

If light is light, then darkness, evil, ceases to exist. Effort is not necessary, it is then non-existent. But we are in a state of continual effort, because that which to us is light, is not light, it is only the light, the good of the intellect.

We are making constant effort to overcome, to acquire, to possess, to be detached, to expand. There are moments of clarity amidst the enveloping confusion. We desire this clarity and cling to it, hoping that it will dissolve the conflicting wants. This desire for clarity, this desire to overcome one quality by another, is waste of energy; for the will that craves, the will that overcomes, is the will of success, satisfaction, the will of security. This will must ever continue creating and maintaining fear, even though it is asserting that it is seeking truth, God. Its clarity is the clarity of escape, of illusion, but not the clarity of reality.

When the will destroys itself, spontaneously, then there is that truth which is beyond all effort. Effort is violence; love and violence cannot exist together.

The conflict in which we exist is not a struggle between good and evil, between the self and the not-self. The struggle is in our own self-created duality, between our various self-protective desires. There cannot be a conflict between light and darkness; where light is, darkness is not. As long as fear exists, there must continue conflict, though that fear may disguise itself under different names. And as fear cannot free itself through any means, for all its efforts spring from its own source, there must be the cessation of all intellectual safeguards. This cessation comes, spontaneously, when the mind reveals to itself its own process. This takes place only when there is integral awareness, which is not the result of a discipline, or of a moral or economic system, or of enforcement.

Each one has to become aware of the process of ignorance, the illusions that one has created.

Intellect cannot lead you out of this present chaos, confusion and suffering. Reason must exhaust itself, not by retreating, but through integral comprehension and love of life.

When reason no longer has the capacity to protect you, through explanations, escapes, logical conclusions, then when there is complete vulnerability, utter nakedness of your whole being, there is the flame of love.

Truth alone can free each one from the sorrow and confusion of ignorance.

Truth is not the end of experience it is life itself. It is not of tomorrow, it is of no time. It is not a result, an achievement, but the cessation of fear, want.

August 10, 1937