Questioner #1: The brain is the source of all problems.
It has created the self and also all the problems. You suggest that
the
brain can end the problems. Then what is the difference between that
brain
which has ended and the mind?
Questioner #2: You said that the brain is the source of problems and
out of
the brain comes the ending of problems. With that ending, the brain
that
remains thinks, perceives, receives intimations. What is the actual
difference between that brain and the mind?
Krishnamurti: I understand, I understand. Just a minute. See, you are
asking
a question that involves death. Before I can answer that question I
must
answer what death is. There is an Italian proverb that says: All the
world
is going to die, perhaps even I too! Do you see the joke of it? So,
what is
death? We know what is birth, mother, father, all the rest of it, and
the
baby is born and goes through this extraordinary tragedy. It is a
tragedy;
it is not something happy, joyous, free. It is a bigger tragedy than
any
Shakespeare ever wrote. So I know what is birth. Now, what is death? I
am
asking this; you tell me.
Questioner #3: When we were discussing time the other day, you spoke of
a
`now' in which was all time, both living and death. The brain, having
the
capacity to see the flow of living, also has the capacity to reveal
that
ending which is death. That is the answer.
Krishnamurti: I said, living is attachment, pain, fear, pleasure,
anxiety,
uncertainty, the whole bag, and death is out there, far away. I keep a
careful distance. I have got property, books, jewels; that is my life.
I
keep it here and death is there. I say, bring the two together, not
tomorrow, but now - which means end all this now. Because that's what
death
is going to say. Death says you can't take anything with you; so
invite
death - not suicide - invite death and live with it. Death is now, not
tomorrow.
Questioner #3: There is something lacking in this. I may be able to
invite
death now and the brain may be still for a time, but the whole thing
comes
back again; then the problem of life comes back.
Krishnamurti: No, no. I am attached to him, he is a friend of mine, I
have
lived with him, we walked together, We played together, he is my
companion,
and I am attached to him. Death says to me, You can't take him with
you. So
death tells me, Free yourself now, not ten years later. And I say,
Quite
right, I will be free of him. Though I am still his friend, I am not
dependent on him at all. Because, I can't take him with me. What's
wrong
with that? You are not arguing against that?
Questioner #4: Which means, sir, you have to end all gratification...
Krishnamurti: No, I am not saying that. I said, attachment.
Questioner #4: All attachment...
Krishnamurti: That's all.
Questioner #5: Sir, is it possible to end that so long as the two
bodies
exist?
Krishnamurti: Oh, yes, sir. Our bodies are not tied together; they are
two
separate bodies. Psychologically I take him as a friend and get slowly
attached to him inwardly. I am not attached to him outwardly because
he goes
one way and I go another - he drinks, I don't, and so on. But still he
is a
friend of mine. And death comes and says you can't take him with you.
That
is a fact. So I say, All right, I will be detached now.
Questioner #6: Sir, isn't it that the problem comes not because you get pleasure from your friend or your wife, but because you begin to use
that
pleasure as a fulfillment for yourself, and therefore you want a
continuity
of that and you want to possess that person?
Krishnamurti: Yes. Therefore, what is relationship? I won't go into
it, we
have no time. You see, sir, you are not meeting my point. I asked you
where
self-interest begins and ends. Is ending more important than anything
else?
- ending? And what is then that state in which there is no
self-interest at
all? Is it death? - which means an ending. Death means ending - ending
everything. So it says, `Be intelligent, old boy, live together with
death.'
Questioner #6: Which means die but keep the body. The other death is
coming
anyway.
Krishnamurti: Body? Give it to the birds or throw it into the river. But
psychologically, this tremendous structure I have built I can't take
with me.
"The Last Talks"
India, Varanasi, 11th November 1985
3rd Discussion with Buddhists
© Krishnamurti Foundation Trust
Kinfonet Editorial - For the Death Of Me...Memento mori
is a Latin
phrase
that may be loosely translated as "Remember that you are mortal" or
"Remember your death". Indeed, much of the world's great art and
literature
exists because we have to die. Rebelling against the impartiality of
death,
the human creative impulse strives to infuse life with meaning. Life
is
rendered, in the eyes of the beholder, inviolable and precious
despite, and
perhaps even because of, its finality.
Mortality is a central life issue for every human being and is
something we
all have to come to terms with, in one way or another. Strangely
enough
though, the inevitability of our death does not factor into our
everyday
lives to any significant degree. We develop very careful mechanisms to
keep
the reality of death at bay. Our ending is an eventuality that we
manage to
emotionally block out. Although it is acknowledged intellectually, the
fact
that we'll have to die is rarely felt in any forceful way. Perhaps
only when
one is old and gray, or is confronted with a serious illness or the
death of
a loved one does the brevity of life become personally relevant.
Death is commonly regarded as the enemy of life, waiting at the far
end to
arrest its movement. To face death is to face the unknown. Peering
into the
abyss of death stirs up a variety of psychological associations - most
of
which trigger fear. This fear can be muted by religious beliefs or
philosophical stoicism. However, the stark reality of death is so
unyielding
that no explanation is able to wholly prevent fear from bubbling up
from
time to time. Despite our best efforts, death remains a mystery.
Speculation aside, the one sure thing we can say about death is that
it is a
cessation of life as we know it. For those of us who choose not to
ignore
this fact, there are various reactions. Some embrace the motto, "carpe
diem"
- or "seize the day"- which prods us to engage fully in life, urging
us to
make the most of the short time we have. For others, death spoils all
appetite for life. The transient nature of our existence produces a
strong
sense that life is "much ado about nothing". For such a person,
somewhat
nihilistic in leaning, a strong sense of futility accompanies any
investment
in worldly pursuits.
" Death, love and life are one and the same; but we have divided life,
as we
have divided the earth. "
Rather than regarding death as being pitted against life, waiting at
the end
to snuff it out, as it were, Krishnamurti views death as an organic
part of
life itself. By blocking out death we have effectively ignored a very
fundamental dimension of each and every element of nature, namely that
its
existence is finite. Even as it comes into being, every thing bears
the seed
of its own demise somehow within it. This ubiquitous quality of
transience
is an attribute just like any other and is entirely perceivable should
we
choose to look.
Not only does Krishnamurti stress that death is not divorced from
life, he
even goes so far as to encourage us to actually "invite death". To
elucidate
what he means by this psychological death or "dying while living" he
asks us
to consider what will happen when we actually, physically die.
"Both biologically and psychologically the ending of something is
death.
"
Death is a complete and non-negotiable ending. It doesn't care about the
importance of our unfinished business or our general readiness, but
can be
sudden and without forewarning. "Death says, you can't take anything
with
you". We have a multitude of attachments, we cling to certain people,
identify with ideas and beliefs and are invested in all the things we
still
would like to experience or accomplish in our lifetime. These
attachments
grow stronger in proportion to the time spent nurturing and
cultivating
them. Seeing that at our death all these are going to be wrenched
away,
Krishnamurti asks if it isn't simply a matter of intelligence to
negate
these attachments now.
On another occasion, Krishnamurti asks: "Have you ever died to a
pleasure?"
To experiment with "ending voluntarily" a desire, habit or attachment
without any fuss, in much the same impersonal way that "death" would
do it.
"Just give it up, just brush it aside as you would some stupid
thing..."
As always, Krishnamurti is careful to include a host of qualifiers in
his
descriptions of this subtle action of "dying while living" in order to
emphasize that there can be no choice, no decision, no struggle, none
of the
emotional drama normally associated with an ending. Despite his
meticulous
use of language, statements like "ending voluntarily" or "inviting
death"
naturally fossilize in our minds as directives, as something to be
applied.
Our best efforts notwithstanding, there is an underlying intellectual
understanding that death is an action of sorts which we can attempt to
bring
about. But to do so, of course, would mean that we have completely
missed
the crux of death. To die is to continue no longer, fullstop. Any form
of
effort or will involves the future and as such indicates the movement
of
continuity. Death, by its very nature, is instantaneous; having no
duration,
it can occur only in the immediate present. Being wholly independent
of
will, the phenomenon of death cannot be the result of some action on
our
part. In short, death cannot be summoned.
"We never face anything final, absolute; we always go around it; and
that is
why we dread death."
Attempting to come to terms with death unfailingly invokes in us some
form
of reaction. In fact, our various responses to death shed light on the
myriad ways in which the mind, predicated on the instinct to survive,
personalizes death in order to assure its own continuity. For example,
in
the face of the nothingness that is death there is often a response of
despair. This is one form of continuity, a refusal to end, to die,
even if
life means a miserable struggle. In fact no amount of suffering seems
excruciating enough to provoke the impulse to simply die to it
psychologically.
Not that thought is incapable of giving up something, but it needs a
replacement equal in value or even better, a reward for letting go.
Uninvited ending is considered a punishment, associated with pain,
something
to be shied away from. Death, uncompromisingly, doesn't offer promise
or
reward. To thought, even an explanation, a good reason for ending
would
suffice, because answer and resolution both signify continuity, which
in
turn reinforces the validity of its own structure. Unlike thought,
death has
no utilitarian agenda.
For us, "time is of the essence" in more ways than one. The demand for
continuity causes the mind to be rooted in what Krishnamurti terms
psychological time - a virtual time-space continuum we first create
and then
fill with the things of thought -entertainment, noise, distraction,
plans.
Additionally, it serves as a passageway to a better future in which we
hope
to find fulfillment - the "what should be". To Krishnamurti the basic
problem is that we are perpetually in a state of seeking, craving
experience, which necessitates the creation of "psychological time".
" So to live before death is to live with death; which means that one
is
living in a timeless world. One is living a life in which everything
that
one acquires is constantly ending, so that there is always a
tremendous
movement, one is not fixed in a certain place. "
By relegating death to the end of life, Krishnamurti suggests, we
condemn
ourselves to anxiously living in the "dividing gap", always keeping
one eye
on the inevitable. Having carefully staked out this time interval, we
desperately cling to it, as it is all we have. This interval is not
just all
we have and all we know, it is all we are. It is the house of thought
and
also the place where the "me" dwells with its respective attachments,
pleasures, pain, loneliness and illusions. To Krishnamurti,
psychological
time, thought and the sense of self are all one and the same.
Once it becomes clear that all our attempts to deal with death are
actually
very subtle mechanisms to block out its reality, we are left with an
uneasy
feeling that we may be encapsulated in a bubble of our own making -
that
there may be "much more to life than it's dreamed of in our
philosophy". The
conditioned response to this perception is usually to ask, "What then
does
exist outside of my thought-bound experience?" Krishnamurti is quick
to
point out, however, that this is a wrong question. "Face what you
know. You
can't face something that you don't know." "Inviting death" then is to
invite intelligence and not to chase after spiritual rainbows. It is
simply
an ever open invitation to see reality as it actually is, to take into
account our entire experience of life - unfiltered, without judgment,
without reaction - which is nothing other than to be aware of the
content of
our consciousness as it manifests at any given moment.
In fact, the whole conglomerate of the "me", of thought, of
psychological
time exists entirely in the present moment and, as such, can be
accessed
simply and directly - requiring no analysis, necessitating no time.
"If thought frees itself from the past, it ceases to be thought. "
The difficulty is that we understand "psychological time" to be a long
drawn
out string reaching far back into our past and forward into the depths
of
our future. It represents the countless elements in our psyche with
their
convoluted inter-relationships. However, *we easily forget that
psychological
time is no time at all, but a construct of thought, our own invention.
Any
activity of our mind can only take place in the present moment.* *This
protracted time interval of "psychological time", masquerading as a
continuum, exists exclusively and totally in the present.* Thus the
active,
living present is not, as sometimes fancied, a spiritual shangri-la,
but
rather the "me" in motion. This movement is ever accessible: "The now is
ever existent; even if you escape into the future, the now is ever
present."
"Truth is in the silent observation of what is, and it is truth that
transforms what is."
Genuine insight into the distorting nature of our thinking gives birth
to a
passionate demand for truth. It is this energy, this passion, this
love of
truth, of life that fuels total awareness. The intensity of this
awareness
is such that thought naturally refrains from usurping the whole
spectrum of
our reality allowing other aspects of life to come streaming in,
including
death. And this might be the action of "dying while living" of which
Krishnamurti speaks. It may even be "reality, it may be what we call
God,
that most extraordinary something that lives and moves, yet has no
beginning
and no end."
What Do You Think?It is the opinion of the editorial writers that
Krishnamurti is a modern-day example of a truly free human being.
These
editorials celebrate our interest in this most extraordinary man and
what he
has to say. The main intention here is neither to represent nor to
re-present Krishnamurti, but simply to foster engagement with his
works.
Needless to say, the fascinating and intricate nature of
Krishnamurti's
writings demand that they be read carefully and at first hand.