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Krishnamurti: A Dialogue With Oneself
I realize that love cannot exist when there is jealousy; love cannot
exist when there is attachment. Now, is it possible for me to be free of
jealousy and attachment? I realize that I do not love. That is a fact. I
am not going to deceive myself; I am not going to pretend to my wife
that I love her. I do not know what love is. But I do know that I am
jealous and I do know that I am terribly attached to her and that in
attachment there is fear, there is jealousy, anxiety; there is a sense
of dependence. I do not like to depend but I depend because I am lonely;
I am shoved around in the office, in the factory and I come home and I
want to feel comfort and companionship, to escape from myself. Now I ask
myself: how am I to be free of this attachment? I am taking that just as
an example.
At first, I want to run away from the question. I do not know how it
is going to end up with my wife. When I am really detached from her my
relationship to her may change. She might be attached to me and I might
not be attached to her or to any other woman. But I am going to
investigate. So I will not run away from what I imagine might be the
consequence of being totally free of all attachment. I do not know what
love is, but I see very clearly, definitely, without any doubt, that
attachment to my wife means jealousy, possession, fear, anxiety and I
want freedom from all that. So I begin to enquire; I look for a method
and I get caught in a system. Some guru says: "I will help you to be
detached, do this and this; practise this and this." I accept what he
says because I see the importance of being free and he promises me that
if I do what he says I will have reward. But I see that way that I am
looking for reward. I see how silly I am; wanting to be free and getting
attached to a reward.
I do not want to be attached and yet I find myself getting attached to
the idea that somebody, or some book, or some method, will reward me
with freedom from attachment. So, the reward becomes an attachment. So I
say: "Look what I have done; be careful, do not get caught in that
trap." Whether it is a woman, a method, or an idea, it is still
attachment. I am very watchful now for I have learned something; that
is, not to exchange attachment for something else that is still
attachment.
I ask myself: "What am I to do to be free of attachment?" What is my
motive in wanting to be free of attachment? Is it not that I want to
achieve a state where there is no attachment, no fear and so on? And I
suddenly realize that motive gives direction and that direction will
dictate my freedom. Why have a motive? What is motive? A motive is a
hope, or a desire, to achieve something. I see that I am attached to a
motive. Not only my wife, not only my idea, the method, but my motive
has become my attachment! So I am all the time functioning within the
field of attachment - the wife, the method and the motive to achieve
something in the future. To all this I am attached. I see that it is a
tremendously complex thing; I did not realize that to be free of
attachment implied all this. Now, I see this as clearly as I see on a
map the main roads, the side roads and the villages; I see it very
clearly. Then I say to myself: "Now, is it possible for me to be free of
the great attachment I have for my wife and also of the reward which I
think I am going to get and of my motive?" To all this I am attached.
Why? Is it that I am insufficient in myself? Is it that I am very lonely
and therefore seek to escape from that feeling of isolation by turning
to a woman, an idea, a motive; as if I must hold onto something? I see
that it is so. I am lonely and escaping through attachment to something
from that feeling of extraordinary isolation.
So I am interested in understanding why I am lonely, for I see it is
that which makes me attached. That loneliness has forced me to escape
through attachment to this or to that and I see that as long as I am
lonely the sequence will always be this. What does it mean to be lonely?
How does it come about? Is it instinctual, inherited, or is it brought
about by my daily activity? If it is an instinct, if it is inherited, it
is part of my lot; I am not to blame. But as I do not accept this, I
question it and remain with the question. I am watching and I am not
trying to find an intellectual answer. I am not trying to tell the
loneliness what it should do, or what it is; I am watching for it to
tell me. There is a watchfulness for the loneliness to reveal itself. It
will not reveal itself if I run away; if I am frightened; if I resist
it. So I watch it. I watch it so that no thought interferes. Watching is
much more important than thought coming in. And because my whole energy
is concerned with the observation of that loneliness thought does not
come in at all. The mind is being challenged and it must answer. Being
challenged it is in a crisis. In a crisis you have great energy and that
energy remains without being interfered with by thought. This is a
challenge which must be answered.
I started out having a dialogue with myself. I asked myself what is this
strange thing called love; everybody talks about it, writes about it -
all the romantic poems, pictures, sex and all other areas of it? I ask:
is there such a thing as love? I see it does not exist when there is
jealousy, hatred, fear. So I am not concerned with love anymore; I am
concerned with `what is', my fear, my attachment. Why am I attached? I
see that one of the reasons - I do not say it is the whole reason - is
that I am desperately lonely, isolated. The older I grow the more
isolated I become. So I watch it. This is a challenge to find out, and
because it is a challenge all energy is there to respond. That is
simple. If there is some catastrophe, an accident or whatever it is, it
is a challenge and I have the energy to meet it. I do not have to ask:
"How do I get this energy?" When the house is on fire I have the energy
to move; extraordinary energy. I do not sit back and say: "Well, I must
get this energy" and then wait; the whole house will be burned by then.
So there is this tremendous energy to answer the question: why is there
this loneliness? I have rejected ideas, suppositions and theories that
it is inherited, that it is instinctual. All that means nothing to me.
Loneliness is `what is'. Why is there this loneliness which every human
being, if he is at all aware, goes through, superficially or most
profoundly? Why does it come into being? Is it that the mind is doing
something which is bringing it about? I have rejected theories as to
instinct and inheritance and I am asking: is the mind, the brain itself,
bringing about this loneliness, this total isolation? Is the movement of
thought doing this? Is the thought in my daily life creating this sense
of isolation? In the office I am isolating myself because I want to
become the top executive, therefore thought is working all the time
isolating itself. I see that thought is aIl the time operating to make
itself superior, the mind is working itself towards this isolation.
So the problem then is: why does thought do this? Is it the nature of
thought to work for itself? Is it the nature of thought to create this
isolation? Education brings about this isolation; it gives me a certain
career, a certain specialization and so, isolation. Thought, being
fragmentary, being limited and time binding, is creating this isolation.
In that limitation, it has found security saying: "I have a special
career in my life; I am a professor; I am perfectly safe." So my concern
is then: why does thought do it? Is it in its very nature to do this?
Whatever thought does must be limited. Now the problem is: can thought
realize that whatever it does is limited, fragmented and therefore
isolating and that whatever it does will be thus? This is a very
important point: can thought itself realize its own limitations? Or am I
telling it that it is limited? This, I see, is very important to
understand; this is the real essence of the matter. If thought realizes
itself that it is limited then there is no resistance, no conflict; it
says, "I am that". But if I am telling it that it is limited then I
become separate from the limitation. Then I struggle to overcome the
limitation, therefore there is conflict and violence, not love.
So does thought realize of itself that it is limited? I have to find
out. I am being challenged. Because I am challenged I have great energy.
Put it differently: does consciousness realize its content is itself? Or
is it that I have heard another say: "Consciousness is its content; its
content makes up consciousness"? Therefore I say, "Yes, it is so". Do
you see the difference between the two? The latter, created by thought,
is imposed by the `me'. If I impose something on thought then there is
conflict. It is like a tyrannical government imposing on someone, but
here that government is what I have created.
So I am asking myself: has thought realized its own limitations? Or is
it pretending to be something extraordinary, noble, divine? - which is
nonsense because thought is based on memory. I see that there must be
clarity about this point: that there is no outside influence imposing on
thought saying it is limited. Then, because there is no imposition there
is no conflict; it simply realizes it is limited; it realizes that
whatever it does - its worship of god and so on - is limited, shoddy,
petty - even though it has created marvellous cathedrals throughout
Europe in which to worship.
So there has been in my conversation with myself the discovery that
loneliness is created by thought. Thought has now realized of itself
that it is limited and so cannot solve the problem of loneliness. As it
cannot solve the problem of loneliness, does loneliness exist? Thought
has created this sense of loneliness, this emptiness, because it is
limited, fragmentary, divided and when it realizes this, loneliness is
not, therefore there is freedom from attachment. I have done nothing; I
have watched the attachment, what is implied in it, greed, fear,
loneliness, all that and by tracing it, observing it, not analysing it,
but just looking, looking and looking, there is the discovery that
thought has done all this. Thought, because it is fragmentary, has
created this attachment. When it realizes this, attachment ceases. There
is no effort made at all. For the moment there is effort - conflict is
back again.
In love there is no attachment; if there is attachment there is no love.
There has been the removal of the major factor through negation of what
it is not, through the negation of attachment. I know what it means in
my daily life: no remembrance of anything my wife, my girl friend, or my
neighbour did to hurt me; no attachment to any image thought has created
about her; how she has bullied me, how she has given me comfort, how I
have had pleasure sexually, all the different things of which the
movement of thought has created images; attachment to those images has
gone.
And there are other factors: must I go through all those step by step,
one by one? Or is it all over? Must I go through, must I investigate -
as I have investigated attachment - fear, pleasure and the desire for
comfort? I see that I do not have to go through all the investigation of
all these various factors; I see it at one glance, I have captured it.
So, through negation of what is not love, love is. I do not have to ask
what love is. I do not have to run after it. If I run after it, it is
not love, it is a reward. So I have negated, I have ended, in that
enquiry, slowly, carefully, without distortion, without illusion,
everything that it is not - the other is.