INDIVIDUAL & SOCIETY
THE BONDAGE OF CONDITIONING
A Selection of Passages
For The Study of The Teachings of
J. Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti Foundation
of America
P.O. Box 1560
Ojai, California 93024
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INDIVIDUAL & SOCIETY:
The Bondage of Conditioning
A Selection of Passages For The Study of The Teachings of
J. Krishnamurti
1991 by the Krishnamurti Foundation of America.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Krishnamurti Foundation of America
P.O. Box 1560, Ojai, California 93024
eBook conversion by M-Y Books
The passages in this volume have been taken directly from Krishnamurti’s talks and books from 1933 through part of 1967. The compilers began by reading all the passages from this period which contained the words individual, society, or conditioning, the theme of this book. (This would not have been possible without the use of a full text computer database, produced by the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust of England.) Over 900 passages were studied in all.
The material selected has not been altered from the way it was originally printed except for limited editing of spelling, punctuation, and missing words. Words or phrases that appear in brackets are not Krishnamurti’s, but have been added by the compilers for the sake of clarity. Ellipses introducing a passage, or ending it, indicate that the passage begins or ends mid-sentence. Ellipses in the course of a passage indicate the omission of words or sentences. Captions, set off from the body of the text, have been used with many passages. Most captions are statements taken directly from the text, with some being a combination of phrases from the passage.
Krishnamurti spoke from such a large perspective that his whole vision was implied in any extended passage. If one wishes to see how a statement flows out of his whole discourse, one can find the context through the reference at the foot of each passage. These refer primarily to talks which have recently been published as The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti. These seventeen volumes cover the entire period from which this study book has been drawn. A complete bibliography is included at the end of this book.
Albion W. Patterson
Series Editor
In a few days we are going to have discussions, and we can start those discussions this morning. But if you assert and I assert, if you stick to your opinion, to your dogma, to your experience, to your knowledge, and I stick to mine, then there can be no real discussion because neither of us is free to inquire. To discuss is not to share our experiences with each other. There is no sharing at all; there is only the beauty of truth, which neither you nor I can possess. It is simply there.
To discuss intelligently, there must also be a quality not only of affection but of hesitation. You know, unless you hesitate, you can't inquire. Inquiry means hesitating, finding out for yourself, discovering step by step; and when you do that, then you need not follow anybody, you need not ask for correction or for confirmation of your discovery. But all this demands a great deal of intelligence and sensitivity.
By saying that, I hope I have not stopped you from asking questions! You know, this is like talking things over together as two friends. We are neither asserting nor seeking to dominate each other, but each is talking easily, affably, in an atmosphere of friendly companionship, trying to discover. And in that state of mind we do discover, but I assure you, what we discover has very little importance. The important thing is to discover, and after discovering, to keep going. It is detrimental to stay with what you have discovered, for then your mind is closed, finished. But if you die to what you have discovered the moment you have discovered it, then you can flow like the stream, like a river that has an abundance of water.
Saanen 10th Public Talk 1st August 1965
It must be fairly obvious to most people that there must be throughout the world a tremendous revolution a revolution not of words, not of ideas, not the exchange of beliefs or dogmas, but a change, a total mutation in thought. Because, in the world, which is our world the world we live in, the world that you and I inhabit the companions, the relationships, the work, the ideas, and the beliefs and the dogmas that we hold have produced a monstrous world, a world of conflict, misery, and perpetual sorrow. There is no denying it. Though every one of us is aware of this extraordinary state of things in the world, we accept it as a normal condition, we put up with it day after day, we never inquire into the necessity, the urgency of a revolution that is neither economical nor political but much more fundamental. And it is that we are going to discuss, we are going to talk about together, to explore together, during these three weeks.
But to explore, there must be freedom. To explore really, deeply, lastingly, you must leave your books, your ideas, your traditions, because without freedom, no exploration is possible. No inquiry is ever possible when the mind is tethered to any kind of dogma, to a tradition, to a belief, and so on. The difficulty with most of us is not that we are not capable of inquiring, not that we are incapable of investigating, but we are apparently totally incapable of letting things go, putting things aside, and therefore with a fresh mind, with a young mind, with an innocent mind, looking at the world and all the appalling things that are taking place in it.
To investigate, to inquire into all the questions that touch our lives death, birth, marriage, sex, relationship, if there is or if there is not something beyond the measure of the mind, what is virtue that requires freedom to pull down, because it is only when you can destroy completely everything that you have held sacred or right or virtuous that you can find out what is truth. We are going to inquire into everything, question everything, tear down the house that man has built through the centuries to find out what is truth. And that requires freedom, a mind capable of inquiring, a mind which is serious. I mean by seriousness a quality of pursuing a thought to the very end, a questioning that is not afraid to face the consequences. Otherwise, there is no inquiry; otherwise, there is no investigation. We remain merely on the surface and play with words, with ideas. And if one has observed sufficiently the things that are happening not only mechanically, technically, but also in our relationships between people when one observes that progress throughout the world is denying freedom, when one observes the strength of society in which the individual has completely ceased to be, and when one observes how nationalities are dividing themselves more and more, especially in this unfortunate country, one will see that some kind of deep revolt must come about.
It seems to me that the first thing to inquire into is society what is the structure, and what is the nature of society because we are social beings. You cannot live by yourself; even if you withdraw into the Himalayas, or become a hermit or a sannyasi, you cannot live by yourself; you are in relationship with another, and relationship with another creates the structure which we call society That structure controls relationship that is, you and I have relationship, we are in communion with each other; in that communion, in that relationship, we create, we build a structure called society. That society controls our minds, shapes our hearts, shapes our actions whether you live in a communist society or a Hindu society or a Christian world. Society with its structure shapes the mind of every human being, consciously or unconsciously. The culture in which we live, the traditions, the religions, the politics, the education all that, the past as well as the present, shapes our thought. And to bring about a complete revolution there must be a revolution, a crisis in consciousness you must question the structure of society….
We are not dealing with ideas, we are not dealing with various beliefs or dogmas. We are concerned with bringing about a different action, a different mind, a different entity as a human being; and to go into that really, profoundly, we must not be slaves to words. This is very important to understand right from the very beginning because the word is never the thing. The word bird is not the bird. They are two different things. But most of us are satisfied with the word, and not with seeing beyond the word. We are satisfied to call ourselves individuals and talk of society and the structure of society, but is there an individual at all? Because we are the result of environmental influence, we are the society, we are the result of that structure which we call society. It is only when you completely, totally, break away from society that you are an individual, but you are not now an individual at all; you are the result of your environmental influence. You are being brought up as a Hindu, as a Buddhist, or what you will; you are the result of the influence of a particular society. So we must be greatly aware of the influence of words and discover for ourselves to what extent, to what depth, we are slaves to words.
These meetings, these gatherings, are not entertainment; they are not propaganda; they are not for an exchange of ideas. But what we are concerned with, essentially and deeply, is to bring about a radical, religious revolution. And that requires a tremendous investigation into oneself; that requires a questioning of everything that man has built every attitude, every value, every tradition, every relationship and we are going to do that; we are not going to leave one stone unturned. There is nothing holy, there is nothing sacred. And therefore, to investigate, you need a very sharp, clear, precise mind not a mind befogged with ideas, with words, with sentiments. And to think very clearly, there must be freedom; otherwise, you cannot think freely. If you are a Hindu or a Parsi or what you will, if that is the basis of your thought or from that you begin to think it is absolutely impossible to think because you are not free. So the first essential necessity of inquiry is freedom because then you can begin to question….
There are two ways of questioning the whole process of living. One is questioning with a motive, which seeks a result, which is a response, which is a reaction therefore you will not find the truth of that questioning. The other is questioning without a motive, without seeking an answer and that is what we are going to do. The moment you seek an answer, it will invariably be a conclusion of words but not of facts.
We are going to question the whole structure of society. We are going to question the whole relationship of man and man, his relationship with ideas, with his conceptual existence, his abstractions, his everyday conduct. And out of this questioning, we shall discover for ourselves what we actually are. Because, without knowing yourself, you cannot go very far; without knowing what you are, consciously or unconsciously, what you think, what you feel, every movement of ideas, every feeling; without uncovering, without discovering and understanding the processes, the motives, the impulses, the compulsions, the frustrations, the failures, the hopeless loneliness, despairs, anxieties, guilt, you cannot go very far. That is the foundation and that requires freedom.
Freedom is not at the end but at the beginning, so as to be capable of looking at yourselves actually as you are, what you are in your relationship and that relationship is the structure of society. There must be a complete change in our relationship, because all relationship is action. Relationship is action, and your relationship is mostly based on an idea. Your relationship with your wife is not an idea, but your relationship with your neighbor, with your country, with your gods, is an idea….
So, society is relationship. And that social structure, as it is now, is based on ambition, greed, envy, seeking power, position, prestige and all the things that man has set up as extraordinarily significant in life. That is the actual fact not your gods, not the Gita, not your guru, not your saints and saviors; but the daily life in which you are, which is your ambition, your greed, your envy, your pursuit of power and wealth and position which you want. And without altering that radically, without breaking down the whole system, you cannot have a religious revolution. A religious revolution is the only revolution that has significance because every other revolution has failed. The French and the communist revolutions have completely, totally failed because those revolutions were reactionary revolutions; they were a reaction against what is.…A religious revolution is not concerned with reaction at all. It is concerned with dealing with a fact and destroying that fact that is, being aware that our relationship, that our social structure is based on this extraordinary sense of values, on ambition, greed, envy; and destroying that completely in ourselves, totally, wholly eradicating it. That is the beginning of a religious revolution not the pursuit of an idea, which you call God.
Without laying the foundation, how can you go far, how can you find out if there is something beyond words, beyond divisions, beyond the conditioning of man? Surely, sirs, this thing which we call the morality of society which admits that you can be ambitious, envious, greedy, powerful and all the rest of it, which it calls moral you pursue; and how can you, with that morality, with that virtue, find something which is beyond all virtue, which is beyond all time?
There is something beyond all time; there is something immeasurable, timeless; but to find that, to uncover that, you must lay the foundation; and to lay the foundation you must shatter society. I mean by society not the outward structure, not blowing up buildings, not discarding clothes and putting on a sannyasi’s robe or becoming a hermit that does not break down society. When I talk about society, I mean the psychological structure, the inward structure of our minds, of our brain, the psychological processes of our thinking; those need to be completely destroyed to find out, to create a new mind. You need a new mind because if you observe what is taking place in the world, you will see more and more that freedom is being denied by the politicians, by progress, by organized religions, by mechanical, technical processes. More and more the computers are taking over the function of man, and they are quite right to do that. Virtue is being brought about by chemicals: by taking a certain chemical, you can be free of anger, irritability, vanity; you can make your mind quiet by taking a tranquilizer, and you can become very peaceful. So, your virtue is being changed by chemicals; you don't have to go through all the tyranny of discipline in order to be virtuous. All that is going on in the world. And so, to bring about a new world, not chemically, not industrially, not politically, but spiritually if I may use that word spiritually, so hackneyed, so spoiled by the politicians, by the religious beings. You cannot be spiritual if you belong to any religion, to any nationality. If you call yourself a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Parsi, a Muslim, or a Christian, you can never be spiritual. You can only be spiritual when you destroy the social structure of your being which is the world in which you live, the world of ambition, greed, envy, seeking power. For most of us, that world is reality, and nothing else; it is that which we all want; from the highest politician to the lowest person in the street, from the biggest saint to the daily worshipper that is what everybody wants. And without breaking that, do what you will, you will have no love, you will be no nearer happiness, you will always have conflict, misery.
So, as I said, we are going to inquire into the structure of society. The structure of society is brought about through thought; the structure of society has resulted in the brain, which we now have the brain which is now used to acquire, to compete, to become powerful, to gain money crookedly or rightly. The brain is the result of the society in which we live, the culture in which we are being brought up, the religious prejudices, dogmas, beliefs, traditions; all that is the brain, which is the result of the past. Please examine yourself, please do not merely listen to what is being said.
You know, there are two ways of listening. One way is: you merely hear the words and pursue the meaning of words which is to listen, to hear comparatively, which is to compare, which is to condemn, translate, interpret what is being said. That is what most people do; that is how we listen. When something is said, your brain immediately translates it as a reaction into your own terminology, into your own experiences; and you either accept what pleases or reject what does not please. You are merely reacting, you don't listen. And then there is the other way of listening, and that requires immense attention because in that listening there is no translation, there is no interpretation, no condemning, no comparison; you are just listening with all your being. A mind that is capable of so attentively listening understands immediately; it is free of time and of the brain which is the result of the social structure in which we have been brought up. As long as that brain has not become completely still but is intensely alive, active, every thought, every experience is translated by that brain according to its conditioning, and therefore every thought, every feeling prevents total inquiry, total investigation.