from
A Collection of Reference Materials
at
Rishi Valley Study Centre
Reference Materials on Krishnamurti's Teachings
available at : http://www.kfa.org/
Working Paper #7
Edited by Hans and Radhika Herzberger
April 1998
General Introduction
These studies explore the treatment of selected topics throughout the fifty or more years in which Krishjnamurti presented his mature teachings in public talks and in discussions.
Each study surveys some topic through a collection of primary materials to document Krishnamurti's position at various times in his own words. Individual editors take responsibility for selecting the texts, editing them and preparing an introduction. This format is designed to enable readers to carry forward their own inquiries by consulting the full texts in original sources according to their individual concerns.
This is a report on work in progress, which may be revised occasionally so as to incorporate new material. In a spirit of continuing inquiry, comments and constructive criticism are welcome. Please address them in writing to The Krishnamurti Study Centre, Rishi Valley, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh 517-352, India.
Editorial Note
Our source materials are mostly a record of spontaneous and often exploratory spoken discourse. We do not aim to reproduce the whole context, but rather to provide a compact "field guide" for a philosophical landscape which readers may wish to explore on their own. With this goal in mind, we have cropped the texts while aiming for clarity of exposition and continuity insofar as the source material and our primary aims permit. Those who wish to study the issues thoroughly are encouraged to consult the full texts in books, journals and KFA's Collected Works or KFT's Text Collection and Index. To guide readers back to the sources, we cite Public Talks by place and date
Notation and Abbreviations
Triple dots (...) indicate cuts within sentence boundaries. The plus sign (+) is used to bridge multiple excerpts from a single text. ‘KFA' stands for Krishnamurti Foundation America, 'KFT' stands for the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust of England; ‘ISB’ stands for International Star Bulletin, ‘SB’ for ‘The Star Bulletin’.
See REGISTER OF TOPICS for a complete list of papers in this series.
INTRODUCTION
1. The Unbearable Lightness of Freedom. Krishnamurti’s revolt against authority and his stirring defence of freedom have a freshness, a lightness, a more immediately appealing quality than the formidable array of moral responsibilities that were to accompany that freedom. If, contrary to fact, one could choose between freedom and responsibility, who would not be tempted to choose freedom for themselves and leave responsibility to others? The present study surveys a broad range of responsibilities, which Krishnamurti articulated, developed, justified and recommended for "human beings" to realise in action.
2. The Documentary Record. Krishnamurti discussed responsibility in more than 900 contexts. These are scattered throughout his writings and talks, but a few periods stand out: his tour of South and Central America in 1935; talks in India at the time of Independence (1947- 48); and talks in Europe during the heyday of student movements and protests (1967-68). In the last years of his life (1980-85) the topic of responsibility was steadily in focus, with a renewed urgency. These very rough trends may indicate to some extent how Krishnamurti’s talks reflected the context and often responded to major world events.
Because it is relevant below, we note that throughout Krishnamurti’s works the word ‘responsibility’ and its cognates occur more than 3300 times. That is nearly as often as ‘peace’ and ‘compassion’, and more often than ‘sacred’ and ‘choiceless awareness’. On this crude measure alone, the present topic would seem to count as one of the major themes in Krishnamurti’s teachings.
To explore this somewhat neglected theme, we have selected about 225 relevant passages covering a fifty-five year period from 1930 to late 1985. We have organised these materials into five parts, with three appendices covering special topics: (1) Who is Responsible? (2) You Are Responsible For All This (3) Driving The Message Home (4) It’s Your Problem (5) What Will You Do About It? (Appendix 1) Education (Appendix 2) Bourgeois "Responsibilities" (Appendix 3) Vagaries of That Word.
3. A Glimpse of the Practical Krishnamurti. The subject of responsibility highlights Krishnamurti’s lifelong critique of the way people conduct their everyday lives. It brings to our attention certain values inherent in his teachings, as well as other values he rejected, including those underlying what he called "bourgeois" attitudes. The bourgeois life in Krishnamurti’s sense seems to be based mainly on property in a highly generalised sense: it may be a piece of land, old furniture, an idea, or a belief (11May80). To this miscellaneous list we might add friends, family, profession and nation, among other many other things which in Krishnamurti’s scale of values count as "little things" (see "Getting Caught in the Little" in Part Five). After surveying the materials collected in Parts Four and Five, readers may form their own judgements about what we are calling the practical side of Krishnamurti’s teaching: his concern with action in everyday life.
4. The Choice of Convenience is Not Open. Our selections show in detail why the choices mentioned above, between freedom and responsibility, are not open within Krishnamurti’s teachings. He explicitly tells us that freedom implies responsibility (12Oct68, 16Feb72, 1Feb74, 20Jan80), which means that freedom without responsibility is not on offer. What his teachings offer, it seems to us, is a particular blend or combination between the two: freedom together with a "lighter" kind of responsibility — without authority, without guilt, and without the burden of tradition (see #7 below).
What drives responsibility in these teachings is not the sanctions of society, religion or conscience, but the impulse of goodness (7Apr79). That goodness ignites "the flame of compassion" (26Feb74), and sustains love in his rarefied sense. Several of the passages in Appendix Three, and many passages throughout our selections, disclose how that love was to secure responsible action, while in the process transmuting it into something "lighter".
5. They are Multifarious and Inescapable. On first reading, a few of Krishnamurti’s remarks may appear to suggest that love and compassion could actually relieve us of responsibilities (see "Love Makes Those Words Disappear"). That would be too good to be true. To establish the contrary, let us first review the long list of particular responsibilities assembled below in Parts Two, Four and Five. We will list these under the headings of responsibilities to the self, to other individuals and to society and nature.
Responsibilities applying to the self involve conditioning, hollowness, hypocrisy, loneliness, mediocrity, moods, past hurts, second-hand living, self-images, sorrow and tedium. Interpersonal responsibilities concern: attachment, loss, absence of love, authority, competition, exploitation, and unsatisfactory relationships. Social and environmental responsibilities taken broadly concern: the character of government, of society, corruption, economic conflict, social strife, commercialisation of religion, communal violence, and on the wider scale all the world’s anger, cruelty, misery, suffering, evil, war crimes, destruction, renewal of the natural environment and finally helping to create a good society and a new world.
It would be wishful thinking to suppose that love could make these particular responsibilities literally disappear. Quite the opposite is true. The texts show that the role of love and compassion is to ensure that these particular responsibilities will be actually attended to in appropriate action. On our reading, what disappears in the presence of love is the apparatus of "enforcement": sanctions, guilt, the feeling of a heavy burden; and also postponement, shifting and evasion of these many, very real, and very compelling responsibilities—"the inescapable flame that you must have" (2Aug74). Our suggestion at this point is that love and compassion can make responsibilities less burdensome, not that they can make them disappear.
6. The Excluded Middle Ground. Of the very many particular responsibilities mentioned by Krishnamurti, we notice a striking profile of concerns. Very roughly they seem to fall into two major groups, which for convenience may be labelled the "personal" and the "global". At the personal end of this spectrum are psychological or inner matters concerning pathology of the self: conditioning, fear, ambition, aggressiveness, attachments, and vanity, hurt and so on. At the global end of the spectrum are grand concerns about society, war, peace, the natural environment, and generally the state of the world. Readers may note that a whole class of rather familiar "middle-sized" concerns is missing from the list: roughly, the "bourgeois" concerns mentioned in the preceding section.
7 .Taking the Burden Out of It. On several occasions, Krishnamurti speaks about "freeing that word from its burden of tradition" (15Jan80) and about "removing guilt from that word" (26Jul78, 13May80, 18May80). Some traditions have regarded responsibilities as imposed by religion, or by society, or by human nature, or perhaps in the limiting case even by "pure reason". Also, responsibilities have often been regarded as carrying sanctions for non-compliance, at the very least invoking individual "conscience" or feelings of guilt. Now, one might well wonder how these burdens could be removed. Could it be done by a mere linguistic declaration?
While it is not possible for us to offer a definitive answer to this question, we might outline one approach that some readers may wish to explore on their own. On this approach, one thing that lightens the responsibilities on Krishnamurti’s list is that many or all of them are directed to freeing people from the clutches of sorrow.
We have already noted how love and compassion for Krishnamurti imply meeting responsibilities in a lighter spirit. To this we may now add the observation that responsibilities of personal kind cover roughly what may be called pathology of the self: things which cause personal suffering and anguish. Apart from confirmed neurotics, anyone who can deal with their fears, anxieties, and the various things that cause sorrow to themselves and their loved ones, should gladly cast off those infirmities. To the extent that vanity, ambition, greed, hypocrisy and so on can be shown to imply those primary infirmities, we would naturally and gladly seek freedom from those things as well. Finally, at the global end of the spectrum, widespread violence, brutality and destruction are things whose absence would make a better world for almost everyone. To reinforce this point, far-reaching compassion and love are, so to speak, by- products of discharging the various personal responsibilities on Krishnamurti’s list. Once the personal responsibilities have been attended to, the global ones may be engaged in a lighter spirit, reaching out as far as the extent of one’s love and compassion can reach. In the limiting case, where love and compassion are universal, the personal and the global may even be felt to merge: "It’s an absolute fact that I am the world and the world is me + You and I have made it; we are responsible for it" (4Sep71)
8. Those Three Words. We have seen two ways in which Krishnamurti reworked the notion of responsibility, by making it lighter and by reshaping its extent. "Weight" and "extent" are only two dimensions of a rich subject that opens up many questions for further reflection. And yet, if we step back from the details, a robust and straightforward moral position leaps from the page, with a powerful contemporary impact: "This is a tremendous question, it is not a thing to be played around with. What do we mean by these three words: love, freedom and responsibility? + Are we responsible for the earth on which we live? To maintain the trees, mountains, waters, forests and the beauty of the land; or are we destroying everything? + Sir, you don’t face all these things" (17Apr79)
9. Open Problems. Krishnamurti’s treatment of responsibility is remarkably consistent, considering the long period of time covered by our texts. But a small number of passages seem to run counter to the general pattern. Here we can see no recourse but to acknowledge the problems openly and seek an honest resolution.
Two anomalies will be mentioned here. Several texts (25Jul62, 24May67, 12Oct68) declare ‘responsibility’ to be an "ugly" word; and yet, Krishnamurti endorsed many responsibilities and took them very seriously. Also, one text (25Jul62) declares ‘I am responsible’ to be a "hideous phrase" which "I never use"; and yet, responsibility is one of Krishnamurti’s major themes. He used the word thousands of times (see Section 2 above, "The Documentary Record"), and he used the exact phrase in question rather freely (see "I Am Fully Responsible" in Appendix 3).
These anomalies are fairly typical of Krishnamurti’s discourse in several fields we have explored: many statements in favour of responsibility, along with some remarks against it. Most likely these discrepancies can be reconciled by sensitivity to context and alertness to two notions of responsibility: one which he criticised and one which he endorsed. We need to identify these two notions and find some way of marking the difference.
Krishnamurti was an iconoclast who reworked many subjects from the ground up, not sparing even the basic vocabulary, often using old words in a new way. His lexicon happens to include two interesting devices to mark his special usage here—the modifiers ‘so-called’ and ‘human’. Appendix Three shows how he used these two modifiers intermittently to mark a difference between responsibilities he endorsed ("human") and those rejected ("so-called" or "bourgeois").
The fact is that our texts are not totally and literally consistent. This is normal for any large body of discourse. However, that is not the end of the matter, but the beginning of an interpretive problem. We feel the prospects for resolving the anomalies are very good, if one approaches the texts with "choiceless awareness" and a willingness to take some modest interpretive risks. The overall strategy is to try marking the difference between so-called responsibilities and human responsibilities more systematically. Although Krishnamurti did in fact use "that word" very freely, he might well have wished to deny that he ever used it in the bourgeois sense. He might well have found the bourgeois sense ugly because it served the interests of a "monstrous society" (9Jul67). With these two "might haves" as clues, the project of explaining away these anomalies of "that word" in Krishnamurti’s discourse may be left for now as an open question.
PART ONE: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
What Matters is Action (1930)
I should like you ... to consider what I say ... in a practical spirit. I want you to see how it works out. The test of any truth is in action (Ojai 25May30; ISB July 1930); What matters is the manner of your life, your behaviour, your conduct, your action Eerde 19Jul30 ISB August 1930)
It’s A Total Feeling (1936-74)
Those of you who want to experiment with what I am saying will soon discover that ... you are entirely responsible for yourself (Ojai 26Apr36); Responsible for education, for politics, for the way I live, for my behaviour. It’s a total feeling ... the ground in which action takes place + It expresses itself politically, religiously, educationally ... in the whole of life (San Diego 19Feb74)
I Take it Very Seriously (1967-79)
Q: I feel responsible for violence, but ... many people here don’t seem to feel it. JK: What am I to do, Sir? + I take it seriously; that’s enough + To me, as a human being, I feel this very strongly (Saanen 2Aug67); This is a tremendous question, it is not a thing to be played around with. What do we mean by these three words: love, freedom and responsibility? + Are we responsible for the earth on which we live? The trees, mountains, waters, forests and the beauty of the land, to maintain it; or are we gradually destroying everything? + Sir, you don’t face all these things (Ojai 17Apr79)
The Touchstone is How We Live (1974)
How does responsibility express itself in relationship? + Would I destroy human beings, calling them enemies? Would I destroy nature, everything which man is doing now destroying the earth, the air, the sea, everything? He feels totally irresponsible + It’s an appalling thing ... totally immoral + So to come back: I say, how does responsibility show itself in my life? (San Diego 19Feb74)
That's The Only Test We Have (1965)
One must find out the meaning of our outward activities, because that is the only test one has + To go very far within, you must look to the outside ... to your relationship to the world. That begins with the family, the wife, husband, children -- that is the world you live in. (Madras 6Jan65)
We Created This and We Can Undo It (1935)
By your own desires and fears you have created religions, with their dogmas, creeds, all their pageantry and show ... with their vested interest + They have become engines of exploitation. But you are responsible for their existence. (Santiago 8Sep35)
"Let Someone Else Begin" (1948)
You will say, "Yes, very nice, very good, it should be done; but let somebody else begin". That means, really, you don’t love your child; you have no relationship with your child, so you don’t see the difficulty. The more irresponsible you become, the more the State takes over all responsibility + You yourself have to work it out + It is your responsibility; as the father, as the mother, you have got to transform yourself. These are not just words (New Delhi 19Dec48)
"It’s Not My Problem" (1948-72)
In Europe war is already moving ... war, disintegration, insecurity. What affects another affects you. You are responsible + You cannot shut your eyes and say, "I am secure in Bangalore". That is very short-sighted and stupid. (Bangalore 11Jul48); You say, "It is all right, it is only happening in Munich, not here. It’s not my house, somebody else’s house is burning" (Brockwood 14Sep72);
"I Didn’t Create This World" (1974)
What is your responsibility? If you say, "I have no responsibility, I didn’t create the world", you have created the world, you are the result of the past generation, you can’t say, "I am not responsible"—that’s a very convenient way out of it. But ... there is a house burning and you have got to do something (Saanen 2Aug74)
Afraid of Responsibility (1968)
You say, "We don’t want to be responsible, we are frightened to be responsible for this monumental mess". But if you actually, with your heart, feel this thing, then you will act, then you will find that you are totally outside society. You may have a few clothes, go about in a car and all the rest of it, but in order to be truly moral you will have to be psychologically ... out of society (Paris 15Apr68)
Running Away From It (1965)
If you are at all alert, if you are at all taking note of everything that is happening in the world, inevitably you will have this problem facing you. You may run away from it and, therefore, become irresponsible. But ... it must be a problem to every thoughtful, intelligent, sensitive human being. (Bombay 14Feb65)
Denial and Evasion (1935)
The majority of people would prefer not to be responsible for their actions. After all, who is responsible if you are not? The chaos in the world is brought about by the irresponsible action of the individual + We try to evade full responsibility. (Rosario and Mendoza 27Jul35)
Face It – You Are Irresponsible (1971)
First face the fact that you are not responsible. If each one of us felt responsible, do you know what we could do? + To feel responsible means ... you are not concerned about yourself + When you plant a small tree you look after it, you water it, you protect it against the sun and the wind. (Saanen 9Aug71)
Why Are We Irresponsible? (1948-75)
Most of us feel that someone else will bring about this revolution: that circumstances, God, beliefs, politicians, prayers, reading "sacred books" and so on will somehow transform our minds. We shift our responsibility to someone else, to some leader, to some social pattern, to some influence. Such ways of thinking show an utter irresponsibility and a great sense of indolence. This is your problem. (Bombay 14Feb65); By thinking that this chaos, this misery, this disaster ... can brought to order by mass action, the individual becomes irresponsible. The mass is a fictitious entity; the mass is you and I + When you and I do not understand [this] ... we become irresponsible in our action. (New Delhi 14Nov48); Man brings disorder to the universe + Wherever he is he brings misery and confusion in himself and in the world about him + Why has he become like this cruel, irresponsible and utterly self-centred? Why? There are a hundred explanations (Malibu 6Apr75 Krishnamurti’s Notebook)
It’s Part of Our Conditioning (1974)
A human being, as he is now, is conditioned to be irresponsible + Education, politics, religion everything is making human beings irresponsible. I am not exaggerating. This is so + I see this as a human being + I say, what am I to do? What is my responsibility in face of this? A: It would have to start with me. JK: That’s the whole point. It starts with me. (San Diego 19Feb74)
Authoritarian Attitudes Reinforce It (1980)
We seem to not realise the central fact that we, each one of us, are responsible for what is going on in the world + We have all been led by others ... so we become utterly irresponsible: for our own acts, our own behaviour, our own vulgarity, and so on. (Ojai 17May80)
Isolation Sustains It (1982)
We have become totally irresponsible by isolating ourselves—British, French + I am responsible to keep this house clean. We all live on this earth, it is not the British earth, or French or German earth, it is our earth to live on. (Ojai 17Apr82)
Letting Down Our Children (1982)
We are irresponsible. If we have children our responsibility is to see that they are properly educated, not sent off to some kind of... you know, get rid of them as quickly as possible. This problem is complex and extraordinarily vital because if I have children ... I am responsible for the whole of their life, and they must be responsible for me for the whole of their life. I must see that they are properly educated, not butchered by war. (Brockwood 2Sep82)
Our Hearts Have Become Empty (1948)
It is the problem of each one of us. If we leave it to others, we become irresponsible, and our hearts become empty. (New Delhi 14Nov48)
Stepping Out of That Stream (1973-75)
If this is your problem ... you have come to it because you have looked round the world, you have looked at yourself, your struggles, pains, anxieties, fears ... the deceptions which you practise on others and yourself, the sorrow, the irresponsible life that one leads, the meaninglessness of it all + It is all there to be looked at. If you have really deeply rejected all that ... the question then is: can the mind free itself from its conditioning? (Saanen 17Jul73); We human beings live extraordinarily complex, irresponsible, ugly, stupid lives, at each other’s throats, battling about beliefs, about authority, politically and religiously. Our daily lives are a series of endless conflicts + That is our daily life, petty, accepting authority, quarrelling, bitter, not loved and aching to be loved, the agonies of loneliness, irresponsible relationship + It is a vast endless river. And when we die we’ll be like the rest, moving in the same stream as before when we were living. But the man who understands himself radically ... is not of that stream. He has stepped out of it. (Brockwood 13Sep75)
PART TWO: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THIS
For Your Own Limitations and Sorrows (1936)
You are entirely responsible for yourself, for your own limitations and sorrows. (Ojai 26Apr36)
For Your Loneliness, Moods, Hollowness (1968)
You are responsible for your own destruction and misery, your own loneliness, your own moods, your own empty hollowness. When you realise this, you either become bitter or insensitive to it all, pretending that all is well; or you become neurotic, vacillating between A and B, thinking that there is some difference between them, or you take to drink or drugs like so many people have done + [Or] you will abandon all hope of finding a solution by simply changing the outer environment of your life, by simply changing from B back to A, for you will know that A and B are the same. In both of them is the desire to achieve, to attain, to gain the ultimate pleasure, whether in so-called enlightenment, God, truth, love, a fat banking account or any other form of security. (Eight Conversations 1969 #8)
For Your Own Conditioning (1970)
A child being born in this culture is conditioned and he says, ‘I am not responsible for this, I am conditioned by the culture in which I have lived’. His responsibility is to free himself from the culture in which he has been brought up. (Saanen 6Aug70)
For Authority (1933)
You are responsible for such external authorities as religion, politics, morality, for economic and social standards + You have created these external standards from which you now try to free yourself. (Alpino 1Jul33); You yourself are responsible for the creation of authority, to which you have become a slave + Authority has no existence apart from him who creates it. You have created it, and until you are aware with your whole being of the cause of its creation, you will be a slave to it (Alpino 6Jul33)
For Exploitation (1933)
When you inquire into the unknown, you find a person who offers you a satisfactory explanation of it, and you take shelter in that person or in the idea that he gives you. That person or that idea becomes your exploiter. You yourself are responsible for that exploitation, not the man or the idea that exploits you. (Adyar 29Dec33)
For The Government That You Have (1948)
You are responsible for the government that you have, or are going to have + What you are, your government is. If you are communalistically minded, you will create a government that is like you. And what does it mean? More disturbance, more destruction. (Bangalore 15Aug48)
Its Values are Your Values (1948)
What do you mean by government? A few bureaucrats, cabinet members, the prime minister, and so on + Who elects them? You do, don’t you? You are responsible for them, are you not? You have the government that you want, so why do you object? + You are responsible and not the government, because the government is the projection, the extension of yourself - its values are your values. (Poona 26Sep48)
For Communal Violence (1948)
It is no good merely hanging one man - you have all contributed to Gandhi’s death + I am not a communalist, I am not Hindu or Indian, I am not nationalistic or internationalistic + Such identification leads to murders, disasters, chaos, and you are responsible for it, because you do believe in Hinduism with its many different facets, which are all absurd. You are either a Hindu, a Parsee, a Buddhist, or a Mussulman - you know, the whole rot + Since you have identified yourself with a group, you are responsible, aren’t you? You are the real cause of this murder. The real cause is you — not some mysterious, unknown cause. You are responsible, Sirs, and Ladies, with your beautiful saris and fashionable skirts. (Bombay 1Feb48)
For Commercialisation of Religion (1948-74)
Priests throughout the world have made religion into something profitable + It has become a business affair ... or it has become really commercial, not only physically but inwardly, deeply: do this and you will reach that + Unless this is put an end to, we are going to degenerate more and more and more. That’s why I feel so immensely responsible, personally; tremendously responsible to the audience that I talk to. When I go to the various schools in India, I feel I am responsible for those children. (San Diego 27Feb74); You are responsible for this organised religion, whether of the East or of the West, whether of the left or of the right, which, being based on authority, has separated man from man. (Bangalore 25Jul48)
For All The World’s Anger and Violence (1969)
I feel responsible for all this anger and violence in the world. I feel responsible. It isn’t just a lot of words + I can do something only if I am beyond anger myself, beyond violence, beyond nationality. This feeling that I must understand the violence in myself brings tremendous vitality and passion to find out. (Freedom from the Known Ch.6)
For Global Destruction and Misery (19689
You and I together are making this terrible world; we are causing so much destruction, so much misery. We are responsible. (Rome 12Mar68)
For Social and Economic Strife (1944)
We have, individually and so as a group, created social and economic strife and confusion. We alone are responsible for them and thus we, individually and so perhaps collectively, can bring order and clarity. To act collectively we must begin individually + Each one must understand and change radically those causes within himself which produce the outer conflict and misery. (Ojai 25Jun44)
For Your Own "Enemies" (1944)
We have created the enemy, the bandit, and through becoming ourselves the enemy in no way brings about an end to enmity + The enemy and the friend are the outcome of our thought and action. We are responsible for creating enmity. It is more important to be aware of our own thought and action than to be concerned with the foe and the friend, for right thinking puts an end to division. Love transcends the friend and the enemy. (Ojai 21May44)
For War Crimes (1945)
Q: Most of us have seen authentic pictures ... of the horrors and the barbarities of the concentration camps. What should be done with those who have perpetrated these monstrous atrocities? Should they not be punished? JK: Each one of us has built up this civilisation, each one has contributed towards its misery; each one is responsible for its actions + This civilisation is a collective result + By shouting loudly the cruelties of another country you think you can overlook those of your own. It is not only the vanquished but every country that is responsible for the horrors of war + You are responsible for war; you have brought it about by your everyday action of greed, ill will, passion. Each one of us has built up this competitive, ruthless civilisation, in which man is against man. You want to root out the causes of war, of barbarity in others, while you yourself indulge in them. This leads to hypocrisy and to further wars. (Ojai 27May45); Q: You said that each one of us is responsible for these terrible wars. Are we also responsible for the abominable tortures in concentration camps and for the deliberate extermination of a people in Central Europe? JK: Is it not very evident that each one of us is responsible for war? + Wars have definite sources and those who wish to extricate themselves from this periodical madness must search out those causes and free themselves. (Ojai 24Jun45)
For Evil (1944)
Who is responsible for evil but each one of us? As we have created good, however little, so we have create evil, however vast. Good and evil are part of us and are also independent of us. (Ojai 4Jun44)
For All This Confusion (1965-66)
It is like those scientists who invent the most dreadful means of destruction, and yet say that they love their children. The two can’t go together. They are responsible for this confusion; each one of us is also responsible, because we still hold on to our nationalities, to our particular religions, to our particular ideologies. (Saanen 6Aug66); Only a religious mind that can bring about order in this confused, sorrowing world. It is your responsibility—yours and nobody else’s — while living in this world, to bring about a creative life. (Bombay 3Mar65)
For This "Rotten Society" (1947)
Social organisation may be an independent mechanism but it has to be run by us. We have created it and we are responsible for it. We can be independent of it only when we, as individuals, do not contribute to the general hate, greed, ambition, and so on. (Ojai 2Jun40); Society is not responsible for you + You fit in when it suits you; and when it does not suit you, you are out of it. Similarly, society uses you + It absorbs you as a soldier when there is a war, and thrusts you into it. You accept it. There is mutual exploitation. (Madras 25Dec47)
For Harm Done By Your Group (1944-60)
If you are still part of the nation, the group, the race ... you are responsible for sorrow and cruelty. What you are your race, your nation, your group is. (Ojai 9Jul44); If you identify yourself with a country, with a community, with a group of people, with an idea, with the communalistic spirit, then you are responsible for any calamity that happens (Bombay 1Feb48); "It is very difficult to build up an organisation ... but so easy to destroy it. We have faced many crises, and somehow we have always managed to survive them, bruised, but still able to function. Now, however, we have reached a point where we have to do something drastic; but what? That is our problem." + You who have built up and are responsible for this institution, have made it what it is; you are the institution. (Commentaries on Living III 1960 #17
For Collective Efforts to Build A New Society (1966-68)
There must be a new society, a new community, of people who, though living in the world, are not of the world. The responsibility for such a community to come into being is yours. (New York 5Oct66); Only the religious mind is truly revolutionary + It is beyond the left, the right and the centre. To understand this and co-operate with each other is to bring about a different social order; and it is our responsibility. (Saanen 7Jul68)
For Creating A New World, However Small (1948-72)
This is our responsibility + However small may be the world we live in, if we can ... bring about a radically different point of view in our daily existence, then perhaps we shall affect the world at large. (Bangalore 25Jul48); It is your responsibility to bring about a tremendous change in the world. It is your responsibility, because you are part of this ... tremendous sorrow of man, this constant effort, struggle, pain and anxiety + Unless you realise that immense responsibility and come directly in contact with that responsibility ... do what you will—go to every temple, to every guru, to every Master, to every religious book in the world—your action has no meaning whatsoever + Those are mere escapes from actuality. (Bombay 10Feb65); As we are young - not I, sorry, I don’t belong to you - as you are young you have to create a new world. You are responsible for a new world. (Saanen 5Aug72)
PART THREE: DRIVING THE MESSAGE HOME
A Call For Awakening (1934)
I desire to awaken the other man so that he will act for himself ... awaken him to his own strength, to his own understanding, to his own responsibility, to his own action + You have to stand out alone against society, against your neighbours, against your family, against everything that society for generations has built up. (Auckland 30Mar34)
It’s a Fact — Do You Feel It? (1969-71)
It’s not an idea, it’s not a sentiment, it’s not an emotional assertion. It’s an absolute fact, that I am the world and the world is me. Because I have made this world—you have made it, we are responsible for it + I don’t know if you see that and if you feel it. All that is going on in the world, in the Middle East and the Far East, between Pakistan and another nation—you know, all that — it’s part of me, we are responsible for all that. (Brockwood 4Sep71); So sirs, you have listened to the speaker for an hour, or more, do you feel responsible at the end of it? Don’t answer me. To feel responsible means you have to change your whole way of life. (Saanen 9Aug71); Man, with all his anxieties, violence, despair, acquisitiveness, incessant competitiveness, has produced a certain structure which we call society, with its morality and its violence. As a human being, one is responsible for whatever is happening in the world: wars, confusion, the conflict that is going on both within and without. Each one of us is responsible, but I doubt whether most of us feel that at all (Stanford University 11Feb69)
You Are Not Facing It (1948)
It is you who are responsible for the appalling horror which we have come to, and you are not facing it. You go out and do exactly the same thing that you did yesterday. You feel your responsibility is over when you ask that question about education and pass your child on to a teacher who teaches and beats him. Don’t you see? Unless you love your wife, your children, and not merely use them as a tool or means for your own gratification, unless you are really touched by this, you will not find a right way of education. (New Delhi 19Dec48)
Unwilling to Look at the Facts (1950-71)
You are exploiting, you are responsible for the mess in the world; it is you who are responsible, not some economic maladjustment. That is the fact, which you are unwilling to look at + Your own desire seeks a way of not being disturbed, of walking along the usual path and becoming respectable. (Bombay 5Mar50); We must face what actually is: the misery, poverty, pollution, the wretched division of peoples and nations, the wars which we human beings have created—they haven’t come into existence miraculously. Each one of us is responsible for all this. We must face what actually is. (Saanen 29Jul71)
Are You Asleep? (1980)
Are we all asleep? Don’t laugh, sir. This is really very, very serious + Your country, this beautiful earth, is being destroyed by you, and we don’t seem to find a way of action that is right. (Madras 28Dec80)
Are You Blind? (1970-79)
Violence in the world is increasing + He says it’s not a problem. Why? Are you blind? Sorry, I’m not being personal. Are you insensitive or don’t you know, even read headlines in the paper? Everything indicates it. To somebody who says, "It doesn’t concern me"; I say, "What’s happened to you?" (Brockwood 13Sep79); You are blind to the danger of conditioning + Blind when your house is on fire? Blindness is part of the conditioning. (Saanen 6Aug70)
Ugly Things Behind the Curtain (1948)
The matter lies in your hands, Sirs, not in the hands of any government or system. If all of us really cared for children, we would have a new society tomorrow; but we really do not care + We have time for puja, we have time for earning money, time for clubs, time for amusements, but no time to give thought or care to the child. This is a fact, and you don’t want to face it. To face the fact means that you would have to give up your amusements and distractions; and do you mean to say you are going to give them up? Certainly not. So, you throw the children into the schools, and the teacher cares no more for them than you do. Why should he? He is there for his job, for his money, and so it goes on; and we come together for an evening to discuss education! It is really a marvellous world we have got. It is such a phoney superficial world, so ugly if you look behind the curtain (Bombay 13Mar48)
Your Life is a Battlefield (1968)
We don’t realise our individual human responsibility + Our life is one of conflict, our life is a battlefield. We are Dutchmen, we are Catholics, we are Hindus, we are Muslims ... living in a separate compartment, isolated, unapproachable. Naturally, when there is division there must be conflict; and that is what happens in human relationships, between husband and wife, between your neighbour and yourself (Amsterdam 11May68)
Your Children Will Suffer (1974)
If you don’t change ... God help you. You are facing great dangers, great disaster + You can’t shut your eyes. You may want to, but your children, your grandchildren are going to pay for what you are doing now. (Madras 15Dec74); Why aren’t you interested? + Your children are going to grow up, be killed — you follow? — all the monstrous things that are going to happen - why aren’t you interested? (Saanen 29Jul71)
When Will You Begin? (1933)
Each one of us is responsible for this system wherein acquisition, gain, power, authority ... play the most important part. We have made laws to preserve that system ... and we have become slaves to these laws + To put an end to the chaos in the world, the ruthless aggression and exploitation, you cannot look to any system. Only you yourselves can do it, when you become responsible (Oslo 5Sep33)
We Are All In The Same Boat (1965-79)
I am part of my society, I am conditioned by it. That society has encouraged my greed, envy, jealousy, ambition, brutality; and I have contributed to it my brutality, my ambition. We are both in it. I am part of it + It is me. Now, how am I to bring about a tremendous revolution within myself? (Bombay 14Feb65); If we could, see the world as it is, and ourselves as we are, and not a demarcation between the world and me and you ... we are all in the same boat + When one feels that then the responsibility begins to awaken. (Saanen 2Aug74); We are in the same boat. And that gives us a strange sense of responsibility. It is not I row and you sit still. Or you row and I look at the heavens! (Brockwood 17Jun79)
The World’s Problem is Your Problem (1948)
The first thing is to realise that the world’s problem is ... your problem and my problem. The world’s process is not separate from the individual process; they are a joint phenomenon + If once we really felt the responsibility of our own actions, how quickly we could bring to an end ... this appalling misery! (Bangalore 11Jul48)
Freedom Implies Responsibility (1968-80)
We are responsible - that is an actual fact - for everything that is happening in the world + Freedom implies responsibility + To be free without responsibility has no meaning. (New York 12Oct68); How is one to act, being responsible, because freedom implies responsibility? + Man is seeking absolute freedom + Absolute freedom implies absolute responsibility (Brockwood 16Sep72); So, we come back: freedom implies responsibility. Not doing what you want to do + Permissiveness ... breeds irresponsibility + When you feel responsible there is a flowering of real affection (San Diego 19Feb74); We were talking the other day about freedom, which we have so misused, we have so destroyed the full beauty of the word by permissiveness, by each one of us doing what he likes, not being responsible ... that is implied in that word ‘freedom’, not to do what each one of us wants to do (Bombay 20Jan80)
Relationship Implies It (1972)
Your books don’t talk about relationship, they talk about god, practice, methods, how to breathe, don’t do this, do that, and the everlasting back and forth + But I have been told that relationship is never mentioned + Relationship implies responsibility, as freedom does. And to be related is to live, that’s life. (Madras 16Dec72)
Collective Action Demands It (1935)
To bring about a true mass movement, which does not exploit the individual, each one of you must be responsible for your actions (Valparaiso 4Sep35); You yourself must be responsible, and not wait for some group to change the environment. (La Plata, Argentina 2Aug35); True collective action can take place only when you, the individual ... are awake and take full responsibility for your action + If you do not awaken to your full responsibility ... in that lies sorrow. (Mexico City 20Oct35); + There can be true co-operation only when there is intelligence; but to awaken that intelligence, every individual must be responsible for his effort and action + It must begin with you, individually. (Mexico City 27Oct35);
It Has a Moral Basis (1974)
Our whole content of consciousness is the ground of battle ... and we call this living + Where does the flame of love or compassion, tenderness, gentleness, come into all that? It doesn’t. That’s why our society as it is now has no sense of moral responsibility + It doesn’t exist. (San Diego 26Feb74); So sir, we have come to this point: What is responsibility with regard to morality, with regard to action in a world where ... action is a continuation of the past as tradition, and incapable of meeting the present? What is a man [to do] who sees all this and feels utterly responsible? (Saanen 2Aug74)
It is Part of Goodness (1979)
Our question is: Living in this world, married, children, jobs, is it possible to be good? -- To be good in the sense we are using it carefully, in which is implied great responsibility, care, attention, diligence, love. The word ‘good’ contains all that. (Ojai 7Apr79)
It Releases Intelligence (1935-63)
To be merely in revolt is comparatively useless, but to free oneself through one’s own action, releases creative intelligence + You yourself must be responsible, and not wait for some collective group to change the environment. (La Plata Argentina 2Aug35); Intelligence comes, when one is aware of these problems and is able to meet them ... as a human being capable of bearing the responsibility (Life Ahead Part II Ch.4 1963)
It is an Inescapable Flame (1974)
We human beings have created this society - the misery, the poverty, the extraordinary sense of brutality and wars, and all that + And we don’t feel, as human beings, responsible at all. We are all concerned with our own little problems, with our own critical, rather asinine attitude towards institutions, towards this and towards that. What is the place of morality when there is no authority, when the so-called religions are fading away, when you can do almost what you like - steal, murder? We feel utterly helpless. And for all this - this corruption, this destruction, this great misery and suffering - we are responsible. We don’t feel that responsibility. And what can one do to make, or to help you realise the utter inescapable flame of responsibility that you must have? (Saanen 2Aug74)
There is No Way Out (1965)
There is no way out through any temple, through any sacred book. One has to realise the seriousness of all this, put away all that nonsense, and come face to face with facts—which is our life, our everyday brutal, anxious, insecure, cruel life (Bombay 10Feb65)
Your House is On Fire (1948-80)
I don’t think you realise what a catastrophic state the world is in at the present time, otherwise you wouldn’t be so casual about all this. We are at the edge of a precipice—moral, social and spiritual. You don’t see that the house is burning and you are living in it + You let things drift, and the world’s catastrophe is approaching. (Bangalore 11Jul48); The house is literally burning; there remains only the final explosion, the atomic bomb + Please believe me there is no time (Bombay 19Feb61); There must be a sense of urgency, because the house is burning. There is so much misery, chaos, callousness, war, indifference, butchery going on in the world + One cannot be indifferent; one cannot hide behind formulas, concepts, gods, theories. They have no meaning any more; and I doubt if they ever had. (Madras 29Dec65); It is absolutely necessary to be serious, because the house is burning, not only the house called India, but the world is burning. We have to respond to it totally, not bring a little bucket of sand and hope to put the fire out + Our being, the human being is at stake. (New Delhi 15Dec66); When a house is burning, as our house - our world - is burning, you do not discuss about theories, nor ask who set it on fire (San Juan 10Sep68); The house is burning ... the house that man has built for millennia + We ... are part of this mess. We are responsible for this. To be indifferent ... one must be extraordinarily insensitive, callous + You don’t sit back and say, ‘Who set it on fire?’ + You act. (Rome 4Nov69); When the house is burning; you do not talk about gradually putting out the fire; you have no time + What will make man change? (Brandeis University 18Oct68); You are facing great dangers, great disaster, your house is burning and you can’t shut your eyes (Madras 15Dec74); Your house is burning and you don’t seem to be aware of it. Your country, this beautiful earth, is being destroyed by you, and we don’t seem to find a way of action that is right. (Madras 28Dec80); One has to do something when the house is burning! You don’t say, ‘It is impossible ... I can’t do anything about it,’ and sit and watch it burn! (Saanen 8Aug69)
Driving The Message Home (1969)
I’m asking, whether it’s not important to make man realise that he’s solely responsible + Absolutely! For what he does, what he thinks, how he acts. Q: That is your message. How to nail it? JK: By driving it in every day (laughs). And driving it into oneself, because man is so eager to put his responsibility on others. (Saanen 26Jul69)
Slowly It May Seep In (1974)
So I say, all right. I go on pointing out, pointing out. I’m not trying to change them. I’m not doing propaganda because I don’t believe in propaganda. It’s a lie. I say, look what you do when you are irresponsible. You are destroying your children. You send them to war, to be killed, to kill and be maimed. + Why do you do it? And I go into it. It begins to slowly seep in. (San Diego 19Feb74)
To Those Who Long For Peace (1936-84)
When you realise your individual responsibility in action, then there will be a possibility of peace ... with your neighbour. Then there will be a possibility of ending the horror of strife, the horror of man killing man. (Ommen 4Aug36); Wars will be stopped only ... when you realise your responsibility, when you do not leave it to somebody else + If you see the urgency of immediate action and do not postpone, then you will transform yourself. Peace will come only ... when you are at peace with your neighbour. (Bangalore 11Jul48); Do we, sitting here, so-called peacefully, realise our responsibility as human beings? Every human being throughout the world ... suffers, has fear, pleasure, loneliness, despair, anxiety, confusion (United Nations, New York 17Apr84)
PART FOUR: IT’S YOUR PROBLEM
Self-Images Are Your Problem (1982)
You have an image: you are a marvellous cook or carpenter, great talker + We have created these images for ourselves + They are the whole of me + If I have an image about myself ... you come along and tell me: Don’t be an idiot. I get hurt + And I carry that image, that hurt, for the rest of my life + (Laughter) Don’t laugh; it’s your problem, not mine. (Ojai 1May82)
Absence of Love is Your Problem (1967-84)
Love ... has no yesterday nor tomorrow, it is always in the active present. Not: I will love, or I have loved. When there is that quality of love, what is your relationship to your wife or husband or to your neighbour? It’s your problem, not mine—don’t wait for me to answer it + It’s your problem—how are you going to deal with it? (Rishi Valley 11Nov67); How does one live with a husband who doesn’t care? Either you say, goodbye, old man ... or you put up with him ... getting more and more indifferent to each other, more and more isolated, more and more depressed + It’s your problem, not mine. So what will you do? (Bombay 9Feb84)
False Attachments are Your Problem (1974)
Why is the mind attached? Have you ever gone into this? Attached to furniture, attached to a house, attached to your wife, attached to god knows what - why? Come on sirs, it is your problem, not mine. And that is one of the reasons for great suffering. (Saanen 23Jul74)
Impulsive Commitments are Your Problem (1948)
I marry at 20 or 25, and I have to live for the rest of my life with a woman whom I have not known. I have not known a thing about her, and yet you ask me to live with her for the rest of my life + As I grow and observe, I find her to be completely different from me. Her interests are different from mine + And yet we have children—that is the most extraordinary thing. I have established a relationship whose significance I do not know. I have neither discovered it nor understood it. Sirs, don’t look at the ladies and smile; it is your problem. (New Delhi 19Dec48)
Moral Conduct is Your Problem (1973)
If we are at all serious we have to consider the problems of relationship, the problems of morality, love, death and if there is something beyond thought + Please listen with a certain affection, care, because it is your problem, not mine (Ojai 7Apr73)
Finding The Right Action is Your Problem (1961)
You know what is happening in the world + You know there must be a tremendous revolution within one to meet the challenge of this chaotic, messy world + To bring about a radical change—is not that your problem? + If you do not see it, let us discuss it. If you see it, then it is your problem, not mine + And if it is not your problem, then I say, ‘Why isn’t it?’ (London 2May61)
What Is Wrong With You? (1971)
It is like a house burning and you watching it, not doing anything about it. It is your problem. If you are not concerned with this problem there is something very wrong with you. (Madras 10Jan71)
PART FIVE: WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Why Don’t We Change? (1985)
Q: Why do we not change? JK: Are you satisfied where you are? Q: No. JK: Then change. (Rajghat 21Nov85)
What Are You Doing About Cruelty? (1985)
Q: Why is there so much cruelty in nature? JK: Why is there so much cruelty in human beings? + Why are you so cruel? + Sir, have you ever considered that all human beings suffer whether they live in Russia, America, China, India, Pakistan, wherever + How do you solve that suffering? + What are you doing about it? Q: I have come here to be enlightened by you. K: What shall we do together, sir ... to get rid of sorrow? Q: I don’t know. (Rajghat 21Nov85)
What Will You Do About the World’s Suffering? (1973)
What will you do with all the hurts that human beings have accumulated? If you don’t solve this problem, do what you will, it will lead to more sorrow. Let us proceed. + Don’t escape from suffering + Live with it ... completely + What takes place? Watch. The mind is very clear, very sharp + Suffering transformed into passion is something enormous. From that arises a mind that can never be hurt. Full stop. That’s the secret. (Bombay 25Jan73)
What Will You Do About Your Government? (1979)
What will you do when the majority elect somebody who is corrupt, power-minded? + Answer me sir, it is your problem, not mine, what will you do? It’s your problem, sir, don’t just leave it to me + What will you do? Q: You have got to change yourself first. If you are at the centre of the change it permeates. JK: Right, sir, change yourself first. Will you? + Q: Why not? JK: I didn’t say, why not. Will you? Q: I will. JK: When? Q: I am, right now. All the time I have been listening to you. JK: Good, sir + Then how will you, if you change, affect the mass? + What will you do? Q: Education is the only way. JK: Who will bring about the right kind of education? You see you are dodging the question. You move from government, to education, to individual. So it comes down to this, sir, doesn’t it, if one may point it out: that we don’t take the responsibility, each one of us, to see the thing doesn’t happen + Therefore you are going to have the government that you deserve. Right, sir? (Madras 9Jan79)
What Will You Do About Your Immoral Society? (1981)
Q: Your appeal to stand up against the corrupt and immoral society like a rock protruding from the mid-stream of the river, confuses me JK: Society is based on relationship + If that relationship is ... just mutual exploitation ... it must inevitably bring about corruption. So what will you do about all this? That’s really the question: What will you do, as a human being, living in this marvellous world ... this earth, [which] we are destroying, as we are destroying ourselves + What will you do? Will we, each one of us, see that we are not corrupt? We create the abstraction which we call society. If our relationship with each other is destructive, constant battle, struggle, pain, despair, then we will inevitably create an environment which will represent what we are. So what are we going to do about it, each one of us? It’s up to you. (Madras 6Jan81)
How Will You Remain Uncorrupted? (1981)
You know this country is in a state of corruption, that is the way of life here + What are you going to do about it? Q: I really don’t know, sir. JK: But I am asking you, what will you do? Q: (Inaudible) JK: Yes, sir, yes, I know all that. What will you do about it? What is your responsibility? + Will you be responsible not to be corrupt yourself? Q: It is going to be a lonely life. JK: Lead a lonely life. Stick to what you think is right + You need a lot a strength to stand up against all this. (Rishi Valley 15Dec81)
What Will You Do About Your Relationships? (1982)
Why do we have such desperate, lonely, ugly conflicts in human relationships? + Please understand all this; it’s your life + What will you do? + I have talked about it; what will you do? Go home and forget all about it, or enquire if it is possible to love another without wanting a single thing from that, neither emotionally, physically, in any way + Will you have this quality? + What will you do? Sir, please, do ask this question, find out for yourself, why this flame doesn’t exist in you. Why you have become such paupers. Unless we put our house in order—our house which is ourselves—there will be no order in the world. You may meditate for the rest of your life, without that your meditation has no meaning. So please most respectfully we are asking, what will you do after hearing all this, what’s your response? (New Delhi 31Oct82)
What Will You Do About Conflict? (1957)
A mind-heart that is free from all labels, whether Christian, Buddhist, Communist, or what you will, is capable of bringing about a different world. Now, sirs, you have listened to the problem. What will you do about it? You will probably ... say "It sounds reasonable and true", but when you go outside you will again fall into the trap, into the old habits + Unfortunately, though you hear what is being said, you will forget about it and go back to your old way of thinking. What a strange thing! (Colombo 13Jan57)
What Will You Do About Dangerous Conditioning? (1978)
Do we see the danger of conditioning? + If you don’t see it, now wait a minute, sir, what will make you see it? + If we all got together and said, for god’s sake, let’s all move together, it is finished. But we don’t see the danger. So what will make you or help you to see the danger of being conditioned? + Does it mean we are only concerned with being immediately safe, secure? + We are only concerned with our little world of our own making is that it? + So what makes you see the danger? That’s what I am trying to get at + What will you do about it? (Ojai 11Apr78)
What Will You Do To Be Free? (1983)
Do you really want to be free? What will you do to be free? You know you go to Tirupati or some temple and say, please God, I’ll give you something, you give me something else. S: It is a business deal. JK: Right ... a rotten business. But the priests get a lot out of it. So do you want to be free? + I am asking you a very simple question + If you want to be free, you, we three will work it out. You understand what I am saying? Work it out, step by step, so that at the end of it you are completely free of fear. Right? If that is what you want ... what will you do? You must do something to show you are serious, your integrity, not just say, I would like to be free from fear, tell me all about it. (Rishi Valley 12Dec83)
What Will You Do About Your Attachments? (1980)
Most of us are attached to something or other; it may be a piece of property, old furniture, a picture, or an idea, or a belief, an experience. Watch yourself, please. You know you are attached to something + The consequence of all that is the loss of it, the fear of losing it, jealousy, anxiety, hatred, a sense of being deeply wounded. So attachment will inevitably lead to all this. Right? + Now what will you do about it? (Ojai 11May80)
What Will You Do About All Your Past Hurts? (1976)
The past comes over and takes charge. Are you aware of this movement of the past taking charge of things? + That means you live in the past. You are dead + Human beings are hurt from childhood, school, college, you know, the whole business of existence + There are the past hurts, and you want to prevent future hurts + If you see that ... then what will you do about it? (Brockwood 31Aug76)
What Will You Do About The Shock of Sudden Loss? (1973)
Let us take ... the shock of suddenly losing something, losing somebody + The shock of something that has suddenly come to an end. The brain cells receive this shock. Now what will you do about it? (Bombay 25Jan73)
What Will You Do About Loneliness? (1947)
We try to fill our emptiness with various kinds of knowledge, relationship or things + That is our existence. When you realise what you are doing, do you still think you can fill that void? You have tried every means of filling this void of loneliness. + Have you succeeded in filling it or have you merely covered it up? + So-called meditation is also an escape. It does not matter much that you change your way of escape. How then will you find what to do about this loneliness? You can only find what to do when you have stopped escaping. (Madras 9Nov47)
What Will You Do About Second-Hand Living? (1971)
What will you do with all the images you have collected about your country, about your leaders - political, religious - about your theories? Your mind is burdened with formulas, theories, opinions, judgements. What will you do about them? You see, you have not gone into it, you have not thought about any of these things at all. You will read the Gita, the Upanishads or repeat or go to some meetings where commentaries are made on the Gita and the Upanishads. Just think of spending your lives on somebody else’s words. Now what will you do with all the collection of images, beliefs, formulas — what will you do with them all? Because that is what you are, you understand? You are the formula. (Bombay 7Feb71)
What Will You Do About Tedium? (1961)
What will you do about it, sir? I have to work from morning to night, let us say, in a little London office, with an unpleasant boss. Going to work every day by bus or tube. Routine, excruciatingly boring people, the horror of it all. What shall I do? Circumstances are forcing me to do it. I have a responsibility: a wife, children, a mother and all the rest of it. I cannot go away, escape into a monastery—which would be another horror: the routine of getting up every morning at two o’clock, saying the same old prayers to the same old deities, and all the rest of it. In this world of routine, boredom and squalor we all do everything to escape (London 9May61)
What Will You Do About Your Chattering Mind? (1980)
All these questions, two hundred and fifty or more, are somehow not dealing with the facts of oneself. You understand sir? Why is my mind chattering, so restless? + Have you ever asked that question of yourself? + And what will you do about it? Right? (Ojai 15May80)
What Will You Do About Your Mediocrity? (1983)
We want to follow the same old pattern, so we become mediocre + You may be a scientist, an engineer and so on, but your feelings, your thinking are very primitive. You are still mediocre. What will you do about it? + If you don’t break through the pattern now, your future is what you are now. Is it clear? You understand what I am saying—if I don’t change now, my future will be exactly what I am now, slightly modified. (Rishi Valley 12Dec83)
What Will You Do About Your Hypocrisy? (1977)
Do you know that you lead a double life, a contradictory life, a hypocritical life? Q: Many of us know. JK: All right, if you know what will you do about it? Just put up with it, carry on everyday ... like this? Q: (Inaudible) JK: I understand, sir. What will you do, sir + What will you do about it? Just talk about it? Don’t you want to break it? + That way of life brings a lot of problems, doesn’t it? (Madras 27Dec77)
How Will You Meet The Challenge of the New? (1954)
Now, sirs, you have listened for nearly an hour, and what will you do about it? If you merely go back to your old routine you will be incapable of responding to the challenge of the new + Your response can be new only when you are completely out of your tradition, when you are no longer a Hindu, a Christian, a Buddhist or a Communist, when you no longer belong to any particular society. Only then are you capable of being free and responding truly. (Madras 12Dec54)
What Will You Do About All These Things? (1983)
Q: You said it is necessary to have no opinions. I feel it is necessary to have opinions about such serious things as Nazism, Communism, the spread of armaments, the use of torture by governments. One can’t just sit and observe these things taking place. Mustn’t one say something, or perhaps do something? JK: You are not going to catch me! + Britain is selling armaments to Argentina. See the ridiculousness of it. It is a fact + You may have strong opinions that this should not happen. What are you going to do? Join a group, demonstrate, shout, be beaten up by the police, tear gas? + The armaments thing has been going on for centuries. Will you stop paying taxes? + What will you do about all these things? They are all wrong, cruel, they bring about a great deal of violence - right? That is a fact + I am against all this. And what value has that opinion? What can I do with my opinion? + Will it prevent torture? Or is the whole thing much more deep than mere having opinions? + If we could go into that, which requires much more serious enquiry than holding on to opinions, then we will enter into an area where we might do something. (Saanen 26Jul83)
We Have Enormous Work To Do Together
Look Sirs, we have enormous work to do together, we have great responsibility. The world is in such a fearful mess, a frightening state, and when we leave [this gathering] we must be entirely different human beings, utterly responsible, to bring about a different world. (Saanen 14Jul68)
Taking the First Step (1980)
In our last letter we put the question "What will you do about yourself and your relationship with the world?" + It is a challenge you must answer. You have to begin with yourself + What is the first step? (Letters to the Schools 15Jan80)
APPENDIX ONE: RESPONSIBILITY IN EDUCATION
Teaching the Next Generation (1971)
If each one of us in this tent felt responsible, do you know what we could do? We would form schools, we would sacrifice, we would sell our jewels, not sit comfortably back and say, "Oh, we must teach our children to be different"—you know all the things. It is up to you, sirs. All this shows that we don’t feel responsible. And that’s why the coming generation is like us, only with longer hair + They will be like us when they grow up—confused, unhappy, uncertain, tremendously caught up with their own misery, and their children will be like them + To feel responsible means ... you are not concerned about yourself but about the child. You know love means that, concern for another. You know when you plant a small tree you look after it, don’t you, you water it, you protect it against the sun and the wind. And the child needs security. (Saanen 9Aug71)
Each Generation is Responsible For the Next (1968)
You are still living in a world of mechanical existence. This generation will be responsible for the next, through education and all the rest of it, so there is no ‘eventual’ change at all. We are becoming more and more mechanical, not less. (Amsterdam 12May68)
Education Is the Way (1979)
Q: Education is the only way. JK: Who will bring about the right kind of education? + It comes down to this, sir, doesn’t it, if one may point it out: that we don’t take the responsibility, each one of us, to see the thing doesn’t happen + Will you educate your servants, if you have them? Come on, sirs. Educate their children? + Will you do it? Absolute silence! (Madras 9Jan79)
It is Our Direct Responsibility (1953)
Those of us who are deeply interested in this problem will have to begin to understand ourselves and thereby help to transform society; we will make it our direct responsibility to bring about a new approach to education. (Education and The Significance of Life Ch.2)
Responsibility of the Parents (1953)
Being absorbed in their own problems, many parents shift to the teacher the responsibility for the well-being of their children; and then it is important that the educator help in the education of the parents as well. (Education and The Significance of Life Ch.6 1953)
Responsibilities of the Students (1975-80)
You are here in a school + You are sent here by your parents and you have also said you want to come here. So ... you are responsible for this place. It is your home and you are responsible for it, for the house and the garden and for keeping it orderly. And you are responsible to your parents, to the people here, to the neighbours—the whole of it. And naturally people are watching what is going on here. They have given money, they have children here, there are the neighbours, the visitors, the people who work here who are interested, they are all watching. (Beginnings of Learning I Ch.4 1975); You are at school with this responsibility: to study, to learn, to act. This is the main purpose of education. (Letters to the Schools 15Jan80)
Responsibility of The Educator (1953)
It is the responsibility of the educator to bring about a different human being, fearless, self-reliant, who will create a society totally unlike ours (Poona 31Jan53); The responsibility for building a peaceful and enlightened society rests chiefly with the educator + He has a very great opportunity to help in achieving that social transformation. (Education and The Significance of Life Ch.5 1953);
Joint Responsibilities (1952-79)
At what level are we talking about education? Are we talking about a school where both the educator and the student feel totally responsible? (Brockwood 17Jun79); It is important in a school of this kind that ... you are helped to be intelligent ... so that you can meet all the difficulties of life + It is the responsibility of the students as well as of the teachers to create such a state of affairs + Find out for yourself how to think about a problem + It is the responsibility of the teachers, of the parents and of you all to help to bring about intelligence. (Rajghat 12Dec52); Now you have listened, the teachers, the principal and students, you have all listened. What are you going to do about it? You know, it is as much your responsibility, as students, as it is the responsibility of the teachers. It is the responsibility of the students to demand, to ask, not just to say "I will sit down, teach me". You must be tremendously intelligent, sensitive, alive, unprejudiced. (Krishnamurti On Education Ch.3 1974)
Responsibilities to Our School (1973)
You see, love is not sentiment or sentimentality. It is something very hard, if I can use that word. You understand what it means? + It has ... no sentimentality, it has no clothing around it. We know now what we mean by affection, love and sentimentality. How do we create the environment here, the terrain, the soil in which there is that sense of freedom from pressure and hence non-dependence, so that you yourself generate this tremendous feeling of living, of vitality, of flame—whatever you like to call it. How do we set about it? It’s your responsibility. Do you now understand the meaning of that word? What will you do to bring about this atmosphere? Each one of us is responsible. It’s not the Principal; you are responsible. Then what will you do? (Brockwood 22May73)
We Are In This Together (1979)
We are both in the same boat. And that gives us a strange sense of responsibility. It is not I row and you sit still. Or you row and I look at the heavens! + That creates a quality ... an intensity. + Can we educate them that way? (Brockwood 17Jun79)
What Will You Do About Competition in School? (1974)
Every case has its own lesson. You do not feel it because you yourself are competing. Are you not competing for money, position prestige? As long as you do not feel strongly about this, what will you do? You cannot wait till you completely understand. So what will you do? + Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased. (Krishnamurti On Education Ch.5 1974)
What Will You Do About Cruelty in School? (1980)
Cruelty is an infectious disease and one must strictly guard oneself against it. Some students seem to have this peculiar infection and they somehow gradually dominate the others. Probably they feel it is very manly, for their elders are often cruel in their words, in their attitudes, in their gestures, in their pride + The responsibility of the student ... is to avoid any form of cruelty + Cruelty has no place in our life at any time. + In our intimate personal relationships there is also a great deal of cruelty, anger, hurting each other. You understand, as a student, how important it is to realise that any form of cruelty not only hardens your heart but perverts your thinking and distorts your actions. The mind, like the heart, is a delicate instrument, sensitive and very capable, and when cruelty and oppression touch it then there is a hardening of the self + What will you do about it? (Letters to the Schools 1Feb80)
Discovering Your Responsibilities (1973)
Life is a well of deep waters. One can come to it with small buckets and draw only a little water, or one can come with large vessels, drawing plentiful waters that will nourish and sustain. While one is young is the time to investigate, to experiment with everything. The school should help its young people to discover their vocations and responsibilities, and not merely cram their minds with facts and technical knowledge; it should be the soil in which they can grow without fear, happily and integrally. (Education and The Significance of Life Ch.2 1953)
Gaining a Wider Sense of Responsibility (1978)
We are saying very definitely and most emphatically that only the total responsibility for all mankind ... can basically transform the present state of society [which] is corrupt, degenerate and wholly immoral + We are destroying the earth and all the things on it are being destroyed for our gratification + Education is not merely the teaching of various academic subjects, but the cultivation of total responsibility in the student + If you do not feel this yourself profoundly, talking about responsibility is meaningless + Now can you in the teaching of mathematics, physics and so on ... convey to the student that he is responsible for the whole of mankind? He may be working for his own career, his own way of life, but then that will not make his mind narrow. (Letters to the Schools 15Dec78)
Going Beyond the Curriculum (1964)
You may learn to be very tidy, have good manners, and you may pass all your examinations; but, to give primary importance to these superficial things when the whole structure of society is crumbling, is like cleaning and polishing your fingernails while the house is burning down. Nobody talks to you about all this; nobody goes into it with you. As you spend day after day studying certain subjects - mathematics, history, geography - so also you should spend a great deal of time talking about these deeper matters, because this makes for richness of life. (This Matter of Culture Ch.4)
The Whole Thing (1972)
We are a community, here ... fairly isolated and set apart. What is our responsibility to each other and to the students? + We are co-operating to bring about a different kind of education + It is our responsibility + So what shall we do? You can’t postpone it + If you do, the children are being destroyed + That responsibility is a sacred thing ... extraordinarily important + He is here and we have to look after him physically, mentally, morally ... the whole thing, not merely giving him information + Responsibility implies all that. Do we feel that? (Rishi Valley 31Dec72)
Collective Action For a Better World (1980)
We need to bring about a good society in which all human beings can live happily in peace, without violence, with security. You as a student are responsible for this. A good society doesn’t come into existence through some ideal, a hero or a leader, or some carefully planned system + You have understood the problem, which is not difficult; so what will you do? Most of you are instinctively kind, good and wanting to help, unless you have been too trodden down and twisted + So what will you do? + The educator ... will want to help you. The question is what will you do together? (Letters to the Schools 1Jan80)
APPENDIX TWO: BOURGEOIS "RESPONSIBILITIES"
What They Call "Responsibility" (1967-69)
Most parents unfortunately think they are responsible for their children and their sense of responsibility takes the form of telling them what they should do and what they should not do, what they should become and what they should not become + Parents want their children to have a secure position in society. What they call responsibility is part of that respectability they worship ... becoming a perfect bourgeois. (Freedom From the Known 1969. Ch.10) "Responsibility" [so-called] is part of the respectability which we worship. Where there is respectability ... we are only concerned with being a perfect bourgeois. (Amsterdam 24May67)
Getting Caught in the Little (1974)
If you say the little is the first step, then you are lost, you are caught in the little ... little family, little house, little husband, little money, little clothes. You have made that first and so you have little responsibility in society. You are all so terribly respectable. Why do you put the little first? (Krishnamurti On Education 1974 Ch. 2 "The Long Vision")
Your Little Family (1981-83)
We are responsible as human beings for humanity, not only ... for one’s family (Ojai 12May81); You can’t escape from it. You may limit yourself to certain immediate responsibilities, but you as a human being ... are also responsible for mankind. (Calcutta 28Nov82); Responsibility not only to your little family, but responsible ... for the rest of humanity. (Ojai with Jonas Salk 27Mar83) When I first met my wife, I said, I love this woman + But gradually boredom comes ... routine + She also gets bored with the whole thing + Of course, there is tenderness, care, there is so-called responsibility, insurance, the pride of a clever son who is climbing the ladder, and so on. (Saanen 6Aug67); [One kind of] love is merely desire and pleasure and so-called responsibility, ... for the family + My family and me first ... and all the rest of it. (London 1Oct67)
Climbing Up a Little Ladder (1953)
You may have a very good job and you may be climbing up the ladder of success; but if there is ambition, if there is the struggle to be somebody, does that not entail fear? + Fear imposed by tradition, by the so-called responsibility of the edicts of society, or your own fear of death, of insecurity, of disease—all this prevents true freedom ... does it not? (Poona 31Jan53)
Our Petty Little "Responsibilities" (1979)
I would like to talk about the question of responsibility and who is answerable to what + If we merely answer to, or are responsible for, a very small part of it ourselves and our little circle, our little desires, our petty little responsibilities, our selfish enclosed movement if we only respond to that ... we are bound to create suffering for ourselves [and] for the whole of mankind. (Saanen 23Jul74); Wherever you are, you are responsible for everything around you. But if you are merely responsible for this one little thing, that responsibility assumes a very narrow, rather shoddy little meaning. (Ojai 17Apr79)
They Are Forced On You (1954-75)
Your teachers and your parents find it so much easier to impose, through education, through control, something that you should do. What they consider to be your duty, your Dharma, your "responsibility", is forced on you ... what society demands, what teachers have told me, what tradition has said. (Rajghat 12Jan54); Your parents ... feel called upon to watch over your behaviour, what you do, what you study and what you might become. Their idea of moral conduct is based upon their conditioning + The past generation has built a social structure and they want you to conform to it. They think it is moral and they feel they know much more than you do. And you in your turn, if you conform will see that your children also conform. So gradually the authority of conformity becomes moral excellence. (Beginnings of Learning II Ch.8 1975)
Weighed Down by "Responsibilities", So-Called (1953-62)
We have children, husbands, wives, grandmothers, mothers-in-law, houses, property, jobs and all this makes us feel very responsible + This is a very difficult issue + Let us remain with that word "responsibility", because we are all so weighed down by it. We say, "I have got to go to the office every day, whether I like it or not, because I have a family to maintain and it is my responsibility to earn money"; or, "It is my responsibility to educate my children", or "It is my responsibility to be a good citizen, to become a soldier", and so on (Saanen 25Jul62); We pass certain examinations and then, with luck, we get a job—which often means endless routine for the rest of our life + We are forced to continue with it because we have no other means of livelihood. We may want to do something entirely different, but commitments and "responsibilities" hold us down (Education and The Significance of Life Ch.3 1953)
Where is Our Feeling for Humanity? (1945)
We have lost the feeling of humanity; we feel responsible only to the class or group to which we belong; we feel responsible to a name, to a label. We have lost compassion, the love of the whole (Ojai Talk 5 24Jun45)
Covering the Whole Earth (1980-85)
It brings ... a sense of tremendous responsibility for all things connected with human beings + When you actually realise this immensity then the particular entity as "me" seems so insignificant ... with all my little worries, it becomes so shoddy. When you see this fact, when you feel this in your heart ... you cover the earth ... cover the earth, nature, ecology, and all that + You want to protect everything you can. Because you are responsible for all this. (Ojai 13May80); Are we doomed for ever to remain in this state of being impressed, shaped, moulded, conditioned? + We are so gullible, we invent so many reasons for doing that, for following, leading, surrendering oneself to something that is so convincing, satisfying, so we hand over all the so-called world responsibility to another. This has been our lot. (Brockwood 29Aug85)
APPENDIX THREE: VAGARIES OF THAT WORD
That Word Is Very Complex (1985)
The word ‘responsibility’ is very complex + Sir, look at it. I’m just looking at it for the first time + I really want to go into this question (Ojai 16May85)
The "Dictionary Meaning" (1972-79)
I looked up the word ‘responsibility’ in the dictionary just now. It means to respond, either totally or according to immediate demands—political, personal, nationalistic ... religiously, economically (16Sep72); Do you know what that word means ... according to the dictionary? + The capacity to respond ... adequately to the job or to the environment or to the incidents around me. I must respond to my highest capacity: that is what the word means. (Brockwood 22May73); The word means to respond + Do we respond to another according to our inclination, tendencies, desires, or to the other’s partiality, desires, idiosyncrasies; or do we respond totally, wholly, completely without being personal ... narrow, limited? (Ojai 17Apr79)
"Responsibility As A Human Being" (1956-85)
Your Ramas and Sitas ... have gone in smoke + Your responsibility as a human being becomes extraordinarily great. (New Delhi 15Dec56); What we, as human beings, have to do, our responsibility, is to bring about a psychological revolution (Bombay 14Feb65); You and I as human beings are responsible for all this chaos and misery (Saanen 9Jul67); As a human being, one is responsible for whatever is happening in the world (Stanford 11Feb69); Appalling things are going on in the world, for which we are responsible as human beings (Brockwood 13Sep70); Our responsibility as a human being is to bring about a radical change (Saanen 3Aug74); You are responsible as a human being ... whether you like it or not (Saanen 2Aug75); Our responsibility as a human being is ... to bring about a transformation in that immoral society (Saanen 24Jul77); We, as human beings, are responsible for the world with all its violence (Brockwood 15Sep79); How serious your responsibility is, as human beings (Bombay 16Jan80); We are responsible as human beings for humanity, not only ... for one’s family (Ojai 12May81); I am responsible as a human being for what is happening in the world (Ojai 17Apr82); We can find out our responsibility as a whole human being (Brockwood 28Aug82); You are ... responsible as a human being for the rest of humanity. (Ojai with Jonas Salk 27Mar83); You can’t escape from it + you as a human being ... are responsible for mankind. (Calcutta 28Nov82); What is your responsibility as a human being ... what’s your action? (Bombay 4Feb84); Do we, sitting here ... realise our responsibility as human beings? (New York UN 17Apr84); It’s your responsibility as a human being to find out why after fifty thousand years we are what we are. (Ojai 19May84); It’s our responsibility as human beings ... to find out for oneself whether this conflict ... could end. (Washington 20Apr85); Will you undertake the responsibility to see that you, as a human being on this earth, will not be violent? (Brockwood 18Jun85)
So-Called "Responsibilities" (1953-67)
The so-called responsibility of the edicts of society (Poona 31Jan53); There is so-called responsibility, insurance, the pride of a clever son (Saanen 6Aug67); Then love is merely desire and pleasure and so-called responsibility ... for the family (London 1Oct67)
A Word Used by Clever Politicians (1967-68)
I wonder what we mean by that word ‘responsible’. To me that is a very ugly word + Responsible for my husband, for my children, responsible to the country, to the Government, to the God that man has invented. I wonder why we use that word at all. Are you responsible when you love? + Do investigate the meaning of that word. (Amsterdam 24May67); The word ‘responsibility’ is an ugly word. We use that word only when there is no love; it is a word used by the clever politician, or by a dominating woman or man. (New York, New School 12Oct68)
Examine The Feeling Behind That Word (1962)
Why do we feel "responsible"? When do we use that word? Q: When there is a sense of obligation. JK: Yes, sir ... when you feel that you are obliged, that you have got to do something. You may not like it, but you feel that you have got to do it. Go behind the word and look at the feeling + You talk about responsibility only when you feel that you have got to do something; you say it is your duty, that everything depends on you, and so on. Can one live in this world without the feeling of "responsibility", without feeling that what one is doing is a burden? (Saanen 25Jul62)
When It Implies Duty, and Division (1985)
Responsibility implies division, basically. Right? + It implies duty. I must do this. Duty to my country, to my ideal + So, is it possible to live without division? (Ojai 16May85)
Removing Those Burdens of Tradition (1980)
Since one is young and perhaps innocent, given to excitement and games, the word ‘responsibility’ will seem rather frightening and a wearisome burden. But we are using the word to imply care and concern for our world + We must clearly understand that when we use the word ‘responsibility’ there must not be a feeling of guilt. We are taking particular care in using this word, freed from the unhappy weight of a word like ‘duty’. When this is clearly understood, then we can use the word ‘responsibility’ without its burden of tradition. (Letters to the Schools 15Jan80)
Taking the Worry Out Of It (1982)
If I have servants, I have to look after them, my children, perhaps their children too + To give them food, the right amount of money, allow their children go to a proper school like my children, I am responsible for all that + Q: Suppose conditions are difficult, you may not have a job + JK: I don’t worry about it, there it is, I have no more money. So, my friend ... if you want to stay, share the little food I have, we’ll share it Q: You’re saying that even if you are unemployed and you are responsible for a family it will not disturb the order of the mind, right? + You will find an intelligent way to solve it. JK: Of course + Deal with it + I am responsible. + I look after as much as I can. (Ojai 17Apr82)
Removing Guilt From That Word (1978-80)
"Responsibility" generally implies guilt + If you are really responsible you feel slightly guilty about it. I am using the word responsibility without any sense of guilt. (Ojai 13May80); That gentleman raised a very good question. We have heard you for a number of years, we haven’t changed + Whose fault is it? Not fault, whose responsibility—without the word ‘responsibility’ involving guilt. Remove guilt from that word. (Saanen 26Jul78); We are ... asking if there is a totally different way of living + Please put this question to yourself most seriously, because we are destroying ourselves, we are destroying the earth, the air, and we are destroying human beings. Our responsibility is tremendous. I am using that word ‘responsibility’ without any sense of guilt. If you feel responsible you act. But if you don’t act don’t feel guilty, you are simply not [being] responsible. (Ojai 18May80)
Love Makes Those Words "Disappear" (1962-69)
We use words like ‘duty’ and ‘responsibility’ when we have no love + What am I doing I love to do + If one loves, then the words ‘responsibility’ and ‘duty’ disappear altogether. (Saanen 25Jul62); Are you responsible when you love? Or ... when you have duty and you cease to love? + Please Sir ... does love have responsibility and will it use that word? (Amsterdam 24May67); Does love have responsibility and duty, and will it use those words? + So long as you are compelled to do something because it is your duty you don’t love what you are doing. When there is love there is no duty and no responsibility. (Freedom From the Known Ch.10 1969)
"I Never Use That Phrase" (1962)
Look, sir, I came here this morning to talk. I didn’t feel it to be a burden, a responsibility + It is not my duty to talk. I wouldn’t do it on that basis. It would be terribly boring to me. I never use that phrase, ‘I am responsible—it is too hideous + If one loves, there is no country, there are no priests, no soldiers, no gods and no wars. (Saanen 25Jul62)
But I am Fully Responsible (1948-84)
I am responsible for war (Bombay 29Feb48); I am part of it + I feel responsible + It isn’t just a set of words (Saanen 2Aug67); You and I are responsible! You who are listening and I who am talking. I am responsible. (Saanen 3Aug67); I alone am responsible ... for this disorder, nobody else. (Rishi Valley 4Nov67); I feel immensely responsible, personally. Tremendously responsible to the audience that I talk to, when I talk, when I go to the various schools in India, I feel I am responsible for those children. (San Diego 27Feb74); Because I have contributed to it, I am responsible for it. (Brockwood 1Sep77); I say I am responsible as a human being for what is happening in the world (Ojai 17Apr72); I am responsible totally for the whole of consciousness - right? (Saanen 23Jul81); I am responsible for everything that is happening in the world. (New Delhi 5Nov81); I am responsible to see that people are not killed. I am responsible to see that there is no violence. (Brockwood 2Sep82); I am living in this house. I am responsible for what is happening here ... fully responsible. (Brockwood 24Jun84)
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