The World Within
YOU ARE THE STORY OF HUMANITY
J. Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti Foundation of America
Ojai, Californiax
© 2014, Krishnamurti Foundation of America
Published by Krishnamurti Foundation of America
The World Within
You Are the Story of Humanity
ISBN: 1502928248
ISBN 13: 9781502928245
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Krishnamurti Foundation of America
PO Box 1560
Ojai, California, 93024
www.kfa.org
www.jkrishnamurti.org
CONTENTS
Foreword
1. Anger And Intolerance
2. The Voice of Reality?
3. The Joyous and Aching Problem of Birth And Death
4. The ‘Me’ and the ‘Mine’
5. Psychological Dependence
6. Man and Machine
7. Lust Is in the Mind
8. Charity Without Barriers
9. Devotions Nullified by Antagonism
10. A Different Standard of Living
11. You Have Created the World’s Problem
12. Healing Oneself
13. Society’s Barbarous Game
14. A Peaceful Interval or True Peace?
15. The Problem of Sex
16. Writing Down Your Thoughts
17. Right Thinking, Not Right Thoughts
18. The Self-Enclosing Walls
19. Beyond All Religions
20. What Is the Label, What Is the Actual?
21. Not by Bread Alone
22. Was it His Karma to Die in This Way?
23. The Poison of Hate
24. At the Crossroads of Life
25. Seeking Encouragement from Outside
26. Asceticism and the Other Ways of Power
27. What Is Awareness?
28. Disturbing Dreams
29. The Greatness of Relationship Is Its Very Insecurity
30. To Affect the Whole, the Part Must Transform Itself
31. Right Livelihood
32. Decision or Understanding?
33. Turning Everything to One’s Benefit
34. Prayer, a Complex Affair
35. Crying for the Living or for the Dead?
36. The Unspiritual Closed Circle
37. The Pages of Self-Knowledge
38. Your Subconscious Demands
39. Belief in the Masters
40. Loneliness, With Its Panicky Fears
41. Nationalism, a Poison
42. The Dull and the Sensitive Areas
43. How the Mind Reproduces Itself
44. On Smoking—and the Much Larger Problem
45. The Profession of Acting
46. On Homosexuality
47. The Flow of Self-Awareness into Pools of Meditation
48. When Your Inner Light Goes Out
49. Become Aware of the Past Through the Present
50. The Seeds of Corruption in Organizations
51. To Live Alone or in Close Relationship?
52. Aren’t You Wasting Your Life?
53. Repetitive, Trivial, Unfinished Thoughts
54. Digging Deeply and Lying Fallow
55. Understand a Problem Not on Its Own Level
56. Attachment and Detachment Are Both Gratifying
57. Theories and Explanations Are Hindrances
58. To Kill or Not to Kill
59. Re-Educating the Parents
60. The Observer and the Observed
61. The Conflict Between Instinct and Conditioning
62. Between Awareness and Distraction
63. The Mind Becomes What It Possesses
64. Aggressiveness in Relationships
65. Thought Points Out the Thinker
66. Feel out Rather Than Be Clever
67. Learning Through War Games the Language Of Killing
68. Escaping Through the Ideal and Through Insensitivity
69. Your Overcrowded Mind
70. To Think Is to Be Afraid
71. The Two Ways of Accepting Sorrow
72. The Clever, Forewarned Intellect
73. A Family to Fill Your Emptiness
74. The Maker of Effort, of Choice
75. Capacities and Gifts Are Dangerous Friends
76. In Seeking the Real, Bread Will Be Supplied
77. Memory Must Become as an Empty Shell
78. The Helper and the Helped
79. The Scars That Experience Leaves
80. To Reform Politics Is to Waste Thought
81. Speculation About Reality or Direct Experience?
82. Will You Allow Yourself to Be Killed by the Enemy?
83. A Teacher’s Dilemmas
84. Can I Find God in a Fox-Hole?
85. In the Immediate Does Not Lie the Answer
86. The Educated Shell of Our Conditioning
87. To Be Successful Is Misery to Others and for Oneself
88. Understanding Conflict
89. Patterns Comfort Us into Dullness
90. Right Meditation
FOREWORD
Truth is not something that is mysterious; truth is where you are. From there you can begin. The truth is that I am angry, I am jealous, I am aggressive, I quarrel. That is a fact. So one must begin, if one may most respectfully point out, from where one is. That is why it is important to know yourself, to have complete knowledge of yourself, not from others, not from psychologists, brain specialists and so on, but to know what you are. Because, you are the story of mankind. If you know how to read that book which is yourself, then you know all the activities and brutalities and stupidities of mankind because you are the rest of the world.
– J. Krishnamurti, 1st Question and Answer
Meeting at Brockwood Park 1983
Reading the teachings of J. Krishnamurti, one is immediately struck by how personal the words are to one’s own thinking and what a close mirror they are of our human psychological activity. His language is not bound by time, place, or circumstance, and so readers in any era or on any continent can find themselves clearly and compassionately made plain.
Krishnamurti’s heuristic approach was typical not only of his dialogues or interviews, but also of his public talks where an attendee in an audience of thousands felt in direct contact with the speaker. His language was simple, without jargon or without any assumptions about the audience by the speaker. Krishnamurti helped the interviewees, without intending to, to see for themselves the intricacies of their thinking and of their problems.
During the Second World War (1939-1945) Krishnamurti did not speak publicly in the United States, but lived quietly in Ojai, California. People sought him out and came to dialogue with him on many issues of the times or their own personal dilemmas. Their problems were universal human problems, and each made true his statement that ‘You are the world.’ As Krishnamurti unwound the tight threads of their thinking and feeling, the core or source of a concern was revealed, unadorned and without blame or guilt.
After the Second World War years, there was a set of three volumes of interviews with Krishnamurti that appeared worldwide, titled Commentaries on Living. This new book, The World Within, out of the Krishnamurti Archives, is a compendium of additional perennial questions with their timeless answers. The inquiry is still fresh, after seventy years, and readers will find themselves in both the questions and the responses.
Mark Lee
Chapter 1
ANGER AND INTOLERANCE
E. came to ask how to overcome anger, as he was particularly incensed with his colleague, irritated with his ways and behaviour.
After some further talk, we pointed out that such anger arose as E. wished to make his colleague conform to a pattern of behaviour that E. had, which bred in him intolerance; and intolerance is thoughtlessness. If he left his present colleague and sought another job, the same problem would arise, for he was the problem and not his colleague. E. must understand the circumstances and not merely change them. If he depended on the environment to free him from anger, then he would be a slave to it. If he depended on the environment, then he would become thoughtless. It is like those who seek constant change in their relationship—being disillusioned or tired of the one or of the group, they seek friendship or love in another. Because they have not fully comprehended relationship, mere change of environment will again produce the same conflicts, disillusionment, and satiety under different forms.
So E. must become aware of his own thoughtlessness and its cause.
Chapter 2
THE VOICE OF REALITY?
S. came from a long distance to find out whether the voice which she heard was her own intuitive voice or the voice, or the thought, of tradition.
After questioning her, we found that this voice has been beneficent, leading her away from the sensate world to more and more nobility of thought and service to others. But now she was doubtful, questioning the voice, becoming anxious. The voice had asked her to obey and not question, and now it was indifferent after a number of years. What was she to do? Was the voice the voice of reality?
After talking the matter over considerably, we went into the question of desire, want: how it arises—perception, sensation, desire, identification, I want and I do not want—and expresses itself, fulfils itself through sensuousness, craving for immortality, and worldliness.
S. said she now meditated regularly, sitting on the floor.
Without understanding the course of desire, meditation will not lead to enlightenment.
She was meditating on the oneness of God and so on, as she was a student of Vedanta.
Meditation must be based on right thinking, not on mere formulations, however noble. Right thinking proceeds from the comprehension of desire as the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’. This selfishness is the selfishness of everyone, whether one lives in India, China, Europe, or here. The world is the projection of oneself. To understand the problems of the world, one must first understand oneself, not in self-enclosing comprehension but through that disinterested and kindly awareness of oneself. Self-knowledge is the beginning of right thinking, which is the true beginning of meditation.
She said her problem was taking on a new meaning: how, through her own craving, she was giving a significance to the voice, which might perhaps be her own intuitive perception.
Chapter 3
THE JOYOUS AND ACHING PROBLEM OF BIRTH AND DEATH
R. was greatly and grievously upset over the loss of her son in the war. Does he continue? Is reincarnation true?
It is difficult to consider wisely the problem of death when one is almost paralysed with sorrow. What is your chief consideration: your son or your own loss? Every person in the world is faced with this problem: the universality of birth and death, of joy and sorrow. None can escape from it; one may escape from it in fantasy, in some theory or belief, in some self-forgetfulness; but birth and death remain, a mystery to be solved not through rationalization, but through the experience of that which is eternal and which has no beginning and no ending.
Hatred of those who helped in bringing about your son’s death does not create the necessary state of mind which alone can experience reality. On the contrary, hate, grief, and possessiveness prevent the comprehension and experience of timelessness. In transcending hate, resentment, and anger, there is the dawning of compassion, which will purify the tortured mind. If you are concerned about the dead, you will create more death, but if you are concerned about the living, you will know of life’s eternity.
She said she did not understand what I was talking about. Mustn’t she love her son? Must she not hate those who killed him, must she forgive, must she embrace evil? Was not war necessary in purifying the world?
Evil means do not produce good ends, violent means do not result in peace. Each one of us has brought about this spectacular chaos through our daily so-called peaceful days, which are made up of envy, greed, ill will, antagonism, and suspicion. The other mother is also crying for her son, the other mother whom you hate. She is also tortured by grief. To her too there is the joyous and aching problem of birth and death. Hate does not solve this problem; hate only perpetuates the cruelty of man to man.
Gradually, I led her to her first question of continuity. She was too shaken to go into it, but came back again another day.
Chapter 4
THE ‘ME’ AND THE ‘MINE’
We must understand the creator of time—the past, present, and future—for time is birth and death. The consciousness of time creates continuity, everlastingness, but it is not the eternal, it is not timelessness.
The creator of time is the self, the consciousness of the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’: my property, my son, my power, my success, my experience, my immortality. The concern of the self over its own state creates time. The self is the cause of ignorance and sorrow, and its cause and effect is desire, the craving for power, wealth, fame. This self is unified by the will of desire, with its past memories, present resolutions, and future determinations. The future then becomes a form of lust, the present a passage to the future, and the past the driving motive. The self is a wheel within a wheel of pleasure and pain, enjoyment and grief, love and hate, ruthlessness and gentleness. These opposites are created for its own advantage, for its own gain, out of its own uncertainty. It is the cause of my birth, my death. Thought is held by the will of desire, by the will of self, but sorrow and pain begin their work of awakening thought; and if this awakening is not maintained, thought slips into comforting beliefs, into personal fantasies and hopes.
But if the slowly awakening thought begins to gently and patiently study the cause of sorrow and so begins to comprehend it, it will find that there is another will: the will of understanding. This will of understanding is not personal; it is of no country, of no people, of no religion. It is this will that opens the door to the eternal, to the timeless.
The study of the self is the beginning of right thinking—the self that is held in the will of desire. This self creates continuity by craving for immortality, but with it comes the everlastingness of sorrow, pain, and the conflict of the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’. There is no end to this save in the will of understanding, which alone dissolves the cause of sorrow.
Become aware of the course of desire; out of that awareness, there is born right thinking. Virtue is freeing thought from the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’ for compassion for the uncertainty that self-desire creates.
Chapter 5
PSYCHOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE
C. asked how it was that she was so tired; though she had plenty of energy for general work, deep in herself she was tired.
After some talk, we discovered that she was greatly dependent on her husband and her environment. This dependence, which was not financial, made her nervous, exhausted, anxious, impatient, and quick tempered.
Some psychological need must inevitably create dependence, which prevents coordination and integration.
She said she was aware of this need, but somehow she could not overcome it. She had determined not to be dependent, yet she could not be free from it. Dependence, we agreed, was not lack of love, but it confused love. It brought in other elements which were not of love; it created uncertainty and estrangement.
Dependence sets going the movement of aloofness and attachment, a constant conflict without comprehension, without a release. She must become aware of this process of attachment and detachment, become aware without condemnation, without judgement, and then she will perceive the significance of this conflict of opposites.
If she becomes deeply aware and so consciously directs thought towards comprehending the full meaning of dependence and need, then when her conscious mind is open and clear about it, the unconscious with its hidden motives, pursuits, intentions will project itself into the conscious. When this happens, she must study and understand each intimation of the subconscious. If she does this many times, becoming aware of the projections of the subconscious after the conscious has thought out the problem as clearly as possible, then even though she may give her attention to other matters, the conscious and the unconscious will be working out the problem of dependence or any other problem. Thus there is a constant awareness established which will patiently and gently bring about integration. This will, if her health and diet are all right, bring about fullness of being.
Chapter 6
MAN AND MACHINE
B. came from a long distance, and his problem was how to build the spirit of love into the aeroplane, for he was working in an aeroplane factory. He said he was seriously concerned about the state of the world, and since the aeroplane was here to stay, could not the spirit of love be built into it? Could he not, by being himself without hate, without the desire to kill, and with goodwill, build something of that quality into the machine of terror and destruction?
He was a seriously intentioned man, and so we discussed ignorance and the right means of livelihood. A machine, an inanimate thing put together by man, is not in itself either good or bad; it depends on the use man puts it to. So it is not the machine but man that must be considered. Does not ignorance lie in giving false values, in putting emphasis on things that have little significance, in giving importance to things that are unimportant? Till one changes one’s values, the machine will be used for mischievous and destructive ends.
The thoughts and feelings of man have to be changed from their present limited values to those that are transcendental. If man is pursuing sensation, power, and wealth, he is bound to create a world in which conflict, antagonism, and ruthlessness must prevail, and also the means to express them: machine, money, and so on. He must look into his heart to find out what he is seeking. If he is seeking the good of himself and so the good of the other, then kindliness and intelligence will dictate what his occupation and means of livelihood shall be.
First he must cleanse his heart and mind, and then alone will he be capable of being content with little.
Chapter 7
LUST IS IN THE MIND
B. said he was a slave to his sexual appetite; he had tried different ways of suppressing it, had joined different cults in the hope of transforming it, and had gone to an analyst on whom he found he was becoming more and more dependent—another form of pain. What was he to do?
First we talked of love and said it is not a sensuous enticement, or a sensation akin to emotion, or a stimulation of the intellect. It is a quality by itself, felt in those moments when there is no awareness of the self, in those rare moments when the self is forgotten. It is not a sacrificial reward but an end in itself. Love is of charity and mercy, of forgiveness and service, of creative unity and peace. Without these, love does not exist. It is a great creative force.
Without comprehending and releasing creativeness, sexual release must inevitably become an overwhelming burden and a problem. This creativeness is not the mere capacity for invention or merely changing technical capacities; it is not mere materialistic, sensate expansion or a mere intellectual pursuit. These do not put a stop to sexual appetite; they may temporarily assuage it, but it returns with more fierce hunger, often expressing itself not sexually but in different forms of violence, of cruelties, in various superficial social activities, and so on.
The creative release does come when desire, craving, is understood and transformed. Desire creates deep memories whose momentum becomes lust; each desire has its own will, and the many wills go to make up the will of the self.
If he would free himself lastingly from lust, he must become aware of the way, the course of desire. Each time he has a lustful thought—lust is in the mind—he must become aware of it, not only analytically but aware, at the same time, of the deeper significance of desire. Each time he becomes aware, he will comprehend more of his problem till the light of self-knowledge dispels the self-enclosing pursuits of desire. This awareness must become a constant process, not only with regard to one particular thought but with all thoughts and feelings. This awareness brings self-knowledge, from which arises right thinking. Right thinking will liberate thought imperceptibly from the sense of the ‘me’ and the mine’, and there is realized that love which is of the highest.
Chapter 8
CHARITY WITHOUT BARRIERS
V. came to me perplexed over charity, to give or not to give, and over killing little animals that destroy bushes, trees, and so on.
How difficult it is to convey to certain types of mind that in concerning themselves with the larger the little things will come right, but in concerning themselves with little things—an endless affair—the greater things are lost, in which alone are the solutions to be found for the problems of life. Free intelligence is required, and not calculated thought or logical thought, to comprehend life; generosity of the heart and not the calculated and thought-out gift.
H. asked if it was right for him to be the medium of charity, for he had inherited a large sum.
Charity should be direct. The giver and the receiver must feel no sense of obligation, nor the sense of superior giving to the inferior, nor a sense of shame. It must be given out of the fullness of heart. He who gives and he who receives, both are responsible for not erecting the barrier of separation. Charity ceases when there is no love; without love there is no charity.
Chapter 9
DEVOTIONS NULLIFIED BY ANTAGONISM
S. said, during a talk, that she went to church to offer her devotions, but she went on to add that she could not tolerate the coloured people—oh, of course she did not mean the Indians, like myself!
She came to see me to find out how to get over her fears, which were imaginary and self-created. She was unaware that these fears were self-created. To be free of them, each time there is an occurrence of fear, she should consciously examine that fear by thinking it out and feeling it out, understand it thoroughly and leave her conscious mind open. Then the secret fears, the unconscious, hidden fears will assert themselves, and because her conscious mind is clear, open, and unconfused, she will be able to take these hidden fears and fully comprehend them. Thus the unconscious fears will empty themselves into the conscious mind, and so she will, through constant awareness, watchfulness, be free from these fears, which are mostly self-created.
Then I gently pointed out to her that her devotions were nullified by her racial antagonism, for what she was mattered more than her devotions. If she hates, her love is merely an opposite, a reaction, but if she understands her hatred and transcends it, then her love will be complete. Without freeing thought from antagonism, resentment, and ill will, her devotions are superficial, and churches offer a means of escape from reality.
How difficult it is to convey the sublimity of love to people who are entrenched in their own petitionary prayers! How difficult it is for those who seek reality to comprehend that they are the whole! They are so eager to grasp that they pass reality by.
Chapter 10
A DIFFERENT STANDARD OF LIVING
Dr A. said he had his practice and was making a lot of money, but was convinced he was not really curing. Little pills and co- loured water were not the real cures, though they gave temporary relief. He wanted to go in for the true healing. That would involve a different standard of living, to which he was indifferent, but his wife and family would object; and the breaking-up of the family would ensue if he followed what he thought was right. Was it selfish on his part to yield to the demands of the family? What was his responsibility?
In building up and yielding to sensate values, are we not creating social catastrophes, wars, ruthlessness, and misery? By having a high standard of living and giving emphasis to it, are we not creating a mechanistic, barbarous world of cruelty, competition, and pride?
This the doctor saw clearly—at least for the moment.
In yielding to the environment, whether of the family or of the civilization, he was responsible for the general misery and for his own particular misery. Realizing this, should he yield to the sensate demands of the family for more and more comfort, bigger and better cars, and all the rest of it? To what was he responsible? Was it selfishness to truly heal people, which would involve earning considerably less? This may bring about dissension in the family, but to what was he responsible?
Was he himself capable of living a simple life, stripped of the outer paraphernalia and show, content with little, because inwardly he was at peace, rich in his understanding, full in his love?
How, he asked, was he to arrive at these things?
By right thinking through self-awareness. Without self- knowledge there is no right thinking, and without right thinking there can be no peace, no love.
I explained what was involved in this arduous task.
Chapter 11
YOU HAVE CREATED THE WORLD’S PROBLEM
Two people came and presently explained that they were Christians, and so they wanted to bring about peace in the world.
Do not these very labels—Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and so on—keep people separate? As national and economic barriers divide people, so religions with their symbolism, their darkening altars, and their chanting priests keep people apart. Beliefs and dogmas, creeds and ritualism build an insurmountable barrier. It is over these that there have been, and there still are, vain controversies. It is these that create intolerance and antagonism. It is these that corrupt the mind and the heart. It is the spirit of sectarianism, exclusiveness, and privileges that destroys the unity of man, goodwill, and love.
Religion is the way of love in life, not belief. It is action without the self and its private motives, and not ritualism. It is the search for the highest without corrupting dogma.
When one asserts that one is a Christian or a Hindu, an American or an Englishman, there goes with it a certain pride and power, which inevitably create barriers between people. And when they say they are Christians, are they not aware of all its implications? Are they not aware of the insignificance of the label and the greatness of reality? The more they are concerned with the petty, is there not the less of the real?
Love, compassion, goodwill—these do not need a label, and it is these that will bring peace to the world. Neither mere economic adjustment, nor the domination of one or two peoples, nor technical advancement can bring peace. On the contrary, without a change of heart, these can bring about only greater and more destructive catastrophes.
To bring peace to the world, you must begin with yourself, for you are the world. What you are, the world is. If you are greedy, competitive, seeking privilege and profit, attached to this or that label, jealous and passionate, then you will have a world in which hate and wars will exist, a world of increasing chaos and tyranny, of ruthlessness and fear.
You have created the world’s problem, and you are the only person who can solve it. Do not leave it to specialists, to the politicians, to the leaders, for what you are the world is.
Chapter 12
HEALING ONESELF
Dr D. said that he was curing others when he was not able to cure himself; the same problems which confounded his patients confounded him also. He was able to deal with others, help them and so on, but with himself. . . He had no peace within himself.
How easy it is, with words, to help others to cure, to heal themselves! But how much more difficult it is to cure oneself! To heal oneself, to have peace within oneself, one has to pull down the barriers that one has sedulously built round oneself, such as prestige, the trappings of wealth and all that it gives: friends, companions, reputation, the brilliancy of learning. These, I pointed out, the doctor had, which he himself acknowledged. These superficial attributes—the layers of refined egotism—prevented him from realizing that peace for which he was longing.
He saw what I was saying was true, but he found these things very difficult to put aside: they had become part of his nature.
Either he must go on, I pointed out, strengthening that nature, suffering more and more, or he must set about weakening it, dissolving it. What he is creating is a lull in sorrow, an interim between two conflicts, a peace or rather a weariness of struggle. Being a psychiatrist, he understood well that inward peace must come through the awareness of self-knowledge, not through suppression but through integration. This awareness produces meditation.
Of course he has never meditated; he knew concentration but not meditation.
Meditation and concentration are two different things. Concentration is upon something, but meditation is awareness of the self, of the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’ with all its implications and contents, which brings understanding born of right thinking. This awareness has a quality of concentration different from the concentration upon something, however lofty. The one brings about deep inward integration, the transcending of the opposites, whereas the other creates duality and deeply maintains the cause of conflict.
Let him become aware of his thoughts and feelings, not pick and choose, but be aware of them, however trivial and ignoble, lofty and serene. As each thought or feeling arises, let him think out, feel out that thought or feeling, follow it through. In following it through, he will be constantly interrupted by other thoughts-feelings, and so will begin to discover the lack of true concentration. In following it through, he will become aware that he is judging, condemning, and will thus discover his biases, his prejudices, his secret reservations and motives. In following it through, he will discover himself, and this discovery is liberating and creative. Thus he is consciously freeing the mind, and into that free and open mind, however limited it may be at the beginning, the contents of the unconscious, the hidden, will be projected. Each projection must be thought out and felt out and so understood and dissolved and transcended. Out of this deep self-knowledge there is the quiescence of wisdom, a love that is not measurable, and the realization of the highest.
All this is a patient and gentle process, needing strenuous alertness, a deep and significant awareness.
Chapter 13
SOCIETY’S BARBAROUS GAME
Mrs M., a schoolteacher, said that the children, not during their class hours, were playing soldiers with wooden machineguns, swords, tanks, and so on. How is one to prevent them?
When the whole society is engaged in this barbarous game, stopping a few children, who will be encouraged again by their elders, is of little importance unless the teacher is with them constantly and helps them in other forms of amusement, sane and harmless. She may be able to supervise constantly one or two children, but unless through intelligent instruction and guidance the children are helped to perceive the calamities that follow in the wake of their barbarity, society soon absorbs them.
Society after all is the individual or a collection of individuals, and unless the individual removes the causes that breed war and so on, mere outward patching, re-forming the same causes in a different order is of little significance.
So she must begin with herself; she must understand herself, for out of self-knowledge there is right thinking.
Chapter 14
A PEACEFUL INTERVAL OR TRUE PEACE?
Mrs C. is a very wealthy lady. She is unhappy and wretched in her present relationship. She wants peace and happiness.
There is no peace and happiness in this world; there is constant conflict and suffering and an interval which again leads to pain and misery. What does she want—this so-called peaceful interval or true peace?
True peace comes about with the understanding of sensuality, worldliness, and personal immortality, and transcending them. To understand them and so transcend them, she must become aware of her thoughts and feelings. This demands conscious endeavour and time for reflection.
She said she was a busy lady, organizing charity, belonging to many clubs, and so on.
These had become, I pointed out, distractions and were of little significance, to which she reluctantly agreed. She may be forced to give up these to create time to reflect; from this reflective awareness there will come the dawn of understanding, of right thinking and meditation.
To all this she willingly agreed, for she said she had somewhat thought about these things. But, she added, all this implied the putting aside of her present life, her activities, amusements, entertainments, and doing good.
Her doing good, her social activities, her superficial activities are activities of little significance—like the poor animals in cages. These activities bring about eventually more harm than good—the blind leading the blind.
To this again she hesitantly agreed, and I pointed out the catastrophic mess of this world: the wars, the absurdity of nationalism, class and colour prejudice and economic barriers, and the utter lack of goodwill and love. All this can be lastingly transformed only if she begins with herself, for she is the world.
She recognized all this, but she said she was afraid to change her life, for even though she might begin in a little way, it would lead to tremendous changes, and she was not willing, but she added she would see.
Chapter 15
THE PROBLEM OF SEX
R. said he was frightened of sex; from childhood he had been irritated by it and attracted to it. When in a group he resisted it and so created antagonism among his friends. He had prayed, repeated mantras, chants, tried analysis, and yet it pursued him and he pursued it.