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An Editor's Misgivings KRISHNAMURTI FOUNDATION INDIA July - October 2014 RS.2/- VOL. X ISSUE 2 Reprints, translations . .4 Retreats . .5 KFI Gathering. 6 An editor’s We escape through the intellect or through mysticism misgivings HEN LIFE IS very function through the mind. The In 1993 the Krishnamurti Foundation Wdifficult, when problems intellectual may be able to talk, to of America asked Raymond Martin, are increasing, we escape express himself more clearly, but professor of philosophy at the University either through the intellect or he too withdraws himself into his of Maryland, to edit a volume of through mysticism. We know own ideas and lives there quietly, Krishnamurti’s talks and writings. the escape through the intellect: disregarding society and pursuing The idea was that there should be an rationalization, more and more his illusions, which are born anthology that would be particularly cunning devices, more and more of the mind; so I do not think interesting to academic philosophers there is any difference between and students of philosophy. The result the two. They are both pursuing was the anthology titled Krishnamurti: illusions of the mind, and neither Reflections on the Self, and in the highbrow nor the lowbrow, his introduction, Raymond Martin neither the mystic, the yogi who speaks about the misgivings he had in escapes, withdraws from the producing such a book. Here are some world, nor the commissar, has the excerpts from the introduction: answer. It is you and I, ordinary y misgivings were due, common people, who have Mfirst, to the fact that as to solve this problem without things stand, Krishnamurti’s being highbrow or mystical, thought is quite removed from without escaping either through academic philosophy, particularly rationalization, or through vague in the analytic tradition. There is terms and getting hypnotized by a simple reason why this should Reflections on the Self. First KFI words, by methods of our own be so: Krishnamurti wasn’t reprint, pp. 212+xviii. Rs 250. self-projection. interested in presenting theories; techniques, more and more I AM HERE, an ordinary human and theories are what academic economic responses to life, being. I have not read a thing. philosophy is all about. Second, all very subtle and intellectual. I want to know. Where am I it seemed—and still seems— And there is the escape through to begin? I have to work: in a to me that my having been an mysticism, through the sacred garden, as a cook, in a factory, an analytic philosopher had actually books, through worshipping an office; I have to work. And also made it more difficult for me to established idea—idea being an there are the wife and children; understand Krishnamurti. The image, a symbol, a superior entity, I love them, I hate them, I am a reasons for this are complex and or what you will—thinking that sexual addict because that is the not entirely clear to me even now. it is not of the mind; but both only escape offered to me in life. I think the heart of the difficulty the intellectual and the mystic are Here I am. That is my map of life was that I couldn’t understand products of the mind. One we and I start from here. I cannot what Krishnamurti was saying call the intellectual highbrow, and start from over there; I start unless what he was saying was the other we despise, because it here and I ask myself what it is ‘clear’ and it wasn’t going to be is the fashion now to despise the all about. I know nothing about ‘clear’ until I had processed it in mystic, to kick him out; but both God. You can invent, pretend; I Turn to Page 3 have a horror of pretending. If JULY OCTOBER 2014 We escape through the intellect or through mysticism I do not know, I do not know. I carefully and hesitantly, what is form of pride, is it not? I am still am not going to quote Shankara, this fear? Why do human beings, concerned with achievement. Buddha, or anybody. So I say: this after this tremendous evolution, Finding that pride is very painful, is where I start. Can I bring about still live with fear? Is it something spiritually ugly, I say that I must order in my life?—order, not that can be operated upon and be free of it. The ‘I must be free’ invented by me or by them, but removed—like a disease, like contains the same motive as the order that is virtue. Can I bring it cancer, or any other dreadful, ‘I must be successful.’ The ‘I’ is about? And to be virtuous there painful disease? Is it something still important, it is the centre must be no battle, no conflict in that can be operated upon? of my struggle to be free. So me or outside. Therefore, there Which means there is an entity what matters is not how to be must be no aggressiveness, no who can operate upon it, but free of pride but to understand violence, no hate, no animosity. that very entity is an abstraction the ‘I’, and the ‘I’ is very subtle. And I find out I am afraid. I must of trying to do something about It wants one thing this year be free of fear. To be conscious of fear, that entity is unreal. What is and another thing next year; it is to be aware of all this, aware factual is fear. This requires very and when that turns out to be of where I am. And then I find careful attention not to be caught painful, it then wants something out I can be alone—not carry all in this abstraction of the one else. So, as long as the centre the burdens of memory. I can be who says, ‘I am observing fear’, of the ‘I’ exists, whether one is alone because I have understood or one who says, ‘I must put away proud or so-called humble is of order in my life; and I have fear, or control fear’, and so on. very little significance. What you understood order because I have The one who watches is also the have to understand is how this ‘I’ denied disorder, because I have outcome of fear. If this is clear, comes into being. The ‘I’ comes learnt about disorder. Disorder that the observer—to go back to into being through the sense of means conflict, acceptance of our old saying—the observer is achievement in various forms. authority, complying, imitation, the observed, the thinker is the This does not mean that you must all that. That is disorder, the thought, the doer is the entity not act; but the feeling that you social morality is disorder. Out of who is doing, there is no division. are acting, that you are achieving, that I will bring order in myself; And so if there is no division— that you must be without pride, not myself as a petty little human which is an extraordinary fact to has to be understood. You have being in a backyard, but as a realize, a fact, not an idea I must to understand the structure of human being. Every human being realize, it is an extraordinary fact the ‘I’. is going through this hell. So if I, that there is no division between SIR, WHAT DO you mean as a human being, understand this, the observer and the observed— by sin? The Christians have a I have discovered something that therefore there is no conflict. concept of sin which you have all human beings can discover. Conflict exists when there is not, but you do feel guilty when SO CAN WE deal with the fact the observer different from the you have more money, when of fear and look at it that way, not observed, which is what most you have a bigger house than escape, not say, ‘Well I don’t like of us do and therefore live with somebody else—at least you fear’, get nervous, apprehensive, perpetual conflict. So can we should. [Laughter] When you and suppress it, or control it, or look at fear, and in the very act are riding in a comfortable car deny it, or move it into another of looking, watching, begin to and you see a queue of people field? If we can do all that, just discover the origin of fear, the one mile long waiting to catch a remain with that fear, fear then beginning of it, the cause of it? bus, it does something to you— becomes an actual fact, which is DO I WANT to be free of pride either you have what is called a there, whether you are conscious because I find it harmful to me, feeling of guilt, or you want to of it or not, whether you have painful, spiritually not good? If transform something radically, hidden it very, very deeply, it is that is the motive, then to try to not in the stupid economic still there. Then we can ask very free myself from pride is another sense, but in the religious sense, 2 JULY OCTOBER 2014 We escape through the intellect or through mysticism so that these things cannot it? Is it a form of pity? Most of is still within the stream of self- happen in the world. Or you us are occupied with ourselves centred activity, is it not? If you may feel guilty because you in different ways from morning are living intensely with your realize that you have a certain till night, and consciously or whole being, if you are fully aware capacity, an insight which others unconsciously we move along of everything about you and have not.
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