16 January

Krishnamurti In India: The Last Decade

First Public Talk – Calcutta 1982

7 As I said, the word has great depth, the meaning of it, and as we are speaking in English, using the daily language without any mysterious words being used, it is important that you and the speaker establish a right relationship. He is not a guru. He is not going to inform you what to think, how to think, but we are together going to observe the activities of human beings right throughout the world: why they have become what they are, after forty thousand years of evolution; why man is killing each other, destroying each other, exploiting each other; why man has divided the world into nationalities as the Jew, the Arab, the Hindu, Muslim and so on. We are going to look at all this because it is important to look, to observe, not from a particular point of view as a Bengali, as an Indian, or as a European or Russian or Chinese or American. We are going to look together why man has become what he is: cruel, destructive, violent, idealistic; and in the world of technology are doing astonishing things of which most of us are unaware. Why after thousands of years of wars, shedding tears, why a human being through a long period of time, why he is actually behaving in this manner. So, please, we are thinking together, not agreeing together, nor resisting what is being said, nor accepting, but observing, looking as you would look at a map, exactly what is going on.

8 Man has divided the world into nationalities; man has divided the world into the Catholic, the Protestant, the Hindu, the Muslim and so on, religiously. Where there is division, as the Arab and the Jew, the Hindu and the Muslim and so on, where there is division, there must be conflict. This is a natural law, which is what is actually taking place in the world. Why is there this division? Who has brought this about?

9 Please, I hope you are thinking together, you and the speaker.

10 You are not just listening to him, merely accepting or rejecting what he is saying. This is your problem, the problem of humanity. And as we are human beings, at least we hope so, as we are human beings, we must consider all these questions. Doubt, investigate, never accepting what the authorities or what the gurus or the sacred books, including the speaker, never accepting – questioning, doubting, asking. If you merely accept or reject you remain where you are without bringing about a radical mutation in this whole psyche, in the whole content of consciousness. So, please, if one may ask most respectfully, please let us think together. You are walking down a lane, not in the lanes of Calcutta, but in a nice, quiet wooded place with clean air, and we are talking over together as two friends the problems which, as a human being, he faces and the problems of humanity. So we are talking together; we are listening to each other. It’s a dialogue between you and the speaker. Dialogue means conversation between two people; as there is such a large audience, that is not possible. But one can talk to each other though there are one thousand or two thousand people here.