18 March

Krishnamurti In India: The Last Decade

Rajghat 1985  – 3rd Public Talk

43    And also we ought to talk about space, because meditation is that. Space – we have no space in the brain. Have you realised that, sir? No space. Space there is between two struggles, between two thoughts, but still within the sphere of thought, and so on. What is space? Does space contain time? Or time includes all space. We talked about time. May I just briefly go over it, though it is nearly a quarter past ten – don’t blame me afterwards for keeping you here. Time – I am going to put it very briefly, if you don’t understand it I’m sorry – time is yesterday – all the memories, all the incidents, all the quarrels, the uncertainties, and the long, two and a half million years of memory – all that is yesterday. And the present is the environment, what is happening now. All the past is modified by circumstances, by time, by events now. And the future is this modified, this reshaped in time as the future. So the past modifying itself in the present becomes the future. Right? So all time, the future, the present and the past is contained in the now. Don’t agree, please, this is the most… It is a tremendously revealing thing because it demands action – not just agreement, say, ‘I’m going home…’, and go on with your life. The whole of time – the future, the present and the past, is now. So action changes now, not tomorrow. ‘I will be good tomorrow’. So all action, all thought, all time is now. We went into that. I won’t go further. So what is space? Don’t imagine it because then it’s just your thought imagining space is this, the heavens. I must tell a very good joke. May I?

44    Q: Please, please.

45    K: This happens to be hell, and the devil is there in the distance. I am not pointing at anybody! (Laughter) The devil is far in the corner – you know, Christian devil with two horns and tail – and there are two people talking together. One says to the other, ‘It’s very hot here, isn’t it?’ Hell – very hot. The other fellow says, ‘Yes, it’s very hot but dry heat’. No joke? Funny people. All right, sir. I have got lots of jokes, I can’t begin.

46    So what is space? If space contains time then it is not space. Then it is circumscribed, limited. Right? So can the brain be free of time? Sir, this is such an important, immense question. You don’t see to gather it. If life, all life is contained in the now, you see what it means? All humanity is you. All humanity, because you suffer, he suffers, anxiety, pain and so on. His consciousness is you. Your consciousness, your being, is him. You understand? There is no you and me, which limits space. So is there an end to time? Not to the clock, which you wind and it stops. To the whole movement of time. Time is movement, a series of incidents – movement. Thought is a series of movements, so time is thought. So we are asking: if space contains time – yesterday, tomorrow and all the rest of it – it is not space. So is there an end to time? Which means is there an end to thought? So which means is there an end to knowledge? So is there an end to experience? Which is total freedom. And this is meditation – not sitting on the banks and looking at the… That’s all too childish. This demands a great deal of not only the intellect but an insight – don’t use that word again, please – insight into all this – the physicist, the artist, the painter, the poet and so on have limited insight. Limited, small. We are talking about a timeless insight. So this is meditation, this is religion and this is the way to live, if you want to, all the rest of your days.