25 January

Krishnamurti In India: The Last Decade

Bombay 1985  – 4th Public Talk

5     And as we said, we have to cover a great deal of ground this evening. So we ought to talk over together what is death. That’s one certain thing we all have to face, whether you are rich or poor, ignorant or very full of erudition, that is the certainty of every human being, we are all going to die. And we have never been able to understand the nature of death, because we are always frightened of dying – aren’t you? – and we hope for continuity after death. So we are going to together find out for ourselves what is dying, because we are going to face it. Whether you are young or old that’s one certain thing in life.

6     And to understand death we must also enquire what is living. What is our life? Are we wasting our life? By that word ‘wasting’, dissipating our energies in various forms, dissipating by specialised professions. Are we wasting our whole existence, one life? Are we wasting it? People who are rich, they say, ‘Yes, we have accumulated a lot of money, it has been a great pleasure’, or if you have a certain talent. Talent is a danger to a religious life – talent being that which is a gift, faculty, an aptitude, an aptitude in a particular direction, which is specialization. Specialization is a fragmentary process. So one must ask oneself whether one is wasting one’s life. You may be rich, you may have all kinds of faculties, you may be a specialist, a great scientist or a businessman, at the end of life has all that been a wastage, all this travail, all this sorrow, all the tremendous anxiety, insecurity, the foolish illusions that man has collected, his gods, all the saints and so on, has all that been a waste? You may have power, position, at the end of it – what? Please, this a serious question that one must ask oneself. Another cannot answer this question, except yourself.