27 January
Krishnamurti In India: The Last Decade
Bombay 1985 – 4th Public Talk
9 Now, the question is: why has the brain separated living – living which is conflict and so on – and death, why has this division taken place? Right? Does this division exist when there is attachment? Please, as we said, we are talking over things together. We are sharing the thing which man has lived with for a million years, the living and the dying. And so we have to examine the thing together, not resist, not say, ‘Yes, I believe in reincarnation, I live by that, to me that is important’ – then conversation between us comes to an end. But if we really go into the question of what is living, what is wasting one’s life, and what is dying.
10 One is attached to so many things – to your guru, to the accumulated knowledge, to the memory of one’s son, daughter and so on. That memory is you. Your whole brain is filled with memory. Not only memory of recent events but also the memory of the deep abiding memory of that which has been the animal, the ape – we are part of that, that memory. And we are attached to this whole consciousness. Right? That’s a fact. And death comes and says that is the end of your attachment, and we are frightened of that. Frightened of being completely free from all that. And death is that, cutting off everything that you have got. We can invent, we can say, ‘Yes, I’ll continue next life’. Therefore what is it that continues? You understand my question? What is it that in us there is this desire to continue? Is there a continuity at all? – except of your bank account, going to the office every day, a routine of worship, and the continuity of your beliefs. But they are all brought together by thought. And thought has been limited, and so creating conflict. We went into all that, we are not going to go into it now. And the self, the ‘me’, the ego, the persona, is a bundle of complicated ancient and modern memories. Which you can see for yourself, you don’t have to study books and philosophies about all that. You can see it for yourself very clearly that you are a bundle of memories. And death says, puts an end to all that memory, and therefore one is frightened.