Question: Do you accept the law of reincarnation and karma as valid, or do you envisage a state of complete annihilation?
Krishnamurti: Now, most of you probably believe in reincarnation and karma, so please do not resist what I am going to say. Through resistance we do not understand, through exclusion there is no communion; to understand something, we must love it, which means we must be in communion with it and not be afraid of it.
First of all, belief in any form is the denial of truth; a believing mind is not an exploring mind, a believing mind can never be in a state of experiencing. Belief is merely a tether created by a particular desire. A man who believes in reincarnation cannot know the truth of it, because his belief is merely a comfort, an escape from death, from the fear of non-continuity; such a man cannot find the truth of reincarnation, because what he wants is comfort, not truth, Truth may give him comfort or it may be a disturbing factor; but if he starts with the desire to find comfort, he cannot see the truth. Now, if you are serious, you and I are going to find out the truth of the matter, and what is important is how we approach the problem. How do you and I approach the problem of reincarnation? Are you approaching it through fear, through curiosity, through the desire for continuity? Or, do you want to know what is? I am not avoiding the question. A mind that wants to know the truth, whatever it is, is surely in a different state from the mind which is afraid of death and is seeking comfort, continuity, and therefore clings to reincarnation. Such a mind is obviously not in a state of discovery. So, the approach to the problem matters; and I am taking it for granted that you are approaching the problem rightly, not through any desire for comfort, but to find out the truth of the matter.
Now, what do you mean by reincarnation? What is it that reincarnates? You know there is death, and do what you will, you cannot avoid it. You may postpone death, but this is a fact, which we will go into presently. What is it that reincarnates? It is either one of two things, is it not? Either it is a spiritual entity, or it is a thing which is merely an accumulation of experience, of knowledge, of memory, not only individual but collective, which takes form again in another life. So, let us examine those two things. What do we mean by a `spiritual entity'? Is there a spiritual entity in you, something which is not of the mind, which is beyond sensation, something which is not of time, something immortal? You will say, `Yes' - all religious people do. You say that there is a spiritual entity which is beyond time, beyond the mind, beyond death. Please do not resist, let us think it out. If you say there is a spiritual entity in you, it is obviously the product of thought, is it not? You have been told about it, it is not your experience. As a man is conditioned by being brought up with the idea that there is no spiritual entity, but only the coming together of various social, economic and environmental influences, so you are conditioned to the idea of a spiritual entity, are you not? Even if it is your own discovery that there is a spiritual entity, surely it is still within the field of thought; and thought is the result of time, thought is the product of the past, thought is accumulation, memory. That is, if you can think about the spiritual entity, surely that entity is still within the field of thought, therefore it is the product of thought, the projection of thought; and therefore it is not a spiritual entity. What you can think about is still within the field of thought, so it cannot be something beyond thought.
Now, if there is no spiritual entity, then what is it that reincarnates? And if there is a spiritual entity, can it reincarnate? Is it a thing of time, is it a thing of memory that comes and goes at your convenience, at your desire? If it is born, if it is a process in time, if it has progress, surely it is not a spiritual entity; and if it is not of time, then there can be no question of reincarnating, taking on a new life. So, if the spiritual entity is not, then the `you' is merely a bundle of accumulated memories, the `you' is your property, your wife, your husband, your children, your name, your qualities. The accumulation of the experiences of the past in conjunction with the present is the `you', both the conscious and the unconscious, the collective as well as the individual - that whole bundle is the `you; and that bundle asks, `Shall I reincarnate, shall I have continuity, what happens after death?' If there is a spiritual entity, it is beyond thought, it cannot be caught in the net of the mind; and to discover that entity, that spiritual state, the mind must be quiet, it cannot be agitated with the functioning of thought. Now you are asking whether the `you' has continuity - the `you' being the name, the property, the furniture, the memories, the idiosyncrasies, the experiences, the accumulated knowledge. Has that continuity? That is, has conditioned thought a continuity? Obviously, thought has continuity, for that you do not have to enquire far. You have continuity in your children, in your property, in your name; obviously, that continues in one form or another. But you are not satisfied with that continuity, are you? You want to continue as a spiritual entity, not merely as thought, a bundle of reactions - there is no fun in that. But are you anything more than that? Are you anything more than your religion, your beliefs, your caste divisions, your superstitions, traditions and future hopes? Are you anything more than that? You would like to think you are more than that, but the fact is you are that and nothing else. There may be something beyond; but to discover something beyond, all this has to come to an end. So, when you enquire into the problem of reincarnation, you are concerned, not with what is beyond, but with the continuity of thought identified as the `you; and obviously, there is continuity.
Now, another question involved in this is the problem of death, What is death? Is death merely the ending of the body? And why is it that we are so afraid of death? Because we cling to continuity and we see that there is an ending of continuity when we die, we want assurance of continuity on the other side, and that is why we believe in life after death; but any amount of guarantees of continuity, all the research societies, all the books and information, will never satisfy you. Death is always the unknown; you may have all the information about it, but the known is afraid of the unknown, and will always be. So, one of the problems in this question is this: Is continuity creative? Can that which is continuous discover anything beyond itself? Sir, can that which has continuity know something beyond its own field? That is the problem, and it is a problem which you are unwilling to face - and that is why you are afraid of death. That which continues can never be creative; it is only in ending that there is the new. Only when the known comes to an end is there creation, the new, the unknown; but as long as we cling to the desire for continuity, which is thought identified as the `me', that thought will continue, and that which continues has in it the seed of death and decay, it is not creative. It is only that which ends that can see the new, the fresh, the whole, the unknown. Sir, this is simple and very clear. As long as you are continuing in the habit of a particular thought, surely you cannot know the new, can you? As long as you cling to your traditions, to your name, to your properties, you cannot know anything new, can you? It is only when you let all that go completely that the new comes. But you dare not let go of the old because you are afraid of the new; that is why you are afraid of death, and that is why you have all the innumerable escapes. More books are written on death than on life, because life you want to avoid. Living is to you a continuity, and that which continues withers, has no life; it is always afraid of coming to an end - and that is why you want immortality. You have your immortality in your name, in your property, in your furniture, in your son, your clothes, your house; all that is your immortality - you have it, but you want something more. You want immortality on the other side - and you have that too, which is your thought, identified as yourself, continuing; `yourself' being your furniture, your hats, your substitutions, your beliefs. But should you not find out whether that which continues can ever know the timeless? That which continues implies a process of time, the past, the present and the future. That is, continuance is the past in conjunction with the present breeding the tomorrow, the future, which again breeds another future; and so there is continuity. But does that continuity bring about, can that continuity discover the unknown, the unknowable, the eternal? And if it cannot, what is the point of having that thought, identified as the `me', continue? The `me', which is identified thought, must be in a state of ceaseless conflict, constant suffering, perpetual worry over problems, and so on; and that is the lot of continuity. It is only when the mind comes to an end, when it is not identified as the `me', that you will know that which is beyond time; but merely to speculate what is beyond is a waste of energy, it is the action of a sluggard. So, that which has continuance can never know the real, but that which has an ending shall know the real. Death alone can show the way to reality - not the death of old age or of disease, but the death of every day, dying every minute, so that you see the new.
In this question is also involved the problem of karma.1 I wonder if you would rather I discussed this another time? It is already half past seven. Do you want me to go into it?
Comment from the Audience: Yes, Sir.
Krishnamurti: Have you under stood what I have said about reincarnation? Have you, Sirs? Why this strange silence? (Interruption.) This is not a discussion, Sir. We will discuss next Tuesday the question of time, and on Thursday evening we will discuss meditation; but if you really think about what has just been said, you will see the extraordinary depth of ending, of dying. The mind that can die every minute shall know the eternal; but the mind that has continuance can never know that which is beyond the mind. Sir that is not a thing to be quoted, discussed; you must live it, and then only you will know the beauty of it, you will know the depth and the significance of dying each minute. Dying is merely the ending of the past, which is memory - not the memory, the recognition of facts, but the ending of the psychological accumulation as the `me' and the `mine', and in that ending of identified thought, there is the new.
Now you want me to answer the question on karma. Please approach it with freedom, not with resistance not with superstition, not with your beliefs. Obviously, there is cause and effect. The mind is the result of a cause, you are the result, the product of yesterday, and of many, many thousands of yesterdays; cause and effect are an obvious fact. The seedling has in it both cause and effect. It is specialized; a particular seed cannot become something different. The seed of wheat is specialized, but we human beings are different, are we not? That which specializes can be destroyed, anything that specializes comes to an end, biologically as well as psychologically; but with us it is different, is it not? We see that cause becomes effect, and what was effect becomes a further cause - it is very simple effect, and what was effect becomes a further cause - it is very simple. Today is the result of yesterday, and tomorrow is the result of today; yesterday was the cause of today, and today is the cause of tomorrow. What was effect becomes cause, so it is a process without an end. There is no cause apart from effect, there is no division between cause and effect, because cause and effect flow into each other; and if one can see the process of cause and effect as it actually operates, one can be free of it. As long as we are concerned with the mere reconciliation of effects, cause takes patterns, and the patterns then become the issue, the motive of action; but is there at any time a line of demarcation where cause ends and effect begins? Surely not, because cause and effect are in constant movement. In fact, there is no cause and no effect, but only a movement of the `what has been' through the present to the future; and for a mind that is caught in this process of the `what has been' using the present as a passage to the `what will be', there is only a result. That is, such a mind is only concerned with results, with the reconciliation of effects, and hence for such a mind there is no escape beyond its own projections. So, as long as thought is caught in the process of cause and effect, the mind can proceed only in its own enclosure, and therefore there is no freedom. There is freedom only when we see that the process of cause and effect is not stationary, static, but in movement; when understood, that movement comes to an end - and then one can go beyond.
So, as long as the mind is merely responding to stimuli from the past, whatever it does is merely furthering its own misery; but when it sees and understands the fact of this whole process of cause and effect, of this whole process of time, that very understanding of the fact is freedom from the fact. Then only can the mind know that which is not a result or a cause. Truth is not a result, truth is not a cause, it is something which has no cause at all. That which has a cause is of the mind, that which has an effect is of the mind; and to know the causeless, the eternal, that which is beyond time, the mind, which is the effect of time, must come to an end. Thought, which is the effect as well as the cause, must come to an end, and only then can that which is beyond time be known.
BOMBAY 4TH PUBLIC TALK 5TH MARCH 1950 |
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