#3.4 Can a change in me, lead to a change in the entire world?

“When I use the word 'global problem', aren't you as a human being, whether man or woman,

representative of all mankind? Please understand this question; this is a very serious question - aren't

you, as a human being, representative of all humanity? Because your problems are the problems of

every other man - economic, social, moral, private, personal. And whether he is an American, or

Russian or Chinese or this country, your problems are shared, are common to every man because you

suffer, you are anxious, uncertain, insecure, confused, caught up in a world of utter insanity, madness.

This is the problem of every human being in the world. There is fear of death. They want to find out

what is meditation, how to go beyond and be utterly free of all fear, to find out the full significance of

existence. And to find out also a way of living that is true, not hypocritical. This is the common problem

of every human being in the world and so you represent the common factor and therefore you are the

rest of humanity. Your consciousness is the consciousness of the world, not your private consciousness”

____________________________________

Krishnamurti Foundation Trust uploaded a series of talks, intimate meetings and discussions – The Real Revolution.  In one of the talks, Krishnamurti talks about the real

problems we face and points out that one singular effort can hugely impact the whole of mankind.

When I first went through it, it actually puzzled me, after seeing it multiple times, reading and thinking,

did I found some sense in the statement he makes. But the skeptic brain can’t agree so easily. What he says

is that, if I am able to radically change myself that means I have successfully changed the world. And if he claims so, that he would have himself changed himself radically. Then that’s it, he has brought about

a radical change in the humanity. But I don’t find any change. Let us look at this as a structure consisting of many concentric circles - my daily conduct of myself, my

interaction with the people who directly surround or influence me, so on and on. And I find that I

myself and people around me are in constant conflict, a psychological conflict. Is it so because I have a

choice, either I approach it or avoid it? Suppose I am violent, but my education, upbringing, etc. says

violence is bad, it is wrong to be violent. But the fact is I am violent. Then as a response to this fact,

drawing from the prescriptions given by external agencies, I am in a state of conflict, either to defy it or

to conform it for the sake of conforming. Now every time I come across violence, I immediately recall,

this is an unholy thing to do. So can I look at violence not as ‘violence’ as it has been semantically

encoded but just as a fact dissociative of any meaning? Is it that my desire is a precursor to this

conflict? All religions have said get rid of desire because a man who comes to serve god must be free of

desire. And we are educated, unfortunately, to suppress it, to run away from it, to find a substitution or

desire for the noblest thing - god or whatever it is. And modern society, modern world says express yourself fully, indulge in your desires, nonsense of all

the religious edicts - throw them all away. Our society has become permissive, to do whatever you like.

So we must together investigate into this question of desire. Then first let's find out the root and the

meaning of desire. How desire arises, not how to suppress it, not how to run away from it, but see for

ourselves the whole movement of desire, the origin of desire, the beginning of desire. As we discussed

above about the manicured garden the desire to have one. See the cycle, I see the object (sensation), this

data gets registered, a thought generates – ‘I wish if I could’, this paints an image of me with the

desired object, and then the movement to manifest it begins. Our brain which records everything, stores

it as memory and reproduces it, can we control this encoding process and let the brain record only that

which is absolutely necessary? Please don’t agree, my concern is, can this actually happen? We need to

find this out. Voluntary registering means, I don’t take in any sort of pain, hurt, ambition, jealousies and

rest of that. Won’t that solve many a problems which we unnecessarily create? And this might require

tremendous attention to our brain’s activities. This can only happen when we don’t find substitutions to

our problems, or escape from it or establish an ideal as to what we want but live with what we have and

find out ways to deal with it.

Now see the cycle, I see something, thought instantly creates a lack of that object and I move in order to

fulfill that – my desire is satisfied. With this satisfaction comes attachment. Let us look at the nature of

attachment, I am not pronouncing it is good or bad, but let us just observe. Attachment always gives us

a sense of security and our brain requires security to function. But this security probably leads to decay.

We live in constant fear of losing that object or person, which gives way to anxiety and again conflict.

When you have observed the nature of attachment, how thought creates the image about a person, and

is attached to that image. And to the person, the image is far more important than the person. So can

attachment, with all the consequences which brings great conflict, misery, confusion, antagonism, can

all that end? Then what takes place when you end attachment? When something ends, something

completely another occupies its space, and perhaps this is what we want. But this ending always leaves

space for some sort of fear to creep in. And this problem of fear has not been solved at all though we

have lived a million years we are still carrying on in the same old pattern of fear. So what is fear? Isn't

one afraid of letting go of attachment? Fear that comes into being when you feel that it is necessary not

to be attached, whatever it is. Then the immediate reaction is fear. Because in attachment you have

found security, safety, a sense of protection, and with the ending of that there is this quivering of what

is going to happen. Let us look at this - Each one of us has an image about the person with whom we

live. And in that image there is security. But that image is not the actual person. How that image is

created, whether that image can end, is a different problem. Which is, that image is created by thought,

by constant interaction, and with that image we live. And so the image and the actuality are two

different things. And so there is conflict, obviously. It's a struggle, conflict between two people because

they live on images. When there is no image perhaps there will be a different scenario.

We have resolved many problems outwardly in the world, in the environment and so on, but fear is not

out there but in us. It is a psychological reaction, and why haven't we with all our knowledge, with all

our experience, resolved this problem of fear completely? Is it that we have never looked at ourselves

but always relied on others to tell us what we are? Most of us are afraid, we are not talking about physical fears they are also involved - but losing a job,

you know all that, not having employment, not having enough money, having had pain, physical pain,

and fear of having the pain again. So there are all the physical fears. And it is much more important to

understand first the psychological fears, because then perhaps we can do something about physical fears

more sanely, rationally. We are doing it together. We are together observing this extraordinary thing

called fear which man has carried for a million years. You are attached to somebody, and that

attachment has given you safety, security, a sense of communion, talking over. And the ending of it

creates a sense of insecurity. Does that insecurity create fear? Which is what? The knowledge of ending

something might bring about more pain, or more uncertainty. So there is fear. That is, does knowledge

of a past experience create fear? Look, when you are attached to somebody, it is not only to the person,

but to the idea, you follow, the whole structure and nature of that person, with your image of that

person. In that there is great security. Now if you lose that security there is fear. That is, the previous

knowledge of being secured in attachment, that knowledge, letting that knowledge go create fear. So

knowledge, is psychological knowledge one of the causes of fear? There has been fear in the past, there

is the memory of that, the remembrance of that, and the remembrance is a movement of thought. This

again is the movement of knowledge. And this knowledge is stored up in the brain, and this knowledge

is me. When I say I am attached to you, I am attached to you because you are the audience and I derive

great pleasure from it, because I can talk to you, fulfil myself, all that nonsense. And that gives me a

great sense of fulfilling. So thought has experienced this sense of power that thought then says, if I let

this go I am frightened, I am nothing. So is fear the cause of me, I? When we fully understand this, the

whole of this fabric, it perhaps leads to Love. Love is something totally new, different from pleasure.

Fear and love cannot go together. But as we haven't resolved that problem between human beings and

we say, let's love god. How we have transferred that which should, must, exist between human beings,

and that can only exist when there is no fear, we have transferred that love to some object created by

thought, and we are satisfied with that because it is very convenient that, we can keep ourselves

individual, self-centered, anxious, frightened, greedy, attached, and talk about love of god, which is

sheer nonsense.

So can we totally end that conflict? Not with the motive of establishing love and all that.

Can a Human Being really radically mutate from what s/he is now? What role psychology as a field of

study can and has played in this regard? 

                                           Part 5