Program Notes
Guest speaker: J. Krishnamurti
J. Krishnamurti ONLINE
[NOTE: All quotations are by J. Krishnamurti.]
“The crisis is not in the outward technological advancement, but rather in the way we think, and the way we live, and the way we feel. I think that is where a revolution must take place.”
“No revolution, psychologically I’m talking about, is possible if there is merely the imitation of a particular ideology. To me, all ideologies are idiotic.”
“What has meaning is what IS, not what should be.”
“I think that is the worst thing one can do, to break up one’s own existence into various fragments, and that’s where contradiction lies.”
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Transcript
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Greetings from cyberdelic space, this is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in the psychedelic
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salon.
00:00:23 ►
This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.
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Well, I guess it’s been about three weeks now since we were last together here in the salon.
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And for most of that time, I was completely free from the tyranny of email.
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Although, I wasn’t actually able to take a complete tech break,
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because I still approved all the comments that came in for our notes from the Psychedelic Salon blog, which as you know you can find via psychedelicsalon.us.
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And also I occasionally tap the like icon on Flipboard when I surf through the Facebook posts.
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But for the most part it was a low-tech holiday with a lot of time spent riding in a car.
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For the most part, it was a low-tech holiday with a lot of time spent riding in a car.
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Among other things that I did was to spend some time in Lone Pine, visiting with Jean Stolaroff.
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And if you haven’t already listened to her and Myron’s stories in my three Lone Pine podcasts, number 83, 84, and 92, I think you owe it to yourself to go back and listen to them now.
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There’s really a significant amount of psychedelic history in those three interviews
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not to mention some of the other programs that have featured Myron and Gene
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although of course Gene generally kept quiet
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and just sort of prompted Myron with whispers
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letting him take center stage
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and this visit wasn’t any different as far as recording our conversation,
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since Jean didn’t want me to turn on my recorder.
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So you’ll just have to wonder about the great stories she told.
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But what I can tell you, however, is, first of all, Myron’s condition is about the same.
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He’s suffering from severe dementia and really no longer recognizes old friends.
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And he’s also on a feeding tube.
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So please send some white light his way after you listen to his stories that I’ve podcast.
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And my guess is that on some level he’ll hear you.
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The other thing that I can mention is that Gene and I share an interest in that old big band music
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that I grew up hearing and that she danced to as a young woman.
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And since Jean is now 86 years old and I’m only 70,
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she was way ahead of me in that particular music scene.
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While I was a kid listening to what at the time I very sneeringly thought of as my parents’ music,
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well, Jean was cutting class and attending live performances of many
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of these old great bands whose music I now actually enjoy.
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Anyway, while there were hundreds of psychedelic adventure stories still left untold, we instead
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spent a lot of our time talking about the Dorsey Brothers, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman,
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and a raft of other old bands.
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Eventually, I made it up to Oregon, where we spent some time with our dear friends Claudia and Ron Little,
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who you can hear more from in my podcast number 218, which is titled The Truth About Cannabis.
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And as you know, Claudia is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Americans for Safe Access,
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which is an organization that you may want to read more about.
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And you can find them on the web at safeaccessnow, all one word, safeaccessnow.org.
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And I’ll put a link to that in the program notes for this podcast.
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In addition to seeing Claudia and Ron and taking a side trip with them to Crater Lake,
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In addition to seeing Claudia and Ron and taking a side trip with them to Crater Lake,
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we also got to see our longtime friend, Jade,
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who I always give the credit to for my naming this podcast the Psychedelic Salon and not the Entheogenic Salon.
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Pretty good advice, don’t you think?
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And Jade is not only a donor to this salon, he is also always on the lookout for new items for me to podcast.
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And this time he introduced me to someone whose work I have not only already podcast,
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but whose permission I hadn’t requested to do so. However, this has a very happy ending,
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because this person was delighted that I podcast the audio from a video program that he produced,
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and he even gave me more tapes to digitize and get out to you.
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The man that I’m talking about is Stephen Marschank,
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and he was the producer of the two-DVD video set of Terrence McKenna that you can find on YouTube and other places under the title Prognosis.
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And in my podcast number 306, you can hear part of that audio featuring Terrence’s interview with Ram Dass.
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And now that I have this little fun bit of trivia that I learned from Stephen about that interview,
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I’ve got to pass it along to you.
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You see, in my podcast I cut out a very short section at the beginning
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where a waiter comes up to the table where Terrence and Ram Dass are sitting
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and he has a really funny interchange with
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them.
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But what I didn’t know before was that this so-called waiter was a plant.
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And it turns out that Terrence actually knew who the man was, but didn’t know that he was
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going to intrude on their conversation.
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And Ram Dass had no clue that it was a setup.
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So just now I went out and watched the beginning of that video again, and it’s even funnier
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now that I know the whole story.
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The reason I didn’t include it in my podcast is that without the video, it makes little
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sense because Terrence and Ram Dass were talking, and then suddenly there’s this non-sequitur
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of a conversation that just doesn’t work without seeing what’s going on.
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of a conversation that just doesn’t work without seeing what’s going on.
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So as I said, I went back and watched that part on YouTube once again,
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and it’s really funny when you see it and know what went on.
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So you might want to check that out for yourself if you get a chance.
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Now getting back to my meetings with Stephen Marschank,
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in addition to the tapes that he gave me,
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which I haven’t had a chance to take a close look at just yet,
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he also told me that he has over 100 hours of video recordings that didn’t make it into the final two-hour cut of Prognosis. Of course, since it was a two-camera shoot, that means that there
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are actually about 50 hours of audio still unheard, interviews that Terrence did, etc.
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And in a month or so, if all goes well, I think the process of digitizing that
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video with a view of putting it all up on YouTube will be underway. And we’re going to be able to
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use the audio here in the salon, the ones that seem interesting and fit. I can’t remember all
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the names of the people that Terrence interviewed at the time and that didn’t make it into the final
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release of the film, but as I recall, there are some really fascinating people we have yet to hear from.
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So thank you, Stephen, very much.
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So those are a few of the highlights from my little vacation, which was largely devoted
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to just resting and reading.
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In fact, I wasn’t even much help in the kitchen this time, I’m afraid.
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But now I’m so rested up that I’m borderline lethargic.
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Actually, I could get used to reading and napping all day every day.
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But I figured that I’d better push myself to get back in the groove here in the salon.
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However, before I introduce today’s program,
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I also first want to thank several of our fellow salonners who didn’t take a break
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from the salon and who either bought one of my books or who made a direct donation to the salon.
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It was very heartening to return home and discover that while I was away, you hadn’t forgotten me.
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So thank you all ever so much. And in particular, I want to mention a fellow slauner from Quebec who not only made a very generous donation to the salon, but who also sent a very thoughtful letter that I hope reflects the ideas of many of our other fellow slauners.
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What I’m referring to is that after some youthful experiences with psychedelics, and then after spending several decades of not being involved with them, he reconnected by first reading information of interest to him on arrowid.org.
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As I’ve said before, that’s E-R-O-W-I-D dot org.
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And from Arrowid, then he began his experimentations in altered states of consciousness
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with a below-the-threshold dose and gradually titrating up
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and a week or two apart
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until he found his proper dose. Now the reason I’m pointing out safety tips again right now is that
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I read a story about a young man who went to South America recently in order to have an
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ayahuasca experience. Sadly he died. The story that I read said that the shaman, or ayahuasquero, had mixed an
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additional plant into the brew for each of the participants. Apparently, whatever he mixed in
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that young man’s portion was deadly. Now, it’s not at all uncommon for ayahuasqueros to add a third
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plant at certain times. In fact, I once had an ayahuasca experience where datura was added.
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And I’m here to tell you that it was one of the most difficult and unpleasant ayahuasca experiences of my life.
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After that, I never participated when a third plant was added to the tea.
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But in my case, none of us died.
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Also, according to the one story that I read about this incident,
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the participants apparently got together, drank the brew, and then went back alone to their tents.
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Now, in the tradition in which I used to participate,
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we always held a circle together until the last of us was back to baseline.
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I don’t know if this is the norm or if going alone to your tent is the norm.
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All I know is that in the case of the unfortunate young man who died,
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it wasn’t until sometime the next day that anyone even bothered to check on him,
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and that was when they discovered he was dead.
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But the story gets even worse.
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Apparently, this Iowa sceral panicked and buried the boy’s body at the edge of his retreat center.
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Carroll panicked and buried the boy’s body at the edge of his retreat center. Then he told the boy’s family that their son had just taken his suitcase and wandered off back into town. It took several
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trips to Peru by members of his family until an investigation was finally held and the body
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discovered. So if you ever think about venturing to the Amazon and taking ayahuasca, it would obviously behoove you to have
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more than one personal recommendation
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as to which of these
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ayahuasqueros are legitimate, which are
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a little flaky, and which ones
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are to be avoided at all costs.
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I won’t go into that anymore right now
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because I think that we’ve covered that
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topic in as much depth as possible
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in my previous podcast about
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ayahuasca. In the event that you
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miss them, you can go back to our program notes via psychedelicsalon.us, and on the right side of
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the page, you’ll find a listing of categories that we’ve covered here in the salon, and then just
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click on the ayahuasca category. Well, that was quite a little detour. What I started to do was mention a couple of our other fellow salonners who I heard from recently.
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And one of them is the artist Martin Whitfoot, who has an exhibit now taking place in Culver City, California.
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The exhibit began on the 15th of September and runs through the first week of October.
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through the first week of October.
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It’s a solo show titled Empire and is at the Corey Helford Gallery
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at 8522 Washington Boulevard in Culver City.
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And I’ll put a link to that gallery
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and to Martin’s website in the program notes.
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So if you get a chance,
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you maybe want to click through
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and take a look at his work.
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I not only find it quite beautiful,
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but very thought-provoking as well.
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Plus, if you are anywhere near Culver
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City, you may want to stop by the gallery, where if you’re lucky, you might be able to
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find a few of the others that you’ve been searching for.
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And one last thing before I at long last introduce today’s program, I want to give a big thank
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you to our fellow salonner, Naomi C., who sent me a
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postcard from Burning Man. Now, I’ve sent quite a few postcards from the Burning Man post office
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myself, but this is the very first one that I’ve ever received, and knowing how difficult it is to
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even think of anything that isn’t on the playa while you’re at Burning Man, well, your thoughtfulness in sending that card warmed
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my heart, Naomi. Thank you for thinking of me. Now, at long last, getting to the focus of this
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podcast, what I’m about to play is a talk that I learned about from our fellow salonner Trevor W.,
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and you can also listen to it on the J. Krishnamurti website. The reason that I’m playing it for you here is to, once again,
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make a little attempt to interest more people in this wonderfully enlightened being.
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And should you enjoy this talk,
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then I highly recommend that you surf on over to the J. Krishnamurti website,
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which I’ll link to in today’s program notes.
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And there you’ll be able to listen to the other five talks in this series. Thank you. listen to so you can hear the last 20 minutes of it or so that I cut out where the Q&A begins,
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and I just didn’t have room to put it in this podcast. Personally, I don’t think you can go
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wrong in investing a little of your time listening to Krishnamurti and thus expand your mind in
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yet other directions. At least he has that effect on me.
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he has that effect on me.
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I think we ought to make these meetings
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quite
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informal.
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And perhaps
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at the end of the talk, if there is time,
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we can
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ask each other questions
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and hope
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that we will find the right answer.
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I think it is always rather difficult to communicate.
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Words must be used, and each word has a certain definite meaning.
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But I think we should bear in mind that the word is not the thing.
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The word does not convey the total significance.
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And if we merely semantically stick to words, then I am afraid we shall not be able to proceed much further.
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To communicate really, deeply, needs not only attention but also certain quality of affection, which doesn’t mean that one must not be critical or that
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one must accept what is said. alert, not only intellectually, but avoiding the pitfall of words.
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There should also be, I think, to really communicate with another about anything, a certain quality of direct affection, certain quality of exchange, examination, with full
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capacity to investigate, to examine, and then only communication can take place.
00:16:11 ►
Perhaps then there will be a commune, a communication with each other. Because we are going to deal with so many subjects, so many problems during these talks,
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and we are going to go into them fairly deeply. Firstly, to understand what the speaker is saying, if you are interested, one has to
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have a certain quality of attention in listening.
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Very few of us listen because we ourselves have so many ideas, so many opinions, so many conclusions
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and beliefs which actually prevent the act of listening.
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And that’s one of the most difficult things, to listen to another.
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We are so ready with our own opinions, with our own conclusions.
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We are apt to interpret, agreeing or disagreeing, taking sides or saying, I don’t agree, and
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quickly brushing it aside. All that, it seems to me, prevents the act of actual listening.
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It’s only when there is this listening,
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which is not merely intellectual,
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because any clever person can listen to a certain argument, to a certain exposition of ideas.
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But to listen with the mind and the heart, with the total being of oneself, if there is such thing as a being of oneself totally, requires a great deal of attention.
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And therefore to attend implies not knowing one’s own beliefs, concepts, conclusions, what one wants and so on, but also putting those aside for
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the time being and listening.
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And then I think only is it possible to commune with each other, because we have to talk over
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great many things, because life has so many problems.
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We are all so confused.
00:19:13 ►
Very few have any belief in anything, or faith. There is war, there is insecurity, great anxiety, fear, the despair, the agony of daily existence,
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and the utter boredom and loneliness of it. And beyond all this there is the problem of death and love.
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And we are caught in this tremendous confusion.
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And to understand the totality of it, not the fragment that is very clear to you and which you want to
00:20:06 ►
achieve, not the special conclusion which you, his suffering, his loneliness, his
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anxiety, the utter hopelessness, meaninglessness of life.
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And I think if we can do that, not take any particular fragment which may for the time
00:20:54 ►
being appeal to you or give you pleasure, but rather see the whole map, as it were, of existence, not partially, not fragmentarily, but to see the
00:21:15 ►
whole of it. We shall be able to bring about a radical revolution in the psyche.
00:21:30 ►
And it seems to me that is the main crisis of our life, that though there are vast changes changes going on in the world, the world of science, mathematics and all the rest of it.
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Technologically there is tremendous change going on.
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But in the psyche of the human but rather in the way we think,
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in the way we live, in the way we feel.
00:22:17 ►
I think that is where a revolution must take place. And this revolution can only be possible
00:22:26 ►
not according to any particular pattern,
00:22:32 ►
because no revolution, psychologically I’m talking about, is possible,
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if there is merely the imitation of a particular ideology.
00:22:45 ►
To me all ideologies are idiotic.
00:22:48 ►
There is no meaning.
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What has meaning is what is, not what should be.
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And to understand what is there must be freedom to look, not only to look outwardly but inwardly.
00:23:10 ►
You know, really, there is no division as the outer and the inner.
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It’s a process, a unitary movement.
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The moment you understand the outer you are also understanding the inner.
00:23:32 ►
But unfortunately we have divided, broken up life into fragments – the outer, the
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inner, the good and the bad, and so on. As one has divided the world into nationalities with all their miseries and wars, we have
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also divided our own existence inwardly and outwardly.
00:24:00 ►
I think that is the worst thing one can do, to break up one’s own existence into various
00:24:07 ►
fragments.
00:24:10 ►
And that’s where contradiction lies, and most of us are caught in this contradiction,
00:24:18 ►
and hence in conflict. So, with all the complications, the confusions, the misery, the enormous human effort that
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has gone up to build a society, which is getting more and more complex.
00:24:45 ►
And is it possible, living in this world, to be totally free of all confusion and therefore
00:25:01 ►
of all contradiction, and hence be free of fear.
00:25:09 ►
Because a mind that is afraid obviously has no peace.
00:25:18 ►
And it is only when the mind is completely and totally free of fear, then it can observe, then it can investigate.
00:25:35 ►
One of our major problems is violence, not only outwardly but inwardly.
00:25:47 ►
Violence is not merely physical violence, but the whole structure of the psyche is based
00:25:53 ►
on violence.
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That is, this constant effort, this constant adjustment to a pattern, constant pursuit of a pleasure, and therefore the avoidance
00:26:14 ►
of anything which gives pain, discarding the capacity to look, to observe what is, all that is part of violence.
00:26:28 ►
Aggression, competition, the constant comparison between what is and what should be, the imitation,
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surely all that is a form of violence, because man since historical times has chosen war
00:26:52 ►
as the way of life.
00:26:55 ►
Our daily existence is a war, in ourselves as well as outwardly.
00:27:02 ►
We are always in conflict with ourselves and with another.
00:27:08 ►
And is it possible for the mind to be totally free of this violence?
00:27:18 ►
Because we need peace outwardly as well as inwardly.
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And peace is not possible if there is not freedom, freedom from this total aggressive
00:27:33 ►
attitude towards life.
00:27:36 ►
So we all know this, that there is violence, that there is tremendous hate in the world, war, destruction, competition,
00:27:52 ►
each one pursuing his own particular form of pleasure.
00:27:57 ►
All that, it seems to me, is a way of life which breeds contradiction and violence.
00:28:08 ►
And we know this intellectually, we have thought about it, statistically we can examine it,
00:28:18 ►
intellectually we can rationalise the whole thing and say, well, that’s inevitable,
00:28:23 ►
that is the history of man for the last two million
00:28:25 ►
years and more, and we’ll go on that way.
00:28:30 ►
So one asks oneself whether it is at all possible to bring about a total revolution in the psyche,
00:28:40 ►
in oneself, not as an individual.
00:28:45 ►
The individual is the local entity, the American, the Indian, the Russian.
00:28:54 ►
He can do very little.
00:29:00 ►
But we are not the local entities.
00:29:04 ►
We are human beings.
00:29:07 ►
There is no barrier as an Indian or an American, Russian, a communist and so on.
00:29:18 ►
If we regard the whole process of existence of a human being, of which you and I are, if we can bring
00:29:28 ►
about a revolution there, not in the individual.
00:29:37 ►
Because after all, apart from nationalities and the absurdities of religion, organised religion, and superficial
00:29:53 ►
culture, if we go beyond that, as a human being we all suffer, we go through tortures of anxiety, there is sorrow, there
00:30:13 ►
is the everlasting search for the good and the noble and what is generally called the
00:30:17 ►
God – we are all afraid. So if we can bring about a change there in the human psyche, then the individual will
00:30:34 ►
act quite differently.
00:30:38 ►
This implies that there is no division between the conscious and the unconscious.
00:30:48 ►
I know it is the fashion to discuss a great deal and study a great deal about the unconscious.
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Really there is no such thing as the unconscious.
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We’ll discuss all this.
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We’ll go into all this.
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I’m just outlining what we are going to talk over together during the next five talks. Is it possible for the human being to totally empty the past so that he is made new, to
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look at life entirely differently?
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You see, the past, whether it is the fifty years past or two million years past, which we call the unconscious, the unconscious
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which is the racial residue, the tradition, the motives, the hidden pursuits, the pleasures,
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that which we call the unconscious is not the unconscious, it is always in the
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conscious.
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Because there is only consciousness.
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You may not be aware of the total content of that consciousness.
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And all consciousness is limitation.
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And we are caught in this.
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We move in this consciousness from one field to another field, calling it by different
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names, but it unconscious, the conscious, the past, the future and all
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that is within that field.
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You can observe it for yourself, you are very aware of your own process of thinking, feeling,
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acting. making, feeling, acting, how we deceive ourselves, move from one field, from one corner to another.
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And this consciousness, which is always limited, because in that consciousness there is always
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the observer, and wherever there is the observer, the censor, the watcher, he
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creates the limitation within that consciousness.
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I think that’s fairly simple if you look at it. So any change brought about by will, by pleasure, by an avoidance or an escape, any change or
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evolution brought about by influence, by pressure, strain, convenience for particular pleasure, is still within that limit, in that
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consciousness.
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And therefore it is always limited, and therefore it is always breeding conflict.
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So if one observes this, not through books, not through psychologists and analysts and all the rest of it, but if
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one observes this actually, factually, as it takes place in yourself, as a human being,
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then the question will inevitably arise whether it is possible to be conscious where it is necessary to be conscious – going
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to the office and all the rest of it – and where consciousness is a limitation and therefore
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be free of it. Not that you go into a trance or amnesia or some mystical nonsense, unless there is that
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freedom from this enclosing consciousness, this time-binding consciousness, that we shall not have peace, because peace is not dependent
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on politicians, on the army – they are much too vested interests in all that – nor on
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the priests, nor on any belief.
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They have taught all religions except perhaps one or two, Buddhism and Hinduism, perhaps.
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Always taught peace and entered into war.
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And that’s the way of our life.
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And I feel if there is no freedom from this limitation of consciousness as time-binding
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with its observer as the centre, man will go on endlessly suffering, and so is it possible to empty the whole of consciousness,
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the whole of my mind, with all its tricks and vanities, deceptions and pursuits and
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moralities and all that, based essentially on pleasure.
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Is it possible to be totally free of all that, empty the mind so that it can look and act
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and live totally differently?
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I say it is possible, not out of vanity or some superstitious mystical nonsense, but it is possible only when the
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observer, the centre, and the observed, there is the realisation that the observer is the
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observed. This is extremely not difficult, requires a great deal of understanding to come to this.
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It isn’t a matter of your sentimentally agreeing or disagreeing.
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You know what is understanding, what understanding means?
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Surely understanding is not intellectual, not saying, understand your words, the meaning
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of your words, that’s not understanding, surely?
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Nor is it an emotional agreement, a sentimental affair, there is understanding of any problem, of any issue, when the mind
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is totally quiet, not induced quietness, not disciplined quietness, but the mind is completely
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still.
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Then there is an understanding.
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This is what we do.
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Actually this takes place when you have a problem of any kind.
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You have thought a great deal about it, investigated, examined back and forth, and there is no answer.
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And you more or less push it aside, and your mind becomes quiet with regard to that problem,
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and suddenly you have an answer.
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This happens to so many people ordinarily, this is nothing. So, understanding can only come, surely, when there is a direct perception, not a reasoned
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conclusion.
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So our question is then, how is a man, a human being, not American, not Englishman, not Chinese and all the rest
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of it, how is a human being to create not only a new society, and he can only create
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that when there is a total revolution in himself as a human being?
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And is that possible?
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So that he has no fear at all, because he understands the nature of fear, what is the
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structure of fear, the meaning of fear, comes directly into contact with it, not a thing
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to be avoided but to be understood, and it means, is it possible for the whole of that structure of thought which is always functioning round the centre, is it possible
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to, in understanding the whole machinery of thinking, which is the result of memory, and
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thought is the reaction of memory, and hence the limitation of consciousness, is it possible
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to totally not think, to totally function without the memory as we now function, as it now functions.
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I hope I am conveying something.
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If not, we will go into it.
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You see, this brings us to a point.
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What is the function of idea?
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Idea being the prototype, the formula, the ideal, the concept, has it any function at
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all?
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For us, idea is very important, and we function, we act on idea, on concepts, on formulas.
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A belief is a formula. All our activity is from ideas, or based on ideas, and hence a contradiction between act
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and the idea.
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Now, I have an idea, I have an ideal, a belief, and all the rest of it, and I act according to that, or approximate
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my action to that.
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And action can never be…
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The idea is unreal,, the idea of a certain dogma, the dogma of belief in God and all
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the rest of it, are purely ideological.
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And is it possible to act without the idea?
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Please, this requires a great deal of enquiry, because as long as there is conflict there
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must be pain and sorrow, conflict in any form, and there must be conflict as long as there
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is contradiction.
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And the nature of contradiction is essentially the idea and the fact, the what is.
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If there is no idea at all – belief, dogma, the tomorrow, which is always the ideal, tomorrow
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– then I can look at what is, actually, not translate it in terms of tomorrow, but see actually what is.
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And to understand what is, one need not have ideas.
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All that one has to do is to observe.
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So that brings us to a point which is, what is observing?
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What is seeing?
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I wonder if we ever see, observe, or do we see with the word, with a conclusion, with
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a name, and therefore they become the barriers to see.
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If you say, well, he is an Indian from India with all his mystical ideas or romantic ideas
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and so on and so on, you are actually not seeing. impossible to see when thought doesn’t function.
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If you are listening, except expecting some… I don’t know what, and the expectation is preventing you from listening, or the idea, the concept, the knowledge prevents
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you from observing.
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If you look at a flower, or a tree, or a cloud, or the bird, whatever it is, immediately your reaction is you have
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given it a name, you like it or dislike it, you have categorised it, put it away as a
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memory and you have stopped looking. So, is it possible to look, to see, without all the mentation taking place?
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Mentation is always thought as an idea, as memory, and hence there is no direct perception.
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I do not know if you have not observed, if you have observed your friend or your wife
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or your husband looking, to look.
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You look at another, surely, with all the memories, misfortunes, insults and all the rest of it,
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and you look, or you listen.
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You actually are not listening or seeing.
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And this process of non-observance is called relationship. Please, don’t laugh it away, because as I said, or probably I have not said this time,
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all this is very serious.
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It isn’t a philosophical lecture which you listen to, talk, which you listen to and then
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go home and carry on.
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It is only to the very serious man there is living, there is life.
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And one cannot, with all this appalling confusion and misery, just laugh it away or go to a
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cinema and forget all about the beastly stuff.
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Therefore it requires extraordinary, earnest, attentive seriousness.
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And seriousness is not a reaction.
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All reactions are limitations. But when one observes, listens, looks, then one begins to understand whether it is at
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all possible for man to be totally free of his conditioning, because we are all conditioned By the food, the clothes, the climate, the culture, the society, we live in.
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And is it possible to be free of that conditioning?
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Not in some distant future, but on the instant. That’s why I said whether it is at all possible to free the mind totally, empty it completely
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so that it is something new.
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If this does not take place, we are committed to sorrow, we are committed to everlasting
00:49:10 ►
fear.
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So how is it possible, and is it at all possible, to free the mind of the past totally, empty it, though in certain fields the knowledge
00:49:33 ►
is essential.
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If I didn’t know where I was going, all the technological knowledge which man has
00:49:42 ►
acquired through centuries, one can’t forget all that, put all that aside.
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But I am talking about the psyche which has accumulated
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so many concepts, ideas, experiences,
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and caught within this consciousness with the observer as its centre.
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Now having put the question, what’s the answer?
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And who is going to answer it?
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It is the right question, not an irrelevant question.
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When one puts the right question, there is the right answer.
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But it requires a great deal of integrity to put the right question.
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And we have put the right question.
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Is it possible for man who has lived for so many centuries and million years, who has
00:50:50 ►
pursued a path of violence, has accepted war as the way of life, in daily life as well
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as on the battlefield, who is seeking everlastingly peace and denying it, is it possible for man to transform himself
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completely so that he lives totally differently?
00:51:20 ►
Now having put the question, who will answer it?
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Will you look to somebody to answer it, some guru, some priest, some psychologist, or are
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you waiting for the speaker to answer it? If you put the question rightly, the answer is in the question.
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But very few of us have put that question.
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We have accepted the norm of life,
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and to change that requires a great deal of energy.
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And we are committed to certain dogmas, certain beliefs, certain activities, the way of life.
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We are committed.
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And we are frightened to change it, not knowing what it will breed. So can we, realising the implications of all this, can we honestly put that question?
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And how you put it matters also, surely.
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I can put it, ask myself intellectually, out of curiosity, out of a moment when I can spare
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for my daily routine, but that will not answer it. What will answer that question depends on the mind, how earnest it is, or how lazy it
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is, or how indifferent to the whole structure and the misery of existence.
00:53:20 ►
Now having put that question we are going to find out.
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We are going to talk over together during these five more talks that are to come, how
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to discover the answer for ourselves, therefore not depending on anybody.
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There is no authority, there is no guru, no priest that will answer this.
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And to come to that point when you are not dependent on anybody psychologically is the
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first, probably the last step. When the mind has freed itself from all its diseases, then we can find out, then it can
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find out if there is a reality which is not put together by thought.
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If there is such thing as God. Because a man has searched, sought after and hunted that being.
00:54:31 ►
And we have to answer that question.
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And also we have to answer the question of what death is.
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A society, a human being that does not understand what death is will not know what life is, nor will
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he know what love is.
00:54:51 ►
And merely to accept or deny of something which is not a thought is rather immature, but if one would go into it, one must lay the foundation of virtue,
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which has nothing to do with social morality.
00:55:16 ►
One must understand the nature of pleasure, not deny pleasure or accept pleasure, but
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understand the nature of it, the structure of it.
00:55:25 ►
And obviously there must be freedom from fear, and hence a mind that is completely free from
00:55:38 ►
discontent and wanting more experience, then only it seems to me possible to find out
00:55:47 ►
if there is something beyond the human fear
00:55:55 ►
which has created God.
00:56:02 ►
You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,
00:56:04 ►
where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.
00:56:10 ►
Is there something beyond the human fear which has created God?
00:56:16 ►
Well, I guess that question should give you something to think about for a while.
00:56:22 ►
And to be honest, I’m not really equipped to respond to or
00:56:26 ►
expand on a talk by the wonderful Krishnamurti, and so I’m not even going to make that attempt
00:56:31 ►
right now. However, that said, I am going to have to listen to the next five talks in this lecture
00:56:37 ►
to better understand what he means when he says that there is no such thing as the unconscious,
00:56:42 ►
because at this point in time, while I do understand his point of view on the subject,
00:56:47 ►
it doesn’t quite square with my own views.
00:56:50 ►
But perhaps we’re only quibbling about the definition of words, huh?
00:56:55 ►
Ah, the pitfall of words.
00:56:58 ►
And as much as I’d like to say a few words about the Occupy movement right now,
00:57:02 ►
which, by the way, celebrated its one-year anniversary a few days ago. The truth is that, well, I’m kind of worn out after being
00:57:10 ►
so long-winded in the beginning, and there’s quite a lot that I have to say about the movement,
00:57:15 ►
which is very much alive and well in case you are only following it through the corporate news and
00:57:21 ►
propaganda sources. So in a week or so, I plan on doing a somewhat more extensive program about Occupy.
00:57:28 ►
And if you have some stories of your own to tell about what’s going on with Occupy in your area,
00:57:33 ►
please send me a brief description of what you’re up to.
00:57:36 ►
And you can send them to Lorenzo at MatrixMasters.com.
00:57:41 ►
And right now, believe it or not, I’ve got an empty mailbox,
00:57:44 ►
which I hope to
00:57:45 ►
be able to keep up with for a while. Of course, the reason my mailbox is empty is that yesterday
00:57:52 ►
I transferred over 800 unread emails into my island folder. And you probably have one
00:57:58 ►
of those island folders too, you know, the aisles. Someday I’ll do this, someday I’ll
00:58:02 ►
do that, and someday I’ll get all those emails read, but
00:58:05 ►
it probably won’t be today. Ah, the Someday Isles, what a beautiful place to visit.
00:58:12 ►
Now that I said that, I guess it sounds kind of rude, and I certainly don’t mean that I’m not
00:58:17 ►
thrilled to hear from so many people, but it’s still just me here, and I have to limit myself to
00:58:23 ►
less than an hour a day for email if I want to finish my writing projects, do me here, and I have to limit myself to less than an hour a day for email
00:58:25 ►
if I want to finish my writing projects, do these podcasts,
00:58:29 ►
and most importantly, spend some time playing with my grandchildren,
00:58:33 ►
which is what I’m going to do right now.
00:58:36 ►
So, until next time, this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.
00:58:41 ►
Be well, my friends.