Krishnamurti: On relationship: Ojai, 16 June 1940 & Saanen, 31 July 1981
Book Excerpts, NonDualism, Reflections
FOR MOST OF us, relationship with another is based on dependence, either economic or psychological. This dependence creates fear, breeds in us possessiveness, results in friction, suspicion, frustration. Economic dependence on another can perhaps be eliminated through legislation and proper organization, but I am referring especially to that psychological dependence on another, which is the outcome of craving for personal satisfaction, happiness, and so on. One feels, in this possessive relationship, enriched, creative, and active; one feels one’s own little flame of being is increased by another. In order not to lose this source of completeness, one fears the loss of the other, and so possessive fears come into being with all their resulting problems. Thus in this relationship of psychological dependence, there must always be conscious or unconscious fear, suspicion, that often lies hidden in pleasant sounding words. The reaction of this fear leads one ever to search for security and enrichment through various channels, or to isolate oneself in ideas and ideals, or to seek substitutes for satisfaction.
Though one is dependent on another, there is yet the desire to be inviolate, to be whole. The complex problem in relationship is how to love without dependence, without friction and conflict; how to conquer the desire to isolate oneself, to withdraw from the cause of conflict. If we depend for our happiness on another, on society or on environment, they become essential to us; we cling to them, and any alteration of these we violently oppose because we depend upon them for our psychological security and comfort. Though intellectually we may perceive that life is a continual process of flux, of mutation necessitating constant change, emotionally or sentimentally we cling to the established and comforting values; hence there is a constant battle between change and the desire for permanency. Is it possible to put an end to this conflict?
Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness. If one can deeply understand this problem of relationship between oneself and another then perhaps we shall understand and solve the problems of our relationship with society, for society is but the extension of ourselves. The environment that we call society is created by past generations; we accept it, as it helps us to maintain our greed, possessiveness, illusion. In this illusion there cannot be unity or peace. Mere economic unity brought about through compulsion and legislation cannot end war. As long as we do not understand individual relationship, we cannot have a peaceful society.
Since our relationship is based on possessive love, we have to become aware, in ourselves, of its birth, its causes, its action. In becoming deeply aware of the process of possessiveness with its violence, fears, its reactions, there comes an understanding that is whole, complete. This understanding alone frees thought from dependence and possessiveness. It is within oneself that harmony in relationship can be found, not in another nor in environment.
In relationship, the primary cause of friction is oneself, the self that is the centre of unified craving. If we can but realize that it is not how another acts that is of primary importance, but how each one of us acts and reacts, and that if that reaction and action can be fundamentally, deeply understood, then relationship will undergo a deep and radical change. In this relationship with another, there is not only the physical problem but also that of thought and feeling on all levels, and one can be harmonious with another only when one is harmonious integrally in oneself. In relationship the important thing to bear in mind is not the other but oneself, which does not mean that one must isolate oneself, but understand deeply in oneself the cause of conflict and sorrow. So long as we depend on another for our psychological wellbeing, intellectually or emotionally, that dependence must inevitably create fear from which arises sorrow.
To understand the complexity of relationship there must be thoughtful patience and earnestness. Relationship is a process of self revelation in which one discovers the hidden causes of sorrow. This selfrevelation is only possible in relationship.
I am laying emphasis on relationship because in comprehending deeply its complexity we are creating understanding, an understanding that transcends reason and emotion. If we base our understanding merely on reason then there is isolation, pride, and lack of love in it, and if we base our understanding merely on emotion, then there is no depth in it; there is only a sentimentality that soon evaporates, and no love. From this understanding only can there be completeness of action. This understanding is impersonal and cannot be destroyed. It is no longer at the behest of time. If we cannot bring forth understanding from the everyday problems of greed and of our relationship, then to seek such understanding and love in other realms of consciousness is to live in ignorance and illusion.
Without fully understanding the process of greed, merely to cultivate kin liness, generosity, is to perpetuate ignorance and cruelty. Without integrally understanding relationship, merely to cultivate compassion, forgiveness, is to bring about selfisolation and to indulge in subtle forms of pride. In understanding craving fully, there is compassion, forgiveness. Cultivated virtues are not virtues. This understanding requires constant and alert awareness, a strenuousness that is pliable. Mere control with its peculiar training has its dangers, as it is onesided, incomplete, and therefore shallow. Interest brings its own natural, spontaneous concentration in which there is the flowering of understanding. This interest is awakened by observing, questioning the actions and reactions of everyday existence.
To grasp the complex problem of life with its conflicts and sorrows, one must bring about integral understanding. This can be done only when we deeply comprehend the process of craving that is now the central force in our life.
Questioner: In speaking of self revelation, do you mean revealing oneself to oneself or to others?
Krishnamurti: One often does reveal oneself to others, but what is important, to see yourself as you are or to reveal yourself to another? I have been trying to explain that if we allow it, all relationship acts as a mirror in which to perceive clearly that which is crooked and that which is straight. It gives the necessary focus to see sharply, but as I explained, if we are blinded by prejudice, opinions, beliefs, we cannot, however poignant relationship is, see clearly, without bias. Then relationship is not a process of selfrevelation.
Our primary consideration is: What prevents us from perceiving truly? We are not able to perceive because our opinions about ourselves, our fears, ideals, beliefs, hopes, traditions, all act as veils. Without understanding the causes of these perversions we try to alter or hold on to what is perceived, and this creates further resistances and further sorrow. Our chief consideration should be, not to alter or to accept what is perceived, but to become aware of the many causes that bring about this perversion. Some may say that they have not the time to be aware, they are too occupied, and so on, but it is not a question of time but rather of interest. Then, in whatever they are occupied with, there is the beginning of awareness. To seek immediate results is to destroy the possibility of complete understanding.
Saanen, 31 July 1981
Questioner: If two people have a relationship of conflict and pain, can they resolve it, or must the relationship end? To have a good relationship isn’t it necessary for both to change?
Krishnamurti: I hope the question is clear. What is the cause in relationship of pain, conflict, and all the problems that arise? What is the root of it? Please, in answering these questions, we are thinking together. I am not answering for you just to receive or accept or reject, but together we are inquiring into these questions. This is a question that concerns all human beings whether they are in the East, here, or in America. This is a problem that really concerns most human beings. Apparently two people, man and woman, cannot live together ’shout conflict, without pain, without a sense of inequality, with ut that feeling that they are not profoundly related to each other. 0ne asks why? There may be multiple causes: sex, temperament, opposite feelings, belief, ambition. There may be many, many causes for this lack of harmony in relationship. But what is really the source, the depth of that source, that brings conflict in each of us? I think that is the important question to ask, and then do not wait for an answer from somebody, like the speaker, but having put the question, have the patience to wait, hesitate, let the question itself take seed, flower, move. I don’t know if I am conveying that feeling.
I ask myself why, if I am married to a woman, or live with a woman, why do I have this basic conflict between us? I can give a superficial answerbecause she is a Roman Catholic and I am a Protestant, or this or that. Those are all superficial reasons, but I want to find out what is the deep root, or deep source of this conflict between two people. I have put the question, and I am waiting for the question itself to flower, to expose all the intricacies in the question and what the question brings out. For that, I must have a little patienceright?a little sense of waiting, watching, being aware, so that the question begins to unfold. As it unfolds I begin to see the answer. Not that I want an answer, but the question itself begins to unroll, show me the extraordinary complexity that lies between two people, between two human beings that perhaps like each other, perhaps are attracted to each other. When they are very young they get sexually involved, and so on, and later as they grow a little older they get bored with each other and gradually escape from that boredom through another person, divorcingyou know all the rest of it. But they find the same problem with another. So I have to have patience. By that word patience I mean not allowing time to operate. I do not know if you have gone into the question of patience and impatience.
Most of us are rather impatient. We want our question answered immediately, or we want to escape from it immediately, to operate upon it immediately. So we are rather impatient to get on with it. This impatience doesn’t give one the depth of understanding of the problem. Whereas if I have patience, which is not of time, I am not wanting to end the problem; I am watching, looking at the problem, letting it evolve, grow. So out of that patience I begin to find out the depth of the answer. Right? Let us do that together now. We are patient, not wanting an immediate answer, and therefore our minds, brains are open to look, are aware of the problem and its complexity. Right? We are tryingno, I don’t want to use the word tryingwe are penetrating into the problem of why two people can never seem to live together without conflict. What is the root of this conflict? What is my relationship with her, or with somebody? Is it superficial? That is, sexual attraction, the curiosity, the excitement, are all superficial sensory responses. Right? So I realize these responses are superficial, and as long as I try to find an answer superficially I will never be able to see the depth of the problem. So am I free from the superficial responses and the problems that superficial responses create and the attempt to solve those problems superficially? I don’t know if you are following.
I have seen that I won’t find an answer superficially. Therefore I ask what the root of it is. Is it education? Is it that being a man I want to dominate the other, that I want to possess the other? Am I attached so deeply I don’t want to let go? And do I see that being tied, attached, will invariably bring about corruptioncorruption in the sense that I am jealous, I am anxious, I am frightened? One knows very well all the consequences of attachment. Is that the cause of it? Or is the cause much deeper? First of all, we said, superficial, then emotional, attachment, emotional and sentimental and romantic dependence. If I discard those, then is there still a deeper issue involved in this? Are you getting it? We are moving from the superficial lower and deeper and deeper so that we can find out for ourselves what the root of it is. I hope you are doing this.
Now how do I find the root of it? How do you find the root of it? Are you wanting an answer, wanting to find the root of it and therefore making a tremendous effort? Or you want to find it so your mind, your brain is quiet? It is looking, so it is not agitated, it is not the activity of desire, will. It is just watching. Are we doing this together, just watching to see what is the deep root, or deep cause, the basis of this conflict between human beings? Is it the sense of individual separation? See, go into it very carefully please. Is it the individual concept that I am separate from the other basically? Biologically we are different, but there is the sense of deeprooted individual separative action; is that the root of it? Or is there still a deeper root, a deeper layeryou understand? I wonder if you are following all this? We are together in this? First sensory responses, sensual responses, then emotional, romantic, sentimental responses, then attachment, with all its corruption? Or is it something profoundly conditioned, a brain that says, “I am an individual, and he, or she, is an individual, and we are separate entities; each must fulfil in his own way and therefore the separation is basic”? Is that so?
Is it basic? Or have I been educated to that, that I am an individual and she, also an individual, must fulfil herself in her own way, and I must equally? So we have already started from the very beginning in these two separate directions. They may be running parallel together but never meeting; like two railway lines that never meet. And all I am doing is trying to meet, trying to live harmoniously, struggling: “Oh, darling you are so good”you follow?repeating, repeating, but never meeting. Right?
So if that is the cause, and apparently it appears to be the cause, the root of it, is that separative existence of an individual a reality? Or it is an illusion that I have been nourishing, cherishing, holding onto, without any validity behind it? If it has no validity, I must be quite sure, absolutely, irrevocably sure that it is an illusion and ask if the brain can break away from that illusion and realize we are all similar, psychologically. You follow? My consciousness is the consciousness of the rest of mankind; though biologically we differ, psychologically, our consciousness is similar in all human beings. If I once realize this, not intellectually but in depth, in my heart, in my blood, in my guts, then my relationship to another undergoes a radical change. Right? It’s inevitable.
Now the questioner asks: We are in conflict, must it end? If we battle with each other all day long, as most people do in this struggle, conflictyou know, the bitterness, the anger, the hatred, the repulsionwe bear it as long as we can and then comes the moment when we have to break. We know the familiar pattern of this. There are more and more divorces. And the questioner asks: What is one to do? If I am everlastingly in conflict with my wife and somehow I can’t patch it over, must the relationship end? Or do I understand basically the cause of this disruption, of this conflict, which is the sense of separate individuality, and having seen the illusory nature of it, I am therefore no longer pursuing the individual line. So then what takes place when I have perceived that and live itnot verbally maintain it, but actually live it what is my relationship with the person, With the woman who still thinks in terms of the individual? You understand my question?
It is very interesting. Go into it. I see, or she sees better put it onto her she sees the foolishness, the absurdity, the illusory nature of the individual. She understands it, she feels it, and I don’t because I am a male, I am more aggressive, more driving, and all the rest of that. So what takes place between us? She has comprehended that nature and I have not. She won’t quarrel with me, ever. Right? She won’t enter into that area at all, but I am constantly pushing her, driving her and trying to pull her into that area. I am creating the conflict, not she. Have you understood how the whole thing has moved? Are you following all this? The whole thing has moved. There are now not two people quarrelling but only one. See what has taken place. And I, if I am at all sensitive, if I have real feeling for her, I begin to transform also because she is irrevocably there. You understand? She will not move out of that. See what happens. If two immovable objects meet there is conflict. I don’t know if you see. But if one is immovable, the lady, and I am movable, I naturally yield to that which is immovable. Right? I wonder if you understand this. This is very simple.
So the problem then is resolved, if one has real comprehension of relationship without the image, which we went into previously. Then by her very presence, by her very vitality of actuality, she is going to transform me, help me. That is the answer. Got it?
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