Seeking Satisfaction?

TOI, Kol 25.10.2008

Seeking Satisfaction?

You Are Selfish

Jiddu Krishnamurti
What is your fundamental, lasting interest in life? Isn’t it yourself? That is what most of us would say if we answered truthfully. I am interested in my progress, my job, my family, the little corner in which I live, in getting a better position for myself, more prestige, more power, more domination over others, and so on.
Some of us would say that it is wrong to be primarily interested in ourselves. But what is wrong about it except that we seldom decently, honestly, admit it? If we do, we are rather ashamed of it. So there it is – one is fundamentally interested in oneself, and for various ideological or traditional reasons one thinks it is wrong.
You may say that it is more satisfactory to help another than to think about yourself. What is the difference? It is still self-concern. If it gives you greater satisfaction to help others, you are concerned with what will give you greater satisfaction. Why bring any ideological concept into it? Why this double thinking? Why not say, ‘What I really want is satisfaction, whether in sex, or in helping others, or in becoming a great saint, scientist, or politician?"
Is the same process, isn’t it? Satisfaction, in all sorts of ways, subtle and obvious, is what we want. When we say we want freedom, we want it because we think fit may be wonderfully satisfying, and the ultimate satisfaction, of course, is this peculiar idea of self-realisation. What we are really seeking is a satisfaction in which there is no dissatisfaction at all.
Most of us crave the satisfaction of having a position in society because we are afraid of being nobody. Society is so constructed that a citizen who has a position of respect is treated with great courtesy, whereas a man who has no position is kicked around… This craving for position, for prestige, for power, to be recognized by society as being outstanding in some way, is a wish to dominate others, and this wish to dominate is a form of aggression. The saint who seeks a position in regard to his saintliness is as aggressive as the chicken pecking in the farmyard. And what is the cause of this aggressiveness? It is fear, isn’t it?
Fear is one of the greatest problems in life. A mind that is caught in fear lives in confusion, in conflict, and therefore must be violent, distorted, and aggressive.
Living in such a corrupt, stupid society as we do, with the competitive education we receive, which engenders fear, we are all burdened with fears of some kind, and fear is a dreadful thing that warps, twists, and dulls our days…
We are all afraid of something; there is no fear in abstraction, it is always in relation to something. Do you know your own fears – fear of losing your job, of not having enough food or money, or what your neighbours or the public think about you, or of not being a success, of losing your position in society, of being despised or ridiculed…? And what do you usually do about them? You run away from them, don’t you, or invent ideas and images to cover them? But to run away from fear is only to increase it.
One of the major causes of fear is that we do not want to face ourselves as we are. So, as well as the fears themselves, we have to examine the network of escapes we have developed to rid ourselves of them. If the mind, in which is included the brain, tries to overcome fear, to suppress it, discipline it, control it, translate it into terms of something else, there is friction, there is conflict, and that conflict is a waste of energy.

Irreverence Inevitably Attracts The Young

TOI, Patna 18.10.08

Irreverence Inevitably Attracts The Young

Jaithirth Rao

I must have been 16 years old. When my brother introduced me to Jiddu Krishnamurti’s writings. He had suggested that I read a couple of books in the ‘commentaries on Living’ series. We were living in madras – as Chennai was then called – and I went one evening to Vasant Vihar to listen to a talk by JK as my brother referred to call him.
I found many things about the meeting and the talk different. JK walked in and sat down a couple of minutes before the scheduled and the talk started precisely on time. This was and remains quite unusual, particularly in India. The speaker (as JK liked to allude to himself) sat cross-legged and ramrod straight. I have never been able to sit without a slouch and I found the straight posture quite fascinating. JK spoke with a clipped English accent and his singsong was quite hypnotic.
He talked about a large and gorgeous tree in front of us; he talked about the soothing colours of the sunset and gradually walked us down the path of dealing with our minds. There are two sentences from that talk which have stayed with me over the years. "We must find eyes that have never shed tears" is one of them. I have used this haunting theme in some of my writings elsewhere.
The other sentence was: "If you really believed in the karma theory, you would never do anything without an enormous amount of sensitivity; you would not be casual or act out of habit." For an iconoclast, this way quite an unusual things to say. Maybe he was reminding us that we tend to use religious doctrines to suit our convenience.
He went on to tell us that there was no reason for us to fall back on so-called revered teachers be they Shankara or Buddha, no need to look for a guru. Such candour bordering on the impertinent was really new to me. I was shocked, but pleasantly so. A .teenager likes such irreverence and the investigation to work things out oneself.
I read more of JK and attended other talks although no experience equaled the sheer magic of the first one that I went to. One of JK’s talks where he dealt with the "fear of death" that each of us has to deal with has also stayed with me over the years.
Very few have dealt with the issue of death with as much honesty and grace as he has. In Pupul Jayakar’s biography of JH, she mentions that when Pupul lost a dear friend, after a couple of days, Krishnamurti told her to "let go" of her friend as he made a gesture suggesting "eternity". This has to be one of the most sensible and sensitive responses to a grieving person for death of a loved one has to be one of the great imponderable experiences we all have to face sooner or later.
Over the years as three of our children one after the other decided to go to Rishi Valley, we became regular visitors there. There were times walking past the old guest house when one felt JK’s presence. And to my credit I kept "observing" and not judging as he would have liked, I hope!
Many have asked me to explain in simple and summary terms what JK stood for. One must resist these temptations. The books are there, the recordings are there. Let whoever is interested read, hear watch and reflect. Above all as one of my friends Samit Ghosh said about the impact of JK on him "each of us has to deal with the issues ourselves". There are no summary short cuts that can fit into two minute television episodes. One must make one’s own path in the "pathless land".