I think, it is important, in listening to each other, to find out for oneself if what is being said is true; that is, to experience it directly, and not merely argue about whether what is said is true or false, which would be completely useless. And perhaps this evening we can find out if it is possible to set about the very complex process of forgetting oneself.
     Many of us m have experienced, at one time or another, that state when the `me', the self, with its aggressive demands, has completely ceased, and the mind is extraordinarily quiet, without any direct volition - that state wherein, perhaps, one may experience something that is without measure, something that it is impossible to put into words. There must have been these rare moments when the self, the `me', with all its memories and travails, with all its anxieties and fears, has completely ceased. One is then a being without any motive, without any compulsion; and in that state one feels or is aware of an astonishing sense of immeasurable distance, of limitless space and being.
     This must have happened to many of us. And I think it would be worth while if we could go into this question together and see whether it is possible to resolve the enclosing, limiting self, this restricting `me' that worries, that has anxieties, fears, that is dominating and dominated, that has innumerable memories, that is cultivating virtue and trying in every way to become something, to be important. I do not know if you have noticed the constant effort that one is consciously or unconsciously making to express oneself, to be something, either socially, morally, or economically. This entails, does it not?, a great deal of striving; our whole life is based on the everlasting struggle to arrive, to achieve, to become. The more we struggle, the more significant and exaggerated the self becomes, with all its limitations, fears, ambitions, frustrations; and there must have been times when each one has asked himself whether it is not possible to be totally without the self.
     After all, we do have rare moments when the sense of the self is not. I am not talking of the transmutation of the self to a higher level, but of the simple cessation of the `me' with its anxieties, worries, fears - the absence of the self. One realizes that such a thing is possible, and then one sets about deliberately, consciously, to eliminate the self. After all, that is what organized religions try to do - to help each worshipper, each believer, to lose himself in something greater, and thereby perhaps to experience some higher state. If you are not a so-called religious person, then you identify yourself with the State, with the country, and try to lose yourself in that identification, which gives you the feeling of greatness, of being something much larger than the petty little self, and all the rest of it. Or, if we do not do that, we try to lose ourselves in social work of some kind, again with the same intention. We think that if we can forget ourselves, deny ourselves, put ourselves out of the way by dedicating our lives to something much greater and more vital than ourselves, we shall perhaps experience a bliss, a happiness, which is not merely a physical sensation. And if we do none of these things, we hope to stop thinking about ourselves through the cultivation of virtue, through discipline, through control, through constant practice.
     Now, I do not know if you have thought about it, but all this implies, surely, a ceaseless effort to be or become something. And perhaps, in listening to what is being said, we can together go into this whole process and discover for ourselves whether it is possible to wipe away the sense of the `me' without this fearful, restricting discipline, without this enormous effort to deny ourselves, this constant struggle to renounce our wants, our ambitions, in order to be something or to achieve some reality. I think in this lies the real issue. Because all effort implies motive, does it not? I make an effort to forget myself in something, in some ritual or ideology, because in thinking about myself I am unhappy. When I think about something else, I am more relaxed, my mind is quieter, I seem to feel better, I look at things differently. So I make an effort to forget myself. But behind my effort there is a motive, which is to escape from myself because I suffer; and that motive is essentially a part of the self. When I renounce this world and become a monk, or a very devout religious person, the motive is that I want to achieve something better; but that is still the process of the self, is it not? I may give up my name and just be a number in a religious order; but the motive is still there.
     Now, is it possible to forget oneself without any motive? Because, we can see very well that any motive has within it the seed of the self, with its anxiety, ambition, frustration, its fear of not being, and the immense urge to be secure. And can all that fall away easily, without any effort? Which means, really, can you and I, as individuals, live in this world without being identified with anything? After all, I identify myself with my country, with my religion, with my family, with my name, because without identification I am nothing. Without a position, without power, without prestige of one kind or another, I feel lost; and so I identify myself with my name, with my family, with my religion, I join some organization or become a monk - we all know the various types of identification that the mind clings to. But can we live in this world without any identification at all?
     If we can think about this, if we can listen to what is being said, and at the same time be aware of our own intimations regarding the implications of identification, then I think we shall discover, if we are at all serious, that it is possible to live in this world without the nightmare of identification and the ceaseless struggle to achieve a result. Then, I think, knowledge has quite a different significance. At present we identify ourselves with our knowledge and use it as a means of self-expansion, just as we do with the nation, with a religion, or with some activity. Identification with the knowledge we have gained is another way of furthering the self, is it not? Through knowledge the `me' continues its struggle to be something, and thereby perpetuates misery, pain.
     If we can very humbly and simply see the implications of all this, be aware, without assuming anything, of how our minds operate and what our thinking is based on, then I think we shall realize the extraordinary contradiction that exists in this whole process of identification. After all, it is because I feel empty, lonely, miserable, that I identify myself with my country, and this identification gives me a sense of well-being, a feeling of power. Or, for the same reason, I identify myself with a hero, with a saint. But if I can go into this process of identification very deeply, then I will see that the whole movement of my thinking and all my activity, however noble, is essentially based on the continuance of myself in one form or another.
     Now, if I once see that, if I realize it, feel it with my whole being, then religion has quite a different meaning. Then religion is no longer a process of identifying myself with God, but rather the coming into being of a state in which there is only that reality, and not the 'me'. But this cannot be a mere verbal assertion, it is not just a phrase to be repeated. That is why it is very important, it seems to me, to have self-knowledge, which means going very deeply into oneself without assuming anything, so that the mind has no deceptions, no illusions, so that it does not trick itself into visions and false states. Then, perhaps, it is possible for the enclosing process of the self to come to an end - but not through any form of compulsion or discipline; because the more you discipline the self, the stronger the self becomes. What is important is to go into all this very deeply and patiently, without taking anything for granted, so that one begins to understand the ways, the purposes, the motives and directions of the mind. Then, I think, the mind comes to a state in which there is no identification at all, and therefore no effort to be something; then there is the cessation of the self, and I think that is the real.
     Although we may swiftly, fleetingly experience this state, the difficulty for most of us is that the mind clings to the experience and wants more of it; and the very wanting of more is again the beginning of the self. That is why it is very important, for those of us who are really serious in these matters, to be inwardly aware of the process of our own thinking, to silently observe our motives, our emotional reactions, and not merely say "I know myself very well" - for actually one does not. You may know your reactions and motives superficially, at the conscious level. But the self, the 'me', is a very complex affair, and to go into the totality of the self needs persistent and continuous inquiry without a motive, without an end in view; and such inquiry is surely a form of meditation.
     That immense reality cannot be found through any organization, through any church, through any book, through any person or teacher. One has to find it for oneself - which means that one has to be completely alone, uninfluenced. But we are all of us the result of so many influences, so many pressures, known and unknown; and that is why it is very important to understand these many pressures, influences, and be dissociated from them all, so that the mind becomes extraordinarily simple, clear. Then, perhaps, it will be possible to experience that which cannot be put into words.
     Question: You said yesterday that authority is evil. Why is it evil?
     Krishnamurti: Is not all following evil? Why do we follow authority of any kind? Why do we establish authority? Why do human beings accept authority - governmental, religious, every form of authority?
     Authority does not come into being by itself; we create it. We create the tyrannical ruler, as well as the tyrannical priest with his gods, rituals and beliefs. Why? Why do we create authority and become followers? Obviously, because we all want to be secure, we want to be powerful in different ways and in varying degrees. All of us are seeking position, prestige, which the leader, the country, the government, the minister, is offering; so we follow. Or we create the image of authority in our own minds, and follow that image. The church is as tyrannical as the political leaders; and while we object to the tyranny of governments, most of us submit to the tyranny of the church, or of some religious teacher.
     If we begin to examine the whole process of following, we will see, I think, that we follow, first of all, because we are confused, and we want somebody to tell us what to do. And being confused, we are bound to follow those who are also confused, however much they may assert that they are the messengers of God or the saviours of the State. We follow because we are confused; and as we choose leaders, both religious and political, out of our confusion, we inevitably create more confusion, more conflict, more misery.
     That is why it is very important for us to understand the confusion in ourselves, and not look to another to help us to clear it up. For how can a man who is confused know what is wrong and choose what is right, what is true? First he must clear up his own confusion. And once he has cleared up his own confusion, there is no choice; he will not follow anybody.
     So we follow because we want to be secure, whether economically, socially, or religiously. After all, the mind is always seeking security, it wants to be safe in this world, and also in the next world. All we are concerned with is to be secure, both with mammon and with God. That is why we create the authority of the government, the dictator, and the authority of the church, the idol, the image. So long as we follow, we must create authority, and that authority becomes ultimately evil, because we have thoughtlessly given ourselves over to domination by another.
     I think it is important to go deeply into this whole question and begin to understand why the mind insists on following. You follow, not only political and religious leaders, but also what you read in the newspapers, in magazines, in books; you seek the authority of the specialists, the authority of the written word. All this indicates, does it not?, that the mind is uncertain of itself. One is afraid to think apart from what has been said by the leaders, because one might lose one's job, be ostracized, excommunicated, or put into a concentration camp. We submit to authority because all of us have this inward demand to be safe, this urge to be secure. So long as we want to be secure - in our possessions, in our power, in our thoughts - we must have authority, we must be followers; and in that lies the seed of evil, for it invariably leads to the exploitation of man by man. He who would really find out what truth is, what God is, can have no authority, whether of the book, of the government, of the image, or of the priest; he must be totally free of all that.
     This is very difficult for most of us, because it means being insecure, standing completely alone, searching, groping, never being satisfied, never seeking success. But if we seriously experiment with it, then I think we shall find that there is no longer any question of creating or following authority, because something else begins to operate - which is not a mere verbal statement, but an actual fact. The man who is ceaselessly questioning, who has no authority, who does not follow any tradition, any book or teacher, becomes a light unto himself.
     Question: Why do you put so much emphasis on self-knowledge? We know very well what we are.
     Krishnamurti: I wonder if we do know what we are? We are, surely, everything that we have been taught, we are the totality of our past; we are a bundle of memories, are we not? When you say "I belong to God", or "The self is eternal", and all the rest of it - that is all part of your background, your conditioning. Similarly, when the Communist says "There is no God", he also is reflecting his conditioning.
     Merely to say "Yes, I know myself very well", is just a superficial remark. But to realize, to actually experience that your whole being is nothing but a bundle of memories, that all your thinking, your reactions, are mechanical, is not at all easy. It means being aware, not only of the workings of the conscious mind, but also of the unconscious residue, the racial impressions, memories, the things that we have learned; it means discovering the whole field of the mind, the hidden as well as the visible, and that is extremely arduous. And if my mind is merely the residue of the past, if it is only a bundle of memories, impressions, shaped by so-called education and various other influences, then is there any part of me which is not all that? Because, if I am merely a repeating machine, as most of us are - repeating what we have learned, what we have gathered, passing on what has been told to us - , then any thought arising within this conditioned field obviously can only lead to further conditioning, further misery and limitation.
     So, can the mind, knowing its limitation, being aware of its conditioning, go beyond itself? That is the problem. Merely to assert that it can, or it cannot, would be silly. Surely it is fairly obvious that the whole mind is conditioned. We are all conditioned - by tradition, by family, by experience, through the process of time. If you believe in God, that belief is the outcome of a particular conditioning, just as is the disbelief of the man who says he does not believe in God. So belief and disbelief have very little importance. But what is important is to understand the whole field of thought, and to see if the mind can go beyond it all.
     To go beyond, you must know yourself. The motives, the urges, the responses, the immense pressure of what people have taught you; the dreams, the inhibitions, the conscious and hidden compulsions - you must know them all. Only then I think, is it possible to find out if the mind, which is now so mechanical, can discover something totally new, something which has never been corrupted by time.
     Question: You say that true religion is neither belief, nor dogma, nor ceremonies. What then is true religion?
     Krishnamurti: How are you going to find out? It is not for me just to answer, surely. How is the individual to find out what is true religion? We know what is generally called religion - dogma, belief, ceremonies, meditation, the practice of yoga, fasting, disciplining oneself, and so on. We all know the whole gamut of the so-called religious approach. But is that religion? And if I want to find out what is true religion, how am I to set about it?
     First of all, I must obviously be free from all dogmas, must I not? And that is extraordinarily difficult. I may be free from the dogmas imposed upon me in childhood, but I may have created a dogma or belief of my own - which is equally pernicious. So I must also be free from that. And I can be free only when I have no motive, when there is no desire at all to be secure, either with God or in this world. Again, this is extremely difficult, because surreptitiously, deep down, the mind is always wanting a position of certainty. And there are all the images that have been imposed upon the mind, the saviours, the teachers, the doctrines, the superstitions - I must be free of all that. Then, perhaps, I shall find out what it is to be truly religious - which may be the greatest revolution, and I think it is. The only true revolution is not the economic revolution, or the revolution of the Communists, but the deep religious revolution which comes about when the mind is no longer seeking shelter in any dogma or belief, in any church or saviour, in any teacher or sacred book. And I think such a revolution has immense significance in the world, for then the mind has no ideology, it is neither of the West nor of the East. Surely, this religious revolution is the only salvation.
     To find out what is true religion requires, not a mere one-day effort or one-day search and forgetfulness the next day, but constant questioning, a disturbing inquiry, so that you begin to discard everything. After all, this process of discarding is the highest form of thinking. The pursuit of positive thinking is not thinking at all, it is merely copying. But when there is inquiry without a motive, without the desire for a result, which is the negative approach - in that inquiry the mind goes beyond all traditional religions; and then, perhaps, one may find out for oneself what God is, what truth is.
     September 6, 1956