As this is the last discussion, what shall we talk over together this morning?
     Questioner: How do we observe in this state of negation in which there is a positive movement?
     Krishnamurti: Really, I can't go over it again. We said something yesterday with regard to how to observe, what it is to see or listen. I can only put it in different words, and not in the same words.
     Questioner: When one looks out of silence, out of emptiness, is that look from love, from affection?
     Questioner: Could we perhaps talk this morning about the possibility and the necessity of a human being living totally within the terms in all his relationships?
     Krishnamurti: I am afraid that I haven't understood the question, sir. Will you please repeat it? Questioner: May I put it this way: can we live true to life and true to nature?
     Questioner: In seeing oneself or gaining self-knowledge, how does one know that one is not being deceived?
     Krishnamurti: Ah, how does one know that one is not caught up in an illusion, or how does one know that one doesn't deceive oneself?
     Questioner: Sir, will children have to go through the positive mind, and then arrive at the negative, or can they start out with the negative from the beginning?
     Krishnamurti: Must children go through the positive acquisition of knowledge to arrive at a different state, or can they jump into it right off? Is that what you wish to discuss?
     Questioner: Could you clarify the significance of the self-hypnosis that takes place when one watches fire or running water?
     Questioner: What is this energy that is needed for total attention, and how does it come about, when most of our life is a waste of energy?
     Krishnamurti: Perhaps by talking that question over together, we might answer the other questions. May we proceed with that question? Would that be of interest to everybody?
     Audience: Yes.
     Krishnamurti: When you listen to that stream, to the breeze among the leaves, how you listen, it seems to me, is of great importance; because the listening is the doing, and therefore the listening and the doing bring about energy; but listening and then doing is a waste of energy. Let's go into that.
     Every action demands energy. To do anything: to think, to feel, to talk, demands energy. In the doing, if there is effort, or if there is a division between the idea and the doing, there is dissipation of energy. If I do something because I see clearly, then there is no waste of energy; seeing and doing together, instantly, is not a dissipation of energy. If I see something dangerous, that perception of danger and the immediate action is not a waste of energy. But with us, the doing is usually separate from the idea; the approximation of action to the idea is a waste of energy.
     This is, I think, very important to understand, because all of us function with a formula, either a Catholic formula, a protestant formula, a Communist formula, or some other formula which one has developed for oneself through experience, through know]edge. That formula may be the image which each one of us has of himself, or what society is, or what it should be. The formula is not action. The formula is the desire, the demand, to be secure in action. When there is an action in which there is no friction, there is no waste of energy; but action in which there is friction as idea, as pleasure, as formula, is a waste of energy.
     So we must not be concerned with action, but with the question of why it is that we have formulas, images. That is the question, not how to act in such a way that there is no friction, but rather, why it is that we have developed, cultivated, nourished formulas. The more complicated, the more subtle, the more based on knowledge, on experience the formulas are, the stronger they become. Is it possible to act without the formula? That brings up a question: what is maturity? Is maturity age, a matter of growing, ripening, and dying, or has maturity quite a different significance?
     In order to ripen, a fruit needs sunshine, darkness, rain, nourishment from the tree; when it is ripe, it falls from the tree. That is what we call maturity, ripeness, in fruit. To us, maturity apparently comes only through friction, through conflict, through constant battle within and without. What we call maturity in human beings is the deepening of conflict, and the expression of that conflict in action or in disorder.
     What is it to have a mature mind? Must the mind go through innumerable experiences, conflicts, battles, all the influences that a human being lives under in modern society - must he go through all that in order to ripen? Must he be in a constant state of conflict in order to become mature? This is the I same question that gentleman asked; I am trying to answer it in a different way.
     Must one go through all the experiences of life to be mature, to be capable of action in which there is no element of friction? Must the human mind, like yours and mine, go through every form of struggle, conflict, dissipation of energy, control of energy, in order to arrive at a ripened state? We generally say, "Yes". Now we are going to question that "yes'.
     Questioner: Isn't there a completely different type of experience?
     Krishnamurti: I don't know. You are asking if there is not a different type of experience. Please, that's an avoidance of the fact, avoidance of what is, when we are looking for a different kind of experience. I've been through all that; don't let's go over it again. Sir, let me put the whole thing differently. Can a mind which has lived for so long in time, has accumulated so much experience, which has certain values in certain areas - can that mind become totally innocent, and from that I innocence, act? Let's forget all that we have said during all these seventeen talks, and look at it anew. Must the human mind, as it is now, go through years and years of struggle, bitterness, fear, hatred, vanity, and then put it all away in order to be innocent, or can it be innocent right from the beginning, and sustain that quality of innocence? It is only a fresh mind, uncontaminated, not broken into fragments through experience and then put together - a mind that is clear, without any scratch of memory - only such a fresh mind can see anything new. If I want to see something new in life, I can't come to it with my cluttered brain, cluttered ideas, confusion, misery. It is absolutely imperative to have a fresh mind.
     How is this to come about? Obviously, not through methods, systems, practices, doing, practising awareness; all those only make the mind more conditioned in its particular pattern. My question is: though the mind has lived for so long, under so many influences, so many kinds of conditioning and so many types of environment, can it free itself instantly and be fresh? It may be an absurd question; because I am asking myself why I should go through any experiences, or if I do, why should they leave any mark? It is the mark, the remembrances, the pleasures, that make the mind heavy, cluttered, not free, not fresh.
     I want to find out if it is possible - and I don't say it is possible - to have a fresh mind all the time, in spite of all the incidents, accidents and experiences. Has that question any validity? I think it has validity, because I see that without a fresh mind I cannot solve any problem, even the least complicated scientific problem. There must also be a fresh mind to cope with the ever increasing complexities of modern society and understand the relationships of human beings with that society. It is a valid question because, as I have explained, it is only the fresh outlook of a fresh mind, a mind that is not heavily conditioned, that can create a new human society, a mew human existence. How is this to come about? Well, sirs, please go into it. If you think that question is valid, let's talk together about it. I had an experience yesterday - one cannot avoid experience. To have no reaction is to be dead, paralysed; and reaction is experience. When one sees a beautiful mountain, to be completely paralysed, without reaction, has no meaning. But how is it possible for the reaction, which is an experience, to take place and yet strike no root at all in the soil of the mind? How, is it possible to have an experience, and finish it immediately r. Living in this world, with all its complexities, with alI its experiences, with all the reactions, conscious and unconscious, that are taking place all the time, that are impinging, is it possible for a mind to experience and not have the experience leave a mark as memory - and from that memory, that remembrance, to act? The action then is merely in conformity with, or an approximation of the memory, and the reaction does not release or free the mind from the past.
     I must find a clue to this, for otherwise I shall live constantly in the increasing of experiences, being heavily conditioned in sorrow, in pain. I must find a key which will open the door to every experience, and leave no mark, or a state of mind that has no experience at all.
     There are three questions involved in this. First, one sees very clearly that there must be death to the past, so as to have a very fresh, clear, innocent mind, that is capable of dealing with everything in life. It is as much a necessity as food, as drink, as exercise; it is an absolute necessity. Then is it possible to live in this world, experiencing, and not have those experiences leave a single mark? The third thing is: is there a state of mind which, living in this world, functioning, has no experience at all? This doesn't mean that it is paralysed, blind or isolated; it has so separated itself that it avoids every form of experience. You are following? First, the necessity for a fresh, new mind; second, a mind that experiences, functions, acts, without leaving a scratch behind; and third, a mind that is so tremendously alive that it needs no experience.
     We will leave the third question out for the time being. For most of us, there are only two things involved. We don't see that a fresh mind is necessary; not seeing intellectually or verbally, but actually demanding it. We don't really want a fresh mind, because that means leaving all the pleasures that one has accumulated, dying to the past - not fragmentarily but totally, dying not only to our sorrows, pains and fears, but to all pleasures; otherwise one can't have a fresh mind. We know, deep down, that a fresh mind is necessary, but we don't want it with urgency, immediacy and passion, and the passion, the urgency cannot be stimulated by this talk or by another.
     The energy that is needed to have a fresh mind is the energy that comes when one dies to the past. We began by asking how it is possible to have this energy, which is being in a state of constant heightened sensitivity, and in which there is no contradiction, no dissipation. We are answering that question.
     One sees intellectually, verbally, the necessity for a fresh mind. The mind asks, "How am I going to come to that state where there is a fresh mind?". The demand, the question really is, "How am I to come to that fresh mind, which will give me great pleasure?". It is not that you want a fresh mind for itself, but for the pleasure that you are going to get out of it. The demand for that pleasure is a dissipation of energy. I want to be healthy, but I want to eat all the foods I like; I want to drink and smoke, but yet have good health. The two can't be matched. I have discovered something: that to have a fresh mind I must understand and put an end to, die to the pleasure principle. Because if I don't, I ask, "How am I to find pleasure in that new mind?"
     I see that most of us don't want to die to all the pleasures, the accumulations, the hatreds, the vanities, that we have had. We want to treasure them, and yet have a fresh mind. You can't. So how am I to die to the past? Will I put that question? I won't, because I really don't want to give up the past. I have written books, I have been somebody, I have talked on many platforms, I have a history, a reputation; I don't want to die to all that, because if I die, what happens? I'm nobody; I'm in a state of vacuum, emptiness.
     You see, if I die - and I mean die - do not care two pins about reputation, what people say, whether I've talked in different parts of the world, all the rest of the rubbish; if I really don't care, there is a state of emptiness, a state of complete emptiness. In that state of emptiness there is tremendous energy. You don't know this unless you have done it. It's an emptiness charged with tremendous sensitiveness and intelligence. That energy, that intelligence, that sensitivity cannot possibly be brought about through the accumulation of knowledge, experience, memory.
     That emptiness feels, "I have lost everything: friends, reputation, the demand to talk and use the audience for my pleasure". When you have understood the pleasure principle, the demand for the continuity of pleasure, there is no record of memory as memory. I hold to memory because it is pleasurable; and because it is pleasurable, I don't want pain. So the pleasure creates pain. I see the necessity of a fresh mind, and realize that to be in a state of mind which is always fresh, not because it is pleasurable, there must be a total emptiness in which thought as pleasure, as the image, as expression has no meaning. The mind has come to that point through intelligence, reason, logic, sanity, health - not because it wants pleasure. It is a natural sequence, if you can call something a sequence which is not of time.
     Experiences can go through that emptiness. It is not that I am experiencing and therefore the I, the observer, the thinker, the experiencer, retains what is being experienced. It's not like putting a pin in your leg, and if the leg is paralysed there is no reaction. There must be reaction. In fact, every reaction is heightened, but in passing through that emptiness there is no recording of the experience, and therefore no past based on pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
     All this demands intelligence, not "I want to get it". It is not the accumulation of knowledge; it is not reading books or listening to talks. Nothing will do it. The mind sees the necessity for clarity and a fresh mind, and a fresh mind and clarity can only come through tremendous intelligence. Intelligence is energy, because intelligence then acts, but its action does not breed an idea, which would be a dissipation of energy.
     The mind has come to that point. It doesn't say, "How am I to die to the past? How am I to die to the memories that I have had, to self-fulfilment with its pleasures, frustrations and pain?". It doesn't ask the method. It sees the necessity for a fresh mind. It has to tackle that; it has to come to grips with that.
     To reject a pleasure without the motive of a greater pleasure, to die to that pleasure completely needs an awareness which is intelligence. This comes when there is an understanding that there must be a fresh morning, not yesterday's evening carried over into this morning. When that is absolutely clear, everything follows easily. One can have experiences without leaving a mark when one has rejected every form of pleasure, and therefore pain and sorrow, because that rejection is an awareness of the whole structure of pleasure and pain. Out of that awareness comes energy which is intelligence.
     A motive has energy, but it is not of the quality of intelligence. Total awareness, without choice, of pleasure and therefore of pain, brings order and that which is intelligence. Intelligence is always empty. Therefore energy, which is intelligence,is essentially simple. Simplicity has become such a loaded word that it has lost its meaning altogether. Saints, monks and teachers have limited simplicity to such tawdry matters as money, clothes and food. To them simplicity is to have few clothes, one meal a day, and a few miracles thrown in. Miracles are the easiest things to do. If you are very simple in a certain direction, you can do miracles. It has been done. This extraordinary halo is given for nothing, but true simplicity is something entirely different. One must be extraordinarily simple; and not only in regard to clothes, food and shelter.
     Where there is intelligence, which is energy, and the individual lives in a state of complete emptiness or aloneness, that intelligence functions always with facts, and therefore is simple. It has no opinions, no dogmas about the fact. There is only the fact, the what is. The space between the fact and the image, the formula, the opinions which we have about the fact, is a waste of energy. This is the last talk, so go into it, drink , it in, so that your mind, your whole energy become; astonishingly alive and intelligent, and therefore extraordinarily simple. That simplicity is the state in which there is no space between the observer and the fact. There is only the fact, the what is. Whether it is painful or pleasurable doesn't matter.
     We see all that. Then is it possible, one asks, to live in this world, go to the office, have a family, go for holidays, do all that one does, live, and yet have this intelligence functioning all the time? That's a wrong question. That's not a simple question. That's a question based on the desire for pleasure. But if you were to say, "Can I face the fact, the what is, every day without an interval between the fact and me?", then that would have meaning. If you ask, "Can I maintain this sense of intelligence all the time?", then you're asking the wrong question.
     What you have come to now is the fact, the what is, the experience. You are forcing the mind to look at it as it is, not through your opinions and ideas. Your opinions and ideas produce the experience with regard to the fact, but when you see the fact as a fact, as what is, there is no experience. If I am angry, I am angry. It is a fact. It is so. But the moment I say, "I must not, it is bad, it is not good for my health, for my liver, for my heart, for my spiritual life", then I am beginning to experience in the field which is not factual at all. How extraordinary it is that a mind can look at a fact, at what is, without any experiencing; if I am a liar, to look at the fact without any explanation, justification, condemnation. The mind which gives itself over to explanation, justification, condemnation - all of which are based on the past, on pleasure, pain and memory - that is the mind which experiences, not the mind which faces the fact that it is not telling the truth.
     What happens to the fact that I am telling a lie? Is there a puzzle about this? I am telling a lie because I am frightened. Keep it on a very simple level. The fact is fear, not the lying, the fear that has caused me to tell a lie. The fact, the what is, is fear. And fear I must get rid of; I don't like it, it causes disturbance, makes the mind dull, heavy, cunning. So I try to get rid of it. The getting rid is wasted effort, whereas the fact is fear. Any action, any movement in any direction about fear is a waste of energy; the interval, the gap between the observer who says, "I am afraid" and the fear is also a waste of energy. Can the mind, without any movement, stay with that fear? I'm afraid of death. or a dozen other things. Can the mind stay with that fear without any activity? Can it be aware of the whole structure of fear, and not try to condemn it, translate it, or justify it, but be completely aware of it, so that there is no movement, and therefore there is an energy which is intelligence? If there is this complete awareness, there is no fear. It is not a question of sustaining a state of mind that is not afraid. I may be afraid tomorrow, or the next instant, but if I meet that fear now, totally, in complete, choiceless, passive awareness, there is an energy which is intelligence, hence no fear.
     Don't try to learn the trick! It's not a trick. If you try to learn the trick, and apply it to get rid of fear, goodbye; you will never get it. But if you see this whole thing, there will be no fear. There is no practising of awareness, no demand for its continuity; you don't ' demand and you don't practise, because the mind is intelligent through awareness.
     The next question is: is it possible for a mind to be in a state where experiences - visions, what people say, what they don't say, whether you're talking or not talking, whether you write or don't write, whether you are famous or not famous - have no meaning? Unless one has understood the first question completely, the necessity for a fresh, clean mind, and gone into it thoroughly, one can't answer the next question. Because the second question, whether it is possible to live in the world without experiences leaving a mark, comes naturally from the first.
     We think awareness is something that has to be maintained, but anything that has a continuity is not fresh. What we are talking about is a mind that is fresh, greatly intelligent; it is intelligent because it understands, and the understanding is the energy that creates that intelligence. When you have lived that way, the attention, the awareness can go to sleep, can be quiet; and when necessary, you can act in that state of intelligence.
     But if you say, "I must maintain the thing constantly", then you are back again; there will never be a fresh mind. The fresh mind is not an idea. It is a fact, but only when we have understood the structure and the nature of pleasure, which is the breeding ground for sorrow. So one must begin very near. The first step, which is very near, is sorrow, pleasure in little things, not in vast, tremendous ideas. By moving from there you will find out for yourself whether a mind can live in this world, function, go to the office and all the rest of it, because it is so tremendously awake that it needs no experience; it is only such a mind that is innocent. Innocency is the highest form of simplicity. In that mind that is completely intelligent, where there is an energy which is silent - for energy that is not silent can never be intelligent - there is quite a different movement altogether. But that becomes speculative, and therefore useless, unless one has gone through this first and has a mind so alive that it needs no experience.
     August 10, 1965