I think everyone is more or less agreed that the older generation has made a terrible mess of the world, not only in this country but elsewhere. There is still poverty, brutality, war, fear and complete disorder. The young are specially aware of it, they say, "You can't teach us any more because of what you have made of the world, you have no right to teach us anything, you don't know how to live, so why do you bother to teach us anything?" There is a great revolt going on, not only here but also in other parts of the world. Man is seeking order, not only outside himself but also within. Each generation tries to bring about such order, and each generation obviously fails and so resorts to revolution, physical, economic, and social upheaval. There have been many revolutions, including the Russian, and they have not produced order; they are still piling up armaments, there is still division of class, and so on. There is poverty all over the world. So the mind says, "What is the way out of all this?" I am sure you have asked yourself this question; not how to escape into some ideological world, or some mystical world, or a world of make-belief, but actually how does one bring about order? Because without order you cannot have peace, both outwardly and inwardly. So where is one to begin to bring about this order?
     Surely order means to have no conflict in our relationship with people, with ideas, in all of our existence. Only then is there a possibility of order. And to end conflict, surely one must begin with oneself. Man - you and I - are responsible for this disorder, this chaos, this contradictory existence, this meaningless striving; either striving to find a reality, which becomes merely an intellectual concept, or striving for a better position, prestige, power, which is also quite meaningless. Surely this order can only be brought about first within oneself and then there will be order outwardly. Inwardly, psychologically, we are in contradiction, we are in conflict, we are brutal people, each one seeking his own end; we are violent people, though we have talked endlessly of non-violence. Each one of us is seeking his own personal, or family security, each one of us segregates himself by his own particular belief or dogma, or by belonging to a particular class. So inwardly there is disorder and outward order cannot possibly be brought about by mere legislation. We have innumerable laws, an efficient police, but such order eventually brings about disorder. Tyranny cannot possibly bring this order; one cannot brainwash people endlessly so that they remain docile, obedient, accepting what the authorities say. That again doesn't produce order; nor does the so-called religious pursuit. Those who believe in God, those who practise rituals or follow a certain method of what they call meditation, do not produce order inwardly, because those who practise meditation are in conflict within themselves all the time. And those who pursue power, position, prestige - politically, economically - obviously must be in conflict: they bring about chaos both in themselves and outwardly.
     One realizes this; perhaps most of us realize it intellectually. One sees it and says, "Yes that is so", but actually in daily life we are part of this social, economic, cultural structure which breeds great disorder. And I feel it is only the religious mind that can bring about order within itself. I do not mean those who profess religious beliefs, those who endlessly quote the various sacred books, they are not religious at all, they are using the books for their own profit. When a politician talks about God, you know very well that there is some dirty work going on. Religion is not belief, religion is not dogma. You cannot be religious and yet be a Hindu, a Muslim, or a Sikh; those who are religious, so-called, obviously function within an area of their own projection, of their own conditioning. A religious mind has no belief whatsoever, does not indulge in ideologies; because ideologies are not factual, they are hypothetical, they offer an escape from actuality. A religious mind does not belong to any organized religion, it has no tradition and it has no culture in the accepted sense of that word, nor does it belong to any country. One can see why. It is not that the speaker is asserting dogmatically, but one can see why a religious mind cannot possibly belong to any nationality, to any organized religion, or have any belief, dogma, ritual. The reason is very simple; when you have dogma, belief, ritual, you are separating yourself, you are limiting the functioning of the mind, which is capable of enormous things. When you call yourself a Sikh, a Hindu, a Parsee, or a Communist, you are limiting your own capacities to feel profoundly, to be intense, to have great passion; because behind these beliefs, rituals, dogmas, there is fear, and a mind that is afraid is an irreligious mind. To escape from fear through some ritual, or some belief, or some ideology, not only brings about disorder within oneself, but also outwardly. When you call yourself a Hindu you must obviously be against the Muslim or the Christian, and when you separate, segregate yourself into nationalities, it must obviously bring about further disorder. One can see this very clearly, intellectually at least - that is verbally. But one must realize this actually in daily life - which is not to belong to any group, not to follow any leader, not to have the authority of any book, sacred or profane, because all that has led man to utter destruction. Living in this country I wonder if you realize what is actually happening here. Perhaps you look at it as something you have to put up with; you get used to this disorder, to this chaos, to the utter callousness of human beings. But if you looked, not intellectually, but if you felt it in your heart, not through words but by actual observation, you would see what a decline there has been in the last twenty years. Yet you are completely indifferent to it, you say, "I can't do anything". So when you feel that you can't do anything, you accept disorder within yourself as inevitable. And to bring about order within oneself, there must be honesty. When we follow an ideology - and most people have some kind of ideology, some kind of conceptual outlook on life - such an outlook does breed dishonesty.
     Please don't accept or deny what the speaker is saying, examine it, look at it, give your heart and mind to find out, not intellectually or verbally. When the house is burning - and your house is actually burning - you don't discuss how to put the fire out, you are not concerned with who set the house on fire, but you actually do something, you act. And when you act you have energy - you have tremendous energy. But when you theorize, discuss intellectually, then action is not possible.
     As we said there must be honesty right through our being, never to say a word that we don't mean, never double talk, believe one thing and do another. So when you act according to principles you are dishonest - doesn't that shock you? You accept it? Apparently you do. You know, when you act according to a principle, according to an ideology, according to what you think you should be, you actually are not honest. When you think in terms of non-violence - an ideology, a principle - you are dishonest, because actually you are violent; what matters is that you face that violence, and you cannot face that violence if you are acting according to a principle. When you act according to a principle you are cultivating dishonesty, hypocrisy. Do observe it in yourself. You can only be honest right through your being, passionately, when you see things in yourself actually as they are, not as `you wish them to be', and if you have a principle, a belief, an ideology, then you cannot possibly look at yourself directly, they prevent you and hence one becomes hypocritical, dishonest.
     One must have order, because with out order deeply within oneself, there is no peace. And order can only come about when you know what disorder is. When you know your thoughts, your feelings are creating disorder, then deny that disorder. Deny your nationality, deny your gods - they have no meaning, they are the invention of a frightened mind. Deny all spiritual authority, which has bred disorder. Look what has happened to religion in this country, as in other parts of the world. You have followed authority because it offers security: you don't know and your guru, your teacher, your masters, your books know, and you follow them. Observe it in yourself, sir. You follow them because you are confused, in disorder; the gurus, mahatmas and all the rest of those people say they know, that they will lead you to truth and you follow them, you accept them. Nobody, no outside agency whatsoever can lead you to truth, it doesn't matter what authority it is. And this country is burdened with the authority of tradition, of teachers and of gurus. When a man says he knows, then you may be sure he does not know, except in technological matters. But when a guru, when a teacher, says he knows and that he will lead you, then he will lead you to your own destruction, to disorder within yourself; because one cannot follow anybody, one has to find that truth for oneself, not through somebody else. So many people talk about truth, including the politicians: "Experiments in truth", "Following truth", somebody who has "realized truth" and if they put on professional garb then you follow them blindly. Truth is something living, it cannot be found; you cannot seek it, it must come to you. It cannot come to you if there is no order within yourself, and nobody can give you that order; that order only comes when you have understood the whole structure of disorder. In the understanding and in the freeing of the mind itself from disorder, there is the living order; not an order according to a blueprint.
     So, what causes disorder, inwardly? because there is the first resolution of disorder, not outwardly. What causes disorder within each one of us? Have you ever gone into it, considered in yourself whether it is possible to come upon this extraordinary, absolute order? Pure mathematics is pure order, and to find that extraordinary state of order there must be inwardly a living order, which is virtue, austerity (austerity is not harsh, brutal). What causes disorder? Primarily it is division between action and idea - isn't it? Because, as we said at the beginning, there is disorder as long as there is conflict, as long as there is contradiction within oneself, and this contradiction exists primarily between action and idea.
     Please listen to discover what is true and what is false. You cannot discover what is true or what is false if you are merely agreeing or comparing; you have to listen and you cannot listen if your mind is interpreting,judging, evaluating, comparing, agreeing or disagreeing. If you want to understand anything your mind must be empty of everything that it has projected, so that your whole brain is quiet. When you are listening to the speaker, listen with your heart and mind, not with your thoughts - thought merely separates. But if you listen with your heart (unemotionally, not sentimentally) then perhaps you will find order in yourself without going through all the processes of analysing disorder. Most of us are inclined to the analytical process, we think we will come to order through analysis, and obviously the analytical process does not bring order; you may be clever at analysing. but the analyser is an entity separate. from the thing which he analyses and so there is conflict between the analyser and the thing analysed.
     As we were saying, one of the fundamental causes of disorder is the separation between idea and action. What is action - the doing? Is it related to an idea, to an ideology? If it is, then there is a division between what you think should be and what you are actually doing, isn't there? When you think that you should be non-violent - `should be' in the future, as an idea, as a concept but actually you are violent - then there is a division between the two, the idea and the actuality; hence there is a contradiction. It is this contradiction that brings conflict and conflict is invariably disorder. When you suppress anger or envy as an idea, then this is opposed to the fact and hence there is contradiction and therefore conflict. That is how most human beings live; they live in the conceptual world, the world of ideas, and hence they are not actually living; so their action is an approximation to the idea and brings conflict. And so the question arises: is it possible to act without the process of ideation? Please follow this, don't jump to any conclusion, because a mind that concludes is a dead mind; it is only the free mind that enquires, lives, finds out. Why does the mind live in ideas, why does it make ideas, concepts, ideologies, principles, beliefs, the most important things in life? Why? Obviously the principles, the ideas, the ideologies are a contradiction to the fact, to the fact of what actually is every day.
     Now why is there this conceptual living? I do not know if you have gone into it at all; probably you have never even questioned it, and if you are questioning it now, if you are enquiring into it seriously and earnestly, then perhaps we can go into it together. That is, one must be tremendously honest with oneself, in the sense that one knows that one has ideas which are contradictory to one's life, to everyday living. So which is more important, the ideas or the living? When you call yourself a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim - who cares whether you put on a turban or not, whether you are this or that - what does matter is what you are, how you live. And as long as there are ideologies, principles, concepts, there must be contradiction in action. Please, if you can understand this basically, then you live in fact and in action, never in an ideology. Ideologies, surely, come into being only when we do not know how to act, or when we want to escape from the fact of action - right? If I knew what to do with my anger, with my jealousy, with my brutality, violence, hatred - then where would be the need for an ideology? Because I don't know what to do with my violence, I escape into an ideology hoping thereby to get rid of my violence; so there is a contradiction between the fact - what is - and `what should be'. Cannot the mind push aside for ever `what should be'? You can only do it when you face the fact, when you accept, see directly for yourself that you are violent. When you are ambitious you are violent, when you are seeking power you are violent, when you have your `god' as opposed to another `god' you are violent; division by ideologies breeds violence. So when you realize that, there is no need for ideologies and concepts at all.
     Then what is action without the idea? I hope some of you are following this. There is the doing and the non-doing person. The non-doing person is someone who is wrapped up in ideas, concepts. Can one act without the process of ideation? Because, as we said, conflict breeds disorder and as long as we are in conflict inwardly, we not only produce disorder in ourselves, but also in the world. And one of the primary reasons for disorder is this conceptual way of living. And, if there is no concept whatsoever - this requires tremendous understanding - what then is action? Now, your action is based on an idea derived from experience, from knowledge, on a reasoned-out thought, which is idea - organized thought is idea - and according to that you try to act. But you can never act according to the idea, because the idea is the result of past experience, past memories, it is of time. Action is always in the present, and when you approximate action to past experience, there must be conflict and therefore confusion. I wonder if you are getting this? And is it possible to be completely free from all ideation, so that you are acting without conflict?
     To put it differently; there is the experiencer and the experienced, which is the thinker and the thought. The thinker is separate, at least thinks he is separate from thought - please see this, observe it in yourself. There is the thinker and the thought; is there a thinker without thought at all? Obviously not. Don't say, "Which began first?" - that is a clever argument which leads nowhere. But one can observe within oneself, that as long as there is no thought derived from memory, experience, knowledge - which are all of the past - as long as there is no thought (which does not mean a state of amnesia) there is no thinker at all. Can one function, act, without this division into the thinker and the thought? And besides, when you observe, the thinker is the thought, the two are not separate. It is only when there is conflict between the thinker and the thought, then there is a separation. When I say "I am angry", then the observer is different from the observed; but when the observer is anger there is no division and hence no conflict. When the observer says he himself is anger and you eliminate the conflict, then you have energy to deal with the fact.
     Sirs, most of us know what anger, or jealousy, or envy is. When you are jealous, for whatever reason, there is the entity that says, "I am jealous" as though jealousy were different from the thinker, the feeler, the observer - right? The two are separate, but is that so? Is the entity different from that which it feels as jealousy, or is the entity itself jealousy? Please follow this. If the entity itself, the observer himself is jealousy, then what can he do? And if he does anything, he becomes the observer and hence creates conflict. I wonder if you are following this? So one begins to enquire: is anger associated with the word 'anger', or are you dealing with the thing as it actually takes place, not a second after?
     We will come upon it differently. As we were saying, action is different from the concept, the idea, and one has to act in life - living is action in relationship - otherwise there is no living at all. The sanyasi who retires and renounces the world is living in a relationship with his ideas. Life can only exist in relationship and relationship means action; I can act according to an image, a symbol, or I can act in that state of affection and love, which is not an idea. Is love an idea?If it is an idea it can be cultivated, it can be nourished, cherished, pushed around, twisted as you like it. But if it is not an idea and it cannot be cultivated, then what is love? First of all, when you say you love somebody or you love your country - and God knows why you say you love your country or your God - what is that love. When you say you love God, what does that mean? To love something which you have projected, which gives you safety, which gives you hope, which gives you a certain sense of well-being which helps you to escape from fear, that "love of God" is absolute nonsense. What has actually taken place is that you have projected an image of yourself according to your wishes, as something worthwhile, great, noble; so when you worship God, you are actually worshipping yourself. That is not love.
     Look at yourselves, sirs, observe yourselves, use the speaker as a mirror in which you see yourselves honestly, undistorted. You will see that there is confusion only when there is an idea which predominates action. And what is action without idea? Go into it, sirs. What is action, what does it mean: `to do'? I am not talking about spontaneity. Man is not spontaneous, he has a thousand years of tradition behind him, a thousand influences which have conditioned him, fears, hopes, despairs, anxieties, guilt, ambition - how can such an entity be spontaneous? It cannot. But if you begin to enquire (not be told by another) whether you can live without a concept, without a formula, without the interference of thought - which is always the old - then you will inevitably come upon action which is born out of love. Love is not old, love is not the product of thought; thought is always old, thought is memory, thought is the result of past experience. But love is something always new, and love is always in the present, it is not time-binding.
     It is only the religious mind that has understood this whole structure of conflict, and disorder; it is only such a mind that can be a religious mind. And a religious mind does not seek; it cannot experiment with truth. It is only such a mind that can perceive what is true, because such a mind understands the whole structure and the nature of pleasure. Truth is not something dictated by your pleasure or pain, nor your conditioning as a Hindu, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim. To understand pleasure - not to deny pleasure - one must go into this whole question of what is thought. And this understanding is self-knowing, knowing yourself, not realizing some higher entity of the self, which again is sheer nonsense. What is factual is yourself, your ideas, your way of life, your feeling, your ambition, your greed, your envy, your cruelty, and the despair, the loneliness, the boredom. Unless you bring about order within yourself, you can pray, you can worship, you can read all the books and follow all the gurus, but it will have no meaning whatsoever.
     So order comes through the understanding of disorder and disorder comes only when there is conflict: when thought, which is the response of memory and always old, interferes with action, which is always a doing in the present. And seeking truth has no meaning. Why do you seek? I do not know if you have gone into this question. Why do you seek at all? And how do you know when you find it? To say, "I know this is the truth", you must have had an experience of it in the past, therefore you are capable of recognising it. If it is the recognition of the past it is not truth, it is still the projection of your own inclination, pleasure. So the religious mind alone can find that which is truth. It doesn't `find' it - that is the wrong word to use - the religious mind is in the state of that unnameable thing which cannot be sought, because that thing is a living thing and therefore timeless; therefore it is complete order. A mind that is petty, small, ambitious, seeking position, suffering, and in agony, such a mind never knows what love is, do what it will; and without love there is no beauty, without love there is no order.
     When you ask questions, what is important? To find out what your state of mind is, or are you asking questions with regard to a problem that you have? If you have a problem and are seeking an answer, who is going to answer it - the speaker? He can put it into words and explain, but the explanation, the answer, does not solve your problem. Whatever your problem is - death, love, loneliness, despair, the agony of life, the boredom of existence - whatever it is, you have to face it, not somebody else, and when you seek an answer from somebody else, you are not facing the fact and that is what this country has done for centuries upon centuries. That is why you are secondhand thinkers; you have been spoon-fed; you want somebody else to solve your life. That is why you have these politicians, these gurus and they will never, under any circumstances, solve the human problem. The solution of the human problem needs care, affection. What was it you wanted, sir?
     Questioner: Last time in answering a question about death you said that thought continues after death, but that it has no validity. Sir, is it not thought that incarnates? Is reincarnation not a fact?
     Krishnamurti: First of all, why do you want to know if reincarnation is a fact? (Laughter) Please, sirs, don't laugh, this is a serious matter. Why do you want to know? Because you have lived fully? Because you know the beauty of life, because you have lived so completely, with such ecstasy and passion - is that why you say, "Look, what will happen when I die?" "Will I go on with this ecstasy, this delight, this thing that I have felt when I looked at the blue sky, and the bird on the wing, and that face of a man or a woman which has delighted me - when I die will all that go on?" Or are you asking the question because you want to know if there is hope in the future, if there is reincarnation, a next life? One has led a miserable existence, a shoddy, meaningless life, and that is what we call living, isn't it? That's your life, isn't it? Going to the office - not that one shouldn't go to the office, you have to unfortunately - going to the office until you are sixty or sixty-five. Just think of it, day after day, the routine, the routine of sex, the machine-like routine, doing things over and over again, with misery, with a stricken heart, a darkened mind, dull-witted, lonely - that is your life isn't it? And you say, "Will this life, which is of sorrow and agony, with an occasional flash of joy, will this reincarnate, will this go on?"
     Questioner: Will action without thought....
     Krishnamurti: Wait, sir! You see, sir, you haven't listened to what the speaker has said. You know it is a sad world; there is so much misery and sorrow in the world to which each one is contributing, and you want to know what will happen in the next life, when you don't know how to live. You want to know the truth about reincarnation, the proof. You have the psychical research assertions, or the assertions of clairvoyants who have had a past life and all that, but you never ask how to live - to live with delight, with enchantment, with beauty, every day! But you never ask that - and if you asked, then you would find it, then you would come upon it passionately. But to ask, one mustn't be frightened of life; that means not to be frightened of being completely insecure without becoming neurotic; for life is insecure, psychologically. You may go back to the same house, the same wife and children, but inwardly there is no security at all. And when there is no security then there is a movement, then life is endless, then life and death are similar. The man who is frightened of life is frightened of death. And the one who lives without conflict, with beauty and love, is not frightened of death, because to love is to die.
     Questioner: What is action without thought?
     Krishnamurti: Did the speaker say that, or did he say "see the nature of thought and action, see the structure and nature of thought, how it functions, observe it in yourself"? Thought is of time. Memory is accumulated experience, and from that there is the reaction which is thought. Action is something that is active, that is being done all the time, living. And when you separate thought and action there is conflict. Sir, to act you must be passionate. Do you know what it means to be passionate? - total self abandonment. That word `passion' comes from a root which means sorrow, and as long as you are in sorrow there is no passion. The ending of sorrow is the understanding of yourself as you are, not according to some yogi, or some psychologist. When you understand yourself there is the ending of sorrow; and when sorrow ends you will know what love is.
     Questioner: What is the difference between awareness and introspection?
     Krishnamurti: What is introspection? To analyse, to examine, to dissect oneself: "this is right", "I have done wrong", "this is good". That is, it is inwardly inspecting - right? Now, when you are inspecting inwardly who is the sergeant? When you are inspecting - that is looking, analysing, searching, questioning - who is the questioner, who is the censor? Is not the censor, the observer, the examiner, the introspector, the thing which he introspects himself? Don't agree, sir, this is meditation, not just agreement. Now awareness is not that at all, Awareness is to be aware without introspection - it is to look. Sir, have you ever looked at a bird or a tree have you? I am afraid you haven't because you haven't time, you are too indifferent, you have never looked; and if you look next time, do look at a tree, at the foliage, at the beauty of the line of a limb - look at it against the dark sky, at the real quality of the tree, look at it. But when you look, what takes place? You are interpreting it according to the image you have of that tree, aren't you? So what are you looking at? - at the image you have, not at the tree. And you can only look at the tree when you have no image; the image is the result of thought. So awareness is to look, to observe, to see actually what is, without any interpretation, without any image. Look at your husband or wife, or your children and (if you must) at your politicians without the image. Do look at them - you understand? Look without the memories, without the pleasure, without the annoyance, the anger, the habitual things you have become accustomed to. Then, when you look that way, you have a different kind of relationship. But if you look with your image - the image that you have built up for thirty, twenty, ten years, or days, or a day - then you are not related, then the relationship is only between image and image, which is an idea, a memory, and not a living thing.
     So action and awareness and living are the same; you cannot live if you are not aware, choicelessly. You are not living when you are not completely in action (of course not all the time) and you cannot act if there is no love; and love is not the result of thought. As most of us have empty hearts and empty minds - though we may be very clever and quote the Gita upside down, or the Koran, or what you will - we do not know what it means to love our wives and our children. If you loved your children you would have no wars; there would be no division between you and the Muslim or the Christian. But you don't love. If you love, then do what you will and there is beauty in what you do.
     December 3, 1967