WHAT ARE YOU SEEKING ? - 2

continued from last....

I will try to put it again, differently. There is conflict, of which each one of you is conscious, between yourself and the environment, the conditions. Now, you say to yourself: "If I can conquer environment, overcome it, dominate it, I shall find out, I shall understand; so there is this continual battle going on between yourself and environment.

Now what is the "yourself"? It is but the result, the product of environment. So what are you doing? You are fighting one false thing with another false thing, and environment will be false so long as you do not understand it. Therefore the environment is producing that consciousness which you call the "I", which is continually trying to become immortal. And to make it immortal there must be many ways, there must be means, and therefore you have religions, systems, philosophies, all the nuisances and barriers that you have created. Hence there must be conflict between the result of environment and environment itself; and, as I said, there can be conflict only between the false and the false; never between truth and the false. Whereas, in your minds there is this firmly established idea that in this struggle between the result of environment, which is the "I", and the environment itself, lies power, wisdom, the path to eternity, to reality, truth, happiness.

Our vital concern should be with this environment, not with the conflict, not how to overcome it, not how to run away from it. By questioning the environment and trying to understand its significance, we shall find out its true worth. Isn't that so? Most of us are enmeshed, caught up in the process of trying to overcome, to run away from circumstances. environment; we are not trying to find out what it means, what is its cause, its significance, its value. When you see the significance of environment, it means drastic action, a tremendous upheaval in your life, a complete, revolutionary change of ideas, in which there is no authority, no imitation. But very few are willing to see the significance of environment, because it means change, a radical change, a revolutionary change, and very few people want that. So most people, vast numbers of people, are concerned with the evasion of environment; they cover it up, or try to find new substitutions by getting rid of Jesus Christ and setting up a new saviour; by seeking new teachers in place of the old, but they do not ever inquire whether they need a guide at all. This alone would help, this alone would give the true significance of that particular demand.

So where there is a search for substitution, there must be authority, the following of leadership, and hence the individual becomes but a cog in the social and religious machinery of life. If you look closely you will see that your search is nothing but a search for comfort and security and escape; not a search for understanding, not a search for truth, but rather a search for an evasion and therefore a search for the conquering of all obstacles; after all, all conquering is but substitution, and in substitution there is no understanding.

There are escapes through religions, with their edicts, moral standards, fears, authorities; and escapes through self-expression - what you call self-expression, what the vast majority of people call self-expression, is but the reaction against environment, is but the effort to express oneself through reaction against that environment - self-expression through art, through science, through various forms of action. Here I am not including the true, spontaneous expressions of beauty, of art, of science; they in themselves are complete. I am talking of the man who is seeking these things as a means of self-expression. A real artist does not talk about his self-expression, he is expressing that which he intensely feels; but there are so many spurious artists, like the spurious spiritual people, who are all the time seeking self-expression as a means of getting something, some satisfaction which they cannot find in the environment in which they live.

Through this search for security and permanency, we have established religions with all their inanities, divisions, exploitations, as means of escape; and these means of escape become so vital, so important, because, to tackle environment, that is, the conditions about us, demands tremendous action, voluntary, dynamic action, and very few are willing to take that action. On the contrary, you are willing to be forced to an action by environment, by circumstances; that is, if a man becomes highly moral and virtuous through depression, you say what a nice man he is, how he has changed. For that change you depend upon environment; and so long as there is the dependence on environment for righteous action, there must be means of escape, substitutions, call it religion or what you will. Whereas, for the true artist who is also truly spiritual there is spontaneous expression, which in itself is sufficient, complete, whole.

So what are you doing? What is happening to each one of you? What are you trying to do in your lives? You are seeking; and what are you seeking? There is a conflict between yourself and the constant movement of environment. You are seeking a means to overcome that environment, so as to perpetuate your own self which is but the result of that environment; or, because you have been thwarted so often by environment, which prevents you from self-expressing, as you call it, you seek a new means of self-expression through service to humanity, through economic adjustments, and all the rest of it.

Each one has to find out for what he is searching; if he is not searching, then there is satisfaction and decay. If there is conflict, there is the desire to overcome that conflict, to escape from that conflict, to dominate it. And as I have said, conflict can exist only between two false things, between that supposed reality which you call the "I", which to me is nothing else but the result of environment, and the environment itself. And hence if your mind is merely concerned with the overcoming of that struggle, then you are perpetuating falseness, and hence there is more conflict, more sorrow. But if you understand the significance of environment, that is, wealth, poverty, exploitation, oppression, nationalities, religions, and all the inanities of social life in modern existence, not trying to overcome them but seeing their significance, then there must be individual action, and complete revolution of ideas and thought. Then there is no longer a struggle, but rather light dispelling darkness. There is no conflict between light and darkness. There is no conflict between truth and that which is false. There is only conflict where there are opposites.

J.Krishnamurti

Ojai, California
1st Public Talk 16th June, 1934