In the following excerpt from Q & A with Jiddu Krishnamurti observations of inner causes of war and conflict are shared. Please look into the mirror held by Krishnamurti! Can you be fearless to honestly see without condemnation or judgement what will it stir within you in response? Only LOVE can compassionately hold evil to its Heart to let it heal… LOVE IS WITHIN EACH ONE OF US – WITHIN WE THE PEOPLE – ALLONE HUMANITY
“Questioner: How can we solve our present political chaos and the crisis in the world? Is there anything an individual can do to stop war?
Krishnamurti: War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday life. War is merely an outward expression of our inward state, an enlargement of our daily action. It is more spectacular, more bloody, more destructive, but it is the collective result of our individual activities. So you and I are responsible for war, and what can we do to stop it?
Obviously, war cannot be stopped by you and me, because it is already in movement; it is already taking place, though still chiefly on the psychological level. It has already begun in the world of ideas, though it may take a little longer for our bodies to be destroyed. As it is already in movement, it cannot be stopped—the issues are too many, too great, and are already committed. But you and I, seeing that the house is on fire, can understand the causes of that fire, can go away from it and build in a new place with different materials that are not combustible, that will not produce other wars. That is all that we can do. You and I can see what creates wars, and if we are interested in stopping wars, then we can begin to transform ourselves, who are the causes of war. So what causes war, whether religious, political, or economic?
Obviously, belief, either in nationalism, an ideology, or a particular dogma. If we had no belief but goodwill, love, and consideration between us, then there would be no wars. But we are fed on beliefs, ideas, and dogmas, and therefore we breed discontent. The present crisis is of an exceptional nature, and we as human beings must either pursue the path of constant conflict and continuous wars that are the result of our everyday action or else see the causes of war and turn our back upon them. What causes war is the desire for power, position, prestige, money, and also the disease called nationalism, the worship of a flag, and the disease of organized religion, the worship of a dogma. All these are the causes of war; and if you as an individual belong to any of the organized religions, if you are greedy for power, if you are envious, you are bound to produce a society that will result in destruction. So again, it depends upon you and not on the leaders, not on Stalin, Churchill, and all the rest of them. It depends upon you and me, but we do not seem to realize that. If once we really felt the responsibility of our own actions, how quickly we could bring to an end all these wars, this appalling misery! But, you see, we are indifferent. We have three meals a day, we have our jobs, we have our bank accounts, big or little, and we say, ‘For God’s sake, don’t disturb us, leave us alone’. The higher up we are, the more we want security, permanency, tranquillity, the more we want to be left alone, to maintain things fixed as they are; but they cannot be maintained as they are, because there is nothing to maintain. Everything is disintegrating. We do not want to face these things; we do not want to face the fact that you and I are responsible for wars. You and I may talk about peace, have conferences, sit around a table, and discuss; but inwardly, psychologically, we want power, position; we are motivated by greed. We intrigue, we are nationalistic, we are bound by beliefs, by dogmas, for which we are willing to die and destroy each other. Do you think such men, you and I, can have peace in the world? To have peace, we must be peaceful. To live peacefully means not to create antagonism. Peace is not an ideal. To me, an ideal is merely an escape, an avoidance, a contradiction of what is. An ideal prevents direct action upon what is. But to have peace, we will have to love, we will have to begin, not to live an ideal life, but to see things as they are and act upon them, transform them. As long as each one of us is seeking psychological security, the physiological security we need—food, clothing, and shelter—is destroyed. We are seeking psychological security, which does not exist; and we seek it, if we can, through power, through position, through titles, names—all of which are destroying physical security. This is an obvious fact, if you look at it. So to bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states—greed, envy, ill will, and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution, and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations, and so on; but we will not win peace, because we will not give up our position, authority, money, property, our stupid lives. To rely on others is utterly futile; others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation that will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right thinking, but there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace. To put an end to outward war, you must begin to put an end to war in yourself. Some of you will shake your heads and say, ‘I agree’, and go outside and do exactly the same as you have been doing for the last ten or twenty years. Your agreement is merely verbal and has no significance, for the world’s miseries and wars are not going to be stopped by your casual assent. They will be stopped only when you realize the danger, when you realize your responsibility, when you do not leave it to somebody else. If you see the suffering, if you see the urgency of immediate action and do not postpone it, then you will transform yourself; and peace will come only when you yourself are peaceful, are at peace with your neighbour.
Q: The family is the framework of our love and greed, of our selfishness and division. What is its place in your scheme of things?
K: I have no scheme of things. See how absurdly we think of life! Life is living, dynamic, active, and you cannot put it in a frame. It is the intellectuals who put life in a frame, who have a scheme to systematise it. I have no scheme, but let us look at the facts. First, there is the fact of our relationship with another, whether it is with a wife, a husband, or a child—the relationship that we call the family. Let us examine the fact of what is, not what we should like it to be. Anyone can have ideas about family life; but if we can look at, examine, understand what is, then perhaps we shall be able to transform it. But merely to cover up what is with a lovely set of words—calling it responsibility, duty, love—all that has no meaning. So let us examine what we call the family. To understand something, we must examine what is and not cover it up with sweet-sounding phrases. What is it that you call the family? Obviously, it is a relationship of intimacy, of communion. Now, in your family, in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, is there communion? Surely that is what we mean by relationship. Relationship means communion without fear, freedom to understand each other, to communicate directly. Obviously, relationship means that—to be in communion with another. Are you? Are you in communion with your wife? Perhaps you are physically, but that is not relationship. You and your wife live on opposite sides of a wall of isolation, do you not? You have your own pursuits, your ambitions, and she has hers. You live behind the wall and occasionally look over the top, and that you call relationship. You may enlarge it, soften it, introduce a new set of words to describe it, but that is the actual fact—that you and another live in isolation, and that life in isolation you call relationship. Now, if there is real relationship between two people, which means there is communion between them, then the implications are enormous. Then there is no isolation, then there is love and not responsibility or duty. It is people who are isolated behind their walls who talk about duty and responsibility. But a man who loves does not talk about responsibility—he loves. Therefore he shares with another his joy, his sorrow, his money. Are our families such? Is there direct communion with your wife, with your children? Obviously not. Therefore the family is merely an excuse to continue your name or tradition, to give you what you want, sexually or psychologically. The family becomes a means of self-perpetuation (of social and parental conditionings, habits, beliefs… please watch these videos revealing scientific discoveries on how we are programmed by dogmas and unnatural conditions/rules of society that our parents have been conditioned by and before them their parents… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAhPf4LfneQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io7of-OVQRo&fbclid=IwAR16-5r7myTI_Up9yjpIlNexUVnT2DlH5gDhn-UbC3sUcMu1zjFP30On7kA ). That is one kind of immortality, one kind of permanency. Also, the family is used as a means of gratification. I exploit others ruthlessly in the business world, in the political or social world outside, and at home I try to be kind and generous. How absurd! Or the world is too much for me; I want peace, and I go home. I suffer in the world, and I go home and try to find comfort. So I use relationship as a means of gratification, which means I do not want any disturbance of it. In our families there is isolation and not communion, and therefore no love. Love and sex are two different things, which we will discuss another time. We may develop in our isolation a form of selflessness, a devotion, a kindness, but it is always behind the wall, because we are more concerned with ourselves than with others. If you were concerned with others, if you were really in communion with your wife or your husband, and were therefore open to your neighbour, the world would not be in this misery. That is why families in isolation become a danger to society. So how can this isolation be broken down? To do that, we must be aware of it; we must not be detached from it or say that it does not exist. It does exist; that is an obvious fact. Be aware of the way you treat your wife, your husband, your children; be aware of the callousness, the brutality, the traditional assertions, the false education. Do you mean to say that if you loved your wife or your husband, we would have this conflict and misery in the world? It is because you do not know how to love your wife, your husband, that you don’t know how to love God. You want God as a further means of isolation, a further means of security. After all, God is the ultimate security; but such a search is not for God, it is merely a refuge, an escape. To find God you must know how to love, not God, but the human beings around you, the trees, the flowers, the birds. Then, when you know how to love them, you will really know what it is to love God. Without loving another, without knowing what it means to be completely in communion with one another, you cannot be in communion with truth. But you see, we are not thinking of love; we are not concerned with being in communion with another. We want security, either in the family, in property, or in ideas; and where the mind is seeking security, it can never know love. For love is the most dangerous thing, because when we love somebody, we are vulnerable, we are open; and we do not want to be open and vulnerable. We want to be enclosed, to be more at ease within ourselves.
To bring about transformation in our relationship is not a matter of legislation, of compulsion according to scripture. To bring about radical transformation in relationship, we must begin with ourselves. Watch yourself, how you treat your wife and children. Your wife is a woman, and that is the end of it—she is to be used as a doormat! I don’t think you realize what a catastrophic state the world is in at the present time; otherwise you wouldn’t be so casual about all this. We are at the edge of a precipice—moral, social, and spiritual. You don’t see that the house is burning and you are living in it. If you knew that the house was burning, that you were on the edge of a precipice, you would act. But unfortunately you are complacent, afraid, comfortable; you are dull or weary, demanding immediate satisfaction. You let things drift, and therefore the world’s catastrophe is approaching. It is not a mere threat; it is an actual fact. In Europe war is already moving—war, war, war, disintegration, insecurity. After all, what affects another affects you. You are responsible for another, and you cannot shut your eyes and say, ‘I am secure in Bangalore’. That is obviously a very short-sighted and stupid thought. The family becomes a danger where there is isolation between husband and wife, between parents and children, because then the family encourages general isolation; but when the walls of isolation are broken down in the family, then you are in communion not only with your wife and children but with your neighbour. Then the family is not enclosed, limited; it is not a refuge, an escape. So the problem is not somebody else’s but our own.
Power of Sunflower 