discussions and talks here, is to see

if we cannot radically bring about

a transformation of the mind -

not accept things as they are,

nor revolt against them.

Revolt doesn't answer a thing.

But to understand it, to go into it, to examine it,

give your heart and your mind, with everything

that you have, to find out a way of living differently.

Q: The speaker is Krishnamurti, one of the more original

and challenging men of our time.

During the past four decades,

his writings and talks in Europe, Asia and America have followed

a singular path, free from factionalism and dogma.

This talk, Freedom from Fear,

is the 3rd in a series of 8 programs

in which Krishnamurti speaks directly to those subjects

which most profoundly affect the human condition:

love and death, fear,

and our discontent. He speaks of the real revolution,

a radical change in ourselves.

K: Considering what the world is now, with all the misery, conflict,

destructive brutality, aggression,

tremendous advancement in technology, and so on,

it seems to me, though man has cultivated the external world,

and has more or less mastered it,

inwardly he is still as he was:

a great deal of animal in him,

he is still brutal, violent, aggressive,

acquisitive, competitive,

and he has built a society along these lines.

And the more one observes

- and I think almost everyone,

unless totally blind, deaf and dumb,

is aware of the extraordinary

contradictions of human beings.

And to understand this extraordinary

complex problem of existence

one must have tremendous passion,

which cannot possibly be supplied by the intellect

or by casual sentiment or emotionalism,

or the passion aroused by

committing oneself to a particular course of action,

or belonging to a particular political or religious group.

That does give a certain quality of intensity,

a certain elan,

a certain drive, but through it all there is the demand

for gratification, for pleasure.

And the whole structure of society,

with its morality, with its gods,

with its culture, with its entertainment,

is based on pleasure.

So I hope that you will so listen to what is being said:

not hear a lot of words,

to a lot of ideas, because ideas

and words are not the fact.

Ideas and words never bring about

a radical revolution, a mutation in the mind.

So I am not dealing with ideas and opinions and judgment.

What we are concerned with is bringing about

a radical revolution in the mind.

And that revolution must take place

without effort, because all effort has behind it a motive.

And a revolution with a motive is not a revolution at all.

A change

becomes merely a modified continuity when there is a motive.

But

a mutation, a radical transformation of the mind

can only take place

when there is no motive, and when we begin

to understand the psychological structure,

not only of society, which is part of us.

And to understand it there must be the act of listening -

not listening to the speaker but listening

to what is actually taking place in ourselves.

So it is

a responsibility how you all listen, because we are taking

a journey together into the whole psychological structure of man.

Because in the understanding of that structure

and the meaning of it

we can then perhaps bring about a change in society.

And society, God knows, needs a total change, a total revolution.

So, as we were saying earlier,

our whole concept, action and urges

are based on pleasure.

And until one understands

the nature and the structure of pleasure

there will always be fear,

fear not only in our relationships with each other

but fear of all life, the totality of existence.

So without understanding pleasure

there can be no freedom from fear.

And we are not denying pleasure, we are not advocating

puritanical way of life, a suppression of pleasure

or a substitution of pleasure,

or the denial of that thing that we call

great satisfaction - we are examining it.

And in examination there must be

freedom from opinion, otherwise you can't examine.

Pleasure is an extraordinary thing to understand,

needs a great deal of attention,

a swiftness of mind, a subtle perception.

So one has to understand it,

and to understand it there must be

neither withholding nor denying that quality,

that principle of pleasure.

And that's very difficult to do because we are so

heavily conditioned

to accept and to function

with the motive of pleasure, with gratification.

And therefore we are always limiting our total attention.

We look at life in fragments, and as long as the particular

fragmentation exists, one cannot possibly see the total.

If one says:

I must have a certain pleasure and I'm going

to hold on to it at any price,

then we will not comprehend or see

the total pattern of pleasure.

And we are concerned with seeing

the totality of pleasure, what is involved in it:

the pain, the frustration, the agony,

the remorse,

the ache of loneliness

when all pleasure is denied,

and naturally escape from all that

through various forms,

which again is the continuation of pleasure.

And the mind that is caught,

that is conditioned by this principle of pleasure

cannot, obviously, see what is true,

cannot think clearly,

and therefore it has no passion.

It translates passion as sexual, or

achieving some fragmentary activity

and fulfilment in that fragment.

So where there is no understanding of pleasure

there is only enthusiasm, sentimentality which evokes

brutality and callousness, and all the rest of it.

So what is pleasure?

Because without understanding pleasure

there is no love.

Love is not pleasure,

love is not desire,

love is not memory.

And

pleasure denies love.

Therefore it seems to me it is important

to understand this principle.

Surely pleasure is desire,

desire

which comes into being very naturally

when you see something

which gives you a stimulation, a sensation.

And from that sensation there is desire,

and the continuation of that desire

is pleasure,

and that pleasure is sustained by thought.

I see something, and

in that contact with it there is a sensation.

The sensation is the desire, sustained by thought,

because thought is the response of memory.

That memory is based on other experiences of pleasure and pain,

and thought gives to that desire the sustenance,

the quality of pursuit, and fulfilment.

One can see this in oneself very simply.

If one observes, it's all there in front of you.

And the quality of observation cannot be taught by another.

And if you are taught how to observe,

you cease to observe -

then you have merely the technique of observation,

which prevents you from actually seeing yourself.

For yourself is the whole of mankind,

with all the aches and the miseries,

with the solitude and loneliness, despair,

the utter loneliness of existence, meaninglessness of it all.

And when you do so observe, it unfolds endlessly,

which is life itself.

Then you are not dependent on anybody,

on any psychologist,

on any theologian, or any priest, or any dogma.

Then you are looking

at this movement of life which is yourself.

But unfortunately we cannot look with clarity

because we are driven by this principle of pleasure.

So to understand pleasure,

one has to understand the structure of thinking,

because it's thought that gives continuity to pleasure.

I've had a pleasure,

an experience of pleasure yesterday,

of different kinds, and thought thinks about that pleasure

and demands its continuity.

So, memory of that pleasure of yesterday

is reacting, demanding that it be renewed through thought.

And

thought is time.

Thinking about the past pleasure, past gratification,

yesterday's delight and enjoyment.

And that thought demands its continuity now.

And thought projects the tomorrow's pleasure.

And thought creates the past, the present and the future,

which is time.

I have had that pleasure,

I am going to have it, and I shall have it.

This time quality is created by thought,

bred, put together by thought.

And thought is time, and it is time that creates fear.

And

without probing into this time, pleasure, thought,

we're always bound by time,

and therefore time has never a stop.

It's only when there is an end to time

there is something totally new.

Otherwise there's merely a continuity of what has been,

modified through the present and conditioned by the future.

For a human being to be free of fear,

fear about the future, fear about...

- there are a dozen fears that human beings have,

conscious or undiscovered fears:

fears of the neighbour,

fears of death, fear of being lonely, insecure, uncertain,

fear of being confused, fear of being stupid

and trying to become very clever, you know, fear -

fear is always in relation to something,

it doesn't exist by itself.

And to be totally free of fear - not partially, not a fragment

of that totality of what is considered fear

- to be totally,

that is psychologically to be completely free of fear,

one must understand thought, time and pleasure.

And this understanding is not intellectual or emotional.

Understanding can only come when there is total attention,

when you give your complete attention to pleasure,

how it comes into being, what is time.

Time which thought has created

- I was, I will be, I am.

I must change this into that.

This idea of gradual process, this idea of gradual

psychological evolution of man.

And that's very gratifying:

we'll gradually, all of us, become extraordinarily kindly,

we shall gradually lose all our violence, aggression,

we'll all be brotherly at one time, much later.

This gradual concept, which is generally called evolution,

psychologically,

seems to me so utterly false.

We're not offering an opinion; this is a fact.

Because when you give your attention

to something completely

there is no time at all.

You don't say, 'I will do it tomorrow.'

In that state of attention

there is neither yesterday, today or tomorrow,

therefore time has come to an end.

But that ending of time cannot possibly be

when there is the centre as the principle of pleasure.

Pleasure

has in it

pain.

The two things cannot be separated.

Pleasure is pain,

if you have observed.

So you cannot possibly, psychologically, avoid pain

if you are pursuing, psychologically, pleasure.

We want the one and we don't want the other.