Evolution of love

Tradition And Revolution 3

Pupul Jayakar: The key to your teachings appears to be in the understanding of time. The human mind, that is , the structure of the brain cells, has come to its present state with an in-built sense of time - as the yesterday, the today and the tomorrow. It is along this axis that the mind sustains itself. You appear to explode this process, to break through and, therefore, give the mind a new state of time. How is the time cycle to end?

What is your concept of time? The Buddha talks of the endless cycle of births and deaths, which is the yesterday, the today and the tomorrow, and the liberation from this cycle.

Krishnamurti: What is time? Is it the movement of the past through the present to the future, not only outwardly, but also inwardly from yesterday, to today and tomorrow? Or, is time that which is involved in covering physical or psychological distance? - to achieve, to fulfil, to arrive. Or, is time an ending? - as death. Or, is time the memory of pleasant and unpleasant experience? A time to learn and a time to forget - all these involve time. Time is not merely a concept.

Pupul: We know time as a sense of duration, as clock time.

Krishnamurti: Time is duration, a process, a continuity and an ending. There is not only physical time, that is, time by the watch, but also psychological, inward time. Time by the watch is very clear - going to the moon requires clock time. Is there any other time?

Pupul: We see time by the clock, the sun setting and rising. Psychological time is not different from that. If physical time has validity, my stating that I shall be tomorrow also has validity, not only physically but psychologically. All becoming is related to the tomorrow.

Krishnamurti: All becoming is not only clock time, but also the desire to become.

Pupul: The latter is possible only because there is tomorrow.

Krishnamurti: Do you think that if there was no physical time, there would be no psychological time?

Pupul: I question the distinction you draw between the two - physical and psychological time.

Krishnamurti: I go to Madras - that needs time as today and the tomorrow. We can also see that because there is time as the yesterday, today and tomorrow, one will be different, one will change one's character, one will become 'perfect'.

Pupul: It is easy to see that time does not bring perfection. But the nature of the movement of thought, the sprouting, is a projection in time. I question the distinction you make.

Krishnamurti: I know that physical time exists. Even if I do not think about tomorrow, there would be a tomorrow. Why am I sure that apart from chronological time there will be a tomorrow? It is fairly clear. This evening I will be going for a walk and between now and the walk there is an interval of ten hours. In the same way, I am something now, but I want to be something else. In that also time is involved. I am asking myself if there is such time at all. If I do not think about the walk, or about my becoming something else, is there time?

Pupul: Certain measurements have to be made.

Krishnamurti: I need only physical measurement, no psychological measurement. I do not have to say: I will become that; I will fulfil; I will achieve my ideal. All that involves time. If it does not enter my consciousness, where is time? It is only when I want to change this into that, that time comes into being. I have no such desire.

Pupul: So long as there is desire for improvement, a change for the better, which to me is a fact, there is validity to the sense of time.

Krishnamurti: That is, two years ago, I did not do my exercises properly. In two years, I have learnt, improved. I apply the same kind of argument to an inward process, which is, I say: I am this but I will improve in two years time.

I know only physical time, and I do not know any other time. Why do you have any other time except physical, chronological time? Why?

You see, what is really involved here is movement - the movement of improvement involves both physical and psychological time. Is there any other movement except the movement of thought? And thought which says: I have been and I will become, is time. If thought functioned only in the movement of the physical, would there be any other time? If there is no psychological being and no psychological ending, is there time? We always associate psychological time with physical time, and say: I will be. The verb 'to be' is time.

Now what happens when you do not want to do anything, one way or another?

Pupul: What would have happened if man did not have this movement of becoming as time?

Krishnamurti: He would have been destroyed. So the movement of becoming was a movement of protection.

Pupul: Then the movement of protection as time is necessary.

Krishnamurti: Agreed. Protection against fire is necessary; but is there any other form of protection?

Pupul: Once you admit protection against fire, the other protection is of the same nature.

Krishnamurti: If the psychological is non-existent, is there need for protection?

Pupul: What you say is true. If the other is non-existent, there is nothing to protect. But we see that there is the other.

Krishnamurti: You accept that there is the other; you take it for granted that there is. But is there? I need physical protection; I need food, clothes and shelter. Physical protection is absolutely necessary; nothing else. Physical protection involves time. But why should there be protection with respect to something which may not exist at all? How can you protect me psychologically? And that is what we are doing; we are doing something to protect that which does not exist; and we therefore invent time. So psychologically, there is no tomorrow; but there is a tomorrow because I need food.

Pupul: If one sees that, in that seeing, is there the ending of time?

Krishnamurti: This is it. (pause.)
Shall we investigate further? Consciousness is made up of its content. Consciousness is not separate from its content. The content of consciousness is made up of time. Consciousness is time, and that is what we are trying to protect. We are using time to shield a state conditioned by time. We are trying to protect that which has no existence.

If we look at the content of consciousness, we find memories, fears, anxieties, the I-believe-I-do-not-believe - which are all products of time. And thought says: This is the only thing I have; I must protect it, shield it against every possible form of danger. What is it that thought is trying to protect? Is it words, dead memories, a formula which encourages movement, that makes it move from here to there? And is there such movement except as an invention of thought?

The movement of thought, born of memory, is from the past, even though it may appear to be free. Therefore, thought cannot bring about radical change. Therefore, it is deceiving itself all the time. When you see this, one's whole activity would be entirely different. Then one would protect only the physical, and not the psychological.

Pupul: Would that not mean a state of emptiness inside, a meaningless emptiness inside?

Krishnamurti: If I only protect the physical and nothing else, obviously it is like protecting a glass. Therefore one is frightened of being empty, frightened of meaningless emptiness. But if one sees the whole thing, there is an emptiness which is tremendously significant.

Sunanda Patwardhan: Does time have a point at which there is an impact? How does one know the texture of time?

Krishnamurti: We live between regret and hope. If there is no movement, psychological movement backwards or forwards, what is time? Is it height, which again means measurement? If there is no measurement, no movement, no backward or forward movement, no height and depth - actually no movement at all - is there time? And also, why do we give such extraordinary importance to time?

Pupul: Because time is age, decay, deterioration.

Krishnamurti: Follow it up. Time is decay. I see this body, young and healthy, getting older, dying - the whole mechanism unwinding. That is all I know. Nothing else.

Pupul: The mind also deteriorates.

Krishnamurti: Why should it not decay? It is part of the decaying process. I brutalize the mind to achieve, to succeed - which are all factors of unnatural deterioration. Then what have I left? The body grows old; I have regrets because I cannot walk up the hill anymore; The psychological struggle is coming to an end, and I am frightened. So I say: I must have a next life.

Pupul: Does age diminish the capacity to see, to perceive?

Krishnamurti: No, if you have not spoilt it by scars, memories, quarrels.

Pupul: And if you have?

Krishnamurti: Then you are going to pay for it.

Pupul: Then there is no redemption.

Krishnamurti: At any point the first step is the last step.

Pupul: So time can be wiped out at any point.

Krishnamurti: Anyone who says: Let me be aware of this whole movement, and perceives totally for one second, the mind becomes young again for that second. But then the mind carries that over and again deteriorates.

Pupul: The carrying over is 'karma'; 'karma' is also time.

Krishnamurti: There is past action, present action and future action. Cause is never a static thing. The effect becomes the cause. So there is a constant movement undergoing change all the time.

Pupul: Karma in itself has validity.

Krishnamurti: I plant the seed, it will grow. I plant the seed in the woman, and the child grows.

Pupul: So psychological time has existed as karma; it has reality.

Krishnamurti: No. Is it the real? Let us look at this question of cause and effect. I plant a seed in the earth, and it grows. If I plant an acorn, it cannot grow to be anything but an oak. What the seed is, the bush will be, or the tree will be. I cannot change that.

Sunanda: Can the effect be changed in psychological action?

Krishnamurti: Yes, of course it can be changed. You have, for whatever reason, hit me physically or with words. Now, what is my response to that? If I hit you back, the movement continues. But what happens if I do not react when you hit me? Because there is observing, watching, I am out of that situation.

Pupul: I understand at that level. I set a process in motion. I observe. The process has ended. That act affects another. It is going to affect others.

Krishnamurti: It will affect others - your family, and the world around you.

Pupul: The reactions arising out of my action are, in a sense, independent of my action.

Krishnamurti: The wave goes on.

Pupul: The wave is karma: a certain energy is released which will work its consequences out unless it meets other minds which quench it.

Krishnamurti: The wave can only end when both of us see it at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity. This means love. Otherwise you cannot end it.