Krishnamurti - Washington D.c. Talks 1985

Washington D.c. Talks 1985 Foreword By Mary Zimbalist

On both days the hall was filled with a varied, seriously interested audience and as Krishnamurti spoke there seemed an intangible response, a quality in which the listeners joined in his communication. 

Krishnamurti felt it and although there were to be other talks before his death ten months later, on those two days in April 1985, at the age of ninety, Krishnamurti spoke from the summit of his life and teaching. M.Z.

Some fragments

We have lived on this earth for many millennia. And during those long periods of time mankind has suffered loneliness, despair, uncertainty, confusion, multiple choices and therefore multiple complexities; and there have been wars not only physical bloody wars but also psychological wars. And mankind has asked if there can be peace on earth. But apparently this has not been possible. There are about forty wars going on at the present time, ideological, theoretical, economic, social. During historical times, perhaps about five thousand to six thousand years, there have been wars practically every year. And also we are preparing for wars now.

Man has always been in conflict, as everyone in this world goes through all kinds of misery, all kinds of sorrow, pain, desperate loneliness; and we long to escape from all that, So we are going to observe together this extraordinary phenomenon: how man, after these thousands of years, still remains a barbarian cruel, vulgar, full of anxiety and hatred. And violence is increasing in the world. So one asks, can there be peace on this earth? Because without peace, inwardly, psychologically first, the brain cannot flower, human beings cannot live completely holistically.

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Each one is concerned with himself. He lives in a separate world all to himself. And therefore there is division between you and another, between you and your religion, between you and your god, between you and your ideologies.
So is it possible to understand not intellectually but deeply, that you are the rest of mankind? Whatever you do, good or bad, affects the rest of mankind, because you are mankind.

Your consciousness is not yours. Your consciousness is made up of its content. Without the content there is no consciousness. Your consciousness like that of the rest of humanity is made up of beliefs, fears, faith, gods, personal ambitions. Your whole consciousness is made up of all this, put together by thought.

One hopes that we have taken the journey together, that together we are walking the same road not that you are listening to a series of ideas. We are not pursuing ideas or ideologies, but facing actuality, because in actuality and going beyond that actuality is the truth. And when there is truth it's the most dangerous thing. Truth is very dangerous because it brings a revolution in oneself.