Last night, after drinking my tea, I opened one of the question and answers of jiddu krishnamurti. By chance, the question asked was my concern for ten years I took note of the 45’ session, to summarize it for myself as a simple narrative. krishnamurti has a very fascinating approach of addressing a question. He starts to break down the macro question into micro several ones, answer each by asking more micro questions. Finally, he zooms out and conclude, which I find it very interesting, convincing, and easy to understand the core of spirituality philosophy.

Question: I am a teacher, and I am constantly in conflict with the society patterns and the education system. Should I give it all up? what is the right choice of living?

Answer: what is your profession? you are a teacher, and you are in constant conflict with the society patterns and yourself of making the right choice of living.

The answer is there is NO right living in the society, and right living sounds like an Utopia. This is because the society has conflict by itself. It has corruption. All the injustice, hunger, poverty, diseases sounds like conflict. Now, the question is: “Can I live in a society with so much conflicts and also conflicts in myself, and make the right living?”. OR: “Is there a living with no conflict and the right livelihood?”

The answer is: “It is possible to live in a society of conflicts and make the right living only if when you understand significance of LIVING”. Now, What is LIVING?

LIVING is: 1) actions (i.e., movements), and 2) relationships (i.e., any relationship: shallow, deep, intimate, friends,…)

To understand what is a right LIVING, we need to find out what is the right ACTIONS? and what is the right RELATIONSHIP?

RELATIONSHIP: what is a right relationship? what is your typical relationship with someone? Is it a right relationship? most people say no to the rightness of their relationship but still continue, because they do not go into it seriously to find out if the relationship is right. Why are we dependent in any forms in any of the relationships? Is it that because we feel lonely? Is it that we do not trust the persons?

Dependence brings a sense of security and protection. We want to possess and be possessed in the relationships, and this is CONFLICT. The moment you are tied to a person, or an idea, or a concept, there exists corruption and conflict.

Why am I dependent in any relationship with anything (person, idea, concept, place)? to feel encouraged? to feel fulfilled?

This dependence brings CONFLICT. Now, can we live TOGETHER (he highlights to maintain relationships), without being dependent/tied?

I love this part that he mentions: Life is relationships. We need relationships because its life and we are living the life. But, how can we have all the relationships we desire without any sense of dependence? and the answer is to be OBJECTIVE, without any motive. Observe the consequences of attachment (which is conflict), and let it go! But How?

Attachment is not the opposite of detachment? because we attach and we struggle to detach? This is because there is NO detachment. There is ONE thing and that is attachment. As soon as we have this motive for detachment (opposite of attachment) we are making conflict. There is only attachment and we need to be observant of this attachment. However, our brain is trained/conditioned/educated to look for the opposite and act according to it. This is where we create CONFLICT. There is only one thing: like attachment, like anger, like violence,…

To not to create conflict, one should be OBSERVANT, and not pursuing the opposite, and not to analyze. Being observant of “What is”, and NOT the “what should be”

Become a member What is: I am angry (one thing)

What should be: I should not be angry (the opposite)

You need to just remain with the “what is”, observe it objectively, do not pursue the opposite. Just observe the fact, do not go beyond it, do not suppress it, do not escape from it.

Example:

My son is dead. I am attached to my son, I put all my hope on my son. I wanted to fulfill through my son, and now he is gone, and I am in tears, loneliness, and despair.

The philosophical view to this loss is: Remain with the FACT that my son is gone. Remain with the “what is”. I feel lonely because I was dependent on my son, and I was attached, and I never felt this isolation because I escaped from it all my life.

1. ACTIONS/MOVEMENTS: what is the right action? is it based on a principle? or values, morals? is it based on projected concepts, experiences?

The fact is you act based on past, and the past is dictating you what to do in present or future. Is this action? Is this really an action?

REAL action is when there is complete freedom. Freedom from the past and future. He mentions that this freedom is certainly not “do whatever you want”. Once the person is making real actions, the actions are based on an intelligence which he opens the intelligence up in the following. (For sure, actions are not damaging, hurting, or corrupting)

Now understanding the right RELATIONSHIP and the right ACTION brings Intelligence. This intelligence is not of the intellect. However, it is the profound intelligence which is in everyone. When you develop that intelligence, it will tell you what is the right living.

Without this intelligence, your livelihood will be dictated based on the circumstances. With this intelligence, you can be a gardener, farmer, cook, singer, engineer, doctor,….. WHATEVER. With this intelligence, now the mind is trained to accept any status, and positions.

At the end of the video, he sadly asks audience do you do something about it? and he nods his head: NO! It demands a great deal of enquiry.

There is a way of living a life in which there is not conflict, and because there is no CONFLICT, there is INTELLIGENCE which will show you the way of right living.

After the video, I was thinking a lot, and asking myself how? how can I eliminate the conflict? how can I eliminate the dependency to anything ( thought, concept, person, idea, tools, things,…). How can remain with “What is” and not the “what it should be”, How can I not make the opposite and remain with the facts? How can I be observant, objective, not-biased, see everything as it is? How can I not project my past experiences to the present? how can I act with freedom (no bias, no force)? So, my actions will be right, and my relationships are out of conflict.

To me, this is the ultimate of scaling the ladder of the spirituality, and maybe this is where the human being needs to reach to.

Rest in peace, Jiddu!