Jiddu Krishnamurti 13 Collected Works 10 A Light To Yourself

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.January 23, 1957.COLOMBO 5TH PUBLIC TALK 27TH JANUARY1957As I have been pointing out during these talks here, it is surely veryimportant, especially when the world is in such a grave crisis, thatwe should understand the true significance of religion; becausereligion, it seems is the only basic solution to all the problems ofour existence.I do not mean the religions of dogma, of organizedbelief, which only condition the mind.To me, they are not religionat all.They are like any other propagandistic organization whichmerely shapes the mind according to a particular pattern ofthinking.To inquire into the whole question of what is true religion, onemust first understand what behaviour is.To me, behaviour isrighteousness.But most of us spend our energy and our thought inarguing over what kind of belief we should hold concerningreincarnation and the various other problems involved in religion;we do not start with the fundamental issue.The foundation of rightinquiry is surely behaviour, which is righteousness; andrighteousness is not merely the cultivation of virtue.A man whocultivates virtue ceases to be virtuous; a man who practiseshumility is no longer humble.The cultivation of humility isarrogance.Similarly, cultivated virtue only leads to respectability.We must have virtue, because virtue is essential to all real inquiry,but not the cultivated virtue which is a self-centred activity.Whatis important is to meet the whole movement of that virtue which isnot self-centred and which, if we pursue it deeply, not only at theconscious but also at the unconscious level, does lead to that whichis beyond the measure of the mind.This is true religious inquiry,and I think it is very important to understand it.Most of us are involved in some form of organized belief, suchas Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Communism, and so on; andwhen we are caught in the net of these organizations, whetherpolitical or so-called spiritual, we are more concerned, are we not?,with what we believe than with how we live our life.What matters,surely, is not to find out what is the ideal way of living, but ratherto discover for ourselves the pattern of behaviour in which themind is caught and to see the true significance of such behaviour.Righteousness has nothing whatever to do with organizedconduct; because organized conduct, which is social morality, hasproduced this great confusion and chaos in the world.Societyaccepts envy, greed, ambition, cruelty, the ruthless pursuit of one'sown fulfilment; it admits and justifies the possibility of killing on alarge scale.The soldier who kills more than the others in battle is ahero in the eyes of society; and when a society professing aparticular religion sanctions killing on a vast and inhuman scale,then obviously the religion which it professes has failed.To understand righteousness it is necessary to step out of thepattern of society.By society I do not mean the organized means ofcommunication, of supplying food, clothing, shelter, and so on, butthe whole psychological or moral issue which is involved insociety.A person who seeks to inquire into what is true religionobviously cannot belong to a society which accepts greed, envy,the pursuit of personal ambition, the search for power, fame, andall the rest of it.To belong to a society based on cruelty and thepursuits of self-interest, and still be religious, is obviouslyimpossible.Yet organized religions throughout the world.havecondoned such a society.Organized religions do not insist that youstep out of greed, envy, ruthlessness.They are far more concernedwith what you believe, with ritual, organization, property, and allthe rest of the confusion, paraphernalia and rigmarole that exist inand around every organized religion.So a man who would inquire into what is true religion must laythe foundation of righteousness by being without envy, withoutambition, without the greed for power.This is an actual possibility,I am not being idealistic.Ideals and actuality are incompatible.Aman who pursues the ideal of non-violence is indulging inviolence.He is concerned, not with ceasing to be violent, but withultimately arriving at a state which he calls non-violence.Beingviolent, the mind has an ideal of non-violence which is over therein the distance; it will take time to achieve that state, and in themeantime the mind can continue to be violent.Such a mind is notconcerned with getting rid of violence, but with slowly trying tobecome non-violent.The two states are entirely different, and Ithink it is very important to understand this fact.The ending of aquality such as violence or greed is not a matter of time, and it doesnot come about through ideals; it has to be done immediately, notthrough time.We get caught up in the gradualism of ideals whenwe are concerned with time [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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