What is Right Action by J. Krishnamurti

Author:J. Krishnamurti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Krishnamurti Foundation America

Third Talk in the Town Hall, New York City, New York

Friends,

I want to give a brief talk before answering the questions, to explain something which perhaps may be difficult to understand. I will try to make it as simple and clear as possible.

I think most of us are trying to find out what is true happiness, for without being intelligently happy, life becomes very superficial, futile, and rather dreary. And so, in search of what we call happiness, we go from one experience to another, from one belief to another, from one theory to another, until we find such beliefs, such ideas, as give us satisfaction. Now these satisfactions are but escapes. The very search for happiness must result in a series of escapes—it may be, as I said, through authority, through sensation, through the mere multiplication of experiences, and the increase of power—these escapes become standards or values by which we cover up conflict.

After all, when you are conscious of conflict, there is disturbance which creates unhappiness; and to escape from that unhappiness you seek various experiences and develop certain values, standards, measures, which become your escape. So gradually you become unconscious of all except those standards, those patterns, and your life is nothing else than a living imitation of these values which you have established in your search for happiness.

If you examine, you will see that your mind and heart are held in a series of standards or values. Being so bound, mind is always giving further values, establishing further standards, and is ever sitting in judgment. Until the mind frees itself from this continual process of attributing values, it is never fresh, new, never creatively empty, if I may use that word without being misunderstood. For in creative emptiness alone is there the birth of truth.

Conflict, suffering, is the process of breaking up this habit of attributing values. You have a set of values established through experience, through tradition, and these values have become your guides; with these past standards and values you approach a fresh experience, which must naturally create a conflict. This suffering is nothing else than the breaking up of old values to which the mind clings.

Now, it is the very essence of stupidity to escape from conflict through a series of established values, or through forming a new set of values. The very essence of intelligence is to understand life or experience with an unburdened mind and heart, anew, afresh. Instead of meeting life without any preconceived demands, you come to it with a mind and heart already prejudiced, almost incapable of swift adjustment, quick pliability. The lack of this instantaneous discernment of the movement of life creates sorrow. Conflict is the indication of bondage, which cannot be conquered, but whose significance must be understood. All conquering of obstacles through a new set of values is but another form of escape.

You might say that a mind which does not give values is really the mind of a primitive. It is true in one

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