To Achieve Peace, First Destroy The Image
Talk: J Krishnamurti
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For those who are living far away from the frontier, war has little meaning. But to everyone, as a human being, war is a problem, whether it is fought in Pakistan or in India. It is a problem of relationship. This country which has talked about non-violence, which has preached `ahimsa', `don't kill', for millennia, forgets it overnight and is willing to kill because it has an image about the other, and the other has an image about this country .Unless there is a radical revolution in our relationship, we will not have peace. And peace is absolutely necessary not the peace of the politician, not the peace between two wars, between two quarrels, somewhere in faraway heaven, but peace here on earth between you and me. Because, unless you have peace, unless there is this extraordinary thing in your heart and in your mind, you cannot possibly blossom in goodness, you cannot flower in beauty, you cannot see the sky, you cannot see the beauty of the earth. If there is conflict in you, you cannot see anything. So peace is peace in relationship, so that two human beings can work together, think together, solve problems together. problems together.
This peace can only come about when there is in each one of us the understanding of relationship and the complete transformation in that relationship. It is the relationship of two images, and nothing else; and therefore there is no love between two images. How can i love you and you love me if you have an image about me, if you have ideas about me?
If i have hurt you, pushed you, been ambitious, clever and gone ahead of you, how can you love me? How can i love you if you threaten my position, my job, if you run away with my wife? If you belong to one country and i to another, if you belong to one sect Hinduism, Buddhism or Catholicism and the rest of it and i am a Muslim, how can we love each other? You cannot run away from this wherever you live, whether in a monastery , cave or mountain, you are related. You cannot possibly isolate yourself either from your own image which you have created about God, about truth, or from your own image about your own self and all the rest of it.
So to establish right relationship is to destroy the image that you are a Hindu, that i am a Pakistani, Muslim, Catholic, Jew, or communist. You have to destroy the machinery that e image the machinery that creates the image the machinery that is in you and the machinery that is in the other. Otherwise you may destroy one image, and the machinery will create another image. So one has not only to find out the existence of the image that is, to be aware of your particular image but also to be aware of what the machinery is that creates the image.
You cannot just say , `I will destroy the image', and meditate about it, or do some kind of trick, or hypnotise yourself so that you can destroy the image it is not possible. It requires tremendous understanding. It requires great attention and exploration, not a conclusion at any time. And life is an immense river that is flowing, moving incessantly . Unless you follow it freely , with delight, with sensitivity , with great joy , you cannot see the full beauty , the volume, the quality of that river. So we must understand this problem.
This peace can only come about when there is in each one of us the understanding of relationship and the complete transformation in that relationship. It is the relationship of two images, and nothing else; and therefore there is no love between two images. How can i love you and you love me if you have an image about me, if you have ideas about me?
If i have hurt you, pushed you, been ambitious, clever and gone ahead of you, how can you love me? How can i love you if you threaten my position, my job, if you run away with my wife? If you belong to one country and i to another, if you belong to one sect Hinduism, Buddhism or Catholicism and the rest of it and i am a Muslim, how can we love each other? You cannot run away from this wherever you live, whether in a monastery , cave or mountain, you are related. You cannot possibly isolate yourself either from your own image which you have created about God, about truth, or from your own image about your own self and all the rest of it.
So to establish right relationship is to destroy the image that you are a Hindu, that i am a Pakistani, Muslim, Catholic, Jew, or communist. You have to destroy the machinery that e image the machinery that creates the image the machinery that is in you and the machinery that is in the other. Otherwise you may destroy one image, and the machinery will create another image. So one has not only to find out the existence of the image that is, to be aware of your particular image but also to be aware of what the machinery is that creates the image.
You cannot just say , `I will destroy the image', and meditate about it, or do some kind of trick, or hypnotise yourself so that you can destroy the image it is not possible. It requires tremendous understanding. It requires great attention and exploration, not a conclusion at any time. And life is an immense river that is flowing, moving incessantly . Unless you follow it freely , with delight, with sensitivity , with great joy , you cannot see the full beauty , the volume, the quality of that river. So we must understand this problem.
