Don't Make a Problem of Anything (Discussions with J. Krishnamurti)

In these discussions, Krishnamurti goes deeply into the question of human problems, drawing, in the process, a most interesting distinction between the 'professional' and the 'human being'. He asks whether we do not regard ourselves as professionals first and as human beings afterwards. Our education generally makes us professionals in the sense that right from childhood we are trained to solve physical problems. The brain thus gets conditioned to solving problems, and it carries over the same mentality to the psychological realm and so comes to look upon any situation, any emotion as a terrible problem to be solved. The very nature of the problem-solving mind is its inability to see itself as the problem-creating mind, and so it never comes to the end of problems. In different contexts, through various examples, Krishnamurti returns again and again to his great insight: Don't make a problem of anything in life.

Though Krishnamurti is addressing mostly teachers of the schools he founded, there is something here for everyone: for those interested in a new kind of education, for parents, for the pundits in Vedanta or Buddhism, for psychologists, for those in the ordinary workaday world, for religious seekers...

In a world that is rapidly deteriorating into many forms of destruction, one feels it is necessary in this darkness to have places like Rajghat, Rishi Valley, Bangalore, and Madras, where there are a few people who are totally free from all national, political, and religious organizations with their absurdities. These groups are totally dedicated to being the centres of a new way of living. They are not concerned with their own personal salvation, but as they are the rest of humanity, they have to become both teachers and disciples of the teachings. They have to learn, understand, not intellectually but at great depth, what the teachings imply in daily life, be thoroughly soaked in it, and also become teachers of it.

This implies great responsibility. Where there is responsibility, there is no sense of egotistic fulfilment or expression, for that very responsibility wipes away self-centred activities. Responsibility implies cooperation, not for a cause or a person or an ideal, but the spirit of cooperation, and this is specially, urgently needed in this country. When one knows how to cooperate in the deepest sense of the word, one will also know when not to cooperate.

In 1929 when Krishnamurti dissolved the Order of the Star in the East, symbolizing his breakaway from all spiritual organizations and belief systems, he spelt out clearly his one-point mission: 'to set men absolutely, unconditionally free'. It was a mission that seemed to fulfil itself wherever he was and wherever he went, its intensity remaining undiminished by time and circumstance and, in fact, gathering new energy and momentum as his age advanced. He stated and restated his vision in different contexts and in different words - that he, the teacher, was not important, that the institutions he founded were not important, and that even his material legacy to the world - his books and tapes - was not important. Living the teachings, and not living on the words of his teachings, was perhaps the only thing that he expected of those who flocked to his talks, read his books, or joined his institutions.

When Krishnamurti came to India in the winter of 1982, he set for himself a hectic schedule of talks and discussions. After a series of four public talks in Calcutta, he went to Rishi Valley School, the first school he founded, and later to Vasanta Vihar, which was his home and the venue of his public talks in Madras and which he wanted to become a study centre for serious seekers. In these two places, he called meetings of his close associates, the staff of his schools, and others interested in his teachings, and held what came to be called the 'Nucleus Group Discussions'.

At the very outset of these discussions, Krishnamurti takes care to emphasize that the nucleus group he envisages is not a closed body or a secret body and that, on the contrary, the door is open to anyone who has 'a feeling of responsibility to the teachings and to humanity'. Stating unequivocally what this responsibility means, he asks: 'Is there a group of people who are completely involved in this, not in the school, not in being acquainted with a particular subject, but in this thing? ...Could we form such a group who will carry on, not as disciples of K, or as disciples of an idea or a theory, a concept, and so on, but actually study the teachings, live it, flower in it, be passionate about it?' It was always the teachings and never my teachings.

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