Question: Acharya Ji, what does J. Krishnamurti mean when he says, “To understand what is, is more important than to create and follow ideals.”
Acharya Prashant: Actually, the first part of that sentence, is the absolute, the second part is the actionable. Understanding what is, is not really a task. It is not even needed. What is needed is the second part.
Just stop taking your ideals seriously. Just stop having, fanciful pictures of existence. And understanding what is, the present, will then no more be needed because a need is meaningful only when something is absent and we are talking of the present. So there is no need really then. So the useful part of that sentence is just the later part. The first part you can even ignore. That’s the thing about Truth, you can ignore it. You can totally ignore it because you can depend on it that it will never go away. It is utterly reliable, hence, you can forget it. The first part of that sentence is the absolute so you can totally forget and ignore it. The second part is useful.
L: Related to the same, I want to ask a question, “To perceive the Truth requires the understanding of the false.”
~ J. Krishnamurti.
I have two questions based upon it. How is one to identify the false? And if we are able to identify the false, and if you have a doubt in its falsehood, that’s the question?
AP: No. See,
You don’t identify the false by matching it with your conception of the false. The false is identified by what it does to you.
I am glad you raised this question.
How do you know it is false? If it unsettles you, if it leads to disquiet, it is false. If it needs protection, if it demands security, it is ‘False.’
You see,
falseness has to be understood in the context of your nature.
Your nature is to be careful and whatever demands care from you, is bound to be false.
Your nature is relaxation and hence whatever demands a lot of doing from you, is bound to be false. Your nature is faith and hence whatever will demand a lot of testing and verification is bound to be false . Your nature is trust that arises from that faith and hence whatever puts you in the situation of doubt, is bound to be false .
Are you getting it?
Your nature is peace and hence whatever, leads to an inner derangement, an inner disorder is bound to be false.
In short, anything that leads to mental excitation is bound to be false. That’s how you know the false. And that is why the truth cannot be known because the apparatus that you use for knowing is the mind and if it excites the mind, it is false. Hence, the Truth cannot be know, because the Truth will?
L: Never create ripples.
AP: If it creates ripples here, please know, that it is false . And when I say it is false , glad that, when I say, ‘it is false’ that does not mean the object outside of you is false . When I say, ‘It’ is false , I mean that, this ( points to self) and the relationship. So do not start labelling objects outside of you as false, false, false, false, false, false ( points in different directions).
You pick up a J. Krishnamurthi book and it troubles you and you say false.
L: Laughs.
AP: It’s not about that book. It’s about the book, the reader of the book and the way of reading. In fact, the way of reading can be dispensed with. Just say ‘the book’ and ‘the reader of the book.’ And even among these two, what is more relevant?
L: The reader of the book.
AP: The reader of the book. That is where the falseness lies. So, will we be specific about the application of this word now, false? Yes?
L: Acharya Ji, Psychology, and Psychiatry, these days, try to treat the mind by giving medicines, psychiatry or by suggesting some methods or therapy. Acharya Ji, to what extent are they useful? Because they do not treat the basic.
AP: The brain can be treated. The brain is just like any other organ of the body. The brain can be treated. So if you have a tumor here or some other malfunction, and if there is, a drug available. Kindly do not say that normally, treatment of the mind is surrender so I will not take that drug.
Those who are prescribing the drugs, are not treating the mind really, they are treating the brain, and the brain is the mass of flesh, so allow them to treat the brain.
L: Where is the mind located? AP: Nowhere, you are located in the mind.
AP: As a person, that perceives only through senses. This is the organ, that is related to the senses. The mind and the brain , really have no particular connection. It is just that because you are identified with the senses, hence, even to talk of the mind, you use the brain. Otherwise, brain and mind , have no great, in-depth relationship. If they have a relationship, that is only in context of the person. Remove the person, and you have removed the brain.
Are you getting it?
L: Yes. Krishnamurthi talks about mutation.
AP: But does he says that the mutations happen only in the brain cells? I have not looked at the brain cells of people around me but I have looked at their facial cells. That fellow, over there, does not look the way he used to look two years back. Neither does that girl here or that boy there.
Does Krishnamurthi say that the mutations happen only within the skull? I don’t know of that, maybe a doctor is more qualified to speak. But I have seen mutations happening, in the faces. And flesh is flesh. If the brain cells change, that is no more significant, than the change in the cells of the face. And the face cannot really change without the brain changing. So that is the same thing. So don’t be particularly interested in the mutation of the brain.
The whole body, of the wise one, bears wisdom. It is for more, abstract reasons that s aints are depicted as having an aura . It is just that, we show that aura, only around the head. I tell you that that aura is there on also, on the fingers, the eyes. Your eyes are no more the same, once you have been touched. The eye cells have undergone mutation and of course, there would be an accompanying mutation, an underlying mutation, in the brain cells also, of course, that has to be there. But why think only of the brain, it’s evident and obvious even in the face, in the eyes.
Are you getting it?
When you are relaxed, you do not sit in the same way as when you are agitated. Don’t you see that there is a mutation? Your entire, body chemistry changes, when you are, relaxed. Don’t you see there is a mutation?
