terrible aggression is, in a little way or in a big way, you drop it instantly. And in
that dropping there is great beauty.
And also we have to find out what it means to die. You know nothing about
death, do you? You have seen death; you have seen people die and have seen
people being carried to the grave, but you don’t know what it means to die, do
you? You have theories about death; you have beliefs about death; you say you
believe in reincarnation after death. Do you believe it?
Audience: We do.
KRISHNAMURTI: Do you know what reincarnation means? Listen quietly. That
you will be born, incarnate, in a next life. What is “you”? You have assumed
“you” will be born and “you” believe in that. What is “you”? The bank account,
the house, the job, the memories, the quarrels, the anxieties, the pain, the fear,
isn’t that all you? Do you deny that all that is you, or do you say that the “me” is
something much greater than that? If you say the “me” is not my furniture, not
my body, not my family, not my job, but something far superior, who says it?
And how do you know that there is something far superior? It is still thought that
says that there is something far superior to this. Isn’t it thought? The thing that is
far superior, the superior ego, the Atman, all that business, is still within the field
of time, isn’t it? Because it’s still within the field of thought. And thought is you,
your furniture, your bank account, your attachment to your family, to your
nation, to your books, to your works, to your unfulfilled desires. You are all that
and you say, “When I die all this rubbish comes back and is born in a next life.”
If you believed actually with your heart, not with your shallow little mind, that in
a next life you would incarnate, it would mean that you would live today
completely, because what you do today you are going to pay for in a next life.
You don’t believe in anything; those are just words as you show by your conduct,
by your behavior, the way you “love” your family.
So you know nothing about death, what it is, whether it is beautiful, ugly,
disastrous, whether the whole thing ends when you die, do you? When you die,
you are going to lose your bank account; you can’t take it with you though you
may have it till the last minute. Most people want it till the last minute—it’s quite
funny, isn’t it? So you really know nothing about it. So let us learn about it, shall
we? Learn, not repeat what the speaker says, because you’ll find that if you
repeat what the speaker says it is nothing, just words.
The physical organism dies, obviously. The scientists may give it fifty years
longer, but at the end of it, it dies because it is being constantly used and
misused. It has a great many strains, pressures. It has been abused through drink,
drugs, wrong eating, constant battle. All that has put a tension on it—heart failure
and disease. The body will die. And what else will die? What else will die with
the body? Your furniture, your knowledge, all your hopes, despairs, your
fulfillment—is that going to die? So what is death? Please learn. We are learning
together. To find out what it means, you must die, mustn’t you? You, with your
ambitions, must die, die to your ambition, die to your desire for power, position,
prestige, die to your habits, your traditions. Don’t argue; you can’t argue with
death. You can’t say, “Give me a few more days; I haven’t finished my book,” or