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J Krishnamurti - Can I look at fear without the idea of fear

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Now we are going to examine this question of fear. There are two things involved in this: there is the idea of fear and actual fear. With most of us it is fear as an idea, not the actual fact. Can I look at fear without the idea of fear, without the word with its associations related to fear? Most of us are afraid of the dark, of what people say, of losing a job, of not achieving, not becoming successful - fear of your wife, or the husband, and so on. There are dozens of fears: fear of death, fear of living - we are a mass of fear!

Fear doesn't exist by itself: it exists in relation to something. We are going to examine fear without bringing in its opposite - courage, bravery, and so on - actually looking at fear and not escaping from it. Most of us do escape because we do not know how to tackle it, how to come to grips with it. So we take to drink, go to temples, churches, mosques, do all kinds of things. It is all an escape from the actual fact that one is afraid.

So, to understand fear, there must be no escape, not verbally, but actually no escape. And, can I look at fear - fear of death, fear of losing my job, fear of not accomplishing, not becoming successful, not being clever, or whatever it is? Can you actually look at it - that is, become aware of it, without any choice - look at it. Now, it is not possible to look at it if you have an idea about fear. When you are hungry, you do not compare hunger with yesterday's hunger; yesterday's hunger is an idea, a memory, and that idea or that memory does not make you hungry now.

If you are hungry actually now, it is not the idea or the memory of the hunger of yesterday. Right? So, as hunger is immediate, not provoked by a memory, can you in the same way look at fear which is not the result of a memory? Please go slowly, this is a very complex problem. Does the idea and the association with a particular incident create fear, or is fear independent of association?

What is important in this is to find out how you are listening. What is actually taking place as you listen? Are you merely hearing words, and are those words creating a certain memory, arousing certain feelings, or are you actually listening to the words and therefore listening to the actual fact of your own fear? I do not know if you are following this. Is the fear caused by the image you have in your mind about death, the memory of deaths that you have seen, the associations with those incidents - are they making you afraid?

Which means, the image is creating fear. Right? Or, are you actually afraid of coming to an end - not the image creating fear of the end? Is the word death causing you fear - the word - or, is it the actual ending? If the word is causing fear, then it is not fear at all. Do listen to this very carefully. Are you afraid because of a memory? - I was ill two years ago and the memory of that pain, of that illness, remains, and that memory, now functioning, says, ``Be careful, don't get ill.''

That memory creates fear. The memory with its associations is bringing about fear, which is not fear at all because I am not afraid actually; I have very good health, but the mind with its memory through time is creating fear. Thought, which is always the old, engenders fear because thought is the response of memory, and memories are always old.

There is nothing new in thought; thought creates in time the feeling that you are afraid, which is not an actual fact. The actual fact is you are well. But the thought which has experienced already, the experience which has remained in the mind as a memory, from that the thought arises, ``Be careful, don't fall ill.'' And therefore one is afraid. So, thought engenders fear. Right? That is one kind of fear. Is there fear at all, apart from that? Is fear the result of thought and, if it is, is there no other form of fear?

I do not know if you are meeting this point. ``I am afraid of death,'' that is, something that is going to happen tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, in time. There is a distance from actuality to what will be. Thought has experienced this state by observing death; it says, ``I am going to die.'' Thought creates the fear of death, and if it does not, is there any fear at all? So is fear the result of thought? (thought being old, fear is always old.) Please follow this carefully. Thought is old: there is no new thought. If you recognize a new thought, it is already the old.

So, what we are afraid of is the repetition of the old - thought projecting into the future what has been. So, thought is responsible for fear, and this is so; you can see it for yourself. When you are confronted with something immediately, there is no fear. It is only when thought comes in, then there is fear.

So, our question is: Is it possible for the mind to live so completely, so totally in the present, that there is neither the past nor the future? - and it is only such a mind that has no fear. But, to understand this you have to understand the structure of thought, memory, time. And, without understanding it - not intellectually, not verbally, but actually with your heart, with your mind - there is no freedom. But, when there is total freedom, then the mind can use thought without creating fear.

So, freedom from fear is absolutely necessary. Freedom is absolutely necessary because, if there is no freedom, there is no peace, there is no order, and therefore there is no love. And, when there is love then you can do what you will. Then there is no sin, then there is no conflict. But to understand freedom and love, one has to understand nonverbally the quality of freedom that comes when disorder is understood. This disorder is understood when you understand the structure and the nature of thought, not according to the speaker, nor according to some psychologist.

When you are understanding them you are not understanding yourself; you are understanding yourself according to some authority. To understand yourself, there must be a complete throwing away of all authority. Don't please agree, that agreement is merely verbal, it has no meaning; but see why it is important. Because all the authorities, your Gitas, your books, your gurus, your mahatmas have led you to this terrible state of complete despair, loneliness, misery, confusion.

You have followed them; at least you have pretended to follow them, and now you have to take the journey by yourself, there is no authority that is going to lead you, lead you to a bliss that is not to be found in any book, in any temple. You have to take the journey entirely by yourself. You can't trust anybody; why should you trust anybody? Why should you trust any authority? You say, ``I am confused, I don't know; you know, so please tell me.'' Which means what? You are escaping from your own confusion, and to understand your confusion you cannot look to somebody to help you out of that confusion. That confusion has come into being because of this outward authority. Look at it, it is so clear.

There must be this sense of complete abandonment of all authority, which means a great deal of fear. Because, before, you have leaned on people, on your guru, on your book, on whatever you lean on. You put your faith in them, and what has taken place in your life? There is confusion, violence, misery, and untold agony going on in your daily life. So, no authority of any kind is going to help you. This abandonment of authority brings about a sense of complete aloneness, a sense of not being able to depend on any book, or any authority. You know what it does to you when you do that? Then you travel lightly.

Then you do not carry other people's burdens and their authority; you are alone to find out. And you must be alone to find out what is true. What other people say truth is, is not true; that truth, that something beyond all time and space, is only possible when the mind is completely alone. I do not know if you have ever noticed that being alone means being innocent. But we are not innocent; we carry the burden of what thousands of people have said; we carry the memories of our own misfortunes.

To abandon all that totally, both at the conscious and at the unconscious level, is to be alone, and the mind that is alone is innocent and therefore young. And, it is only the young mind - not in time, not in age - the innocent, alive mind that can see truth and that which is not measurable in words. And this can only come about naturally, not through your wishing, wanting, longing; all that is so immature - it can only come about when we understand the nature of freedom. The mind that is burdened with authority, with quotations, with knowledge of what has been - except technologically - such a mind is burdened with fear.

So what is important is the understanding and the structure of thought, not what other people say, but what you think. And, when you think, if you are a Sikh, or a Hindu, a Muslim, or a communist, or whatever it is, why do you think those things? Because you have been told, brought up in a certain culture, conditioned, and you keep on repeating like a gramophone record. That is not freedom. And, because you are not free, you are creating disorder. Do please see this, see it passionately, with great intensity, and you will be out of it.

You are conditioned, and that conditioning is creating disorder, and in that limited conditioning you can never find order. There is order only when you have observed the structure and the nature of disorder in yourself. You yourself are the result of a thousand yesterdays, a thousand influences, a thousand authorities: of newspapers, radio, of your wife, of your husband, the culture you live in. As long as you live in that, there must be increasing disorder and therefore increasing misery.

Source: Jiddu Krishnamurti Talks in India 1967