Jiddu Krishnamurti on Domination - Why do you dominate woman or the man

Questioner: Why is woman prone to permit herself to be dominated by man? Why do communities and nations permit themselves to be bossed by a leader or a Fuehrer?
Jiddu Krishnamurti : Now, sir, why do you ask this question? Why don't you look into your own mind to find out why you want to be dominated, why you dominate, and why you seek a leader? Why do you dominate the woman or the man? And this domination is also called love, is it not?

When the man dominates, the woman likes it and considers it as affection, and when a woman bosses the man, he also likes it. Why? It is an indication that the domination gives you a certain sense of closeness of relationship. If my wife dominates me, I feel very close to her, and if she does not dominate, I feel she is indifferent. You are afraid of indifference from your wife or your husband, from the woman or the man. You will accept anything as long as you do not feel someone is indifferent.

You know how closely you want to keep to your guru; you will do anything - sacrifice your wife, honesty, everything - to be close to him because you want to feel that he is not indifferent to you. That is, we use relationship as a means of self-forgetfulness, and as long as relationship does not show us what we actually are, we are satisfied. That is why we accept the domination of another.

When my wife or husband dominates me, it does not reveal what I am but is a source of gratification. If my wife does not dominate me, if she is indifferent and I discover what I really am, it is very disturbing. What am I? I am an empty, dour, sloppy being with certain appetites - and I am afraid to face all that emptiness. Therefore I accept the domination of my wife or husband because it makes me feel very close to him or to her, and I do not want to see myself as I am. And this domination gives a sense of relationship; this domination brings jealousy - the moment you do not dominate me, you are looking at somebody else.

Therefore I am jealous because I have lost you, and I do not know how to get rid of jealousy, which is still on the plane of the brain. Sir, a man who loves is not jealous. Jealousy is of the brain, but love is not of the brain; and where there is love, there is no domination. When you love somebody, you are not dominating, you are a part of that person. There is no separation, but complete integration. It is the brain that separates and creates the problem of domination.

So, then, the problem is not the leader but how to eradicate confusion. Can another help you in removing confusion? If you look to another to remove your confusion, he can only help you to increase it because a confused mind can never choose that which is clear; since it is in confusion, it can only choose that which is confused. If you wish radically to get rid of confusion, you will set your own mind and heart in order, you will consider the causes that bring about confusion.

Confusion arises only when there is no self-knowledge. When I do not know myself and do not know what to do or what to think, naturally I am caught in the whirlwind of confusion. But when I know myself, the whole total process of myself - which is extraordinarily simple if one has the intention to know oneself - then out of that understanding comes clarity, out of that understanding comes conduct and right behavior.

So, it is of the highest importance not to follow a leader but to understand oneself. The understanding of oneself brings love, brings order. Chaos exists only in relationship to something, and as long as I do not understand that relationship, there must be confusion. To understand relationship is to understand myself, and to understand myself is to bring about that quality of love in which there is well-being.

If I know how to love my wife, my children, or my neighbor, I know how to love everyone. Since I do not love the one, I am merely remaining on the intellectual or verbal level with humanity. The idealist is a bore - he loves humanity with his brain, he does not love with his heart. When you love, no leader is necessary. It is the empty of heart who seek a leader to fill that emptiness with words, with an ideology, with a utopia of the future. Love is only in the present, not in time, not in the future. For him who loves, eternity is now, for love is its own eternity.

Source- Jiddu Krishnamurti Fourth Talk in Poona 1948

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