Remain in the now | Krishnamurti

When you remain in the now, you understand the past with all the human experience of which you are – your consciousness with its content is the past, the present and the future. Your consciousness is that – what you believe, what you believe you have been told, you have been programmed by the experts in politics, in religion, in education and so on, which is the past. Are you following all this?

And the past is there now, and the future is the outcome of that past, which is already here. So the 'now' contains all time as past, present and the future. And to understand this in depth, so that the now contains the whole thing – all existence is now.

Therefore there is no movement away from the 'now'. There is no movement away from the fact and the non-fact. A movement away from the fact to non-fact, that has ended.

Therefore there is no conflict. I wonder if you understand all this? Not verbally, please don't take it verbally.

See the truth of it. So that the brain, which has lived for thousands of years, which is not your brain, it is not your thought, it is the thought of the whole of humanity, which we went into very carefully the last few days ago. So the fact is now.

And the fact contains all the past, present and the future. But to listen to that fact, for the fact to reveal the content. Not you tell the fact what its content is.

I wonder if you understand all this? Are we thinking together? Or you are merely listening to some words of the speaker and therefore confused.

Are we thinking together? That we are now not only the past: all the memories, all the activities, the pain, the anxiety, the hurts, the loneliness, the suffering, the pain, the fears. You are all that now, and the future is what is now.

Obviously, sir. So the future and the past exist now because of what you are. This seems so incredible, what's the difficulty?

Would you kindly express your difficulty? Very simply please, don't complicate it. aren't you the past?

Your education, your being programmed as a Swiss, as a British, as a German, as a Hindu, an American, Russian and so on, you have been programmed. That programme is the past, so the past is your accumulated memories, those memories are stored in the brain, so the past is now. And the 'now' also contains the future, unless there is a fundamental mutation.

That is, there is a complete mutation in the very brain cells of the brain, you are the past memories and continuing in the future as memory. The future is now therefore, and the past is now. Is that clear?

Unless there is fundamental psychological change. That is, when there is this conditioning of the human brain, that conditioning is memory – I am a Catholic, I am a Protestant, I am a Hindu, I am a Buddhist, I don't believe in gods, but I believe in Marx, Lenin – which is the same thing in different words. My guru is better than your guru, and all the rest of that business.

So the brain of each one of us is conditioned, programmed, which is the vast accumulation of the past. That is simple enough. So we are memories.

You may think that you are something more superior than memory but you are not, even when you think you are superior, that very thought is memory. So memory is a movement of time, time as the future in the present. So, if you remain with that fact and not move away from it, that you are now, you are the rest of all time.

Then when you realise, when the fact is revealed that you are that, and if you give your complete attention, not escape from that, that memory is you, you are not different from that memory. So there is no division between you and that memory. When there is division there is conflict.

So the observer is the observed. The experiencer is the experience. The analyser is the analysed, and so on, then conflict ends.

Conflict exists only when there is division and therefore the brain then has no conflict, and therefore there is no deterioration of the brain. But most of our brains have deteriorated, or are deteriorating, that's a fact. And so one has to discover why, what are the causes of deterioration; essentially conflict.

A mind that is frightened, a brain that lives in fear – which we will discuss next time, fear and all the rest of it – such a brain must deteriorate. The brain that is seeking constant sensuality, sexuality, must deteriorate. These are facts.