5th Conversation

Questioner: I find I get dreadfully attached to people and dependent on them. In my relationships this attachment develops into a sort of possessive demand which brings about a feeling of domination. Being dependent, and seeing the discomfort and pain of it, I try to be detached. Then I feel terribly lonely, and unable to face the loneliness I escape from it through drink and in other ways. Yet I don't want to have merely superficial and casual relationships.

Krishnamurti: There is attachment, then the struggle to be detached, then out of this comes deeper conflict, the fear of loneliness. So what is your problem, what is it you are trying to find out, to learn? Whether all relationship is a matter of dependence? You are dependent on environment and people. Is it possible to be free, not only of environment and people, but to be free in yourself, so that you don't depend on anything or anyone? Can there be joy which is not the outcome of environment or of people? The environment changes, people change, and if you depend on them you are caught by them, or else you become indifferent, callous, cynical, hard. So is it not a matter of whether you can live a life of freedom and joy which is not the result of environment, human or otherwise? This is a very important question. Most human beings are slaves to their family or to their circumstances, and they want to change the circumstances and the people, hoping thereby to find joy, to live freely and more openly. But even if they do create their own environment or choose their own relationships, they soon come to depend again on the new environment and the new friends. Does dependence in any form bring joy? This dependence is also the urge to express, the urge to be something. The man who has a certain gift or capacity depends on it, and when it diminishes or goes altogether he is at a loss and becomes miserable and ugly. So to depend psychologically on anything - people, possessions, ideas, talent - is to invite sorrow. Therefore one asks: Is there a joy that is not dependent on anything? Is there a light that is not lit by another?

Questioner: My joy so far has always been lit by something or someone external to myself so I can't answer that question. Perhaps I don't even dare to ask it because then I may have to change my way of life. I certainly depend on drink, books, sex and companionship.

Krishnamurti: But when you see for yourself, clearly, that this dependence breeds various forms of fear and misery, don't you inevitably ask the other question, which is not how to be free of environment and people but, rather, whether there is a joy, a bliss, that is its own light?

Questioner: I may ask it but it has no value. Being caught in all this, this is all that actually exists for me.

Krishnamurti: What you are concerned with is dependence, with all its implications, which is a fact. Then there is a deeper fact, which is loneliness, the feeling of being isolated. Feeling lonely, we attach ourselves to people, drink, and all sorts of other escapes. Attachment is an escape from loneliness. Can this loneliness be understood and can one find out for oneself what is beyond it? That is the real question, not what to do about attachment to people or environment. Can this deep sense of loneliness, emptiness, be transcended? Any movement at all away from loneliness strengthens the loneliness, and so there is more need than ever before to get away from it. this makes for attachment which brings its own problems. The problems of attachment occupy the mind so much that one loses sight of the loneliness and disregards it. So we disregard the cause and occupy ourselves with the effect. But the loneliness is acting all the time because there is no difference between cause and effect. There is only what is. It becomes a cause only when it moves away from itself. It is important to understand that this movement away from itself is itself, and therefore it is its own effect. There is, therefore, no cause and effect at all, no movement anywhere at all, but only what is. You don't see what is because you cling to the effect. There is loneliness, and apparent movement away from this loneliness to attachment; then this attachment with all its complications becomes so important, so dominating, that it prevents one from looking at what is. Movement away from what is, is fear, and we try to resolve it by another escape. This is perpetual motion, apparently away from what is, but in actuality there is no movement at all. So it is only the mind which sees what is and doesn't move away from it in any direction that is free of what is. Since this chain of cause and effect is the action of loneliness, it is clear that the only ending of loneliness is the ending of this action.

Questioner: I shall have to go into this very, very deeply.

Krishnamurti: But this also can become an occupation which becomes an escape. If you see all this with complete clarity it is like the flight of the eagle that leaves no mark in the air.