Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 04:16:09 +1200
Message-Id: <199607301616.EAA29774@kalessin.southern.co.nz>
From: Brian Sandle <bsandle@southern.co.nz>
To: twc-l@halmarax.demon.co.uk
Subject: The Only Revolution
>Path: southern.co.nz!not-for-mail
>From: bsandle@southern.co.nz (Brian Sandle)
>Newsgroups: chch.chat
>Subject: re: The Only Revolution
>Date: 30 Jul 1996 16:12:58 GMT
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This posting probably has relevance to a current post on chch.chat.
Perhaps it messes thing further?
>From "The Only Revolution" J.Krishnamurti. (1970).
In the animal, the instincts to follow and to obey are natural and
necessary for survival, but in man they become a danger. To follow and
obey, in the individual, becomes imitation, conformity to a pattern of
society which he himself has built. Without freedom, intelligence itself
cannot function. To understand the nature of obedience and acceptance in
action brings freedom. Freedom is not the instinct to do what one wants.
In a vast complex society that isn't possible; hence the conflict between
the individual and society, between the many and the one.
It had been very hot for days; the heat was stifling and at that altitude
the sun's rays penetrated every pore of your body and made you feel
rather dizzy. The snow was melting rapidly and the stream became more
and more brown. The big waterfall cascaded in torrents. It came from a
large glacier, perhaps more than a kilometer long. This stream would
never be dry.
That evening the weather broke. The clouds were piling up against the
mountains and there were clashes of thunder, and lightning, and it began to
rain; you could smell the rain.
There were three or four of them in that little room overlooking the
river. They had come from different parts of the world and they seemed
to have a common question. The question was not so important as their own
state. Their own state of mind conveyed much more than the question. The
question was like a door which opened into a house of many rooms. They
were not a very healthy lot, and unhappy in their own way. They were
educated - whatever that may mean; they spoke several languages, and
appeared ill-kempt.
"Why should one not take drugs? You seem to be against it. Your own
prominent friends have taken them, have written books about them,
encouraged others to take them, and they have experienced with great
intensity the beauty of a simple flower. We, too, have taken them and we
would like to know why you seem to be opposed to these chemical
experiences. After all, our whole physical organism is a bio-chemical
process, and adding to it an extra chemical may give us an experience
which may be an approximation to the real. You yourself have not taken
drugs, have you? So how can you, without experimenting, condemn them?"
No, we have not taken drugs. Must one get drunk to know what sobriety
is? Must one make oneself ill to find out what health is? As there are
several things involved in taking drugs, let us go into the whole
question with care. What is the necessity of taking drugs at all - drugs
that promise a psychedelic expansion of the mind, great visions and
intensity? Apparently one takes them because one's own perceptions are
dull. Clarity is dimmed and life is rather shallow, mediocre and
meaningless; one takes them to go beyond this mediocrity.
The intellectuals have made of drugs a new way of life. One sees
throughout the world the discord, the neurotic compulsions, the
conflicts, the aching misery of life. One is aware of the aggressiveness
of man, his brutatlity, his utter selfishness, which no religion, no law,
no social morality has been able to tame.
There is so much anarchy in man - and such scientific capacities.
This imbalance brings about havoc in the world. The unbridgable gap
between advanced technology and the unblelievable cruelty of man is
producing great chaos and misery. This is obvious. So the intellectual,
who has played with various theories - Vedanta, Zen, Communist ideals and
so on - having found no way out of man's predicament, is now turning to
the golden drug that will bring about dynamic sanity and harmony. The
discovery of this golden drug - the complete answer to everything - is
expected of the scientist and probably he will produce it. And the
authors and the intellectuals will advocate it to stop all wars, as
yesterday they advocated Communism or Fascism.
But the mind, with its extraordinary capacities for scientific
discoveries and their implementation is still petty, narrow and bigotted,
and will surely continue, will it not, in its pettiness? You may have a
tremendous and explosive experience through one of these drugs, but will
the deep-rooted aggression, bestiality and sorrow of man disappear? If
these drugs can solve the intricate and complex problems of relationship,
then there is nothing more to be said, for then relationship, the demand
for truth, the ending of sorrow, are all a very superficial affair to be
solved by taking a pinch of the new golden drug.
Surley this is a false approach, isn't it? It is said that these drugs
can give an experience approximating to reality, therefore they may give
hope and encouragement. But the shadow is not the real; the symbol is
never the fact. As is observed throughout the world, the symbol is
observed and not the truth. So isn't it a phoney assertion to say that
the result of these drugs is near the truth?
No dynamic golden pill is ever going to solve our human problems. They
can only be solved by bringing about a radical revolution in the mind and
heart of man. This demands hard, constant work, seeing and listening and
thus being highly sensitive.
The highest form of sensitivity is the highest intelligence, and no
drug invented by man will ever give this intelligence. Without this
intelligence there is no love; and love is relationship. Without this
love there is no dynamic balance in man. This love cannot be given - by
the priests or their gods, by the philosophers or by the golden drug.