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Krishnamurti
The Role Of The Teacher
Conversation between Jiddu Krishnamurti
& Professor Jacob Needleman
...continued from part two
Excerpt from The Awakening of Intelligence
Needleman: Then let me ask you this. We know that without hard work the body may get ill, and this hard work is what we call effort. Is there another effort for what we might call the spirit? You speak against effort, but does not the growth and well-being of all sides of man demand something like hard work of one sort or another?
Krishnamurti: I wonder what you mean by hard work? Physical hard work?
Needleman: That is what we usually mean by hard work. Or going against desires.
Krishnamurti: You see, there we are! Our conditioning, our culture, is built around this "going against". Erecting a wall of resistance. So when we say "hard work", what do we mean? Laziness? Why have I to make an effort about anything? Why?
Needleman: Because I wish for something.
Krishnamurti: No. Why is there this cult of effort? Why have I to make effort to reach God, enlightenment, truth?
Needleman: There are many possible answers, but I can only answer for myself.
Krishnamurti: It may be just there, only I don't know how to look.
Needleman: But then there must be an obstacle.
Krishnamurti: How to look! It may be just round the corner, under the flower, it may be anywhere. So first I have to learn to look, not make an effort to look. I must find out what it means to look.
Needleman: Yes, but don't you admit that there may be a resistance to that looking?
Krishnamurti: Then don't bother to look! If somebody comes along and says, "I don't want to look", how are you going to force him to look?
Needleman: No. I am speaking about myself now. I want to look.
Krishnamurti: If you want to look, what do you mean by looking? You must find out what it means to look before you make an effort to look. Right, sir?
Needleman: That would be, to me, an effort.
Krishnamurti: No.
Needleman: To do it in that delicate, subtle way. I wish to look, but I don't wish to find out what it means to look. I agree this is much more to me the basic thing. But this wish to do it quickly, to get it over, is this not resistance?
Krishnamurti: Quick medicine to get it over.
Needleman: Is there something in me that I have to study, that resists this subtle, much more delicate thing you are speaking about? Is this not work, what you are saying? Isn't it work to ask the question so quietly, so subtly? It seems to me it is work to not listen to that part that wants to do it...
Krishnamurti: Quickly.
Needleman: For us particularly in the West, or maybe for all men.
Krishnamurti: I am afraid it is all over the world the same. "Tell me how to get there quickly."
Needleman: And yet you say it is in a moment.
Krishnamurti: It is, obviously.
Needleman: Yes, I understand.
Krishnamurti: Sir, what is effort? To get out of bed in the morning, when you don't want to get up, is an effort. What brings on that laziness? Lack of sleep, over-eating, over-indulging and all the rest of it; and next morning you say, "Oh, what a bore, I have to get up!" Now wait a minute, sir, follow it. What is laziness? Is it physical laziness, or is thought itself lazy?
Needleman: That I don't understand. I need another word. "Thought is lazy?" I find that thought is always the same.
Krishnamurti: No sir. I am lazy, I don't want to get up and so I force myself to get up. In that is so-called effort.
Needleman: Yes.
Krishnamurti: I want that, but I shouldn't have it, I resist it. The resistance is effort. I get angry and I mustn't be angry: resistance, effort. What has made me lazy?
Needleman: The thought that I ought to be getting up.
Krishnamurti: That's it.
Needleman: All right.
...Excerpt from The Awakening of Intelligence
Continue to next part...
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