2. Self according to Krishnamurti

‘We are trying to find out what this thing is, which we call the self, the centre of the ‘me,’ from which all activity seems to spring, for if there is no transformation there, mere change on the periphery, on the outside and on the surface, has very little meaning.’^[1]

Krisnamurti endeavors to find out what this centre is, and whether it is possible to really break it up, transform, and tear it away. He says that it is a centre of desire, manifesting itself through various forms of continuity. It is the desire to have more, to perpetuate experience, to enrich through acquisition, through memories, sensations, symbols, names and through words. Krishnamurti says that, if one look very closely, there is no such thing as a permanent ‘me’ except as memory, the memory of what an individual has been, of what he or she is and what he or she should be. It is the desire for more that is the desire for greater knowledge, greater experience and the desire for a continued identity. For instance, one identifies with the body, with the house, with the land, ideas, persons etc. This process goes on not only at the conscious level but in the deeper unconscious layers of the mind. So, the self, the centre of the ‘me’ is sustained and nourished through time. But none of that is permanent in the sense of continuity, except through memory. In itself it is not a permanent state. But one unconsciously tries to make it permanent by clinging to a particular experience, relationship or belief. And an individual is driven to it through various desires, urges, compulsions, and experiences.

In Krishnamurti’s own words he said,

‘Do you know what we mean by the self? By that, I mean the idea, the memory, the conclusion, the experience, the various forms of nameable and unnamable intentions, the conscious endeavor to be or not to be, the accumulated memory of the unconscious, the racial, the groups, the individual, the clan and the whole of it all, whether it is projected outwardly in action or projected spiritually as virtues; the striving after all these are the self. In it is included the competition, the desire to be.’^[2]

Krishnamurti further elaborates that it is important to understand how experience strengthens the self. Everyone experiences all the time and a person translate those experiences and react or act according to them. There is constant interplay between what is seen objectively and one’s reaction to it, and interplay between the conscious and the memories of the unconscious. According to one’s memories, every individual react to whatever one see and feel. And this process of reacting to what an individual see, feel, know or belief, experience is taking place. Reactive response to something seen is experience. When a person sees other he reacts and the naming of that reaction is experience. There is no experience unless there is naming process going on at the same time. If an individual does not recognize a certain person he cannot have the experience of meeting that person. That is, if one does not react according to one’s memories, conditioning and prejudices one cannot know that he or she have had an experience.

David Hume, a renowned 18^th century empiricist philosopher also claimed that in examining the contents of one’s own experience, one mistakenly interpret a constant self, that is a succession of individual perception. These perceptions according to Hume come and then go with an inconceivable rapidity. In his view, it is resemblances among these perceptions that create the illusion of self. In other words, it is like the illusion of continuity that can be created when discontinuous images are flashed too quickly for normal perception to distinguish them as discrete and discontinuous, as occurs when one watches a motion picture.

Hume further said that, one’s propensity to misinterpret transient perception for a relatively permanent self is so ubiquitous and strong that one fall into it before one is aware. He said that even after one become aware of one’s error, he or she cannot help falling back into it. Even worse, he claimed that in order to justify to ourselves this absurdity, we make up story in which the principle character is self or soul, or substance and once this story is in place one hide in it. In short, in Hume’s view, because of the way one’s experience presents itself in awareness, an illusion of permanence and internal agency emerges where neither is present and make up a story to mask the illusory character of what is happening.

Hume appealed to his own experience to verify his claim.

‘For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is further requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If anyone upon serious and unprejudiced reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me.’^[3]

In contrast, according to Krishnamurti there is an illusion of self in experience, and it does not dissipate as soon as one searches for it introspectively. The illusion is much more stubbornly entrenched in our psyche than that. It enters the mind as soon as one starts to conceptualize what one perceives, that is, as soon as one forms an image.

Krishnamurti in his own word said,

‘I observe that red tailed hawk flying by. I see it. When I observe that bird am I observing with the image I have about that bird, or am I merely observing? If there is an image, which is words, memory and all the rest of it, then there is an observer watching the bird go by. If there is only observation, then there is no observer.’^[4]

As is seen, in trying to describe the illusion of self, Krishnamurti said that it shows up primarily as an apparent distinction between the observer and the observed, which in turn shows up as a kind of psychological space.

Thus, although Hume and Krishnamurti had similar views of the self, there are some interesting differences between them. One of those differences is that Krishnamurti described an illusion of self but Hume does not describe an illusion of self in experience. Another is that Krishnamurti stressed that the division in experience between observer and observed is a feature event of experiences in which one looks introspectively for the observer but Hume denied that when one introspects one will find a certain sort of datum in experience which one calls ‘oneself’ and did not deny that when one introspects, one discovers the illusion of a self in experience. Finally, the objectives of Hume and Krishnamurti in presenting their views were radically different. Hume’s was to formulate a correct theory; Krishnamurti’s intention is to help his audiences free themselves from the illusion of self.

Even though, Hume’s view has been around for centuries and understood intellectually by millions of people that do not mean that millions have ended the illusion of self. Many readers of Hume have accepted his invitation to examine their own experience, and have come away from their examinations convinced that he was right that there is no self in experience. However, one of the great ironies of western philosophy is that as a consequence of Hume’s not having gone to characterize an illusion of self in experience, many of these same readers have failed to notice that an illusion of self was actually an ingredient phenomenologically in the very experiences in which they looked for a self and failed to find one. According to Krishnamurti, understanding in the relevant way, his dictum ‘the observer is the observed’ is a rare achievement. Those who fully understand his dictum end the illusion of self as an ingredient of their experience.

So far as the objectives of Hume and Krishnamurti are concerned, the main difference between them is that whereas Hume put forth his view as a theory to which he is trying to win intellectual assent, Krishnamurti put forth his view, as an invitation to see through the illusion of self and thereby end it. Since Hume was after intellectual assent, he would have taken himself to be understood by anyone who could have understood his theory and his arguments for it, intellectually. One could have shown that one had this kind of understanding by formulating a good objection to his views or by properly relating what he had to say to the theories of someone else. In short, one can understand Hume perfectly, for his purposes, without ending the experiential illusion of self. In fact, to his credit, one of the things Hume seems to have understood is that understanding his view intellectually does not, in fact, end the experiential illusion of self.

Krishnamurti, on the other hand, would not have taken himself to be understood by someone who merely understood intellectually what he was saying and assented to it. In his view, and for his purposes, intellectual understanding hardly counts as understanding at all. That is partly why, from his point of view, his having presented arguments for his view would have been so beside the point. It would merely have encouraged people who did not understand what he was saying in the relevant way to mistakenly think that they did understand him. That is also partly why Krishnamurti is so unconcerned with whether his listeners assent to his views. If they were to assent to them without ending the illusion of self, then they would not have understood his views in the relevant way, and so would not really even be assenting to them, but only to something that they mistakenly took to be his views. Finally, another reason Krishnamurti did not care whether anyone assented to his views is that he did not think that assenting to them would help them to end the illusion of self.

In describing the illusion of self in experience, Krishnamurti characterized its causes and consequences.

He said that the illusion is nourished by the desire to expand and control the range of one’s experiences and that it strengthens that desire.

‘Experience nearly always forms a hardened centre in the mind, as the self, which is a deteriorating factor. Most of us are seeking experience. We may be tired of the worldly experiences of fame, notoriety, wealth, sex, and so on, but we all want greater, wider experience of some kind. We think that pursuit of experience is the right way of life in order to attain greater vision.…. The fundamental desire is for greater sensation–to have the sensation of pleasure extended, made high and permanent, as opposed to the suffering, the dullness, the routine and loneliness of our daily lives. So the mind is ever seeking experience and that experience hardens into a center, and from this center we act. We live and have our being in this center, in this accumulated, hardened experience of the past.’^[5] Krishnamurti said, ‘When I see you, I react… The naming of that reaction is experience. If I do not name that reaction, it is not an experience. Please do watch it. Watch your own responses and what is taking place about you. There is no experience unless there is a naming process going on the same time. If I do not recognize you, how can I have an experience?’^[6]

So, when the individual reacts to something in the world or to something internal to itself, it gives a name to that reaction, that is, it categorizes or conceptualizes it. Krishnamurti is saying that experience arises in the process of, and as a consequence of that categorization or conceptualization. If the individual were to react without conceptualizing, there would be no experience. He further said that, in reacting to one’s own internal states, one react to one’s own mental projections, including one’s desires to be projected, to have security, to have a teacher, a god, wealth, fame, and so on. For instance, ‘I have projected a desire, which has taken a form, to which I have given a name; to that, I react. It is my projection. It is my naming.’

In others words, the process of naming one’s reaction gives rise to experience, which strengthens the self.

‘So, experience is always strengthening the ‘me.’ The more you are entrenched in your experience, the more self get strengthened. As a result of this, you have certain strength of character, strength of knowledge, of beliefs, which you display to other people because you know they are not as clever as you are, and because you have the gift of the pen or of speech and you are cunning. Because the self is still acting, so your beliefs, your Masters, your castes, your economic system are all a process of isolation, and they therefore bring contention. You must, if you are at all serious or earnest in this, dissolve this centre completely and not justify it. That is why we must understand the process of experience.’^[7]

Thus, according to Krishnamurti, self is an experiential or phenomenological illusion composed of what is called images. Constructing an image results from conceptualizing or interpreting some previously un-conceptualized mental element, presumably a signal that enters the mind from outside. If we see Krishnamurti’s way of talking about this process of conceptualization or interpretation, we find that, when one conceptualizes or interprets an external object or an element in the mind, ‘experience’ results. Experience thus, is the result of ‘images.’ The connection between images and the self is twofold–first, the self is composed of images, second, the self come into being at least partly as a consequence of the construction of images.

To get clearer about what it meant by conceptualizing something, for instance, in looking at a tree, we categorize or recognize the object that we are looking as a tree. In that case, in looking visually at a tree, a signal has affected our mind, and we have conceptualized that signal as a tree. That kind of conceptualizing is called a minimal way of interpreting a signal or an object. A more vigorous way of interpreting would be to conceptualize it as tree and then to think or thought about it, such as ‘would it be better to plant the tree near my house.’ In Krishnamurti’s manner of speaking, both these ways of interpreting the tree would be ways of forming images.

In Krishnamurti’s view, the self is composed exclusively of images. And these images collectively are illusory. What makes them illusory is that they seem to be a self, but are not one really. To be a genuine self, the images would have to be an active agent, which is a doer. But the images that collectively constitute the self are merely passive items in the mind.

The images that constitute the self are illusory in four ways. Firstly, they make it appear that one is aware in one’s own experience as an observer who is distinct from what is observed. But in reality, the observer is merely images and hence part of what is partly observed. Secondly, the observer appears to be an agent, perceiver and evaluator and as such is contrasted with those images that constitute the observed but which the observer mistakenly perceives and evaluates. Thirdly, the images that collectively constitute the self are transient though they seem to be permanent. ‘This observer who has come into being through various other images thinks himself permanent and between himself and the images he has created there is a division.’^[8] Finally, between the observer and the observed there is something that Krishnamurti called space, which is the space of isolation.

According to Krishnamurti, as a consequence of the mind’s images being apparently divided between observers and observed, when a person looks at something, he or she looks as if from the perspective of an observer and thus the observer is separated from the thing he observed. It is as if the observer is aware of many images and is always adding and subtracting, what he or she is, by comparing, judging, modifying and changing as a result of pressure from outside and within which is his or her own knowledge, influence and innumerable calculations.

Thus, the individual, as if through the lens of his images, which are constantly changing in various ways and for various reasons, but which always present themselves in experience as if they were an observer, observes other things which because he has already conceptualized or interpreted them are also images.^[9]

Krishnamurti often talked of the observer as something that thinks. In other words, what he was saying is that in the human mind there is a constantly changing constellation of images which seems to be permanent and which seems to be an observer, perceiver, a thinker, an evaluator etc., and which seems to be separate from the rest of the mind’s contents that is the observed. This subtle illusion of a self in experience encourages the individual in whose mind it has taken root to evaluate, and subsequently to take action in regard to those images that he or she takes to be the observed. He said that this sort of motivation to take action is a source of conflict. ‘One image, as the observer, observes dozens of other images around himself and inside himself, and he says, ‘I like this image, I’m going to keep it’ or ‘I don’t like that image so I’ll get rid of it,’ but the observer himself has been put together by the various images which have come into being through reaction to various other images. So we come to a point where we can say, ‘The observer is also the image, only he has separated himself and observes.’ This observer who has come into being through various other images thinks himself permanent and between himself and the images he has created, there is a division, a time interval. This creates conflict between himself and the images he believes to be the cause of his troubles. So then he says, ‘I must get rid of this conflict,’ but the very desire to get rid of the conflict creates another image.’^[10]

Krishnamurti further said that wherever there is division there must be conflict. That is an eternal law. And that conflict ultimately becomes war, killing people, as is seen now in the world. So, to understand and to be really free of conflict is to understand why the observer becomes so dominant, separating himself or herself from the thing being observed.

Thus, according to Krishnamurti, conflict exists because an individual has separated the observer from the observed. One differentiates oneself from anger, from envy, from sorrow and so on. Therefore being different, there is conflict, because there is the feeling that a person must get rid of sorrow or overcome sorrow. So there is conflict all the time. But one is sorrow. Any person is not different from sorrow or from anger, sexual desires, and loneliness and so on. But to escape from all those things an individual go to temple or one is entertained. A person cannot realize that he or she is not different from the quality of which he or she is. A person is anger, sorrow, loneliness and depression. Before, when one separated, he or she acted upon his or her own sorrow. If a person is lonely he or she then escapes from loneliness and try to fill the loneliness with all kinds of amusement or religious activity. But, if a person himself or herself is loneliness, he or she can’t do anything about it. Everyone is loneliness and an individual is not something different from loneliness. Before, one acted upon it; now one can’t act upon it because he or she is belong to that.

Krishnamurti said,

‘All conflict ceased when you realize you are that. I am brown–finished. It is a fact: I am light brown or dark brown or purple or whatever colour I am. So you eliminate altogether this divisive process which brings conflict in yourself.’^[11]

Krishnamurti was not the only one to have noticed the illusion of self in experience, and the way in which it gives rise to the observer/observed distinction. In Asian tradition, especially in Indian tradition, there is a long history of meditative reports that support Krishnamurti’s characterization of the self. For instance, in classical Buddhist text Krishnamurti’s observer/observed is called ‘dispelling the illusion of compactness’^[12]

The Buddhist also holds that there is nothing in the individual which can be regarded as immortal and eternal, as distinct from the elements of individuality which are subject to incessant change. In others words, according to the Buddhist, there is no permanent ‘self’ in the individual, what we call the individual is nothing but an aggregate of different elements.

According to the Buddhist, the elements constituting an individual are called skandhas or groups. These elements are five in number, namely, the physical body, feeling, perception, mental disposition and consciousness. Of these elements, the first element denotes the material body, while the rest four elements are psychical in nature. An individual is, therefore, a complex of mind and body. As all these elements and their mutual relations are always in a process of change, an individual is to be regarded as ever changing and ever-becoming, without a being. So, the Buddhist said that, it is fruitless to search for a permanent self in the element of an individual (Upadanam te Pancupadana-kkhandha).^[13] The Buddha has said that neither any of these elements nor a collection of all of them can be regarded as the self, because these are all perishable. Thus, according to Buddha, there is no permanent self in an individual. For Buddha a self or an eternal individual spirit believed to be persisting in and through the changes of the elements of an individual and to be migrating from one birth to another is a fiction.

Buddha does not accept a permanent or unchanging self behind the psycho-physical organism, rather he accepts a provisional or empirical self. This empirical self is not a permanent reality, but a chain or ever-changing elements. It is this provisional self that is denoted by the term ‘I.’ What the Buddha means to say is that, whenever an individual uses the term ‘I’ or self, he denotes by it some or all of the elements of the psycho-physical set. It is these psycho-physical elements, taken jointly or individually, that are called the empirical or provisional self. And the psycho-physical elements being ever in a process of change, the empirical self constituted of them is also an ever-changing entity. What we call the ‘self’ is, therefore, not permanent but momentary. Further, it is to be accepted that this mind-body-complex is the root-cause of selfishness, hatred etc., and hence, of all evils, pains and suffering. Buddha, therefore, tells us to destroy this self which is nothing but the mind-body or which is not the self or ‘eternal individual spirit’. Thus, Buddha accepts a provisional self which is a chain or continuum i.e. an ever changing entity, and not an eternal individual spirit.^[14]

Krishnamurti is saying that the illusion of a permanent self is at the basis of our entire psychological make-up, which in turn is the cause of humanity’s most destructive tendencies. He claimed that if we deeply experience and understood that the self is impermanent, then our lives would be radically different. One would not identify and in not identifying we would not think of ideas, values, nations, religions, philosophies or material possessions as our own. The whole fabric of our desire would change and some of the worst manifestations of inhumanity would cease.

Krishnamurti also claimed that once the illusion of self has come into existence, the individual in whose mind the illusion has taken place is thereby motivated to exert effort on behalf of the self. This effort then further strengthen the illusion of self making to express oneself to be something, either socially, morally or economically. Our whole life is based on the everlasting struggle to arrive, to achieve or to become. The more we struggle, the more significant the self becomes, with all its limitations, fears, ambitions and frustrations. Thus, in Krishnamurti’s view it is a vicious circle. Once the self is in place, self-interested desires arrive and we exert effort to satisfy this desire which further strengthen the self. This gives rise to more self-interested desires and so on.

To sum up, in Krishnamurti’s view, there arises in the mind an illusory division between part of its content which is mistakenly thought to be a permanent perceiver and other of its contents, which are mistakenly thought to be the objects of this perceiver’s perceptions. In reality, the mind includes just the transient mental contents which we called images. In the field of these contents of experience there is no perceiver and nothing is permanent and the observer is the observed.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Krishnamurti, J. (2006). ‘The Revolution from Within.’ Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation India, p.22

[2]:

Krishnamurti, J. ‘Freedom from the Known.’ (Mary Lutyens Edition, 1969) New York: HarperCollins Publishers, p.96

[3]:

Hume, D. (1973). ‘A Treatise of Human Nature.’ L.A. Selby–Bigge and P.H. Nidditch Eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.252

[4]:

Krishnamurti, J. (2000). ‘The Awakening of Intelligence.’ New Delhi: Penquin Books, p.116

[5]:

Martin, R. (Ed). (1997). ‘Krishnamurti: Reflections on the Self.’ Chicago: Open Court, p.124

[6]:

Martin, R. (Ed). (1997) ‘Krishnamurti: Reflections on the Self.’ Chicago: Open Court, p.127

[7]:

Krishnamurti, J. (2008). ‘The First and the Last Freedom.’ Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation India, p.64

[8]:

Krishnamurti, J. ‘Freedom from the Known.’ (Mary Lutyens Edition, 1969) New York: HarperCollins Publishers, p.96

[9]:

Martin, R. (2008). ‘On Krishnamurti.’ New Delhi: India Binding House, p. 25.

[10]:

Krishnamurti, J. ‘Freedom from the Known.’ (Mary Lutyens Edition, 1969) New York: HarperCollins Publishers, p.96

[11]:

Krishnamurti, J. (2008). ‘In the Problem is the Solution.’ Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation India, p. 178

[12]:

Vajiranana, P. (1975). ‘Buddhist Meditation in Theory and Practice.’ (as cited in Raymond Martin ‘O n Krishnamurti,’ 2003, p.30)

[13]:

Majjhima-Nikaya: 44-1; Samyukta-Nikaya: 22 (as cited in K.P.Sinha, ‘The Self in Indian Philosophy’ 1991, p.26)

[14]:

Sinha, K. P. (1991). ‘The Self in Indian Philosophy.’ Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, p.26