Apr 7, 2018

How can we create a society which will encourage goodness?

By J. Krishnamurti / jkrishnamurti.org
How can we create a society which will encourage goodness?

To the intellectuals, ''goodness'' is a terrible word, and they generally want to avoid it, but now it is becoming the fashion even among the intellectuals to use that word. And is there goodness when there is a motive behind it? If I have a motive to be good, does that bring about goodness? Or is goodness something entirely devoid of this urge to be good, which is ever based on a motive? Is good the opposite of bad, the opposite of evil? Every opposite contains the seed of its own opposite, does it not? There is greed, and there is the ideal of nongreed. When the mind pursues nongreed, when it tries to be nongreedy, it is still greedy because it wants to be something. Greed implies desiring, acquiring, expanding; and when the mind sees that it does not pay to be greedy, it wants to be nongreedy, so the motive is still the same, which is to be or to acquire something. When the mind wants not to want, the root of want, of desire, is still there. So goodness is not the opposite of evil; it is a totally different state. And what is that state?

Obviously, goodness has no motive because all motive is based on the self; it is the egocentric movement of the mind. So what do we mean by goodness? Surely, there is goodness only when there is total attention. Attention has no motive. When there is a motive for attention, is there attention? If I pay attention in order to acquire something, the acquisition, whether it be called good or bad, is not attention - it is a distraction, a division. There can be goodness only when there is a totality of attention in which there is no effort to be or not to be. Probably you are not used to all this.

To me, making effort to be good is a process which in itself brings about evil. A man who tries to be humble, who practices humility, breeds evil - because the moment you are conscious that you are humble, you are no longer humble, you are arrogant. Sirs, don't laugh it away. Humility is not to be practiced, and a man who practices humility is fostering arrogance. Virtue is not a thing to be cultivated, because a man who cultivates virtue, cultivates the ego, the 'me', only in more respectable clothing. As humility is not to be practiced, so goodness is not to be practiced; it comes into being only when there is the complete attention which comes with the total understanding of yourself.

Think about it, and you will see that the very practice of nonviolence creates violence. To be free of violence, you have to understand all the implications of violence, and for that you must give your whole attention, which you cannot do if you are pursuing the so-called ideal. When the mind is able to give its undivided attention to what is, which is greed, then you will see that the mind is totally free from greed. It does not become nongreedy - it is free from greed, which is an entirely different state. You see, we use the ideal of nongreed as a means of getting rid of greed, but we can never get rid of greed through an ideal. We have practiced that ideal for centuries, and we are still greedy. But a man who really sees the necessity of being free from greed has no ideal; he is concerned only with greed, which means he is giving his whole attention to it. And when you give your whole attention to something, in that attention there is no comparison, no condemnation, no judgment. A mind that is comparing, condemning greed is incapable of giving full attention because it is concerned with comparison and condemnation.

So goodness is not an opposite; it is not a virtue; it is a state of being without motive which comes through self-knowledge.

Talks by Krishnamurti in India 1955-1956 (Verbatim Report) Banaras, Madras, Madanapalle, Bombay

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