There is disorder, where there is contradiction: say one thing and do something totally different; think one thing and act quite the opposite. I wonder if one is aware of that. Then there is conflict, disorder, when we are pursuing ideals, whether political ideals, religious ideals or our own projection of what we think we ought to be. That is, where there is division between what is actually going on and try to change that according to a certain pattern, certain ideals, certain attitude and convictions.
That is, where there is division between actually what is happening in ourselves and neglecting that and pursuing an ideal, that is one of the causes of disorder. Another cause is to pursue in psychological, so-called inward life, pursue authority: the authority of a book, the authority of a guru, the authority of so-called spiritual people. We accept very easily the authority in our inward life. You have to accept the authority of the scientist, of the technocrat, of the doctor, the surgeon, but inwardly, psychologically, why do we accept authority at all?
There are political ideals, and in the communist world the theoretician translating Marx or Lenin according to their inclination, their study, their historical search. So we are asking why do we have ideals at all? And what is an ideal? The word ‘idea’, originally the root meaning of that word is ‘to observe’, ‘to see’, ‘to look’ – the word ‘idea’. But we have translated it as a projection of a particular concept brought about by thought, and that is the ideal, and the ideal is far more important and the pursuit of that ideal becomes all-consuming when you totally neglect ‘what is’; ‘what is’ is important, not the ideal. We are using the word ‘what is’ in the sense what is actually happening, both outwardly and inwardly.
When we are violent, as most human beings are, to have an ideal of non-violence has no reality, has no validity, but what has validity, reality is the fact that we are violent and to deal with that violence, not in terms of ideals and patterns but to understand the cause or causes of violence. Perhaps in this country the pursuit of non-violence, which is an illusion, has deprived of our energy to look actually at what is going on. We want to change what is taking place to something else. The political ideals, the religious ideals, the ideals that one has created for oneself, an end, a goal, and the goal, the end – the ideals become extraordinarily important and not what is actually happening. That is, ‘what is’ being transformed into ‘what should be’. There is the struggle, there is disorder. – Jiddu Krishnamurti