BENGALURU: We are going to go into this question: what is love? And to enquire very deeply, profoundly into it, we must also enquire first: what is energy? Energy. Every gesture you make is based on energy. While we are listening to the speaker you are exercising your energy. So we must enquire what is energy? Are you all right, can we go on? I can go on, the speaker can go on indefinitely because he has been at it for sixty years, or seventy years, putting the same thing in different words.
So if you will kindly, seriously listen because hearing is a great art, perhaps one of the great arts, to listen to what the other person has to say, not to interrupt, not to say, ‘Yes, I agree with you and let’s talk about something else’. We have to enquire first if you can listen at all. This is not a lecture, or an instruction and all that stuff - we are together examining, questioning, doubting, never accepting what the speaker says. Never. Right? Don’t say, ‘Yes we agree’ but then go on accepting. He has no authority. So we will start.
What is energy? This has been one of the questions of the scientist. And they said energy is matter. Right? But previous to that: what is energy? You understand? It may be matter. It may be every kind of thing. But what is energy? Primordial energy? Who brought this energy about? Are you understanding what I am talking about? I am not sure. Because this has been a very, very serious question. So we are together taking a long journey into this; together - you and I are walking up the same stream. You are not just following the speaker, you are not just saying, ‘Yes, that sounds very good, so the Upanishads, and the Gita and all that they have said, so we understand’.
It isn’t a bit like that. First of all one has to have great doubt. Right? Great scepticism. Right, sirs? No, don’t agree please, don’t agree. You don’t doubt anything, you accept everything. So doubt, scepticism of your own experience, of your own thoughts, of your own conclusions, doubting, questioning, not accepting a thing from any book, including my own. I am just a passer-by, it’s not important.
And we are going to enquire together, it is very important, please, together. You know what that means. Co-operating together to build something, to inquire something, to see what is clear, what is doubtful, what is not clear. You are doing it. And the speaker has done this but you have to do it. So we are together walking up a very long stream. You can make that stream a very strong current that will wipe you away, throw you on to the banks, or you can deal with it. So it requires your energy. Right? It requires your energy.
So we are asking: what is energy? (Sound of crows) That crow calling is part of energy. Right? The trees, the birds, the stars, the moon, the rising of the sun, and setting of the sun, it is all energy. Right? Probably you doubt it but it doesn’t matter. And whatever you speak requires energy, the first cry of the baby out of the womb, that cry is part of that energy. Right? To play a violin, to speak, to marry, sex, everything on earth requires energy. Right? So we are enquiring together what is this energy, what is the origin, what is the source, how has it begun, who created this energy? Please, carefully, don’t say, ‘God’ and run away with that. I don’t accept god. The speaker has no gods. Is that all right?
-Jiddu Krishnamurti