Question: How can one be aware of an emotion without naming
or labelling it? If I am aware of a feeling, I seem to know what that feeling
is almost immediately after it arises. Or do you mean something different when
you say, ‘Do not name’?
Jiddu Krishnamurti : Why do we name anything? Why do we give
a label to a flower, to a person, to a feeling? Either to communicate one’s
feelings, to describe the flower and so on and so on; or to identify oneself
with that feeling. Is not that so? I name something, a feeling, to communicate
it. ‘I am angry.’ Or I identify myself with that feeling in order to strengthen
it or to dissolve it or to do something about it. We give a name to something,
to a rose, to communicate it to others or, by giving it a name, we think we
have understood it.
We say, ”That is a rose”, rapidly look at it and go on. By
giving it a name, we think we have understood it; we have classified it and
think that thereby we have understood the whole content and beauty of that
flower. By giving a name to something, we have merely put it into a category
and we think we have understood it; we don’t look at it more closely. If we do
not give it a name, however, we are forced to look at it. That is we approach
the flower or whatever it is with a newness, with a new quality of examination;
we look at it as though we had never looked at it before. Naming is a very
convenient way of disposing of things and of people - by saying that they are Germans,
Japanese, Americans, Hindus, you can give them a label and destroy the label.
If you do not give a label to people you are forced to look at them and then it
is much more difficult to kill somebody.
You can destroy the label with a bomb and feel righteous,
but if you do not give a label and must therefore look at the individual thing
- whether it is a man or a flower or an incident or an emotion - then you are
forced to consider your relationship with it, and with the action following. So
terming or giving a label is a very convenient way of disposing of anything, of
denying, condemning or justifying it. That is one side of the question. What is
the core from which you name, what is the centre which is always naming,
choosing, labelling.
We all feel there is a centre, a core, do we not?, from
which we are acting, from which we are judging, from which we are naming. What
is that centre, that core? Some would like to think it is a spiritual essence,
God, or what you will. So let us find out what is that core, that centre, which
is naming, terming, judging. Surely that core is memory, isn’t it? A series of
sensations, identified and enclosed - the past, given life through the present.
That core, that centre, feeds on the present through naming, labelling,
remembering.
We will see presently, as we unfold it, that so long as this
centre, this core, exists, there can be no understanding. It is only with the
dissipation of this core that there is understanding, because, after all, that
core is memory; memory of various experiences which have been given names,
labels, identifications. With those named and labelled experiences, from that
centre, there is acceptance and rejection, determination to be or not to be,
according to the sensations, pleasures and pains of the memory of experience.
So that centre is the word. If you do not name that centre, is there a centre?
That is if you do not think in terms of words, if you do not use words, can you
think?
Thinking comes into being through verbalization; or verbalization
begins to respond to thinking. The centre, the core is the memory of
innumerable experiences of pleasure and pain, verbalized. Watch it in yourself,
please, and you will see that words have become much more important, labels
have become much more important, than the substance; and we live on words. For
us, words like truth, God, have become very important - or the feeling which
those words represent. When we say the word ‘American’, ‘Christian’, ‘Hindu’ or
the word ‘anger’ - we are the word representing the feeling.
But we don’t know what that feeling is, because the word has
become important. When you call yourself a Buddhist, a Christian, what does the
word mean, what is the meaning behind that word, which you have never examined? Our centre, the core is the word, the label. If the label does not matter, if
what matters is that which is behind the label, then you are able to inquire
but if you are identified with the label and stuck with it, you cannot proceed.
And we are identified with the label: the house, the form, the name, the
furniture, the bank account, our opinions, our stimulants and so on and so on.
We are all those things - those things being represented by a name. The things
have become important, the names, the labels; and therefore the centre, the
core, is the word.
If there is no word, no label, there is no centre, is there?
There is a dissolution, there is an emptiness - not the emptiness of fear,
which is quite a different thing. There is a sense of being as nothing; because
you have removed all the labels or rather because you have understood why you
give labels to feelings and ideas you are completely new, are you not? There is
no centre from which you are acting. The centre, which is the word, has been
dissolved. The label has been taken away and where are you as the centre? You
are there but there has been a transformation. That transformation is a little
bit frightening; therefore, you do not proceed with what is still involved in
it; you are already beginning to judge it, to decide whether you like it or
don’t like it. You don’t proceed with the understanding of what is coming but
you are already judging, which means that you have a centre from which you are
acting.
Therefore you stay fixed the moment you judge; the words
‘like’ and ‘dislike’ become important. But what happens when you do not name?
You look at an emotion, at a sensation, more directly and therefore have quite
a different relationship to it, just as you have to a flower when you do not
name it. You are forced to look at it anew. When you do not name a group of
people, you are compelled to look at each individual face and not treat them
all as the mass. Therefore you are much more alert, much more observing, more
understanding; you have a deeper sense of pity, love; but if you treat them all
as the mass, it is over.
If you do not label, you have to regard every feeling as it
arises. When you label, is the feeling different from the label? Or does the
label awaken the feeling? Please think it over. When we label, most of us
intensify the feeling. The feeling and the naming are instantaneous. If there
were a gap between naming and feeling, then you could find out if the feeling
is different from the naming and then you would be able to deal with the
feeling without naming it.
The problem is this, is it not?, how to be free from a
feeling which we name, such as anger? Not how to subjugate it, sublimate it,
suppress it, which are all idiotic and immature, but how to be really free from
it? To be really free from it, we have to discover whether the word is more
important than the feeling. The word ‘anger’ has more significance than the
feeling itself. Really to find that out there must be a gap between the feeling
and the naming. That is one part.
If I do not name a feeling, that is to say if thought is not
functioning merely because of words or if I do not think in terms of words,
images or symbols, which most of us do - then what happens? Surely the mind
then is not merely the observer. When the mind is not thinking in terms of
words, symbols, images, there is no thinker separate from the thought, which is
the word. Then the mind is quiet, is it not? - not made quiet, it is quiet.
When the mind is really quiet, then the feelings which arise can be dealt with
immediately. It is only when we give names to feelings and thereby strengthen
them that the feelings have continuity; they are stored up in the centre, from
which we give further labels, either to strengthen or to communicate them.
When the mind is no longer the centre, as the thinker made
up of words, of past experiences - which are all memories, labels, stored up
and put in categories, in pigeonholes - when it is not doing any of those
things, then, obviously the mind is quiet. It is no longer bound, it has no longer
a centre as the me - my house, my achievement, my work - which are still words,
giving impetus to feeling and thereby strengthening memory. When none of these
things is happening, the mind is very quiet. That state is not negation. On the
contrary, to come to that point, you have to go through all this, which is an
enormous undertaking; it is not merely learning a few sets of words and
repeating them like a school-boy - ‘not to name’, ‘not to name’.
To follow through all its implications, to experience it, to
see how the mind works and thereby come to that point when you are no longer
naming, which means that there is no longer a centre apart from thought -
surely this whole process is real meditation. When the mind is really tranquil,
then it is possible for that which is immeasurable to come into being. Any
other process, any other search for reality, is merely self-projected, homemade
and therefore unreal. But this process is arduous and it means that the mind
has to be constantly aware of everything that is inwardly happening to it. To
come to this point, there can be no judgement or justification from the
beginning to the end - not that this is an end.
There is no end, because there is something extraordinary
still going on. This is no promise. It is for you to experiment, to go into
yourself deeper and deeper and deeper, so that all the many layers of the
centre are dissolved and you can do it rapidly or lazily. It is extraordinarily
interesting to watch the process of the mind, how it depends on words, how the
words stimulate memory or resuscitate the dead experience and give life to it.
In that process the mind is living either in the future or in the past.
Therefore words have an enormous significance,
neurologically as well as psychologically. And please do not learn all this
from me or from a book. You cannot learn it from another or find it in a book.
What you learn or find in a book will not be the real. But you can experience
it, you can watch yourself in action, watch yourself thinking, see how you
think, how rapidly you are naming the feeling as it arises - and watching the
whole process frees the mind from its centre. Then the mind, being quiet, can
receive that which is eternal.
J.Krishnamurthi