Think on These Things

To really “serve”, One must be free from the “Ego”

Question: Some of my friends have remarked that, although they find your sayings intensely interesting, they prefer service rather than too much thinking about questions of truth. What are your observations on this point?

Krishnamurti: Sir, what do you mean by service? Everybody wants to help. That is the cry of those people who think they are serving the world. They are always talking about helping the world, especially those people who belong to sects. It is their particular form of disease, because they think that by doing something, it does not matter what, they are going to help, by serving people they will help. Who is to say what is service? A man that belongs to the army, prepared to kill the barbarian that enters his country, says he is serving the country. The man that kills, the butcher, says he is serving the community. The exploiter who has the means of production in his hands, monopolized, says he is serving the community. The man who exploits beliefs, the priest, says he is serving the country, community. Who is to decide? Or shall we look at it quite differently? Do you think a flower, a rose, is ever considering that it is serving humanity, that it is helping the world by its existence because it is beautiful? On the contrary, because it is beautiful, supremely lovely, unconscious of its own magnificence, it is truly helping. Not like a man who goes about shouting that he is serving the world. That is, each one wants to use his means, or his ideas, to exploit the world, not to set the world free. Personally, if you will not misunderstand me, that is not my point of view at all. I do not want to help the world, as you would call it. I cannot help, it naturally happens. That is service. I do not desire to make others come to my particular form of belief or ask them to come into my particular cage of thought, because I hold that to have a belief is a limitation. To really serve, one must be supremely free from the limited consciousness we call the "I", the ego, self-centred consciousness; and so long as that exists, you are not really serving the world. Unless you really think, you cannot find out if you are truly helping the world. So let us not first consider whether we are helping the world, but rather find out if we have the capacity to think and to feel. To really think, mind must not be tethered to a belief. That is very simple is it not? To think really profoundly, frankly, completely, your mind cannot be held by prejudice or a certain belief, or by fear, or by preconceived ideas. To think, the mind must start anew, afresh, and not with a background of tradition. After all, tradition is only valuable when it helps you to think, not when it overpowers you by its weight. Let me put this thing differently. We all want to help. When you see suffering in the world there is an intense desire to help; but to truly help people you have to go to the fundamental cause of things. You have to discover the cause of suffering, and you can only do that if there is profound thinking. And this thinking is not mere intellectual delight, but it can only take place, this thinking, in action.

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND 1ST TALK IN VASANTA SCHOOL GARDENS 30TH MARCH, 1934

Question: I feel sincerely that I desire to help people, and I think I can help; but whatever I say or do to another is interpreted as interference, and as the desire to domineer. So I am thwarted by others and feel myself frustrated. Why does this happen to me?

Krishnamurti: When we say we want to help another, what do we mean by that word? Like the word `service' -- what does it mean? You go to the gas station, the attendant serves you, and you pay him, but he uses the word `serve', like all the business people. All the commercial people use that word. Now those who wish to serve -- have they not also the same spirit? They want to help if you also give them something; that is, they want to help you in order to fulfill themselves. And when you resist, you begin to criticize, they feel frustrated. In other words, they are not really helping you. Through help, through service, they are fulfilling themselves. In other words, they are seeking self-fulfillment under the guise of help and service - which, when thwarted, gets angry, begins to gossip, begins to tear you to pieces. This is an obvious fact, is it not? And can you not help and serve another without asking anything? - which is most difficult, which is not easy; you cannot just say, `It can be done'. When you give something to somebody, a few hundred dollars, haven't you something with which you are tied, don't you tie yourself with that hundred dollars; hasn't it a tail? Can you give, and forget? This giving from the heart is real generosity. But the generosity of the hand has always something to be held, and it holds. Similarly, those who want to help, when they are prevented for various reasons, feel frustrated, feel lost; they won't stand criticism; it is misrepresented, mistranslated, misinterpreted, because through their anxiety to help you, they are fulfilling themselves. So, the problem is, is it not, is there self-fulfillment? That is the next question. Is there self-fulfillment? Is not that word `self-fulfillment' a contradiction? When you want to fulfill yourself in something, what is that something in which you are fulfilling? Is it not self-projection? Say, I want to help you. I use the word `help', which covers my desire for self-fulfillment. What happens when I have such a desire? I neither help you, nor fulfill. Because, to fulfill means, for most of us, to have pleasure in doing something which gives us gratification. In other words, self-fulfillment is gratification, is it not? I am seeking gratification, superficial or permanent, which I call self-fulfillment. But can gratification be permanent? Obviously not. Surely, when we talk about self-fulfillment we mean a gratification that is deeper, more profound, than the superficial; but can gratification ever be permanent? As it can never be permanent, we change our self-fulfillment - at one period it is this, and later it is that; and ultimately we say, `My fulfillment must be in God, in reality'. Which means, we make of reality a permanent gratification. So, in other words, we are seeking gratification when we talk of self-fulfillment. And, instead of saying, `I want to help you in order to gratify myself', which would be too crude and we are too subtle for that, we say, `I want to serve you, I want to help you'. And when we are prevented, we feel lost, we feel frustrated, angry, irritated. Under the guise of help and service we do a lot of monstrous things - deceptions, illusions. Therefore, words like `self-fulfillment', like `help', like `service', need examination. And when we really understand them, not just verbally, but deeply, profoundly, then we will help without asking anything in return. Such help will never be misrepresented - and even if it is, it doesn't matter. Then there is no sense of frustration, no sense of anger, criticism, gossip.

OJAI 13TH PUBLIC TALK 27TH AUGUST 1949

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