Seeing the whole

Questioner: What do you mean by seeing the whole? What is this totality you
talk about, this extensive awareness in which the particular is a detail?… Are you
talking about the whole of the mind, or the whole of existence, or the whole of
myself, or the whole of life? What whole do you mean, and how can I see it?

Krishnamurti: The whole field of life: the mind, love, everything which is in life.

Questioner: How can I possibly see all that! I can understand that everything I
see is partial, and that all my awareness is awareness of the particular, and that
this strengthens the particular

Krishnamurti: Let’s put it this way: do you perceive with your mind and your
heart separately, or do you see, hear, feel, think, all together, not fragmentarily?

Questioner: I don’t know what you mean.

Krishnamurti: You hear a word, your mind tells you it is an insult, your feelings
tell you you don’t like it, your mind again intervenes to control or justify, and so
on. Once again feeling takes over where the mind has concluded. In this way an
event unleashes a chain-reaction of different parts of your being. What you hear
had been broken up, made fragmentary, and if you concentrate on one of those
fragments, you miss the total process of that hearing. Hearing can be
fragmentary or it can be done with all your being, totally. So, by perception of the
whole we mean perception with your eyes, your ears, your heart, your mind; not
perception with each separately. It is giving your complete attention. In that
attention, the particular, such as anger, has a different meaning since it is
interrelated to many other issues.

Questioner: So when you say seeing the whole, you mean seeing with the
whole of your being; it is a question of quality not quantity. Is that correct?

Krishnamurti: Yes, precisely. But do you see totally in this way or are you
merely verbalizing it? Do you see anger with your heart, mind, ears and eyes? Or
do you see anger as something unrelated to the rest of you, and therefore of
great importance? When you give importance to the whole you do not forget the
particular.

Questioner: But what happens to the particular, to anger?

Krishnamurti: You are aware of anger with your whole being. If you are, is
there anger? Inattention is anger, not attention. So attention with your entire
being is seeing the whole, and inattention is seeing the particular. To be aware of
the whole, and of the particular, and of the relationship between the two, is the
whole problem. We divide the particular from the rest and try to solve it. And so
conflict increases and there is no way out.

Questioner: When you speak then of seeing only the particular, as anger, do
you mean looking at it with only one part of your being?

Krishnamurti: When you look at the particular with a fragment of your being,
the division between that particular and the fragment which is looking at it grows,
and so conflict increases. When there is no division there is no conflict.

Questioner: Are you saying that there is no division between this anger and
me when I look at it with all my being?

Krishnamurti: Exactly. Is this what you actually are doing, or are you merely
following the words? What is actually taking place? This is far more important
than your question.

Questioner: You ask me what is taking place. I am simply trying to understand
you.

Krishnamurti: Are you trying to understand me or are you seeing the truth of
what we are talking about, which is independent of me? If you actually see the
truth of what we are talking about, then you are your own guru and your own
disciple, which is to understand yourself. This understanding cannot be learnt
from another.

J. Krishnamurti from “The Urgency of Change”