Student: Is there any need for one to be serious?Krishnamurti: Is there any need for one to be serious? very good question, sir. First of all, what do you mean by serious? Have you ever thought what it means to be serious? Is it the stopping of laughter? To have a smile on your face, would that indicate that you are not serious? To want to look at a tree and see the beauty of a tree, would that be lack of seriousness? To want to know why people look that way, what they wear, why they talk that way, would that be, lack of seriousness? Or would seriousness be always having a long face, always saying: "Am I doing the right thing, am I conforming to a pattern?"
I should say that would not be seriousness at all. Trying to meditate is not seriousness, trying to follow the pattern of society is not seriousness - whether it is the pattern of Buddha or Sankara. Merely to conform is never to be serious. That is mere imitation. So you can be serious with a smile on your face, you can be serious when you look at a tree, you can be serious when you paint a picture, when you are listening to music. The quality of seriousness is to pursue to the very end a thought, an idea, a feeling; to go to the very end of it, not to be dissuaded by any other factor; to enquire into every thought to the very end of it whatever may happen to you, even if you have to starve in that process, lose all your property, everything; to go to the very end of thought is to be serious. Have I answered your question, sir?
Student: Yes sir.
Krishnamurti: I am afraid I have not. You have agreed very easily because you have not really understood what I said. Why do you not stop me and say: "Look, I do not understand what you are talking about." That would be straight, that would be serious. If you do not understand something, it does not matter who says it, even god himself, say, "I do not understand what you are talking about, tell me more clearly; that would be serious.
But to meekly agree because a man says so, that shows lack of seriousness. Seriousness consists in seeing things clearly, in finding out, in not accepting. But later on when you get married and have children and responsibilities there is a different kind of seriousness. Then you do not want to break the pattern, you want shelter, you want to live in safe enclosure, free of all revolutions.
Student: Why is one seeking to have pleasure and discard pain?
Krishnamurti: You are rather serious this morning, aren't you? Why? Because you think pleasure is more convenient, is it not? Sorrow is painful. The one you want to avoid, and the other you want to cling to.
Why? It is a natural instinct to avoid pain, is it not? If I have a toothache, I want to avoid it. I want to go for a walk which is pleasurable. The problem is not pleasure and pain, but the avoidance of one or the other. Life is both pleasure and pain, is it not? Life is both darkness and light. On a day like this, there are clouds and there is the sun shining; then there is winter and spring; they are part of life, part of existence.
But why should we avoid one and cling to the other? Why should we cling to pleasure and avoid pain? Why not merely live with both? The moment you want to avoid pain, sorrow, you are going to invent escapes, quote the Buddha, the Gita, go to the cinema or invent beliefs. The problem is not resolved by either sorrow or pleasure. So don't cling to pleasure or escape from pain.
If you cling to pleasure what happens? You get attached, do you not? And if anything happens to the person to whom you are attached or to your property or to your opinion, you are lost. So you say there must be detachment. Do not be either attached or detached; just look at the facts, and when you understand the facts, then there is neither pleasure nor pain; there is merely the fact
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