Why Are You Attached? | J. Krishnamurti

Most of us are attached to something or other. It may be a piece of property, an old furniture, or a picture, or an idea, or a belief, or an experience. Watch yourself, please. You know you are attached to something, or to a person, to some experience that one has had. Where there is attachment – please listen, just observe the consequence of attachment, we are not saying you mustn't be attached, just observe the nature of attachment, and then out of that observation comes right action with regard to attachment. If you are attached to a belief, and what is the nature of that belief, who has created the belief? You understand? You are attached to a religious concept, a religious image, or to a person. What is implied in that attachment? First, please just listen. Just listen, then we can move together. You know you are attached to something. Why? Is it that you are lonely? Is it by being attached to something you feel sufficient in yourself? Is it that if you are not attached to anything you feel completely isolated, empty? Is it being attached to a person gives you comfort, security, a sense of identification? The consequences of all that is the loss of it, the fear of losing it, jealousy, anxiety, hatred, a sense of being deeply wounded. So attachment will inevitably lead to all this. Right? Now, when the speaker explains all this, is it an idea or an actuality? You understand what I am saying? Have you formed an idea of attachment, or you actually see for yourself that you are attached, and see for yourself the consequences of it? And so it is not an idea which you accept, but you are observing the movement of attachment. Right? Now, what will you do about it? You understand my question? What is, when you have observed the nature of attachment, how thought creates the image about a person and is attached to that image, and to the person. The image is far more important than the person. I wonder if you are following all this. So, can attachment, with all its consequences, which brings great conflict, misery, confusion, antagonism, can all that end? Then what takes place when you end attachment? You follow? Sir, sir, please, no. You understand my question? You are attached. You know, you have intellectually or actually observed the consequences of attachment, with its conflict, fear and so on. Is it an action of will to say, I will end attachment? Or you have an insight into attachment. If you have an insight into attachment, because you see the whole movement of it, then there is an ending of it, not that you are attached to something else. You understand? One may be attached to that person or to that idea, and letting that attachment go and be attached to another person, another idea. We are talking of the ending of all attachment, which brings enormous psychological conflict. Have you the insight into it and therefore end it? Then what takes place? When you end something, when you stop drinking, if you do, or when you stop smoking, or any of those things, both physically and psychologically, what happens? You want me to tell you? You see, that is the danger. That is how you create authority, dependence on another. Whereas if you discover for yourself when you end an attachment completely, what is the state of the mind that has been caught in the pattern and in the movement of that attachment? What happens to the mind? Something totally new takes place, doesn't it? You have broken the pattern of attachment, therefore naturally something other than this pattern comes into being. Are you doing this? You are all so frightened. That is the root of it.