by J.Krishnamurti
The speaker has said that human society so constructed throughout the world that most people are occupied with jobs, pleasant or unpleasant, from nine to five every day of their life. And he said also it is an intolerable imprisonment.
I do not know how you feel about it; probably you like being in prison and probably you like your jobs, from nine o’clock to five o’clock, rushing back and all the rest of it.
What shall we do?
To the speaker he will not tolerate it for a single minute, for the speaker would rather do something which would be pleasant, helpful, and necessary to earn enough money and so on. But most of us accept this prison, this routine. Yes, we accept it, so, what shall we do?
No-body, as far as one is capable of sufficient efficient observation, no-body has questioned this. Say; it is normal, is the way of society, is the way of life, is the way we must live but if we all see together then such an imprisonment, which it is actual, and that if we all feel it is intolerable, not just verbally but actually do something about it, we’ll create a new society. Right? We will!
If all of us say we will not tolerate for a single day this routine, this monstrous activity of nine to five, however necessary, however good and pleasant then, we will bring about not only psychological revolution but also outwardly, right?
We may agree about this but will we do it? You might say, “no I can’t do it because I have responsibility; I have children; I have a house and mortgage; insurance – thank God I haven’t got any of those. And so, you might say, well it’s easy for you to talk about all this but it’s easy for the speaker to talk about it because he refuses to go in that pattern, from boyhood he refused.
Now, if we all consider that such psychological, as well as, physical revolution of this kind, not bloody and all the rest of it, then we’ll create quite a different society, won’t we?
So, you want others to create the society and you can then slip into it. That is what we are all waiting for. Few struggle, work, create and refuse to enter into this rat race, and the others say, “yes, after you have constructed that what you think is the right society, then we’ll all join you. But we do not do it together; that is the whole problem, right?
If we all had this idea, the fact, that to spend our life from nine o’clock to five o’clock, every day of our life for sixty years and more, we would do something about it. Like, as, if you refuse to have wars, killing other people in the name of the country, or God, or whatever the idea is, if we all refuse to kill each other, there would be no wars, right?
But we have constructed a society, built a society, based on violence, armaments; each nation protecting itself against other nations. And so, we are perpetuating wars, killing your sons, everything, and we support it. In the same way we support and maintain this imprisonment. It maybe pleasant for those who have an agreeable job but those who refuse to enter this game, they will act, they will do something. So, the problem is, do we see the importance or the necessity of this change.
After all, the human mind it not merely occupied with a particular job, pleasant or unpleasant. The human mind has the quality of other things, which we disregard. We are concerned with the whole of life, not just career nine to five; how we live; what we do; what our thinking is. Whether there is affection, care, love, compassion; all that is part of life. But we are so conditioned through this idea that we must work and create a structure of a society that demands that you work, from morning till night.
The speaker refuses to play that end of the rat race. It is not that he has certain gifts, or that he has somebody that will look after him, but he refuses to enter. I would not go for a single day from nine to five for anybody, for anything. I might die but I would not do that.
But we are all so timid; we are all so nervous, frightened, and anxious. We want this security that we think we have, which we have not got. So, will you go into this and find out if you can free yourself from that rat race? And, to find out one must exercise capacity, intelligence, not say, “I won’t do it.” You do not do it because you are intelligent, not because you are told, or because you read it in some book or some philosopher.
