| "So the question is: can we observe without any distortion and therefore to observe with great energy? Observation is energy. It is non-observation that is a wastage of energy. Right? You are getting all this? Don't quote me, the speaker or anybody. Look at it, watch it, your will see it for yourself, because when you can look at yourself then you will discover endless things. But how you look matters enormously. That is, can you look without the observer? Can you look - we will begin this, this is really an extraordinary problem. If you can understand this, you know you will understand the most extraordinary things. Do please give your attention to it a little bit, even though you may be tired at the end of the day after spending hours in a beastly office, not today, you haven't, so it's all right. Do listen to what is being said, with your heart, with your mind, with your body, with your nerves. How you look matters, not only at your wife, at your husband, with your children, look at the trees, look at your politicians and their trickery, knavery and all - watch it, to observe. How do you observe? If you look at a tree, how do you look at a tree? Please follow this step by step. We'll go into it so closely, you have got to understand this. When you look at a tree, how do you look at it? Do you look at it as an observer and the thing observed? You do. You, the observer, and the tree, the thing observed. So there is a space between you and the tree. Right? And when you look at your friend, your wife, your husband, the boy or the girl, you look with the memory, with the biological urges, with your prejudices, hopes, and pleasures. There again you look at the thing as an observer outside of you. You are following this? You the observer and the thing outside you is the observed. Right?"
– J. Krishnamurti
Public Talk 2
New Delhi, India - 16 November 1969 | 
