What is relationship? Until you resolve this, not according to some philosopher or psychologist, or analyst, or according to your belief or pleasure, but actually in your daily life; if you haven’t resolved this problem you are contributing to the corruption of the world. And relationship means a movement in action with another human being; because life is relationship and if you observe you will see that you are, through daily life, you are isolating yourself. This isolation is self-centred, this tremendous concern about oneself. Aren’t you concerned deeply about yourself? Whether you succeed, whether you fail, whether you are happy, unhappy, whether your desires are fulfilled, whether you have achieved enlightenment – God knows what else! And this isolation which is the self-centredness of yours and the self-centredness of another, how can there be a relationship between the two? If there is no relationship between the two and therefore inevitably there must be conflict. And our society is based on this principle of conflict, which means of having no relationship. You may sleep with another, hold hands with another, have a family, but you, self-centred, ambitious, greedy, pursuing your own fulfilment, must inevitably create a division between you and another. This is a fact. This is a psychological certainty. And a man who really is concerned to bring about a totally different kind of morality, behaviour, a social structure; until he understands and brings about right relationship with another, he is contributing to the brutality, to the violence, to the extraordinary things that are going on in this ugly, mad world. Right?
So we have this problem: having created an image, how to prevent the creation of further images and what to do with the past image that one has. You see the problem? Do you, sirs? No? Look, I have an image about you – I haven’t but suppose – I have an image about you, I have built it up through my interaction with you; there are those images in my mind, and I realise that to be really related with another there must be no image. Now, how am I to be free of those images? That’s one point. The second is, how am I not to create images at all in relationship, whatever you do? You understand the two? How am I not to create images whatever you do; whether you call me a fool, flatter me, steal things from me, insult me, hurt me – not to have an image. That is, how am I not to be hurt by you? Right? Let’s bring it down to that simple thing, because the hurt is the building of image, as flattery is also building of an image. From childhood we have been hurt. This hurt takes the form of competition; when you are being compared with another – that happens in schools and in families – the hurt has begun. Right? Society hurts us, parents hurt you, your friends hurt you, and war, that is physical, hurts you psychologically, inwardly. We are human beings who are terribly hurt. We may shed tears quietly by ourselves in our rooms, or because we are hurt we become violent, aggressive, self-protective, defensive and all the rest of it.
So how is a mind not to be hurt at all? There are two problems: having been hurt and never to be hurt again. If you can find out for yourself, not because somebody points it out, if you can find it out for yourself whether the mind, that is the total being, can never be hurt, then you will see that we have wiped away all the past images, past hurts. So the question is: how can the mind, your mind, never be hurt at all? Have you got the question? You tell me I am a fool, or you tell me I am a great man – which are both the same. And I listen to you; the one I like, the other I don’t like. Can I listen to you – please listen to this – can I listen to you when you call me a fool or a great man, with total attention, so that there is no reaction to your verbal statement? Can you listen to your wife, or to your friend, with total attention, when she or he calls you all kinds of things, or flatters you? In that total attention, in that choiceless awareness, there are no frontiers, there are no borders. It is only when there is a border, when there is a line that the mind gets hurt. When there is no border as the centre which is being hurt then there is no question of being hurt at all.
What is it that is being hurt? The image that you have about yourself, that image is getting hurt, isn’t it? When you call me a fool I have an image that I am not a fool. And I have this conclusion that I am not a fool and therefore when you call me that I get hurt, I get disturbed. That is – please listen to this – when there is no image as the ‘me’, which means the ‘me’, the self is not, because there is no image of me, then whatever you say, either pleasant or unpleasant is not a response, does not meet the response of being hurt. It is the centre as the ‘me’ that gets hurt. Now can the mind listen with tremendous attention, care, love, listen when you say something pleasant or unpleasant? What gets hurt is the resistance which you have. If you have no resistance there is no hurt. This is – please – this is terribly important in relationship. One has lived seventy years, or fifty years, or ten years. Things happen, incidents take place, uninvited occurrence takes place, and to have a mind that walks through all this without a single hurt: that is real innocency. The word ‘innocent’ means a mind that is not capable of being hurt. The real meaning of that word in the dictionary is a mind that is not capable of being hurt. And it will be hurt if there is an image as Krishnamurti, or Mr Smith, or Mr Y. That image puts a limit, a border, a line, which you cannot cross. The moment you cross I get hurt.
So in relationship to live a life, daily life, every moment of it, not just once a week, but every day, in relationship in which there is not a single image. If you can do this, really, not intellectually or verbally, or emotionally, actually do it, you will bring about a totally different kind of human being, and therefore a different kind of society. And such a relationship is love.
Know Thyself 