𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐲𝐩𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 — 𝐊𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐢

Krishnamurti

Context: From Madras 1968, Talk 2

Look what is happening in the world: we are being conditioned by society, by the culture in which we live, and that culture is the product of man – there is nothing holy or divine or eternal about culture. And the culture, the society, the books, the radio, all that we listen to, see, the many influences of which we are either conscious or unconscious, all these encourage us to live within a very small fragment of a vast field of the mind. 

You go through school, college, and learn a technique to earn a livelihood. For the next sixty years, or perhaps less, you spend your life, your time, your energy, your thought, in that specialised little field. And there is the vast field of the mind. Unless we bring about a radical change in this fragmentation, there can be no revolution at all; there will be modifications, economic, social, so-called cultural, but man will go on suffering, will go on in conflict, in war, in misery, in sorrow, in despair. 

I do not know if you read sometime ago, one of the marshals of the Russian army, reporting to the Politburo, said that in the army they were training soldiers under hypnosis — you know what that means? You are put under hypnosis and taught how to kill, how to obey completely, function with complete independence but under a pattern, with the authority of the superior. That is, the culture, society, is doing exactly the same thing to each one. Culture, society, has hypnotised you. 

Do please listen to this very carefully – it is not only being done in the army in Russia, but it is being done all over the world. When you read the Gita endlessly, or the Koran, or repeat some mantra, some words endlessly, you are doing exactly the same thing. When you say, 'I am a Hindu, I am a Buddhist, I am a Muslim, a Catholic,' the same pattern is being repeated: you have been mesmerised, hypnotised. 

And technology is doing exactly the same thing. You can be a clever lawyer, a first-class engineer or an artist, or a great scientist, but always within the fragment of the total. 

I do not know if you see this, not from my description but actually what is taking place. The communists are doing it, the capitalists are doing it, everybody, the parents, the schools, education, is shaping the mind to function within a certain pattern, within a certain fragment. And we are always concerned with bringing about a change within the pattern, within the fragment.