Krishnamurti: 'I have been listening to you for some years to your talks and no change has come about in me.' Then don't listen any more.

Now look, sir, if you listen to somebody for years, and you see for yourself the beauty of what is being said, then you want to listen more, then it opens doors to you which you have never seen before. But if it doesn't, then what is wrong? What is wrong with the speaker who says these things, or what is wrong with the listener? Why is it that a man or woman who has heard the speaker for many years is not changed? In that there is great sorrow, is there not?

You see a flower, a lovely flower by the wayside, you glance and pass by. You don't stop to look, you don't see the beauty, the quiet dignity, the loveliness. You pass by. What is wrong? Is it that you are not serious? Is it that you don't care? Is it that you have so many problems that you are caught up in them, no time, no leisure to stop, so that you never look at that flower? Or is it that what the speaker is saying has no value in itself - not what you think about it - but in itself it has no value? Has it no value? To determine whether it has or has not, you have to investigate what the speaker is saying. And to investigate you must have the capacity to listen, you must look, you must give your time to it.

So is it your responsibility or is it the responsibility of the speaker? It is our mutual responsibility, isn't it? Both of us have to look. The speaker may point out, but you have to look, you have to go into it, you have to learn. And if your mind is not diligent but negligent, if your mind is not watching, highly sensitive, it is your doing. This means you have to learn to change your ways of life; everything has to be changed to learn a way of living which is entirely different. And that demands energy; you cannot be lazy, indolent.

So it is our mutual responsibility - maybe more yours than the speaker - perhaps, sir, you have not given your life to it. We are talking about life - not about ideas, not about theories, practices, not even techniques - but to look at this whole life, which is your life, and to care, for it. And that means not to waste your life. You have a very short time to live, maybe ten, maybe fifty years, but don't waste it. Look at it, give your life to understand it.