Although it may appear to others as little more than an academic exercise, I would like to reflect a little more on what Krishnamurti meant by thought being limited, and how this limitation of thought creates conflict, what are its implications, etc. I am sharing a few extracts (3, plus a longer final extract from a conversation Krishnamurti had with Bohm, which I will add in a reply) in order to help shed some light on this topic, and as an aid to reflection.
The first extract has already been shared on another thread looking at conflict. In this extract Krishnamurti says that thought is limited because its very ground is limited: thought springs from memory, which springs from knowledge, which springs from experience (which elsewhere Krishnamurti calls āregistrationā, as is shown in the third extract below). Each of these grounds or causes is limited, and so the resulting effect - thought - is also limited.
Now, why this limitation of thought must cause conflict is also something to investigate. Bohm drills into this question in the last extract (shared in the first reply), because Krishnamurti says that anything limited (in the psychological domain) must create conflict - whereas the existence of a table, which is a limited thing, obviously does not create conflict. It is still unclear to me whether Krishnamurti means that all thought inevitably creates conflict (due to its being limited) or only thought and knowledge that are used in a psychological sense. He seems to allow for the fact that technical thought, technical knowledge - even though it is limited - does not create conflict. I would like to discuss this later.
In the 4th extract (given in the first reply to this post, or post 2) Krishnamurti suggests that there is an activity which is not limited: this being intelligence. In this extract they also (Krishnamurti and Bohm) discuss the indivisibility of human consciousness, which Krishnamurti says is āone from the very beginningā, which the activity of limited thought fragments and so loses sight of.
A reflective summary of these extracts is provided in post number 3 (the second reply to this post), and a further investigation into why experience is limited (together with the possibility of experiencing or perceiving without this limitation) is explored in post 4 (the third reply to this post).
In our relationship with each otherā¦ conflict existsā¦ [So] we have to see whether conflict in ourselves can endā¦
It is necessary toā¦ find out for ourselves the cause of conflict, because where you can find a cause that cause can be endedā¦
There are many causes, but there is essentially one cause: each one of us is essentially egocentricā¦
Man has always quarrelled with another man, always lived in conflict. In some of the old ancient monuments in caves and other places you will see man fighting man, or fighting animals, which is the same thing, symbolically, perpetual conflictā¦
The speaker is sayingā¦ that the human condition can be radically changed. That is, if he has the intention, if he observes very clearly without any prejudice, without any directionā¦ without any motive, what he isā¦
In [the] mirror of relationship you see yourself as you areā¦ In that relationship you see your reactions, physical as well as psychologicalā¦ You start very near to go very farā¦
And in that relationship which is based on image-building, you have an image about her and she has an image about youā¦ The root of conflict is thereā¦
Thought is responsible for the image that you have about yourself and you have about anotherā¦ So thought, thinking, is the root of conflictā¦
Isnāt thinking limited? ā¦ Experience is limitedā¦ because it is limited, knowledge is always limitedā¦ Knowledge is carried by the brain as memory. Memory then responds as thought, so thought is always limited. And that which is limited [in the psychological domain] must invariably create conflictā¦
When you are thinking about yourself, you are very limitedā¦ And that limitation has been brought about by thoughtā¦
Thought is limited. When you really perceive this as an actualityā¦ then you are bound to ask if there is another instrument than thought.
(Talk 1, New Delhi, 1983)
So thought is responsible for the divisions: religious, political, personal, racial, the wars that are going on between the Jew and the Arabs, between various religious groups, itās all the result of thought. Do you really accept that? If you do, see the fact; see the truth of it. Not a superstition; not some exotic idea; not something imposed upon you by the speakerā¦
Thought is the result or response or the reaction of memory. Memory is the result or reaction of knowledge. Stored in the brain, knowledge is experience; in the scientific world, in the technological world, in the world of inward world, psychological world, knowledge, experience, memory, and the response of that is thought. Thatās a fact. And where there is knowledge, and knowledge is always incomplete; either in the present or the future or in the past. There is no complete knowledge about anything. There can never be. Even the scientists, biologists and archaeologists and so on, they do admit knowledge is limited.
Where there is limitation of knowledge, there must be limitation of thought. When you say, āI am a Christian,ā itās limited. When you are thinking about yourself, your problems, your relationship, your sexual pleasures and fulfilment, thatās very, very limited. And thought is limited. It can invent the limitless, but that is still the product of thought. It can invent heaven; or hell or whatever - it can invent, it is still limited. So where there is limitation, there must be fragmentation. I wonder if you are following all this? Please do follow this, because itās your life. We are talking about daily life. So where there is limitation there must be conflict. When I say I am a Hindu, itās limited. When I say I am a Catholic, obviously. Where there is limitation there must be divisionā¦
Is our relationship based on memory? Is it based on remembrances? Is it based on the past incidents accumulated as various images, pictures? If it is remembrance, if it is various images, then all that is the product of thoughtā¦ Is the accumulated knowledge of each other - which must always be limited and therefore that very knowledge is the root of conflict - is that knowledge, that conflict, is that love? ā¦
So, is it possible to live with another without a single image, without a single remembrance of the past which has given you pleasure or pain? Do think, look at it.
And is it possible not to build images about the other? If you do build images about the other, which is knowledge, then it is perpetual division. Though you may have children, sex, and so on, but itās fundamentally division. Like the Arabs and the Jew, the Christian and the Muslim and so on. So where there is division there must be conflictā¦
To live with another without any sense of division. The division must exist as long as thought is in operation, because thought is limited; because knowledge is limited. And in that division there is great pain; anxiety, jealousy, hatred; me first and you after.
To observe this fact, to observe, not say, āI must have no divisionā - that sounds silly - to observe the fact that you are first divided, like two parallel lines never meetingā¦
So to observe the fact, that you are divided; delve deeply into the factā¦
To observe; to observe without any bias, to look at it, to feel the division, and when you so observe, which I hope you are doing it, when you so observe, that very observation is like a tremendous light put on the word ārelationship.ā You understand? To observe - weāll go into it. To watch, which means to watch without any direction, without the word, without any motive, just to watch all the implications, the content of that word ārelationshipā. To live with that word; even for an hour, for ten minutes, for a day, find out! To live with it. To so observe, which means live your complete attention to that. When you attend completely, the obstacles, the division disappears.
(Talk 1, Ojai, 1983)
What is the source of all thought, not only yours, mine, or somebody elseās, the root of thought? If the root is limited, the outcome of that must also be limited. Right? You canāt think thought will do something extraordinary, if the root is limited all its activities must be limited. Right? So what is the root, the very, very source of thought? ā¦
The beginning of thought is the brain registering, danger or not danger, the pleasure and the fear. Right? The original man or the ape from which we have comeā¦ that brain which is very, very old, ancient beyond words, it must have registered danger, death, fear, security. Right? So the beginning of thought is the process of registration, which is memory. Right? We are not saying anything extraordinary, these are facts. And what has been registered is knowledge, knowledge of danger, knowledge of pleasure, knowledge of the fear between the two. And this accumulating process of knowledge, which is constant registration, day after day, centuries upon centuries registration, which is the accumulation of knowledge, that knowledge is in the brain, and that knowledge, which is memory, and from that memory thought is bornā¦
So memory, knowledge, is the outcome of the past. Right? So the past is limited, knowledge is limited. You may have more, more, more but it is always limitedā¦
So thought born of memory, knowledge, is always everlastingly limited. And our activities therefore are always limited - based on thoughtā¦
All the scriptures, all the poems, all the literature, all the rituals, the gods, the images, everything is the product of thoughtā¦
So when there is identification with something, thought is the process of identification, therefore that identification limits, limits the energy, and that energy is used as an individual. Therefore the individual becomes more and more limited, and his action then will be limited, obviouslyā¦
And is there an action - please, we are enquiring - is there an action which is not based on thought? Therefore an action which is not limited, confined, which means is there an action which is not based on knowledge, on memory, on remembrance? Donāt say, āThat is impossibleā, or āIt is possibleā - we donāt know, we are enquiring, we are asking. Because in limited action there is regret, mischief, pain, anxiety, whether you have done the right thing or the wrong thing - all that follows from limited activity, which is called the individualā¦
You tell me something, you use cruel words and you call me a name. I am hurt. And most human beings in the world are hurt, not only physiologically but much more psychologically. You are hurt, arenāt you? And from that hurt we do all kinds of things - resist, withdrawal, fear, violence, bitterness and so on, so on, so on. This hurt is, if you examine it very closely, is the movement of thought in the formation of the image. Right? Thought has created an image about oneself, that you are beautiful, that you are intellectually marvellous, that you are etc. etc. And when you use an ugly word, angrily point it out, that image gets hurt; which is, thought - please follow all this - that thought, which has created an image about itself, that image gets hurtā¦
So is it possible not to register the hurt? You understand my question? Because all our brain is in constant registration, and when you say something ugly to another, that is registered, that is called hurt. And is there a possibility of not registering at all? ā¦
One must obviously register when you want to drive a car, to do certain kinds of skills you must register. If you want to be a good technician you have to have a great deal of technological knowledge stored up in the brain, which is a process of registration. Right? So knowledge as a process of registration is, in certain fields, absolutely necessary. Right? That is clear.
Then why should there be any other form of registration? Do you understand my question? I have identified with myself, with my image. That image is put together by thought: the thought of another, parents, education, whatever it is, society, culture. That image has been put together by thought, which is a continuous process of registration. And is that necessary? You follow my question? It is your question. Why is there psychologically, inwardly this constant activity of accumulating round the centre, which is the self? Right? Which is obviously limited, which has been cultivated by thought and therefore essentially limited. When I think about my own occupation, how I must be happy, how I must be a success, I must be this, I must be that - it is all the movement of thought which is bringing about constant limitation, throttling, narrowing down, which we call individual. And that individual has activities, naturally. Those activities are essentially mischievous because they are limited.
Now we are asking, knowing logically, sequentially, reasonably, that any form of registration, apart from the registration of necessities, technological knowledge and so on, every other form of registration limits action, and from that limited action comes all our miseryā¦
So thought is the registration of an incident, accident. Anything that is registered must be limited, and that limitation, in its action, will create a great deal of mischief. So we are asking whether it is possible not to register, except in certain fields, not to register at allā¦
The moment thought identifies with something, with a piece of furniture, with a shirt, with a blouse, with a house, with a wife, with a husband, girl, or whatever it is, that limits thought and therefore that limitation is born out of registrationā¦
So if you are serious you are asking this basic question, a fundamental question, which you must answer: is there a possibility of not registering at all? That is, is there an action not born of thought? Do you understand my question? All our action is based on thought, with all its consequences. Now we are asking: is there an action, is there a way of living in daily life, in which thought doesnāt operate? ā¦
First of all, do we see very clearly, each one of us, wherever we are, whatever our situation, whatever our conditioning, however neurotic we are - most of us are - do we see very clearly that thought under all circumstances is limited? Not a verbal acceptance of it, but an actual fact, which you in your blood see it, irrevocably? Then if you see that, not as an idea, not as a conclusion, not a thing reasoned out and therefore it is, if you do it, it is still thought. So when you realise that thought is completely, totally, wholly limited, and from that limitation all activity, whatever type it is, must be limited and therefore in human relationship it creates havoc, misery, from there you ask the questionā¦
If one understands the whole movement of thoughtā¦ born out of the past and therefore endlessly curtailed, limited, narrow. If you see that very clearly and therefore abandon it, then you have what one may call insight.
(Talk 3, Saanen, 1978)
- with all oneās senses fully heightened.
, a tree 
, a bird 
, a cloud 
- without images intruding, without thoughts or mental chatter, is so fundamental!