"the deepest human trait seems to be gossiping" Jurgen Brandt

"Don’t believe it buddy and don’t pass it on. Gossip is a grapevine that grows only sour grapes. Don’t eat them. Produce better. Live better." [unknown]

"I don't pay attention to that [gossip]. In my opinion, it's ignorance. It's usually not based on fact. ... Every neighborhood has the guy who you don't see, so you gossip about him. You see those stories about him, there's the myth that he did this or he did that. People are crazy!" Michael Jackson

ON GOSSIP & COMMUNICATION
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by Reza Ganjavi
[This was written not as a critique of human condition but as a personal meditation/emptying......]

I define gossip as words or actions used behind another's back which would not be done in their presence.

Ever since I was a child I used to hate gossip - I saw plenty of it as a child in a closely tied Iranian family life with lots of regular interactions with many many relatives. As a grown up I still abhor gossip - it's one of the most ignoble things - along with cigarettes it's one of the ugliest things in life - and sorry to say, the world if full of it. One of its roots is fear - if you have the courage to speak to the object of gossip directly you would not speak behind his/her back. The fear is of facing facts which may bring an end to the gossip (fear has other roots - e.g. merely biological if one is a meat-eater...). Gossip is energizing for some people. The point they often miss is: if X is talking to me behind Y's back to me, he will surely talk behind my back to Z. In the corporate world it's full of it - in some places more than others - I perceived a lot of it while I was living in England - the culture as I perceived it is more tolerant to it: "as long as you put on a good face" - than my experience in America where people I dealt with were - more or less - more one-faced (generalizations are incorrect anyway). Also in culturally confused places such as a place I lived in southern South Africa there was plenty of it - I also saw plenty of it in another small town where many gossip-brains lived! Certain educated, strong cultures do not tolerate it (e.g. I've seen a lot less of it in Switzerland than anywhere) - they see it immediately as violence - their education prohibits it (again wrongly generalizing). I've also seen a lot of it in certain circles or gatherings of people. And also in circles formed around an important person:

We have too many cases in history where the inner circle os a great person believed the person is theirs - and this possessiveness built a psychological wall which could ultimately lead to distortions. But the greatness of the person itself - if genuine - saves their work.

Opposites bring unity - when you and I find a common object to be opposed to, that is a unifying factor for us. It is sad that it has to be so: for gossip to unite and otherwise, ununited relationship. The weak-minded are easy victims of gossip. They fall for it because they're victims of others' opinion. The circle of gossip is strengthened by numbers - the more people engaged in the same thinking, the stronger the belief and so the more rightous it is. One who is strong-minded and free from fear communicates. A child communicates, fearlessly. If I am wondering something about someone, I ask - I don't go chit-chatting, speculating behind their back. But for "gossip-brains" it's easier to speculate than to inquire. The weak can not think for themselves so they need others' opinion to give shape to their perception.

All this is based on images. Communication is a dangerous thing for the one-in-dark - because communication is light. But lack of communication skills is another common human factor. Most people I know do not have good communication skills: to voice or write an idea - most know that and admit it. I know many who want to write a letter but don't because they're simply not good at writing. And sometimes we try to avoid issues by lack of communication - but I try to always communicate - I do not want to avoid anything - if I do not want to talk to someone who is trying to call me or write to me, I tell them - gently in the right way - by DEALING with the issue they want to talk about....

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People are generally not good at getting hints. I try, and I am not too dumb to not get hints, but hints are horrible things - let's be open and say the fact instead of saying 1/10 of it and allow room for reading the remainder 9/10. Specially when someone is "in love" or extremely attracted - they're very bad at getting hints - and what they need more than anything else - like I believe we all do in our relationships - is COMMUNICATION - facing facts - I've observed in my life what a magnificent, releasing thing communication can be: facing "what is" - being in touch with it - seeing what it is - otherwise, walls of images can easily build up - the walls that imprison us - psychologically. This is quite a deep subject - but just to touch the surface, it is the "I" which in the very nature of its existence, psychologically, is a prison - I verses non-I - and the "I" itself is an image fueled by memories and the bars of the jail are made from thought - which in the absence of insight are stronger than iron. And with insight into the nature of the "I" itself, separateness comes to an end - now - not in time as "forever or not" - and one's in tune - in harmony - give the body is cared after - with totality - of what one might call "otherness". But this is not a conclusion - thought, "I", desire, can not touch this.

Image-making is a primary process in the habit of human condition - and it takes energy, courage, intelligence, love, earnestness, love-of-truth to end images. Otherwise, one lives in a realm where experience gives further strength to images - and images being fictitious in their nature need nourishment for their survival. The light of truth ends the darkness of images - but I have known many people who prefer the comfort of their little comfortable shadow of the known - which has nothing to do with life, love, the present, communication, freedom.

Krishnamurti Madras  8th Public Talk  27th January 1952

Question: What makes something I say to another, gossip?  Is speaking the truth or speaking good or bad about another, gossip? Can it be gossip so long as what is said, is true? Krishnamurti: Behind this question, there lie many things.  First of all, why do you want to speak about another?  What is the motive, what is the urge?  That is more important to find out.  You must know if what you say about another is true.  Why do you want to talk about another?  If you are antagonistic, your motives are based on violence, hatred; and then, it is bound to be evil; your intention is to give pain to another through your words or through your expression.  Why do you talk about another, good or bad, and what is the necessity that urges you to talk about somebody else?  First of all, does it not indicate a very shallow and petty mind?  If you are really concerned, interested in anything, you should know the time for it, the time to talk about another, however good, noble that another may be, or however stupid or irresponsible he may be.  A stupid or shallow mind always wants to have something to talk about, chat or be agitated about.  It must either read, acquire, or believe. You know the whole process of being occupied with something.  Then the problem arises, how am I to stop gossiping.

Both the gossiper and the subject of the gossip, good or bad, about an other, have a kind of relationship to one another; and both he and the man to whom he gossips, have a kind of mutual pleasure, the one to tell and the other to listen.  I think it is very important to find out the motives, an not how to stop gossiping.  If you can discover the motive and rather keep looking at it directly without any condemnation or justification, then perhaps your mind will begin to discover a deeper level, which consequently makes you put away this gossip, this talking about another.  But to discover that motive, that urge, is quite an arduous task.  Is it not?

First of all, the man or woman who is occupied with gossiping, is so interested in telling about somebody good or bad, that he or she has no time to think.  After all, gossip is one of the ways of self-knowledge.  Is it not?  If you talk about another cruelly, it indicates antagonism, hatred.  As you do not want to face your own antagonisms and hatreds, you escape through talk; and if you talk and gossip about another, it is another form of escape from your self.

The man who would really understand this whole process of life, must have profound self-knowledge, - not the knowledge which acquire from a book or a psychologist, but direct knowledge we comes through relationship, the relationship which comes as a mirror in which you see yourself constantly, both the pleasant and unpleasant.  But that requires earnestness.  Very few are earnest and many are petty and stupid.

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OCT 2004