Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes: October 2009

Saturday, October 31, 2009

If I am attentive, there is no building of images - JKOnline Daily Quotes

If I am attentive, there is no building of images

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How can one be free of the images that one has? First of all, I must find out how these images come into being, what is the mechanism that creates them. You can see that at the moment of actual relationship, that is, when you are talking, when there are arguments, when there are insults and brutality, if you are not completely attentive at that moment, then the mechanism of building an image starts. That is, when the mind is not completely attentive at the moment of action, then the mechanism of building images is set in motion. When you say something to me which I do not like—or which I like—if at that moment I am not completely attentive, then the mechanism starts. If I am attentive, aware, then there is no building of images. The Awakening of Intelligence, p 337

Friday, October 30, 2009

To be aware of inattention - JKOnline Daily Quotes

To be aware of inattention

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Attention is this hearing and this seeing, and this attention has no limitation, no resistance, so it is limitless. To attend implies this vast energy: it is not pinned down to a point. In this attention there is no repetitive movement; it is not mechanical. There is no question of how to maintain this attention, and when one has learnt the art of seeing and hearing, this attention can focus itself on a page, a word. In this there is no resistance which is the activity of concentration. Inattention cannot be refined into attention. To be aware of inattention is the ending of it: not that it becomes attentive. The ending has no continuity. The past modifying itself is the future—a continuity of what has been—and we find security in continuity, not in ending. So attention has no quality of continuity. Anything that continues is mechanical. The becoming is mechanical and implies time. Attention has no quality of time. All this is a tremendously complicated issue. One must gently, deeply go into it. Letters to the Schools vol II, p 31

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Attention involves seeing and hearing - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Attention involves seeing and hearing

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Attention involves seeing and hearing. We hear not only with our ears but also we are sensitive to the tones, the voice, to the implication of words, to hear without interference, to capture instantly the depth of a sound. Sound plays an extraordinary part in our lives: the sound of thunder, a flute playing in the distance, the unheard sound of the universe; the sound of silence, the sound of one’s own heart beating; the sound of a bird and the noise of a man walking on the pavement; the waterfall. The universe is filled with sound. This sound has its own silence; all living things are involved in this sound of silence. To be attentive is to hear this silence and move with it. Letters to the Schools vol II, p 30

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

If you are aware choicelessly… - JKOnline Daily Quotes

If you are aware choicelessly…

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Just be aware; that is all you have to do, without condemning, without forcing, without trying to change what you are aware of. Then you will see that it is like a tide that is coming in. You cannot prevent the tide from coming in; build a wall, or do what you will, it will come with tremendous energy. In the same way, if you are aware choicelessly, the whole field of consciousness begins to unfold. And as it unfolds, you have to follow; and the following becomes extraordinarily difficult—following in the sense to follow the movement of every thought, of every feeling, of every secret desire. It becomes difficult the moment you resist, the moment you say, “That is ugly”, “This is good”, “That is bad”, “This I will keep”, “That I will not keep.” The Collected Works vol XV, p 85

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

To be aware without condemnation - JKOnline Daily Quotes

To be aware without condemnation

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Do not think about doing it, but actually do it now. That is, be aware of the trees, the palm tree, the sky; hear the crows cawing; see the light on the leaf, the colour of the sari, the face; then move inwardly. You can observe, you can be aware choicelessly of outward things. It is very easy. But to move inwardly and to be aware without condemnation, without justification, without comparison is more difficult. Just be aware of what is taking place inside you—your beliefs, your fears, your dogmas, your hopes, your frustrations, your ambitions, and all the rest of the things. Then the unfolding of the conscious and the unconscious begins. You have not to do a thing.The Collected Works vol XV, p 85

Monday, October 26, 2009

Watching though there is nothing to learn - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Watching though there is nothing to learn

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I am learning about myself—not according to some psychologist or specialist—I am watching and I see something in myself; but I do not condemn it, I do not judge it, I do not push it aside—I just watch it. I watch that I am proud—let us take that as an example. I do not say, “I must put it aside, how ugly to be proud.”—but I just watch it. As I am watching, I am learning. Watching means learning what pride involves, how it has come into being. I cannot watch it for more than five or six minutes—if one can, that is a great deal—the next moment I become inattentive. Having been attentive and knowing what inattention is, I struggle to make inattention attentive. Do not do that, but watch inattention, become aware that you are inattentive—that is all. Stop there. Do not say, “I must spend all my time being attentive”, but just watch when you are inattentive. To go any further into this would be really quite complex . There is a quality of mind that is awake and watching all the time, watching though there is nothing to learn. That means a mind that is extraordinarily quiet, extraordinarily silent. What has a silent, clear mind to learn?The Impossible Question, pp 25-26

Sunday, October 25, 2009

One ceases to learn the moment one argues with life - JKOnline Daily Quotes

One ceases to learn the moment one argues with life

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The act of listening is the act of learning.One has to learn so much about life, for life is a movement in relationship. And that relationship is action. We have to learn—not accumulate knowledge from this movement that we call life and then live according to that knowledge, which is conformity. To conform is to adjust, to fit into a mould, to adjust oneself to the various impressions, demands, pressures of a particular society. Life is meant to be lived, to be understood. One has to learn about life, and one ceases to learn the moment one argues with life, comes to life with the past, with one’s conditioning as knowledge. So there is a difference between acquiring knowledge and the act of learning. You must have knowledge; otherwise you will not know where you live, you will forget your name, and so on. So at one level knowledge is imperative, but when that knowledge is used to understand life—which is a movement, which is a thing that is living, moving, dynamic, every moment changing—when you cannot move with life, then you are living in the past and trying to comprehend the extraordinary thing called life. And to understand life, you have to learn every minute about it and never come to it having learned. The Collected Works vol XV, pp 13-14

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Learning from experience? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Learning from experience?

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Questioner: Can we learn from experience?Krishnamurti: Certainly not. Learning implies freedom, curiosity, inquiry. When a child learns something, he is curious about it, he wants to know, it is a free momentum, not a momentum of having acquired and of moving from that acquisition. We have innumerable experiences; we have had five thousand years of wars.We have not learnt a thing from them except to invent more deadly machinery with which to kill each other. We have had many experiences with our friends, with our wives, with our husbands, with our nation—we have not learnt. Learning, in fact, can only take place when there is freedom from experience. The Impossible Question, p 78

Friday, October 23, 2009

The act of listening is the soil - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The act of listening is the soil

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Just listen, because if you are capable of listening and seeing the truth of what is being said, then thought will not act. If you are in that state of listening, the fact, the truth, will act. If a seed is planted in the earth and has vitality, it will grow. In the same way, the act of listening is the soil. The act of listening is only possible when there is attention, and attention does not exist if there is interpretation, evaluation, condemnation, or judgement of that to which you are listening. If you listen completely, attentively, without any observer who is the thinker, then that very act of listening will put away what is false, and you will listen only to what is true. The act of listening is the field. In that field every kind of seed is sown, and only the seed that has vitality, energy, strength, will come up, will flourish. That’s what we are doing now. We’re actually listening, neither accepting nor disagreeing nor judging. We’re actually listening so completely that the very act of listening destroys what is false and lets the seed of truth take root. The Collected Works vol XVI, pp 146-147

Thursday, October 22, 2009

The very act of listening is a great miracle - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The very act of listening is a great miracle

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Listening is an art which very few of us are capable of. We never actually listen. The word has a sound and when we do not listen to the sound, we interpret it, try to translate it into our own particular language or tradition. We never listen acutely, without any distortion. So, the speaker suggests, respectfully, that you so listen and not interpret what he says. When you tell a rather exciting story to a little boy, he listens with a tremendous sense of curiosity and energy. He wants to know what is going to happen, and he waits excitedly to the very end. But we grown-up people have lost all that curiosity, the energy to find out, that energy which is required to see very clearly things as they are, without any distortion. We never listen to each other. You never listen to your wife, do you? You know her much too well, or she you. There is no sense of deep appreciation, friendship, amity, which would make you listen to each other, whether you like it or not. But if you do listen so completely, that very act of listening is a great miracle. That Benediction is Where You Are, pp 22-23

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Hearing without the ear - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Hearing without the ear

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There is an art of listening. The word “art” implies putting everything in its right place. If you understand the meaning of that word, the real art is not painting pictures, but the art of putting your life in its proper place, which is to live harmoniously. When you have put everything in yourself in its right place, you are free. Putting everything in its right place is part of intelligence. You will say we are giving a new meaning to that word “intelligence”. One must. Intelligence implies reading between the lines, between the words, between two silences, between speech, listening with your mind all the time alert to listen. You hear not only with the ear, but also without the ear. On Love and Loneliness, pp 87-88

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Two ways of listening - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Two ways of listening

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You know, there are two ways of listening: to listen casually, to hear a series of ideas, agreeing or disagreeing with them; or there is another way of listening, which is not only to listen to the words and the meaning of those words, but also to listen to what is actually taking place in yourself. If you listen in this way, then what the speaker says is related to what you are listening to in yourself; then you are not merely listening to the speaker—which is irrelevant—but to the whole content of your being. And if you are listening in that way with intensity, at the same time and at the same level, then we are both of us partaking, sharing together, in what is actually taking place. Then you have the passion which is going to transform that which is. Beyond Violence, pp 37-38

Monday, October 19, 2009

Listening to everything - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Listening to everything

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Have you ever sat very silently, not with your attention fixed on anything, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet, really still? Then you hear everything, don’t you? You hear the far-off noises as well as those that are nearer and those that are very close by, the immediate sounds—which means, really, that you are listening to everything. Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel. If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you, a change which comes without your volition, without your asking; and in that change there is great beauty and depth of insight.This Matter of Culture, p 32

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Is there seeing without preconception? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Is there seeing without preconception?

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The dictionary meaning of the word 'perception' is to become aware of, to apprehend. That is, you see the cupboard, you have a preconception of it; that is not perception. Is there seeing without preconception? Only the mind that has no conclusion, such a mind can see. The other cannot. If I have previous knowledge of that cupboard, the mind identifies it as cupboard. To look at that cupboard without the previous accumulation of prejudices or hurts, is to look. If I have previous hurts, memories, pain, pleasure, displeasure, I have not looked.Tradition and Revolution

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Observation without the screen of knowledge - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Observation without the screen of knowledge

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Observation implies no accumulation of knowledge, even though knowledge is obviously necessary at a certain level: knowledge as a doctor, knowledge as a scientist, knowledge of history, of all the things that have been. After all, that is knowledge: information about the things that have been. There is no knowledge of tomorrow, only conjecture as to what might happen tomorrow, based on your knowledge of what has been. A mind that observes with knowledge is incapable of following swiftly the stream of thought. It is only by observing without the screen of knowledge that you begin to see the whole structure of your own thinking. And as you observe—which is not to condemn or accept, but simply to watch—you will find that thought comes to an end. Casually to observe an occasional thought leads nowhere. But if you observe the process of thinking and do not become an observer apart from the observed, if you see the whole movement of thought without accepting or condemning it, then that very observation puts an end immediately to thought—and therefore the mind is compassionate; it is in a state of constant mutation. The Collected Works vol XIII, pp 299-300

Friday, October 16, 2009

Can’t I observe instantly? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Can’t I observe instantly?

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Suppose I am attached to something or somebody. Can’t I observe the consequences of attachment, what is involved in attachment, how that attachment arose? Can’t I observe the whole nature of it instantly? I am attached because I am lonely, I want comfort, I want to depend on somebody because I can’t stand by myself, I need companionship, I need somebody to tell me, “You are doing very well, old boy.” I need somebody to hold my hand; I am depressed and anxious. So I depend on somebody, and out of that dependence arises attachment, and from that attachment arise fear, jealousy, anxiety. Can’t I observe the whole nature of it instantly? Of course I can if I am aware, if I am deeply interested to find out.This Light in Oneself, p 59

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Knowing what you are by watching yourself - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Knowing what you are by watching yourself

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By looking at the mirror every day, you begin to know your own face, and you say: “That is me.” Now, can you in the same way know what you are by watching yourself? Can you watch your gestures, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you behave, whether you are hard, cruel, rough, patient? Then you begin to know yourself. You know yourself by watching yourself in the mirror of what you are doing, what you are thinking, what you are feeling. That is the mirror—the feeling, the doing, the thinking. And in that mirror you begin to watch yourself. The mirror says this is the fact; but you do not like the fact. So you want to alter it. You start distorting it. You do not see it as it is. Krishnamurti on Education, p 61

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

To see without the shadow of yourself - JKOnline Daily Quotes

To see without the shadow of yourself

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Seeing is a very complex affair. One sees casually with one’s eyes and swiftly passes by, never seeing the details of a leaf, its form and structure, its colours, the variety of greens. To observe a cloud with all the light of the world in it, to follow a stream chattering down the hill; to look at your friend with the sensitivity in which there is no resistance and to see yourself as you are without the shades of denial or easy acceptance; to see yourself as part of the whole; to see the immensity of the universe—this is observation: to see without the shadow of yourself. Letters to the Schools vol II, pp 30-31

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

What is perception? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What is perception?

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What is perception, what is seeing? How do you see that tree? Look at it for the moment. With what sight do you see it? Is it solely an optical observation, just looking at the tree with the optical reaction, observing the form, the pattern, the light on the leaf? Or do you, when you observe a tree, name it, saying. “That is an oak” and walk by? By naming it you are no longer seeing the tree—the word denies the thing. Can you look at it without the word? So, are you aware how you approach, how you look at, the tree? Do you observe it partially, with only one sense, the optical sense; or do you see it, hear it, smell it, feel it, see the design of it, take the whole of it in? Or, do you look at it as though you are different from it—of course, when you look at it you are not the tree. But can you look at it without a word, with all your senses responding to the totality of its beauty? The Flame of Attention, p 34

Monday, October 12, 2009

You learn a great deal by watching - JKOnline Daily Quotes

You learn a great deal by watching

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You learn a great deal by watching, watching the things about you, watching the birds, the tree, watching the heavens, the stars, the constellation of Orion, the Dipper, the Evening star. You learn just by watching not only the things around you but also by watching people, how they are dressed. You not only watch that which is outside but also you watch yourself, why you think this or that, your behaviour, the conduct of your daily life, why parents want you to do this or that. You are watching, not resisting. If you resist you don’t learn. Or if you come to some kind of conclusion, some opinion you think is right and hold on to that, then naturally you will never learn. Freedom is necessary to learn, and curiosity, a sense of wanting to know why you or others behave in a certain way, why people are angry, why you get annoyed.Learning is extraordinarily important because learning is endless. Learning why human beings kill each other for instance. Of course there are explanations in books, all the psychological reasons why human beings behave in their own particular manner, why human beings are violent. All this has been explained in books of various kinds by eminent authors, psychologists and so on. But what you read is not what you are. What you are, how you behave, why you get angry, envious, why you get depressed, if you watch yourself you learn much more than from a book that tells you what you are.Letters to the Schools vol II, pp 75-76

Sunday, October 11, 2009

When the whole organism becomes highly sensitive - JKOnline Daily Quotes

When the whole organism becomes highly sensitive

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Isn’t there a danger, the questioner asks, in the mind when the whole human organism becomes highly sensitive; isn’t there a danger of nervous tension? Why should we have tension at all? Doesn’t tension exist only when there is resistance? There are noises going on here: a dog is barking, the buses are going by, and there is a child crying. When you resist, tension is built up. This actually takes place. If you don’t build any resistance but let the noise go through, listen to it quietly, without resistance, not saying that it’s is good or bad, not saying, “I wish that dog wouldn’t make that noise; that bus is terrible”, but just listen—then, since there is no resistance, there is no strain, no effort. I think one of the problems of modern life is living in boxed-up houses called flats, where there is no space, no beauty, but constant strain. If you are vulnerable to it all—I’m using the word “vulnerable” in the sense of to receive, to let everything come—then I don’t see how you can have nervous breakdowns or nervous tension. The Collected Works vol XVI, pp 148-149

Saturday, October 10, 2009

A mind caught in habit is insensitive - JKOnline Daily Quotes

A mind caught in habit is insensitive

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Most of you are insensitive physically because you overeat, smoke, indulge in various forms of sensual delights—not that you should not. But the mind becomes dull that way, and when the mind becomes dull the body becomes further dull. That is the pattern in which we have lived. You see how difficult it is to change your diet. You are used to a particular form of diet and taste, and you must have it all the time; if you do not get it you feel you will be ill, and you get rather frightened. Physical habit breeds insensitivity; obviously any habit like drugs, alcohol, or smoking must make the body insensitive, and that affects the mind—the mind which is the totality of perception, the mind which must see very clearly, unconfusedly, and in which there should be no conflict whatsoever. Conflict is not only a waste of energy; it also makes the mind dull, heavy, stupid. Such a mind caught in habit is insensitive; from this insensitivity, this dullness, it will not accept anything new because there is fear.The Nature of the New Mind, p 262