Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes: March 2010

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The isolated cannot live - JKOnline Daily Quotes

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The very desire to take shelter through conditioning breeds more strife, more problems; for conditioning is separating, and the separate, the isolated cannot live. The separate, by joining itself to other separates, does not become the whole. The separate is always the isolated, though it may accumulate and gather, expand, include and identify. Conditioning is destructive, disintegrating; but the shallow mind cannot see the truth of this, for it is active in search of truth. This very activity hinders the receiving of truth. Truth is action, not the activity of the shallow, of the seeker, of the ambitious. Truth is the good, the beautiful, not the activity of the dancer, of the planner, of the spinner of words. It is truth that liberates the shallow, not his scheme to be free. The shallow, the mind can never make itself free; it can only move from one conditioning to another, thinking the other is more free. The more is never free, it is conditioning, an extension of the less. The movement of becoming, of the man who wants to become the Buddha or the manager, is the activity of the shallow. The shallow are ever afraid of what they are; but what they are is the truth. Truth is in the silent observation of what is, and it is truth that transforms what is. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 76 Exploitation and Activity

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

An Intelligent Mind - JKOnline Daily Quotes

An Intelligent Mind

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An intelligent mind acts in the field of thought intelligently, sanely, without resistance; it is free from the structure and implications of attachment, from the action of attachment, from the pursuit of power with all its complications, the ruthlessness of it. It sees the dividing process of thought, and seeing that clearly, totally, it has energy; that energy is intelligence. Having that energy, that intelligence, it can operate in the field of thought, not the other way round. - Saanen, 2nd Public Talk 16th July 1974

Monday, March 29, 2010

Now, must we not be alone? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Now, must we not be alone?

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Now, must we not be alone? At present we are not alone - we are merely a bundle of influences. We are the result of all kinds of influences - social, religious, economic. hereditary, climatic. Through all those influences, we try to find something beyond; and if we cannot find it, we invent it, and cling to our inventions. But when we understand the whole process of influence at all the different levels of our consciousness, then, by becoming free of it, there is an aloneness which is uninfluenced; that is, the mind and heart are no longer shaped by outward events or inward experiences. It is only when there is this aloneness that there is a possibility of finding the real. But a mind that is merely isolating itself through fear, can have only anguish; and such a mind can never go beyond itself. With most of us, the difficulty is that we are unaware of our escapes. We are so conditioned, so accustomed to our escapes, that we take them as realities. But if we will look more deeply into our selves, we will see how extraordinarily lonely, how extraordinarily empty we are under the superficial covering of our escapes. Being aware of that emptiness, we are constantly covering it up with various activities, whether artistic, social, religious or political. But emptiness can never finally be covered: it must be understood. To understand it, we must be aware of these escapes; and when we understand the escapes, then we shall be able to face our emptiness. Then we shall see that the emptiness is not different from ourselves, that the observer is the observed. In that experience, in that integration of the thinker and the thought, this loneliness, this anguish, disappears. - The Collected Works Vol. IX Paris 5th Public Talk 7th May 1950

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The truly religious man is not the one who practices so-called religion - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The truly religious man is not the one who practices so-called religion

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The truly religious man is not the one who practices so-called religion, who holds to certain dogmas and beliefs, who performs certain rituals, or pursues knowledge, for he is merely seeking another form of gratification. The man who is truly religious is completely free from society, he has no responsibility towards society; he may establish a relationship with society, but society has no relationship with him. Society is organized religion, the economic and social structure, the whole environment in which we have been brought up; and does that society help man to find God, truth it matters little what name you give it - , or does the individual who is seeking God create a new society? That is, must not the individual break away from the existing society, culture, or civilization? Surely, in the very breaking away he discovers what is truth, and it is that truth which creates the new society, the new culture. - The Collected Works Vol. IX Bombay 1st Public Talk 16th February 1955

Saturday, March 27, 2010

knowledge is not the means of the transformation of man - JKOnline Daily Quotes

knowledge is not the means of the transformation of man

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Religion has become superstition and image-worship, belief and ritual. It has lost the beauty of truth; incense has taken the place of reality. Instead of direct perception there is in its place the image carved by the hand or the mind. The only concern of religion is the total transformation of man. And all the circus that goes on around it is nonsense. That's why the truth is not to be found in any temple, church or mosque, however beautiful they are. Beauty of truth and the beauty of stone are two different things. One opens the door to the immeasurable and the other to, the imprisonment of man; the one to freedom and the other to the bondage of thought. Romanticism and sentimentality deny the very nature of religion, nor is it a plaything of the intellect. Knowledge in the area of action is necessary to function efficiently and objectively, but knowledge is not the means of the transformation of man; knowledge is the structure of thought and thought is the dull repetition of the known, however modified and enlarged. There is no freedom through the ways of thought, the known. - Krishnamurti Journal Brockwood Park 13th Entry 27th September 1973

Friday, March 26, 2010

The me and the you remain - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The me and the you remain

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You have only one head and look after it for it's a marvellous thing. No machinery, no electronic computers can compare with it. It's so vast, so complex, so utterly capable, subtle and productive. It's the storehouse of experience, knowledge, memory. All thought springs from it. What it has put together is quite incredible: the mischief, the confusion, the sorrows, the wars, the corruptions, the illusions, the ideals, the pain and misery, the great cathedrals, the lovely mosques and the sacred temples. It is fantastic what it has done and what it can do. But one thing it apparently cannot do: change completely its behaviour in its relationship to another head, to another man. Neither punishment nor reward seem to change its behaviour; knowledge doesn't seem to transform its conduct. The me and the you remain. It never realizes that the me is the you, that the observer is the observed. Its love is its degeneration; its pleasure is its agony; the gods of its ideals are its destroyers. Its freedom is its own prison; it is educated to live in this prison, only making it more comfortable, more pleasurable. You have only one head, care for it, don't destroy it. It's so easy to poison it. - Krishnamurti Journal Brockwood Park 4th Entry 17th September 1973

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The craving for identification - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The craving for identification

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One wonders why this craving, longing, for identification exists. One can understand the identification with one's physical needs - the necessary things, clothes, food, shelter and so on. But inwardly, inside the skin as it were, we try to identify ourselves with the past, with tradition, with some fanciful romantic image, a symbol much cherished. And surely in this identification there is a sense of security, safety, a sense of being owned and of possessing. This gives great comfort. One takes comfort, security, in any form of illusion. And man apparently needs many illusions. In the distance there is the hoot of an owl and there is a deep-throated reply from the other side of the valley. It is still dawn. The noise of the day has not begun and everything is quiet. There is something strange and holy where the sun arises. There is a prayer, a chant to the dawn, to that strange quiet light. That early morning, the light was subdued, there was no breeze and all the vegetation, the trees, the bushes, were quiet, still, waiting. Waiting for the sun to arise. And perhaps the sun would not come up for another half hour or so, and the dawn was slowly covering the earth with a strange stillness. Gradually, slowly, the topmost mountain was getting brighter and the sun was touching it, golden, clear, and the snow was pure, untouched by the light of day. As you climbed, leaving the little village paths down below, the noise of the earth, the crickets, the quails and other birds began their morning song, their chant, their rich worship of the day. And as the sun arose you were part of that light and had left behind everything that thought had put together. You completely forgot yourself. The psyche was empty of its struggles and its pains. And as you walked, climbed, there was no sense of separateness, no sense of being even a human being. - Krishnamurti to Himself Ojai California Tuesday 10th March, 1983

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Identification - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Identification

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The other day as one was walking along a secluded wooded lane far from the noise and the brutality and the vulgarity of civilization, right away from everything that was put together by man, there was a sense of great quietness, enveloping all things - serene, distant and full of the sound of the earth. As you walked along quietly, not disturbing the things of the earth around you, the bushes, the trees, the crickets and the birds, suddenly round a bend there were two small creatures quarrelling with each other, fighting in their small way. One was trying to drive off the other. The other was intruding, trying to get into the other's little hole, and the owner was fighting it off. Presently the owner won and the other ran off. Again there was quietness, a sense of deep solitude. And as you looked up, the path climbed high into the mountains, the waterfall was gently murmuring down the side of the path; there was great beauty and infinite dignity, not the dignity achieved by man that seems so vain and arrogant. The little creature had identified itself with its home, as we human beings do. We are always trying to identify ourselves with our race, with our culture, with those things which we believe in, with some mystical figure, or some saviour, some kind of super authority. Identifying with something seems to be the nature of man. Probably we have derived this feeling from that little animal. - Krishnamurti to Himself Ojai California Tuesday 10th March, 1983

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Happiness through something must invariably beget conflict - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Happiness through something must invariably beget conflict

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We find a certain happiness in the self-forgetfulness of sex, and so we use it as a means to achieve what we desire. Happiness through something must invariably beget conflict, for then the means is vastly more significant and important than happiness itself. If I get happiness through the beauty of that chair, then the chair becomes all-important to me and I must guard it against others. In this struggle, the happiness which I once felt in the beauty of the chair is utterly forgotten, lost, and I am left with the chair. In itself, the chair has little value; but I have given it an extraordinary value, for it is the means of my happiness. So the means becomes a substitute for happiness. When the means of my happiness is a living person, then the conflict and confusion, the antagonism and pain are far greater. If relationship is based on mere usage, is there any relationship, except the most superficial, between the user and the used? If I use you for my happiness, am I really related to you? Relationship implies communion with another on different levels; and is there communion with another when he is only a tool, a means of my happiness? In thus using another, am I not really seeking self-isolation, in which I think I shall be happy? This self-isolation I call relationship; but actually there is no communion in this process. Communion can exist only where there is no fear; and there is gnawing fear and pain where there is usage and so dependence. As nothing can live in isolation, the attempts of the mind to isolate itself lead to its own frustration and misery. To escape from this sense of incompleteness, we seek completeness in ideals, in people, in things; and so we are back again where we started, in the search for substitutes. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 41 Awareness

Monday, March 22, 2010

Revolution in consciousness - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Revolution in consciousness

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For me, revolution is synonymous with religion. I do not mean by the word 'revolution' immediate economic or social change: I mean a revolution in consciousness itself. All other forms of revolution, whether Communist, Capitalist or what you will, are merely reactionary. A revolution in the mind, which means the complete destruction of what has been, so that the mind is capable of seeing what is true without distortion, without illusion- that is the way of religion. I think the real, the true religious mind does exist, can exist. I think if one has gone into it very deeply, one can discover such a mind for oneself. A mind that has broken down, destroyed, all the barriers, all the lies which society, religion, dogma. belief have imposed upon it, and gone beyond to discover what is true, is the true religious mind. - Meeting Life

Sunday, March 21, 2010

In duty there is no love - JKOnline Daily Quotes

In duty there is no love

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Does love have responsibility and duty, and will it use those words? When you do something out of duty is there any love in it? In duty there is no love. The structure of duty in which the human being is caught is destroying him. So long as you are compelled to do something because it is your duty you don't love what you are doing. When there is love there is no duty and no responsibility. Most parents unfortunately think they are responsible for their children and their sense of responsibility takes the form of telling them what they should do and what they should not do, what they should become and what they should not become. The parents want their children to have a secure position in society. What they call responsibility is part of that respectability they worship; and it seems to me that where there is respectability there is no order; they are concerned only with becoming a perfect bourgeois. When they prepare their children to fit into society they are perpetuating war, conflict and brutality. Do you call that care and love? - Freedom from the Known Chapter 10

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Means and end are not separate - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Means and end are not separate

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We may study history and translate historical fact according to our prejudices; but to be certain of the future is to be in illusion. Man is not the result of one influence only, he is vastly complex; and to emphasize one influence while minimizing others is to breed an imbalance which will lead to yet greater chaos and misery. Man is a total process. The totality must be understood and not merely a part, however temporarily important his part may be. The sacrificing of the present for the future is the insanity of those who are power-mad; and power is evil, These take to themselves the right of human direction; they are the new priests. Means and end are not separate, they are a joint phenomenon; the means create the end. Through violence there can never be peace; a police State cannot produce a peaceful citizen; through compulsion, freedom cannot be achieved. A classless society cannot be established if the party is all-powerful, it can never be the outcome of dictatorship. All this is obvious. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 32 Separateness

Friday, March 19, 2010

Information is not going to make us intelligent - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Information is not going to make us intelligent

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It is obvious that radio music is a marvellous escape. Next door, they kept the thing going all day long and far into the night. The father went off to his office fairly early. The mother and daughter worked in the house or in the garden; and when they worked in the garden the radio blared louder. Apparently the son also enjoyed the music and the commercials, for when he was at home the radio went on just the same. By means of the radio one can listen endlessly to every kind of music, from the classical to the very latest; one can hear mystery plays, news, and all the things that are constantly being broadcast. There need be no conversation, no exchange of thought, for the radio does almost everything for you. The radio, they say, helps students to study; and there is more milk if at milking time the cows have music. The odd part about all this is that the radio seems to alter so little the course of life. It may make some things a little more convenient; we may have global news more quickly and hear murders described most vividly; but information is not going to make us intelligent. The thin layer of information about the horrors of atomic bombing, about international alliances, research into chlorophyll, and so on, does not seem to make any fundamental difference in our lives. We are as war-minded as ever, we hate some other group of people, we despise this political leader and support that, we are duped by organized religions, we are nationalistic, and our miseries continue; and we are intent on escapes, the more respectable and organized the better. To escape collectively is the highest form of security. In facing what is, we can do something about it; but to take flight from what is inevitably makes us stupid and dull, slaves to sensation and confusion. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 27 The Radio and Music

Thursday, March 18, 2010

What love is not - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What love is not

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If you find the garden that you have so carefully cultivated has produced only poisonous weeds, you have to tear them out by the roots; you have to pull down the walls that have sheltered them. You may or may not do it, for you have extensive gardens, cunningly walled-in and well-guarded. You will do it only when there is no bartering; but it must be done, for to die rich is to have lived in vain. But beyond all this, there must be the flame that cleanses the mind and the heart, making all things new. That flame is not of the mind, it is not a thing to be cultivated. The show of kindliness can be made to shine, but it is not the flame; the activity called service, though beneficial and necessary, is not love; the much-practised and disciplined tolerance, the cultivated compassion of the church and temple, the gentle speech, the soft manner, the worship of the saviour, of the image, of the ideal - none of this is love. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 59 How am I to Love?

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

What is one escaping from? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What is one escaping from?

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Questioner: ...why does one run away? What is one escaping from?"From your own loneliness, your own emptiness, from what you are. If you run away without seeing what is, you obviously cannot understand it; so first you have to stop running, escaping and only then can you watch yourself as you are. But you cannot observe what is if you are always criticizing it, if you like or dislike it. You call it loneliness and run away from it; and the very running away from what is fear. You are afraid of this loneliness, of this emptiness, and dependence is the covering of it. So fear is constant; it is constant as long as you are running away from what is. To be completely identified with something, with a person or an idea, is not a guarantee of final escape, for this fear is always in the background. It comes through dreams, when there is a break in identification; and there is always a break in identification, unless one is unbalanced. Questioner: Then my fear arises from my own hollowness, my insufficiency. I see that all right, and it is true; but what am I to do about it? You cannot do anything about it. Whatever you do is an activity of escape. That is the most essential thing to realize. Then you will see that you are not different or separate from that hollowness. You are that insufficiency. The observer is the observed emptiness. Then if you proceed further, there is no longer calling it loneliness; the terming of it has ceased. If you proceed still further, which is rather arduous, the thing known as loneliness is not; there is a complete cessation of loneliness, emptiness, of the thinker as the thought. This alone puts an end to fear. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 75 Fear and Escape

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Why is it that we are not content to be ourselves? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Why is it that we are not content to be ourselves?

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Why is it that we crave to be recognized, to be made much of, to be encouraged? Why is it that we are such snobs? Why is it that we cling to our exclusiveness of name, position, acquisition? Is anonymity degrading, and to be unknown despicable? Why do we pursue the famous, the popular? Why is it that we are not content to be ourselves? Are we frightened and ashamed of what we are, that name, position and acquisition become so all-important? It is curious how strong is the desire to be recognized, to be applauded. In the excitement of a battle, one does incredible things for which one is honoured; one becomes a hero for killing a fellow man. Through privilege, cleverness, or capacity and efficiency, one arrives somewhere near the top - though the top is never the top, for there is always more and more in the intoxication of success. The country or the business is yourself; on you depend the issues, you are the power. Organized religion offers position, prestige and honour; there too you are somebody, apart and important. Or again you become the disciple of a teacher, of a guru or Master, or you co-operate with them in their work. You are still important, you represent them, you share their responsibility, you have and others receive. Though in their name, you are still the means. You may put on a loincloth or the monk's robe, but it is you who are making the gesture, it is you who are renouncing. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 22 The Self

Monday, March 15, 2010

Equality - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Equality

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The fullest development of every individual creates a society of equals. The present social struggle to bring about equality on the economic or some spiritual level has no meaning at all. Social-reforms aimed at establishing equality, breed other forms of antisocial activity; but with right education, there is no need to seek equality through social and other reforms, because envy with its comparison of capacities ceases. We must differentiate here between function and status. Status, with all its emotional and hierarchical prestige, arises only through the comparison of functions as the high and the low. When each individual is flowering to his fullest capacity, there is then no comparison of functions; there is only the expression of capacity as a teacher, or a prime minister, or a gardener, and so status loses its sting of envy. - Life Ahead Introduction

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Why should I not escape from myself? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Why should I not escape from myself?

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Question:Why should I not escape from myself? I have nothing to be proud of, and by being identified with my wife, who is much better than I am, I get away from myself. Krishnamurti: Of course, the vast majority escape from themselves. But by escaping from yourself, you have become dependent. Dependence grows stronger, escapes more essential, in proportion to the fear of what is. The wife, the book, the radio, become extraordinarily important; escapes come to be all-significant, of the greatest value. I use my wife as a means of running away from myself, so I am attached to her. I must possess her, I must not lose her; and she likes to be possessed, for she is also using me. There is a common need to escape, and mutually we use each other. This usage is called love. You do not like what you are, and so you run away from yourself, from what is. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 75 Fear and Escape

Saturday, March 13, 2010

The end of meditation is meditation itself. - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The end of meditation is meditation itself.

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The end of meditation is meditation itself. The search for something through and beyond meditation is end-gaining; and that which is gained is again lost. Seeking a result is the continuation of self-projection; result, however lofty, is the projection ofdesire. Meditation as a means to arrive, to gain, to discover, only gives strength to the meditator. The meditator is the meditation; meditation is the understanding of the meditator. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 61 The Desire for Bliss

Friday, March 12, 2010

Self-sacrifice is an extension of the self - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Self-sacrifice is an extension of the self

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Renunciation to gain an end is barter; in it there is no giving up, but only exchange. Self-sacrifice is an extension of the self. The sacrifice of the self is a refinement of the self, and however subtle the self may make itself, it is still enclosed, petty, limited. Renunciation for a cause, however great, however extensive and significant, is substitution of the cause for the self; the cause or the idea becomes the self, the "me" and the "mine." Conscious sacrifice is the expansion of the self, giving up in order to gather again; conscious sacrifice is negative assertion of the self. To give up is another form of acquisition. You renounce this in order to gain that. This is put at a lower level, that at a higher level; and to gain the higher, you "give up" the lower. In this process, there is no giving up, but only a gaining of greater satisfaction; and the search for greater satisfaction has no element of sacrifice. Why use a righteoussounding word for a gratifying activity in which all indulge? - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 63 on Self-Sacrifice

Thursday, March 11, 2010

The self - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The self

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To be in self-contradiction is to live in conflict and sorrow. The self, in its very structure, is contradictory; it is made up of many entities with different masks, each in opposition to the other. The whole fabric of the self is the result of contradictory interests and values, of many varying desires at different levels of its being; and these desires all beget their own opposites. The self, the "me," is a network of complex desires, each desire having its own impetus and aim, often in opposition to other hopes and pursuits. These masks are taken on according to stimulating circumstances and sensations; so within the structure of the self, contradiction is inevitable. This contradiction within us breeds illusion and pain, and to escape from it we resort to all manner of self-deceptions which only increase our conflict and misery. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 43