Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes: May 2010

Monday, May 31, 2010

Education throughout the World has failed - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Education throughout the World has failed

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Surely, to discover truth, there must be freedom from strife, both within ourselves and with our neighbours. When we are not in conflict within ourselves, we are not in conflict outwardly. It is the inward strife which, projected outwardly, becomes the world conflict. War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday living. We precipitate war out of our daily lives; and without a transformation in ourselves, there are bound to be national and racial antagonisms, the childish quarrelling over ideologies, the multiplication of soldiers, the saluting of flags, and all the many brutalities that go to create organized murder. Education throughout the world has failed, it has produced mounting destruction and misery. Governments are training the young to be the efficient soldiers and technicians they need; regimentation and prejudice are being culivated and enforced. Taking these facts into consideration, we have to inquire into the meaning of existence and the significance and purpose of our lives. We have to discover the beneficent ways of creating a new environment; for environment can make the child a brute, an unfeeling specialist, or help him to become a sensitive, intelligent human being. We have to create a world government which is radically different, which is not based on nationalism, on ideologies, on force. All this implies the understanding of our responsibility to one another in relationship; but to understand our responsibility, there must be love in our hearts, not mere learning or knowledge. The greater our love, the deeper will be its influence on society. But we are all brains and no heart; we cultivate the intellect and despise humility. If we really loved our children, we would want to save and protect them, we would not let them be sacrificed in wars. I think we really want arms; we like the show of military power, the uniforms, the rituals, the drinks, the noise, the violence. Our everyday life is a reflection in miniature of this same brutal superficiality, and we are destroying one another through envy and thoughtlessness. We want to be rich; and the richer we get, the more ruthless we become, even though we may contribute large sums to charity and education. Having robbed the victim, we return to him a little of the spoils, and this we call philanthropy. I do not think we realize what catastrophes we are preparing. - Education and the Significance of Life Chapter 4 Education and World Peace

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Pure energy - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Pure energy

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Krishnamurti: And one morning, one night in Rishi Valley I woke up - a series of incidents had taken place, meditation for some days - I woke up one night, in the middle of the night, it was really a quarter past twelve, I looked at the watch. And I hesitate to say this because it sounds extravagant and rather childish: that the source of all energy had been reached. And that had an extraordinary effect on the brain, and also physically. Sorry to talk about myself but you understand. Wait a minute, I don't mind now I am in it. And literally any sense of the world and me and that - you follow? - there was no division at all only this sense of tremendous source of energy. I don't know if I am conveying it. David Bohm: So the brain was in contact with this source of energy? Krishnamurti: Yes. Now, coming down to earth, as I have been talking for sixty years, I'd like to, not help, I'd like another to reach this - no, not reach it - you understand what I am saying? Because all our problems are resolved, political, religious, every problem is resolved because it is pure energy from the very beginning of time. Now how am I - not I, you understand - how is one to - not teach, not help, not push, pressure - how is one to say, 'This way leads to a complete sense of peace, love and all that'? I am sorry to use all these words. Sir, you have it sir, suppose you have come to that point and your brain itself is throbbing with it, how would you help me? You understand? Not words, how would you help me to come to that? - The Ending of Time 1st Conversation with David Bohm 1st April, 1980

Saturday, May 29, 2010

The unknown does not incite fear - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The unknown does not incite fear

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The daily pattern of life was repeating itself around the only water tap in the village; the water was running slowly, and a group of women were awaiting their turn. Three of them were noisily and bitterly quarrelling; they were completely absorbed in their anger and paid not the slightest attention to anyone else,nor was anyone paying attention to them. It must have been a ritual. Like all rituals, it was stimulating, and these women were enjoying the stimulation. An old woman helped a young one to lift a big, brightly polished brass pot onto her head. She had a little pad of cloth to bear the weight of the pot, which she held lightly with one hand. Her walk was superb, and she had great dignity. A little girl came quietly, slipped her pot under the tap, and carried it away without saying a word. Other women came and went, but the quarrel went on, and it seemed as though it would never end. Suddenly the three stopped filled their vessels with water, and went away as though nothing had happened. By now the sun was getting strong, and smoke was rising above the thatched roofs of the village. The day's first meal was being cooked. How suddenly peaceful it was! Except for the crows, almost everything was quiet. Once the vociferous quarrel was over, one could hear the roar of the sea beyond the houses, the gardens and the palm groves. We carry on like machines with our tiresome daily routine. How eagerly the mind accepts a pattern of existence, and how tenaciously it clings to it! As by a driven nail, the mind is held together by idea, and around the idea it lives and has its being. The mind is never free, pliable, for it is always anchored; it moves within the radius, narrow or wide, of its own centre. From its centre it dare not wander; and when it does, it is lost in fear. Fear is not of the unknown, but of the loss of the known. The unknown does not incite fear, but dependence on the known does. Fear is always with desire, the desire for the more or for the less. The mind, with its incessant weaving of patterns, is the maker of time. - Commentaries On Living Series II Chapter 22 The Mind And The Known

Friday, May 28, 2010

The me can never become a better me - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The me can never become a better me

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As we were saying, there is no psychological evolution. The psyche can never become or grow into something which it is not. Conceit and arrogance cannot grow into better and more conceit, nor can selfishness, which is the common lot of all human beings, become more and more selfish, more and more of its own nature. It is rather frightening to realize that the very word `hope' contains the whole world of the future. This movement from `what is' to `what should be' is an illusion, is really, if one can use the word, a lie. We accept what man has repeated throughout the ages as a matter of fact, but when we begin to question, doubt, we can see very clearly, if we want to see it and not hide behind some image or some fanciful verbal structure, the nature and the structure of the psyche, the ego, the `me'. The `me' can never become a better me. It will attempt to, it thinks it can, but the `me' remains in subtle forms. The self hides in many garments, in many structures; it varies from time to time, but there is always this self, this separative, self-centred activity which imagines that one day it will make itself something which it is not. - Krishnamurti to Himself Ojai California Thursday 17th March, 1983

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Maturity comes with understanding - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Maturity comes with understanding

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There is no essential difference between the old and the young, for both are slaves to their own desires and gratifications. Maturity is not a matter of age, it comes with understanding. The ardent spirit of inquiry is perhaps easier forthe young, because those who are older have been battered about by life, conflicts have worn them out and death in different forms awaits them. This does not mean that they are incapable of purposive inquiry, but only that it is more difficult for them. Many adults are immature and rather childish, and this is a contributing cause of the confusion and misery in the world. It is the older people who are responsible for the prevailing economic and moral crisis; and one of our unfortunate weaknesses is that we want someone else to act for us and change the course of our lives. We wait for others to revolt and build anew, and we remain inactive until we are assured of the outcome. It is security and success that most of us are after; and a mind that is seeking security, that craves success, is not intelligent, and is therefore incapable of integrated action. There can be integrated action only if one is aware of one's own conditioning, of one's racial, national, political and religious prejudices; that is, only if one realizes that the ways of the self are ever separative. Life is a well of deep waters. One can come to it with small buckets and draw only a little water, or one can come with large vessels, drawing plentiful waters that will nourish and sustain. While one is young is the time to investigate, to experiment with everything. The school should help its young people to discover their vocations and responsibilities, and not merely cram their minds with facts and technical knowledge; it should be the soil in which they can grow without fear, happily and integrally. - Education and the Significance of Life Chapter 2 The Right Kind of Education

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

How can a system create love? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

How can a system create love?

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Question: Have the teachings attributed to the great teachers - Christ, Buddha, Hermes and others - any value for the attainment of the direct path to truth? Krishnamurti: If you will not misunderstand, I would say that their teachings become valueless because the human mind, being so subtle, so cunning in its desire for selfprotection, twists the teachings to suit its own purposes and creates systems and ideals as a means of escape, out of which grow petrified churches and exploiting priests. Religions throughout the world, through their systems and the trickery of their organized exploitation, seek to teach man to love, to think, to live sanely, intelligently; but how can a system create love or teach you to think selflessly? As you do not want to do this, as you are unwilling to live completely, integrally, with vulnerable mind and heart, you have created a system which has become your master, a system that is contrary to and destructive of thought and love. So it is utterly useless to multiply systems. If the mind frees itself from the illusion of its own self-protective demands and cravings, then there will be love, intelligence; then there will not be this division created by religions and beliefs; man will not be against man. - The Collected Works, Volume II Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 18 May 1935

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Is there anything sacred in life? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Is there anything sacred in life?

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Is there anything sacred in life? Not invented by thought, because man, from time immeasurable, he has always asked this question: Is there something beyond all this confusion, misery, darkness, illusions; beyond the institutions and reforms; is there something really true, something beyond time, something so immense that thought cannot come to it? Man has enquired into this. And only apparently very, very, very, very few people have been free to enter into that world. And the priest from ancient of times comes in between the seeker and that which he is hoping to find. He interprets, he becomes the man who knows, or thinks he knows. And is sidetracked, diverted; lost. So if we want to enquire into that which is most holy, which is nameless, timeless, one must obviously belong to no group, no religion, have no belief, no faith, because belief and faith is accepting as true something which does not or may not exist. That is the nature of belief: taking for granted, accepting something to be true when your own enquiry, your own vitality, energy, has not found out, you believe. Because in belief there is some form of security, comfort. But a man who is seeking merely psychological comfort, such a man will never come upon that which is beyond time. - Rajghat 2nd Public Talk 1st December 1963 Collected Works, Volume II

Monday, May 24, 2010

Why should one meditate? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Why should one meditate?

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What is meditation? Why should one meditate? To find that out, stop meditating. To find out what is real meditation, not yours or mine, your type and my type, or X's type, but what is meditation, to find out you can't hold on to some kind of meditation that you have and then enquire. That is like a donkey tied to a post. So you have to be free to enquire. First one can see very clearly that it is only a very, very quiet mind that can observe accurately. A quiet mind can observe accurately only, not a disturbed mind. So a quiet mind is absolutely necessary just to observe. But if you say, `Ah, how am I to have such a quiet mind?' Then you are asking for a system, for a method, you are going to somebody whom you think has a quiet mind, and then asking him, `Please tell me what to do.' And then you are caught in that trap because he will tell you and you will practise - if you are silly enough. But you see the importance of having an absolutely quiet mind. A mind that has no problem. - Bombay 4th Public Talk 31st January 1979 Collected Works, Volume 5

Sunday, May 23, 2010

What do we mean by freedom? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What do we mean by freedom?

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Everywhere there is a compelling environmental influence. Newspapers tell us what to think, and there are so many five, ten or fifteen-year plans. Then there are these specialists at the economic, scientific and bureaucratic levels; there are all the traditions of everyday activity, what we must do and what we must not do; then there is the whole influence of the so-called sacred books; and there is the cinema, the radio, the newspaper; everything in the world is trying to tell us what to do, what to think and what not to think. I do not know if you have noticed how increasingly difficult it has become to think for oneself. We have become such experts in quoting what other people say, or have said, and in the midst of this authoritarian welter where is the freedom? And what do we mean by freedom? Is there such a thing? I am using that word freedom in its most simple sense in which is included liberation, the mind that is liberated, free. I want, if I may, to go into that. First, I think we must realize that our minds are really not free. Everything we see, every thought we have, shapes our mind; whatever you think now, whatever you have thought in the past and whatever you are going to think in the future, it all shapes the mind. You think what you have been told either by the religious person, or the politician, by the teacher in your school, or by books and newspapers. Everything about you influences what you think. What you eat, what you look at, what you listen to, your wife, your husband, your child, your neighbour, everything is shaping the mind. I think that is fairly obvious. Even when you think that there is a God or that there is no God, that also is the influence of tradition. So our mind is the field in which there are many contradictory influences which are in battle one against the other. - Poona 5th Public Talk 21st September 1958 The Krishnamurti Text Collection

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Are thought and time necessary psychologically? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Are thought and time necessary psychologically?

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Thought is necessary, time is necessary. To go from here to there time is necessary. And thought is necessary to drive a car, to take a bus or train. Thought is necessary, time is necessary at that level. Now I am saying as thought and time are the root of fear, is thought and time necessary psychologically? Are they? As long as you think time and thought are necessary, in the psychological world, in the world of the self, in the world of psyche, in the world of inside the skin, then you will be perpetually in fear. If you perceive that, if there is perception, not acceptance, that thought and time are the root of fear, then thought and time are necessary at the physical level but inwardly are not. Therefore the brain is actively watching itself every minute to see that thought and time do not enter into the realm where they are not necessary. This requires great attention, awareness, so that the brain, which has accumulated fear for centuries, or for one day, sees where they are necessary and where they are not. It watches like a hawk so that thought and time don't enter into the whole process of living. This is real discipline, this is learning. The root meaning of that word is disciple, one who learns, who is learning all the time, who never says, "I have learnt" and halts. - Saanen 4th Public Talk 15th July 1984 To Be Human

Friday, May 21, 2010

How can the brain be quiet? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

How can the brain be quiet?

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So we are asking how does it happen that the brain, which is so tremendously, eagerly and enthusiastically active, can naturally, easily, without any effort or suppression, be quiet? I'll show it to you. As we said, during the day it is active endlessly, the moment you wake up, you look out of the window and say, 'Oh, awful rain', or, 'It's a marvellous, lovely morning, but too hot'. You have started. At that moment when you look out of the window not to say a word, not suppressing words, to realize that by saying, what a lovely morning, what horrible rain, this or that, the brain has started. But if you watch out of the window and not say a word, which doesn't mean you suppress the word, just to observe without all the memory of the past, just to observe. Right? So there you have the clue, there you have the key. To observe without the old brain responding. Therefore when the old brain doesn't respond there is a quality of the new brain coming into being. Are you getting all this? You can observe the hills, the mountains, the river, the valleys, the shadows, the lovely trees, and the marvellous cloud full of light and glory beyond the mountains, to look at it without a word, without comparing. But it becomes much more difficult when you look at your neighbour, at your wife, your husband, another person. There you have already got the images established and it becomes much more difficult to observe your wife, your husband, your neighbour, your politician, your priest, or whatever it is, absolutely without an image. Just to observe, and you will see when you so observe, so clearly see, the action becomes extraordinary vital, therefore it becomes a complete action which is not carried over the next minute. - Saanen 7th Public Talk 30th July 1970

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Find out for yourself - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Find out for yourself

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Questioner: Why are some people born in poor circumstances, while others are rich and well-to-do? Krishnamurti: What do you think? Instead of asking me and waiting for my answer, why do you not find out what you feel about it? Do you think it is some mysterious process which you call karma? In a former life you lived nobly and therefore you are now being rewarded with wealth and position! Is that it? Or, having acted very badly in a former life, you are paying for it in this life! You see, this is really a very complex problem. Poverty is the fault of society - a society in which the greedy and the cunning exploit and rise to the top. We want the same thing, we also want to climb the ladder and get to the top. And when all of us want to get to the top, what happens? We tread on somebody; and the man who is trodden on, who is destroyed, asks, "Why is life so unfair? You have everything and I have no capacity, I have nothing". As long as we go on climbing the ladder of success, there will always be the sick and the unfed. It is the desire for success that has to be understood, and not why there are the rich and the poor, or why some have talent and others have none. What has to be changed is our own desire to climb, our desire to be great, to be a success. We all aspire to succeed, do we not? There lies the fault, and not in karma or any other explanation. The actual fact is that we all want to be at the top - perhaps not right at the top, but at least as high up the ladder as we can climb. As long as there is this drive to be great, to be somebody in the world, we are going to have the rich and the poor, the exploiter and those who are exploited. - Life Ahead Part One Chapter 4

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom

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Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. Self-knowledge is cultivated through the individual's search of himself. I am not putting the individual in opposition to the mass. They are not antithetical. You, the individual, are the mass, the result of the mass. In us, as you will discover if you go into it deeply, are both the many and the particular. It is as a stream that is constantly flowing, leaving little eddies and these eddies we call individuality but they are the result of this constant flow of water. Your thoughts-feelings, those mental-emotional activities, are they not the result of the past, of what we call the many? Have you not similar thoughts-feelings as your neighbour? So when I talk of the individual I am not putting him in opposition to the mass. On the contrary, I want to remove this antagonism This opposing antagonism between the mass and the you, the individual, creates confusion and conflict, ruthlessness and misery. But if we can understand how the individual, the you, is part of the whole, not only mystically but actually, then we shall free ourselves happily and spontaneously from the greater part of the desire to compete, to succeed, to deceive, to oppress, to be ruthless, or to become a follower or a leader. Then we will regard the problem of existence quite differently. And it is important to understand this deeply. As long as we regard ourselves as individuals apart from the whole, competing, obstructing, opposing, sacrificing the many for the particular or the particular for the many, all those problems that arise out of this conflicting antagonism will have no happy and enduring solution; for they are the result of wrong thinking-feeling. - Collected Works, Volume 3, Ojai 1st Public Talk 14th May, 1944

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Two women carrying firewood - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Two women carrying firewood

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Two women came down the path carrying firewood on their heads. One was old and the other quite young, and the burdens they carried looked rather heavy. Each had balanced on her head, protected by a roll of cloth, a long bundle of dried branches tied together with a green vine, and she held it in place with one hand. Their bodies swung freely as they came down the hill with a light, running gait. They had nothing on their feet, though the path was rough. The feet seemed to find their own way, for the women never looked down; they held their heads very straight, their eyes bloodshot and distant. They were very thin, their ribs showing, and the older woman's hair was matted and un washed. The girl's hair must have been combed and oiled at one time, for there were still some clean, sparkling strands; but she too was exhausted, and there was a weariness about her. Not long ago she must have sung and played with other children but that was all over. Now, collecting wood among these hills was her life, and would be till she died, with a respite now and then with the coming of a child. Down the path we all went. The small country town was several miles away, and there they would sell their burden for a pittance, only to begin again tomorrow. They were chatting, with long intervals of silence. Suddenly the younger one told her mother she was hungry, and the mother replied that they were born with hunger, lived with hunger, and died with hunger; that was their lot. It was the statement of a fact; in her voice there was no reproach, no anger, no hope. We continued down that stony path. There was no observer listening, pitying, and walking behind them. He was not part of them out of love and pity; he was them. They were not the strangers he had met up the hill, they were of him; his were the hands that held the bundles; and the sweat, the exhaustion the smell, the hunger, were not theirs, to be shared and sorrowed over. Time and space had ceased. There were no thoughts in our heads, too tired to think; and if we did think, it was to sell the wood, eat, rest, and begin again. The feet on the stony path never hurt, nor the sun overhead. There were only two of us going down that accustomed hill, past that well where we drank as usual, and on across the dry bed of a remembered stream. - Commentaries On Living Chapter 44 Positive And Negative Teaching

Monday, May 17, 2010

Meditation is the purgation of the known - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Meditation is the purgation of the known

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MEDITATION is a very important action in life; perhaps it is the action that has the greatest and deepest significance. It is a perfume that cannot easily be caught; it is not to be bought through striving and practice. A system can yield only the fruit it offers, and the system, the method, is based on envy and greed. Not to be able to meditate is not to be able to see the sunlight, the dark shadows, the sparkling waters and the tender leaf. But how few see these things! Meditation has nothing to offer; you may not come begging with folded hands. It doesn't save you from any pain. It makes things abundantly clear and simple; but to perceive this simplicity the mind must free itself, without any cause or motive, from all the things it has gathered through cause and motive. This is the whole issue in meditation. Meditation is the purgation of the known. To pursue the known in different forms is a game of self-deception, and then the meditator is the master, there is not the simple act of meditation. The meditator can act only in the field of the known; he must cease to act for the unknown to be. The unknowable doesn't invite you, and you cannot invite it. It comes and goes as the wind, and you cannot capture it and store it away for your benefit, for your use. It has no utilitarian value, but without it life is measurelessly empty. - Commentaries On Living Series II Chapter 52 Evaluation

Sunday, May 16, 2010

To understand oneself profoundly, one needs balance. - JKOnline Daily Quotes

To understand oneself profoundly, one needs balance.

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Very few have the inclination or the desire to comprehend deeply this process of suffering and sorrow. We have more opportunities to dissipate our energies through absurd amusements, futile conversations and vain pursuits, than to search out, to penetrate deeply into our own psychological demands, needs, beliefs and ideals. But this involves strenuous effort on our part, and as we do not wish to exert ourselves, we would rather escape into all manner of easy satisfactions. If we do not escape through diversions, we escape through beliefs, through the activities of organizations with their loyalties and commitments. These beliefs become a shield, preventing us from comprehending ourselves. Religious societies promise to help us to understand ourselves, but unfortunately we are exploited and we merely repeat their phrases and succumb to the authority of their leaders. So these organizations, with their increasing restrictions and secret promises, lead us away into further complications which make us incapable of understanding ourselves. Once we have committed ourselves to a particular society, to its leaders and their friends, we begin to develop those loyalties and responsibilities which prevent us from being wholly honest with ourselves. There are of course other forms of escape, through various superficial activities. To understand oneself profoundly, one needs balance. That is, one cannot abandon the world, hoping to understand oneself, or be so entangled in the world that there is no occasion to comprehend oneself. There must be balance, neither renunciation nor acquiescence. This demands alertness and deep awareness. We must learn to observe our actions, thoughts, ideals, beliefs, silently and without judgment, without interpreting them, so as to be able to discern their true significance. We must first be cognizant of our own ideals, pursuits, wants, without accepting or condemning them as being right or wrong. At present we cannot discern what is true and what is false, what is lasting and what is transient, because the mind is so crippled with its own self-created wants, ideals and escapes that it is incapable of true perception. - Collected Works, Volume III Ojai 6th Talk in the Oak Grove 10th May, 1936

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Your mind is like a gramophone record repeating a song you have heard - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Your mind is like a gramophone record repeating a song you have heard

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You don't really know yourself. To know yourself is to know the extraordinary capacity of your own mind, to uncover the recesses of your own heart; it is to know how your mind operates, and whether your thinking is action or mere reaction; it is to be aware of the intricacies of the unconscious and see all the intimations and hints that the unconscious is projecting into the conscious. But you are not aware of all that, you are just operating on the surface and going through the routine of daily existence. You go to the office, do your work, and return, carrying on day after day in the same old pattern; and you do not want any disturbance of that pattern whichmeans that you are superficially satisfied. When you are disturbed superficially, you seek further satisfaction, so your life remains on the superficial level. Though you may meditate, read the scriptures, think of God, it is all on the surface. Your mind is like a gramophone record repeating a song you have heard. It is not even your song, it is the song of another; and there may be no 'your song', but only `the song'. So it is very important to understand not only the conscious, but also the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is much more powerful, much more insistent much more directive and conservative than the conscious mind; because the conscious is merely the educated mind which adjusts itself to the environment. I do not know if you have noticed a priest riding on the bus or on a motorbike. This situation is quite contradictory, if you come to think of it, He is adjusting himself, as you do, to the environment, to the pressure from outside, but inwardly he is the same - that is, the unconscious is still the residue of the past. If I may suggest it, watch your own minds; do not merely listen to my words, but through my words observe the operation of your own thinking and discover yourself. I am describing the picture, but it is your picture, not mine. If you really watch yourself as you listen, you will find a radical change taking place in spite of your conscious mind. It is like a seed that, being sown in fertile soil, pushes through the earth and puts out a blossom. So may I respectfully and persistently ask you to listen so that through the activity of listening you find out the real facts, the truth about yourself. The discovery of that truth will liberate the mind. - Collected Works, Volume IX. Colombo 3rd Public Talk 20th January 1957

Friday, May 14, 2010

You are nothing - JKOnline Daily Quotes

You are nothing

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So the nature, the inmost nature of the self, when you have gone through all the layers of the self, the essence is nothing. You are nothing. Right? On that nothingness thought has imposed the super structure of consciousness. Consciousness being the content, without the content there is no consciousness - the content being you are a Hindu, Buddhist, your religion, your particular god, your puja, your anxiety, your sorrow, your pain, your hate, your love, all that is the content of your consciousness. Obviously. And the idea that you are super atman, or super, super consciousness is part of that content. You understand what thought has done. We are absolutely nothing. All this super structure has been built by thought. And thought is the response of registration. Of course. You understand registration, like a tape. See what thought has done. - The Text Collection Madras 5th Public Talk 7th January 1978

Thursday, May 13, 2010

A violet can never become a rose - JKOnline Daily Quotes

A violet can never become a rose

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Example is said to be better than precept. Cannot the value of personal example to another be considerable, like your own? Krishnamurti: What is the motive that lies behind this question? Is it not that the questioner desires to follow an example, thinking that it may lead him to fulfilment? The following of another never leads to fulfilment. A violet can never become a rose, but the violet in itself can be a perfect flower. Being uncertain, one seeks certainty in the imitation of another. This produces fear, from which arise the delusion of shelter and comfort in another, and the many false ideas of discipline, meditation and the subjugation of oneself to an ideal. All this merely indicates the lack of comprehension of oneself, the perpetuating of ignorance. It is the root of sorrow, and instead of discerning the cause, you think that you can comprehend yourself through another. This looking to the example of another only leads to illusion and suffering. - Collected Works, Volume III. New York City 2nd Public Talk 4th June, 1936