Thursday, September 30, 2010

Your mind never observes the tree - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Your mind never observes the tree - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Your mind never observes the tree

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To understand, there must be discipline. Please follow this a little bit; give your attention. Understanding is not the outcome of the intellect, or of emotion, of sentiment. As we said, understanding comes when the mind is really very, very quiet, has no movement at all in any direction. When you observe a tree - if you have ever done it - when you look at a tree, your mind never observes the tree; it observes the image it has created about a tree, and that image is always moving: it is never quiet. It is being added to and taken away from. It is only when the mind is very quiet, really observant, without any movement, that it observes the actual fact of the tree. - Talks by Krishnamurti In U.S.A. 1966

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Self-knowledge is not the product of will. - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Self-knowledge is not the product of will. - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Self-knowledge is not the product of will.

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He spoke at length of God, of his morning and evening prayers, of his fasts, his vows, his burning desires. He expressed himself very clearly and definitely, there was no hesitation for the right word; his mind was well trained, for his profession demanded it. He was a bright-eyed and alert man, though there was a certain rigidity about him. Obstinacy of purpose and absence of pliability were shown in the way he held his body. He was obviously driven by an extraordinarily powerful will, and though he smiled easily his will was ever on the alert, watchful and dominant. He was very regular in his daily life, and he broke his established habits only by sanction of the will. Without will, he said, there could be no virtue; will was essential to break down evil. The battle between good and evil was everlasting, and will alone held evil at bay. He had a gentle side too, for he would look at the lawn and the gay flowers, and smile; but he never let his mind wander beyond the pattern of will and its action. Though he sedulously avoided harsh words, anger and any show of impatience, his will made him strangely violent. If beauty fitted into the pattern of his purpose, he would accept it; but there always lurked the fear of sensuality, whose ache he tried to contain. He was well read and urbane, and his will went with him like his shadow. Sincerity can never be simple; sincerity is the breeding ground of the will, and will cannot uncover the ways of the self. Self-knowledge is not the product of will; selfknowledge comes into being through awareness of the moment-by moment responses to the movement of life. Will shuts off these spontaneous responses, which alone reveal the structure of the self. Will is the very essence of desire; and to the understanding of desire, will becomes a hindrance. Will in any form, whether of the upper mind or of the deep-rooted desires, can never be passive; and it is only in passivity, in alert silence, that truth can be. Conflict is always between desires, at whatever level the desires may be placed. The strengthening of one desire in opposition to the others only breeds further resistance, and this resistance is will. Understanding can never come through resistance. What is important is to understand desire, and not to overcome one desire by another. - J. Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series I, Satisfaction

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Creative Movement - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Creative Movement - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Creative Movement

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Action is this movement which is itself thought and emotion, as I explained. This action is the relationship between the individual and society. It is conduct, work cooperation, which we call fulfillment. That is, when mind is functioning without seeking a culmination, a goal, and therefore thinking creatively, that thinking is action, which is the relationship between the individual and society. Now, if this movement of thought is clear, simple, direct, spontaneous, profound, then there is no conflict in the individual against society, for action then is the very expression of this living, creative movement. - Talks and Answers to Questions by Krishnamurti Ojai Camp 3 1934

Monday, September 27, 2010

To die is to know what love is - JKOnline Daily Quotes

To die is to know what love is - JKOnline Daily Quotes


To die is to know what love is

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We discussed 'need' the other day. We do need certain physical comforts, food and shelter; but to make psychological demands on life means that you are begging, that you are afraid. It requires an intense energy to stand alone. To understand this is not a matter of thinking about it. There is understanding only when there is no choice, no judgment, but merely observation. To die each day means not to carry over from yesterday all your ambitions, grievances, your memories of fulfilment, your grudges, your hatred. Most of us wither away, but that is not dying. To die is to know what love is. Love has no continuity, no tomorrow. The picture of a person on the wall, the image, in your mind - that is not love, it is merely memory. As love is the unknown, so death is the unknown. And to enter the unknown, which is death and love, one must first die to the known. Then only is the mind fresh, young and innocent; and in that there is no death. - Paris 7th Public Talk 19th September 1961 , Collected Works Volume XII

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Love is not something to be used - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Love is not something to be used - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Love is not something to be used

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You may hide emptiness under the word "love," but when the object of your love is no longer there or does not respond, then you are aware of emptiness, you are frustrated. We use the word "love" as a means of escaping from ourselves, from our own insufficiency. We cling to the one we love, we are jealous, we miss him when he is not there and are utterly lost when he dies; and then we seek comfort in some other form, in some belief, in some substitute. Is all this love? Love is not an idea, the result of association; love is not something to be used as an escape from our own wretchedness and when we do so use it, we make problems which have no solutions. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 42 Loneliness

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Attachment - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Attachment - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Attachment

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We are the things we possess, we are that to which we are attached. Attachment has no nobility. Attachment to knowledge is not different from any other gratifying addiction. Attachment is self-absorption, whether at the lowest or at the highest level. Attachment is self-deception, it is an escape from the hollowness of the self. The things to which we are attached - property, people, ideas - become allimportant, for without the many things which fill its emptiness, the self is not. The fear of not being makes for possession; and fear breeds illusion, the bondage to conclusions. Conclusions, material or ideational, prevent the fruition of intelligence, the freedom in which alone reality can come into being; and without this freedom, cunning is taken for intelligence. The ways of cunning are always complex and destructive. It is this self-protective cunning that makes for attachment; and when attachment causes pain, it is this same cunning that seeks detachment and finds pleasure in the pride and vanity of renunciation. The understanding of the ways of cunning, the ways of the self, is the beginning of intelligence. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 45

Friday, September 24, 2010

Can we live for what we actually are? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Can we live for what we actually are? - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Can we live for what we actually are?

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So, can you and I, live with what we actually are? Being dull, envious, fearful,thinking that we have tremendous affection when we have not, getting easily hurt, flattered, bored, can we live with these actualities, neither accepting nor denying, but observing, living with them without becoming morbid, depressed or elated? Then you will find that one of the major reasons for fear is that we don't want to live with what we are. - Saanen, 5th Public Talk 18th July 1967

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The observer is the observed - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The observer is the observed - JKOnline Daily Quotes


The observer is the observed

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Don't deal with sorrow as your particular precious stuff. It is shared by all humanity. Deal with it not as your particular sorrow, your private quiet sorrow, but as the sorrow of all human beings, whether you are a man or a woman, rich or poor, sophisticated or at the height of your excellence. Please don't deal with all these factors like fear, pleasure, sorrow, love, and so on as something separate from each other. You must approach this whole thing wholly, not fragmentarily. If you approach it fragmentarily, you will never solve it. So, look at greed, pain, sorrow, as a whole movement of life, not something different from life. This is our daily life. To find whether there is an end to all this - to misery, to conflict, pain, sorrow and fear - one must be able to perceive them, one must be able to be aware of them. We must understand what is perception, how to look. Is the observer who looks at all this - the poverty, the loneliness, the anxiety, the uncertainty, the suffering different from all that or is the observer all that? I will explain this. We have separated the `me', who is the observer, from that which he is observing. I say I am suffering and I say to myself that suffering must end, and to end it, I must suppress it, I must escape from it, I must follow a certain system. So, I am different from fear, from pleasure, from pain, sorrow. Are you different from all that? Or you may think that there is something in you which is totally different from all that. If you think that, it is part of your thought, and therefore there is nothing sacred there. So, is the observer different from the observed? When you are angry, envious, brutal, violent, are you not all that? The meditator is the meditation. Please sir, think about it. The observer is the observed. See the importance of this. Before, we have divided the observer from the observed. That means there is a division between that and the other. So, there was conflict. You could then control it, suppress it, fight it, but if you are that, if you are sorrow, if you are fear, if you are pleasure, you are the conglomeration of all this. To realize that fact is a tremendous reality; therefore, there is no division, and therefore there is no conflict; the observer is the observed. Then a totally different action takes place, a totally different chemical action takes place. - Talks in Bombay 3rd Public Talk 29th January, 1983

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

What a strange thing is loneliness - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What a strange thing is loneliness - JKOnline Daily Quotes


What a strange thing is loneliness

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What a strange thing is loneliness, and how frightening it is! We never allow ourselves to get too close to it; and if by chance we do, we quickly run away from it. We will do anything to escape from loneliness, to cover it up. Our conscious and unconscious preoccupation seems to be to avoid it or to overcome it. Avoiding and overcoming loneliness are equally futile; though suppressed or neglected, the pain, the problem, is still there. You may lose yourself in a crowd, and yet be utterly lonely; you may be intensely active, but loneliness silently creeps upon you; put the book down, and it is there. Amusements and drinks cannot drown loneliness; you may temporarily evade it, but when the laughter and the effects of alcohol are over, the fear of loneliness returns. You may be ambitious and successful, you may have vast power over others, you may be rich in knowledge, you may worship and forget yourself in the rigmarole of rituals; but do what you will, the ache of loneliness continues. You may exist only for your son, for the Master, for the expression of your talent; but like the darkness, loneliness covers you. You may love or hate, escape from it according to your temperament and psychological demands; but loneliness is there, waiting and watching, withdrawing only to approach again. - Commentaries on Living Series I, Loneliness

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Security - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Security - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Security

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If one can find an absolute guarantee of security, then one has fear of nothing. If one can be certain of anything, then fear ceases wholly, fear either of the present or of the future. Therefore we are always seeking security, consciously or unconsciously, security that eventually becomes our exclusive possession. Now there is physical security which, in the present state of civilization, a man can amass through his cunning, his cleverness, through exploitation. Physically he may thus make himself secure, while emotionally he turns for security to so-called love, which is for the most part possessiveness; he turns to the egoistic emotional distinctions of family, of friends, and of nationality. Then there is the constant search for mental security in ideas, in beliefs, in the pursuit of virtue, systems, certainties, and socalled knowledge. So we entrench ourselves continually; through possessiveness we build around ourselves securities, comforts, and try to feel assured, safe, certain. That is what we are constantly doing. But though we entrench ourselves behind the securities of knowledge, virtue, love, possession, though we build up many certainties, we are but building on sand, for the waves of life are constantly beating against their foundations, laying open the structures that we have so carefully and sedulously built. Experiences come, one after another, which destroy all previous knowledge, all previous certainties, and all our securities are swept away, scattered like chaff before the wind. So, though we may think that we are secure, we live in continual fear of death, fear of change and loss, fear of revolution, fear of gnawing uncertainty. We are constantly aware of the transiency of thought. We have built up innumerable walls behind which we seek security and comfort, but fear is still gnawing at our hearts and minds. So we continually look for substitution, and that substitution becomes our goal, our aim. We say, "This belief has proved to be of no value, so let me turn to another set of beliefs, another set of ideas, another philosophy." Our doubt ends merely in substitution, not in the questioning of belief itself. It is not doubt that questions, but the desire for securities. Hence your so-called search for truth becomes merely a search for more permanent securities, and you accept as your teacher, your guide, anyone who offers to give you absolute security, certainty, comfort. That is how it is with most people. We want and we search. We try to analyze the substitutes which others suggest to take the place of the securities which we know and which are steadily being eaten away, corroded, by the experience of life. - Adyar 3rd Public Talk 31st December, 1933, Collected Works

Monday, September 20, 2010

Do Masters exist? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Do Masters exist? - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Do Masters exist?

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You want to know whether Masters exist..... as long as mind is caught up in belief, there is no understanding, there is no freedom. So to me, whether or not Masters exist is quite irrelevant to action, to fulfillment, with which we should concern ourselves. Even though their existence be a fact, it is of no importance; for to understand you must be independent, you must stand by yourself, completely naked, stripped of all security. This is what I said in my introductory talk. You must find out whether you are seeking security, comfort, or whether you are seeking understanding. If you really examine your own hearts, most of you will find that you are seeking security, comfort, places of safety, and in that search you provide yourselves with philosophies, gurus, systems of self-discipline; thus you are thwarting, continually narrowing down thought. In your efforts to escape from fear, you are entrenching yourselves in beliefs, and thereby increasing your own self-consciousness, your own egotism; you have merely grown more subtle, more cunning. - Adyar 3rd Public Talk 31st December, 1933

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Coming into contact with Death - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Coming into contact with Death - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Coming into contact with Death

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If you are really serious, to find out the implications of death, then you have to come into contact with that fact of death, actually come into contact with it - not theoretically, not as something which you have got to face, therefore let's face it, but rather by coming directly into contact with it, by dying. Dying - I mean by that word, coming to the end of all the things that you have known psychologically, your experiences, your pleasures, to die - every day. Otherwise, you will never know what death is; for it is only in the dying that there is something new, not in continuing the old. Most of us are so weighed down by the known, by the yesterday, by the memories, by the `me', the `self', which is but a bundle of memories accumulated yesterday, having no actual existence in itself. Die to those memories; actually die to a pleasure without any argument. If you know what it means to die to a pleasure, to something that you have taken great pleasure in - without argument, without postponement, without any sense of resentment, bitterness - that is what is going to happen when you do die. And to die every day, to everything that you have gathered psychologically, is to be totally reborn. If you do not die in that way, then you have the continual problem of this memory that you have accumulated as the `me' and the self-centred activity that we indulge in - the thought of `my' house, `my' family, `my' book, `my' fame, `my' loneliness - you know, that little entity that moves around incessantly within itself, with its own limited pattern of existence. Will that continue? - you understand? - that is the problem we have. Either one knows how to die every day, and dying actually, the mind is fresh, instant, eager, tremendously alive, or, there is this bundle of memories, of self-centred activity, with all its thoughts, searching for fulfilment, wanting to be somebody, imitating, copying. That whole network of thought - will that continue? - yet that is what we want to continue. We say, at the least, if I haven't fulfilled in this life, perhaps I will in the next. - J. Krishnamurti Talks in Europe 1967

Saturday, September 18, 2010

To deny all morality is to be moral - JKOnline Daily Quotes

To deny all morality is to be moral - JKOnline Daily Quotes


To deny all morality is to be moral

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To deny all morality is to be moral, for the accepted morality is the morality of respectability, and I'm afraid we all crave to be respected - which is to be recognised as good citizens in a rotten society. Respectability is very profitable and ensures you a good job and a steady income. The accepted morality of greed, envy and hate is the way of the establishment. When you totally deny all this, not with your lips but with your heart, then you are really moral. For this morality springs out of love and not out of any motive of profit, of achievement, of place in the hierarchy. There cannot be this love if you belong to a society in which you want to find fame, recognition, a position. Since there is no love in this, its morality is immorality. When you deny all this from the very bottom of your heart, then there is a virtue that is encompassed by love. - The Only Revolution Europe Part 12

Friday, September 17, 2010

What is death? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What is death? - JKOnline Daily Quotes


What is death?

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What is death? Surely, it is the complete cessation of everything that you have known. If it is not the cessation of everything you have known, it is not death. If you know death already, then you have nothing to be frightened of. But do you know death? That is, can you while living put an end to this everlasting struggle to find in the impermanent something that will continue? Can you know the unknowable, that state which we call death, while living? Can you put aside all the descriptions of what happens after death which you have read in books, or which your unconscious desire for comfort dictates, and taste or experience that state, which must be extraordinary, now? If that state can be experienced now, then living and dying are the same. - Collected Works, Ojai 6th Public Talk 21st July 1955

Thursday, September 16, 2010

We never have this feeling of wholeness - JKOnline Daily Quotes

We never have this feeling of wholeness - JKOnline Daily Quotes


We never have this feeling of wholeness

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You see we never see the world as a whole because we are so fragmented, we are so terribly limited, so petty. And we never have this feeling of wholeness, you follow, where the things of the sea, things of the earth, the nature and the sky, is the universe, is part of us. Not imagined - you can go off in some kind of fanciful imagination and imagine that we are the universe, then you become cuckoo! But, to break down this small self-centred interest, to have nothing of that, then from there you can move infinitely. And meditation is this. - Brockwood Park 4th Public Talk 4th September 1983

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

What does honesty mean? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What does honesty mean? - JKOnline Daily Quotes


What does honesty mean?

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What does honesty mean? Can there be honesty - that is, clear insight, seeing things as they are - if there is a principle, an ideal, an ennobled formula? Can one be direct if there is confusion? Can there be beauty if there is the standard of what is beautiful or upright? When there is this division between what is and what should be, can there be honesty - or only an edifying and respectable dishonesty? We are brought up between the two - between what actually is and what may be. In the interval between these two - the interval of time and space - is all our education, our morality, our struggle. We keep a distracted look upon the one and upon the other, a look of fear and a look of hope. And can there be honesty, sincerity, in this state, which society calls education? When we say we are dishonest, essentially we mean there is a comparison between what we have said and what is. One has said something which one doesn't mean, perhaps to give passing assurance or because one is nervous, shy or ashamed to say something which actually is. So nervous apprehension and fear make us dishonest. When we are pursuing success we must be somewhat dishonest, play up to another, be cunning, deceitful, to achieve our end. Or one has gained authority or a position which one wants to defend. So all resistance, all defence, is a form of dishonesty. To be honest means to have no illusions about oneself and no seed of illusion - which is desire and pleasure. - The Only Revolution Europe Part 13

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Occupation of the mind - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Occupation of the mind - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Occupation of the mind

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Please listen quietly: we know that thought creates fear. One of the functions of thought is to be occupied, to be thinking about something all the time. Like a housewife who thinks about the food, the children, the washing up - that is all her occupation; remove that occupation, and she will be lost, she will feel totally uncomfortable, lonely, miserable. Or take away the God from the man who worships God, who is occupied with God; he will be totally lost. So thought must be occupied with something or the other, either about itself or about politics, or about how to bring about a different world, a different ideology and so on; the mind must be occupied. And most of us want to be occupied; otherwise we shall feel lost, otherwise we do not know what to do, we will be lonely, we will be confronted with what we actually are. You understand? So, you are occupied, thought is occupied - which prevents you from looking at yourself, at what you actually are. - Bombay 1st Public Talk 19th February 1967

Monday, September 13, 2010

Attachment invariably breeds fear - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Attachment invariably breeds fear - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Attachment invariably breeds fear

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One may depend on belief, or on an experience, or on a conclusion attached to a particular prejudice; how deeply does this attachment go? I do not know if you have observed it in yourself. We were watching it all throughout the day, to find out if there is any form of attachment coming here regularly, living in a particular chalet going to one country after another, talking addressing people, being looked up to, criticized, exposed. If one has watched throughout the day one discovers naturally how deeply one is attached to something, or to someone, or not at all. If there is any form of attachment - it doesn't matter what it is - to a book, to a particular diet, to a particular pattern of thought, to a certain social responsibility - such attachment invariably breeds fear. And a mind that is frightened, though it may not know it is because it is attached, obviously is not free and must therefore live in a constant state of conflict. One may have a particular gift, like a musician, who is tremendously attached to his instrument or to the cultivation of his voice. And when the instrument or the voice fails, he is completely lost, his days are ended. He may insure his hands or his fiddle, or he can become a conductor, but he knows through attachment the inevitable darkness of fear is waiting. I wonder if each one of us - if we are at all serious - has gone into this question, because freedom means freedom from all attachment and therefore from all dependency. A mind that is attached is not objective, not clear, cannot think sanely and observe directly. J - The Impossible Question Part II Chapter 3

Saturday, September 11, 2010

There is nothing sacred whatsoever about thought - JKOnline Daily Quotes

There is nothing sacred whatsoever about thought - JKOnline Daily Quotes


There is nothing sacred whatsoever about thought

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Thought is born of experience and knowledge, and there is nothing sacred whatsoever about thought. Thinking is materialistic, it is a process of matter. And we have relied on thinking to solve all our problems in politics and religions and in our relationships. Our brains, our minds, are conditioned, educated to solve problems. Thinking has created problems and then our brains, our minds, are trained to solve them with more thinking. All problems are created, psychologically and inwardly, by thought. Follow what is happening. Thought creates the problem, psychologically; the mind is trained to solve problems with further thinking, so thought in creating the problem then tries to solve it. So it is caught in a continuous process, a routine. Problems are becoming more and more complex, more and more insoluble, so we must find out if it is at all possible to approach life in a different way, not through thought because thought does not solve our problems; on the contrary thought has brought about greater complexity. We must find out - if it is possible or not whether there is a different dimension, a different approach, to life altogether. And that is why it is important to understand the nature of our thinking. Our thinking is based on remembrance of things past - which is thinking about what happened a week ago, thinking about it modified in the present, and projected into the future. This is actually the movement of our life. So knowledge has become all-important for us but knowledge is never complete. Therefore knowledge always lives within the shadow of ignorance. That is a fact. It is not the speaker's invention or conclusion, but it is so.  - 1st Public Talk Amsterdam 19th September 1981

Friday, September 10, 2010

Observation - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Observation - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Observation

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Questioner:You tell us to observe our actions in daily life but what is the entity that decides what to observe and when? Who decides if one should observe? Krishnamurti:Do you decide to observe? Or do you merely observe? Do you decide and say, 'I am going to observe and learn'? For then there is the question: 'Who is deciding?' Is it will that says, 'I must'? And when it fails, it chastises itself further and says, 'I must, must, must; in that there is conflict; therefore the state of mind that has decided to observe is not observation at all. You are walking down the road, somebody passes you by, you observe and you may say to yourself, 'How ugly he is; how he smells; I wish he would not do this or that'. You are aware of your responses to that passer-by, you are aware that you are judging, condemning or justifying; you are observing. You do not say, 'I must not judge, I must not justify'. In being aware of your responses, there is no decision at all. You see somebody who insulted you yesterday. Immediately all your hackles are up, you become nervous or anxious, you begin to dislike; be aware of your dislike, be aware of all that, do not 'decide' to be aware. Observe, and in that observation there is neither the 'observer' nor the `observed' - there is only observation taking place. The 'observer' exists only when you accumulate in the observation; when you say, 'He is my friend because he has flattered me', or, 'He is not my friend, because he has said something ugly about me, or something true which I do not like,. That is accumulation through observation and that accumulation is the observer. When you observe without accumulation, then there is no judgement. You can do this all the time; in that observation naturally certain definite decisions are made, but the decisions are natural results, not decisions made by the observer who has accumulated. - 5th Public Talk Saanen 26th July 1970