Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Self-esteem is the cause of our shame - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Self-esteem is the cause of our shame - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Self-esteem is the cause of our shame

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We all place ourselves at various levels, and we are constantly falling from these heights It is the falls we are ashamed of. Self-esteem is the cause of our shame, of our fall. It is this self-esteem that must be understood, and not the fall. If there is no pedestal on which you have put yourself, how can there be any fall? Why have you put yourself on a pedestal called self-esteem, human dignity, the ideal, and so on? If you can understand this, then there will be no shame of the past; it will have completely gone. You will be what you are without the pedestal. If the pedestal is not there, the height that makes you look down or look up, then you are what you have always avoided. It is this avoidance of what is, of what you are, that brings about confusion and antagonism, shame and resentment. You do not have to tell me or another what you are, but be aware of what you are, whatever it is, pleasant or unpleasant: live with it without justifying or resisting it. Live with it without naming it; for the very term is a condemnation or an identification. Live with it without fear, for fear prevents communion, and without communion you cannot live with it. To be in communion is to love. Without love, you cannot wipe out the past; with love, there is no past. Love, and time is not.  - Commentaries on Living Series I, Self-Esteem

Monday, August 30, 2010

Ending the me. - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Ending the me. - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Ending the me.

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What takes place when living now, today, this morning, when the brain actually ceases, ends its memories, its images, its conclusions? - which is the content of consciousness - you follow? Can my brain, my consciousness, which is the 'me', can that, with all its content, come to an end, living, not at the end of another ten years through disease, living now? Can that mind, can that consciousness empty its content, therefore empty the 'me' - do you understand all this? Is that ever possible? I get up and go to my room, after I have talked here; the knowledge where that room is must exist otherwise it is not possible to live at all - right? So knowledge, which is based on experience and memory, from which all thought arises and therefore thought is never free and never new, that knowledge must exist, which is part of consciousness, isn't it? Are you meeting all this - right sir? Somebody come with me. Riding a bicycle, driving a car, speaking a different language, that knowledge must exist, that is also part of consciousness. But that knowledge is used by the 'me' as a separative movement, uses that knowledge for its own psychological comfort and power, position, prestige and all the rest of it. Right? So I am asking myself, whether that consciousness, with all its content as the psychological movement as the 'me' can end now, so that the mind is aware of what death means, and to see what happens. - Brockwood Park 3rd Public Talk 8th September 1973

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Colour was god and death was beyond the gods - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Colour was god and death was beyond the gods - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Colour was god and death was beyond the gods

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The cold had been too severe, it had been below freezing; the hedge had been burned brown, the brown leaves had fallen off; the lawn was grey-brown, the colour of the earth; except for a few yellow pansies and roses, the garden was bare. It had been too cold and the poor, as usual, were suffering and dying; population was exploding and people were dying. You saw them shivering, with hardly a thing on, in dirty rags; an old woman was shaking from head to foot, hugging herself, the few teeth chattering; a young woman was washing herself and a torn cloth by the cold river [the Jumna] and an old man was coughing deeply and heavily and children were playing, laughing and shouting. It was an exceptionally cold winter they said and many were dying. The red rose and the yellow pansy were intensely alive, burning with colour; you couldn't take your eyes off them and those two colours seemed to expand and fill the empty garden; even though the children were shouting, that shivering old woman was everywhere; the incredible yellow and red and the inevitable death. Colour was god and death was beyond the gods. It was everywhere and so was colour. You could not separate the two and if you did then there was no living. Neither could you separate love from death and if you did it was no longer beauty. Every colour is separated, made much of but there is only colour and when you see every different colour as only colour, then only is there splendour in colour. The red rose and the yellow pansy were not different colours but colour that filled the bare garden with glory. The sky was pale blue, blue of a cold, rainless winter but it was the blue of all colour. You saw it and you were of it; the noises of the city faded but colour, imperishable, endured.  - Krishnamurti s Notebook Part 9, New Delhi januray 20th

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Retiring from society - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Retiring from society - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Retiring from society

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It would be wise if after a certain age, perhaps let us say forty or forty-five, or younger still, you retired from the world, before you are too old. What would happen if you did retire not merely to enjoy the fruit of sensate gatherings but retired in order to find yourself, in order to think feel profoundly, to meditate, to discover reality? Perhaps you may save mankind from the sensate, worldly path it is following, with all its brutality, deception and sorrow. Thus there may be a group of people, being disassociated from worldliness, from its identifications and demands, able to guide it, to teach it. Being free from worldliness they will have no authority, no importance and so will not be drawn into its stupidities and calamities. For a man who is not free from authority, from position, is not able to guide, to teach another. A man who is in authority is identified with his position, with his importance, with his work and so is in bondage. To understand the freedom of truth there must be freedom to experience. If such a group came into being then they could produce a new world, a new culture. - Ojai 4th Public Talk 4th June, 1944

Friday, August 27, 2010

Inward poverty - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Inward poverty - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Inward poverty

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Questioner: Did you seriously mean what you said when you suggested last week that one should retire from the world when one is around forty-five or so? Krishnamurti: I suggested this seriously. Almost all of us, till death overtakes us, are so caught up in worldliness that we have no time to search out deeply, to discover the real. To retire from the world necessitates a complete change in educational and economic systems, does it not? If you did retire, you would be unprepared, you would be lost, you would be lonely, you would not know what to do with yourself. You would not know how to think. You would probably form new groups, new organizations with new beliefs, badges and labels, and once again be active outwardly, doing reforms which will need further reform. But this is not what I mean. To retire from the world you must be prepared: by right kind of occupation, by creating right kind of environment, by setting up the right State, by right education and so on. If you have been so prepared then to withdraw from worldliness at any age is the natural not abnormal sequence; you withdraw to flow into deep and pure awareness, you withdraw not into isolation but to find the real; to help to transform the ever congealing, conflicting society and State. All this would involve a wholly different kind of education, an upheaval in our social and economic order. Such a group of people would be completely disassociated from authority, from politics, from all those causes which produce war and antagonism between man and man. A stone may direct the course of a river; so a small number may direct the course of a culture. Surely any great thing is done in this manner. You will probably say most of us cannot retire however much we may want to. Naturally all cannot but some of you can. To live alone or in a small group requires great intelligence. But if you really thought it worthwhile then you would set about it, not as a wonderful act of renunciation but as a natural and intelligent thing for a thoughtful man to do. How extraordinarily important it is that there should be at least some who do not belong to any particular group or race or to any specialized religion or society! They will create the true brotherhood of man for they will be seeking truth. To be free from outward riches there must be the awareness of inward poverty, which brings untold riches. The stream of culture may change its course through a few awakened people. These are not strangers but you and me. - Ojai 5th Public Talk 11th June, 1944 Collected Works

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Identification - JKOnline Daily Quotes

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

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Gossip - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Gossip - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Gossip

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Question: Gossip has value in self-revelation, especially in revealing others to me. Seriously, why not use gossip as a means of discovering what is? I do not shiver at the word `gossip' just because it has been condemned for ages. Krishnamurti: I wonder why we gossip? Is it because it reveals others to us? And why should others be revealed to us? Why do you want to know others? Why this extraordina1y concern about others? First of all, why do we gossip? It is a form of restlessness, is it not? Like worry, it is an indication of a restless mind. Why this desire to interfere with others, to know what others are doing, saying? It is a very superficial mind that gossips, isn't it? - an inquisitive mind which is wrongly directed. The questioner seems to think that others are revealed to him by his being concerned with them - with their doings, with their thoughts, with their opinions. But do we know others if we don't know ourselves? Can we judge others, if we do not know the way of our own thinking, the way we act, the way we behave? Why this extraordinary concern over others? Is it not an escape, really, this desire to find out what others are thinking and feeling and gossiping about? Doesn't it offer an escape from ourselves? Is there not in it also the desire to interfere with others' lives? Isn't our own life sufficiently difficult, sufficiently complex, sufficiently painful, without dealing with others', interfering with others'? Is there time to think about others in that gossipy, cruel, ugly manner? Why do we do this? You know, everybody does it. Practically everybody gossips about somebody else. Why? I think, first of all, we gossip about others because we are not sufficiently interested in the process of our own thinking and of our own action. We want to see what others are doing and perhaps, to put it kindly, to imitate others. Generally, when we gossip it is to condemn others, but, stretching it charitably, it is perhaps to imitate others. Why do we want to imitate others? Doesn't it all indicate an extraordinary shallowness on our own part? It is an extraordinarily dull mind that wants excitement, and goes outside itself to get it. In other words gossip is a form of sensation, isn't it?, in which we indulge. It may be a different kind of sensation, but there is always this desire to find excitement, distraction. If one really goes into this question deeply, one comes back to oneself, which shows that one is really extraordinarily shallow and seeking excitement from outside by talking about others. Catch yourself the next time you are gossiping about somebody; if you are aware of it, it will indicate an awful lot to you about yourself. Don't cover it up by saying that you are merely inquisitive about others. It indicates restlessness, a sense of excitement, a shallowness, a lack of real, profound interest in people which has nothing to do with gossip. - Krishnamurti to Himself Ojai California Tuesday 10th March, 1983

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The thinker is thought - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The thinker is thought - JKOnline Daily Quotes


The thinker is thought

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Now, if we see the truth of that - that the thinker is thought, that there is no thinker separate from thought, but only the process of thinking - , then what happens? If we see that there is only thinking and not a thinker trying to modify thought, what is the result? I hope I am making myself clear. So far, we know that the thinker is operating upon thought, and this creates conflict between the thinker and the thought; but if we see the truth that there is only thought and not a thinker, that the thinker is arbitrary, artificial and entirely fictitious - then what happens? Is not the process of conflict removed? At present our life is a conflict, a series of battles between the thinker and the thought - what to do and what not to do, what should be and what should not be. The thinker is always separating himself as the `me' remaining outside of action. But when we see that there is only thought, have we not then removed the cause of conflict? Then we are able to be choicelessly aware of thought and not as the thinker observing thought from outside. When we remove the entity that creates conflict, surely then there is a possibility of understanding thought. When there is no thinker observing, judging, moulding thought, but only choiceless awareness of the whole process of thinking, without any resistance, without battle, without conflict, then the thought process comes to an end. - Paris 2nd Public Talk 16th April 1950 , Collected Works

Monday, August 23, 2010

Why is it that we are such snobs? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Why is it that we are such snobs? - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Why is it that we are such snobs?

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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

Sunday, August 22, 2010

What is the good of your meditation? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What is the good of your meditation? - JKOnline Daily Quotes


What is the good of your meditation?

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That is, one has to find out what is reality and what is truth. Reality is also illusion - do you understand? The reality of these mountains, the hills, the groves, the meadows, the river, that is reality, you can see it. And also reality is all the illusions, like nationality, like your beliefs, your dogmas, your rituals, your saviours, your Krishnas, all that, those are all illusions. They might have existed - might - but what we have made of them is illusion. That's a reality. Go into a church, into a temple, into a mosque, that is a reality. That is all the product of thought. Right? Of course. So reality has to be understood, seen. Reality - everything that thought has created, the atom bomb. The atom existed before thought investigated and created the bomb. Thought did not create nature, but thought has used nature. The chair one is sitting on is made by thought out of wood. And truth has nothing whatsoever to do with reality. To find that is meditation. To begin to establish right relationship with human beings, not the everlasting battle between sexes, between human beings, killing each other, terrorising each other, destroying the earth and so on, so on. If we don't stop that, what is the good of your meditation?  - Meditation is Giving Thought its Right Place

Friday, August 20, 2010

Are we aware of the fact that we have belief? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Are we aware of the fact that we have belief? - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Are we aware of the fact that we have belief?

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Are we aware of the fact that we have belief? Beauty is considered to be an ideal, a distant thing. The man who does not see the beauty around him keeps the ideal of beauty, and he has no beauty in him. There is beauty now, in the face that smiles, in the stars, in the leaves, and so on. Because we do not see that beauty, we have recourse to the ideal of beauty. Some of you say that life would be impossible if we do not believe - for example, in the existence of London. But several things are involved in this. That is, the question of verification. You can ask ten different people and they will tell you where London is; you can also go and see . That is verification. But you all believe in reincarnation or in something else of that kind, which is incapable of verification. A million people tell me that they believe there is a God or there is a Master. Does their belief prove to me that there is a God? Any belief that I hold, projects itself as an experience; and then I say it is true because I have experienced it. I believe in reincarnation because it gives me a future chance, a psychological hope; I project that hope, and experience it as an actual experience. How often have you heard people say, "I know it has happened", as though there is no more to be said. You can only verify when you do not believe. - Collected Works Madras 1947

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

What is death? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What is death? - JKOnline Daily Quotes


What is death?

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"What is death?" This is a question for the young and for the old, so please put it to yourself. Is death merely the ending of the physical organism? Is that what we are afraid of? Is it the body that we want to continue? Or is it some other form of continuance that we crave? We all realize that the body, the physical entity wears out through use, through various pressures, influences, conflicts, urges, demands, sorrows. Some would probably like it if the body could be made to continue for 150 years or more, and perhaps the doctors and scientists together will ultimately find some way of prolonging the agony in which most of us live. But sooner or later the body dies, the physical organism comes to an end. Like any machine, it eventually wears out. For most of us, death is something much deeper than the ending of the body, and all religions promise some kind of life beyond death. We crave a continuity, we want to be assured that something continues when the body dies. We hope that the psyche, the `me, - the `me' which has experienced, struggled, acquired, learned, suffered, enjoyed; the `me' which in the West is called the soul, and by another name in the East - will continue. So what we are concerned with is continuity, not death. We do not want to know what death is; we do not want to know the extraordinary miracle, the beauty, the depth, the vastness of death. We don't want to inquire into that something which we don't know. All we want is to continue. We say, "I who have lived for forty, sixty, eighty years; I who have a house, a family, children and grandchildren; I who have gone to the office day after day for so many years; I who have had quarrels, sexual appetites - I want to go on living". That is all we are concerned with. We know that there is death, that the ending of the physical body is inevitable, so we say, "I must feel assured of the continuity of myself after death". So we have beliefs, dogmas, resurrection, reincarnation - a thousand ways of escaping from the reality of death; and when we have a war, we put up crosses for the poor chaps who have been killed off. This sort of thing has been going on for millennia. - Saanen 7th Public Talk 21st July 1963

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Greatness is anonymity. - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Greatness is anonymity. - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Greatness is anonymity.

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Greatness is anonymity, to be anonymous is the greatest thing. The great cathedral, the great things of life, great sculpture, must be anonymous. They do not belong to any particular person, like truth. Truth does not belong to you or to me, it is totally impersonal and anonymous; if you say you have got truth, then you are not anonymous, you are far more important than truth. But an anonymous person may never be great. Probably he will never be great, because he does not want to be great, great in the sense of the world or even inwardly because he is nobody. He has no followers. He has no shrine, he does not puff himself up. But most of us unfortunately want to puff ourselves up, we want to be great, we want to be known, we want to have success. Success leads to fame, but that is an empty thing, is it not? It is like ashes. Every politician is known and it is his business to be known and therefore he is not great. Greatness is to be unknown, inwardly and outwardly to be as nothing; and that requires great penetration, great understanding, great affection. - Banaras, India 20th January 1954 13th, Collected Works.

We are worshippers of words and labels.

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Labels seem to give satisfaction. We accept the category to which we are supposed to belong as a satisfying explanation of life. We are worshippers of words and labels; we never seem to go beyond the symbol, to comprehend the worth of the symbol. By calling ourselves this or that, we ensure ourselves against further disturbance, and settle back. One of the curses of ideologies and organized beliefs is the comfort, the deadly gratification they offer. They put us to sleep, and in the sleep we dream, and the dream becomes action. How easily we are distracted! And most of us want to be distracted; most of us are tired out with incessant conflict, and distractions become a necessity, they become more important than what is. We can play with distractions, but not with what is; distractions are illusions, and there is a perverse delight in them. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 68, Action without Purpose

The known is sensation

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When you are aware that you are happy, is there happiness? When there is happiness, are you aware of it? Consciousness comes only with conflict, the conflict of remembrance of the more. Happiness is not the remembrance of the more. Where there is conflict, happiness is not. Conflict is where the mind is. Thought at all levels is the response of memory, and so thought invariably breeds conflict. Thought is sensation, and sensation is not happiness. Sensations are ever seeking gratifications. The end is sensation, but happiness is not an end; it cannot be sought out. "But how can sensations come to an end?" To end sensation is to invite death. Mortification is only another form of sensation. In mortification, physical or psychological, sensitivity is destroyed, but not sensation. Thought that mortifies itself is only seeking further sensation, for thought itself is sensation. Sensation can never put an end to sensation; it may have different sensations at other levels, but there is no ending to sensation. To destroy sensation is to be insensitive, dead; not to see, not to smell, not to touch is to be dead, which is isolation. Our problem is entirely different, is it not? Thought can never bring happiness; it can only recall sensations, for thought is sensation. It cannot cultivate, produce, or progress towards happiness. Thought can only go towards that which it knows, but the known is not happiness; the known is sensation. Do what it will, thought cannot be or search out happiness. Thought can only be aware of its own structure, its own movement when thought makes an effort to put an end to itself, it is only seeking to be more successful, to reach a goal, an end which will be more gratifying. The more is knowledge, but not happiness. Thought must be aware of its own ways, of its own cunning deceptions. In being aware of itself, without any desire to be or not to be, the mind comes to a state of inaction. Inaction is not death; it is a passive watchfulness in which thought is wholly inactive. It is the highest state of sensitivity. When the mind is completely inactive at all its levels, only then is there action. All the activities of the mind are mere sensations, reactions to stimulation, to influence, and so not action at all. When the mind is without activity, there is action; this action is without cause, and only then is there bliss. - Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 85, Sensation and Happiness.

Attachment is an escape from loneliness.

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What you are concerned with is dependence, which is a fact, with all its implications. Then there is a deeper fact, which is loneliness, the feeling of being isolated. Feeling lonely, we attach ourselves to people, drink, and all sorts of other escapes. Attachment is an escape from loneliness. Can this loneliness be understood and can one find out for oneself what is beyond it? That is the real question, not what to do about attachment to people or environment. Can this deep sense of loneliness, emptiness, be transcended? Any movement at all away from loneliness strengthens the loneliness, and so there is more need than ever before to get away from it. This makes for attachment which brings its own problems. The problems of attachment occupy the mind so much that one loses sight of the loneliness and disregards it. So we disregard the cause and occupy ourselves with the effect. But the loneliness is acting all the time because there is no difference between cause and effect. There is only what is. It becomes a cause only when it moves away from itself. It is important to understand that this movement away from itself is itself, and therefore it is its own effect. There is, therefore, no cause and effect at all, no movement anywhere at all, but only what is. You don't see what is because you cling to the effect. There is loneliness, and apparent movement away from this loneliness to attachment; then this attachment with all its complications becomes so important, so dominating, that it prevents one from looking at what is. Movement away from what is, is fear, and we try to resolve it by another escape. This is perpetual motion, apparently away from what is, but in actuality there is no movement at all. So it is only the mind which sees what is and doesn't move away from it in any direction that is free of what is. Since this chain of cause and effect is the action of loneliness, it is clear that the only ending of loneliness is the ending of this action. - Freedom, Love and Action Eight Conversations

it is the thought which creates the thinker.

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Pursue a thought completely, go through with it to the end, think it out fully, and you will see what happens. You will find that there is no thinker at all, because it is the thought which creates the thinker. Therefore, there are not two states as the thinker and the thought. The thinker is a fictitious entity, an unreal state.There is only thought; and the bundle of thoughts creates the 'I', the thinker. And the thinker, having given himself permanency, tries to transform thought and thereby maintain himself. - Bombay 10th Public Talk 14th March, 1948, The Collected Works

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The thinker is the outcome of thought. - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The thinker is the outcome of thought. - JKOnline Daily Quotes


The thinker is the outcome of thought.

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Question: What is the relation between the thinker and his thought? Krishnamurti: Now, is there any such relation, or is there only one thing, which is thought, and not the thinker? Because, if there are no thoughts, there is no thinker. When you are thinking, when you have thoughts, is there a thinker? If you have no thoughts at all, where is the thinker? Now, having thoughts, seeing the impermanency of thoughts, the thinker comes into being. That is, thought creates the thinker; and because thoughts are transient, the thinker becomes the permanent entity. There is first the process of thought, and then thought creates the thinker, obviously. The thinker then establishes himself as a permanent entity, apart from thoughts. That is, thoughts are transient, they are always in a state of flux, and thought objects to its own impermanency; therefore, thought creates the thinker. It is not the other way round, the thinker does not create thought, If you have no thoughts, there is no thinker; so it is thought that creates the thinker. Then we try to establish a relationship between the thinker, and the thought which has created him. That is, we try to establish a relationship between that which seeks to be permanent, which is the thinker created by thought, and the thought itself, which is transient. But obviously both are transient, Since thought, which is transient, creates the thinker, and though the thinker may imagine himself to be permanent, he also is transient; because the thinker is the outcome of thought. - Bombay 10th Public Talk 14th March, 1948, The Collected Works

Bliss you cannot buy.

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Happiness and pleasure you can buy in any market at a price. But bliss you cannot buy for yourself or for another. Happiness and pleasure are time-binding. Only in total freedom does bliss exist. Pleasure, like happiness, you can seek, and find, in many ways. But they come, and go. Bliss that strange sense of joy has no motive. You cannot possibly seek it. Once it is there, depending on the quality of your mind, it remains timeless, causeless, and a thing that is not measurable by time. Meditation is not the pursuit of pleasure and the search for happiness. Meditation, on the contrary, is a state of mind in which there is no concept or formula, and therefore total freedom. It is only to such a mind that this bliss comes unsought and uninvited. Once it is there, though you may live in the world with all its noise, pleasure and brutality, they will not touch that mind. Once it is there, conflict has ceased. But the ending of conflict is not necessarily the total freedom. Meditation is a movement of the mind in this freedom. In this explosion of bliss the eyes are made innocent, and love is then benediction. - J. Krishnamurti Meditations 1969 Part 10

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

There is no bargaining with fact. - JKOnline Daily Quotes

There is no bargaining with fact. - JKOnline Daily Quotes


There is no bargaining with fact.

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The known is always the little, the fragment, and with the small we seek the unknown. We never let the little go; of the little we are certain, in it we are secure, at least we think we are. But actually we can never be certain about anything, except probably, about superficial and mechanical things and even they fail. More or less, we can rely on outward things, like trains, to operate and be certain of them. Psychologically, inwardly, however much we may crave it, there's no certainty, no permanency; neither in our relationships, in our beliefs, in the gods of our brain. The intense longing for certainty, for some kind of permanency and the fact that there is no permanency whatsoever is the essence of conflict, illusion and reality. The power to create illusion is vastly more significant to understand than to understand reality. The power to breed illusion must cease completely, not to gain reality; there's no bargaining with fact. Reality is not a reward; the false must go, not to gain what's true but because it's false. - Notebook, Part 3, Gstaad, Switzerland 13th July to 3rd September 1961

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

To bring about a totally new mind - JKOnline Daily Quotes

To bring about a totally new mind - JKOnline Daily Quotes


To bring about a totally new mind

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It is definitely possible to bring about a totally new mind. But there are certain indications, certain necessary characteristics which do bring about that quality of newness. They are affection or love and integrity. Most of us do not know what it means to be affectionate. To us, it is a word which we casually use without much significance. Love is of course something very carefully guarded, something with which we ar not so familiar, though we use the word so glibly, so facilely - love of the country, love of truth, love of life and many many loves that we talk about; and I do not think it has anything to do with this. The ingredient - if I may use that word which is absolutely necessary is the quality of affection and integrity. I don't mean by integrity any form of pattern of belief, nor do I mean it as integrity according to the experience through which one has to live; but I mean that integrity that comes about when you begin to observe every movement of your own thought and when no thought is hidden. You do not wear a mask, you do not any longer pretend to be something other than what you actually are; and therefore there is no discipline, no fancy, no worship; and out of that comes the external sense of integrity I mean that kind of integrity, not the man who has belief and lives according to that belief, not the man who is sincere but with certain ideals, not the man who follows a certain discipline or tries to bring about an integration emotionally or intellectually. Such efforts do not bring out integrity. On the contrary, they increase conflict, misery. Whereas the integrity that we are talking about is the quality of seeing the fact every minute, not trying to translate the fact in terms of pleasure and pain, but letting the fact flower without choice, without opinion - out of which seeing comes integrity which is never altered. Now these two, affection and integrity, are necessary. - Madras 4th Public Talk 3rd December 1961

Monday, August 9, 2010

Is it possible for the mind to be so attentive all the time? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Is it possible for the mind to be so attentive all the time? - JKOnline Daily Quotes


Is it possible for the mind to be so attentive all the time?

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If I may go further into it, the question really is: is it possible for the mind to be so attentive all the time, so sensitive that every challenge is answered completely and immediately, and to come to a state when there is no challenge and no response, when it is no longer in a state of experiencing? Do think about it. You may deny it, you may say it is a very nice theory; but do look at it. When you understand something totally, say for instance, when you understand authority totally, all its peculiarities, its tendency, where you have completely read the whole book of authority which is yourself, in yourself, when you have completely understood authority, then there is no problem any more about authority, no experiences of authority can ever touch you. In the same manner, if you regard the totality of life with all its intricacies, and therefore be free of envy, greed, jealousy, ambition, authority, then, is there a need for experiencing? I say it is only such a mind that can understand what is true, what is false, and if there is something beyond time; it is only such a mind that is free from the known and therefore not in a world of experience, challenge and response, and knowledge; it is only such a mind that can discover the timeless. - Varanasi 7th Public Talk 14th January 1962 Collected Works