Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes: February 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Listening to Yourself - JKOnline Daily Quotes

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Q: While I am here listening to you, I seem to understand, but when I am away from here, I don't understand, even though I try to apply what you have been saying. K: . . . You are listening to yourself, and not to the speaker. If you are listening to the speaker, he becomes your leader, your way to understanding -which is a horror, an abomination, because you have then established the hierarchy of authority. So what you are doing here is listening to yourself. You are looking at the picture the speaker is painting, which is your own picture, not the speaker's. If that much is clear, that you are looking at yourself, then you can say, "Well, I see myself as I am, and I don't want to do anything about it" and that is the end of it. But if you say, "I see myself as I am, and there must be a change," then you begin to work out of your own understanding which is entirely different from applying what the speaker is saying. But if, as the speaker is speaking, you are listening to yourself, then out of that listening there is clarity, there is sensitivity; out of that listening the mind becomes healthy, strong. Neither obeying nor resisting, it becomes alive, intense and it is only such a human being who can create a new generation, a new world. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Thinking Begets Effort - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Thinking Begets Effort

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How can I remain free from evil thoughts, evil and wayward thoughts?" Is there the thinker, the one apart from thought, apart from the evil, wayward thoughts? Please watch your own mind. We say, "There is the I, the me that says, 'This is a wayward thought,' 'This is bad,' 'I must control this thought,' 'I must keep to this thought.'" That is what we know. Is the one, the I, the thinker, the judger, the one that judges, the censor, different from all this? Is the I different from thought, different from envy, different from evil? The I which says that it is different from this evil is everlastingly trying to overcome me, trying to push me away, trying to become something. So you have this struggle, the effort to put away thoughts, not to be wayward.We have, in the very process of thinking, created this problem of effort. Do you follow? Then you give birth to discipline, controlling thought - the I controlling the thought which is not good, the I which is trying to become nonenvious, nonviolent, to be this and to be that. So you have brought into being the very process of effort when there is the I and the thing which it is controlling. That is the actual fact of our everyday existence. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Monday, February 27, 2012

Freedom from Occupation - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Freedom from Occupation

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Can the mind be free from the past, free from thought- not from the good or bad thought? How do I find out? I can only find out by seeing what the mind is occupied with. If my mind is occupied with the good or occupied with the bad, then it is only concerned with the past, it is occupied with the past. It is not free of the past. So, what is important is to find out how the mind is occupied. If it is occupied at all, it is always occupied with the past because all our consciousness is the past. The past is not only on the surface but on the highest level, and the stress on the unconscious is also the past.Can the mind be free from occupation? This means, can the mind be completely without being occupied and let memory, the thoughts good and bad, go by without choosing? The moment the mind is occupied with one thought, good or bad, then it is concerned with the past. If you really listen - not just merely verbally, but really profoundly - then you will see that there is stability that is not of the mind, which is the freedom from the past.Yet, the past can never be put aside. There is a watching of the past as it goes by, but not occupation with the past. So the mind is free to observe and not to choose. Where there is choice in this movement of the river of memory, there is occupation; and the moment the mind is occupied, it is caught in the past; and when the mind is occupied with the past, it is incapable of seeing something real, true, new, original, uncontaminated. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Human Evolution - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Human Evolution

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Must we know drunkenness to know sobriety? Must you go through hate in order to know what it is to be compassionate? Must you go through wars, destroying yourself and others, to know what peace is? Surely, this is an utterly false way of thinking, is it not? First you assume that there is evolution, growth, a moving from bad to good, and then you fit your thinking into that pattern. Obviously, there is physical growth, the little plant becoming the big tree; there is technological progress, the wheel evolving through centuries into the jet plane. But is there psychological progress, evolution? That is what we are discussing, whether there is a growth, an evolution of the "me," beginning with evil and ending up in good. Through a process of evolution, through time, can the "me," which is the center of evil, ever become noble, good? Obviously not. That which is evil, the psychological "me," will always remain evil. But we do not want to face that. We think that through the process of time, through growth and change, the "I" will ultimately become reality. This is our hope, that is our longing - that the "I" will be made perfect through time. What is this "I," this "me"? It is a name, a form, a bundle of memories, hopes, frustrations, longings, pains, sorrows, passing joys. We want this "me" to continue and become perfect, and so we say that beyond the "me" there is a "super-me," a higher self, a spiritual entity which is timeless but since we have thought of it, that "spiritual" entity is still within the field of time, is it not? If we can think about it, it is obviously within the field of our reasoning. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Goodness Has No Motive - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Goodness Has No Motive

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Obviously, goodness has no motive because all motive is based on the self; it is the egocentric movement of the mind. So what do we mean by goodness? Surely, there is goodness only when there is total attention. Attention has no motive. When there is a motive for attention, is there attention? If I pay attention in order to acquire something, the acquisition, whether it be good or bad, is not attention, it is a distraction. A division. There can be goodness only when there is a totality of attention in which there is no effort to be or not to be. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Beyond Duality - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Beyond Duality

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Are you not aware of it? Are not its actions obvious, its sorrow crushing? Who has created it but each one of us? Who is responsible for it but each one of us? As we have created good, however little, so we have created evil, however vast. Good and evil are part of us and are also independent of us. When we think-feel narrowly, enviously, with greed and hate, we are adding to the evil which turns and rends us. This problem of good and evil, this conflicting problem, is always with us as we are creating it. It has become part of us, this wanting and not wanting, loving and hating, craving and renouncing. We are continually creating this duality in which thought-feeling is caught up. Thought-feeling can go beyond and above good and its opposite only when it understands its cause, craving. In understanding merit and demerit there is freedom from both. Opposites cannot be fused and they are to be transcended through the dissolution of craving. Each opposite must be thought out, felt out, as extensively and deeply as possible, through all the layers of consciousness. Through this thinking out, feeling out, a new comprehension is awakened, which is not the product of craving or of time.There is evil in the world to which we are contributing as we contribute to the good. Man seems to unite more in hate than in good. A wise man realizes the cause of evil and good, and through understanding frees thought-feeling from it. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Conflict of the Opposites - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Conflict of the Opposites

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I wonder if there is such a thing as evil? Please give your attention, go with me, let us inquire together. We say there is good and evil. There is envy and love, and we say that envy is evil and love is good. Why do we divide life, calling this good and that bad, thereby creating the conflict of the opposites? Not that there is not envy, hate, brutality in the human mind and heart, an absence of compassion, love, but why do we divide life into the thing called good and the thing called evil? Is there not actually only one thing, which is a mind that is inattentive? Surely, when there is complete attention, that is, when the mind is totally aware, alert, watchful, there is no such thing as evil or good; there is only an awakened state. Goodness then is not a quality, not a virtue, it is a state of love. When there is love, there is neither good nor bad, there is only love. When you really love somebody, you are not thinking of good or bad, your whole being is filled with that love. It is only when there is the cessation of complete attention, of love, that there comes the conflict between what I am and what I should be. Then that which I am is evil, and that which I should be is the so-called good.You watch your own mind and you will see that the moment the mind ceases to think in terms of becoming something, there is a cessation of action which is not stagnation; it is a state of total attention, which is goodness. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Acting Without Idea Is the Way of Love - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Acting Without Idea Is the Way of Love

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Thought must always be limited by the thinker who is conditioned; the thinker is always conditioned and is never free; if thought occurs, immediately idea follows. Idea in order to act is bound to create more confusion. Knowing all this, is it possible to act without idea? Yes, it is the way of love. Love is not an idea; it is not a sensation; it is not a memory; it is not a feeling of postponement, a self-protective device. We can only be aware of the way of love when we understand the whole process of idea. Now, is it possible to abandon the other ways and know the way of love, which is the only redemption? No other way, political or religious, will solve the problem. This is not a theory which you will have to think over and adopt in your life; it must be actual. When you love, is there idea? Do not accept it; just look at it, examine it, go into it profoundly; because every other way we have tried, and there is no answer to misery. Politicians may promise it; the so-called religious organizations may promise future happiness; but we have not got it now, and the future is relatively unimportant when I am hungry. We have tried every other way; and we can only know the way of love if we know the way of idea and abandon idea, which is to act. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Monday, February 20, 2012

Action Without Ideation - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Action Without Ideation

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The idea is the result of the thought process, the thought process is the response of memory, and memory is always conditioned. Memory is always in the past, and that memory is given life in the present by a challenge. Memory has no life in itself; it comes to life in the present when confronted by a challenge. And all memory, whether dormant or active, is conditioned, is it not? Therefore there has to be quite a different approach. You have to find out for yourself, inwardly, whether you are acting on an idea, and if there can be action without ideation. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Ideology Prevents Action - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Ideology Prevents Action

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The world is always close to catastrophe. But it seems to be closer now. Seeing this approaching catastrophe, most of us take shelter in idea. We think that this catastrophe, this crisis, can be solved by an ideology. Ideology is always an impediment to direct relationship, which prevents action. We want peace only as an idea, but not as an actuality. We want peace on the verbal level, which is only on the thinking level, though we proudly call it the intellectual level. But the word peace is not peace. Peace can only be when the confusion which you and another make ceases. We are attached to the world of ideas and not to peace. We search for new social and political patterns and not for peace; we are concerned with the reconciliation of effects and not in putting aside the cause of war. This search will bring only answers conditioned by the past. This conditioning is what we call knowledge, experience; and the new changing facts are translated, interpreted, according to this knowledge. So, there is conflict between what is and the experience that has been. The past, which is knowledge, must ever be in conflict with the fact, which is ever in the present. So, this will not solve the problem but will perpetuate the conditions that have created the problem. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Do Ideas Limit Action? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Do Ideas Limit Action?

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Can ideas ever produce action, or do ideas merely mold thought and therefore limit action? When action is compelled by an idea, action can never liberate man. It is extraordinarily important for us to understand this point. If an idea shapes action, then action can never bring about the solution to our miseries because, before it can be put into action, we have first to discover how the idea comes into being. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Friday, February 17, 2012

Action Without the Process of Thought - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Action Without the Process of Thought

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What do we mean by idea? Surely idea is the process of thought. Is it not? Idea is a process of mentation, of thinking; and thinking is always a reaction either of the conscious or of the unconscious. Thinking is a process of verbalization, which is the result of memory; thinking is a process of time. So, when action is based on the process of thinking, such action must inevitably be conditioned, isolated. Idea must oppose idea, idea must be dominated by idea. There is a gap then between action and idea. What we are trying to find out is whether it is possible for action to be without idea. We see how idea separates people. As I have already explained, knowledge and belief are essentially separating qualities. Beliefs never bind people; they always separate people; when action is based on belief or an idea or an ideal, such an action must inevitably be isolated, fragmented. Is it possible to act without the process of thought, thought being a process of time, a process of calculation, a process of self-protection, a process of belief, denial, condemnation, justification. Surely, it must have occurred to you as it has to me, whether action is at all possible without idea. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Action Without Idea - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Action Without Idea

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It is only when the mind is free from idea that there can be experiencing. Ideas are not truth; and truth is something that must be experienced directly, from moment to moment. It is not an experience which you want, which is then merely sensation. Only when one can go beyond the bundle of ideas, which is the 'me', which is the mind, which has a partial or complete continuity, only when one can go beyond that, when thought is completely silent, is there a state of experiencing. Then one shall know what truth is. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Direct Observation - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Direct Observation

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Why do ideas take root in our minds? Why do not facts become all-important, not ideas? Why do theories, ideas, become so significant rather than the fact? Is it that we cannot understand the fact, or have not the capacity, or are afraid of facing the fact? Therefore, ideas, speculations, theories are a means of escaping away from the fact.You may run away, you may do all kinds of things; the facts are there the fact that one is angry, the fact that one is ambitious, the fact that one is sexual, a dozen things. You may suppress them, you may transmute them, which is another form of suppression; you may control them, but they are all suppressed, controlled, disciplined with ideas. Do not ideas waste our energy? Do not ideas dull the mind? You may be clever in speculation, in quotations; but it is obviously a dull mind that quotes, that has read a lot and quotes.You remove the conflict of the opposite at one stroke if you live with the fact and therefore liberate the energy to face the fact. For most of us, contradiction is an extraordinary field in which the mind is caught. I want to do this, and I do something entirely different; but if I face the fact of wanting to do this, there is no contradiction; and therefore, at one stroke I abolish altogether all sense of the opposite, and my mind then is completely concerned with what is, and with the understanding of what is. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Belief Hinders True Understanding - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Belief Hinders True Understanding

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If we had no belief, what would happen to us? Shouldn't we be very frightened of what might happen? If we had no pattern of action, based on a belief -either in God, or in communism, or in socialism, or in imperialism, or in some kind of religious formula, some dogma in which we are conditioned -we should feel utterly lost, shouldn't we? And is not this acceptance of a belief the covering up of that fear- the fear of being really nothing, of being empty? After all, a cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations, is really an uncreative mind; it is merely a repetitive mind. To escape from that fear - that fear of emptiness, that fear of loneliness, that fear of stagnation, of not arriving, not succeeding, not achieving, not being something, not becoming something - is surely one of the reasons, is it not, why we accept beliefs so eagerly and greedily? And, through acceptance of belief, do we understand ourselves? On the contrary. A belief, religious or political, obviously hinders the understanding of ourselves. It acts as a screen through which we look at ourselves. And can we look at ourselves without beliefs? If we remove these beliefs, the many beliefs that one has, is there anything left to look at? If we have no beliefs with which the mind has identified itself, then the mind, without identification, is capable of looking at itself as it is& - and then, surely there is the beginning of the understand of oneself. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Monday, February 13, 2012

Meeting Life Anew - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Meeting Life Anew

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One of the things, it seems to me, that most of us eagerly accept and take for granted is the question of beliefs. I am not attacking beliefs. What we are trying to do is to find out why we accept beliefs; and if we can understand the motives, the causation of acceptance, then perhaps we may be able not only to understand why we do it, but also be free of it. One can see how political and religious beliefs, national and various other types of beliefs, do separate people, do create conflict, confusion, and antagonism -which is an obvious fact; and yet we are unwilling to give them up. There is the Hindu belief, the Christian belief, the Buddhist - innumerable sectarian and national beliefs, various political ideologies, all contending with one other, trying to convert one other. One can see, obviously, that belief is separating people, creating intolerance; is it possible to live without belief? One can find that out only if one can study oneself in relationship to a belief. Is it possible to live in this world without a belief - not change beliefs, not substitute one belief for another, but be entirely free from all beliefs, so that one meets life anew each minute? This, after all, is the truth: to have the capacity of meeting everything anew, from moment to moment, without the conditioning reaction of the past, so that there is not the cumulative effect which acts as a barrier between oneself and that which is. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Sunday, February 12, 2012

The Screen of Belief - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The Screen of Belief

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You believe in God, and another does not believe in God, so your beliefs separate you from each other. Belief throughout the world is organized as Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity, and so it divides man from man. We are confused, and we think that through belief we shall clear the confusion; that is, belief is superimposed on the confusion, and we hope that confusion will thereby be cleared away. But belief is merely an escape from the fact of confusion; it does not help us to face and to understand the fact but to run away from the confusion in which we are. To understand the confusion, belief is not necessary, and belief only acts as a screen between ourselves and our problems. So, religion, which is organized belief, becomes a means of escape from what is, from the fact of confusion. The man who believes in God, the man who believes in the hereafter, or who has any other form of belief, is escaping from the fact of what he is. Do you not know those who believe in God, who do puja, who repeat certain chants and words, and who in their daily life are dominating, cruel, ambitious, cheating, dishonest? Shall they find God? Are they really seeking God? Is God to be found through repetition of words, through belief? But such people believe in God, they worship God, they go to the temple every day, they do everything to avoid the fact of what they are - and such people you consider respectable because they are yourself. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Beyond Belief - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Beyond Belief

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We realize that life is ugly, painful, sorrowful; we want some kind of theory, some kind of speculation or satisfaction, some kind of doctrine, which will explain all this, and so we are caught in explanation, in words, in theories, and gradually beliefs become deeply rooted and unshakable because behind those beliefs, behind those dogmas, there is the constant fear of the unknown. But we never look at that fear; we turn away from it. The stronger the beliefs, the stronger the dogmas. And when we examine these beliefs - the Christian, the Hindu, the Buddhist - we find that they divide people. Each dogma, each belief has a series of rituals, a series of compulsions which bind man and separate man. So, we start with an inquiry to find out what is true, what the significance is of this misery, this struggle, this pain; and we are soon caught up in beliefs, in rituals, in theories.Belief is corruption because behind belief and morality lurks the mind, the self, the self growing big, powerful and strong. We consider belief in God, the belief in something, as religion. We consider that to believe is to be religious. You understand? If you do not believe, you will be considered an atheist, you will be condemned by society. One society will condemn those who believe in God, and another society will condemn those who do not. They are both the same. So, religion becomes a matter of belief -and belief acts and has a corresponding influence on the mind; the mind then can never be free. But it is only in freedom that you can find out what is true, what is God, not through any belief, because your very belief projects what you think ought to be God, what you think ought to be true. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Friday, February 10, 2012

Agitated by Belief - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Agitated by Belief

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So, your religion, your belief in God, is an escape from actuality, and therefore it is no religion at all. The rich man who accumulates money through cruelty, through dishonesty, through cunning exploitation believes in God; and you also believe in God, you also are cunning, cruel, suspicious, envious. Is God to be found through dishonesty, through deceit, through cunning tricks of the mind? Because you collect all the sacred books and the various symbols of God, does that indicate that you are a religious person? So, religion is not escape from the fact; religion is the understanding of the fact of what you are in your everyday relationships; religion is the manner of your speech, the way you talk, the way you address your servants, the way you treat your wife, your children, and neighbors. As long as you do not understand your relationship with your neighbor, with society, with your wife and children, there must be confusion; and whatever it does, the mind that is confused will only create more confusion, more problems and conflict. A mind that escapes from the actual, from the facts of relationship, shall never find God; a mind that is agitated by belief shall not know truth. But the mind that understands its relationship with property, with people, with ideas, the mind which no longer struggles with the problems which relationship creates, and for which the solution is not withdrawal but the understanding of love;such a mind alone can understand reality. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Thursday, February 9, 2012

What We Believe - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What We Believe

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Does belief give enthusiasm? Can enthusiasm sustain itself without a belief, and is enthusiasm at all necessary, or is a different kind of energy needed, a different kind of vitality, drive? Most of us have enthusiasm for something or other. We are very keen, very enthusiastic about concerts, about physical exercise, or about going to a picnic. Unless it is nourished all the time by something or other, it fades away and we have a new enthusiasm for other things. Is there a self-sustaining force, energy, which doesn't depend on a belief?The other question is: Do we need a belief of any kind, and if we do, why is it necessary? That's one of the problems involved. We don't need a belief that there is sunshine, the mountains, the rivers. We don't need a belief that we and our wives quarrel. We don't have to have a belief that life is a terrible misery with its anguish, conflict, and constant ambition; it is a fact. But we demand a belief when we want to escape from a fact into an unreality. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Understanding What Is - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Understanding What Is

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Surely, a man who is understanding life does not want beliefs. A man who loves, has no beliefs, he loves. It is the man who is consumed by the intellect who has beliefs, because intellect is always seeking security, protection; it is always avoiding danger, and therefore it builds ideas, beliefs, ideals, behind which it can take shelter. What would happen if you dealt with violence directly, now? You would be a danger to society; and because the mind foresees the danger, it says, "I will achieve the ideal of nonviolence ten years later"- which is such a fictitious, false process. To understand what is, is more important than to create and follow ideals because ideals are false, and what is is the real. To understand what is requires an enormous capacity, a swift and unprejudiced mind. It is because we don't want to face and understand what is that we invent the many ways of escape and give them lovely names as the ideal, the belief, God. Surely, it is only when I see the false as the false that my mind is capable of perceiving what is true. A mind that is confused in the false can never find the truth. Therefore, I must understand what is false in my relationships, in my ideas, in the things about me, because to perceive the truth requires the understanding of the false. Without removing the causes of ignorance, there cannot be enlightenment; and to seek enlightenment when the mind is unenlightened is utterly empty, meaningless. Therefore, I must begin to see the false in my relationships with ideas, with people, with things. When the mind sees that which is false, then that which is true comes into being and then there is ecstasy, there is happiness. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life