Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes: July 2011

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Be in communion with sorrow - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Posted:

Most of us are not in communion with anything. We are not directly in communion with our friends, with our wives, with our children.So to understand sorrow, surely you must love it, must you not? That is, you must be in direct communion with it. If you would understand something, your neighbor, your wife, or any relationship, if you would understand something completely, you must be near it. You must come to it without any objection, prejudice, condemnation, or repulsion; you must look at it, must you not? If I would understand you, I must have no prejudices about you. I must be capable of looking at you, not through barriers, screens of my prejudices and conditionings. I must be in communion with you, which means I must love you. Similarly, if I would understand sorrow, I must love it, I must be in communion with it. I cannot do so because I am running away from it through explanations, through theories, through hopes, through postponements, which are all the process of verbalization. So words prevent me from being in communion with sorrow. Words prevent me -words of explanations, rationalizations, which are still words, which are the mental process- from being directly in communion with sorrow. It is only when I am in communion with sorrow that I understand it. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Live with sorrow - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Live with sorrow

Posted:

We all have sorrow. Don't you have sorrow in one form or another? And do you want to know about it? If you do, you can analyze it and explain why you suffer. You can read books on the subject, or go to the church, and you will soon know something about sorrow. But I am not talking about that; I am talking about the ending of sorrow. Knowledge does not end sorrow. The ending of sorrow begins with the facing of psychological facts within oneself and being totally aware of all the implications of those facts from moment to moment. This means never escaping from the fact that one is in sorrow, never rationalizing it, never offering an opinion about it, but living with that fact completely.You know, to live with the beauty of those mountains and not get accustomed to it is very difficult. You have beheld those mountains, heard the stream, and seen the shadows creep across the valley, day after day; and have you not noticed how easily you get used to it all? You say, 'Yes, it is quite beautiful,' and you pass by. To live with beauty, or to live with an ugly thing, and not become habituated to it requires enormous energy,an awareness that does not allow your mind to grow dull. In the same way, sorrow dulls the mind if you merely get used to it,and most of us do get used to it. But you need not get used to sorrow. You can live with sorrow, understand it, go into it -but not in order to know about it. You know that sorrow is there; it is a fact, and there is nothing more to know. You have to live. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Friday, July 29, 2011

An immensity beyond all measure - JKOnline Daily Quotes

An immensity beyond all measure

Posted:

What happens when you lose someone by death? The immediate reaction is a sense of paralysis, and when you come out of that state of shock, there is what we call sorrow. Now, what does that word sorrow mean? The companionship, the happy words, the walks, the many pleasant things you did and hoped to do together -all this is taken away in a second, and you are left empty, naked, lonely. That is what you are objecting to, that is what the mind rebels against: being suddenly left to itself, utterly lonely, empty, without any support. Now, what matters is to live with that emptiness, just to live with it without any reaction, without rationalizing it, without running away from it to mediums, to the theory of reincarnation, and all that stupid nonsense,to live with it with your whole being. And if you go into it step by step you will find that there is an ending of sorrow,a real ending, not just a verbal ending, not the superficial ending that comes through escape, through identification with a concept, or commitment to an idea. Then you will find there is nothing to protect, because the mind is completely empty and is no longer reacting in the sense of trying to fill that emptiness; and when all sorrow has thus come to an end, you will have started on another journey,a journey that has no ending and no beginning. There is an immensity that is beyond all measure, but you cannot possibly enter into that world without the total ending of sorrow. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Thursday, July 28, 2011

The center of suffering - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The center of suffering

Posted:

When you see a most lovely thing, a beautiful mountain, a beautiful sunset, a ravishing smile, a ravishing face, that fact stuns you, and you are silent; hasn't it ever happened to you? Then you hug the world in your arms. But that is something from outside which comes to your mind, but I am talking of the mind which is not stunned but which wants to look, to observe. Now, can you observe without all this upsurging of conditioning? To a person in sorrow, I explain in words; sorrow is inevitable, sorrow is the result of fulfillment. When all explanations have completely stopped, then only can you look -which means you are not looking from the center. When you look from a center, your faculties of observation are limited. If I hold to a post and want to be there, there is a strain, there is pain. When I look from the center into suffering, there is suffering. It is the incapacity to observe that creates pain. I cannot observe if I think, function, see from a center- as when I say, 'I must have no pain, I must find out why I suffer, I must escape.' When I observe from a center, whether the center is a conclusion, an idea, hope, despair, or anything else, that observation is very restricted, very narrow, very small, and that engenders sorrow. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Spontaneous comprehension - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Spontaneous comprehension

Posted:

We never say, 'Let me see what that thing is that suffers.' You cannot see by enforcement, by discipline. You must look with interest, with spontaneous comprehension. Then you will see that the thing we call suffering, pain, the thing that we avoid, and the discipline, have all gone. As long as I have no relationship to the thing as outside me, the problem is not; the moment I establish a relationship with it outside me, the problem is. As long as I treat suffering as something outside -I suffer because I lost my brother, because I have no money, because of this or that- I establish a relationship to it and that relationship is fictitious. But if I am that thing, if I see the fact, then the whole thing is transformed, it all has a different meaning. Then there is full attention, integrated attention and that which is completely regarded is understood and dissolved, and so there is no fear and therefore the word sorrow is non-existent. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Follow the movement of suffering - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Follow the movement of suffering

Posted:

"What is suffering?What does it mean? What is it that is suffering? Not why there is suffering, not what is the cause of suffering, but what is actually happening? I do not know if you see the difference. Then I am simply aware of suffering, not as apart from me, not as an observer watching suffering, it is part of me, that is, the whole of me is suffering. Then I am able to follow its movement, see where it leads. Surely if I do that, it opens up, does it not? Then I see that I have laid emphasis on the 'me'-not on the person whom I love. He only acted to cover me from my misery, from my loneliness, from my misfortune. As I am not something, I hoped he would be that. That has gone; I am left, I am lost, I am lonely. Without him, I am nothing. So I cry. It is not that he is gone but that I am left. I am alone.There are innumerable people to help me to escape, thousands of so-called religious people, with their beliefs and dogmas, hopes and fantasies:'It is karma, it is God's will', you know, all giving me a way out. But if I can stay with it and not put it away from me, not try to circumscribe or deny it, then what happens? What is the state of my mind when it is thus following the movement of suffering? - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Monday, July 25, 2011

Evading Sorrow - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Evading Sorrow

Posted:

Most of us have sorrow in different forms -in relationship, in the death of someone, in not fulfilling oneself and withering away to nothing, or in trying to achieve, trying to become something, and meeting with total failure. And there is the whole problem of sorrow on the physical side:illness, blindness, incapacitation, paralysis, and so on. Everywhere there is this extraordinary thing called sorrow, with death waiting round the corner. And we do not know how to meet sorrow, so either we worship it, or rationalize it, or try to run away from it. Go to any Christian church and you will find that sorrow is worshipped; it is made into something extraordinary, holy, and it is said that only through sorrow, through the crucified Christ, can you find God. In the East they have their own forms of evasion, other ways of avoiding sorrow, and it seems to me an extraordinary thing that so very few, whether in the East or in the West, are really free of sorrow.It would be a marvelous thing if in the process of your listening,unemotionally, not sentimentally to what is being said, you could really understand sorrow and be totally free of it; because then there would be no self-deception, no illusions, no anxieties, no fear, and the brain could function clearly, sharply, logically. And then, perhaps, one would know what love is. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Meeting sorrow - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Meeting sorrow

Posted:

How do you meet sorrow? I'm afraid that most of us meet it very superficially. Our education, our training, our knowledge, the sociological influences to which we are exposed, all make us superficial. A superficial mind is one that escapes to the church, to some conclusion, to some concept, to some belief or idea. Those are all a refuge for the superficial mind that is in sorrow. And if you cannot find a refuge, you build a wall around yourself and become cynical, hard, indifferent, or you escape through some facile, neurotic reaction. All such defenses against suffering prevent further inquiry.Please watch your own mind; observe how you explain your sorrows away, lose yourself in work, in ideas, or cling to a belief in God, or in a future life. And if no explanation, no belief has been satisfactory, you escape through drink, through sex, or by becoming cynical, hard, bitter brittle. Generation after generation it has been passed on by parents to their children, and the superficial mind never takes the bandage off that wound; it does not really know, it is not really acquainted with sorrow. It merely has an idea about sorrow. It has a picture, a symbol of sorrow, but it never meets sorrow, it meets only the word sorrow." - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, July 23, 2011

The End Of Sorrow - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The End Of Sorrow

Posted:

If you walk down the road, you will see the splendour of nature, the extraordinary beauty of the green fields and the open skies; and you will hear the laughter of children. But in spite of all that, there is a sense of sorrow. There is the anguish of a woman bearing a child; there is sorrow in death; there is sorrow when you are looking forward to something, and it does not happen; there is sorrow when a nation runs down, goes to seed; and there is the sorrow of corruption, not only in the collective, but also in the individual. There is sorrow in your own house, if you look deeply -the sorrow of not being able to fulfill, the sorrow of your own pettiness or incapacity, and various unconscious sorrows.There is also laughter in life. Laughter is a lovely thing, to laugh without reason, to have joy in one's heart without cause, to love without seeking anything in return. But such laughter rarely happens to us. We are burdened with sorrow; our life is a process of misery and strife, a continuous disintegration, and we almost never know what it is to love with our whole being.We want to find a solution, a means, a method by which to resolve this burden of life, and so we never actually look at sorrow. We try to escape through myths, through images, through speculation; we hope to find some way to avoid this weight, to stay ahead of the wave of sorrow.Sorrow has an ending, but it does not come about through any system or method. There is no sorrow when there is perception of what is. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Friday, July 22, 2011

The nature of the trap - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The nature of the trap

Posted:

Sorrow is the result of a shock, it is the temporary shaking up of a mind that has settled down, that has accepted the routine of life. Something happens -a death, the loss of a job, the questioning of a cherished belief- and the mind is disturbed. But what does a disturbed mind do? It finds a way to be undisturbed again; it takes refuge in another belief, in a more secure job, in a new relationship. Again the wave of life comes along and shatters its safeguards, but the mind soon finds still further defenses; and so it goes on. This is not the way of intelligence, is it?No form of external or inward compulsion will help, will it? All compulsion, however subtle, is the outcome of ignorance; it is born of the desire for reward or the fear of punishment. To understand the whole nature of the trap is to be free of it; no person, no system, no belief can set you free. The truth of this is the only liberating factor,but you have to see it for yourself, and not merely be persuaded. You have to take the voyage on an uncharted sea. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Where there is the possibility of pain there is no love - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Where there is the possibility of pain there is no love

Posted:

The questioner wants to know how he can act freely and without self-repression when he knows his action must hurt those he loves. You know, to love is to be free;both parties are free. Where there is the possibility of pain, where there is the possibility of suffering in love, it is not love, it is merely a subtle form of possession, of acquisitiveness. If you love, really love someone, there is no possibility of giving him pain when you do something that you think is right. It is only when you want that person to do what you desire or he wants you to do what he desires, that there is pain. That is, you like to be possessed; you feel safe, secure, comfortable; though you know that comfort is but transient, you take shelter in that comfort, in that transience. So each struggle for comfort, for encouragement, really but betrays the lack of inward richness; and therefore an action separate, apart from the other individual naturally creates disturbance, pain and suffering; and one individual has to suppress what he really feels in order to adjust himself to the other. In other words, this constant repression, brought about by so-called love, destroys the two individuals. In that love there is no freedom; it is merely a subtle bondage. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Forgiveness is not true compassion - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Forgiveness is not true compassion

Posted:

What is it to be compassionate? Please find out for yourself, feel it out, whether a mind that is hurt, that can be hurt, can ever forgive. Can a mind that is capable of being hurt, ever forgive? And can such a mind which is capable of being hurt, which is cultivating virtue, which is conscious of generosity, can such a mind be compassionate? Compassion, as love, is something which is not of the mind. The mind is not conscious of itself as being compassionate, as loving. But the moment you forgive consciously, the mind is strengthening its own center in its own hurt. So the mind which consciously forgives can never forgive; it does not know forgiveness; it forgives in order not to be further hurt.So it is very important to find out why the mind actually remembers, stores away. Because the mind is everlastingly seeking to aggrandize itself, to become big, to be something When the mind is willing not to be anything, to be nothing, completely nothing, then in that state there is compassion. In that state there is neither forgiveness nor the state of hurt; but to understand that, one has to understand the conscious development of the 'me'.So, as long as there is the conscious cultivation of any particular influence, any particular virtue, there can be no love, there can be no compassion, because love and compassion are not the result of conscious effort. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Cessation of anger - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Cessation of anger

Posted:

We have all, I am sure, tried to subdue anger but somehow that does not seem to dissolve it. Is there a different approach to dissipate anger?Anger may spring from physical or psychological causes. One is angry, perhaps, because one is thwarted, one's defensive reactions are being broken down, or one's security which has been carefully built up is being threatened, and so on. We are all familiar with anger. How is one to understand and dissolve anger? If you consider that your beliefs, concepts, opinions, are of the greatest importance, then you are bound to react violently when questioned. Instead of clinging to beliefs, opinions, if you begin to question whether they are essential to one's comprehension of life, then through the understanding of its causes there is the cessation of anger. Thus one begins to dissolve one's own resistances which cause conflict and pain. This again requires earnestness. We are used to controlling ourselves for sociological or religious reasons or for convenience, but to uproot anger requires deep awareness.You say you are angry when you hear of injustice. Is it because you love humanity, because you are compassionate? Do compassion and anger dwell together? Can there be justice when there is anger, hatred? You are perhaps angry at the thought of general injustice, cruelty, but your anger does not alter injustice or cruelty; it can only do harm. To bring about order, you yourself have to be thoughtful, compassionate. Action born of hatred can only create further hatred. There can be no righteousness where there is anger. Righteousness and anger cannot dwell together. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Monday, July 18, 2011

Real Education - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Real Education

Posted:

The mind creates through experience, tradition, memory. Can the mind be free from storing up, though it is experiencing? You understand the difference? What is required is not the cultivation of memory but the freedom from the accumulative process of the mind.You hurt me, which is an experience; and I store up that hurt; and that becomes my tradition; and from that tradition, I look at you, I react from that tradition. That is the everyday process of my mind and your mind. Now, is it possible that, though you hurt me, the accumulative process does not take place. The two processes are entirely different.If you say harsh words to me, it hurts me; but if that hurt is not given importance, it does not become the background from which I act; so it is possible that I meet you afresh. That is real education, in the deep sense of the word. Because, then, though I see the conditioning effects of experience, the mind is not conditioned. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Perverted Pleasure - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Perverted Pleasure

Posted:

There is such a thing as sadism. Do you know what that word means? An author called the Marquis de Sade once wrote a book about a man who enjoyed hurting people and seeing them suffer. From that comes the word sadism, which means deriving pleasure from the suffering of others. For certain people there is a peculiar satisfaction in seeing others suffer. Watch yourself and see if you have this feeling. It may not be obvious, but if it is there you will find that it expresses itself in the impulse to laugh when somebody falls. You want those who are high to be pulled down; you criticize, gossip thoughtlessly about others, all of which is an expression of insensitivity, a form of wanting to hurt people. One may injure another deliberately, with vengeance, or one may do it unconsciously with a word, with a gesture with a look; but in either case the urge is to hurt somebody, and there are very few who radically set aside this perverted form of pleasure. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Self-Image Leads to Pain - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Self-Image Leads to Pain

Posted:

Why divide problems as major and minor? Is not everything a problem? Why make them little or big problems, essential or unessential problems? If we could understand one problem, go into it very deeply however small or big it is, then we would uncover all problems. This is not a rhetorical answer. Take any problem: anger, jealousy, envy, hatred&,we know them all very well. If you go into anger very deeply, not just brush it aside, then what is involved? Why is one angry? Because one is hurt, someone has said an unkind thing; and when someone says a flattering thing you are pleased. Why are you hurt? Self-importance, is it not? And why is there self-importance?Because one has an idea, a symbol of oneself, an image of oneself, what one should be, what one is or what one should not be. Why does one create an image about oneself? Because one has never studied what one is, actually. We think we should be this or that, the ideal, the hero, the example. What awakens anger is that our ideal, the idea we have of ourselves, is attacked. And our idea about ourselves is our escape from the fact of what we are. But when you are observing the actual fact of what you are, no one can hurt you. Then, if one is a liar and is told that one is a liar it does not mean that one is hurt; it is a fact. But when you are pretending you are not a liar and are told that you are, then you get angry, violent. So we are always living in an ideational world, a world of myth and never in the world of actuality. To observe what is, to see it, actually be familiar with it, there must be no judgment, no evaluation, no opinion, no fear. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Friday, July 15, 2011

Hurt Feelings - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Hurt Feelings

Posted:

How should we act in order not to trouble others?Is that what you want to know? I am afraid then we should not be acting at all. If you live completely, your actions may cause trouble; but what is more important: finding out what is true, or not disturbing others? This seems so simple that it hardly needs to be answered. Why do you want to respect other people's feelings and points of view? Are you afraid of having your own feelings hurt, your point of view being changed? If people have opinions that differ from yours, you can find out if they are true only by questioning them, by coming into active contact with them. And if you find that those opinions and feelings are not true, your discovery may cause disturbance to those who cherish them. Then what should you do? Should you comply with them, or compromise with them in order not to hurt your friends? - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Conscious Sorrow and Unconscious Sorrow - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Conscious Sorrow and Unconscious Sorrow

Posted:

Sorrow is grief, uncertainty, the feeling of complete loneliness. There is the sorrow of death, the sorrow of not being able to fulfil oneself, the sorrow of not being recognized, the sorrow of loving and not being loved in return. There are innumerable forms of sorrow, and it seems to me that without understanding sorrow, there is no end to conflict, to misery, to the everyday travail of corruption and deterioration.There is conscious sorrow, and there is also unconscious sorrow, the sorrow that seems to have no basis, no immediate cause. Most of us know conscious sorrow, and we also know how to deal with it. Either we run away from it through religious belief or we rationalize it, or we take some kind of drug, whether intellectual or physical; or we bemuse ourselves with words, with amusements, with superficial entertainment. We do all this, and yet we cannot get away from conscious sorrow.Then there is the unconscious sorrow that we have inherited through the centuries. Man has always sought to overcome this extraordinary thing called sorrow, grief,misery; but even when we are superficially happy and have everything we want, deep down in the unconscious there are still the roots of sorrow. So when we talk about the ending of sorrow, we mean the ending of all sorrow, both conscious and unconscious.To end sorrow one must have a very clear, very simple mind. Simplicity is not a mere idea. To be simple demands a great deal of intelligence and sensitivity. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Is suffering essential? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Is suffering essential?

Posted:

There are so many varieties and complications and degrees of suffering. We all know that. You know it very well, and we carry this burden right through life, practically from the moment we are born until the moment we collapse into the grave.If we say that it is inevitable, then there is no answer; if you accept it, then you have stopped inquiring into it. You have closed the door to further inquiry; if you escape from it, you have also closed the door. You may escape into man or woman, into drink, amusement, into various forms of power, position, prestige, and the internal chatter of nothingness. Then your escapes become all-important; the objects to which you fly assume colossal importance. So you have shut the door on sorrow also, and that is what most of us do. Now, can we stop escape of every kind and come back to suffering? That means not seeking a solution for suffering. There is physical suffering-a toothache, stomachache, an operation, accidents, various forms of physical sufferings which have their own answer. There is also the fear of future pain, which would cause suffering. Suffering is closely related to fear and, and without comprehension of these two major factors in life, we shall never comprehend what it is to be compassionate, to love. So a mind that is concerned with the comprehension of what is compassion, love, and all the rest of it must surely understand what is fear and what is sorrow. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

You are the suffering - JKOnline Daily Quotes

You are the suffering

Posted:

When there is no observer who is suffering, is the suffering different from you? You are the suffering, are you not? You are not apart from the pain,you are the pain. What happens? There is no labeling, there is no giving it a name and thereby brushing it aside,you are merely that pain, that feeling, that sense of agony. When you are that, what happens? When you do not name it, when there is no fear with regard to it, is the center related to it? If the center is related to it, then it is afraid of it. Then it must act and do something about it. But if the center is that, then what do you do? There is nothing to be done, is there? If you are that and you are not accepting it, not labeling it, not pushing it aside;if you are that thing, what happens? Do you say you suffer then? Surely, a fundamental transformation has taken place. Then there is no longer 'I suffer', because there is no center to suffer and the center suffers because we have never examined what the center is. We just live from word to word, from reaction to reaction. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Monday, July 11, 2011

Integrated Understanding - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Integrated Understanding

Posted:

"What do we mean by 'grief'? Is it something apart from you?Is it something outside of you, inwardly or outwardly, which you are observing, which you are experiencing? Are you merely the observer experiencing? Or, is it something different? Surely that is an important point, is it not? When I say 'I suffer', what do I mean by it? Am I different from the suffering? Surely that is the question, is it not? Let us find out.There is sorrow, I am not loved, my son dies, what you will. There is one part of me that is demanding why, demanding the explanation, the reasons, the causes. The other part of me is in agony for various reasons. And there is also another part of me which wants to be free from the sorrow, which wants to go beyond it. We are all these things, are we not? So, if one part of me is rejecting, resisting sorrow, another part of me is seeking an explanation, is caught up in theories, and another part of me is escaping from the fact;how then can I understand it totally? It is only when I am capable of integrated understanding that there is a possibility of freedom from sorrow. But if I am torn in different directions, then I do not see the truth of it.Now, please listen carefully; and you will see that when there is a fact, a truth, there is understanding of it only when I can experience the whole thing without division,and not when there is the separation of the 'me' observing suffering. That is the truth. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life