Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes

Monday, May 10, 2010

Otherness - JKOnline Daily Quotes

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Of a sudden it happened, coming back to the room; it was there with an embracing welcome, so unexpected. One had come in only to go out again; we had been talking about several things, nothing too serious. It was a shock and a surprise to find this welcoming otherness in the room; it was waiting there with such open invitation that an apology seemed futile. Several times, on the Common, far away from here under some trees, along a path that was used by so many, it would be waiting just as the path turned; with astonishment one stood there, near those trees, completely open, vulnerable, speechless, without a movement. It was not a fancy, a self-projected delusion; the other, who happened to be there, felt it too; on several occasions it was there, with an all-embracing welcome of love and it was quite incredible; every time, it had a new quality, a new beauty, a new austerity. And it was like that in this room, something totally new and wholly unexpected. It was beauty that made the entire mind still and the body without a movement; it made the mind, the brain and the body intensely alert and sensitive; it made the body tremble and in a few minutes that welcoming otherness was gone, as swiftly as it must have come. No thought or fanciful emotion could ever conjure up such a happening; thought is petty, do what it will, and feeling is so fragile and deceitful; neither of them, in their wildest endeavour could build up these happenings. They are too immeasurably great, too immense in their strength and purity for thought or feeling; these have roots and they have none. They are not to be invited or held; thought-feeling can play every kind of clever and fanciful trick but they cannot invent or contain the otherness. It is by itself and nothing can touch it. - Krishnamurti Notebook

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Austerity is far deeper than owning only a few things - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Austerity is far deeper than owning only a few things

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You are always a guest on this earth and have the austerity of a guest. Austerity is far deeper than owning only a few things. The very word austerity has been spoilt by the monks, by the sannyasis, by the hermits. Sitting on that high hill alone in the solitude of many things, many rocks and little animals and ants, that word had no meaning. Over the hills in the far distance was the wide, shining, sparkling sea. We have broken up the earth as yours and mine - your nation, my nation, your flag and his flag, this particular religion and the religion of the distant man. The world, the earth, is divided, broken up. And for it we fight and wrangle, and the politicians exult in their power to maintain this division, never looking at the world as a whole. They haven't got the global mind. They never feel nor ever perceive the immense possibility of having no nationality, no division, they can never perceive the ugliness of their power, their position and their sense of importance. They are like you or another, only they occupy the seat of power with their petty little desires and ambitions, and so maintain apparently, as long as man has been on this earth, the tribal attitude towards life. They don't have a mind that is not committed to any issue, to any ideals, ideologies - a mind that steps beyond the division of race, culture, that the religions man has invented. Governments must exist as long as man is not a light to himself, as long as he does not live his daily life with order, care, diligently working, watching, learning. He would rather be told what to do. He has been told what to do by the ancients, by the priests, by the gurus, and he accepts their orders, their peculiar destructive disciplines as though they were gods on this earth, as though they knew all the implications of this extraordinarily complex life. - Krishnamurti to Himself

Saturday, May 8, 2010

We are not meant to destroy each other - JKOnline Daily Quotes

We are not meant to destroy each other

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It is our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other. This is not some romantic nonsense but the actual fact. But man has divided the earth, hoping thereby that in the particular he is going to find happiness, security, a sense of abiding comfort. Until a radical change takes place and we wipe out all nationalities, all ideologies, all religious divisions, and establish a global relationship - psychologically first, inwardly before organizing the outer - we shall go on with wars. If you harm others, if you kill others, whether in anger or by organized murder which is called war, you, who are the rest of humanity, not a separate human being fighting the rest of mankind, are destroying yourself. This is the real issue, the basic issue, which you must understand and resolve. Until you are committed, dedicated, to eradicating this national, economic, religious division, you are perpetuating war, you are responsible for all wars whether nuclear or traditional. - Krishnamurti to Himself

Friday, May 7, 2010

Love never adjusts - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Love never adjusts

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You may be treating the talks we have been having as an exchange of ideas, as a process of accepting new ideas and discarding old ones, or as a process of denying new ideas and holding on to the old. We are not dealing with ideas at all. We are dealing with facts. And when one is concerned with facts, there is no adjustment; you either accept it or you deny it. You can either say `I do, not like those ideas, I prefer the old ones, I am going to live in my own stew', or, you can go along with the fact. You cannot compromise, you cannot adjust. Destruction is not adjustment. To adjust, to say, `I must be less ambitious, not so envious', is not destruction. And one must, surely, see the truth that ambition, envy, is ugly, stupid, and one must destroy all these absurdities. Love never adjusts. It is only desire, fear, hope, that adjusts. That is why love is a destructive thing, because it refuses to adapt itself or conform to a pattern. So, we begin to discover that when there is the destruction of all the authority which man has created for himself in his desire to be secure inwardly, then there is creation. Destruction is creation. Then, if you have abandoned ideas, and are not adjusting yourself to your own pattern of existence or a new pattern which you think the speaker is creating - if you have gone that far - , you will find that the brain can and-must function only with regard to outward things, respond only to outward demands; therefore the brain becomes completely quiet. This means that the authority of its experiences has come to an end, and therefore it is incapable of creating illusion. And to find out what is true it is essential for the power to create illusion in any form to come to an end. And the power to create illusion is the power of desire, the power of ambition, of wanting to be this and not wanting to be that. So, the brain must function in this world with reason, with sanity, with clarity; but inwardly it must be completely quiet. We are told by the biologists that it has taken millions of years for the brain to develop to its present stage, and that it will take millions of years to develop further. Now, the religious mind does not depend on time for its development. I wish you could follow this. What I want to convey is that when the brain - which must function in its responses to the outward existence - becomes quiet inwardly, then there is no longer the machinery of accumulating experience and knowledge, and therefore inwardly it is completely quiet but fully alive, and then it can jump the million years. - Saanen 9th Public Talk 13th August 1961

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Understanding the mind - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Understanding the mind

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We are not concerned with what you should or should not do; that is not the problem. We are concerned with understanding the mind; and in understanding there is no condemnation, no demand for a pattern of action. You are merely observing; and observation is denied when you concern yourself with a pattern of action, or merely explain the inevitability of a slavish life. What matters is to observe your own mind without judgment - just to look at it, to watch it, to be conscious of the fact that your mind is a slave, and no more; because that very perception releases energy, and it is this energy that is going to destroy the slavishness of the mind. But if you merely ask, "How am I to be free from my slavery to routine, from my fear and boredom in everyday existence?", you will never release this energy. We are concerned only with perceiving what is; and it is the perception of what is that releases the creative fire. You cannot perceive if you do not ask the right question and a right question has no answer, because it needs no answer. It is wrong questions that invariably have answers. The urgency behind the right question, the very instance of it, brings about perception. The perceiving mind is living, moving, full of energy, and only such a mind can understand what truth is. But most of us, when we are face to face with a problem of this kind, invariably seek an answer, a solution, the `what to do', and the solution, the `what to do' is so easy, leading to further misfortune, further misery. That is the way of politicians. That is the way of the organized religions, which offer an answer, an explanation; and having found it, the so-called religious mind is thereby satisfied. But we are not politicians, nor are we slavish to organized religions. We are now examining the ways of our own minds, and for that there must be no fear. To find out about oneself, what one thinks, what one is, the extraordinary depths and movements of the mind - just to be aware of all that requires a certain freedom. And to inquire into oneself also requires an astonishing energy, because one has to travel a distance which is immeasurable. Most of us are fascinated by the idea of going to the moon, or to Venus; but those distances are much shorter than the distance within ourselves. - Bombay 1st Public Talk 23rd December 1959 The Collected Works Vol. XI

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Authority is evil - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Authority is evil

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Question: We have been told that thought must be controlled to bring about that state of tranquillity necessary to understand reality. Could you please tell us how to control thought? Krishnamurti: First, Sir, don't follow any authority. Authority is evil. Authority destroys, authority perverts, authority corrupts; and a man who follows authority, is destroying himself, and destroying also that which he has placed in a position of authority. The follower destroys the master, as the master destroys the follower. The guru destroys the pupil, as the pupil destroys the guru. Through authority you will never find anything. You must be free of authority to find reality. It is one of the most difficult things to be free of authority, both the outer and the inner. Inner authority is the consciousness of experience, consciousness of knowledge. And outward authority is the State, the party, the group, the community. A man who would find reality must shun all authority, external and inward. So, don't be told what to think. That is the curse of reading: the word of another becomes allimportant. The questioner begins by saying: "We have been told." Who is there to tell you? Sir, don't you see that leaders and saints and great teachers have failed, be cause you are what you are? So leave them alone. You have made them failures because you are not seeking truth, you want gratification. Don't follow anyone, including myself; don't make of another your authority. You yourself have to be the master and the pupil. The moment you acknowledge another as a master and yourself as a pupil, you are denying truth. There is no master, no pupil, in the search for truth. The search for Truth is important, not you or the master who is going to help you to find the truth. You see, modern education, and also the previous education, have taught you what to think, not how to think. They have put you within a frame, and that frame has destroyed you; because you seek out a guru, a teacher, a leader, political or other, only when you are confused. Otherwise you never follow anybody. If you are very clear, if you are inwardly a light unto yourself, you will never follow anyone. But because you are not, you follow, you follow out of your confusion; and what you follow must also be confused. Your elders, as well as yourself, are confused, politically and religiously. Therefore, first clear up your own confusion, become a light unto yourself, and then the problem will cease. The division between the master and the pupil is unspiritual. Now, the questioner wants to know how to control thought. First of all, to control it, you must know what thought is and who is the controller. Are they two separate processes, or a joint phenomenon? You must first understand what thought is, must you not?, before you say, "I will control thought; and also you must know what the controller is. Is there a controller without thought? If you have no thoughts, is there a thinker? The thinker is the thought, the thought is not separate from the thinker, they form a single process. - Banaras 5th Public Talk 20th February 1949 The Collected Works Vol. VI

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Awareness - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Awareness

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Question: Will you please explain what you mean by awareness? Krishnamurti: Just simple awareness! Awareness of your judgments, your prejudices, your likes and dislikes. When you see something, that seeing is the outcome of your comparison, condemnation, judgment, evaluation, is it not? When you read something you are judging, you are criticizing, you are condemning or approving. To be aware is to see, in the very moment, this whole process of judging, evaluating, the conclusions, the conformity, the acceptances, the denials. Now, can one be aware without all that? At present all we know is a process of evaluating, and that evaluation is the outcome of our conditioning, of our background, of our religious, moral and educational influences. Such so-called awareness is the result of our memory, - memory as the `me', the Dutchman. the Hindu, the Buddhist. the Catholic, or whatever it may be. It is the `me', - my memories, my family, my property, my qualities, - which is looking judging, evaluating. With that we are quite familiar, if we are at all alert. Now, can there be awareness without all that, without the self? Is it possible just to look without condemnation, just to observe the movement of the mind, one's own mind, without judging, without evaluating, without saying "It is good", or "It is bad"? The awareness which springs from the self, which is the awareness of evaluation and judgment, always creates duality, the conflict of the opposites, - that which is and that which should be. In that awareness there is judgment, there is fear, there is evaluation, condemnation, identification. That is but the awareness of the `me', of the self, of the `I' with all its traditions. memories, and all the rest of it. Such awareness always creates conflict between the observer and the observed, between what I am and what I should be. Now. is it possible to be aware without this process of condemnation, judgment, evaluation? Is it possible to look at myself, whatever my thoughts are, and not condemn, not judge, not evaluate? I do not know if you have ever tried it. It is quite arduous, - because all our training from childhood leads us to condemn or to approve. And in the process of condemnation and approval there is frustration, there is fear, there is a gnawing pain, anxiety, which is the very process of the `me', the self. - Collected Works Volume 9 J. Krishnamurti Amsterdam 5th Public Talk 26th May 1955

Monday, May 3, 2010

Where light is, darkness is not. - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Where light is, darkness is not.

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The conflict in which we exist is not a struggle between good and evil, between the self and the not-self. The struggle is in our own self-created duality, between our various self-protective desires. There cannot be a conflict between light and darkness; where light is, darkness is not. As long as fear exists, there must continue conflict, though that fear may disguise itself under different names. And as fear cannot free itself through any means, for all its efforts spring from its own source, there must be the cessation of all intellectual safeguards. This cessation comes, spontaneously, when the mind reveals to itself its own process. This takes place only when there is integral awareness, which is not the result of a discipline, or of a moral or economic system, or of enforcement. Each one has to become aware of the process of ignorance, the illusions that one has created. Intellect cannot lead you out of this present chaos, confusion and suffering. Reason must exhaust itself, not by retreating, but through integral comprehension and love of life. When reason no longer has the capacity to protect you, through explanations, escapes, logical conclusions, then when there is complete vulnerability, utter nakedness of your whole being, there is the flame of love. Truth alone can free each one from the sorrow and confusion of ignorance. Truth is not the end of experience it is life itself. It is not of tomorrow, it is of no time. It is not a result, an achievement, but the cessation of fear, want. - Collected Works Volume 3, Ommen 8th Public Talk 10th August, 1937

Sunday, May 2, 2010

The past can never be put aside. - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The past can never be put aside.

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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. A mind that is occupied with the past - the past is the whole consciousness that says, `this is good; `that is right; `this is bad; `this is mine; `this is not mine' - can never know the Real. But the mind unoccupied can receive that which is not known, which is the unknown. This is not an extraordinary state of some yogi, some saint. Just observe your own mind; how direct and simple it is. See how your mind is occupied. And the answer, with what the mind is occupied, will give you the understanding of the past, and therefore the freedom from the past. You cannot brush the past aside. It is there. - Collected Works Volume 7 Bombay, 4th March 1953

Attachment

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Let the thing that you are watching tell its story, rather than you tell it what it should be. You follow, sir, what I mean? Can you do that? Can one do that? So that it reveals everything. Like a flower, when you watch it very, very closely, there it is, you see everything in its detail, the delicacy of the vein, you know, the beauty of the whole thing. In the same way, perhaps, if we could watch this burden of attachment - I won't even call it a burden, attachment - it may contain an extraordinary beauty in it, and go, from that move. But apparently we can't do it. Why not? - To Be Human-Brockwood Park 5th Seminar Meeting 17th September 1978

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Facing violence - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Facing violence

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Sir, take violence. Again, let us think that thought through, First, I do not like to acknowledge that I am violent, because socially and morally I am told that to be violent is a very bad thing. But the fact is I am violent. So I meditate, I compel, I try to become something else - but I never face what I actually am, which is violent. I spend my time trying to transform what is into something else. To transform, I must look at what is; and I am not looking at it as long as I have an ideal. If I see that, I set aside the ideal, which is non-violence, and look at violence, and then I am fully aware that I am violent; and the very fact that I am directly conscious of it brings about transformation. Experiment with it and you will see. This refusal to see what is - that is the problem with all of us. I never want to look at what is, I never want to acknowledge that I am ugly - I always give reasons for my ugliness; but if I look at my ugliness as it is, without explanation or excuse, then there is a possibility of transformation. So, to think a thought through is to see how thought is deceiving itself, running away from what is. You can think a thought out fully, completely, only when you stop all avenues of escape and then look at it - which requires an extraordinary honesty; and as most of us are dishonest in our thinking, we never want to see any thought through. It is the discovery of how thought is deceiving itself that is important; and when you discover its deceitfulness, then you can face what is. Then only what is reveals its full significance, its meaning. - The Collected Works, Poona India 7th Public Talk 10th October, 1948