Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes

Sunday, November 20, 2011

What Do You Mean by Karma? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

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Karma implies, does it not, cause and effect, action based on cause, producing a certain effect; action born out of conditioning, producing further results. So karma implies cause and effect. And are cause and effect static, are cause and effect ever fixed? Does not effect become cause also? So there is no fixed cause or fixed effect. Today is a result of yesterday, is it not? Today is the outcome of yesterday, chronologically as well as psychologically; and today is the cause of tomorrow. So cause is effect, and effect becomes cause, it is one continuous movement: there is no fixed cause or fixed effect. If there were a fixed cause and a fixed effect, there would be specialization; and is not specialization death? Any species that specializes obviously comes to an end. The greatness of man is that he cannot specialize. He may specialize technically, but in structure he cannot specialize. An acorn seed is specialized, it cannot be anything but what it is. But the human being does not end completely. There is the possibility of constant renewal; he is not limited by specialization. As long as we regard the cause, the background, the conditioning, as unrelated to the effect, there must be conflict between thought and the background. So the problem is much more complex than whether to believe in reincarnation or not, because the question is how to act, not whether you believe in reincarnation or in karma. That is absolutely irrelevant. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Is There Such a Thing as a Soul? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Is There Such a Thing as a Soul?

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So to understand this question of death, we must be rid of fear, which invents the various theories of afterlife or immortality or reincarnation. So we say, those in the East say, that there is reincarnation, there is a rebirth, a constant renewal going on and on and on the soul, the so-called soul. Now please listen carefully.Is there such a thing? We like to think there is such a thing, because it gives us pleasure, because that is something that we have set beyond thought, beyond words, beyond; it is something eternal, spiritual, that can never die, and so thought clings to it. But is there such a thing, as a soul, which is something beyond time, something beyond thought, something which is not invented by man, something which is beyond the nature of man, something that is not put together by the cunning mind? Because the mind sees such enormous uncertainty, confusion, nothing permanent in life, nothing. Your relationship to your wife, your husband, your job, nothing is permanent. And so the mind invents a something which is permanent, which it calls the soul. But since the mind can think about it, thought can think about it; as thought can think about it, it is still within the field of time, naturally. If I can think about something, it is part of my thought. And my thought is the result of time, of experience, of knowledge. So, the soul is still within the field of time. So the idea of a continuity of a soul that will be reborn over and over and over again has no meaning because it is the invention of a mind that is frightened, of a mind that wants, that seeks a duration through permanency, that wants certainty, because in that there is hope. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Friday, November 18, 2011

What Is Reincarnation? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What Is Reincarnation?

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Let us find out what you mean by reincarnation -the truth of it, not what you like to believe, not what someone has told you, or what your teacher has said. Surely, it is the truth that liberates, not your own conclusion, your own opinion. When you say, "I shall be reborn," you must know what the 'I' is. Is the 'I' a spiritual entity, is the 'I' something continuous, is the 'I' something independent of memory, experience, knowledge? Either the 'I' is a spiritual entity or it is merely a thought process. Either it is something out of time, which we call spiritual, not measurable in terms of time, or it is within the field of time, the field of memory, thought. It cannot be something else. Let us find out if it is beyond the measurement of time. I hope you are following all this. Let us find out if the 'I' is in essence something spiritual. Now by "spiritual" we mean, do we not, something not capable of being conditioned, something that is not the projection of the human mind, something that is not within the field of thought, something that does not die. When we talk of a spiritual entity, we mean by that something that is not within the field of the mind, obviously. Now, is the 'I' such a spiritual entity? If it is a spiritual entity, it must be beyond all time; therefore it cannot be reborn or continued. That which has continuity can never renew itself. As long as thought continues through memory, through desire, through experience, it can never renew itself; therefore, that which is continued cannot know the real. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Reincarnation Is Essentially Egotistic - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Reincarnation Is Essentially Egotistic

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You want me to give you an assurance that you will live another life, but in that there is no happiness or wisdom. The search for immortality through reincarnation is essentially egotistic, and therefore not true. Your search for immortality is only another form of the desire for the continuance of self-defensive reactions against life and intelligence. Such a craving can only lead to illusion. So what matters is not whether there is reincarnation, but to realize complete fulfillment in the present. And you can do that only when your mind and heart are no longer protecting themselves against life. The mind is cunning and subtle in its self-defense, and it must discern for itself the illusory nature of self-protection. This means that you must think and act completely anew. You must liberate yourself from the net of false values which environment has imposed upon you. There must be utter nakedness. Then there is immortality, reality. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

In Death Is Immortality - JKOnline Daily Quotes

In Death Is Immortality

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Surely, in ending there is renewal, is there not? It's only in death that a new thing comes into being. I am not giving you comfort. This is not something to be believed or thought about or intellectually examined and accepted, for then you will make it into another comfort, as you now believe in reincarnation or continuity in the hereafter, and so on. But the actual fact is that that which continues has no rebirth, no renewal. Therefore, in dying every day there is renewal, there is a rebirth. That is immortality. In death there is immortality, not the death of which you are afraid, but the death of previous conclusions, memories, experiences, with which you are identified as the 'me'. In the dying of the 'me' every minute there is eternity, there is immortality, there is a thing to be experienced -not to be speculated upon or lectured about, as you do about reincarnation and all that kind of stuff. When you are no longer afraid, because every minute there is an ending and therefore a renewal, then you are open to the unknown. Reality is the unknown. Death is also the unknown. But to call death beautiful, to say how marvelous it is because we shall continue in the hereafter and all that nonsense, has no reality. What has reality is seeing death as it is, an ending; an ending in which there is renewal, a rebirth, not a continuity. For that which continues decays; and that which has the power to renew itself is eternal. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

To Die Without Argument - JKOnline Daily Quotes

To Die Without Argument

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Do you know what it means to come into contact with death, to die without argument? Because death, when it comes, does not argue with you. To meet it, you have to die every day to everything: to your agony, to your loneliness, to the relationship you cling to; you have to die to your thought, to die to your habit, to die to your wife so that you can look at your wife anew; you have to die to your society so that you, as a human being, are new, fresh, young, and you can look at it. But you cannot meet death if you don't die every day. It is only when you die that there is love. A mind that is frightened has no love, it has habits, it has sympathy, it can force itself to be kind and superficially considerate. But fear breeds sorrow, and sorrow is time as thought.So to end sorrow is to come into contact with death while living, by dying to your name, to your house, to your property, to your cause, so that you are fresh, young, clear, and you can see things as they are without any distortion. That is what is going to take place when you die. But we have a limited death to the physical. We know very well logically, sanely, that the organism is going to come to an end. So we invent a life which we have lived of daily agony, daily insensitivity, the increase of problems, and its stupidity; that life we want to carry over, which we call the "soul", which we say is the most sacred thing, a part of the divine, but it is still part of your thought and therefore it has nothing to do with divinity. It is your life!So one has to live every day dying, dying because you are then in contact with life. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Monday, November 14, 2011

Only That Which Dies Can Renew Itself - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Only That Which Dies Can Renew Itself

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When we talk of a spiritual entity, we mean by that something which is not within the field of the mind, obviously. Now, is the 'I' such a spiritual entity? If it is a spiritual entity, it must be beyond all time; therefore it cannot be reborn or continued. Thought cannot think about it because thought comes within the measure of time, thought is from yesterday, thought is a continuous movement, the response of the past; so thought is essentially a product of time. If thought can think about the 'I', then it is part of time; therefore, that 'I' is not free of time, therefore it is not spiritual, which is obvious. So, the 'I', the 'you' is only a process of thought; and you want to know whether that process of thought, continuing apart from the physical body, is born again, is reincarnated in a physical form. Now go a little further. That which continues can it ever discover the real, which is beyond time and measurement. That 'I', that entity which is a thought-process, can it ever be new? If it cannot, then there must be an ending to thought. Is not anything that continues inherently destructive? That which has continuity can never renew itself. As long as thought continues through memory, through desire, through experience, it can never renew itself; therefore, that which is continued cannot know the real. You may be reborn a thousand times, but you can never know the real, for only that which dies, that which comes to an end, can renew itself. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Sunday, November 13, 2011

I Am Afraid - JKOnline Daily Quotes

I Am Afraid

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My inquiry now is how to be free from the fear of the known, which is the fear of losing my family, my reputation, my character, my bank account, my appetites and so on. You may say that fear arises from conscience; but your conscience is formed by your conditioning, so conscience is still the result of the known. What do I know? Knowledge is having ideas, having opinions about things, having a sense of continuity as in relation to the known, and no more.There is fear of pain. Physical pain is a nervous response, but psychological pain arises when I hold on to things that give me satisfaction, for then I am afraid of anyone or anything that may take them away from me. The psychological accumulations prevent psychological pain as long as they are undisturbed; that is, I am a bundle of accumulations, experiences, which prevent any serious form of disturbance -and I do not want to be disturbed. Therefore, I am afraid of anyone who disturbs them. Thus my fear is of the known, I am afraid of the accumulations, physical or psychological, that I have gathered as a means of warding off pain or preventing sorrow. Knowledge also helps to prevent pain. As medical knowledge helps to prevent physical pain, so beliefs help to prevent psychological pain, and that is why I am afraid of losing my beliefs, though I have no perfect knowledge or concrete proof of the reality of such beliefs. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Fear of Death - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Fear of Death

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Why are you afraid of death? Is it perhaps because you do not know how to live? If you knew how to live fully, would you be afraid of death? If you loved the trees, the sunset, the birds, the falling leaf; if you were aware of men and women in tears, of poor people, and really felt love in your heart, would you be afraid of death? Would you? Don't be persuaded by me. Let us think about it together. You do not live with joy, you are not happy, you are not vitally sensitive to things; and is that why you ask what is going to happen when you die? Life for you is sorrow, and so you are much more interested in death. You feel that perhaps there will be happiness after death. But that is a tremendous problem, and I do not know if you want to go into it. After all, fear is at the bottom of all this -fear of dying, fear of living, fear of suffering. If you cannot understand what it is that causes fear and be free of it, then it does not matter very much whether you are living or dead. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Friday, November 11, 2011

Feel the State of Death - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Feel the State of Death

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We are afraid to die. To end the fear of death we must come into contact with death, not with the image which thought has created about death, but we must actually feel the state. Otherwise there is no end to fear, because the word death creates fear, and we don't even want to talk about it. Being healthy, normal, with the capacity to reason clearly, to think objectively, to observe, is it possible for us to come into contact with the fact, totally? The organism, through usage, through disease, will eventually die. If we are healthy, we want to find out what death means. It's not a morbid desire, because perhaps by dying we shall understand living. Living, as it is now, is torture, endless turmoil, a contradiction, and therefore there is conflict, misery and confusion. The everyday going to the office, the repetition of pleasure with its pains, the anxiety, the groping, the uncertainty -that's what we call living. We have become accustomed to that kind of living. We accept it; we grow old with it and die.To find out what living is as well as to find out what dying is, one must come into contact with death; that is, one must end every day everything one has known. One must end the image that one has built up about oneself, about one's family, about one's relationship, the image that one has built through pleasure, through one's relationship to society, everything. That is what is going to take place when death occurs. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life