Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes

Monday, December 12, 2011

Is Religion a Matter of Belief? - JKOnline Daily Quotes

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Religion as we generally know it or acknowledge it, is a series of beliefs, of dogmas, of rituals, of superstitions, of worship of idols, of charms and gurus that will lead you to what you want as an ultimate goal. The ultimate truth is your projection, that is what you want, which will make you happy, which will give a certainty of the deathless state. So the mind caught in all this creates a religion, a religion of dogmas, of priest-craft, of superstitions and idol-worship and in that, you are caught, and the mind stagnates. Is that religion? Is religion a matter of belief, a matter of knowledge of other people's experiences and assertions? Or is religion merely the following of morality? You know it is comparatively easy to be moral to do this and not to do that. Because it is easy, you can imitate a moral system. Behind that morality, lurks the self, growing, expanding, aggressive, dominating. But is that religion?You have to find out what truth is because that is the only thing that matters, not whether you are rich or poor, not whether you are happily married and have children, because they all come to an end, there is always death. So, without any form of belief, you must find out; you must have the vigor, the self-reliance, the initiative, so that for yourself you know what truth is, what God is. Belief will not give you anything; belief only corrupts, binds, darkens. The mind can only be free through vigor, through self-reliance. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Sunday, December 11, 2011

The Answer to Prayer - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The Answer to Prayer

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Prayer, which is a supplication, a petition, can never find that reality which is not the outcome of a demand. We demand, supplicate, pray, only when we are in confusion, in sorrow, and not understanding that confusion and sorrow, we turn to somebody else. The answer to prayer is our own projection; in one way or another it is always satisfactory, gratifying, otherwise we would reject it. So, when one has learned the trick of quieting the mind through repetition, one keeps on with that habit, but the answer to supplication must obviously be shaped according to the desire of the person who supplicates.Now, prayer, supplication, petition, can never uncover that which is not the projection of the mind. To find that which is not the fabrication of the mind, the mind must be quiet, not made quiet by the repetition of words, which is self-hypnosis, nor by any other means of inducing the mind to be still.Stillness that is induced, enforced, is not stillness at all. It is like putting a child in the corner superficially he may be quiet, but inwardly he is boiling. So, a mind that is made quiet by discipline is never really quiet, and stillness that is induced can never uncover that creative state in which reality comes into being. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Prayer Is a Complex Affair - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Prayer Is a Complex Affair

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Like all deep human problems, prayer is a complex affair and not to be rushed at; it needs patience, careful and tolerant probing, and one cannot demand definite conclusions and decisions. Without understanding himself, he who prays may through his very prayer be led to self-delusion. We sometimes hear people say, and several have told me, that when they pray to what they call God for worldly things, their prayers are often granted. If they have faith, and depending upon the intensity of their prayer, what they seek -health, comfort, worldly possessions-they eventually get. If one indulges in petitionary prayer it brings its own reward, the thing asked for is often granted, and this further strengthens supplications. Then there is the prayer, not for things or for people, but to experience reality, God, which is also frequently answered; and there are still other forms of petitionary prayer, more subtle and devious, but nevertheless supplicating, begging and offering. All such prayers have their own reward, they bring their own experiences; but do they lead to the realization of the ultimate reality?Are we not the result of the past, and are we not therefore related to the enormous reservoir of greed and hate, with their opposites? Surely, when we make an appeal, or offer a petitionary prayer, we are calling upon this reservoir of accumulated greed, and so on, which does bring its own reward, and has its price. Does supplication to another, to something outside, bring about the understanding of truth? - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Friday, December 9, 2011

The Religious Mind Is Explosive - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The Religious Mind Is Explosive

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Can we discover for ourselves what is the religious mind? The scientist in his laboratory is really a scientist; he is not persuaded by his nationalism, by his fears, by his vanities, ambitions, and local demands; there, he is merely investigating. But outside the laboratory, he is like anybody else with his prejudices, with his ambitions, with his nationality, with his vanities, with his jealousies, and all the rest of it. Such a mind cannot approach the religious mind. The religious mind does not function from a center of authority, whether it is accumulated knowledge as tradition, or it is experience which is really the continuation of tradition, the continuation of conditioning. The religious spirit does not think in terms of time, the immediate results, the immediate reformation within the pattern of society. We said the religious mind is not a ritualistic mind; it does not belong to any church, to any group, to any pattern of thinking. The religious mind is the mind that has entered into the unknown, and you cannot come to the unknown except by jumping; you cannot carefully calculate and enter the unknown. The religious mind is the real revolutionary mind, and the revolutionary mind is not a reaction to what has been. The religious mind is really explosive, creative, not in the accepted sense of the word creative, as in a poem, decoration, or building, as in architecture, music, poetry, and all the rest of it, it is in a state of creation. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Begin Here - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Begin Here

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A religious man does not seek God. The religious man is concerned with the transformation of society, which is himself. The religious man is not the man that does innumerable rituals, follows traditions, lives in a dead, past culture, explaining endlessly the Gita or the Bible, endlessly chanting, or taking sannyasa, that is not a religious man; such a man is escaping from facts. The religious man is concerned totally and completely with the understanding of society, which is himself. He is not separate from society. Bringing about in himself a complete, total mutation means complete cessation of greed, envy, ambition; and therefore he is not dependent on circumstances, though he is the result of circumstance, the food he eats, the books he reads, the cinemas he goes to, the religious dogmas, beliefs, rituals, and all that business. He is responsible, and therefore the religious man must understand himself, who is the product of society that he himself has created. Therefore, to find reality he must begin here, not in a temple, not in an image, whether the image is graven by the hand or by the mind. Otherwise, how can he find something totally new, a new state? - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Aloneness in Which There Is No Fear - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Aloneness in Which There Is No Fear

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It is only when the mind is capable of shedding all influences, all interferences, of being completely alone, there is creativeness.In the world, more and more technique is being developed -the technique of how to influence people through propaganda, through compulsion, through imitation. There are innumerable books written on how to do a thing, how to think efficiently, how to build a house, how to put machinery together; so gradually we are losing initiative, the initiative to think out something original for ourselves. In our education, in our relationship with government, through various means, we are being influenced to conform, to imitate. And when we allow one influence to persuade us to a particular attitude or action, naturally we create resistance to other influences. In that very process of creating a resistance to another influence, are we not succumbing to it negatively?Should not the mind always be in revolt so as to understand the influences that are always impinging, interfering, controlling, shaping? Is it not one of the factors of the mediocre mind that it is always fearful and, being in a state of confusion, it wants order, it wants consistency, it wants a form, a shape by which it can be guided and controlled. And yet these forms, these various influences create contradictions in the individual, create confusion in the individual. Any choice between influences is surely still a state of mediocrity.Must not the mind have the capacity to fathom -not to imitate, not to be shaped and to be without fear? Should not such a mind be alone and therefore creative? That creativeness is not yours or mine, it is anonymous. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Create a New World - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Create a New World

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If you have to create a new world, a new civilization, a new art, everything new, not contaminated by tradition, by fear, by ambitions, if you have to create something anonymous which is yours and mine, a new society, together, in which there is not you and me but an "ourness," must there not be a mind that is completely anonymous, therefore alone? This implies, does it not, that there must be a revolt against conformity, a revolt against respectability, because the respectable man is the mediocre man because he wants something, he is dependent on influence for his happiness, on what his neighbor thinks, on what his guru thinks, on what the Bhagavad-Gita or the Upanishads or the Bible or the Christ says. His mind is never alone. He never walks alone, but he always walks with a companion, the companion of his ideas.Is it not important to find out, to see, the whole significance of interference, of influence, the establishment of the "me," which is the contradiction of the anonymous? Seeing the whole of that, does not the question inevitably arise: Is it possible immediately to bring about that state of mind that is not influenced, which cannot be influenced by its own experience or by the experience of others, a mind that is incorruptible, that is alone? Then only is there a possibility of bringing about a different world, a different culture, a different society in which happiness is possible. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Monday, December 5, 2011

The One Who Is Alone Is Innocent - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The One Who Is Alone Is Innocent

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One of the factors of sorrow is the extraordinary loneliness of man. You may have companions, you may have gods, you may have a great deal of knowledge, you may be extraordinarily active socially, talking endless gossip about politics -and most politicians gossip anyhow- and still this loneliness remains. Therefore, man seeks to find significance in life and invents a significance, a meaning. But the loneliness still remains. So can you look at it without any comparison, just see it as it is, without trying to run away from it, without trying to cover it up, or to escape from it? Then you will see that loneliness becomes something entirely different.We are not alone. We are the result of a thousand influences, a thousand conditionings, psychological inheritances, propaganda, culture. We are not alone, and therefore we are secondhand human beings. When one is alone, totally alone, neither belonging to any family, though one may have a family, nor belonging to any nation, to any culture, to any particular commitment, there is the sense of being an outsider, outsider to every form of thought, action, family, nation. And it is only the one who is completely alone who is innocent. It is this innocency that frees the mind from sorrow. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Only in Aloneness Is There Innocence - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Only in Aloneness Is There Innocence

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Most of us are never alone. You may withdraw into the mountains and live as a recluse, but when you are physically by yourself, you will have with you all your ideas, your experiences, your traditions, your knowledge of what has been. The Christian monk in a monastery cell is not alone; he is with his conceptual Jesus, with his theology, with the beliefs and dogmas of his particular conditioning. Similarly, the sannyasi in India who withdraws from the world and lives in isolation is not alone, for he too lives with his memories.I am talking of an aloneness in which the mind is totally free from the past, and only such a mind is virtuous, for only in this aloneness is there innocence.Perhaps you will say, "That is too much to ask. One cannot live like that in this chaotic world, where one has to go to the office every day, earn a livelihood, bear children, endure the nagging of one's wife or husband, and all the rest of it." But I think what is being said is directly related to everyday life and action; otherwise, it has no value at all. You see, out of this aloneness comes a virtue which is virile and which brings an extraordinary sense of purity and gentleness. It doesn't matter if one makes mistakes; that is of very little importance. What matters is to have this feeling of being completely alone, uncontaminated, for it is only such a mind that can know or be aware of that which is beyond the word, beyond the name, beyond all the projections of imagination. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Knowing Loneliness - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Knowing Loneliness

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Loneliness is entirely different from aloneness. That loneliness must be passed to be alone. Loneliness is not comparable with aloneness. The man who knows loneliness can never know that which is alone. Are you in that state of aloneness? Our minds are not integrated to be alone. The very process of the mind is separative. And that which separates knows loneliness.But aloneness is not separative. It is something that is not the many, which is not influenced by the many, which is not the result of the many, which is not put together as the mind is; the mind is of the many. Mind is not an entity that is alone, being put together, brought together, manufactured through centuries. Mind can never be alone. Mind can never know aloneness. But being aware of the loneliness when going through it, there comes into being that aloneness. Then only can there be that which is immeasurable. Unfortunately most of us seek dependence. We want companions, we want friends, we want to live in a state of separation, in a state that brings about conflict. That which is alone can never be in a state of conflict. But mind can never perceive that, can never understand that, it can only know loneliness. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life