JKrishnamurti

[men an tol]

Before beginning this thread, I thought about it for some time since many people take this (J. Krisnamurti) as leading some sort of religious movement. In reality this idea of it being a religion is totally alien. So . . . . . . in an attempt to set it straight I thought to begin this thread.

Krishnamurti was a fascinating individual and he had the opportunity to begin a religious movement, in fact, it could be said that he was raised and prepared to do so. Instead he set down all such opportunities and walked away from such a venture as he didn’t believe in religion, nor in being a guru, nor in any such ‘leader’ position.

For anyone interested contact can be made with:
mail1.mediacombb.net/mail#6

This opens with the following:

J. Krishnamurti
2nd Public Talk in Ojai, May 1980

So the problem is our consciousness. Our consciousness, which means the way you think, the way you live, the way you believe, the way you react, your behavior, all that is your consciousness, which is your life. That consciousness is you. The content of that consciousness makes consciousness...

This content has been put together through time; it isn't one day's acquirement. Our brain is the result of time, evolution. Our brain is not your brain and my brain, but the brain of mankind. This is difficult for you to see, and even recognize, because we have been so conditioned that it is my brain. And it is your brain. But if you observe, human beings right throughout the world go through enormous turmoil, poverty, anxiety, insecurity, confusion, psychologically wounded, fear, fear of being hurt, physically, fear of psychological hurts, fear of death, and the enquiry, what is there beyond...

That is the content of our consciousness. And as long as there's that content, which is always divisive, which is always fragmented, our action must be fragmented. Right?

So the problem then is: is it possible for the content of that consciousness to be dissolved?

J. Krishnamurti
2nd Public Talk in Ojai, May 1980

[men an tol]

Over the years people have collected comments of Krishnamurti and have provided them in various ways to others here in this thread will be offered what are known as daily quotes of Kristnamurti. I’ll try to offer some here in this thread. Do they have value? It is always in the efforts and eyes of the beholder.

Meditation is not control of thought
Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; meditation is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased. Meditation is not control of thought, for when thought is controlled it breeds conflict in the mind, but when you understand the structure and origin of thought, which we have already been into, then thought will not interfere. That very understanding of the structure of thinking is its own discipline which is meditation. - Freedom from the Known,115

When there is no friction there are no frontiers to energy
Energy is action and movement. All action is movement and all action is energy. All desire is energy. All feeling is energy. All thought is energy. All living is energy. All life is energy. If that energy is allowed to flow without any contradiction, without any friction, without any conflict, then that energy is boundless, endless. When there is no friction there are no frontiers to energy. It is friction which gives energy limitations. So, having once seen this, why is it that the human being always brings friction into energy? Why does he create friction in this movement which we call life? Is pure energy, energy without limitation, just an idea to him? Does it have no reality? - Freedom from the Known,120

Self-knowledge
Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. In self-knowledge is the whole universe; it embraces all the struggles of humanity. - Krishnamurti, This Matter of Culture p 113

[men an tol]

Is the observer different from the thing which he observes?
You, the observer, are observing the fact, which you term as being lonely. Is the observer different from the thing which he observes? It is different only as long as he gives it a name; but if you do not give it a name, the observer is the observed. The name, the term, acts only to divide; and then you have to battle with that thing. But, if there is no division, if there is an integration between the observer and the observed, which exists only when there is no naming - you can try this out and you will see - , then the sense of fear is entirely gone. It is fear that is preventing you from looking at this when you say, you are empty, you are this, you are that, you are in despair. And fear exists only as memory, which comes when you term; but when you are capable of looking at it without terming, then, surely, that thing is yourself. So, when you come to that point, when you are no longer naming the thing of which you are afraid, then you are that thing. When you are that thing, there is no problem, is there? It is only when you do not want to be that thing, or when you want to make that thing different from what it is, that the problem arises. But if you are that thing, then the observer is the observed, they are a joint phenomenon, not separate phenomena; then there is no problem, is there? Please, experiment with this, and you will see how quickly that thing is resolved and transcended, and something else takes place. Our difficulty is to come to that point, when we can look at it without fear; and fear arises only when we begin to recognize it, when we begin to give it a name, when we want to do something about it. But, when the observer sees that he is not different from the thing which he calls emptiness, despair, then the word has no longer a meaning. The word has ceased to be, it is no longer despair. When the word is removed, with all its implications, then there is no sense of fear or despair. Then, if you proceed further, when there is no fear, no despair, when the word is no longer important, then, surely, there is a tremendous release, a freedom; and in that freedom there is creative being, which gives a newness to life. To put it differently: We approach this problem of despair through habitual channels. That is, we bring our past memories to translate that problem; and thought, which is the result of memory, which is founded upon the past, can never solve that problem, because it is a new problem. Every problem is a new problem; and when you approach it, burdened with the past, it cannot be solved. You cannot approach it through the screen of words, which is the thinking process; but when the verbalization stops - because you understand the whole process of it, you leave it - , then you are able to meet the problem anew; then the problem is not what you think it is. So, you might say at the end of this question, "What am I to do? Here I am in despair, in confusion, in pain; you haven't given me a method to follow, to become free." But, surely, if you have understood what I have said, the key is there: a key which opens much more than you realize if you are capable of using it. - Krishnamurti, The Collected Works, Vol. V Ojai 4th Public Talk 24th July 1949

The Marvellous Earth
As you walked on the beach the waves were enormous and they were breaking with magnificent curve and force. You walked against the wind, and suddenly you felt there was nothing between you and the sky, and this openness was heaven. To be so completely open, vulnerable - to the hills, to the sea, and to man - is the very essence of meditation. To have no resistance, to have no barriers inwardly towards anything, to be really free, completely, from all the minor urges, compulsions, and demands, with all their little conflicts and hypocrisies, is to walk in life with open arms. And that evening, walking there on that wet sand, with the sea gulls around you, you felt the extraordinary sense of open freedom and the great beauty of love which was not in you or outside you - but everywhere. - Krishnamurti, All The Marvelous Earth Brockwood Park 3rd Public Talk 6thSeptember 1980

Confusion
So I, me, is confusion, not that I realize I am confusion, or that I have been told that I am confusion, but the fact is: I, as a human being, am in a state of confusion. Right? Any action I do will bring more confusion - right? You understand? So I am in a state of total confusion. And all the struggle to overcome it, suppress it, to be detached, all that is gone - right? I wonder if it has! You see how difficult it is for our minds to be precise in this, to learn about it, to be free to have the leisure to learn. Then what takes place? I am confusion; not I realize I am confusion. You see the difference? I am that. Therefore what has happened? All movement of escapes, suppression, have completely come to an end - right? If it has not, don't move from there. Be free first of all escapes, of all verbal, symbolic escapes but remain totally with the fact that you are, as a human being, in a state of confusion - right? Then what has taken place? We are two friends talking this over, this is not a group therapy, or any of that nonsense, or psychological analysis. It is not that. Two people talking over together, saying now we have come to that point, logically, rationally, unemotionally, therefore sanely. Because to be sane is the most difficult thing. So we have come to that point: that is I am that. What has taken place in the mind? Right, can we go on from there? - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti Brockwood Park 3rd Public Talk 6th September 1980

[men an tol]

Meditation in the ending of thought
What is important in meditation is the quality of the mind and the heart. It is not what you achieve, or what you say you attain, but rather the quality of a mind that is innocent and vulnerable. Through negation there is the positive state. Merely to gather, or to live in, experience, denies the purity of meditation. Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end. The mind can never be made innocent through experience. It is the negation of experience that brings about that positive state of innocency which cannot be cultivated by thought. Thought is never innocent. Meditation is the ending of thought, not by the meditator, for the meditator is the meditation. If there is no meditation, then you are like a blind man in a world of great beauty, light and colour. Wander by the seashore and let this meditative quality come upon you. If it does, don't pursue it. What you pursue will be the memory of what it was - and what was is the death of what is. Or when you wander among the hills, let everything tell you the beauty and the pain of life, so that you awaken to your own sorrow and to the ending of it. Meditation is the root, the plant, the flower and the fruit. It is words that divide the fruit, the flower, the plant and the root. In this separation action does not bring about goodness: virtue is the total perception. - Krishnamurti, The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader Talks in Europe 1968

The religious mind
The religious mind is something entirely different from the mind that believes in religion. You cannot be religious and yet be a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist. A religious mind does not seek at all, it cannot experiment with truth. Truth is not something dictated by your pleasure or pain, or by your conditioning as a Hindu or whatever religion you belong to. The religious mind is a state of mind in which there is no fear and therefore no belief whatsoever but only what is -what actually is. - Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader

Can what is be transformed immediately?
So the question is then: can what is be transformed immediately? Which means never allowing time to interfere. Are we coming together? Listen to this, you will find out, it is really simple. If we apply our mind we can solve anything, as has been done, they have been to the moon, built marvelous submarines, incredible things they have done. Here, psychologically we are so reluctant, so incapable, or have made ourselves incapable. So, if you do not allow time, or never think in terms of time, then the fact is not - right? I wonder if you see this? Because we allow time the fact becomes important. If there is no time it is resolved. Suppose I died this second, there is no problem. You understand what I am saying? When I allow time, I am afraid of death. I wonder if you understand all this? But if I live without time, which is an extraordinary thing if you go into it, psychologically, never. Time means accumulation - right? Time means remembrance, time means accumulating knowledge about oneself, all that involves time. But when there is no time at all, psychologically, there is nothing - you follow? You are capturing something? Are you understanding something? Please come on. - Krishnamurti, Brockwood Park 4th Public Talk 7th September 1980

[men an tol]

Meditation
Meditation, along that quiet and deserted road came like a soft rain over the hills; it came as easily and naturally as the coming night. There was no effort of any kind and no control with its concentrations and distractions; there was no order and pursuit; no denial or acceptance nor any continuity of memory in meditation. The brain was aware of its environment but quiet without response, uninfluenced but recognizing without responding. It was very quiet and words had faded with thought. There was that strange energy, call it by any other name, it has no importance whatsoever, deeply active, without object and purpose; it was creation, without the canvas and the marble, and destructive; it was not the thing of human brain, of expression and decay. It was not approachable, to be classified and analyzed, and thought and feeling are not the instruments of its comprehension. It was completely unrelated to everything and totally alone in its vastness and immensity. And walking along that darkening road, there was the ecstasy of the impossible, not of achievement, arriving, success and all those immature demands and responses, but the aloneness of the impossible. The possible is mechanical and the impossible can be envisaged, tried and perhaps achieved which in turn becomes mechanical. But the ecstasy had no cause, no reason. It was simply there, not as an experience but as a fact, not to be accepted or denied, to be argued over and dissected. It was not a thing to be sought after for there is no path to it. Everything has to die for it to be, death, destruction which is love. A poor, worn-out laborer, in torn dirty clothes, was returning home with his bone-thin cow. - Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti s Notebook Part 6 Madras 3rd Public Talk 29th December 1979


The mind is noisy
You know, in the case of most of us, the mind is noisy, everlastingly chattering to itself, soliloquizing or chattering about something, or trying to talk to itself, to convince itself of something; it is always moving, noisy. And from that noise, we act. Any action born of noise produces more noise, more confusion. But if you have observed and learnt what it means to communicate, the difficulty of communication, the non-verbalization of the mind - that is, that communicates and receives communication -, then, as life is a movement, you will, in your action, move on naturally, freely, easily, without any effort, to that state of communion. And in that state of communion, if you enquire more deeply, you will find that you are not only in communion with nature, with the world, with everything about you, but also in communion with yourself. - Krishnamurti, Varanasi 2nd Public Talk 22nd November 1964


To live humanly, sanely, one has to change
We need tremendous energy to bring about a psychological change in ourselves as human beings, because we have lived far too long in a world of make-belief, in a world of brutality, violence, despair, anxiety. To live humanly, sanely, one has to change. To bring about a change within oneself and therefore within society, one needs this radical energy, for the individual is not different from society - the society is the individual and the individual is the society. And to bring about a necessary radical, essential change in the structure of society - which is corrupt, which is immoral - there must be change in the human heart and mind. To bring about that change you need great energy and that energy is denied or perverted, or twisted, when you act according to a concept; which is what we do in our daily life. The concept is based on past history, or on some conclusion, so it is not action at all, it is an approximation to a formula. So one asks if there is an action which is not based on an idea, on a conclusion formed by dead things which have been. - Krishnamurti, Talks in Europe 1968 Amsterdam 5th Public Talk 22nd May 1968 Collected Works, Vol. XV

[men an tol]

Everything I do is action
Krishnamurti: How am I to put an end to conflict in action?Questioner: Don't act.Krishnamurti: My life is action. Talking is action; breathing is action; to see something is an action; to get into a car, to go to my house is action. Everything I do is action. You tell me, 'Don't act'! Does that mean just to stop where I am, not think, not feel; to be paralyzed, to be dead? Questioner: The idea, which is unreal, and reality can nevergo together. Krishnamurti: I realize that action is life. Unless I am totally paralyzed, dead or insensitive, I must act. I see that every action breeds more pain, more conflict, more travail. I am going to find out if there is an action in which there is no conflict. - Krishnamurti, Collected Works, Vol. XVI,Action


Action and relationship are synonymous
We are dealing with action at all the levels of our being - not only the physical act, but the emotional, the psychological, the mental, the unconscious, the conscious act -because that is life. Life is all relationship or action. You cannot escape from these two facts, though action and relationship are synonymous. By 'action' we mean that which was done, and that which has to be done, and that which is going to be done. It is a movement, either a continuous movement or a disjointed movement. With most of us, it is disjointed. We live at different levels; there is the office, there is the family, there is public opinion; there are my fears and my gods, my opinions, my judgments, my conditioning; and there are the various pressures, influences of society and so on. We live at different levels, disjointed, unrelated with each other. - Krishnamurti, Collected Works, Vol. XIV, Action


Life is action from the beginning to the end
I do not know if you have noticed in the morning, high up in the sky, the big vultures, the big birds, flying without a movement of their wings, flying by the current of the air, silently moving. That is action. And also, the worm under the earth, eating - that too is activity, that is also action. So also is it action when a politician gets up on the platform and says nothing, or when a person writes, reads, or makes a statue out of marble. That is also action when a man, who has a family, goes to the office for the next forty years, day after day, doing drudgery work without much meaning, wasting his life endlessly about nothing! All that a scientist, an artist, a musician, a speaker does, that too is action. Life is action from the beginning to the end; the whole movement is action. - Krishnamurti, Collected Works, Vol. XV, Action


Life is Action
Life is existence, is a movement, and this movement is action. Life, the totality of life, not parts of it, the whole state of existence, is action. But when we merely exist, as most of us do, then the problem of action becomes complex. Existence has no division. It is not a fragmentary state of mind or being; in that [state] a totality of action is possible. But when we divide existence into different segments, fragments, then action becomes contradictory. - Krishnamurti, Collected Works, Vol. XV, Action

[men an tol]

What is the true function of an educator?
What is the true function of an educator? What is education? Why are we educated? Are we educated at all? Because you pass a few examinations, have a job, competing, struggling, brutalizing ambition, is that education? What is an educator? Is he one who prepares the student for a job, merely for a job, for technical achievement in order to earn a livelihood? That is all we know at present. There are vast schools, universities where you prepare the youth, boy or girl, to have a job, to have technical knowledge so that he or she can have a livelihood. Is that alone the function of a true educator? There must be something more than that, because it is too mechanical. So you say that the educator must be an example. You agree with that? You will have to follow the truth of the matter, to go into it. When you go into it you will see the truth of it, namely, no example is necessary. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti The Collected Works Volume VIII


Sensitivity in its highest form is intelligence
Sensitivity in its highest form is intelligence. Without sensitivity to everything - to one's own sorrows; to the sorrow of a group of people, of a race; to the sorrow of everything that is - , unless one feels and has the feeling highly sensitized, one cannot possibly solve any problem. And we have many problems, not only at the physical level, the economic level, the social level, but also at the deeper levels of one's own being - problems that apparently we are not capable of solving. I am not talking of the mathematical problems, or the problems of mechanical inventions, but of human problems: of our sorrows, of despair, of the narrow spirit of the mind, of the shallowness of one's thinking, of the constant repetitive boredom of life, the routine of going to office every day for forty or thirty years. And the many problems that exist, both consciously and unconsciously, make the mind dull, and therefore the mind loses this extraordinary sensitivity. And when we lose sensitivity, we lose intelligence. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti The Collected Works Volume XV
There is no path to truth
Now, if you go into it very clearly and thoroughly, with intelligence, you see that to truth there can be no path; there is no path, as yours and mine: the path of service, the path of knowledge, the path of devotion, and the other innumerable paths that philosophers have invented, depending on their particular idiosyncrasies and neurological responses. Now, if one can think clearly about this matter, without prejudice - I mean by prejudice, being committed to a particular action of thought or belief, and being utterly unaware that one particular form of thinking, one particular approach, must inevitably limit, whether it is the path of knowledge, the path of devotion, or the path of action, one will see that any particular path must invariably limit, and therefore cannot lead to reality. Because, a path of action, or a path of knowledge, or a path of devotion, in itself, is not sufficient, surely. A man of learning, however erudite, however encyclopedic his knowledge may be, if he has no love, surely his knowledge is worthless; it is merely book learning. A man of belief, as we discussed, must inevitably shape his life according to the dogma, the tenet, that he holds, and therefore his experience must be limited; because, one experiences according to one's beliefs, and such experience can never be liberating. On the contrary, it is binding. And, as we said, only in freedom can we discover anything new, anything fundamental. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti The Collected Works Volume V
Means and end are not separate
We may study history and translate historical fact according to our prejudices; but to be certain of the future is to be in illusion. Man is not the result of one influence only, he is vastly complex; and to emphasize one influence while minimizing others is to breed an imbalance which will lead to yet greater chaos and misery. Man is a total process. The totality must be understood and not merely a part, however temporarily important his part may be. The sacrificing of the present for the future is the insanity of those who are power-mad; and power is evil. These take to themselves the right of human direction; they are the new priests. Means and end are not separate, they are a joint phenomenon; the means create the end. Through violence there can never be peace; a police State cannot produce a peaceful citizen; through compulsion, freedom cannot be achieved. A classless society cannot be established if the party is all-powerful, it can never be the outcome of dictatorship. All this is obvious. - Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 32 Separateness

[beth]

I think they're excellent, Men an tol.

I've enjoyed reading the posts. Thanks!

[men an tol]

The Old Mind Is Bound by Authority
The problem then is: Is it possible for a mind that has been so conditioned -brought up in innumerable sects, religions, and all the superstitions, fears-to break away from itself and thereby bring about a new mind?.The old mind is essentially the mind that is bound by authority. I am not using the word authority in the legalistic sense; but by that word I mean authority as tradition, authority as knowledge, authority as experience, authority as the means of finding security and remaining in that security, outwardly or inwardly, because, after all, that is what the mind is always seeking -a place where it can be secure, undisturbed. Such authority may be the self-imposed authority of an idea or the so-called religious idea of God, which has no reality to a religious person. An idea is not a fact, it is a fiction. God is a fiction; you may believe in it, but still it is a fiction. But to find God you must completely destroy the fiction, because the old mind is the mind that is frightened, is ambitious, is fearful of death, of living, and of relationship; and it is always, consciously or unconsciously, seeking a permanency, security. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Free at the Beginning
If we can understand the compulsion behind our desire to dominate or to be dominated, then perhaps we can be free from the crippling effects of authority. We crave to be certain, to be right, to be successful, to know; and this desire for certainty, for permanence, builds up within ourselves the authority of personal experience, while outwardly it creates the authority of society, of the family, of religion, and so on. But merely to ignore authority, to shake off its outward symbols, is of very little significance.To break away from one tradition and conform to another, to leave this leader and follow that, is but a superficial gesture. If we are to be aware of the whole process of authority, if we are to see the inwardness of it, if we are to understand and transcend the desire for certainty, then we must have extensive awareness and insight, we must be free, not at the end, but at the beginning. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Liberation from Ignorance, from Sorrow
We listen with hope and fear; we seek the light of another but are not alertly passive to be able to understand. If the liberated seems to fulfill our desires we accept him; if not, we continue our search for the one who will; what most of us desire is gratification at different levels. What is important is not how to recognize one who is liberated but how to understand yourself. No authority here or hereafter can give you knowledge of yourself; without self-knowledge there is no liberation from ignorance, from sorrow. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

[men an tol]

Authority Corrupts Both Leader and Follower
Self-awareness is arduous, and since most of us prefer an easy, illusory way, we bring into being the authority that gives shape and pattern to our life. This authority may be the collective, the State; or it may be the personal, the Master, the savior, the guru. Authority of any kind is blinding, it breeds thoughtlessness; and as most of us find that to be thoughtful is to have pain, we give ourselves over to authority. Authority engenders power, and power always becomes centralized and therefore utterly corrupting; it corrupts not only the wielder of power, but also him who follows it. The authority of knowledge and experience is perverting, whether it be vested in the Master, his representative or the priest. It is your own life, this seemingly endless conflict, that is significant, and not the pattern or the leader. The authority of the Master and the priest takes you away from the central issue, which is the conflict within yourself. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Can I Rely on My Experience?
Most of us are satisfied with authority because it gives us a continuity, a certainty, a sense of being protected. But a man who would understand the implications of this deep psychological revolution must be free of authority, must he not? He cannot look to any authority, whether of his own creation or imposed upon him by another. And is this possible? Is it possible for me not to rely on the authority of my own experience? Even when I have rejected all the outward expressions of authority -books, teachers, priests, churches, beliefs-I still have the feeling that at least I can rely on my own judgment, on my own experiences, on my own analysis. But can I rely on my experience, on my judgment, on my analysis? My experience is the result of my conditioning, just as yours is the result of your conditioning, is it not? I may have been brought up as a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu, and my experience will depend on my cultural, economic, social, and religious background, just as yours will. And can I rely on that? Can I rely for guidance, for hope, for the vision which will give me faith in my own judgment, which again is the result of accumulated memories, experiences, the conditioning of the past meeting the present? Now, when I have put all these questions to myself and I am aware of this problem, I see there can only be one state in which reality, newness, can come into being, which brings about a revolution. That state is when the mind is completely empty of the past, when there is no analyzer, no experience, no judgment, no authority of any kind. - Krishnamurti, J.Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Self-Knowledge Is a Process
So, to understand the innumerable problems that each one of us has, is it not essential that there be self-knowledge? And that is one of the most difficult things, self-awareness -which does not mean an isolation, a withdrawal. Obviously, to know oneself is essential; but to know oneself does not imply a withdrawal from relationship. And it would be a mistake, surely, to think that one can know oneself significantly, completely, fully, through isolation, through exclusion, or by going to some psychologist, or to some priest; or that one can learn self-knowledge through a book. Self-knowledge is obviously a process, not an end in itself; and to know oneself, one must be aware of oneself in action, which is relationship. You discover yourself, not in isolation, not in withdrawal, but in relationship, in relationship to society, to your wife, your husband, your brother, to man; but to discover how you react, what your responses are, requires an extraordinary alertness of mind, a keenness of perception. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life