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background. I assure you, you can do it immediately if you give your whole attention to it. If you are seeking the full meaning of your background, it yields its significance and then you discover in one stroke the truth, the understanding of the problem. Understanding comes into being from the now, the present, which ... |
If you want to know the truth, the psychological significance of property, for instance, if you really want to understand it directly, now, how do you approach it? Surely you must feel akin to the problem, you must not be afraid of it, you must not have any creed, any answer, between yourself and the problem. Only when... |
I am afraid I am making it all sound very difficult, am I not? But it is easy, simple to understand, if you will only experiment with it. If you go off into a dream, meditate over it, it becomes very diffcult. When there is no barrier between you and me, I understand you. If I am open to you, I understand you directly—... |
Will time make me open? Will preparation, system, discipline, make me open to you ? No. What will make me open to you is my intention to understand. I want to be open because I have nothing to hide, I am not afraid; therefore I am open and there is immediate communion, there is truth. To receive truth, to know its beau... |
the essential ? Either you have a pattern of what other people have said or•your own experience says that something is the essential. Can you rely on your experience? When you choose, your choice is based on desire, is it not? What you call 'the essential' is that which gives you satisfaction. So you are back again in ... |
Therefore the choice between the essential and the nonessential is not simplicity. It is a conflict. A mind in conflict, in confusion, can never be simple. When you discard, when you really observe and see all these false things, the tricks of the mind, when you look at it and are aware of it, then you will know for yo... |
Question: How is one who is superficial to become serious? |
Krishnamurti: First of all, we must be aware that we are superficial, must we not? What does it mean to be superficial ? Essentially, to be dependent, does it not? To depend on stimulation, to depend on challenge, to depend on another, to depend psychologically on certain values, certain experiences, certain memories—d... |
First of all, do we recognize that we are doing these things ? We do not; we justify them. We say, "What shall I do if I don't do these things? I'll be worse off; my mind will go to pieces. Now, at least, I am struggling towards something better." The more we struggle the more superficial we are. I have to see that fir... |
stupid, that I am shallow, that I am narrow, that I am jealous. If I see what I am, if I recognize it, then with that I can start. Surely, a shallow mind is a mind that escapes from what is; not to escape requires arduous investigation, the denial of inertia. The moment I know I am shallow, there is already a process o... |
Again, you see, there is a real revolution only if we approach this problem rightly. The right approach to the problem gives an extraordinary confidence which I assure you moves mountains of one's own prejudices, conditionings. Being aware of a shallow mind, do not try to become deep. A shallow mind can never know gr... |
The more you are aware of this whole process, the more you will discover the activities of the mind but you must observe them without trying to put an end to them, because the moment you seek an end, you are again caught in the duality of the 'me' and the 'not-me'—which continues the problem. |
Qustion: With what should the mind be occupied ? |
Krishnamurti: Here is a very good example of how conflict is brought into being: the conflict between what should be and what is. First we establish what should be, the ideal, and then try to live according to that pattern. We say that the mind should be occupied with noble things, with unselfishness, with generosity, ... |
Now, being aware that my mind is trivial and occupied with trivialities, can it free itself from this condition? Is not |
the mind, by its very nature, trivial ? What is the mind but the result of memory? Memory of what ? Of how to survive, not only physically but also psychologically through the development of certain qualities, virtues, the storing up of experiences, the establishing of itself in its own activities. Is that not trivial?... |
Question:Why do you speak of the stillness of the mind, and what is this stillness ? |
Krishnamurti: Is it not necessary, if we would understand anything, that the mind should be still? If we have a problem, we worry over it, don't we? We go into it, we analyse it, we tear it to pieces, in the hope of understanding it. Now, do we understand through effort, through analysis, through comparison, through an... |
You will inevitably ask, "How can the mind be made still ?" That is the immediate response, is it not? You say, "My mind is agitated and how can I keep it quiet ?" Can any system make the mind quiet ? Can a formula, a discipline, make the mind still ? It can; but when the mind is made still, is that quietness, is that ... |
The mind is quiet when it sees the truth that understanding comes only when it is quiet; that if I would understand you, I must be quiet, I cannot have reactions against you, I must not be prejudiced, I must put away all my conclusions, my experiences and meet you face to face. Only then, when the mind is free from my ... |
Our question, then, is not how to make the mind still but to see the truth of every problem as it presents itself to us. It is like the pool that becomes quiet when the wind stops. Our mind is agitated because we have problems; and to avoid the problems, we make the mind still. Now the mind has projected these problems... |
Many who seek quietness of mind withdraw from active life to a village, to a monastery, to the mountains, or they withdraw into ideas, enclose themselves in a belief or avoid people who give them trouble. Such isolation is not stillness of mind. The enclosure of the mind in an idea or the avoidance of people who make l... |
36. ON THE MEANING OF LIFE |
Qustion: We live but we do not know why. To so many of us, life seems to have no meaning. Can you tell us the meaning and purpose of our living ? |
Krishnamurti: Now why do you ask this question? Why are you asking me to tell you the meaning of life, the purpose of life? What do we mean by life? Does life have a meaning, a purpose? Is not living in itself its own purpose, its own meaning? Why do we want more? Because we are so dissatisfied with our life, our life ... |
It is because our minds are full of technicalities and superstitious mutterings that our lives are so empty and that is why we seek a purpose beyond ourselves. To find life's purpose we must go through the door of ourselves; consciously or unconsciously we avoid facing things as they are in themselves and so we want Go... |
Question:I have listened to all your talks and I have read all your books. Most earnestly I ask you, what can be the purpose of my life if, as you say, all thought has to cease, all knowledge to be suppressed, all memory lost? How do you relate that state of being, whatever it may be according to you, to the world in ... |
Krishnamurti: We want to know what this state is which can only be when all knowledge, when the recognizer, is not; we want to know what relationship this state has to our world of daily activity, daily pursuits. We know what our life is now—sad, painful, constantly fearful, nothing permanent; we know that very well. W... |
What is the purpose of existence as we know it now not theoretically but actually? What is the purpose of our everyday existence? Just to survive, isn't it ?—with all its misery, with all its sorrow and confusion, wars, destruction and so on. We can invent theories, we can say: "This should not be, but something else ... |
amusements, through gods, through knowledge, through every form of belief, through identification. That is our purpose, conscious or unconscious, as we now live. Is there a deeper, wider purpose beyond, a purpose that is not of confusion, of acquisition? Has that effortless any relation to our daily life ? |
Certainly that has no relation at all to our life. How can it have ? If my mind is confused, agonized, lonely, how can that be related to something which is not of itself? How can truth be related to falsehood, to illusion ? We do not want to admit that, because our hope, our confusion, makes us believe in something gr... |
So we can see that a confused mind, a mind ridden with sorrow, a mind that is aware of its own emptiness, loneliness, can never find that which is beyond itself. That which is beyond the mind can only come into being when the causes of confusion, misery, are dispelled or understood. All that I have been saying, talkin... |
see that in clearing up our own confusion, the other comes into being. Then experiencing that will have a relation to this. But this will never have a relation to that. Being this side of the curtain, being in darkness, how can one have experience of light, of freedom? But when once there is the experience of truth, th... |
If we have never known what love is, but only constant wrangles, misery, conflicts, how can we experience that love which is not of all this ? But when once we have experienced that, then we do not have to bother to find out the relationship. Then love, intelligence, functions. But to experience that state, all knowled... |
of any projected sensations. Then, experiencing that, there is action in this world. |
Surely that is the purpose of existence—to go beyond the self-centred activity of the mind. Having experienced that state, which is not measurable by the mind, then the very experiencing of that brings about an inward revolution. Then, if there is love, there is no social problem. There is no problem of any kind when t... |
Question: What do you mean by transformation ? |
Krishnamurti: Obviously, there must be a radical revolution. The world crisis demands it. Our lives demand it. Our everyday incidents, pursuits, anxieties, demand it. Our problems demand it. There must be a fundamental, radical revolution, because everything about us has collapsed. Though seemingly there is order, in f... |
So there must be a revolution—but not a revolution based on an idea. Such a revolution is merely the continuation of the idea, not a radical transformation. A revolution based on an idea brings bloodshed, disruption, chaos. Out of chaos you cannot create order; you cannot deliberately bring about chaos and hope to crea... |
Is this transformation, is this radical revolution, an |
ultimate thing or is it from moment to moment? I know we should like it to be the ultimate thing, because it is so much easier to think in terms of far away. Ultimately we shall be transformed, ultimately we shall be happy, ultimately we shall find truth; in the meantime, let us carry on. Surely such a mind, thinking i... |
Transformation is not in the future, can never be in the future. It can only be now, from moment to moment. So what do we mean by transformation? Surely it is very simple: seeing the false as the false and the true as the true. Seeing the truth in the false and seeing the false in that which has been accepted as the tr... |
A mind which is desirous of a future transformation or |
looks to transformation as an ultimate end, can never find truth, for truth is a thing that must come from moment to moment, must be discovered anew; there can be no discovery through accumulation. How can you discover the new if you have the burden of the old ? It is only with the cessation of that burden that you dis... |
Transformation is not an end, a result. Transformation is not a result. Result implies residue, a cause and an effect. Where there is causation, there is bound to be effect. The effect is merely the result of your desire to be transformed. When you desire to be transformed, you are still thinking in terms of becoming; ... |
Love is not different from truth. Love is that state in which the thought process, as time, has completely ceased. |
Where love is, there is transformation. Without love, revolution has no meaning, fov then revolution is merely destruction, decay, a greater and greater ever-mounting misery. Where there is love, there is revolution, because love is transformation from moment to moment. |
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