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The question is, how to be rid of fear? First of all, anything that is overcome has to be conquered again and again. No problem can be finally overcome, conquered; it can be understood but not conquered. They are two completely different processes and the conquering process leads to further confusion, further fear. To ... |
As I said, fear is not an abstraction; it exists only in relationship. What do we mean by fear? Ultimately we are afraid, are we not?, of not being, of not becoming. Now, when there is fear of not being, of not advancing, or fear of |
the unknown, of death, can that fear be overcome by determination, by a conclusion, by any choice? Obviously not. Mere suppression, sublimation, or substitution, creates further resistance, does it not? Therefore fear can never be overcome through any form of discipline, through any form of resistance. That fact must b... |
Now what are we afraid of? Are we afraid of a fact or of an idea about the fact? Are we afraid of the thirig as it is, or are we afraid of what we think it is? Take death, for example. Are we afraid of the fact of death or of the idea of death ? The fact is one thing and the idea about the fact is another. Am I afraid ... |
For example, one is afraid of loneliness, afraid of the ache, the pain of loneliness. Surely that fear exists because one has never really looked at loneliness, one has never been in complete communion with it. The moment one is completely open to the fact of loneliness one can understand what it is, but one has an id... |
I have a reaction, say, to loneliness; that is I say I am afraid of being nothing. Am I afraid of the fact itself or is that fear awakened because I have previous knowledge of the fact, knowledge being the word, the symbol, the image ? How can there be fear of a fact? When 1 am face to face with a fact, in direct comm... |
It is my opinion, my idea, my experience, my knowledge about the fact, that creates fear. So long as there is verbalization of the fact, giving the fact a name and therefore identifying or condemning it, so long as thought is judging the fact as an observer, there must be Gar. Thought is the product of the past, it can... |
Thus it is the mind that creates fear, the mind being the process of thinking. Thinking is verbalization. You cannot think without words, without symbols, images; these images, which are the prejudices, the previous knowledge, the apprehensions of the mind, are projected upon the fact, and out of that there arises fear... |
a word. The feeling of jealousy is identified by that word. Is it possible not to identify a feeling, to look at that feeling without naming it? It is the naming of the feeling that gives it continuity, that gives it strength. The moment you give a name to that which you call fear, you strengthen it; but if you can loo... |
Question:I am not interested in anything, but most people are busy with many interests. I don't have to work, so I don't. Should I undertake some useful work ? |
Krishnamurti: Become a social worker or a political worker or a religious worker—is that it? Because you have nothing else to do, therefore you become a reformer! If you have nothing to do, if you are bored, why not be bored ? Why not be that ? If you are in sorrow, be sorrowful. Don't try to find a way out of it, beca... |
We have done that, we have gone from sensation to sensation, from excitement to excitement, till we come to a point when we are really exhausted. Now, realizing that, don't proceed any further; take a rest. Be quiet. Let the mind gather strength by itself; don't force it. As the soil renews • itself during the winter t... |
What happens when you accept something, when you accept what you are? When you accept that you are what you are, where is the problem? There is a problem only when we do not accept a thing as it is and wish to transform it—which does not mean that I am advocating contentment; on the contrary. If we accept what we are, ... |
That is why it is important, as I said, to understand the process, the ways of our own thinking. Self-knowledge cannot be gathered through anybody, through any book, through any confession, psychology, or psycho-analyst. It has to be found by yourself* because it isyour life ; without the widening and deepening of that... |
Question:If I am perfectly honest, I have to admit that I resent, and at times hate, almost everybody. It makes my life very unhappy and painful. I understand intellectually that I am this resentment, this hatred ; but I cannot cope with it. Can you show me a way ? |
Krishnamurti: What do we mean by 'intellectually' ? When we say that we understand something intellectually, what do we mean by that? Is there such a thing as intellectual understanding? Or is it that the mind merely understahds the words, because that is our only way of communicating with each other? Can we, however, ... |
Now the question is this: "How am I, who am resentful, hateful, how am I to be free of, or cope with that problem?" How do we cope with a problem? What is a problem ? Surely, a problem is something which is disturbing. |
I am resentful, I am hateful; I hate people and it causes pain. And I am aware of it. What am I to do? It is a very disturbing factor in my life. What am I to do, how am I to be really free of it—not just momentarily slough it off but fundamentally be free of it? How am I to do it ? |
It is a problem to me because it disturbs me. If it were not a disturbing thing, it would not be a problem to me, would it? Because it causes pain, disturbance, anxiety, because I think it is ugly, I want to get rid of it. Therefore the thing that I am objecting to is the disturbance, isn't it? I give it different name... |
My concern is not to be disturbed and I am trying to find a way in which I shall never be disturbed. Why should I not be disturbed? I must be disturbed, to find out, must I not? I must go through tremendous upheavals, turmoil, anxiety, to find out, must I not? If I am not disturbed I shall remain asleep and perhaps tha... |
Anger is a very disturbing quality, as hate and resentment are; and very few of us experience anger directly without verbalizing it. If we do not verbalize it, if we do not call it anger, surely there is a different experience, is there not? Because we term it, we reduce a new experience or fix it in the terms of the o... |
Take, for example, meanness. Most of us, if we are mean, are unaware of it—mean about money matters, mean about forgiving people, you know, just being mean. I am sure we are familiar with that. Now, being aware of it, how are we going to be free from that quality ?—not to become generous, that is not the important poin... |
Please experiment with this. First, one must be disturbed, and it is obvious that most of us do not like to be disturbed. We think we have found a pattern of life—the Master, the belief, whatever it is—and there we settle down. It is like having a good bureaucratic job and functioning there for the rest of one's life. ... |
Disturbance is essential for understanding and any attempt to find security is a hindrance to understanding. When we want to get rid of something which is disturbing, it is surely a hindrance. If we can experience a feeling directly, without |
naming it, I think we shall find a great deal in it; then there is no longer a battle with it, because the experiencer and the |
thing experienced are one, and that is essential. So long as the experiencer verbalizes the feeling, the experience, he separates himself from it and acts upon it; such action is an artificial, illusory action. But if there is no verbalization, then the experiencer and the thing experienced are one. That integration is... |
Question:Gossip has value in self-revelation, especially in revealing others to me. Seriously, why not use gossip as a means of discovering what is? I do not shiver at the word 'gossip' just because it has been condemned for ages. |
Krishnamurti: I wonder why we gossip? Not because it reveals others to us. And why should others, be revealed to us ? Why do you want to know others ? Why this extraordinary concern about others? First of all, why do we gossip? It is a form of restlessness, is it not? Like worry, it is an indication of a restless mind.... |
I think, first of all, we gossip about others because we are not suffciently interested in the process of our own |
thinking and of our own action. We want to see what others are doing and perhaps, to put it kindly, to imitate others. Generally, when we gossip it is to condemn others, but, stretching it charitably, it is perhaps to imitate others. Why do we want to imitate others? Doesn't it all indicate an extraordinary shallowness... |
The next problem is, how to stop gossip. That is the next question, isn't it ? When you are aware that you are gossiping, how do you stop gossiping? If it has become a habit, an ugly thing that continues day after day, how do you stop it? Does that question arise ? When you know you are gossiping, when you are aware th... |
Most of us who read daily newspapers are filled with gossip, global gossip. It is all an escape from ourselves, from our own pettiness, from our own ugliness. We think that through a superficial interest in world events we are becoming more and more wise, more capable of dealing with our own lives. All these, surely, a... |
The question is, what to do? Obviously, of course, one cannot escape; for that is most absurd and childish. But when you are faced with yourself as you are, what are you to do? First, is it possible not to deny or justify it but just to remain with it, as you are ?—which is extremely arduous, because the mind seeks exp... |
Question: What place has criticism in relationship? What is the difference between destructive and constructive criticism ? |
Krishnamurti : First of all, why do we criticize? Is it in order to understand? Or is it merely a nagging process? If I criticize you, do I understand you? Does understanding come through judgement? If I want to comprehend, if I want to understand not superficially but deeply the whole significance of my relationship t... |
Then there is self-criticism. To be critical of oneself, to criticize, condemn, or justify oneself—does that bring understanding of oneself? When I begin to criticize myself, do I not limit the process of understanding, of exploring? Does introspection, a form of self-criticism, unfold the self? What makes the unfoldme... |
home-made gods and to conform to a self-projected image is surely not a release. |
Thus there can be understanding only when the mind is silently aware, observing—which is arduous, because we take delight in being active, in being restless, critical, in condemning, justifying. , That is our whole structure of being; and, through the screen of ideas, prejudices, points of view, experiences, memories, ... |
To understand relationship, there must be a passive awareness—which does not destroy relationship. On the contrary, it makes relationship much more vital, much more significant. Then there is in that relationship a possibility of real affection; there is a warmth, a sense of nearness, which is not mere sentiment or sen... |
Question:Belief in God has been a powerful incentive to better living. Why do you deny God ? Why do you not try to revive man's faith in the idea of God ? |
Krishnamurti: Let us look at the problem widely and intelligently. I am not denying God—it •would be foolish to do so. Only the man who does not know reality indulges in meaningless words. The man who says he knows, does not know; the man who is experiencing reality from moment to moment has no means of communicating t... |
Belief is a denial of truth, belief hinders truth; to believe in God is not to find God. Neither the believer nor the nonbeliever will find God; because reality is the unknown, and your belief or non-belief in the unknown is merely a selfprojection and therefore not real. I know you believe and I know it has very littl... |
The men who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima said that God was with them; those who flew from England to destroy Germany said that God was their co-pilot. The dictators, the prime ministers, the generals, the presidents, all talk of God, they have immense faith in God. Are they doing service, making a better life f... |
they believe in God have destroyed half the. world and the world is in complete misery. Through religious intolerance there are divisions of people as believers and non-believers, leading to religious wars. It indicates how extraordinarily politically-minded you are. |
Is belief in God "a powerful incentive to better living" ? Why do you want an incentive to better living? Surely, your incentive must be your own desire to live cleanly and simply, must it not? If you look to an incentive, you are not interested in making life possible for all, you are merely interested in your incenti... |
You all believe in different ways, but your belief has no reality whatsoever. Reality is what you are, what you do, what you think, and your belief in God is merely an escape from your monotonous, stupid and cruel life. Furthermore, belief invariably divides people: there is the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Christian, the ... |
Now, what is *reality, what is God ? God is not the word, the word is not the thing. To know that which is immeasurable, which is not of time, the mind must be free of time, which means the mind must be free from all thought, from all ideas about God. What do you know about God or truth ? You do not really know anythin... |
Only when the mind is completely silent not only on the upper level but fundamentally, right through, on both the superficial and the deeper levels of consciousness—only then can the unknown come into being. The unknown is not something to be experienced by the mind; silence alone can be experienced, nothing but silenc... |
Therefore God or truth or what you will is a thing that comes into being from moment to moment, and it happens only in a state of freedom and spontaneity, not when the mind is disciplined according to a pattern. God is not a thing of the mind, it does not come through self-projection, it comes only when there is virtue... |
Question: Memory, you say, is incomplete experience. I have a memory and a vivid impression of your previous talks. In what sense is it an incomplete experience ? Please explain this idea in all its details. |
Krishnamurti: What do we mean by memory? You go to school and are full of facts, technical knowledge. If you are an engineer, you use the memory of technical knowledge to build a bridge. That is factual memory. There is also psychological memory. You have said såmething to me, pleasant or unpleasant, and I retain it ; ... |
When there is a challenge, which is ever new, you meet it with the response of the old. The old response conditions the new and therefore twists it, gives it a bias, therefore there is no complete understanding of the new so that the new is absorbed into the old and accordingly strengthens the old. This may seem abstra... |
Let us look at the problem differently. Surely memory is time, is it not? Memory creates yesterday, to-day and tomorrow. Memory of yesterday conditions to-day and therefore shapes to-morrow. That is the past through the present creates the future. There is a time process going on, which is the will to become. Memory is... |
You see a lovely sunset, a beautiful tree in a field and when you first look at it, you enjoy it completely, wholly ; but you go back to it with the desire to enjoy it again. What happens when you go back with the desire to enjoy it? There is no enjoyment, because it is the memory of yesterday's sunset that is now maki... |
Question: What is the difference between surrendering to the will of God and what you are saying about the acceptance of what is ? |
Krishnamurti: Surely there is a vast difference, is there not? Surrendering to the will of God implies that you already know the will of God. You are not surrendering to something you do not know. If you know reality, you cannot surrender to it; you cease to exist; there is no surrendering to a higher will. If you are ... |
To understand what is demands a different process— perhaps the word 'process' is not right but what I mean is this : to understand what is is much more diffcult, it requires greater intelligence, greater awareness, than mérely to accept or give yourself over to an idea. To understand what is does not demand effort; eff... |
It is not a question of accepting what is; you do not accept what is, you do not accept that you are brown or white, because it is a fact; only when you are trying to become something else do you have to accept. The moment you recognize a fact it ceases to have any significance; but a mind that is trained to think of t... |
Question: Is not the longing expressed in prayer a way to God ? |
Krishnamurti: First of all, we are going to examine the problems contained in this question. In it are implied prayer, concentration and meditation. Now what do we mean by prayer ? First of all, in prayer there is petition, supplication to what you call God, reality. You, as an individual, are demanding, petitioning, b... |
Now when you pray, when you beg, petition for something, it generally comes into being. When you ask, you receive; but what you receive will not create order, because what you receive does not bring clarity, understanding. It only satisfies, gives gratification but does not bring about understanding, because, when you ... |
miseries, confusions, which we ourselves have created ? Therefore what is it that answers ? Obviously the immeasurable cannot answer the measured, the petty, the small. But what is it that answers? At the moment when we pray We are fairly silent, in a state of receptivity; then our own subconscious brings a momentary c... |
In this problem of prayer there is another factor involved : the response of that which we call the, inner voice. As I said, when the mind is supplicating, petitioning, it is comparatively still ; when you hear the inner voice, it is your own voice projecting itself into that comparatively still mind. Again, how can it... |
In this problem of prayer there is also the question of concentration. With most of us, concentration is a process of exclusion. Concentration is brought about through effort, compulsion, direction, imitation, and so concentration is a |
process of exclusion. I am interested in so-called meditation but my thoughts are distracted, so I fix my mind on a picture, an image, or an idea and exclude all other thoughts. This process of concentration, which is exclusion, is considered to be a means of meditating. That is what you do, is it not? When you sit do... |
What is meditation? Concentration is not meditation, because where there is interest it is comparatively easy to concentrate on something. A general who is planning war, butchery, is very concentrated. A business man making money is very concentrated—he may even be ruthless, putting aside every other feeling and concen... |
So what is meditation? Surely meditation is understanding—meditation of the heart is understanding. How can there be undei•standing if there is exclusion ? How can there be understanding when there is petition, supplication? In understanding there is peace, there is freedom; that which you understand, from that you are... |
Understanding is the very basis, the fundamental process of meditation. You don't have to accept my word for it but if you examine prayer and concentration very carefully, deeply, you will find that neither of them leads to understanding. They merely lead to obstinacy, to a fixation, to illusion. Whereas meditation, in... |
What, then, do we mean by understanding? Understand. ing means giving right significance, right valuation, to all things. To be ignorant is to give wrong values; the very nature of stupidity is the lack of comprehension of right values. Understanding comes into being when there are right values, when right values are e... |
The beginning of meditation is self-knowledge, which means being aware of every movement of thought and feeling, knowing all the layers of my consciousness, not only the superficial layers but the hidden, the deeply concealed activities. To know the deeply concealed activities, the |
hidden motives, responses, thoughts and feelings, there must be tranquillity in the conscious mind; that is the conscious mind must be still in order to receive the projection of the unconscious. The superficial, conscious mind is occupied with its daily activities, with earning a livelihood, deceiving others, exploiti... |
Meditation is self•knowledge and without self-knowledge there is no meditation. If you are not aware of all your responses all the time, if you are not fully conscious, fully cognizant of your daily activities, merely to lock yourself in a room and sit down in front of a picture of your guru, of your Master, to meditat... |
self-knowledge there is no right thinking and, without right thinking, what you do has no meaning, however noble your intentions are. Thus prayer has no significance without self-knowledge but when there is self-knowledge there is right thinking and hence right action. When there is right action, |
there is no confusion and therefore there is no supplication to someone else to lead you out of it. A man who is fully aware is meditating; he does not pray, because he does not want anything. Through prayers through regimentation, through repetition and all the rest of it, you can bring about a certain stillness, but ... |
Question: The conscious mind is ignorant and afraid of the unconscious mind. You are addressing mainly the conscious mind and is that enough? Will your method bring about release of the unconscious ? Please explain in detail how one can tackle the unconscious mind fully. |
Krishnamurti: We are aware that there is the conscious and the unconscious mind but most of us function only on the conscious level, in the upper layer of the mind, and our whole life is practically limited to that. We live in the socalled conscious mind and we never pay attention to the deeper unconscious mind from wh... |
between the so-called conscious and the unconscious. |
Therefore, our problem is this, is it not? There is in fact only one state, not two states .such as the conscious and the unconscious; there is only a state of being, which is consciousness, though you may divide it as the conscious and the unconscious. But that consciousness is always of the past, never of the present... |
If you watch your own mind at work, you will see that the movement to the past and to the future is a process in which the present is not. Either the past is a means of escape from the present, which may be unpleasant, or the future is a hope away from the present. So the mind is occupied with the past or with the futu... |
made up not only of the upper layers of the mind but of the deeper layers as well. Such consciousness obviously cannot function at a different level, because it only knows those two movements of backwards and forwards. |
If you watch very carefully you will see that it is not a constant movement but that there is an interval between two thoughts; though it may be but an infinitesimal fraction of a second, there is an interval that has significance in the swinging backwards and forwards of the pendulum. We see the fact that our thinking... |
To put it differently, the problem is this: Most of us reject one particular form of conditioning and find another form, a wider, more significant or more pleasant conditioning. You give up one religion and take on another, reject one form of belief and accept another. Such substitution is obviously not understanding l... |
Now I say it is definitely possible for the mind to be free from all conditioning—not that you should accept my authority. If you accept it on authority, you will never discover, it will be another substitution and that will have no significance. When I say it is possible, I say it because for me it is a fact and I can... |
The understanding of the whole process of conditioning does not come to you through analysis or introspection, because the moment you have the analyser that very analyser himself is part of the background and therefore his analysis is of no significance. That is a fact and you must put it aside. The analyser who examin... |
The mind is the result of the past, which is the process of conditioning. How is it possible for the mind to be free ? To be free, the mind must not only see and understand its pendulum-like swing between the past and the future but |
also be aware of the interval between thoughts.-That interval is spontaneous, it is not brought about through any causation, through any wish, through any compulsion. |
If you watch very carefully, you will see that though the response, the movement of thought, seems so swift, there are gaps, there are intervals between thoughts. Between two thoughts there is a period of silence which is not related to the thought process. If you observe you will see that that period of silence, that ... |
Question: We know sex as an inescapable physical and psychological necessity and it seems to be a root-cause of chaos in the personal life of our generation, How can we deal with this problem ? |
Krishnamurti: Why is it that whatever we touch we turn into a problem? We have made God a problem, we have made love a problem, we have made relationship, living a problem, and we have made sex a problem. Why? Why is everything we do a problem, a horror? Why are we suffering? Why has sex become a problem? Why do we sub... |
So long as we live within the field of the mind there must be complications, there must be problems; that is all we know. Mind is sensation, mind is the result of accumulated sensations and reactions and anything it touches is bound to create misery, confusion, an endless problem. The mind is the real cause of our prob... |
What do we mean by the problem of sex ? Is it the act, or is it a thought about the act? Surely it is not the act. The sexual act is no problem to you, any more than eating is a problem to you, but if you think about eating or anything else all day long because you have nothing else to think about, it becomes a problem... |
Sex becomes an extraordinarily diffcult and complex problem so long as you do not understand the mind which thinks about the problem. The act itself can never be a problem but the thought about the act creates the problem. The act you safeguard; you live loosely, or indulge yourself in marriage, thereby making your wif... |
Therefore the problem of sex which tortures so many people all over the world cannot be resolved till the mind is understood. We cannot put an end to thinking but thought comes to an end when the thinker ceases and the thinker ceases only when there is an understanding of the whole process. Fear comes into being when t... |
Question:What do you mean by love? |
Krishnamurti: We are going to discover by understanding what love is not, because, as love is the unknown, we must come to it by discarding the known. The unknown cannot be discovered by a mind that is full of the knowm What we are going to do is to find out the values of the known, look at the known, and when that is ... |
What is love with most of us ? When we say we love somebody, what do we mean? We mean we possess that person. From that possession arises jealousy, because if I lose him or her what happens? I feel empty, lost; therefore I legalize possession; I hold him or her. From holding, possessing that person, there is jealousy, ... |
Obviously love is not sentiment. To be sentimental, to be emotional, is not love, because sentimentality and emotion are mere sensations. A religious person who weeps about Jesus or Krishna, about his guru or somebody else, is merely sentimental, emotional. He is indulging in sensation, which is a process of thought, a... |
to hatred, to war, to butchery. A man who is sentimental, full of tears for his religion, surely has no love. |
Is forgiveness love? What is implied in forgiveness? You insult me and I resent it, remember it; then, either through compulsion or through repentance, I say, "I forgive you". First I retain and then I reject. Which means what? I am still the central figure. I am still important, it is I who am forgiving somebody. As l... |
Obviously there is no love when there is no real respect, when you don't respect another, whether he is your servant or your friend. Have you not noticed that you are not respectful, kindly, generous, to your servants, to people who are so-called 'below' you ? You have respect for those above, for your boss, for the mi... |
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