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You can know love only when all these things have stopped, come to an end, only when you don't possess, when you are not merely emotional with devotion to an object. Such devotion is a supplication, seeking something in a different form. A man who prays does not know love. Since you are possessive, since you seek an en... |
Love cannot be thought about, love cannot be cultivated, love cannot be practised. The practice of love, the practice of brotherhood, is still within the field of the mind, therefore it is not love. When all this has stopped, then love comes into being, then you will know what it is to love. Then love is not quantitati... |
Question:What relation has death to life ? |
Krishnamurti: Is there a division between life and death ? Why do we regard death as something apart from life ? Why are we afraid of death? And why have so many books been written about death ? Why is there this line of demarcation between life and death? And is that separation real, or merely arbitrary, a thing of th... |
When we talk about life, we mean living as a process of continuity in which there is identification. Me and my house, me and my wife, me and my bank account, me and my past experiences—that is what we mean by life, is it not? Living is a process of continuity in memory, conscious as well as unconscious, with its variou... |
Now, can the end, which is death, be known while living ? If we can know what death is while we are living, then we shall have no problem. It is because we cannot experience the unknown while we are living that we are afraid of it. Our struggle is to establish a relationship between ourselves, which is the result of th... |
That which continues has no renewal. There can be nothing new, there can be nothing creative, in that which has continuance—which is fairly obvious. It is only when continuity ends that there is a possibility of that which is ever new. But it is this ending that we dread and we don't see that only in ending can there b... |
between life and death, to bridge the continuous with that which he thinks is beyond, is living in a fictitious, unreal world, which is a projection of himself. |
Now is it possible, while living, to die—which means coming to an end, being as nothing? Is it possible, while living in this world where everything is becoming more and more or becoming less and less, where everything is a process of climbing, achieving, succeeding, is it possible, in such a world, to know death? Is ... |
Question:Can the past dissolve all at once, or does it invariably need time? |
Krishnamurti: We are the result of the past. Our thought is founded upon yesterday and many thousand yesterdays. We are the result of time, and our responses, our present attitudes, are the cumulative effect of many thousand moments, incidents and experiences. So the past is, for the majority of us, the present, which ... |
What is the past ? What do we mean by the past? Surely we do not mean the chronological past. We mean, surely, the accumulated experiences, the accumulated responses, memories, traditions, knowledge, the sub-conscious storehouse of innumerable thoughts, feelings, influences and responses. With that background, it is no... |
The mind is the background ; the mind is the result of time ; the mind is the past, the mind is not the future. It can project itself into the future and the mind uses the present as a passage into the future, so it is still—whatever it does, whatever its activity, its future activity, its present activity, its past ac... |
When we talk about consciousness, do we not mean the experiencing, the naming or the terming of that experience and thereby storing up that experience in memory? All this, at different levels, is consciousness. Can the mind, which is the result of time, go through the process of analysis, step by step, in order to free... |
To be free of the background, many of the analysts say that you must examine every response, every complex, every hindrance, every blockage, which obviously implies a process of time. This means the analyser must understand what he is analysing and he must not misinterpret what he analyses. If he mistranslates what he ... |
Surely the experiencer and the experience are a joint phenomenon; they are not two separate processes, so first of all let us see the diffculty of analysing. It is almost impossible to analyse the whole content of our consciousness and thereby be free through that process. After all, who is the analyser? The analyser ... |
Then what have you left? You are only used to analysis, are you not? The observer observing—the observer and the observed being a joint phenomenon—the observer trying to analyse that which he observes will not free him from his background. If that is so, and it is, you abandon that process, do you not? If you see that ... |
You say that the mind is blank. Proceed further into that blank mind. In other words, when you discard what is known as being false, what has happened to your mind ? After all, what have you discarded ? You have discarded the false process which is the outcome of a background. Is that not so? With one blow, as it were,... |
To put the whole question differently, thought is the result of time, is it not ? Thought is the result of environment, of social and religious influences, which is all part of time. Now, can thought be free of time? That is, thought which is the result of time, can it stop and be free from the process of time ? Though... |
To put it very simply, when you want •to understand something, what is the state of your mind ? When you want to understand your child, when you want to understand somebody, something that someone is saying, what is the state of your mind? You are not analysing, criticizing, judging what the other is saying; you are li... |
Question:For Truth to come, you advocate action without idea. Is it possible to act at all times without idea, that is, without a purpose in view? |
Krishnamurti: What is our action at present? What do we mean by action ? Our action—what we want to do or to be— is based on idea, is it not? That is all we know; we have ideas, ideals, promises, various formulas as to what we are and what we are not. The basis of our action is reward in the future or fear of punishmen... |
When my action is based on an ideal which is an idea— such as "I must be brave", "I must follow the example", "I must be charitable", "I must be socially conscious" and so on—that idea shapes my action, guides my action. We all say, "There is an example of virtue which I must follow" ; which means, "I must live accordi... |
Now what would happen if the idea did not exist? At one stroke, you would have removed the gap, would you not? You would be what you are. You say "I am ugly, I must |
become beautiful; what am I to do ? "—which is action based on idea. You say "I am not compassionate, I must become compassionate". So you introduce idea separate from action. Therefore there is never true action of what you are but always action based on the ideal of what you will be. The stupid man always says he is ... |
Action means doing, moving. But when you have idea, it is merely ideation going on, thought-process going on in relation to action. If there is no idea, what would happen ? You are what you are. You are uncharitable, you are unforgiving, you are cruel, stupid, thoughtless. Can you remain with that? If you do, then see ... |
Action based on idea is very superficial, is not true action at all, is only ideation, which is merely the thought-process going on. |
Action which transforms us as human beings, which brings regeneration, redemption, transformation—call it what you will—such action is not based on idea. It is action irrespective of the sequence of reward or punishment. Such action is timeless, because mind, which is the time process, the calculating process, the divi... |
This question is not so easily solved. Most of you put questions and expect an answer "yes" or "no". It is easy to ask questions like "What do you mean ?" and then sit back and let me explain but it is much more arduous to find out the answer for yourselves, go into the problem so profoundly, so clearly and without any... |
Question:When I listen to you, all seems clear and new. At home, the old, dull restlessness asserts itself. What is wrong with me ? |
Krishnamurti: What is actually taking place in our lives ? There is constant challenge and response. That is existence, that is life, is it not ?—a constant challenge and response. The challenge is always new and the response is always old. I met you yesterday and you come to me to-day. You are different, you are modi... |
The old response arises from the thinker. Is not the thinker always the old ? Because your thought is founded on the past, |
when you meet the new it is the thinker who is meeting it ; the experience of yesterday is meeting it. The thinker is always the old. So we come back to the same problem in a different way: How to free the mind from itself as the thinker? How to eradicate memory, not factual memory but psychological memory, which is th... |
This- is not theoretical, this is not impractical. If you try to think out every thought and every feeling, you will discover that it is extraordinarily practical in your daily life? for then you are new and what is new is eternally enduring. To be |
new is creative and to be creative is to be happy; a happy man is not concerned whether he is rich or poor, he does not carc to what level of society he belongs, to what caste or to what country. He has no leaders, no gods, no temples, no churches and therefore no quarrels, no enmity. |
Surely that is the most practical way of solving our difficulties in this present world of chaos? It is because we are not creative, in the sense in which I am using that word, that we are so anti-social at all the different levels of our consciousness. To be very practical and effective in our social relationships, in... |
The new is absorbed into the old and the old destroys the new, so long as there is background, so long as the mind, the thinker, is conditioned by his thought. To be free from the background, from the conditioning influences, from memory, there must be freedom from continuity. There is continuity so long as thought and... |
Question:How can one be aware of an emotion without naming or labelling it? If I am aware of a feeling, I seem to know what that feeling is almost immediately after it arises. Or do you mean something different when you say, 'Do not name' ? |
Krishnamurti: Why do we name anything? Why do we give a label to a flower, to a person, to a feeling? Either to communicate one's feelings, to describe the flower and sö on and so on; or to identify oneself with that feeling. Is not that so? I name something, a feeling, to communicate it. 'I am angry.' Or I identify my... |
By giving a name to something, we have merely put it into a category and we think we have understood it; we don't look at it more closely. If we do not give-it a name, however, we are forced to look at it. That is we approach the flower or whatever it is with a newness, with a new quality of examination; we look at it ... |
feel righteous, but if you do not give a label and must therefore look at the individual thing—whether it is a man or a flower or an incident or an emotion—then you are forced to consider your relationship with it, and with the action following. So terming or giving a label is a very convenient way of disposing of anyt... |
What is the core from which you name, what is the centre which is always naming, choosing, labelling? We all feel there is a centre, a core, do we not?, from which we are acting, from which we are judging, from which we are naming. What is that centre, that core? Some would like to think it is a spiritual essence, God,... |
We will see presently, as we unfold it, that so long as this centre, this core, exists, there can be no understanding. It is only with the dissipation of this core that there is understanding, because, after all, that core is memory; memory of various experiences which have been given names, labels, identifications. Wi... |
For us, words like truth, God, have become very important —or the feeling which those words represent. When we say the word 'American', 'Christian', 'Hindu' or the word 'anger'—we are the word representing the feeling. But we don't know what that feeling is, because the word has become important. When you call yourself... |
If there is no word, no label, there is no centre, is there ? There is a dissolution, there is an emptiness—not the emptiness of fear, which is quite a different thing. There is a sense of being as nothing; because you have removed all the labels or rather because you have understood why you give labels to feelings and... |
as you have to a flower when you do not name it. You are forced to look at it anew. When you do not name a group of people, you are compelled to look at each individual face and not treat them all as the mass. Therefore you are much more alert, much more observing, more understanding; you have a deeper sense of pity, l... |
If you do not label, you have to regard every feeling as it arises. When you label, is the feeling different from the label ? Or does the label awaken the feeling? Please think it over. When we label, most of us intensify the feeling. The feeling and the naming are instantaneous. If there were a gap between naming and ... |
The problem is this, is it not ?, how to be free from a feeling which we name, such as anger? Not how to subjugate it, sublimate it, suppress it, which are all idiotic and immature, but how to be really free from it? To be really free from it, we have to discover whether the word is more important than the feeling. The... |
If I do not name a feeling, that is to say if thought is not functioning merely because of words or if I do not think in terms of words, images or symbols, which most of us do— then what happens ? Surely the mind then is not merely the observer. When the mind is not thinking in terms of words, symbols, images, there is... |
When the mind is no longer the centre, as the thinker made up of words, of past experiences—which are all memories, labels, st&ed up and put in categories, in pigeonholes— when it is not doing any of those things, then, obviously the mind is quiet. It is no longer bound, it has no longer a centre as the me—my house, my... |
When the mind is really tranquil, then it is possible for that which is immeasurable to come into being. Any other process, any other search for reality, is merely self-projected, home-made and therefore unreal. But this process is arduous and it means that the mind has to be constantly aware of everything that is inwa... |
Question:Our mind knows only the known. What is it in us that drives us to find the unknown, reality, God ? |
Krishnamurti: Does your mind urge toward the unknown ? Is there an urge in us for the unknown, for reality, for God ? Please think it out seriously. This is not a rhetorical question but let us actually find out. Is there an inward urge in each one of us to find the unknown ? Is there ? How can you find the unknown? If... |
Our problem is not what it is in us that drives us to find the unknown—that is clear enough. It is our own desire to be more secure, more permanent, more established, more happy, to escape from turmoil, from pain, confusion. That is our obvious drive. When there is that drive, that urge, you will find a marvellous esca... |
because that is all it knows. You cannot think about something that you do not know. You can only think about something that you know. |
Our diffculty is for the mind not to proceed in the known; that can only happen when the mind understands itself and how all its movement is from the past, projecting itself through the present, to the future. It is one continuous movement of the known; can that movement come to an end ? It can come to an end only when... |
Also, the intention must be right. That is there must be a cessation of the superstition that inwardly we all want the unknown. It is an illusion to think that we are all seeking God—we are not. We don't have to search for light. There will be light when there is no darkness and through darkness we cannot find the ligh... |
We have to consider not what it is that is driving us but why there is in us such confusion, such turmoil, such strife and antagonism—all the stupid things of our existence. When these are not, then there is light, we don't have to look for it. When stupidity is gone, there is intelligence. But the man who is stupid an... |
Therefore it is important to find out not if there is something more, something greater than the known, which is urging us to the unknown, but to see what it is in us that is creating confusion, wars, class differences, snobbishness, the pursuit of the famous, the accumulation of knowledge, the escape through music, th... |
Our problem is not how to seek the unknowable, but to understand the accumulative processes of the mind, which is ever the known. That is an arduous task: that demands constant attention, a constant awareness in which there is no sense of distraction, of identification, of condemnation; it is being with what is. Then o... |
Question:How does truth, as you have said, when repeated, become a lie? What really is a lie? Why is it wrong to lie? Is not this a profound and subtle problem on all the levels of our existence ? |
Krishnamurti: There are two questions in this, so let us examine the first, which is: When a truth is r.epeated, how does it become a lie? What is it that we repeat? Can you repeat an understanding? I understand something. Can I repeat it? I can verbalize it, I can communicate it but the experience is not what is repea... |
Take, for example, the feeling of love. Can you repeat it? When you hear the words 'Love your neighbour', is that a truth to you? It is truth only when you do love your neighbour; and that love cannot be repeated but only the word. Yet most of us are happy, content, with the repetition, 'Love your neighbour' or 'Don't ... |
The diffculty in this is to understand the question without thinking in terms of the opposite. A lie is not something |
opposed to truth. One can see the truth of what is being said, not in opposition or in contrast, as a lie or a truth; but just see that most of us repeat without understanding. For instance, we have been discussing naming and not naming a feeling and so on. Many of you will repeat it, I am sure, thinking that it is th... |
Take, for example, the idea that the thinker and the thought are one. It may be a truth to you, because you have directly experienced it. If I repeated it, it would not be true, would it ?—true, not as opposed to the false, please. It would not be actual, it would be merely repetitive and therefore would have no signif... |
As we are seeking truth through self-knowledge and are not mere propagandists, it is important to understand this. Through repetition one mesmerizes oneself by words or by sensations. One gets caught in illusions. To be free of that, it is imperative to experience directly and to experience directly one must be aware o... |
The other question is: "What really is a lie? Why is it wrong to lie? Is this not a profound and. subtle problem •on all the levels of our existence ?" |
What is a lie? A contradiction, isn't it? , a self-contradiCtion. One can consciously contradict or unconsciously; it can either be deliberate or unconscious; the contradiction can be either very, very subtle or obvious. When the cleavage in contradiction is very great, then either one becomes unbalanced or one realize... |
To understand this problem, what is a lie and why we lie, one has to go into it without thinking in terms of an opposite. Can we look at this problem of contradiction in ourselves without trying not to be contradictory? Our diffculty in examining this question is, is it not ?, that we so readily condemn a lie but, to u... |
Now why do we have a pattern, a standard, an approximation, an idea which we are trying to live up to? Why? Obviously to be secure, to be safe, to be popular, to have a good opinion of ourselves and so on. There is the seed of contradiction. As long as we are approximating ourselves to something, trying to be something... |
when we do identify ourselves completely with something, there is self-enclosure, there is a resistance, which brings about unbalance—which is an obvious thing. |
Why is there contradiction in ourselves? I have done something and I do not want it to be discovered; I have thought something which does not come up to the mark, which puts me in a state of contradiction, and I do not like it. Where there is approximation, there must be fear and it is this fear that contradicts. Where... |
Is it possible to understand why there is contradiction in ourselves—not only superficially but much more deeply, psychologically? First of all, is one aware that one lives a contradictory life? We want peace and we are nationalists; we want to avoid social misery and yet each one of us is individualistic, limited, sel... |
It is not an easy thing, to look passively at something; but in understanding that, one begins to understand the whole process of the ways of one's feeling and thinking. When one is aware of the full significance of contradiction in oneself, it brings an extraordinary change: you are yourself, then, not something you a... |
Question:You have realized reality. Can you tell us what God is ? |
Krishnamurti: How do you know I have realized ? To know that I have realized, you also must have realized. This is not just a clever answer. To know something you must be of it. You must yourself have had the experience also and therefore your saying that I have realized has apparently no meaning. What does it matter i... |
I know the whole tradition says, "Be with a man who has realized." How can you know that he has realized? All that you do is to keep company with him and even that is extremely diffcult nowadays. There are very few good people, in the real sense of the word—people who are not seeking something, who are not after someth... |
We idealize those who have realized and hope that they will give us something, which is a false relationship. How can the man who has realized communicate if there is no love ? That is our diffculty. In all our discussions we do not really love each other; we are suspicious. You want something |
from me, knowledge, realization, or you want to keep company with me, all of which indicates that you do not love. You want something and therefore you are out to exploit. If we really love each other then there will be instantaneous communication. Then it does not matter if you have realized and I have not or if you a... |
You want me to tell you what reality is, Can the indescribable be put into words? Can you measure something immeasurable? Can you catch the wind in your fist? If you do, is that the wind ? If you measure that which is immeasurable, is that the real? If you formulate it, is it the real? Surely not, for the moment you de... |
Therefore instead of asking who has realized or what God is why not give your whole attention and awareness to what is? Then you will find the unknown, or rather it will come to you. If you understand what is the known, you will experience that extraordinary silence which is not induced, not enforced, that creative emp... |
It is extremely difficult to be aware of dullness, to be aware of greed, to be aware of ill-will, ambition and so on. The very fact of being aware of what is is truth. It is truth that liberates, not your striving to be free. Thus reality is not far but we place it far away because we try to use it as a means of self-c... |
Question:Can we realize on the spot the truth you are speaking of, without any previous preparation ? |
Krishnamurti:What do you mean by truth ? Do not let us use a word of which we do not know the meaning; we can use a simpler word, a more direct word. Can you understand, can you comprehend a problem directly? That is what is implied, is it not? Can you understand what is, immediately, now? In understanding what is, yo... |
The problem, the question is, whether I can understand a challenge completely, directly; sense all its significance, all its perfume, its depth, its beauty and its ugliness and so be free of it. A challenge is always new, is it not ? The problem is always new, is it not? A problem which you had yesterday, |
for example, has undergone such modification that when you meet it to-day, it is already new. But you meet it with the old, because you meet it without transforming, merely modifying your own thoughts, |
Let me put it in a different way. I met you yesterday. In the meantime you have changed. You have undergone a modification but I still have yesterday's picture of you. I meet you to-day with my picture of you and therefore I do not understand you—I understand only the picture of you which I acquired yesterday. If I wan... |
After all, what is life ? It is something new all the time, is it not? It is something which is ever undergoing change, creating a new feeling. To-day is never the same as yesterday and that is the beauty of life. Can you and I meet every problem anew? Can you, when you go home, meet your wife and your .child anew, mee... |
Can one realize truth immediately, without preparation ? I say yes—not out of some fancy of mine, not out of some illusion; but psychologically experiment with it and you will see. Take any challenge, any small incident don't wait for some great crisis—and see how you respond to it. Be aware of it, of your responses, o... |
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... |
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