Jiddu Krishnamurti Teachings Discourses J Krishnamurti Quotes Talks Videos

Jiddu Krishnamurti - We have broken up the earth as yours and mine - your nation, my nation

2012-04-27T10:00:00.001-07:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti: You are always a guest on this earth and have the austerity of a guest. Austerity is far deeper than owning only a few things. The very word austerity has been spoilt by the monks, by the sannyasis, by the hermits. Sitting on that high hill alone in the solitude of many things, many rocks and little animals and ants, that word had no meaning. Over the hills in the far distance was the wide, shining, sparkling sea. We have broken up the earth as yours and mine - your nation, my nation, your flag and his flag, this particular religion and the religion of the distant man. The world, the earth, is divided, broken up. And for it we fight and wrangle, and the politicians exult in their power to maintain this division, never looking at the world as a whole. They haven't got the global mind. They never feel nor ever perceive the immense possibility of having no nationality, no division, they can never perceive the ugliness of their power, their position and their sense of importance.

They are like you or another, only they occupy the seat of power with their petty little desires and ambitions, and so maintain apparently, as long as man has been on this earth, the tribal attitude towards life. They don't have a mind that is not committed to any issue, to any ideals, ideologies - a mind that steps beyond the division of race, culture, that the religions man has invented. Governments must exist as long as man is not a light to himself, as long as he does not live his daily life with order, care, diligently working, watching, learning. He would rather be told what to do. He has been told what to do by the ancients, by the priests, by the gurus, and he accepts their orders, their peculiar destructive disciplines as though they were gods on this earth, as though they knew all the implications of this extraordinarily complex life.

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti book "Krishnamurti to Himself"

Jiddu Krishnamurti video : Fear Destroys Love

2011-05-25T04:30:00.001-07:00

osho rajneesh on sensitivity, 5 senses and the 6th sense

2010-11-26T07:21:00.000-08:00

enlightened mystic swami rajneesh speaks on the 5 senses the 6th sense and sensitivity. visit swami rajneesh site http://www.oshorajneesh.net

Jiddu Krishnamurti on difference between aggression and competition

2010-11-26T07:17:00.000-08:00

Questioner: Is there no difference between aggression and competition? They look different to me right now.

Jiddu Krishnamurti: Madame, please, I'll go into it, don't bother about that. Either you write the questions, I'll answer them, or let me talk a little about this.

You can see what aggression does. Right? You are aggressive, I am aggressive for the same job, the same this, that, the other. And so we are fighting each other all along the way - right? - both psychologically and physically. And we carry on. That's part of our pattern, part of our social education, and to break that pattern we say we must exercise our will. Right? Which is another aggression. I don't know if you follow this. Right? Right? Are you following this, sir? When I exercise my will, will is another form of 'I must'. You understand. That's another form of aggression.

So can you have an insight into aggression? You have understood my question, or is it too difficult? You understand my question sir? That is, I am aggressive - thank god I am not, I have never been, I don't want to be (laughs) - suppose I am aggressive and that's the pattern from childhood, that is the education, the mother, the father, and the society, the boys around me, are all aggressive, and I see, and I like that, it gives me pleasure. And I accept it and I also become aggressive. Right? Then as I grow up somebody shows me the nature of aggression, what it does in society, how competition is destroying human beings. It is not only the speaker is saying this, scientists are beginning to say this - so perhaps you will accept the scientists. So you explain it very carefully, all the reason, the cause, and the destructive nature of competition, which is to compare, always comparing. You understand?

Now a mind that doesn't compare at all - you understand? - is a totally different kind of mind. It has got much more vitality. So one explains all this, and yet we go on being aggressive, competitive, comparing ourselves with somebody, always something much greater, not with the poorer, with always something greater. So there is this pattern established, this cadre, this framework, and in which the mind is caught. And listening to it you say, 'I must get out of it, I must do something about it', which is what? Another form of aggression. You understand? I wonder if you see that. So can you, can we have an insight into aggression? You follow? Not explanations, not the remembrance of all the implications of it and so on and so on, which is constant examination, then coming to a conclusion, and acting according to that conclusion. That's not insight. Whereas if you have immediate insight into it - you understand? - then you have broken the whole pattern of aggression.

That is, sir, we compare - don't we? - both physically - you have long... I wish I could look as nice as you look, or psychologically, there is constant comparison. Which means what? I don't know if you have gone into this. To compare oneself with somebody else, greater, more intelligent, bright, and so on, is to what? Deny what you are and change what you are. I wonder if you understand this. Am I making this clear? Look, I compare myself with you and I say you are awfully clever, all that, and in that comparison I say, by Jove, I realise I am very dull. Right? You are following this? But if I have no comparison, am I dull? I begin then to discover the things 'as is'. I wonder if you see.

So what we shall do with the way we are living? Sorry to bring it home. What shall we do? You will attend meetings, other forms of other kinds of meetings, discussions, philosophers explaining their philosophy, the latest psychologist, non-Freudian, non-this, and non-that, but the latest, he will explain to you. You understand? We are doing this all the time, moving from one thing to another, and that's called an open mind. But we never say look, this is so, I am like this, let me find out why am I like this. Why I have wounds, psychological bruises - you understand? - why. Why do I live with them? I don't know if you are following all this. But reading somebody like, books of... books, attending Krishnamurti's talks, and then quoting back, it is so... I know all this by heart! (Laughter) I have been at this for sixty years and more, so you don't have to quote to me. But if you don't quote, and find out for yourself - you understand, sir? - there is greater energy, more fun, more alive, you become much more alive.

This is a good question because it affects us. That is, what is attention, what is the relationship of thought to attention, is there in attention freedom? Right? Is this a question that affects us? That is, we know what concentration is. Right? Most of us do from childhood we are trained to concentrate, and the implications of that concentration is narrowing down all energy to a particular point, and holding to that point. Right? A boy in a school is looking out of the window, looking at all the birds and the trees and the movement of the leaves, or the squirrel climbing up the tree, and the educator says, 'Look, you are not paying attention, concentrate on the book.' Right? 'Listen to what I am saying', and so on and so on. Which is what? Go into it, sir. Which is what? You are making concentration far more important than attention. That is, if the boy is looking out of the window watching that squirrel, I would help him to watch - if I am the educator - I would help him to watch that squirrel completely. You follow? Watch it. Watch the movement of the tail, the mouth, the nozzle, how its claws are, everything, watch it. Then if he learns to watch that attentively he will pay attention to the beastly book! (Laughter) You follow what I am saying? So there is no contradiction.

So attention is a state of mind in which there is no contradiction. Right? There is no entity, or a centre, or a point, which says, I must attend. In that state there is no wastage of energy. Whereas in concentration there is always the controlling process going on: I want to concentrate on that page but thought wanders off, and then you pull it back, the constant battle going on. Whereas in attention, if you go into it, it is very simple really. When somebody says, 'I love you', and he means it, you are attending, you don't say, do you love me because I look nice, or I have money, or sexual, or this or that - you follow what I am saying? So attention is something totally different from concentration.

And this attention, the questioner asks, what is the relationship of this attention to thought? Right? None, obviously. I don't know if you follow this. Concentration has a relationship to thought because thought directs: I must learn, I must concentrate in order to control myself. Right? Thought then gives a direction from one point to another point. Whereas in attention thought has no place - you attend.

And is there a gap between attention and thought. Good lord. Sir, as we explained the other day, if you once understand, if one once has a grasp of the whole movement of thought you wouldn't put this question. You understand sir? I am not... I'll answer it, but first one has to, understand what thought is. You understand? Not somebody tell you what thought is. But to see what thought is, how it comes into being. And if you will go with me, I will do it again, we will go into it.

There can be no thought if there is total amnesia. Right? But fortunately, or unfortunately we are not in a state of amnesia. And one wants to find out what thought is, what place it has in life. You understand? So one begins to examine thinking. So what is thinking? Thinking takes place as a reaction to memory. Obviously. Memory responds to a challenge, to a question, to an action, or responds in relationship to something, or to an idea, to a person. Right? You see all this in life. So what is thinking, what is thought, how does thought exist in the human mind? So one asks then, what is memory? You understand? What is memory? Memory is you have trodden on some insect that has bitten you. That memory, that pain is registered and stored in the brain, that pain, which becomes a memory, it is not actual pain. That pain is over but the memory remains. So next time you are careful. So there is experience as pain, which has become knowledge, and that knowledge, experience is memory, that memory responds as thought. Right? That memory is thought. And knowledge, however wide, however deep, however extensive, must always be limited. Right? There is no complete knowledge. I don't know if you are following all this.

So thought is always partial, limited, divisive because in itself it isn't complete, in itself it can never be complete; it can think about completeness. You understand? It can think about totality, whole, but it's not, thought itself is not whole. So whatever it creates philosophically, religiously, it is still partial, limited, fragmentary, because knowledge is part of ignorance. You understand, sir? I don't know if you understand this. As knowledge can never be complete it must always go hand in hand with ignorance. Right? That's logical, rational. And if one understands the nature of thought, and understands what concentration is, then thought cannot attend because attention is giving all energy - you understand? - without any restraint. I wonder if you understand this. If you are listening now, I hope you are, if you are listening and attending, what takes place? There is no 'you' attending. Right? There is no centre that says, 'I must attend'. You are attending because it is your life, your interest. If you are not interested, lying down in the sun, saying, well I'll listen partly, that's a different matter. But if you are serious and giving attention you will soon find out all your problems, all that is gone - at least for the moment.

So to resolve problems is to attend. I wonder if you have got it. You understand this? It's not a trick! (Laughs)

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti Fourth Public Question & Answer Meeting in Ojai

osho rajneesh - what is conditioning

2010-11-26T07:07:00.000-08:00

Enlightened Mystic Swami Rajneesh speaks in italy with italian translation - on conditioning and misunderstanding of therapists.
visit swami rajneesh website http://www.oshorajneesh.net

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Sensitivity and Consideration for others

2010-07-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Question - Could we talk about sensitivity and consideration for others?
Jiddu Krishnamurti : Man has always wanted something holy, sacred. Just being kind to others, being sensitive, polite, considerate, thoughtful and affectionate: that hasn't got depth, it hasn't got vitality. Unless you find out in your life something really sacred which has depth, which has tremendous beauty, which is the source of everything, life becomes very superficial. You may be happily married, with children, a house and money, you may be clever and famous, but without that perfume everything becomes like a shadow that has no substance.

Seeing what is happening around the world, will you, in your daily life, find out something that is really true, really beautiful, holy, sacred? If you have that, then politeness has meaning, then consideration has meaning, has depth. Then you can do anything you like, there will always be that perfume. How will you come to this? It is part of your education, not only to learn mathematics, but also to find this out.

You know, to see something very clearly - even that tree - your mind must be quiet, mustn't it? To see that picture I must look at it, but if my mind is chattering, saying `I wish I were outside', or `I wish I had a better pair of trousers', if my mind is wandering, I will never be able to see that picture clearly. To see something very clearly I must have a very quiet mind. See the logic of it first. To watch the birds, to watch the clouds, to watch the trees, the mind must be extraordinarily still to follow.

There are various systems in Japan and India to control the mind so that it becomes completely quiet. And being very quiet you then experience something immeasurable - that is the idea. So they say: first the mind has to be quiet, control it, don't let it wander, because when you have a quiet mind life is extraordinary. Now when you control or force the mind you are distorting it, aren't you? If I force myself to be kind, that is not kindness. If I force myself to be extremely polite to you that is not politeness. So if I force my mind to concentrate on this one picture then there is so much strain, effort, pain and suppression. Therefore such a mind is not a quiet mind - you see? So we have to ask: is there a way of bringing about a very quiet mind without any distortion, without any effort, without saying, "I must control it"?

Of course there is. There is a quietness, a stillness without any effort. That requires understanding of what effort is. And when you understand what effort, control, suppression is understand it not just verbally but really see the truth of it - in that very perception the mind becomes quiet.

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti Book "Beginnings of Learning"

Jiddu Krishnamurti - One can understand suffering only

2010-06-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Mere verbal explanation of suffering, mere intellection, the perception of the causes of suffering, does not resolve suffering. That is an obvious fact; but as most of us are fed on words, and as words have become of such immense importance, we are easily satisfied by explanations. We read the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, or any other religious book which explains the cause of suffering, and we are satisfied; we take the explanation for the resolution of suffering.

Words have become much more significant than the understanding of suffering itself; but the word is not the thing. Any amount of explanation, any amount of reasoning, will not feed a hungry man. What he wants is food, not the explanation of food, or the smell of food. He is hungry, and he must have the substance that nourishes. Most of us are satisfied by the explanation of the cause of suffering. Therefore, we don't take
suffering as a thing to be radically resolved, a contradiction in ourselves that must be understood. How is one to understand suffering?

One can understand suffering only when explanation subsides and all kinds of escapes are understood and put aside, that is, when one sees the actual in suffering. But you see, you don't want to understand suffering; you run away to the club, you read the newspaper, you do puja, go to the temple, plunge into politics or social service - anything rather than to face that which is. So, the cultivation of escapes has become much more important than the understanding of sorrow; and it requires a very intelligent mind, a mind that is very alert, to see that it is escaping and to put an end to escapes.

Source - J Krishnamurti Book "Choiceless Awareness"

Jiddu Krishnamurti - All our thinking, our feeling, is limited by words

2010-06-24T01:44:00.000-07:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - It is obviously an absolute necessity to bring about within each one a radical revolution, a change in mutation at the very root of consciousness. I feel that unless this takes place totally, the many confusing and contradictory problems in all our relationships at all the levels of our consciousness can never be solved. The search for truth, for reality, is not possible in a world in which there is not only outward contradiction but inward self-contradiction. It is not possible for one to discover that extraordinary thing called reality if there is no corresponding total clarity, not according to any particular formula or a concept, but that clarity that comes about through understanding through the awareness of the total boundary of one's consciousness.

You know it is very difficult to understand the meaning of words and also to be free of words. Most of us who understand English understand more or less the meaning of words. Words have their reference in the dictionary, or we give a particular significance to words. And I feel it is very important not to be caught in words. Most of us live with words; for us words have an extraordinary significance. All our thinking, our feeling, is limited by words. Words and symbols play an enormous part in our life; and to really comprehend those words and to be free of words and to go beyond the words is very important for the man who would really understand what is truth.

Source - J Krishnamurti Book "The New Mind"

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Self-image leads to pain

2010-05-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Why divide problems as major and minor? Is not everything a problem? Why make them little or big problems, essential or unessential problems? If we could understand one problem, go into it very deeply however small or big it is, then we would uncover all problems. This is not a rhetorical answer.

Take any problem: anger, jealousy, envy, hatred—we know them all very well. If you go into anger very deeply, not just brush it aside, then what is involved? Why is one angry? Because one is hurt, someone has said an unkind thing; and when someone says a flattering thing you are pleased. Why are you hurt? Self- importance, is it not? And why is there self-importance?

Because one has an idea, a symbol of oneself, an image of oneself, what one should be, what one is or what one should not be. Why does one create an image about oneself?

Because one has never studied what one is, actually. We think we should be this or that, the ideal, the hero, the example. What awakens anger is that our ideal, the idea we have of ourselves, is attacked. And our idea about ourselves is our escape from the fact of what we are. But when you are observing the actual fact of wha t you are, no one can hurt you.

Then, if one is a liar and is told that one is a liar it does not mean that one is hurt; it is a fact. But when you are pretending you are not a liar and are told that you are, then you get angry, violent. So we are always living in an ideational world, a world of myth and never in the world of actuality. To observe what is, to see it, actually be familiar with it, there must be no judgment, no evaluation, no opinion, no fear.

Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes and Sayings

2010-05-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes and Sayings

It is only the perception of truth that liberates; and to see, to receive truth, there must be the focusing of attention, which means that you must give your heart and mind to see and to understand.
Relationship is a mirror in which I see myself as I am.
The mind cannot see the new because it is constantly living in the past, the past which is the system. When you say 'I am a Christian', or 'I am a Hindu', it is the past which speaks and cannot see anything new.
The world is not something separate from you and me; the world, society, is the relationship that we establish or seek to establish between each other. So you and I are the problem, and not the world, because the world is the projection of ourselves, and to understand the world we must understand ourselves. That world is not separate from us; we are the world, and our problems are the world’s problems.
Quietness of the mind comes into being only when you see the whole implication of fear, of authority, of time and the separation between the observer and the observed when you see the whole structure. To see the whole structure, obviously your mind must be quiet; one has to learn how to look - not at the most complex things, but just to look at a tree or a flower, at a cloud - without any movement of thought - just to look.
Truth has no tradition, it cannot be handed down.
A mind that is ambitious can never know what it is to sympathize, to have pity, to love. An ambitious mind is a cruel mind—whether spiritually or outwardly or inwardly.

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Is love a feeling?

2010-04-28T01:34:00.000-07:00

Question: Is love a feeling?

Jiddu Krishnamurti: The gentleman asks: is the love that you talk about a feeling? What is feeling? Feeling is like thought. Feeling is a sensation. I see a flower and I respond to that flower, I like it or dislike it. The like or the dislike is dictated by my thought, and the thought is the response of the background of memory.

So, I say, `I like that flower', or `I do not like that flower; `I like this feeling' or `I do not like that feeling'. Now, is love related to feeling? What is your answer? Look at what my question is. Listen to it. Is love a feeling? Feeling is sensation, obviously - sensation of like and dislike, of good and bad, of good taste and all the rest of it. Is that feeling related to love? That is the question; and what does love mean to you?

Do you associate love with women or men, do you associate love with sex? You must, because you have denied beauty; all your saints have denied beauty. And beauty is associated with women.

So, you have said, `No feeling; and so you have cultivated rough personalities, crude egos which deny beauty. Have you watched your street, have you watched the way you live in your houses, the way you sit, the way you talk? And have you noticed all your saints whom you worship? For them passion is sex, and therefore they deny passion, therefore they deny beauty - deny in the sense of putting those aside. So, with sensation you have put away love because you say, `Sensation will make me a prisoner, I will be a slave to sex-desire; therefore I must cut'.

Therefore you have made sex into an immense problem. Sex is a problem to all of you; and all your gods whom you want to reach, say that you must be without feeling, you must never look at a woman, never look at a man, never look at the tree, at the river, at the beauty of the earth.

So is love a feeling? When you have understood feeling completely, not partially, when you have really understood the totality of feeling, then you will know what love is. When you can

see the beauty of a tree, when you can see the beauty of a smile, when you can see the sun setting behind the walls of your town - see totally - then you will know what love is.

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti EBook "A Psychological Revolution"

Jiddu Krishnamurti - You know What Death is?

2010-04-28T01:20:00.001-07:00

Question: Can one live in this world without any contradiction, psychologically?

Jiddu Krishnamurti : Is it possible to live in this world in a state in which, psychologically, there is no contradiction? I want to experience that state. It must be there. How do I proceed. That is too difficult. Let me take something simpler.

You know what death is? You have seen death being carried away to be burnt, and the burning of death is the continuity of death. I want to know what it is to die, while I am living - not when I am old, diseased. I want to know what it is to die, while living with my faculties fully alive and while my brain can reason, while it is not diseased. I want to know the state, the feeling of dying, of being dead. I want to know it, not because I am frightened, but because I have said a motive cannot take me very far - then the motive dictates the journey.

Therefore, I see that a mind that wishes to know what is death, must be free from fear. So, I must enquire into the whole question of fear. Is it possible to live in this world without fear? So, I enquire, I see, I cross-examine, I am aware of every movement of thought. And it is only then, when there is no fear and therefore no motive, that I can find out what death is. That means, I must totally abandon everything I know. I must die to everything known - to my family, to my tradition, to my virtue, to everything.

Is it possible to die? I say it is possible, but it has no validity for you; it has validity only when you die to all the known. When you die to the known, every day, never accumulating then you will find out what death is. And the discovery of what death is comes with the understanding of the totality of fear and therefore being free of fear; and the freedom from fear is the source of energy.

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti Book "A Psychological Revolution"

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Explanations are as so much dust to a discerning mind

2010-02-18T23:09:00.000-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Some of you may think that I am repetitive, and I may be so, for the questions that have been sent in, the interviews and general conversations I have had with people, have given me the impression that there is little understanding of what I have been
saying; and so I have to repeat the same thing in different words.

I hope those of you who have more or less grasped the fundamental ideas will have the patience to listen again to what I have to say. There is so much suffering, in such a variety of ways, that one agonizes over it. This is not an empty phrase. One perceives so much exploitation and cruelty around one, that one is constantly asking oneself what is the cause of sorrow and by what means can it be dissipated.

There are some who firmly believe that the misery of the world is the result of some evil misfortune beyond the control of man, and that happiness and freedom from sorrow can exist only in another world, when man returns to God. This attitude towards life is completely erroneous, from my point of view, for this chaos is of man's own making.

To discern the process of suffering, each one must comprehend himself. To understand oneself is one of the most difficult tasks and demands the most strenuous effort and constant alertness, and very few have the inclination or the desire to comprehend deeply this process of suffering and sorrow. We have more opportunities to dissipate our energies through absurd amusements, futile conversations and vain pursuits, than to search out, to penetrate deeply into our own psychological demands, needs, beliefs and ideals. But this involves strenuous effort on our part, and as we do not wish to exert ourselves, we would rather escape into all manner of easy satisfactions.

If we do not escape through diversions, we escape through beliefs, through the activities of organizations with their loyalties and commitments. These beliefs become a shield, preventing us
from comprehending ourselves. Religious societies promise to help us to understand ourselves, but unfortunately we are exploited and we merely repeat their phrases and succumb to the authority of their leaders.

So these organizations, with their increasing restrictions and secret promises, lead us away into further complications which make us incapable of understanding ourselves. Once we have committed ourselves to a particular society, to its leaders and their friends, we begin to develop those loyalties and responsibilities which prevent us from being wholly honest with ourselves. There are of course other forms of escape, through various superficial activities.

To understand oneself profoundly, one needs balance. That is, one cannot abandon the world, hoping to understand oneself, or be so entangled in the world that there is no occasion to comprehend oneself. There must be balance, neither renunciation nor acquiescence.

This demands alertness and deep awareness. We must learn to observe our actions, thoughts, ideals, beliefs, silently and without judgment, without interpreting them, so as to be able to discern their true significance. We must first be cognizant of our own ideals, pursuits, wants, without accepting or condemning them as being right or wrong. At present we cannot discern what is true and what is false, what is lasting and what is transient, because the mind is so crippled with its own self-created wants, ideals and escapes that it is incapable of true perception. So we must first learn to be silent and balanced observers of our limitations and frictions which cause sorrow.

If you begin to observe, you will see that you are seeking new explanations, definitions, satisfactions, ideals, graphic images and pictures, as substitutes for the old. You accepted the old beliefs, explanations and pictures because they satisfied you; and now, through friction with life, you are finding out that they no longer give you what you crave.

So you seek new explanations, new hopes, new ideals and escapes, but with the same background of want and satisfaction. Then you begin to compare the old explanations with the new, and choose those which give you the greatest security and contentment. You think that by accepting these new explanations and ideals, you will find happiness and peace. As your demand is for contentment and satisfaction, you help to create and accept beliefs and explanations that fulfil your want, and then you begin to shape your thought and conduct according to these new moulds.

If you observe, you will perceive that this is so. As there is so much suffering, both within and without, you desire to know the cause, but you are easily satisfied with explanations and you continue to suffer. Explanations are as so much dust to a discerning mind.

Some of you believe in the idea of reincarnation. You come and ask me what I believe, whether reincarnation is a fact or not, whether I remember my past lives, and so on. Now, why do you ask me? Why do you want to know what I think about it? You want a further confirmation of your own belief, which you call a fact, a law, because it gives you a hope, a purpose in life. Thus belief becomes to you a fact, a law, and you go about seeking confirmation of your hope. Even though I may confirm it, it cannot be of vital importance to you. Whatever it may be to me, real or false, what is important for you is that you should discern for yourself these conceptions, through action, through living, and not accept any assertions.

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Understanding of the self requires a great deal of intelligence

2010-01-31T09:21:00.000-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Understanding of the self requires a great deal of intelligence, a great deal of watchfulness, alertness, watching ceaselessly, so that it does not slip away. I who am very earnest, want to dissolve the self. When I say that, I know it is possible to dissolve the self.

Please be patient. The moment I say “I want to dissolve this,” and in the process I follow for the dissolution of that, there is the experiencing of the self; and so, the self is strengthened. So, how is it possible for the self not to experience? One can see that creation is not at all the experience of the self. Creation is when the self is not there, because creation is not intellectual, is not of the mind, is not self-projected, is something beyond all experiencing, as we know it. Is it possible for the mind to be quite still, in a state of non-recognition, which is, non-experiencing, to be in a state in which creation can take place—which means, when the self is not there, when the self is absent? Am I making myself clear or not?...

The problem is this, is it not? Any movement of the mind, positive or negative, is an experience which actually strengthens the “me”. Is it possible for the mind not to recognize? That can only take place when there is complete silence, but not the silence which is an experience of the self and which therefore strengthens the self.

Jiddu Krishnamurti - All becoming is disintegration

2010-01-31T09:18:00.000-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - The mind has an idea, perhaps pleasurable, and it wants to be like that idea, which is a projection of your desire. You are this, which you do not like, and you want to become that, which you like. The ideal is a self-projection; the opposite is an extension of what is;
it is not the opposite at all, but a continuity of what is, perhaps somewhat modified. The projection is self- willed, and conflict is the struggle towards the projection....

You are struggling to become something, and that something is part of yourself. The ideal is your own projection. See how the mind has played a trick upon itself. You are struggling after words, pursuing your own projection, your own shadow. You are violent, and you are struggling to become nonviolent, the ideal; but the ideal is a projection of what is, only under a different name.

When you are aware of this trick which you have played upon yourself, then the false as the false is seen. The struggle towards an illusion is the disintegrating factor. All conflict, all becoming is disintegration. When there is an awareness of this trick that the mind has played upon itself, then there is only what is. When the mind is stripped of all becoming, of all ideals, of all comparison and condemnation, when its own structure has collapsed, then the what is has undergone complete transformation. As long as there is the naming of what is, there is relationship between the mind and what is; but when this naming process—which is memory, the very structure of the mind—is not, then what is is not. In this transformation alone is there integration.

Jiddu Krishnamurti : It's pride that prevents me from looking at myself

2010-01-31T09:11:00.000-08:00

Questioner: I feel Sir, that we cannot totally give up our images and motives. We can lessen them or see them, but I fear that we cannot give them up completely.

Jiddu Krishnamurti: You are saying we must keep a few images, we cannot drop all our images. It is said we cannot drop those images in which we take pride, which give us pleasure, and look at ourselves without the image of opinion, judgment and so on.

Surely, if I want to look at something clearly, want to understand it, see what is actually going on in myself, then do I have to have any image? From observation I can go further, but not if I come to it with a conclusion. (I don't know if you're following.) After observing myself I'm capable of doing that; I can then proceed. But if I come to it with an image, with an opinion, with a conclusion, with pride obviously it is going to block me. Please see the reason of it! Not your opinion or my opinion. I can proceed if I can look at myself without any image and see the causes of my activity: why I think this way why I behave that way, why I'm aggressive. But if I look at myself saying, 'I must not be aggressive', that is an ideological escape, which has no value at all.

See how very important this is, because most of us take pride in free will: 'I am free to choose'. Perhaps you are free to choose this colour or that colour the colour of the hat you are going to wear choose ( I mustn't use the word 'choose') your husband! But is there such a thing as free will? Will being desire to do or not to do to choose or not to choose. And is there a law in which there is no choice of will at all? I don't know if you're following this? If there is complete harmony within oneself (this is one of the most difficult things, don't think you are perfectly harmonious, you are not, we are broken up fragments) but if one has this complete harmony, awareness in oneself, then probably one is in harmony with the universal law then it is not a question of obeying or following, then there is only that. Sorry, I may have gone a little too far. We cannot go into that unless we can really look at ourselves anew, afresh, so that we see what we are.

It's pride that prevents me from looking at myself and it is pride that is inventing the ideology which says 'I should be'. I don't like what I am and my pride says, 'I must be that'. This is the ideological philosophy which man has invented, the formula, the 'should be'. Pride creates this conflict between what is and what should be, and pride says: I must be that, this is ugly, this is stupid, this is unintelligent, this is unreasonable. So I put on a mask of what I should be, and hence there is a conflict, a kind of hypocritical activity going on. Is it possible to look at oneself without the image of pride? I'm only putting in other words what we were talking about yesterday. But one has such extraordinary images of oneself haven't you? No? I am a great writer, I am this, I am that, I am a Jew, a Christian, a Catholic, a Communist, all the images that one has built about oneself. Why? Is it pride? Or, have we invested in these images values other than the actual state of one's own being?

One is aggressive and for various reasons one is ashamed of that and one has the ideology of non-aggression. This ideology is invented by one's pride, by one's desire to be other than 'what is', and by giving great value to 'what should be'. Please, see what we are doing; we put on so many masks, depending on whom we meet, with whom we talk, the game we play with ourselves. Can one look at oneself without the images that man has created through fear and pride and therefore see without any image, and hence with great silence, in which there is humility to observe?

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti talk at Saanen,1968

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Can the mind be aware of its conditioning

2010-01-31T08:59:00.001-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Can the mind be aware of its conditioning, can it look at it without any distortion, without any bias? That is the problem. Is it possible to look at anything, the tree, the cloud, the flower, the child, the face of a woman or a man, as though you are looking at it for the first time? That is really the central issue real freedom to look.

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Human beings are conditioned

2010-01-31T08:57:00.001-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Human beings are conditioned, the whole of their behaviour pattern, their outlook, their activities, their aggressiveness, their contradictory states of mind, hate and love, pleasure and pain, the despair and hope, this constant battle in the whole field of our consciousness, the inventions of gods and beliefs and faiths, is the outcome of this conditioned mind. Our nationalities, the division of people, racial and so on, is the result of our education and of the influence of the society which we have built; and so there we are, that is the field of our so obviously conditioned consciousness. How is one to be free, completely, of this, so that there is no conflict of any kind? The conflict, the struggle and battle, is a waste of energy. Our whole life is spent in this way, one desire opposing another desire, one demand, urge, instinct, contradicted by another. That is our life and one asks oneself if it is possible to step completely out of it and if so, how is this to be done? Is it at all possible?

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Meditation implies a quality of mind that can completely attend

2010-01-29T22:53:00.000-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Meditation implies a quality of mind that can completely attend, therefore, a mind that can be completely still. The mind is always chattering, always talking, either to itself, within itself or to somebody, always in movement. How can such a mind which is everlastingly chattering, how can it perceive anything? Only a mind that is completely attentive has the total energy to observe: because you need tremendous energy to observe.

The religious monks and others say that you cannot waste energy, therefore no sex if you want to be a saint. And when you become a celibate and have taken vows of celibacy there is havoc in you, because you are denying the whole biological system and there is a wastage of energy, you're battling, battling, battling. Or you go to the other extreme, indulge, which is another form of wasting energy. Whereas, if you are attentive it is the greatest form of all summation of energy. It means intensity, passion, and you cannot be passionate if you are wasting. Without any effort the mind can become completely quiet and therefore full of energy without any distortion.

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Have diet and regularity any significance in the growth of a child

2010-01-29T08:28:00.000-08:00

Questioner: Have diet and regularity any significance in the growth of a child?

Jiddu Krishnamurti: Obviously they have. Have you the proper food to give the child today? But those who have the food are so unintelligent about their diet; they merely eat to satisfy the palate, they love to eat. Look at your body. Do not smile and pass it by. You just eat what you have been accustomed to. If you are accustomed to highly condimented food and if you are deprived of it, you are lost. You have actually given no consideration to diet. If you did, you would soon find out how simple it is to know what to eat. I cannot tell you what to eat, obviously, because each person has to think out and organize what is most suitable for him. Therefore, one must experiment for a week, for a month. You do not want to experiment because you want to continue with what you have been eating for the past ten or twenty years.

Most obviously, children need a regular life; at their tender age when they are growing up bodily, they must have the right amount of sleep, the right diet, right care. These are obvious necessities in the life of a child. But you do not love the child; you quarrel with your wife and you take it out on the child, or your wife takes it out on the child. When you come home late, you expect the child to keep awake for your amusement. The child becomes a toy to play with and a means to pass on your name. You are not interested in the child; you are interested in yourself.

Sir, if you were interested, you would have a revolution tomorrow; if you really loved the child, you would break up this educational system, this social environment. Then you would consider what he eats, whether he leads a regular life, and what is going to happen to him, whether he is going to be fodder for cannon. Then you would investigate the causes of wars, not merely quote others, and have a pattern of action.

If you really loved the child, you would have no sovereign governments, no isolated nationalities, no separate religions with their ceremonies and organized dogmatism. If you really loved the child, all these things would change overnight, you would avoid them because they lead to chaos, they lead to destruction, they lead to sorrow and suffering. But you do not love the child, you do not care what happens to him as he grows up and looks after you when you are old, or carries on your name. That is what you are interested in, and you are not interested in the child. If you were, you would not have so many children; you would have one or two, and see to it that your child develops intelligence and the right culture. The pity of it is, sirs, that it is not the fault of the educational system, but of ourselves - our hearts are so empty, so dull. We do not know love.

When we say to a person, ''I love you,'' that love is purely gratification - sexual pleasure, or the pride of possession, ownership. Mere pleasure and pride of possession are clearly not love. But it is only those two things that we care about; we are not concerned about our children, we are not concerned about our neighbor. The beggar as we go down the street gets no help, but we talk loudly about how we should help the unfortunate people. You join groups, you join systems, but the man in need goes empty-handed. If you were really interested, your hearts would be rich with feeling and you would be ready to act, and you would change the system overnight.

So, diet and regularity are necessary not only for the child but for each one of us. To find out what is necessary, we must investigate, we must experiment with ourselves first and not with the child. At least we can give him clean food, see that he has a regular time for sleep and rest. It is because we have never thought about it that most children are so small, stunted, and hungry. I am sure you are listening very attentively, and you will go home and make a noise, shout to see if the child is asleep and stuff his mouth with sugar to show how much you love him! I do not think you know what you are doing, that is the pity and the misery of it. We are not aware of our actions, we are not aware of the words we use, we are not aware of the significance of our means of livelihood - we just live, drift, breed, and die.

When we have one foot in the grave, we talk about God because we want to be secure when we land on the other side; living a wretched, monstrous, ugly life here, we expect a beautiful life at the end of it. Beauty consists in living a rich life, living reality from the beginning to the end. There is no beauty in a life of exploitation, of greed and hatred, in seeking titles and possessions, and it is odd that you add one more object to your accumulations - God. What you are doing is too ugly for words, it has no meaning, no depth. Most of you live on words, and naturally your child is the same, he also grows up like you. There can be regeneration only when there is transformation of the mind and heart.

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti talks in india 1948

J. Krishnamurti - About Life and Death

2010-01-26T09:41:00.001-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti video - New York 1928, Ojai 1930

2010-01-24T23:48:00.000-08:00

A rare video of the young Jiddu Krishnamurti in New York (1928) and Ojai (1930), reading what he had said at the Ommen Camp on August 3, 1929 (dissolution of the Order of the Star).

Jiddu Krishnamurti - How you approach your problem

2010-01-13T22:51:00.000-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - I see that I always regard my problem in the light of judgment - either condemning, accepting, or trying to transform it - or looking at it through glasses, through the screen of formulas of what somebody has said in the Bhagavad-Gita, what the Buddha or the Christ has said. So my mind, being crippled by these formulas, judgments, quotations, can never understand the problem, can never look at it. So can the mind free itself from these accumulated judgments?

Please follow this carefully - not my words, but how you approach your problem. What we are always doing is pursuing the hope and everlastingly being frustrated. If I fail with one hope, I substitute another, and so I go on and on. And as I do not know how to approach, how to understand the problem itself, I resort to various escapes. But if I knew how to approach the problem, then there is no necessity for hope. So what is important is to find out how the mind regards the problem.

Your mind looks at a problem. It looks at it obviously with a condemnatory attitude. It condemns it in distinguishing it, in reacting to it, or it wants to change it into something which it is not. If you are violent, you want to change into nonviolence. Nonviolence is unreal, it is not factual; what is real is violence. Now to see how you approach the problem, with what attitude - whether you condemn it, whether you have the memories of what the so-called teachers have said about it - that is what is important.

Can the mind eradicate these conditions, free itself from these conditions and look at the problem? Can it be unconcerned with how to free itself from these conditions? If it is concerned with it, then you create another problem out of it. But if you can see how these conditions prevent you from looking at the problem, then these conditions have no value because the problem is important, pain is important, sorrow is important. You cannot call sorrow an idea and brush it aside. It is there.

So, as long as the mind is incapable of looking at the problem, as long as it is not capable of resolving the problem, there must be various escapes from the problem, and the escapes are hopes; they are the defense mechanism.

The mind will always create problems. But what is essential is that when we make mistakes, when we are in pain, to meet these mistakes, these pains, without judgment, to look at them without condemnation, to live with them and to let them go by. And that can only happen when the mind is in the state of noncondemnation, without any formula; which means, when the mind is essentially quiet, when the mind is fundamentally still; then only is there the comprehension of the problem.

J Krishnamurti - To examine, there must be freedom from personal views

2010-01-07T09:43:00.000-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - What is necessary is to examine unemotionally, not merely intellectually. Because the intellect doesn't solve any problem; it can only invent a lot of ideas, theories. Nor can emotion dissipate the urgency of the problems that one has to face and resolve.

What is necessary, it seems to me, is a mind that is capable of examination. To examine, there must be freedom from personal views, with a mind that is not guided by one's own temperament, inclination, nor is compelled by circumstances. And that's quite a difficult task because we are accustomed to examine everything from a personal point of view: of like or dislike, to certain commitments, to certain philosophies, to certain formulas.

And therefore we're always translating these problems according to our particular limitation; but, if we would translate or understand these problems deeply and fully, it seems to me that one must look at them, not as an individual, but as a human being.

I think there is a vast difference between the two. The individual is the local entity, the American, the man who lives on the West Coast or the East Coast, or in the Midwest. The individual is the Indian, far away, with his outlook, with his limitations, with his superstitions, with his innumerable religions and doctrines and beliefs. The individual is caught in his nationalities, by the division of the sectarian spirit, whether it be Catholic or Protestant, or the various nationalistic divisions with their Democratic, Republican political parties, and so on and on and on. In that frame the individual exists.

But I think the human being supersedes the individual. Whether they live in Russia, China, India, America, or in any other part of the world, human beings have the same common factor of sorrow, of joy, of unresolved miseries, despairs, the immense loneliness of modern existence, the utter meaninglessness of life as it is lived now throughout the world - the wars, the continuation of hatred, the national divisions, the utter despair of life. At that level is the human being, though the individual does partake of all that; but if we merely consider the individual, we shall not inquire much, very deeply. It is like cultivating one's own little backyard, and to cultivate that little backyard is necessary. But that little land is in relation to the whole of the earth upon which man lives as a human being, in travail, in despair, in agony - this endless sorrow, this fleeting love, and the ending of life.

So, if we could consider these problems as human beings, not as an American unrelated to the rest of the world, unrelated to the vast hungry East, but rather as a human being with all the innumerable problems, then perhaps we can intelligently, with care, resolve our problems.

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti talks in USA - 1966

Jiddu Krishnamurti - One has to learn the art of Looking, Observing

2010-01-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Let's go briefly into learning the art of observation.

To observe, to see. To observe, it is again very simple: to observe you must have clear eyes. To look at the trees you must have unclouded eyes. You may have to wear glasses, but it makes your eyes see clearly. Right? So to observe the outward things of life. Right? How the world is divided, why it is divided, the Hindu against the Muslim, the Muslim against somebody else. You follow? To observe all the facts, what is actually happening, which does not demand theories, but it requires that you observe.

So from observing the outer you come to observe the inner. But if you do not know how to observe the outer, you have no criterion to see if you are observing correctly in yourself. You understand how important it is to start observing the outer and from the outer moving to the inner. Not moving suddenly to the inner, because you may be misjudging.

So, one has to learn the art of looking, observing. You cannot observe what is happening actually in the world if you are attached to one particular part of that world. If I am attached to this country saying, I am a Hindu, I am proud of being a Hindu, I am ancient, blah, blah, blah, blah - all that, if I am attached to that, I cannot possibly observe the division that is going on in the world - the Arab, the Jew, the Communists, the Socialists and so on, so on, so on.

So, to learn to observe without personal distortion entering into the factor? Can you do it? That requires tremendous alertness, watching. Then to observe what is going on inwardly, what is actually going on. This becomes extraordinarily interesting. Now, which is... I must stop - nearly quarter to seven. I'll just briefly go into it, we'll continue tomorrow. Can you watch, can you observe inwardly what actually is happening, actually at the moment of happening? Not after the event.

You understand my question? That is, to observe my violence - violence in different forms. I won't go into that, we will discuss it much more in detail tomorrow - if you want to. That is, to observe that which is actually taking place, which is at the moment of anger to observe it; not after, or train your mind so carefully that you watch before it happens; but actually as it is flowering, beginning to grow, the actual movement of it. Which demands a mind, a brain that is not caught in the past, which is not a slave to words, which is violence. That very word is a distorting factor, and therefore when you observe with that word, you have already distorted it.

You understand how subtle it is? So to learn the art of it, therefore, you are watching the movement which is out of time. So the brain is capable of observing without distortion. You understand? So we'll continue tomorrow, if you will.

Source - J Krishnamurti Book "To Be Human"