Showing results by author "Jiddu Krishnamurti" in All Categories

The problems of life do not demand a method, because they are so vital and alive that if we approach with a method we totally misunderstand and don’t adequately meet that problem. Where there is efficiency there is ruthlessness. The means and the end are not separate. Reality or God is something that cannot come by a technique, a means or through a long determined practice and discipline. Aloneness implies no means. You are not alone when you have a means.

Why is it that we dominate, consciously or unconsciously? To submit oneself to another is the negative form of domination. We shall not be able to solve this problem by thinking in terms of opposites. Is not domination a process of isolation, which denies relationship? Can there be relationship between two people if there is any sense of domination or submissiveness? Q: Is not the experience of the past a help towards freedom and right action in the present? Q: Is my believing in survival after death a hindrance to liberation through self-knowledge?

We are educated to follow, accept and conform. This is tradition, second-hand. When you become aware of conformity without reaction, is that awareness the act of intelligence? Does the mind realize the nature of conformity, intelligence and awareness? I am attentive for a minute and there is no border, no time, no ‘me’, no problem. The whole energy is involved in that attention. This is a tremendous movement. Attending, I can do things without effort and thought.

Violence. Why do you control? Security means to be in a state in which there is no choice at all. The mind has become sensitive because it has observed, not because it has experienced. Either you see the fact with the past or you see the fact as it is now. The word is of the past.

Q: How do I put the feeling of responsibility into action? We approach a problem from the outer to the inner and the inner to the outer. It is an endless ebb and flow. Who has created the division, this structure as the outer and the inner? We are educated in that and are caught in it. Division takes place when there is an image in the mind. Responsibility is to free yourself of images absolutely. When you feel responsibility, the flame of it will burn the image.

Order and disorder. Why does the mind accumulate? How do you receive something that is not of the mind?

What is a religious mind? Must one go to an expert to tell us what the unconscious is or can one find it for oneself? Through the negation of disorder, order comes into being. It is only the meditative mind that can find out, not the curious mind or the mind that is everlastingly searching. To meditate implies to see very clearly. It is not possible to see clearly when there is space between the observer and the thing observed. It is only in silence that there is quite a different dimension. You have to find out for yourself; nobody can open the door for you.

The word chaste means pure, clean, untouched. Have we a chaste mind, a mind that has not been hurt, has no image, is free from the pleasure of yesterday and is innocent? Is chastity a quality of the mind? Can the mind be free of the word, symbols and the condemnation and approval of the word? What is the nature of the mind when there is no attempt through will or desire for any way out through the known? If you are really serious, not just with words but burning with responsibility, then you ask whether the mind can ever be free from the known.

What takes place when one falls in love? Why has sex taken on such extraordinary importance? How will you know that it is stupid to be a nationalist? You see or understand only when the mind is quiet, when you are aware without any choice. When I say, ‘I love you,’ I have blocked myself from looking at you. Is it possible to look totally impersonally and yet be completely intimate? One takes a drug and has an extraordinary experience. At the base of this is the demand for wider and deeper experiences. Why do you want experience?

Krishnamurti’s ‘process’ and his early years. The Indian tradition says that there is a manifestation of goodness which happens very rarely.

We have accepted violence as a way of life and yet at the same time we want peace.

Can insight change the brain cells? In the brain, is there an activity that is not touched by consciousness? Insight is not dependent on the material process, which is thought. Where there is violence, peace cannot exist. Where there is peace, is there violence? As insight is causeless, is not born out of cause, that insight has a definite effect on that which has cause. The material process acts in ignorance, in darkness.

What is the human mind’s relationship to the ‘ground’? Why has man accumulated knowledge? When you love somebody there is no ‘me’, it is love. In the same way, when I say I am humanity, it is so. It is not an idea; it is not a conclusion; it is part of me. There is only one thing, and that is to discover that what I have done is useless, ashes.

Only when the mind and heart are really simple is one able to solve the many problems that confront us. A religious man is he who is inwardly simple. Q: I have been a member of various religious organisations, but you have destroyed them all. I am utterly bored and work because hunger forces me to it. I am afraid to commit suicide. What on earth am I to do? Q: What have you to say to a person who, in quiet moments, sees the truth of what you say, who has a longing to keep awake but who finds himself repeatedly lost in a sea of impulse and small desires?

To understand reality, or for that immensity to come into being, one must understand the process of one’s own thinking. How is it possible to go into the deeper layers of consciousness? If we do not name, then perhaps it’s possible to go into the deeper layers of consciousness. To see things as they are requires enormous alertness of mind. Q: I understand intellectually that I am the resentment and hatred I feel, but I cannot cope with it. Can you show me a way?

Can there be a total perception which completely heals the brain? What benefit has culture? Does speech come before thought? Is it possible to say something without the operation of thought? Is there in the brain anything untouched by culture? Is attention a conscious process? Is love the factor of profound change?

To live in this world with intelligence, in spite of all the complications. Is it possible to be free of fear, not only the superficial fear in relationship but the deep-rooted fear? Thought nourishes, sustains and gives continuity to fear and pleasure. When you are learning, your mind is awake. Truth isn’t second-hand; you can’t get it through a guru, a book, you have to learn about it. The beauty of learning is that you don’t know what truth is. What is love?

Why is thought divisive? The desire to change in a particular direction gives an energy that is divisive. Will you free the mind taking time, through analysis, or can you look totally and therefore be totally free? Does choiceless rejection of the false give a different kind of energy? Does a foundation give me direction or does it bring confusion? Is the operation of intelligence insight? Questions from the audience followed the talk.

Without self-knowledge, we cannot go beyond the self-projected illusions of the mind. It’s only in relationship that one can know oneself as one is. A mind that is filled with beliefs, dogmas, assertions and quotations is an uncreative, repetitive mind. Can we look at ourselves without beliefs? A mind that is quiet because it understands fear and understands itself is creative.

In listening to you, I feel that the distinction or space between ideal and practice is illusory.