Jiddu Krishnamurti - Biography and Quotes
0





































 








Jiddu Krishnamurti

 -
A Biography

Jiddu Krishnamurti, was a world renowned figure both in the West and in the East. He was born on May 11, 1895 and died on February 17, 1986. He remains today one of the most important philosophical and spiritual thinkers of the 20th century. In the West he is most commonly classified as a philosopher and an educator. Yet in a very real sense he is not easy to categorize as his unique work is truly trans disciplinary and is not grounded in any particular tradition or school of thought. His singular probing work into the nature and limits of thought and knowledge would touch many fields fromphilosophy to quantum physics to religion. In terms of philosophical questions proper he would have important contributions to make all the way from religion to ethics and even aspects of philosophy of mind. Jiddu Krishnamurti was born in Madanapalle, (Andhra Pradesh)  India on May 11th 1895. Even though “Krishnamurti” is his first name, it is the designation he is most known as. Moreover, he himself would come to refer to himself simply as “K”, which many who read him would come to do too.
çis internationally considered as one of the greatest thinkers of all time. He did not subscribe to any school of political, religious, spiritual or philosophical ideology. Jiddu Krishnamurti would point out time and again that we are all human beings first and not reduced to nationality or creed. Jiddu Krishnamurti presented himself not as an authority or expert or guru, but more as a friend. His work is not grounded on intellectual knowledge and as such it does not follow any tradition. His contributions would come from his own free of tradition observations into the human condition and the human mind. Scholars from various fields including science and religion found that his words brought new and valuable understanding on traditional concepts such as truth, freedom, knowledge etc. Jiddu Krishnamurti would face the challenge of engaging with modern scientists as well as psychologists, turning confrontational debates into open-ended dialogues, going with them step by step, discussed their theories and would typically enable them to discern the limitations of those theories.
Jiddu Krishnamurti was born into a very poor family of Brahmins, which however are part of the highest Hindu priesthood caste. Jiddu Krishnamurti was undernourished when by chance he was found and adopted at the age of thirteen by the then widely respected Theosophical Society. They would take over his education and bring him to England to do so. It is in 1909 that he had stumble across CW Leadbeater, one of the heads of the organization, on the private beach of the headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Adyar, Chennai, India. His father, Jiddu Narianiah, was an official of the British colonial administration and lived with his family in a building next to the base of the Theosophical Society. K’s parents were second cousins, had eleven children in total, of which only six survived. His mother had died when he was only ten years old. Krishnamurti would subsequently be raised under the tutelage of both Annie Besant and CW Leadbeater, leaders of the Theosofical Society at that time, and who saw him as the “vehicle” of “the World Teacher,” whom they had been expecting.
Jiddu Krishnamurti would become a prolific author and a well-known speaker on fundamental philosophical and spiritual subjects but on his way there he would actually publicly renounce to the fame and messiah status that he had earned by being proclaimed the new incarnation of Maitreya Buddha by the Theosophical Society. He would do so as a young man at the age of 34. Indeed, he would disavow all notions of sect, following, method and thus of world teacher and would in this way dissolve the global organization (the Order of the Star in the East) that had been established to support him in that role by the Theosophical Society by making him its head. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s dissolution speech came as a big surprise to many. He had been given a rich and easy life but nonetheless decided to give it all back and proclaim the now famous dictum that “Truth is a pathless land”.
Jiddu Krishnamurti would spend the rest of his life traveling around the world by explaining to people the need to transform themselves through self-knowledge and not relie on any outer authority, including his. He wanted people to existentially question all claims and find out truth for themselves. Jiddu Krishnamurti would always forcefully refuse to play the role of guru, urging instead his readers and listeners to observe the fundamental questions of existence with honesty, persistence and openness. He argued that a fundamental change in society could emerge only through a radical change in the individual and their relationship to the world, since according to him society is the product of interactions between individuals. Indeed, he would also become famous for his proclamation that “We are the world” or “You are the world and the world is you”. Although he was highly sensitive to contemporary issues throughout the sixty years during which he was active and would travel the world extensively, his arguments were rooted in a vision of life and truth beyond the zeitgeist. As such, he would always attempt to transcend all artificial boundaries of religion, nationality, ideology, and sectarian thinking.
Jiddu Krishnamurti would use his time being more of a speaker than a writer, addressing audiences both large and small. It has been approximated that Jiddu Krishnamurti spoke to a greater number of people than any other known figure in recorded history. Indeed, on top of the numerous private meetings with individuals and intellectuals, his public talks would typically include several thousand people, which he held during six decades. He would also, however, be the author of many books, including The First and Last Freedom, with a forward by Aldous Huxley who had encouraged Jiddu Krishnamurti to write, but also The Only Revolution, and The Journal. In addition, a large collection of his lectures and discussions have been published as books and they in fact regularly still are. At the age of 91 he addressed the UN on the issue of peace and consciousness, and was awarded the 1984 United Nations Medal of Peace where upon reception of the prize right after his talk he walked away apparently refusing the award. Jiddu Krishnamurti's last public lecture was held in Madras in India in January 1986, just a month before his death at his home in Ojai, California where he had also founded one of his schools.
The central insight Jiddu Krishnamurti’s philosophy gravitates around is contained within the deceptively contradictory and complex dictum that “the observer is the observed”. What Jiddu Krishnamurti is arguing is that there is ultimately no separation, psychologically speaking, between the observer and the observed but that because of the way we think, we entertain such divisive separation. Indeed, for him there is no observer, only observation. The issue Jiddu Krishnamurti is trying to address is not only that the observer pointlessly attempts to affect what it observes when it takes itself to be fundamentally different from what it observes, hence creating dangerous and problematic distortions, but for Jiddu Krishnamurti there exists an actual possibility of free, liberating perception of the observed when the illusion of the image – the observer – is gone. Such realization would lead him to assert that “To observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” It is important to note that serious figures from various fields would become interested in this notion of free perception. David Bohm, renowned quantum physicist, for example, would find such interesting parallels between his own work and Jiddu Krishnamurti’s point that he would seek to meet with him to discuss things further, which they would do during the course of many recorded dialogues over 20 years. David Bohm would state:
What particularly aroused my interest was his deep insight into the question of the observer and the observed. This question has long been close to the centre of my own work, as a theoretical physicist, who was primarily interested in the meaning of the quantum theory. In this theory, for the first time in the development of physics, the notion that these two cannot be separated has been put forth as necessary for the understanding of the fundamental laws of matter in general.
David Bohm would also helpfully comment on Jiddu Krishnamurti’s philosophy and compare it to science itself in its methodology:
Krishnamurti's work is permeated by what may be called the essence of this scientific approach, when this is considered in its very highest and purest form. Thus, he begins from a fact, this fact about the nature of our thought processes. This fact is established through close attention, involving careful listening to the process of consciousness, and observing it assiduously. In this, one is constantly learning, and out of this learning comes insight, into the overall or general nature of the process of thought. This insight is then tested. First, one sees whether it holds together in a rational order. And then one sees whether it leads to order and coherence, on what flows out of it in life as a whole.
Jiddu Krishnamurti’s philosophy ultimately wants to bring about a real transformation in human beings. However, for him this can only be achieved when they free themselves of all authority. Such a change he argued could only happen through a fundamental transformation of what he sometimes referred to as “the conditioned brain”. Indeed according to him neither religions nor atheism or any political ideologies could bring about such a change because they actually perpetuate the conditioning.
According to the analytic philosophy professor Raymond Martin, Jiddu Krishnamurti's thought is quite different from academic philosophy, especially in the analytical tradition. There are, however, at least clear similarities with the Socratic method and the original teaching of Gautama Siddhārtha (the Buddha). According to Raymond Martin, Jiddu Krishnamurti's approach is more like a “guided meditation” than academic philosophy. More importantly in terms of the subject, there is at least one major point of similarity with many thinkers in continental philosophy which remains to be explored more fully. Indeed, both want to question the existence and nature of the subject, while the analytical school of thought needs it for its treatment of ethics. This is not to imply that the analytic approach does not write much about ethics, it does, but it generally does so from concepts of universality and human nature. Analytical philosophers need the subject to anchor their normative ethical conventions, while continental philosophers generally seek to critique such norms and affirm an ethics that comes from deconstructing them in the subject.
Personalities from all fields and persuasions, moreover, report having been influenced by Jiddu Krishnamurti: Joseph Campbell, Van Morrison, Bruce Lee, the Dalai Lama would describe him as “one of the greatest thinkers of the age,” and more recently Eckart Tolle and Deepak Chopra as well many others have shown to be inspired by Jiddu Krishnamurti’s philosophy. The famous American novelist and painter Henri Miller would write the following about Jiddu Krishnamurti’s thought and language:
[Krishnamurti’s] language is naked, revelatory and inspiring. It pierces the clouds of philosophy which confound our thought and restores the springs of action. ... He initiated no new faith or dogma, questioned everything, cultivated doubt and perseverance, freed himself of illusion and enchantment of pride, vanity, and every subtle form of domination over others. ... I know of no other living man whose thought is more inspiring.
Not long before Jiddu Krishnamurti died at the age of 91 on February 17 1986 of pancreatic cancer he would ask that no one be designated as his representative and that nobody should be encouraged to claim to be able to speak in his name. Additionally, he asked that his different places of residence do not become places of pilgrimage and that no worship should be developed around his public persona. Jiddu Krishnamurti would leave a large body of literature in the form of audio and video recorded public talks, over one hundred books, discussions with teachers and students, with scientists and religious figures, conversations with individuals, television and radio interviews, as well as letters


Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes

Famous quotes by Krishnamurti on life love and truth

  1. Truth is a pathless land.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.
The Dissolution of the Order of the Star. 1929.
  1. In obedience there is always fear, and fear darkens the mind.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. I was supremely happy, for I had seen. Nothing could ever be the same. I have drunk at the clear and pure waters and my thirst was appeased. ...I have seen the Light. I have touched compassion which heals all sorrow and suffering; it is not for myself, but for the world. ...Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. Beauty is complete order. But most of us have not that sense of beauty in our lives. We may be great artists, great painters, expert in various things, but in our own daily life, with all the anxieties and miseries, we live, unfortunately, a very disordered life. It is a fact. You may a great scientist, you may be a great expert in a subject, but you have your own problems, struggles, pain, anxieties and the rest of it. We are asking, is it possible to live in complete order within, not impose discipline, control, but to inquire into the nature of this disorder, what are the causes, and to dispel, move away, wash away the cause. Then there is a living order in the universe.
J Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. Pain itself destroys pain. Suffering itself frees man from suffering.
Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Little Book on Living.
  1. Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something- and it is only such love that can know freedom.
Quotes by Krishnamurti.
  1. Hitler and Mussolini were only the primary spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power that are in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is cleared, there will always be confusion and hate, wars and class antagonisms.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. The mind has to be empty to see clearly.
J Krishnamurti: The Little Book on Living.
  1. When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely - the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears - when you give your whole attention to it.
Quotes Krishnamurti.
  1. When one loses the deep intimate relationship with nature, then temples, mosques and churches become important.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of the truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to help him organize it."
  2. The flowering of love is meditation.
J Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. There is no need to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. Only in relationship can you know yourself, not in abstraction and certainly not in isolation. The movement of behavior is the sure guide to yourself. It's the mirror of your consciousness: this mirror will reveal its content, the images, the attachments, the fears, the loneliness, the joys and sorrow. Poverty lies in running away from this, either in its sublimations or its identities.
Quotes by Krishnamurti.
  1. The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. Do not think about yourself, but be aware of the thought, emotion, or action that makes you think of yourself.
Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Little Book on Living.
  1. Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.
J Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. If you lose touch with nature you lose touch with humanity. If there's no relationship with nature then you become a killer; then you kill baby seals, whales, dolphins, and man either for gain, for sport, for food, or for knowledge. Then nature is frightened of you, withdrawing its beauty. You may take long walks in the woods or camp in lovely places but you are a killer and so lose their friendship. You probably are not related to anything to your wife or your husband
J.Krishnamurti, Krishanmurti's Journal 04 April 1975
  1. We all want to be famous people, and the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. Begin where you are. Read every word, every phrase, every paragraph of the mind, as it operates through thought.
Jiddu Krishnamurti to Jawaharlal Nehru when the later came to meet him after World War II
  1. The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence.
Quotes by Krishnamurti.
  1. If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.
J Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. By our pontifical assertions, our superior impatience, and our casual brushing aside of their curiosity, we do not encourage their inquiry, for we are rather apprehensive of what may be asked of us; we do not foster their discontent, for we ourselves have ceased to question.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.
Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Little Book on Living.
  1. The description is not the described; I can describe the mountain, but the description is not the mountain, and if you are caught up in the description, as most people are, then you will never see the mountain
  2. In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. The fact is there is nothing that you can trust; and that is a terrible fact, whether you like it or not. Psychologically there is nothing in the world, that you can put your faith, your trust, or your belief in. Neither your gods, nor your science can save you, can bring you psychological certainty; and you have to accept that you can trust in absolutely nothing.
1962 2nd Public Talk, Bombay
  1. A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, a peaceful man.
J Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. To me, then, true criticism consists in trying to find out the intrinsic worth of the thing itself, and not in attributing a quality to that thing. You attribute a quality to an environment, to an experience, only when you want to derive something from it, when you want to gain or to have power or happiness. Now this destroys true criticism. Your desire is perverted through attributing values, and therefore you cannot see clearly. Instead of trying to see the flower in its original and entire beauty, you look at it through coloured glasses, and therefore you can never see it as it is.
1933-12-29 1st Public Talk, Adyar, Madras, India
  1. This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.
Quotes by Krishnamurti.
  1. Order is virtue. And order isn’t a thing to be cultivated; you can’t say I will be orderly, I will do this and I won’t do that - then you are merely disciplining yourself, becoming more and more rigid, mechanical. Such a mind is totally incapable of coming upon this beauty that has no name, no expression. Order, like virtue, cannot be cultivated-if you cultivate humility you are obviously not humble; you can cultivate vanity, but to cultivate humility is not possible any more than to cultivate love. So order which is virtue cannot be practised. All that one can do is to see this total disorder within and outside oneself-see it! You can see this total disorder instantly and that is the only thing that matters-to see it instantly.
Quotes by Krishnamurti.
  1. The observer is the observed.
Jiddu Krishnamurti in As the River Joins The Ocean (1998)
  1. Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. For the total development of the human being, solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. One has to know what it means to be alone, what it is to meditate, what it is to die; and the implications of solitude, of meditation, of death, can be known only by seeking them out. These implications cannot be taught, they must be learnt. One can indicate, but learning by what is indicated is not the experiencing of solitude or meditation. To experience what is solitude and what is meditation, one must be in in a state of inquiry; only a mind that is in a state of inquiry is capable of learning. But when inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority and experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and imitation causes a human being to repeat what is learnt without experiencing it.
From the Book, Life Ahead by Krishnamurti
  1. Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. Sorrow is not in death but in loneliness, and conflict comes when you seek consolation, forgetfullness, explanations, and illusions.
Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Little Book on Living.
  1. So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.
J Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. And the point is, is it possible for the mind to be totally free from suffering and yet not become indifferent, callous, irresponsible, but to have that passion, the intensity, the energy that freedom brings, freedom from suffering.
3rd Public Talk, San Francisco, 1973
  1. You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.
Quotes by Krishnamurti.
  1. All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. In the space which thought creates around itself there is no love. This space divides man from man, and in it is all the becoming, the battle of life, the agony and fear. Meditation is the ending of this space, the ending of the me.
J Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. The ending of sorrow is the beginning of wisdom. Knowledge is always within the shadow of ignorance. Meditation is freedom from thought and a movement in the ecstasy of truth. Meditation is explosion of intelligence.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. If there is no order in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, with your children, with your neighbour - whether that neighbour is near or very far away - forget about meditation...
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. You are Christians; find out what is true and false in Christianity - and you will then find out what is true. Find out what is true and false in your environment with all its oppressions and cruelties, and then you will find out what is true. Why do you want philosophies?
1934-03-31-B Talk to Theosophists in New Zealand
  1. Human beings, each one, right through the world, go through great agonies, the more sensitive, the more alert, the more observant, the greater the suffering, the anxiety, the extraordinary sense of insoluble problems.
Quotes by Krishnamurti.
  1. Your belief in God is merely an escape from your monotonous, stupid and cruel life.
J Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. Why do you want to read others' books when there is the book of yourself?
Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Little Book on Living.
  1. All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. Truth is more in the process than in the result.
Jiddu Krishnamurti: The Little Book on Living.
  1. From these prejudices there arises conflict, transient joys and suffering. But we are unconscious of this, unconscious that we are slaves to certain forms of tradition, to social and political environment, to false values.
1933-09-12 4th Public Talk, Frognerseteren, Norway
  1. It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. If you leave the pool you have dug for yourself and go out into the river of life then life has an astonishing way of taking care of you, because then there is no taking care on your part.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person, because he conforms to a pattern; he repeats phrases and thinks in a groove.
J Krishnamurti quotes.
  1. The end is the beginning of all things, suppressed and hidden, awaiting to be released through the rhythm of pain and pleasure.
Quotes by Krishnamurti.
  1. So let us decide whether you want a shelter, a safety zone, which will no longer yield conflict, whether you want to escape from the present conflict to enter a condition in which there shall be no conflict; or whether you are unaware, unconscious of this conflict in which you exist. If you are unconscious of the conflict, that is, the battle that is taking place between that self and the environment, if you are unconscious of that battle, then why do you seek further remedies? Remain unconscious.
1934 3rd Public Talk, Ojai, California
  1. Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.
Jiddu Krishnamurti quote



(My humble salutations to the lotus feet of Sri Jiddu Krishnamurti and
gratitude to the great philosophers and followers to him.)



Category:
��

Comments

0 responses to "Jiddu Krishnamurti - Biography and Quotes"

Post a Comment