Jiddu Krishnamurti Discourses

Jiddu Krishnamurti discourse on Truth

Question: There is a prevalent assumption these days that everything is relative, a matter of personal opinion, that there is no such thing as truth or fact independent of personal perception. What is an intelligent response to this belief?
Jiddu Krishnamurti - Is it that we are all so personal that what I see, what you see, is the only truth? That my opinion and your opinion are the only facts we have? That is what the question implies; that everything is relative; goodness is relative, evil is relative, love is relative. If everything is relative (that is, not the whole complete, truth) then our actions, our affections, our personal relationships are relative, they can be ended whenever we like, whenever they do not please us.

Is there such a thing as truth apart from personal belief, apart from personal opinion? Is there such a thing as truth? This question was asked in the ancient days by the Greeks, by the Hindus and by the Buddhists. It is one of the strange facts in the Eastern religions that doubt was encouraged - to doubt, to question - and in religion in the West it is rather put down, it is called heresy.

One must find out for oneself, apart from personal opinions, perceptions, experiences, which are always relative, whether there is a perception, a seeing, which is absolute truth, not relative. How is one going to find out? If one says that personal opinions and perceptions are relative then there is no such thing as absolute truth, all is relative. Accordingly our behaviour, our conduct, our way of life, is relative, casual, not complete, not whole, fragmentary.

How would one find out if there is such a thing as truth which is absolute, which is complete, which is never changing in the climate of personal opinions? How does one's mind, the intellect, thought, find out? One is enquiring into something that demands a great deal of investigation, an action in daily life, a putting aside of that which is false - that is the only way to proceed.

If one has an illusion, a fantasy, an image, a romantic concept, of truth or love, then that is the very barrier that prevents one moving further. Can one honestly investigate what is an illusion? How does illusion come into being? What is the root of it? Does it not mean playing with something which is not actual?

The actual is that which is happening, whether it is what may be called good, bad or indifferent; it is that which is actually taking place. When one is incapable of facing that which is actually taking place in oneself, one creates illusions to escape from it. If one is unwilling or afraid to face what is actually going on, that very avoidance creates illusion, a fantasy, a romantic movement, away from that which is. That word `illusion' implies the moving away from that which is.

Can one avoid this movement, this escape, from actuality? What is the actual? The actual is that which is happening, including the responses, the ideas, the beliefs and opinions one has. To face them is not to create illusion.

Illusions can take place only when there is a movement away from the fact, from that which is happening, that which actually is. In understanding that which is, it is not one's personal opinion that judges but the actual observation. One cannot observe what is actually going on if one's belief or conditioning qualifies the observation; then it is the avoidance of the understanding of that which is.

If one could look at what is actually taking place, then there would be complete avoidance of any form of illusion. Can one do this? Can one actually observe one's dependency; either dependency on a person, on a belief, on an ideal, or on some experience which has given one a great deal of excitement? That dependence inevitably creates illusion.

So a mind that is no longer creating illusion, that has no hypotheses, that has no hallucinations, that does not want to grasp an experience of that which is called truth, has now brought order into itself. it has order. There is no confusion brought about by illusions, by delusions, hallucinations; the mind has lost its capacity to create illusions.
Then what is truth? The astrophysicists, the scientists, are using thought to investigate the material world around them, they are going beyond physics, beyond, but always moving outward. But if one starts inwards one sees that the `me' is also matter. And thought is matter. If one can go inwards, moving from fact to fact, then one begins to discover that which is beyond matter. Then there is such a thing as absolute truth, if one goes through with it.

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Sex

Question: Why does sex play such an important part in each one's life in the world?

Jiddu Krishnamurti - There is a particular philosophy, especially in India, called Tantra, part of which encourages sex. They say through sex you reach Nirvana. It is encouraged, so that you go beyond it - and you never do.  Why has sex become so important in our life? It has been so, not only in the present period, but always. Why has sex been so deeply embedded in man? - apart from producing children, I am not talking of that. Why? Probably it is the greatest pleasure a human being has. Demanding that pleasure, all kinds of complications arise; volumes have been written with explanations of the psychological complications. But the authors have never asked the question as to why human beings have made this thing so extremely important in their lives.

Our life is in a turmoil, it is a constant struggle, with nothing original, nothing creative - I am using the word `creative' very carefully. The painter, the architect, the wood-carver, he may say he is creative. The woman who bakes bread in the kitchen is said to be creative. And sex, they say, is also creative. So what is it to be creative? The painters, the musicians and the Indian singers with their devotion, say that theirs is the act of creation. Is it? You have accepted Picasso as a great painter, a great creator, putting one nose on three faces, or whatever he does. I am not denying it or being derogatory, I am just pointing it out. That is what is called creation.
But is all that creativeness? Or is creativeness something totally different? You are seeing the expression of creativeness in a painting, in a poem, in prose, a in a statue, in music. It is expressed according to a man's talent, his capacity great or small; it may be modern Rock or Bach - I am sorry to compare the two! - they are quite incomparable.
We human beings have accepted all that as creative because it brings fame, money, position. But I am asking: is that creativity? Can there be creation, in the most profound sense of that word, so long as there is egotism, so long as there is the demand for success, money and recognition - supplying the market? Do not agree with me please. I am just pointing out. I am not saying I know creativity and you do not; I am not saying that.
I am saying we never question these things. I say there is a state where there is creation in which there is no shadow of self. That is real creation; it does not need expression, it does not need self-fulfilment; it is creation. Perhaps sex is felt to be creative and has become important because everything around us is circumscribed, the job, the office, going to the church, following some philosopher, some guru. All that has deprived us of freedom and, further, we are not free from our own knowledge; it is always with us, the past.

So we are deprived of freedom outwardly and inwardly; for generation upon generation we have been told what to do. And the reaction to that is: I'll do what I want, which is also limited, based on pleasure, on desire, on capacity. So where there is no freedom, either outwardly or inwardly, specially inwardly, we have only one thing left and that is called sex. Why do we give it importance? Do you give equal importance to being free from fear? No. Do you give equal energy, vitality and thought to end sorrow? No. Why? Why only to sex?
Because that is the easiest thing to hand; the other demands all your energy, which can only come when you are free. So naturally human beings throughout the world have given this thing tremendous importance in life. And when you give something, which is only one part of life, tremendous importance, you are destroying yourself. Life is whole, not just one part.
If you give importance to the whole then sex becomes more or less unimportant. The monks and all those who have denied sex have turned their energy to god but the thing is boiling in them, nature cannot be suppressed. But when you give that thing all-importance, then you are corrupt.

Jiddu Krishnamurti discourse on Pain

Question: Does not thought originate as a defence against pain? The infant begins to think in order to separate itself from physical pain. Is thought - which is psychological knowledge - the result of pain, or is pain the result of thought? How does one go beyond the defences developed in childhood?
Jiddu Krishnamurti - Put a pin into a leg and there is pain; then there is anxiety that the pain should end. That is the momentum of thinking, the nervous reaction; then comes identification with that reaction and one says: "I hope it will end and I must not have it in the future". All that is part of the momentum of thinking. Fear is part of pain; is there fear without thought?

Have you ever experimented with dissociating thought from pain? Sit in a dentist's chair for some time and watch the things going on; your mind observing without identifying. You can do this. I sat in the dentist's chair for four hours; never a single thought came into my mind.

How does one go beyond the defences cultivated in childhood? Would one go to a psychoanalyst? One may think that is the easiest way and one may think that he will cure all the problems arising from one's childhood. He cannot. He may slightly modify them. So what will one do? There is nobody one can go to. Will one face that? There is nobody. Has one ever faced that fact that there is nobody one can go to? If one has cancer one can go to a doctor, that is different from the psychological knowledge that one has developed during childhood which causes one to become neurotic; and most people are neurotic.

So, what is one to do? How is one to know, in a world that is somewhat neurotic, in which all one's friends and relations are slightly unbalanced, that one is also unbalanced? One cannot go to anybody; so what is taking place in one's mind now that one no longer depends on others, on books, on psychologists, on authority? What has happened to one's mind if one actually realizes that one cannot possibly go to anybody? Neuroticism is the result of dependence. One depends on one's wife, on the doctor; one depends on God or on the psychologists.
One has established a series of dependences around one, hoping that in those dependences one will be secure. And when one discovers that one cannot depend on anybody, what happens? One is bringing about a tremendous psychological revolution; one is usually unwilling to face it. One depends on one's wife; she encourages one to be dependent on her; and vice versa. That is part of one's neurosis. One does not throw it out, one examines it. Can one be free of it, not depending on one's wife - psychologically, of course? One will not do it because one is frightened; one wants something from her, sex or this or that. Or she encourages one with one's ideas, helps one to dominate, to be ambitious, or says one is a marvellous philosopher.

But see that the very state of dependence on another may be the cause of the deep psychological neurosis. When one breaks that pattern, what happens? One is sane! One must have such sanity to find out what truth is. Dependence has been from childhood, it has been a factor against pain and hurt, a factor for comfort, for emotional sustenance and encouragement - all that has been built into one, one is part of that. This conditioned mind can never find out what truth is. Not to depend on anything means one is alone; all one, whole - that is sanity, that sanity breeds rationality, clarity, integrity.

Jiddu Krishnamurthy on Death

Question: In your talks you speak of death as total annihilation; also you have said that after death there is immortality, a state of timeless existence. Can one live in that state?
Jiddu Krishnamurthy : I did not use the word annihilation; I have said that death is an ending - like ending attachment. When something ends, like attachment, something totally new begins. When one has been accustomed to anger all one's life, or greed or aggression and one ends it, something totally new happens. One may have followed a guru, with all the gadgets he has given one; one realizes the absurdity of it, and one ends it. What happens? There is a sense of freedom from the burden which one has been uselessly carrying. Death is like ending an attachment.

What is it that has continued through life? One puts death in opposition to living. One says death is at the end of life; an end that may be ten or fifty years away - or the day after tomorrow. One hopes it will be ten years or more, but this is one's illusion, one's desire, a kind of momentum. One cannot understand how to face death without understanding or facing living, for death is not the opposite of living.

Much more important than asking the question: how to face death or, what is immortality or, whether that immortality is a state in which one can live, is the question of how to face life, how to understand this terrible thing called living? Because living as one does, is meaningless. One may try to give meaning to life, as most people do, saying life is this, or life must be that, but putting aside all these romantic, illusory, idealistic nonsenses, life is one's daily sorrow, its competition, despair, depression, agony - with the occasional flash of beauty and love.
That is one's life; can one face it and understand it so completely that one is left with no conflict in life? To do that is to die to everything that thought has built up. Thought has built one's vanity, thought has said, "I must achieve, become somebody, struggle, compete". That is what thought has put together, which is one's existence. One's gods, churches, gurus, rituals, all that is the activity of thought, a movement of memory, experience, knowledge stored up in the brain, a material process. And when thought dominates one's life, as it does, then thought denies love. Love is not a remembrance. Love is not an experience. Love is not desire or pleasure.

Living that way, dominated by thought, one has separated from life that thing called death, which is an ending, and one is frightened of it. If one denies everything in oneself which thought has created - and this requires tremendous grit - what has one? One is with death; living is dying and so renewal.

One is trained to be an individual - me as opposed to you, my ego against your ego. But the fact is that one is the entire humanity. One goes through what every other human being goes through, all one's sexual appetites, indulgences, sorrow, great hope, fear, anxiety, the immense sense of loneliness - that is what every human being has, that is one's life. One is the entire humanity, one is not individual. One likes to think one is, but one is not.
There is a life in which there is no centre as `me', a life, therefore, walking hand in hand with death; and out of that sense of ending totally, time has come to an end. Time is movement, movement is thought, thought is time. When one asks: "Can one live in that eternity?" - one cannot understand. See what one has done. "I want to live in eternity, to understand immortality" - which means the `I' must be part of that. But what is the `I'? A name, a form, and all the things that thought has put together; that is what the `I' actually is, to which one clings. And when death comes through disease , accident, old age, how scared one is.

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Attachment

Question: Attachment brings about a kind of emotional exchange, a human warmth, which seems a fundamental need. Detachment produces coldness, lack of affection, a break in relationship; it can also deeply hurt others. Something seems to be wrong with this approach. What do you say?
Jiddu Krishnamurti -The word `attach' means to cling, to hold, to have the feeling that you belong to somebody and that somebody belongs to you. Cultivating detachment breeds lack of affection, a coldness, a break in relationship; it is the cultivation of the opposite.
Naturally it will. If detachment is the opposite of attachment, then that detachment is an idea, a concept, a conclusion that thought has brought about as a result of realizing that attachment produces a lot of trouble, a lot of conflict, jealousy and anxiety. So thought says, "It is much better to be detached." Detachment is a non-fact, whereas attachment is a fact. When there is attachment, to cultivate detachment is a movement towards illusion and in that illusion you become cold, hard, bitter, isolated without any sense of affection. That is what we are all doing: living in non-fact.
Can you face the fact that you are attached - not only to a person, to an idea, to a belief, but to your own experiences, which is much more dangerous? Your own experiences give you a sense of excitement, a sense of being alive.

If one is aware that one is attached one sees all the consequences of that attachment - anxiety, lack of freedom, jealousy, anger, hatred. In attachment there is also a sense of safety, a sense of stability, a sense of being guarded, protected. And so there is the possessor and the possessed and hence there must be jealousy, anxiety, fear and all the rest.

Now, do you see the consequences of all that - not the description of it but the actuality of it? I am attached to you out of my loneliness and that attachment, arising from loneliness, says, "I love you". I feel a communication because you are also in the same position. Two people cling to each other out of their loneliness, out of their depression, out of their unhappiness. So what happens? I am clinging not to you, but to the idea, to something which will help me to escape from myself.

You may be attached to an experience, to an incident, which has given you great excitement, a great sense of elation, a sense of power, a sense of safety and you are clinging to that. That experience, which you have had, what is it? That experience is registered in the mind and you hold it. That something you are holding on to is dead and you also are becoming dead. If you see all this, without any direction, without any motive, just observe it, then you will see that insight shows the whole thing as on a map. When once there is that insight the thing disappears completely, you are not attached.

Jiddu Krishnamurthy on Dying daily

Questioner: Would you please explain what you mean by dying daily?
Jiddu Krishnamurti: Why is it that we are so frightened of death? Because death is the unknown. We don't know what is going to happen tomorrow; actually, we don't know what is going to happen. Though we build for tomorrow, actually, realistically, we don't know; and so there is always the fear of tomorrow. So, fear is the guiding factor, which is the incapacity to meet the unknown, and therefore we continue taking today over into tomorrow. That is what we are doing, is it not? We give continuity to our idiosyncrasies, to our jealousies, to our stupidities, to our memories; wherever we are, we carry them over from day to day.

Don't we do that? And so there is no dying, there is only an assurance of continuity. That is a fact. Our names, our actions, the things that we do, our property, the desire to be - all these give a continuity. Now, that which continues obviously cannot renew. There can be renewal only when there is an ending. If you are the same tomorrow as you are today, how can there be renewal? That is, if you are attached to an idea, to an experience which you have had yesterday and which you desire to continue tomorrow, there is no renewal; there is a continuity of the memory of the sensation of that experience, but the experience itself is dead. There is only the memory of the sensation of that experience, and it is that sensation you want to continue. And where there is continuity, obviously there is no renewal. And yet it is what most of us want - we want to continue.
We want to continue with our worries, with our pleasures, with our memories; and so most Of us are actually uncreative. There is no possibility of a rebirth, a renewal. Whereas, if each day we died, finished at the end of the day all our worries, all our jealousies, all our idiocies and vanities, our cruel gossip - you know, the whole business - if each day we came to an end and did not carry all that over into tomorrow, then there would be a possibility of renewal, would there not?
So, why do we accumulate? And what is it that we accumulate, apart from furniture and a few other things? What is it that we accumulate? Ideas, words, and memories, do we not? And with these we live - we are those things. With those things we want to live, we want to continue. But if we did not continue, there would be a possibility of a new understanding, a new opening. This is not metaphysical, this is not something fantastic. Experiment with it yourself and you will see that an extraordinary thing takes place. How the mind worries over a problem, over and over and over again, day after day!
Such a mind is incapable, obviously, of seeing something new, is it not? We are caught in our beliefs - religious, sociological, or any other form of belief - and those beliefs are oneself. Beliefs are words, and the word becomes important, and so we live in a sensation which we want to continue, and therefore there is no renewal. But if one does not continue, if one does not give continuity to a worry, but thinks it out, goes into it fully and dissolves it, then one's mind is fresh to meet something else anew.
But the difficulty is that most of us want to live in the past, in past memories, or in the future, future hopes, future longings - which indicates that the present is not significant, and therefore we live yesterday and tomorrow, and give continuity to both. If one actually experiments with this thing, really dying each day, each minute, to everything that one has accumulated, then there is a possibility of immortality. Immortality is not continuity, which is merely time; there is continuity only to memory, to ideas, to words. But, when there is freedom from continuity, then there is a state of timelessness, which cannot be understood if you are merely the result of continuity.
Therefore, it is important to die every minute and to be reborn again - not as you were yesterday. This is really very important, if you would go into it seriously. Because, in this there is a possibility of creation, of transformation. And most of our lives are so unhappy because we don't know how to renew; we are worn out, we are destroyed by yesterday, by yesterday's memories, misfortunes, unhappiness, incidents, failures.
Yesterday burdens our minds and hearts, and with that burden we want to understand something which cannot be understood within the limits of time. And that is why it is essential, if one would be creative in the deep sense of that word, that there be death to all the accumulations of every minute. This is not fantastic, this is not some mystical experience. One can experience this directly, simply, when one understands the whole significance of how time as continuity prevents creativeness.

Jiddu Krishnamurthy on Right Living

Question: I work as a teacher and I am in constant conflict with the system of the school and the pattern of society. Must I give up all work? What is the right way to earn a living? Is there a way of living that does not perpetuate conflict?
Jiddu Krishnamurti :This is a rather complex question and we will go into it step by step. What is a teacher? Either a teacher gives information about history, physics, biology and so on, or he himself is learning together with the pupil about himself. This is a process of understanding the whole movement of life. If I am a teacher, not of biology or physics, but of psychology, then will the pupil understand me or will my pointing out help him to understand himself?

We must be very careful and clear as to what we mean by a teacher. Is there a teacher of psychology at all? Or are there only teachers of facts. Is there a teacher who will help you to understand yourself? The questioner asks: I am a teacher. I have to struggle not only with the established system of schools and education, but also my own life is a constant battle with myself. And must I give up all this? Then what shall I do if I give up all that. He is asking not only what right teaching is but he also wants to find out what right living is.

What is right living? As society exists now, there is no right way of living. You have to earn a livelihood, you marry, you have children, you become responsible for them and so you accept the life of an engineer or a professor. As society exists can there be a right way of living? Or is the search for a right way of living merely a search for Utopia, a wish for something more? What is one to do in a society which is corrupt, which has such contradictions in itself, in which there is so much injustice - for that is the society in which we live? And, not only as a teacher in a school, I am asking myself: what shall I do?

Is it possible to live in this society, not only to have a right means of livelihood, but also to live without conflict? Is it possible to earn a livelihood righteously and also to end all conflict within oneself? Now, are these two separate things: earning a living rightly and not having conflict in oneself? Are these two in separate, watertight compartments? Or do they go together?
To live a life without any conflict requires a great deal of understanding of oneself and therefore great intelligence - not the clever intelligence of the intellect - but the capacity to observe, to see objectively what is happening, both outwardly and inwardly and to know that there is no difference between the outer and the inner. It is like a tide that goes out and comes in. To live in this society, which we have created, without any conflict in myself and at the same time to have a right livelihood - is it possible?

On which shall I lay emphasis - on right livelihood or on right living, that is, on finding out how to live a life without any conflict? Which comes first? Do not just let me talk and you listen, agreeing or disagreeing, saying "It is not practical. It is not like this, it is not like that saying, "It is not practical. It is not like this, it is not like that" - because it is your problem. We are asking each other: is there a way of living which will naturally bring about a right livelihood and at the same time enable us to live without a single shadow of conflict?

People have said that you cannot live that way except in a monastery, as a monk; because you have renounced the world and all its misery and are committed to the service of God, because you have given your life over to an idea, or a person, an image or symbol, you expect to be looked after. But very few believe any more in monasteries, or in saying, "I will surrender myself". If they do surrender themselves it will be surrendering to the image they have created about another, or which they have projected.
It is possible to live a life without a single shadow of conflict only when you have understood the whole significance of living - which is, relationship and action. What is right action - under all circumstances? Is there such a thing? Is there a right action which is absolute, not relative? Life is action, movement, talking, acquiring knowledge and also relationship with another, however deep or superficial. You have to find right relationship if you want to find a right action which is absolute.

What is your present relationship with another - not the romantic, imaginative, flowery and superficial thing that disappears in a few minutes - but, actually, what is your relationship with another? What is your relationship with a particular person? - perhaps intimate, involving sex, involving dependence on each other, possessing each other and therefore arousing jealousy and antagonism.
The man or the woman goes off to the office, or to do some kind of physical work, where he or she is ambitious, greedy, competitive, aggressive to succeed; he or she comes back home and becomes a tame, friendly, perhaps affectionate husband or wife. That is the actual daily relationship. Nobody can deny that. And we are asking: is that right relationship? We say no, certainly not, it would be absurd to say that that is right relationship. We say that, but continue in the same way. We say that that is wrong but we do not seem to be able to understand what right relationship is - except according to the pattern set by ourselves, by society.

We may want it, we may wish for it, long for it, but longing and wishing do not bring it about. We have to go into it seriously to find out. Relationship is generally sensuous - begin with that - then from sensuality there is companionship, a sense of dependence on each other; then there is the creating of a family which increases dependence on each other. When there is uncertainty in that dependence the pot boils over. To find right relationship one has to enquire into this great dependence on each other. Psychologically why are we so dependent in our relationships with each other?
Is it that we are desperately lonely? Is it that we do not trust anybody - even our own husband or wife? On the other hand, dependence gives a sense of security; a protection against this vast world of terror. We say: "I love you." In that love there is always the sense of possessing and being possessed. And when that situation is threatened there arises all the conflict. That is our present relationship with each other, intimate or otherwise. We create an image about each other and cling to that image.

The moment you are tied to another person, or tied to an idea or concept, corruption has begun. That is the thing to realize and we do not want to realize it. So, can we live together without being tied, without being dependent on each other psychologically? Unless you find this out you will always live in conflict, because life is relationship. Now, can we objectively, without any motive, observe the consequences of attachment and let them go immediately? Attachment is not the opposite of detachment. I am attached and I struggle to be detached; which is: I create the opposite.
The moment I have created the opposite conflict comes into being. But there is no opposite; there is only what I have, which is attachment. There is only the fact of attachment - in which I see all the consequences of attachment in which there is no love - not the pursuit of detachment. The brain has been conditioned, educated, trained, to observe what is and to create its opposite: "I am violent but I must not be violent" - therefore there is conflict.
But when I observe only violence, the nature of it - not analyse but observe - then the conflict of the opposite is totally eliminated. If one wants to live without conflict, only deal with `what is', everything else is not. And when one lives that way - and it is possible to live that way - completely to remain with `what is' then `what is' withers away. Experiment with it. When you really understand the nature of relationship, which only exists when there is no attachment, when there is no image about the other, then there is real communion with each other.
    
Right action means precise, accurate action, not based on motive; it is action which is not directed or committed. The understanding of right action, right relationship, brings about intelligence. Not the intelligence of the intellect but that profound intelligence which is not yours or mine. That intelligence will dictate what you will do to earn a livelihood; when there is that intelligence you may be a gardener, a cook, it does not matter. Without that intelligence your livelihood will be dictated by circumstance. There is a way of living in which there is no conflict; because there is no conflict there is intelligence which will show the right way of living.

Jiddu krishnamurti on Transformation

Questioner: What do you mean by transformation?
Jiddu Krishnamurti : Obviously, there must be a radical revolution. The world crisis demands it. Our lives demand it. Our everyday incidents, pursuits, anxieties, demand it. Our problems demand it. There must be a fundamental, radical revolution because everything about us has collapsed. Though seemingly there is order, in fact there is slow decay, destruction - the wave of destruction is constantly overtaking the wave of life.
So there must be a revolution - but not a revolution based on an idea. Such a revolution is merely the continuation of the idea, not a radical transformation. And a revolution based on an idea brings bloodshed, disruption, chaos. Out of chaos you cannot create order; you cannot deliberately bring about chaos and hope to create order out of that chaos. You are not the God-chosen who are to create order out of confusion.
That is such a false way of thinking on the part of those people who wish to create more and more confusion in order to bring about order. Because the moment they have power, they assume they know all the ways of producing order. But seeing the whole of this catastrophe - the constant repetition of wars, the ceaseless conflict between classes, between peoples, the awful economic and social inequality, the inequality of capacity and gifts, the gulf between those who are extraordinarily happy, unruffled, and those who are caught in hate, conflict, and misery - seeing all this, there must be a revolution, there must be complete transformation, must there not?

Now, is this transformation, is this radical revolution an ultimate thing, or is it from moment to moment? I know we would like it to be the ultimate thing because it is so much easier to think in terms of far away. Ultimately we shall be transformed, ultimately we shall be happy, ultimately we shall find truth, but in the meantime, let us carry on. Surely, such a thing that must come from moment to moment, must be discovered anew, and surely, there can be no discovery through accumulation. How can you discover the new if you have the burden of the old? It is only with the cessation of that burden that you discover the new.
So, to discover the new, the eternal, in the present, from moment to moment, one needs an extraordinarily alert mind, a mind that is not becoming. A mind that is becoming can never know the full bliss of contentment - not the contentment of smug satisfaction, not the contentment of an achieved result, but the contentment that comes when the mind sees the truth in what is and the false in what is. The perception of that truth is from moment to moment, and that perception is delayed through verbalization of the moment.

So, transformation is not an end result. Transformation is not a result. Result implies residue, a cause and an effect. Where there is causation, there is bound to be effect. The effect is merely the result of your desire to be transformed. When you desire to be transformed, you are still thinking in terms of becoming, and that which is becoming can never know that which is being.
Truth is being from moment to moment, and happiness that continues is not happiness. Happiness is that state of being which is timeless. That timeless state can come only when there is a tremendous discontent - not the discontent that has found a channel through which it escapes, but the discontent that has no outlet, that has no escape, that is no longer seeking fulfillment.
Only then, in that state of supreme discontent, can reality come into being. That reality is not to be bought, to be sold, to be repeated; it cannot be caught in books. It has to be found from moment to moment, in the smile, in the tear, under the dead leaf, in the vagrant thoughts, in the fullness of love - for love is not different from truth. Love is that state in which thought process as time has completely ceased. And where love is, there is transformation. Without love, revolution has no meaning, for then revolution is merely destruction, decay, a greater and greater, ever-mounting misery. Where there is love, there is revolution, because love is transformation from moment to moment.

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti talk, February 20, 1949

Jiddu krishnamurti Talk on Freedom

Question: What is freedom?
Jiddu krishnamurti - Many philosophers have written about freedom. We talk of freedom - freedom to do what we like, to have any job we like, freedom to choose a woman or a man, freedom to read any book, or freedom not to read at all. We are free, and what do we do with that freedom? We use that freedom to express ourselves, to do whatever we like. More and more life is becoming permissive - you can have sex in the open park or garden.

We have every kind of freedom and what have we done with it. We think that where there is choice we have freedom. I can go to Italy or France: a choice. But does choice give freedom? Why do we have to choose? If you are very clear, perceive purely, there is no choice. Out of that comes right action. It is only when there is doubt and uncertainty that we begin to choose. So choice, if you will forgive my saying so, prevents freedom.

The totalitarian states have no freedom at all, because they have the idea that freedom brings about the degeneration of man. Therefore they control, suppress - you know what is happening.

So what is freedom? Is it based on choice? Is it to do exactly what we like? Some psychologists say, if you feel something, do not suppress, restrain or control it, but express it immediately. And we are doing that very well, too well. And this is also called freedom. Is throwing bombs freedom? - just look what we have reduced our freedom to!

Does freedom lie out there, or here? Where do you begin to search for freedom? In the outward world, where you express whatever you like, the so-called individual freedom, or does freedom begin inwardly, which then expresses itself intelligently outwardly? You understand my question? freedom exists only when there is no confusion inside me, when I am psychologically and religiously not to be caught in any trap - you understand? There are innumerable traps: gurus, saviours, preachers, excellent books, psychologists and psychiatrists; they are all traps.

And if I am confused and there is disorder, must I not first be free of that disorder before I talk of freedom? If I have no relationship with my wife, my husband or another - because our relationships are based on images - there is conflict which is inevitable where there is division. So should I not begin here, inside me, in my mind, in my heart, to be totally free of all fears, anxieties, despairs and the hurts and wounds that one has received through some psychic disorder? Watch all that for oneself and be free of it!
But apparently we have not the energy. We go to another to give us energy. By talking to a psychiatrist we feel relieved - confession and all the rest of it. Always depending on somebody else. And that dependence inevitably brings conflict and disorder. So one has to begin to understand the depth and the greatness of freedom; one must begin with that which is nearest, oneself. The greatness of freedom, real freedom, the dignity, the beauty of it, is in oneself when there is complete order. And that order comes only when we are a light to ourselves.

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Injustice

Question: When one sees in the world no demonstrable universal principle of justice, one feels no compelling reason to change oneself or the chaotic society outside. One sees no rational criteria by which to measure the consequences of actions and their accountability. Can you share your perception on this matter with us?
Jiddu Krishnamurti - Is there justice in the world? This has been a question that all the philosophers have gone into, spinning a lot of words about it. Now, is there justice in the world, rational, sane, justice? You are clever, I am not. You have money, I have not. You have capacity and another has not. You have talent, you can enjoy and I have been born poor. One has a crippling disease and the other has not. Seeing all this, we say; there must be justice somewhere. We move from lack of justice to an idea of justice - God is just. But the fact remains that there is terrible injustice in the world.
And the questioner wants to know: "If there is no justice, why should I change? There is no point in it. Why should I change in this chaotic world where the dictators are supreme; their very life is injustice, terrorizing millions of people?" Seeing all that, there is no rational cause for me to change. I think that is not a rational question, if I may say so. Do you change because you are under pressure, or because you are rewarded - change brought about by reward and punishment?
Human beings are so irrational, right through the world and you as a human being, are as the rest of humanity. And as you are the rest of mankind, you are responsible; not because you see so much injustice in the world, how the crooks get away with everything, or because you contrast the marvellous churches and great riches with the millions and millions who are starving.
Change is not brought about through compulsion, through reward and punishment. The mind itself sees the absurdity of all this; it sees the necessity of change, not because God or the priest or somebody tells one to change. One sees the chaos around one and that chaos has been created by human beings; I am as these human beings; I have to act, it is my responsibility and a global responsibility.

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Violence and Sorrow

Jiddu Krishnamurti - I think there are really two fundamental problems, violence and sorrow. Unless we solve these, and go beyond them, all our efforts, our constant battles, have very little meaning. We seem to spend most of our lives within the field of ideologies, formulas, concepts, and by means of these we try to solve these two essential problems, violence and sorrow.

Every form of conflict is violence, not only the psychological conflict, within the skin, but also outwardly, in our relationships with other human beings, with society. And sorrow, it seems to me, is one of the most complex and difficult problems; the very complexity of it needs to be approached very simply. Any complex problem - specially a human problem and we have many of them - must surely be approached very clearly, very simply, without any ideological background; otherwise we translate what we see according to the conditioning and the peculiar idiosyncrasies and intentions that we have.

To understand the two essentially deep-rooted problems of violence and sorrow, we must not approach them merely verbally or intellectually; the intellect doesn't solve any problem at all, it may explain problems - any clever person can explain problems, - but the explanation, however erudite, however subtle, is not the reality. It is no use explaining to a man who is very hungry what marvellous food there is, it has no value at all. But if we go into these questions, not intellectually, but actually, totally, come to grips with them, unravelling these two terrible problems that destroy the mind, then perhaps we might go beyond.

We, as human beings, have accepted violence and sorrow as a way of life, having accepted them, we try to make the best of them. We worship sorrow, idealize it, and abide with it, as in the Christian world. In the Eastern world it is translated in other ways, but again the solution is not found. And as we said, this violence we have inherited from the animal, this aggression, this domination, with the desire for power, position and the urge to fulfil. Our brain structure which we have inherited from the animal, is itself the product of evolution, its function is not only to be self-protective but also to be aggressive, to be violent, to be very dominating, thinking in terms of position, prestige, with all of which you are all quite familiar.

Sorrow, the self-pity which is part of that sorrow, the loneliness, the utter meaninglessness of life, the boredom, the routine, deprive life of all sense of purpose, so we invent purpose; the intellectuals put together ideological purpose according to which we try to live. And not being able to solve these problems we go back to something that has been, either in our youth, or to the culture of tradition, depending upon race, country, and so on.
The more the problem becomes urgent, the more we escape to some form of ideological explanation from the past or to some ideological concept of the future, and we remain caught in this trap. And one observes, both in the East and in the West, the escapes into every form of entertainment, whether it is the entertainment of the Church, or the entertainment of football, or the cinema - and all the rest. The demand for entertainment, for distraction takes extraordinary forms, going to museums, talking endlessly about music, about the latest books, or writing about something which is dead and gone and buried, which has no value at all.

Apparently there are very few who are really serious. I mean by that word 'serious', the ability to go through a problem to the very end and resolve it; not resolving it according to one's personal inclination, or temperament, or according to the compulsion of environment, but putting all that aside, finding the truth of the matter, pursuing it to the very end. Such seriousness it seems is rather rare. And if one would solve these two fundamental issues, of violence and sorrow, one has to be serious and also one has to have a certain awareness, a certain attention, for nobody is going to solve these problems for us, obviously no old religions or carefully planned organizations, worked out by some authority or by the priest - nobody in that category is going to help us.
It's very obvious that they have no meaning at all, - you can see throughout the world the so-called young people are throwing all those out of the window; they have no meaning - the Church, the Gods, the beliefs, the dogmas, the rituals. And such authorities have ceased to have meaning for any serious man; obviously, when the world is in such confusion and misery, merely to look to some kind of authority - especially such organized authority as religious planning with sanctions - has no meaning whatsoever.

One cannot rely on anybody, on saviours, masters, not on anybody, including the speaker. And when we have rejected totally all the books, philosophies, the saints and the anarchists, we are face to face with ourselves as we are. That is a frightening and rather a depressing thing: to see ourselves actually as we are. No amount of philosophy, no amount of literature, dogma, ritual is ever going to solve this violence and sorrow. I think one has ultimately to come to this point and to resolve and go beyond. The more earnest one is, the more immediate the problem, the very urgency of it denies the authority one has so easily accepted.

Another problem is that of how to look into, and how to observe violence and sorrow as they exist in us. As we have said, human beings as individuals, are the product of society, of the culture in which we live, and that society and culture have been built by each one of us. Society is the product of human beings and we are of that product; and we are caught in this situation. We are caught in the trap of our individual inclinations, tendencies and pleasures and these are the structure of society. We are apt to regard the individual and society as two different things; and then it may be asked - What value has a human being who changes himself with regard to the whole structure of society? - which seems to me an absurd question.

We are dealing neither with an individual nor with a particular society, French, English, or whatever it is, but with the whole human problem. We are not dealing with the individual in relation to society or with the relationship of society, the collective, to the individual; we are trying to deal with the whole issue, not any separate issue.

We can only understand something when we see the totality of it, when we see its whole structure and the meaning of it. You cannot see the whole pattern of life, the whole movement of life, if you merely take one part of it and are tremendously concerned about that particular part. It is only when we see the whole map that we can see where we are and choose a particular road.
So we are not concerned with individual salvation or individual liberation, or whatever the individual is trying to seek but rather with the whole movement of life, the understanding of the whole current of existence; then perhaps the individual problems can be approached entirely differently. It becomes extremely difficult to see the whole issue, to understand it - it demands attention.
One cannot understand anything intellectually - you may hear words, give explanations, find out the cause, but that is not understanding. Understanding - as one observes oneself - takes place only when the mind, including the brain, is totally attentive. And one is not attentive when one is interpreting and translating what one sees according to one's background. You must have noticed - obviously most of us have - that when the mind is completely quiet - not demanding, not fussing around, not tearing to pieces the problem, but I really facing the problem with complete quietness - then there is an understanding. That very understanding is the action, the liberating force or energy, which frees us from the problem.
So we are using the word 'understand' in that sense, not intellectual or emotional understanding. And this understanding is rather a negation of the positive, the positive being understanding with the motive to do something about it. Most of us, when we have a problem, are inclined to worry about it, to tear it to pieces, to analyse it, to find a formula for dealing with it. And thought - as one may observe - is always the response of the old; thought is never new, yet the problem is always new. We translate the new, the problem, in terms of thought, and thought which is old is therefore positive, and active to do something about it.

Thought is the response of the past, it is memory, experience, accumulated knowledge, it is old, and challenges are always new, if they are challenges. From that background of knowledge, experience, memory, arises the response as thought - thought is always of the past - and thought translates the challenge or the problem in terms of that past. And thought, if one observes it, makes a positive response with regard to the problem in terms of the past.

So thought is not the way out; and this doesn't mean that one becomes nebulous, vague, absent-minded or more neurotic. On the contrary, the more you give attention, complete attention, to anything, it doesn't matter what it is, then in that attention you observe that there is no thought, no thinking; there is then no centre which is in operation as thought. So, understanding takes place - understanding, or observing, which are all the same - without the response of the background of thought; understanding is immediate action.

Am I making it somewhat clear or is it too abstract? I hope you are not translating what is being said in terms of some oriental mystical nonsense! Look! - if I want to understand a child, I have to observe him, I have to watch him, I have to pay attention to him. I watch him playing, crying, misbehaving, doing everything - I just watch him - I don't correct him; I want to understand and therefore I have no prejudices, I have no patterns of thought - as to what he must or must not do - as to what is good and what is bad. I just watch, and in that watchful attention I begin to understand the whole nature of his activity.
In the same way, to observe nature, a flower, is fairly simple; nature does not demand very much of us, just to watch an objective thing is very simple. But to watch what is going on inwardly, to watch this violence, this sorrow, with that clarity of attention is not so simple. That watching, that observing, denies totally every form of personal inclination, tendency, or the compulsive demand of society, that very watching is like watching the movement of a whole river. If you sit on a bank and watch the river go by, you see everything. But you, watching from the bank, and the movement of the river, are two different things; you are the observer and the movement of the river is the thing observed. But when you are in the water - not sitting on the bank - then you are part of that movement, there is no observer at all. In the same way, watch this violence and sorrow, not as an observer observing the thing, but with this cessation of space between the observer and the observed. It is part of the whole enquiry which is meditation of life.

As we said earlier, we human beings are violent and this we inherit from the animal, and this we never really go into because we have the concept of non-violence; we are concerned with the concept and ideology of non-violence, of what should be, but not with the fact of what actually is. Please - if I may suggest - do not merely listen to a lot of words; words are words, they have not very much meaning. Semantically one can go into the meaning of words, but the word is not the thing, explanation is not the fact, that which is; and one is apt to be caught in the trap of words and one listens only to words, endlessly - words are ashes, they have no meaning.
But if one listens beyond the word, observing oneself as one actually is, - not now, because you are sitting here, listening to a talk, but actuality, when you are outside, to watch yourselves - not egotistically, not introspectively, not analytically, but just observing what is actuality going on, then one can discover for oneself not only the superficial violence, such as anger, the demand for position and so on, but also the deep-rooted violence. And when you discover that, the concept of non-violence has really no validity at all. What had validity is the fact, violence.

Observe the fact of violence in the Orient, in India they have been talking endlessly about non-violence, preaching practicing - all nonsense - the moment there is any for of challenge it disappears and they become violent. Here also they talk endlessly about peace, in all the churches, of love, goodness, loving your neighbour - yet you have had the most terrible wars, fifteen thousand of them, within the last five thousand years. And one has to observe how deep-rooted this violence is within oneself, in the demand for fulfilment, in competing and always comparing oneself with somebody else, in imitating, in obedience and in the following of somebody, conforming to a pattern - all that is a form of violence.
To be free of that violence, demands extraordinary attention and care; otherwise I don't see how there can be peace in the world. There may be so-called peace, between two wars, between two conflicts, but that is not real peace, deep within, untouched by any ideology, or by any thought, not put together by some meaningless little philosophy. If one hasn't that peace, how can one have love, affection, care; or how, if there is no peace, can one create anything? One may draw pictures, write poems, write books about the past, and all the rest, but it all leads to conflict, to darkness. But to have this freedom from violence, - totally, not just partially, fragmentarily - one has to go into the problem very deeply.

One has to understand the nature of pleasure; violence and pleasure are intimately related. Because again, as one observes oneself, one will see that our whole psychology is based on pleasure - apart from what the psychologists and the analysts talk about, one does not have to read a lot of books to see this - not only the sensory pleasures, as sex, but also the pleasure of achievement, the pleasure of success, of fulfilment, of achieving position, prestige, power. Again, all this exists in the animal. In a farmyard, where there are poultry, you see this same phenomenon taking place. There is pleasure, in the sense of taking delight, or of insulting.
To achieve enjoyment, to achieve position, prestige, to be somebody famous, is a form of violence - you have to be aggressive. If one is not aggressive in this world, one is just downtrodden, pushed aside; so that one may well ask the question, 'Can I live without aggression, and yet live in this society?' Probably not, why should one live in society? - in the psychological structure of society, I mean. One has to live in the outward structure of society - having a job, a few clothes, a house, and so on - but why should one live in its psychological structure?
Why should one accept the norm of society which requires that one must become a successful writer, must be a famous man, must have...oh, you know, all the rest of it? All that is part of the pleasure principle which translates itself in violence. In church you say, love your neighbour - and in business you cut his throat; the norm of society has no meaning. The whole structure of the army, any structure based on the hierarchic principle, on authority, is again domination and pleasure, which is again part of violence, basic violence. To understand all this demands a great deal of observation - it is not a matter of capacity - you begin to understand, the more you observe. The very seeing is the acting.

Pleasure is what we are seeking all the time. We want greater pleasure - the ultimate pleasure, of course, is to have God. In the pursuit of pleasure there is fear, and we are burdened all our life with this dark thing called fear. Fear, sorrow, thought, violence, aggression - they are all interrelated. Therefore, in understanding one thing clearly, you understand beyond it.

One can take time and analyse the whole of the emotional and the intellectual structure of one's being, analyzing, bit by bit - which the analysts do, hoping to bring about a certain normal relationship between the individual and society - but all that involves time. Or, one can see that one is violent and understand the cause of it directly; one knows the cause of it. But to see each and every form of violence involves time; to unravel it exhaustively in all its forms demands months, years of time. Such an approach, it seems to me, is absurd. It is like a man who is violent and is trying to be non-violent, in the meantime he is sowing the seed of violence all the time.
So the question is whether you can see the whole thing immediately and resolve it immediately - that is really the issue - not bit by bit, taking day after day, month after month; that is a terrible, dreary, endless job, it involves a very careful, analytical mind, a mind that can dissect, see every aspect and not miss one detail - when a particular detail is missed the whole picture goes wrong. Not only does that involve time but in it there is also a concept which you have established of what it is to be free from violence. I don't know if you are following this? That concept, that thought which you use as a means of attempting to get rid of violence actually creates violence; violence is created by thought.
So the question is, is it possible to see the whole thing immediately? - not intellectually, if you put it as an intellectual problem it has no issue at all, then you'll just commit suicide as many intellectuals do, either actually commit suicide, or invent a theory, a belief, a dogma, a concept and become slaves to that - which is a form of suicide - or go back to the old religions, and become a Catholic, or a Protestant, or a Hindu, a follower of Zen, or whatever.

So the question is, is it possible to see the whole thing immediately, and with the very seeing of it, the ending of it?

You see wholly when the problem is sufficiently urgent, not only urgent for yourself but also for the world. There is war outwardly and war inwardly within each one of us, is it possible to end it immediately, psychologically turning your back on it? Nobody can answer that question except yourself except yourself when you answer it, not depending on any authority, on any intellectual or emotional concepts or formulas or ideologies. But as we said, this demands a great deal of inward seriousness, a great deal of earnest observation - observing when you are sitting in a bus the things about you, without choice, observing the thing within oneself that is moving, changing, observing without any motive, just everything as it is. What 'is', is much more important than what 'should' be. Out of this care and attention, perhaps, we will know what it is to love.
Source:J. Krishnamurti Talks in Europe 1967 1st Public Talk Paris 16th April 1967

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Compassion

Question: Does compassion spring from observation, or thought? Is not compassion an emotional feeling?
Jiddu Krishnamurti -I do not know how to answer this. What is compassion? Is it emotion, something romantic? Does it expend itself in some kind of social work? One has to find out what compassion is, what love is. Is love desire? Is love pleasure? And can there be love where there is ambition? Can there be love when one is trying to become something - not only in the outward world but also psychologically where there is this constant struggle to be or to become something?
Can there be love when there is jealousy and violence; when there is division between you and me? Can there be love when you are nationalistic? In this nationalistic division and the division of beliefs, images, can there be love? Of course there can be no love when there is such division. But all of us are so heavily conditioned, and we accept that conditioning as normal.
What is the relationship of love to sorrow? Can suffering and love go together - not only personal suffering but the enormous suffering of mankind, the suffering that wars have brought about and are still bringing about, the suffering of people living in totalitarian states - can there be love when there is suffering? Or is it only with the ending of suffering that there is passionate compassion?

After stating all this, where are we? Is love just an ideal - something which we do not know and therefore want to have: that extraordinary sense of great compassion? But we will not pay the price for it. We would like to have this marvellous jewel but are unwilling to make a gesture, do something that will bring it about. If you want peace you must live peacefully, not be divided into nations with wars and all the hideousness that is going on.
So what price do we pay for this, not coins and paper, but inwardly? How deeply, profoundly, do I see that nationalism, that all division, must end in myself as a human being? Because one human being - whether you or I - is like the rest of the world, psychologically. We all suffer, we all go through agonies, we all go through great fears, uncertainties, confusion, we are all caught in absurd religious nonsense. We are that.
Can we see the totality, not as an idea, not as something longed for, but as a fact, as a burning, actual, daily fact? Then out of that perception the responsibility of compassion comes. Compassion goes with great intelligence. That intelligence is not the operation of knowledge. Knowledge can solve many problems, intellectual and technical, but intelligence is something entirely different. Please do not accept what I am saying, just look at it.
You may have read a great deal, be capable of great arguments and of solving problems, but the problem-solving mind is not the intelligent mind. Intelligence comes with compassion, with love. And when that intelligence is an action of compassion it is global, not a particular action.

Jiddu Krishnamurthy on Right Living

Question: I work as a teacher and I am in constant conflict with the system of the school and the pattern of society. Must I give up all work? What is the right way to earn a living? Is there a way of living that does not perpetuate conflict?
Jiddu Krishnamurti :This is a rather complex question and we will go into it step by step. What is a teacher? Either a teacher gives information about history, physics, biology and so on, or he himself is learning together with the pupil about himself. This is a process of understanding the whole movement of life. If I am a teacher, not of biology or physics, but of psychology, then will the pupil understand me or will my pointing out help him to understand himself?

We must be very careful and clear as to what we mean by a teacher. Is there a teacher of psychology at all? Or are there only teachers of facts. Is there a teacher who will help you to understand yourself? The questioner asks: I am a teacher. I have to struggle not only with the established system of schools and education, but also my own life is a constant battle with myself. And must I give up all this? Then what shall I do if I give up all that. He is asking not only what right teaching is but he also wants to find out what right living is.

What is right living? As society exists now, there is no right way of living. You have to earn a livelihood, you marry, you have children, you become responsible for them and so you accept the life of an engineer or a professor. As society exists can there be a right way of living? Or is the search for a right way of living merely a search for Utopia, a wish for something more? What is one to do in a society which is corrupt, which has such contradictions in itself, in which there is so much injustice - for that is the society in which we live? And, not only as a teacher in a school, I am asking myself: what shall I do?

Is it possible to live in this society, not only to have a right means of livelihood, but also to live without conflict? Is it possible to earn a livelihood righteously and also to end all conflict within oneself? Now, are these two separate things: earning a living rightly and not having conflict in oneself? Are these two in separate, watertight compartments? Or do they go together?
To live a life without any conflict requires a great deal of understanding of oneself and therefore great intelligence - not the clever intelligence of the intellect - but the capacity to observe, to see objectively what is happening, both outwardly and inwardly and to know that there is no difference between the outer and the inner. It is like a tide that goes out and comes in. To live in this society, which we have created, without any conflict in myself and at the same time to have a right livelihood - is it possible?

On which shall I lay emphasis - on right livelihood or on right living, that is, on finding out how to live a life without any conflict? Which comes first? Do not just let me talk and you listen, agreeing or disagreeing, saying "It is not practical. It is not like this, it is not like that saying, "It is not practical. It is not like this, it is not like that" - because it is your problem. We are asking each other: is there a way of living which will naturally bring about a right livelihood and at the same time enable us to live without a single shadow of conflict?

People have said that you cannot live that way except in a monastery, as a monk; because you have renounced the world and all its misery and are committed to the service of God, because you have given your life over to an idea, or a person, an image or symbol, you expect to be looked after. But very few believe any more in monasteries, or in saying, "I will surrender myself". If they do surrender themselves it will be surrendering to the image they have created about another, or which they have projected.
It is possible to live a life without a single shadow of conflict only when you have understood the whole significance of living - which is, relationship and action. What is right action - under all circumstances? Is there such a thing? Is there a right action which is absolute, not relative? Life is action, movement, talking, acquiring knowledge and also relationship with another, however deep or superficial. You have to find right relationship if you want to find a right action which is absolute.

What is your present relationship with another - not the romantic, imaginative, flowery and superficial thing that disappears in a few minutes - but, actually, what is your relationship with another? What is your relationship with a particular person? - perhaps intimate, involving sex, involving dependence on each other, possessing each other and therefore arousing jealousy and antagonism.
The man or the woman goes off to the office, or to do some kind of physical work, where he or she is ambitious, greedy, competitive, aggressive to succeed; he or she comes back home and becomes a tame, friendly, perhaps affectionate husband or wife. That is the actual daily relationship. Nobody can deny that. And we are asking: is that right relationship? We say no, certainly not, it would be absurd to say that that is right relationship. We say that, but continue in the same way. We say that that is wrong but we do not seem to be able to understand what right relationship is - except according to the pattern set by ourselves, by society.

We may want it, we may wish for it, long for it, but longing and wishing do not bring it about. We have to go into it seriously to find out. Relationship is generally sensuous - begin with that - then from sensuality there is companionship, a sense of dependence on each other; then there is the creating of a family which increases dependence on each other. When there is uncertainty in that dependence the pot boils over. To find right relationship one has to enquire into this great dependence on each other. Psychologically why are we so dependent in our relationships with each other?
Is it that we are desperately lonely? Is it that we do not trust anybody - even our own husband or wife? On the other hand, dependence gives a sense of security; a protection against this vast world of terror. We say: "I love you." In that love there is always the sense of possessing and being possessed. And when that situation is threatened there arises all the conflict. That is our present relationship with each other, intimate or otherwise. We create an image about each other and cling to that image.

The moment you are tied to another person, or tied to an idea or concept, corruption has begun. That is the thing to realize and we do not want to realize it. So, can we live together without being tied, without being dependent on each other psychologically? Unless you find this out you will always live in conflict, because life is relationship. Now, can we objectively, without any motive, observe the consequences of attachment and let them go immediately? Attachment is not the opposite of detachment. I am attached and I struggle to be detached; which is: I create the opposite.
The moment I have created the opposite conflict comes into being. But there is no opposite; there is only what I have, which is attachment. There is only the fact of attachment - in which I see all the consequences of attachment in which there is no love - not the pursuit of detachment. The brain has been conditioned, educated, trained, to observe what is and to create its opposite: "I am violent but I must not be violent" - therefore there is conflict.
But when I observe only violence, the nature of it - not analyse but observe - then the conflict of the opposite is totally eliminated. If one wants to live without conflict, only deal with `what is', everything else is not. And when one lives that way - and it is possible to live that way - completely to remain with `what is' then `what is' withers away. Experiment with it. When you really understand the nature of relationship, which only exists when there is no attachment, when there is no image about the other, then there is real communion with each other.
    
Right action means precise, accurate action, not based on motive; it is action which is not directed or committed. The understanding of right action, right relationship, brings about intelligence. Not the intelligence of the intellect but that profound intelligence which is not yours or mine. That intelligence will dictate what you will do to earn a livelihood; when there is that intelligence you may be a gardener, a cook, it does not matter. Without that intelligence your livelihood will be dictated by circumstance. There is a way of living in which there is no conflict; because there is no conflict there is intelligence which will show the right way of living.

Jiddu Krishnamurti Talk on reincarnation

Question: Would you please make a definite statement about the non-existence of reincarnation since increasing `scientific evidence' is now being accumulated to prove reincarnation is a fact. I am concerned because I see large numbers of people beginning to use this evidence to further strengthen a belief they already have, which enables them to escape problems of living and dying. Is it not your responsibility to be clear, direct and unequivocable on this matter instead of hedging round the issue?

Jiddu Krishnamurti -We will be very definite. The idea of reincarnation existed long before Christianity. It is prevalent almost throughout India and probably in the whole Asiatic world. Firstly: what is it that incarnates; not only incarnates now, but reincarnates again and again? Secondly: the idea of there being scientific evidence that reincarnation is true, is causing people to escape their problems and that causes the questioner concern.
Is he really concerned that people are escaping? They escape through football or going to church. Put aside all this concern about what other people do. We are concerned with the fact, with the truth of reincarnation; and you want a definite answer from the speaker.

What is it that incarnates, is reborn? What is it that is living at this moment, sitting here? What is it that is taking place now to that which is in incarnation?

And when one goes from here, what is it that is actually taking place in our daily life, which is the living movement of incarnation - one's struggles, one`s appetites, greeds, envies, attachments - all that? Is it that which is going to reincarnate in the next life?

Now those who believe in reincarnation, believe they will be reborn with all that they have now - modified perhaps - and so carry on, life after life. Belief is never alive. But suppose that belief is tremendously alive, then what you are now matters much more than what you will be in a future life.

In the Asiatic world there is the word `karma' which means action in life now, in this period, with all its misery, confusion, anger, jealousy, hatred, violence, which may be modified, but will go on to the next life. So there is evidence of remembrance of things past, of a past life. That remembrance is the accumulated `me', the ego, the personality. That bundle, modified, chastened, polished a little bit, goes on to the next life.

So it is not a question of whether there is reincarnation (I am very definite on this matter, please) but that there is incarnation now; what is far more important than reincarnation, is the ending of this mess, this conflict, now. Then something totally different goes on.
Being unhappy, miserable, sorrow-ridden, one says: "I hope the next life will be better". That hope for the next life is the postponement of facing the fact now. The speaker has talked a great deal to those who believe in and have lectured and written about reincarnation, endlessly. It is part of their game. I say,"All right, Sirs, you believe in it all.
If you believe, what you do now matters". But they are not interested in what they do now, they are interested in the future. They do not say: "I believe and I will alter my life so completely that there is no future". Do not at the end of this say that I am evading this particular question; it is you who are evading it.
I have said that the present life is all-important; if you have understood and gone into it, with all the turmoil of it, the complexity of it - end it, do not carry on with it. Then you enter into a totally different world. I think that is clear, is it not? I am not hedging. You may ask me: "Do you believe in reincarnation?" Right? I do not believe in anything. This is not an evasion I have no belief and it does not mean that I am an atheist, or that I am ungodly. Go into it, see what it means. It means that the mind is free from all the entanglements of belief.

In the literature of ancient India there is a story about death and incarnation. For a Brahmin it is one of the ancient customs and laws, that after collecting worldly wealth he must at the end of five years give up everything and begin again. A certain Brahmin had a son and the son says to him, "You are giving all this away to various people, to whom are you going to give me away; to whom are you sending me?" The father said, "Go away, I am not interested".
But the boy comes back several times and the father gets angry and says, "I am going to send you to Death" - and being a Brahmin he must keep his word. So he sends him to Death. On his way to Death the boy goes to various teachers and finds that some say there is reincarnation, others say there is not. He goes on searching and eventually he comes to the house of Death.

When he arrives, Death is absent. (A marvellous implication, if you go into it.) Death is absent. The boy waits for three days. On the fourth day, Death appears and apologizes. He apologizes because the boy was a Brahmin; he says, "I am sorry to have kept you waiting and in my regret I will offer you three wishes. You can be the greatest king, have the greatest wealth, or you can be immortal". The boy says, "I have been to many teachers and they all say different things. What do you say about death and what happens afterwards?" Death says: "I wish I had pupils like you; not concerned about anything except that". So he begins to tell him about truth, about the state of life in which there is no time

Jiddu Krishnamurti on earning Livelihood

Questioner: Can I remain a government official if I want to follow your teachings? The same question would arise with regard to so many professions. What is the right solution to the problem of livelihood?

Jiddu Krishnamurti : Sirs, what do we mean by livelihood? It is the earning of one's needs, food, clothing, and shelter, is it not? The difficulty of livelihood arises only when we use the essentials of life - food, clothing, and shelter - as a means of psychological aggression. That is, when I use the needs, the necessities, as a means of self-aggrandizement, then the problem of livelihood arises; and our society is essentially based, not on supplying the essentials, but on psychological aggrandizement, using the essentials as a psychological expansion of oneself.
Sirs, you have to think it out a little bit. Obviously, food, clothing, and shelter could be produced abundantly; there is enough scientific knowledge to supply the demand, but the demand for war is greater, not merely by the warmongers, but by each of us, because each one of us is violent. There is sufficient scientific knowledge to give man all the necessities; it has been worked out, and they could be produced so that no man would be in need. Why does it not happen?
Because, no one is satisfied with food, clothing, and shelter; each one wants something more, and, put in different words, the `more' is power. But it would be brutish merely to be satisfied with needs. We will be satisfied with needs in the true sense, which is freedom from the desire for power, only when we have found the inner treasure which is imperishable, which you call God, truth, or what you will. If you can find those imperishable riches within yourself, then you are satisfied with few things - which few things can be supplied.

But, unfortunately, we are carried away by sensate values. The values of the senses have become more important than the values of the real. After all, our whole social structure, our present civilization, is essentially based on sensate values. Sensate values are not merely the values of the senses but the values of thought because thought is also the result of the senses; and when the mechanism of thought, which is the intellect, is cultivated, then there is in us a predominance of thought, which is also a sensory value.
So, as long as we are seeking sensate value - whether of touch, of taste, of smell, of perception, or of thought - the outer becomes far more significant than the inner, and the mere denial of the outer is not the way to the inner. You may deny the outer and withdraw from the world into a jungle or a cave and there think of God; but that very denial of the outer, that thinking of God, is still sensate because thought is sensate; and any value based on the sensate is bound to create confusion - which is what is happening in the world at the present time. The sensate is dominant, and as long as the social structure is built on that, the means of livelihood becomes extraordinarily difficult.

So, what is the right means of livelihood? This question can be answered only when there is a complete revolution in the present social structure, not according to the formula of the right or of the left, but a complete revolution in values which are not based on the sensate. Now, those who have leisure - like the older people who are drawing their pensions, who have spent their earlier years seeking God or else various forms of destruction - if they really gave their time, their energy, to finding out the right solution, then they would act as a medium, as an instrument for bringing about revolution in the world. But they are not interested.
They want security. They have worked so many years for their pensions, and they would like to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. They have time, but they are indifferent; they are only concerned with some abstraction which they call God, and which has no reference to the actual; but their abstraction is not God, it is a form of escape. And those who fill their lives with ceaseless activity are caught in the middle, they have not the time to find the answers to the various problems of life. So, those who are concerned with these things, with bringing about a radical transformation in the world through the understanding of themselves, in them alone is there hope.

Sirs, surely we can see what is a wrong profession. To be a soldier, a policeman, a lawyer, is obviously a wrong profession because they thrive on conflict, on dissension; and the big businessman, the capitalist, thrives on exploitation. The big businessman may be an individual, or it may be the state - if the state takes over big business it does not cease to exploit you and me. And as society is based on the army, the police, the law, the big businessman - that is, on the principle of dissension, exploitation, and violence - how can you and I, who want a decent, right profession, survive?
There is increasing unemployment, greater armies, larger police forces with their secret service; and big business is becoming bigger and bigger, forming vast corporations which are eventually taken over by the state, for the state has become a great corporation in certain countries. Given this situation of exploitation, of a society built on dissension, how are you going to find a right livelihood? It is almost impossible, is it not?
Either you will have to go away and form, with a few people, a community - a self-supporting, cooperative community - or merely succumb to the vast machine. But you see, most of us are not interested in really finding the right livelihood. Most of us are concerned with getting a job and sticking to it in the hope of advancement with more and more pay. Because each one of us wants safety, security, a permanent position, there is no radical revolution. It is not those who are self-satisfied, contented, but only the adventurous, those who want to experiment with their lives, with their existence, who discover the real things, a new way of living.

So, before there can be a right livelihood, the obviously false means of earning a livelihood must first be seen - the army, the law, the police, the big business corporations that are sucking people in and exploiting them, whether in the name of the state, of capital, or of religion. When you see the false and eradicate the false, there is transformation, there is revolution; and it is that revolution alone that can create a new society. To seek, as an individual, a right livelihood is good, is excellent, but that does not solve the vast problem. The vast problem is solved only when you and I are not seeking security.
There is no such thing as security. When you seek security, what happens? What is happening in the world at the present time? All Europe wants security, is crying for it, and what is happening? They want security through their nationalism. After all, you are a nationalist because you want security, and you think that through nationalism you are going to have security. It has been proved over and over again that you cannot have security through nationalism because nationalism is a process of isolation, inviting wars, misery, and destruction.
So, right livelihood on a vast scale must begin with those who understand what is false. When you are battling against the false, then you are creating the right means of livelihood. When you are battling against the whole structure of dissension, of exploitation, whether by the left or by the right, or the authority of religion and the priests, that is the right profession at the present time because that will create a new society, a new culture. But to battle, you must see very clearly and very definitely that which is false so that the false drops away. To discover what is false, you must be aware of it; you must observe everything that you are doing, thinking, and feeling, and out of that you will not only discover what is false, but out of that there will come a new vitality, a new energy, and that energy will dictate what kind of work to do or not to do.
Source: Jiddu Krishnamurti 2nd Talk at Bangalore (India) 1948


Truth is a Pathless Land (Jiddu Speech for Dissolving "Order of Star" )

Transcript of the Jiddu Krishnamurti speech in 1929. Jiddu announces the dissolution of the spiritual organization — the Order of the Star — for which he had been groomed since boyhood to lead.

WE ARE GOING TO DISCUSS this morning the dissolution of the Order of the Star. Many people will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, as I am going to explain.

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 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 let him organize it."

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.

This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. You must climb towards the Truth, it cannot be "stepped down" or organized for you.

Interest in ideas is mainly sustained by organizations, but organizations only awaken interest from without. Interest, which is not born out of love of Truth for its own sake, but aroused by an organization, is of no value. The organization becomes a framework into which its members can conveniently fit. They no longer strive after Truth or the mountain-top, but rather carve for themselves a convenient niche in which they put themselves, or let the organization place them, and consider that the organization will thereby lead them to Truth.

So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why the Order of the Star should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably form other Orders, you will continue to belong to other organizations searching for Truth. I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind, please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would take me to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of organization, merely mechanical, like the post or the telegraph.

I would use a motor car or a steamship to travel, these are only physical mechanisms which have nothing whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality. If an organization be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve it. No one has persuaded me to this decision.

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.

Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this: not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be! I do not want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality.

Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come to a Camp or live in a damp country! I am speaking frankly because I want this settled once and for all. I do not want these childish discussions year after year.

One newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organization in which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act because, he said: "What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you." If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient.

Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves? If I speak strongly, please do not misunderstand me, it is not through lack of compassion. If you go to a surgeon for an operation, is it not kindness on his part to operate even if he cause you pain? So, in like manner, if I speak straightly, it is not through lack of real affection - on the contrary.

As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him towards freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of the self.

Because I am free, unconditioned, whole-not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal - I desire those, who seek to understand me, to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears-from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want any thing from anyone.

You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers-a miracle-transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority.

You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyze what I am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage.

If I talk frankly, please remember that I do so, not out of harshness, not out of cruelty, not out of the enthusiasm of my purpose, but because I want you to understand what I am saying. That is the reason why you are here, and it would be a waste of time if I did not explain clearly, decisively, my point of view.

For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the World-Teacher. For eighteen years you have organized, you have looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would transform your whole life, who would give you a new understanding; for someone who would raise you to a new plane of life, who would give you a new encouragement, who would set you free-and now look what is happening!

Consider, reason with yourselves, and discover in what way that belief has made you different-not with the superficial difference of the wearing of a badge, which is trivial, absurd. In what manner has such a belief swept away all the unessential things of life? That is the only way to judge: in what way are you freer, greater, more dangerous to every Society which is based on the false and the unessential? In what way have the members of this organization of the Star become different?

As I said, you have been preparing for eighteen years for me. I do not care if you believe that I am the World-Teacher or not. That is of very little importance. Since you belong to the organization of the Order of the Star, you have given your sympathy, your energy, acknowledging that Krishnamurti is the World-Teacher- partially or wholly: wholly for those who are really seeking, only partially for those who are satisfied with their own half-truths.

You have been preparing for eighteen years, and look how many difficulties there are in the way of your understanding, how many complications, how many trivial things. Your prejudices, your fears, your authorities, your churches new and old - all these, I maintain, are a barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I am saying.

This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face things as they are. You want to have your own gods - new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old - all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old worships you have new worships.

You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few.

So why have an organization?

Why have false, hypocritical people following me, the embodiment of Truth? Please remember that I am not saying something harsh or unkind, but we have reached a situation when you must face things as they are. I said last year that I would not compromise. Very few listened to me then. This year I have made it absolutely clear. I do not know how many thousands throughout the world- members of the Order-have been preparing for me for eighteen years, and yet now they are not willing to listen unconditionally, wholly, to what I say.

So why have an organization?

As I said before, my purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal, is the harmony between reason and love. This is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which is Life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom .

And I, for whom you have been preparing for eighteen years, now say that you must be free of all these things, free from your complications, your entanglements. For this you need not have an organization based on spiritual belief. Why have an organization for five or ten people in the world who understand, who are struggling, who have put aside all trivial things? And for the weak people, there can be no organization to help them to find the Truth, because Truth is in everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there.

Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organizations become your chief concern. "How many members are there in it?" That is the first question I am asked by all newspaper reporters. "How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false." I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. As I said, if there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough.

Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.

So you will see how absurd is the whole structure that you have built, looking for external help, depending on others for your comfort, for your happiness, for your strength. These can only be found within yourselves.

So why have an organization?

You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things.

So why have an organization?

But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose.
Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship- which you do not seem to know-there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice.

So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free.


Jiddu Krishnamurti : First of all, many of you are amused; others are a little bit agitated; there is apprehension. Don't you feel all this? Let us find out.
Fundamentally, are we, you and I, seeking the same thing? Can you seek truth in any organization? Can you give yourself a label and seek truth? Can you be a Hindu and say, "I am seeking truth"? Then, when you are seeking, is not truth but fulfillment of belief. Can you belong to any organization, spiritual group, and seek truth? Is truth to be found collectively? Do you know love when you believe? Don't you know that when you believe in something very strongly and I believe in something contrary, there is no love between us.

When you believe in certain hierarchical principles and authorities and I do not, do you think there is communion between us? When the whole structure of your thinking is the future, the becoming through virtue, when you are going to be somebody in the future, when the whole process of your thinking is based on authority and hierarchical principles, do you think there is love between us? You may use me for convenience, and I may use you for convenience. But that is not love. Let us be clear. Do not get agitated about these matters. You will not understand if you get excited about it.
To find out whether you are really seeking truth and love, you must investigate, must you not? If you investigate, if you find out inwardly and therefore act outwardly, what would happen? You would be outside, wouldn't you? If you question your own beliefs, won't you find yourself outside? As long as there are societies and organizations - so-called spiritual organizations that have vested interests in property, in belief, in knowledge - obviously, the people there are not seeking truth. They may say so.
So, you must find out if we are fundamentally seeking the same thing. Can you seek truth through a Master, through a guru? Sirs, think it out. It is your problem. Can you find truth through the process of time, in becoming something? Can you find truth through the Master, through pupils, through gurus; what can they tell you fundamentally? They can only tell you to dissolve the 'me'. Are you doing that? If you are not, obviously you are not seeking truth, It is not that I am saying that you are not seeking truth, but the fact is that, if you are saying, "I am going to be somebody," if you occupy a position of spiritual authority, you cannot be seeking truth. I am very clear about these matters, and I am not trying to persuade you to accept or to denounce, which will be stupid. I cannot denounce you, as the questioner says.
Even though you have heard me for twenty years, you go on with your beliefs because it is very comforting to believe that you are being looked after, that you have special messengers for the future, that you are going to be something beautiful, now or eventually. You will go on because your vested interests are there, in property, in job, in belief, in knowledge. You do not question them. It is the same all the world over. It is not only this or that particular group of people but all groups - Catholics, Protestants, communists, capitalists - are in the same position; they have all vested interests.
The man who is really revolutionary, who is inwardly seeing the truth of all these things, will find truth. He will know what love is, not in some future date which is of no value. When a man is hungry, he wants to be fed now, not tomorrow. But you have convenient theories of time, of eventuality, in which you are caught. Therefore, where is the connection, where is the relationship between you and me, or between yourself and that which you are attempting to find out? And yet, you all talk about love, brotherhood, and everything you do is contrary to that. It is obvious, sirs, that the moment you have organization, there must be intrigues for position, for authority; you know the whole game of it.
So, what we need is not whether I denounce you or whether you denounce or throw me out. That is not the problem. Obviously you must reject a man who says that what you believe or do is wrong; you have done so, or inwardly you should do so, because I say I am opposed to that which you want. If you would really seek, if you would find truth and love, there must be singleness of purpose, complete abandonment of all vested interests, which means you must be inwardly empty, poor, not seeking, not acquiring positions of authority as displayers or bringers of messages from the Masters. You must be completely naked.

Since you do not wish that, naturally, you acquire labels, beliefs, and various forms of security. Sirs, do not reject; find out whether you are really, as you say, fundamentally seeking truth. I really question you, I really doubt you when you say, "I am seeking truth." You cannot seek truth because your search is a projection of your own desires; your experiencing of that projection is an experience which you want.
But when you do not seek, when the mind is quiet and tranquil without any want, without any motive, without any compulsion, then you will find that ecstasy comes. For that ecstasy to come, you must be completely naked, empty, alone. Most people join these societies because they are gregarious, because they are clubs, and joining clubs is very convenient socially. Do you think you are going to find truth when you are seeking comfort, satisfaction, social security? No, sirs; you must stand alone without any support, without friends, without guru, without hope, completely and inwardly naked and empty. Then only, as the cup which is empty can be filled up, so the emptiness within can be filled up with that which is everlasting.
Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti talk, January 20, 1952

Jiddu Krishnamurti on right Kind of Education for Children

Jiddu Krishnamurti - The right kind of education begins with the educator, who must understand himself and be free from established patterns of thought; for what he is, that he imparts. If he has not been rightly educated, what can he teach except the same mechanical knowledge on which he himself has been brought up? The problem, therefore, is not the child, but the parent and the teacher; the problem is to educate the educator.

If we who are the educators do not understand ourselves, if we do not understand our relationship with the child but merely stuff him with information and make him pass examinations, how can we possibly bring about a new kind of education? The pupil is there to be guided and helped; but if the guide, the helper is himself confused and narrow, nationalistic and theory-ridden, then naturally his pupil will be what he is, and education becomes a source of further confusion and strife.

If we see the truth of this, we will realize how important it is that we begin to educate ourselves rightly. To be concerned with our own re-education is far more necessary than to worry about the future well-being and security of the child.

To educate the educator - that is, to have him understand himself - is one of the most difficult undertakings, because most of us are already crystallized within a system of thought or a pattern of action; we have already given ourselves over to some ideology, to a religion, or to a particular standard of conduct. That is why we teach the child what to think and not how to think.

Moreover, parents and teachers are largely occupied with their own conflicts and sorrows. Rich or poor, most parents are absorbed in their personal worries and trials. They are not gravely concerned about the present social and moral deterioration, but only desire that their children shall be equipped to get on in the world. They are anxious about the future of their children, eager to have them educated to hold secure positions, or to marry well.

Contrary to what is generally believed, most parents do not love their children, though they talk of loving them. If parents really loved their children, there would be no emphasis laid on the family and the nation as opposed to the whole, which creates social and racial divisions between men and brings about war and starvation. It is really extraordinary that, while people are rigorously trained to be lawyers or doctors, they may become parents without undergoing any training whatsoever to fit them for this all-important task.

More often than not, the family, with its separate tendencies, encourages the general process of isolation, thereby becoming a deteriorating factor in society. It is only when there is love and understanding that the walls of isolation are broken down, and then the family is no longer a closed circle, it is neither a prison nor a refuge; then the parents are in communion, not only with their children, but also with their neighbours. Being absorbed in their own problems, many parents shift to the teacher the responsibility for the well-being of their children; and then it is important that the educator help in the education of the parents as well.

He must talk to them, explaining that the confused state of the world mirrors their own individual confusion. He must point out that scientific progress in itself cannot bring about a radical change in existing values; that technical training, which is now called education, has not given man freedom or made him any happier; and that to condition the student to accept the present environment is not conducive to intelligence. He must tell them what he is attempting to do for their child, and how he is setting about it. He has to awaken the parents' confidence, not by assuming the authority of a specialist dealing with ignorant laymen, but by talking over with them the child's temperament, difficulties, aptitudes and so on.

If the teacher takes a real interest in the child as an individual, the parents will have confidence in him. In this process, the teacher is educating the parents as well as himself, while learning from them in return. Right education is a mutual task demanding patience, consideration and affection. Enlightened teachers in an enlightened community could work out this problem of how to bring up children, and experiments along these lines should be made on a small scale by interested teachers and thoughtful parents.

Do parents ever ask themselves why they have children? Do they have children to perpetuate their name, to carry on their property? Do they want children merely for the sake of their own delight, to satisfy their own emotional needs? If so, then the children become a mere projection of the desires and fears of their parents. Can parents claim to love their children when, by educating them wrongly, they foster envy, enmity and ambition? Is it love that stimulates the national and racial antagonisms which lead to war, destruction and utter misery, that sets man against man in the name of religions and ideologies?

Many parents encourage the child in the ways of conflict and sorrow, not only by allowing him to be submitted to the wrong kind of education, but by the manner in which they conduct their own lives; and then, when the child grows up and suffers, they pray for him or find excuses for his behaviour. The suffering of parents for their children is a form of possessive self-pity which exists only when there is no love.

If parents love their children, they will not be nationalistic, they will not identify themselves with any country; for the worship of the State brings on war, which kills or maims their sons. If parents love their children, they will discover what is right relationship to property; for the possessive instinct has given property an enormous and false significance which is destroying the world. If parents love their children, they will not belong to any organized religion; for dogma and belief divide people into conflicting groups, creating antagonism between man and man. If parents love their children, they will do away with envy and strife, and will set about altering fundamentally the structure of present-day society.

As long as we want our children to be powerful, to have bigger and better positions, to become more and more successful, there is no love in our hearts; for the worship of success encourages conflict and misery. To love one's children is to be in complete communion with them; it is to see that they have the kind of education that will help them to be sensitive, intelligent and integrated.

The first thing a teacher must ask himself, when he decides that he wants to teach, is what exactly he means by teaching. Is he going to teach the usual subjects in the habitual way? Does he want to condition the child to become a cog in the social machine, or help him to be an integrated, creative human being, a threat to false values? And if the educator is to help the student to examine and understand the values and influences that surround him and of which he is a part, must he not be aware of them himself? If one is blind, can one help others to cross to the other shore?

Surely, the teacher himself must first begin to see. He must be constantly alert, intensely aware of his own thoughts and feelings, aware of the ways in which he is conditioned, aware of his activities and his responses; for out of this watchfulness comes intelligence, and with it a radical transformation in his relationship to people and to things.

Intelligence has nothing to do with the passing of examinations. Intelligence is the spontaneous perception which makes a man strong and free. To awaken intelligence in a child, we must begin to understand for ourselves what intelligence is; for how can we ask a child to be intelligent if we ourselves remain unintelligent in so many ways? The problem is not only the student's difficulties, but also our own: the cumulative fears, unhappiness and frustrations of which we are not free. In order to help the child to be intelligent, we have to break down within ourselves those hindrances which make us dull and thoughtless.

How can we teach children not to seek personal security if we ourselves are pursuing it? What hope is there for the child if we who are parents and teachers are not entirely vulnerable to life, if we erect protective walls around ourselves? To discover the true significance of this struggle for security, which is causing such chaos in the world, we must begin to awaken our own intelligence by being aware of our psychological processes; we must begin to question all the values which now enclose us.

We should not continue to fit thoughtlessly into the pattern in which we happen to have been brought up. How can there ever be harmony in the individual and so in society if we do not understand ourselves? Unless the educator understands himself, unless he sees his own conditioned responses and is beginning to free himself from existing values, how can he possibly awaken intelligence in the child? And if he cannot awaken intelligence in the child, then what is his function?

It is only by understanding the ways of our own thought and feeling that we can truly help the child to be a free human being; and if the educator is vitally concerned with this, he will be keenly aware, not only of the child, but also of himself.

Very few of us observe our own thoughts and feelings. If they are obviously ugly, we do not understand their full significance, but merely try to check them or push them aside. We are not deeply aware of ourselves; our thoughts and feelings are stereotyped, automatic. We learn a few subjects, gather some information, and then try to pass it on to the children.

But if we are vitally interested, we shall not only try to find out what experiments are being made in education in different parts of the world, but we shall want to be very clear about our own approach to this whole question; we shall ask ourselves why and to what purpose we are educating the children and ourselves; we shall inquire into the meaning of existence, into the relationship of the individual to society, and so on. Surely, educators must be aware of these problems and try to help the child to discover the truth concerning them, without projecting upon him their own idiosyncrasies and habits of thought.

Merely to follow a system, whether political or educational, will never solve our many social problems; and it is far more important to understand the manner of our approach to any problem, than to understand the problem itself.

If children are to be free from fear - whether of their parents, of their environment, or of God - the educator himself must have no fear. But that is the difficulty: to find teachers who are not themselves the prey of some kind of fear. Fear narrows down thought and limits initiative, and a teacher who is fearful obviously cannot convey the deep significance of being without fear. Like goodness, fear is contagious. If the educator himself is secretly afraid, he will pass that fear on to his students, although its contamination may not be immediately seen.

Suppose, for example, that a teacher is afraid of public opinion; he sees the absurdity of his fear, and yet cannot go beyond it. What is he to do? He can at least acknowledge it to himself, and can help his students to understand fear by bringing out his own psychological reaction and openly talking it over with them. This honest and sincere approach will greatly encourage the students to be equally open and direct with themselves and with the teacher.

To give freedom to the child, the educator himself must be aware of the implications and the full significance of freedom. Example and compulsion in any form do not help to bring about freedom, and it is only in freedom that there can be self-discovery and insight. The child is influenced by the people and the things about him, and the right kind of educator should help him to uncover these influences and their true worth. Right values are not discovered through the authority of society or tradition; only individual thoughtfulness can reveal them.

If one understands this deeply, one will encourage the student from the very beginning to awaken insight into present-day individual and social values. One will encourage him to seek out, not any particular set of values, but the true value of all things. One will help him to be fearless, which is to be free of all domination, whether by the teacher, the family or society, so that as an individual he can flower in love and goodness. In thus helping the student towards freedom, the educator is changing his own values also; he too is beginning to be rid of the `'me'' and the ``mine,'' he too is flowering in love and goodness. This process of mutual education creates an altogether different relationship between the teacher and the student.

Domination or compulsion of any kind is a direct hindrance to freedom and intelligence. The right kind of educator has no authority, no power in society; he is beyond the edicts and sanctions of society. If we are to help the student to be free from his hindrances, which have been created by himself and by his environment, then every form of compulsion and domination must be understood and put aside; and this cannot be done if the educator is not also freeing himself from all crippling authority.

To follow another, however great, prevents the discovery of the ways of the self; to run after the promise of some ready-made Utopia makes the mind utterly unaware of the enclosing action of its own desire for comfort, for authority, for someone else's help. The priest, the politician, the lawyer, the soldier, are all there to ``help'' us; but such help destroys intelligence and freedom. The help we need does not lie outside ourselves. We do not have to beg for help; it comes without our seeking it when we are humble in our dedicated work, when we are open to the understanding of our daily trials and accidents.

We must avoid the conscious or unconscious craving for support and encouragement, for such craving creates its own response, which is always gratifying. It is comforting to have someone to encourage us, to give us a lead, to pacify us; but this habit of turning to another as a guide, as an authority, soon becomes a poison in our system. The moment we depend on another for guidance, we forget our original intention, which was to awaken individual freedom and intelligence.

All authority is a hindrance, and it is essential that the educator should not become an authority for the student. The building up of authority is both a conscious and an unconscious process.

The student is uncertain, groping, but the teacher is sure in his knowledge, strong in his experience. The strength and certainty of the teacher give assurance to the student, who tends to bask in that sunlight; but such assurance is neither lasting nor true. A teacher who consciously or un consciously encourages dependence can never be of great help to his students. He may overwhelm them with his knowledge, dazzle them with his personality, but he is not the right kind of educator because his knowledge and experiences are his addiction, his security, his prison; and until he himself is free of them, he cannot help his students to be integrated human beings.

To be the right kind of educator, a teacher must constantly be freeing himself from books and laboratories; he must ever be watchful to see that the students do not make of him an example, an ideal, an authority. When the teacher desires to fulfil himself in his students, when their success is his, then his teaching is a form of self-continuation, which is detrimental to self-knowledge and freedom. The right kind of educator must be aware of all these hindrances in order to help his students to be free, not only from his authority, but from their own self-enclosing pursuits.

Unfortunately, when it comes to understanding a problem, most teachers do not treat the student as an equal partner; from their superior position, they give instructions to the pupil, who is far below them. Such a relationship only strengthens fear in both the teacher and the student. What creates this unequal relationship? Is it that the teacher is afraid of being found out? Does he keep a dignified distance to guard his susceptibilities, hide importance? Such superior aloofness in no way helps to break down the barriers that separate individuals. After all, the educator and his pupil are helping each other to educate themselves.

All relationship should be a mutual education; and as the protective isolation afforded by knowledge, by achievement, by ambition, only breeds envy and antagonism, the right kind of educator must transcend these walls with which he surrounds himself.

Because he is devoted solely to the freedom and integration of the individual, the right kind of educator is deeply and truly religious. He does not belong to any sect, to any organized religion; he is free of beliefs and rituals, for he knows that they are only illusions, fancies, superstitions projected by the desires of those who create them. He knows that reality or God comes into being only when there is self-knowledge and therefore freedom.

People who have no academic degrees often make the best teachers because they are willing to experiment; not being specialists, they are interested in learning, in understanding life. For the true teacher, teaching is not a technique, it is his way of life; like a great artist, he would rather starve than give up his creative work. Unless one has this burning desire to teach, one should not be a teacher. It is of the utmost importance that one discover for oneself whether one his this gift, and not merely drift into teaching because it is a means of livelihood.

As long as teaching is only a profession, a means of livelihood, and not a dedicated vocation, there is bound to be a wide gap between the world and ourselves: our home life and our work remain separate and distinct. As long as education is only a job like any other, conflict and enmity among individuals and among the various class levels of society are inevitable; there will be increasing competition, the ruthless pursuit of personal ambition, and the building up of the national and racial divisions which create antagonism and endless wars.

But if we have dedicated ourselves to be the right kind of educators, we do not create barriers between our home life and the life at school, for we are everywhere concerned with freedom and intelligence. We consider equally the children of the rich and of the poor, regarding each child as an individual with his particular temperament, heredity, ambitions, and so on. We are concerned, not with a class, not with the powerful or the weak, but with the freedom and integration of the individual.

Dedication to the right kind of education must be wholly voluntary. It should not be the result of any kind of persuasion, or of any hope of personal gain; and it must be devoid of the fears that arise from the craving for success and achievement. The identification of oneself with the success or failure of a school is still within the field of personal motive. If to teach is one's vocation, if one looks upon the right kind of education as a vital need for the individual, then one will not allow oneself to be hindered or in any way sidetracked either by one's own ambitions or by those of another; one will find time and opportunity for this work, and will set about it without seeking reward, honour or fame. Then all other things - family, personal security, comfort - become of secondary importance.

If we are in earnest about being the right kind of teachers, we shall be thoroughly dissatisfied, not with a particular system of education, but with all systems, because we see that no educational method can free the individual. A method or a system may condition him to a different set of values, but it cannot make him free.

One has to be very watchful also not to fall into one's own particular system, which the mind is ever building. To have a pattern of conduct, of action, is a convenient and safe procedure, and that is why the mind takes shelter within its formations. To be constantly alert is bothersome and exacting, but to develop and follow a method does not demand thought.

Repetition and habit encourage the mind to be sluggish; a shock is needed to awaken it, which we then call a problem. We try to solve this problem according to our well-worn explanations, justifications and condemnations, all of which puts the mind back to sleep again. In this form of sluggishness the mind is constantly being caught, and the right kind of educator not only puts an end to it within himself, but also helps his students to be aware of it.

Some may ask, ``How does one become the right kind of educator?'' Surely, to ask ``How'' indicates, not a free mind, but a mind that is timorous, that is seeking an advantage, a result. The hope and the effort to become something only makes the mind conform to the desired end, while a free mind is constantly watching, learning, and therefore breaking through its self-projected hindrances.

Freedom is at the beginning, it is not something to be gained at the end. The moment one asks ``How,'' one is confronted with insurmountable difficulties, and the teacher who is eager to dedicate his life to education will never ask this question, for he knows that there is no method by which one can become the right kind of educator. If one is vitally interested, one does not ask for a method that will assure one of the desired result.

Can any system make us intelligent? We may go through the kind of a system, acquire degrees, and so on; but will we then be educators, or merely the personifications of a system? To seek reward, to want to be called an outstanding educator, is to crave recognition and praise; and while it is sometimes agreeable to be appreciated and encouraged, if one depends upon it for one's sustained interest, it becomes a drug of which one soon wearies. To expect appreciation and encouragement is quite immature.

If anything new is to be created, there must be alertness and energy, not bickerings and wrangles. If one feels frustrated in one's work, then boredom and weariness generally follow. If one is not interested, one should obviously not go on teaching.

But why is there so often a lack of vital interest among teachers? What causes one do feel frustrated? Frustration is not the result of being forced by circumstances to do this or that; it arises when we do not know for ourselves what it is that we really want to do. Being confused, we get pushed around, and finally land in something which has no appeal for us at all.

If teaching is our true vocation, we may feel temporarily frustrated because we have not seen a way out of this present educational confusion; but the moment we see and understand the implications of the right kind of education, we shall have again all the necessary drive and enthusiasm. It is not a matter of will or resolution, but of perception and understanding.

If teaching is one's vocation, and if one perceives the grave importance of the right kind of education, one cannot help but be the right kind of educator. There is no need to follow any method. The very fact of understanding that the right kind of education is indispensable if we are to achieve the freedom and integration of the individual, brings about a fundamental change in oneself. If one becomes aware that there can be peace and happiness for man only through right education, then one will naturally give one's whole life and interest to it.

One teaches because one wants the child to be rich inwardly, which will result in his giving right value to possessions. Without inner richness, worldly things become extravagantly important, leading to various forms of destruction and misery. One teaches to encourage the student to find his true vocation, and to avoid those occupations that foster antagonism between man and man. One teaches to help the young towards self-knowledge, without which there can be no peace, no lasting happiness. One's teaching is not self-fulfilment, but self-abnegation.

Without the right kind of teaching, illusion is taken for reality, and then the individual is ever in conflict within himself, and therefore there is conflict in his relationship with others, which is society. One teaches because one sees that self-knowledge alone, and not the dogmas and rituals of organized religion, can bring about a tranquil mind; and that creation, truth, God, comes into being only when the ``me'' and the ``mine'' are transcended.
Source- J Krishnamurti Book "Education and the Significance of Life"