Jiddu Krishnamurti Discourses

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Discipline and Sensitivity

Jiddu Krishnamurti : Discipline means to learn, not to conform, not to suppress, not to imitate the pattern of what accepted authority considers noble. This is a very complex question for in it are involved several things: to learn, to be austere, to be free, to be sensitive, and to see the beauty of love. In learning there is no accumulation. Knowledge is different from learning. Knowledge is accumulation, conclusions, formulas, but learning is a constant movement, a movement without a centre, without a beginning or an end.
To learn about oneself there must be no accumulation in one's learning: if there is, it is not learning about oneself but merely adding to one's accumulated knowledge of oneself. Learning is the freedom of perception, of seeing. And you cannot learn if you are not free. So this very learning is its own discipline - you don't have to discipline yourself and then learn. Therefore discipline is freedom. This denies all conformity and control, for control is the imitation of a pattern. A pattern is suppression, suppression of "what is", and the learning about "what is" is denied when there is a formula of what is good and what is bad. The learning about "what is" is the freedom from "what is". So learning is the highest form of discipline. Learning demands intelligence and sensitivity.

The austerity of the priest and the monk is harsh. They deny certain of their appetites but not others which custom has condoned. The saint is the triumph of harsh violence. Austerity is generally identified with self-denial through the brutality of discipline, drill and conformity. The saint is trying to break a record like the athlete. To see the falseness of this brings about its own austerity. The saint is stupid and shoddy.
To see this is intelligence. Such intelligence will not go off the deep end to the opposite extreme. Intelligence is the sensitivity which understands, and therefore avoids, the extremes. But it is not the prudent mediocrity of remaining half-way between the two. To perceive all this clearly is to learn about it. To learn about it there must be freedom from all conclusions and bias. Such conclusions and bias are observation from a centre, the self, which wills and directs.
Questioner: Aren't you simply saying that to look properly you must be objective?
Jiddu Krishnamurti: Yes, but the word objective is not enough. What we are talking about is not the harsh objectiveness of the microscope, but a state in which there is compassion, sensitivity and depth. Discipline, as we said, is learning, and learning about austerity does not bring about violence to oneself or to another. Discipline, as it is generally understood, is the act of will, which is violence.
People throughout the world seem to think that freedom is the fruit of prolonged discipline. To see clearly is its own discipline. To see clearly there must be freedom, not a controlled vision. So freedom is not at the end of discipline, but the understanding of freedom is its own discipline. The two go together inseparably: when you separate them there is conflict. To overcome that conflict, the action of will comes into being and breeds more conflict. This is an endless chain. So freedom is at the beginning and not at the end: the beginning is the end. To learn about all this is its own discipline.
Learning itself demands sensitivity. If you are not sensitive to yourself - to your environment, to your relationships - if you are not sensitive to what is happening round you, in the kitchen or in the world, then however much you discipline yourself you only become more and more insensitive, more and more self-centred - and this breeds innumerable problems. To learn is to be sensitive to yourself and to the world outside you, for the world outside is you. If you are sensitive to yourself you are bound to be sensitive to the world. This sensitivity is the highest form of intelligence. It is not the sensitivity of a specialist - the doctor, the scientist or the artist. Such fragmentation does not bring sensitivity.
How can one love if there is no sensitivity? Sentimentality and emotionalism deny sensitivity because they are terribly cruel; they are responsible for wars. So discipline is not the drill of the sergeant - whether in the parade-ground or in yourself - which is the will. Learning all day long, and during sleep, has its own extraordinary discipline which is as gentle as the new spring leaf and as swift as the light. In this there is love. Love has its own discipline, and the beauty of it escapes a mind that is drilled, shaped, controlled, tortured. Without such a discipline the mind cannot go very far.
Source: from Jiddu Krishnamurti Book "The Urgency of Change" 

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Prayer, Concentration and Meditation

Question: Is not the longing expressed in prayer a way to God?
Jiddu Krishnamurti: First of all, we are going to examine the problems contained in this question. In it are implied prayer, concentration and meditation. Now what do we mean by prayer? First of all, in prayer there is petition, supplication to what you call God, reality. You, as an individual, are demanding, petitioning, begging, seeking guidance from something which you call God; therefore your approach is one of seeking a reward, seeking a gratification.
You are in trouble, national or individual, and you pray for guidance; or you are confused and you beg for clarity, you look for help to what you call God. In this is implied that God, whatever God may be - we won't discuss that for the moment - is going to clear up the confusion which you and I have created. After all, it is we who have brought about the confusion, the misery, the chaos, the appalling tyranny, the lack of love, and we want what we call God to clear it up. In other words, we want our confusion, our misery, our sorrow, our conflict, to be cleared away by somebody else, we petition another to bring us light and happiness.
Now when you pray, when you beg, petition for something, it generally comes into being. When you ask, you receive; but what you receive will not create order, because what you receive does not bring clarity, understanding. it only satisfies, gives gratification but does not bring about understanding, because, when you demand, you receive that which you yourself project. How can reality, God, answer your particular demand? Can the immeasurable, the unutterable, be concerned with our petty little worries, miseries, confusions, which we ourselves have created?
Therefore what is it that answers? Obviously the immeasurable cannot answer the measured, the petty, the small. But what is it that answers? At the moment when we pray we are fairly silent, in a state of receptivity; then our own subconscious brings a momentary clarity. You want something, you are longing for it, and in that moment of longing, of obsequious begging, you are fairly receptive; your conscious, active mind is comparatively still, so the unconscious projects itself into that and you have an answer. It is surely not an answer from reality, from the immeasurable - it is your own unconscious responding. So don't let us be confused and think that when your prayer is answered you are in relationship with reality. Reality must come to you; you cannot go to it.
In this problem of prayer there is another factor involved: the response of that which we call the inner voice. As I said, when the mind is supplicating, petitioning, it is comparatively still; when you hear the inner voice, it is your own voice projecting itself into that comparatively still mind. Again, how can it be the voice of reality? A mind that is confused, ignorant, craving, demanding, petitioning, how can it understand. reality? The mind can receive reality only when it is absolutely still, not demanding, not craving, not longing, not asking, whether for yourself, for the nation or for another.
When the mind is absolutely still, when desire ceases, then only reality comes into being. A person who is demanding, petitioning, supplicating, longing for direction will find what he seeks but it will not be the truth. What he receives will be the response of the unconscious layers of his own mind which project themselves into the conscious; that still, small voice which directs him is not the real but only the response of the unconscious.
In this problem of prayer there is also the question of concentration. With most of us, concentration is a process of exclusion. Concentration is brought about through effort, compulsion, direction, imitation, and so concentration is a process of exclusion. I am interested in so-called meditation but my thoughts are distracted, so I fix my mind on a picture, an image, or an idea and exclude all other thoughts.
This process of concentration, which is exclusion, is considered to be a means of meditating. That is what you do, is it not? When you sit down to meditate, you fix your mind on a word, on an image, or on a picture but the mind wanders all over the place. There is the constant interruption of other ideas, other thoughts, other emotions and you try to push them away; you spend your time battling with your thoughts.
This process you call meditation. That is you are trying to concentrate on something in which you are not interested and your thoughts keep on multiplying, increasing, interrupting, so you spend your energy in exclusion, in warding off; pushing away; if you can concentrate on your chosen thought, on a particular object, you think you have at last succeeded in meditation. Surely that is not meditation, is it? Meditation is not an exclusive process - exclusive in the sense of warding off, building resistance against encroaching ideas. Prayer is not meditation and concentration as exclusion is not meditation.
What is meditation? Concentration is not meditation, because where there is interest it is comparatively easy to concentrate on something. A general who is planning war, butchery, is very concentrated. A business man making money is very concentrated - he may even be ruthless, putting aside every other feeling and concentrating completely on what he wants. A man who is interested in anything is naturally, spontaneously concentrated. Such concentration is not meditation, it is merely exclusion.
So what is meditation? Surely meditation is understanding - meditation of the heart is understanding. How can there be understanding if there is exclusion? How can there be understanding when there is petition, supplication? In understanding there is peace, there is freedom; that which you understand, from that you are liberated. Merely to concentrate or to pray does not bring understanding.
Understanding is the very basis, the fundamental process of meditation. You don't have to accept my word for it but if you examine prayer and concentration very carefully, deeply, you will find that neither of them leads to understanding. They merely lead to obstinacy, to a fixation, to illusion. Whereas meditation, in which there is understanding, brings about freedom, clarity and 1ntegration.
What, then, do we mean by understanding? Understanding means giving right significance, right valuation, to all things. To be ignorant is to give wrong values; the very nature of stupidity is the lack of comprehension of right values. Understanding comes into being when there are right values, when right values are established. And how is one to establish right values - the right value of property, the right value of relationship, the right value of ideas? For the right values to come into being, you must understand the thinker, must you not? If I don't understand the thinker, which is myself what I choose has no meaning; that is if I don't know myself, then my action, my thought, has no foundation whatsoever.
Therefore self-knowledge is the beginning of meditation - not the knowledge that you pick up from my books, from authorities, from gurus, but the knowledge that comes into being through self-inquiry, which is self-awareness. Meditation is the beginning of self-knowledge and without self-knowledge there is no meditation. If I don't understand the ways of my thoughts, of my feelings, if I don't understand my motives, my desires, my demands, my pursuit of patterns of action, which are ideas - if I do not know myself, there is no foundation for thinking; the thinker who merely asks, prays, or excludes, without understanding himself, must inevitably end in confusion, in illusion.
The beginning of meditation is self-knowledge, which means being aware of every movement of thought and feeling, knowing all the layers of my consciousness, not only the superficial layers but the hidden, the deeply concealed activities. To know the deeply concealed activities, the hidden motives, responses, thoughts and feelings, there must be tranquillity in the conscious mind; that is the conscious mind must be still in order to receive the projection of the unconscious.
The superficial, conscious mind is occupied with its daily activities, with earning a livelihood, deceiving others, exploiting others, running away from problems - all the daily activities of our existence. That superficial mind must understand the right significance of its own activities and thereby bring tranquillity to itself. It cannot bring about tranquillity, stillness, by mere regimentation, by compulsion, by discipline. It can bring about tranquillity, peace, stillness, only by understanding its own activities, by observing them, by being aware of them, by seeing its own ruthlessness, how it talks to the servant, to the wife, to the daughter, to the mother and so on.
When the superficial, conscious mind 1s thus fully aware of all its activities, through that understanding it becomes spontaneously quiet, not drugged by compulsion or regimented by desire; then it is in a position to receive the intimation, the hints of the unconscious, of the many, many hidden layers of the mind - the racial instincts, the buried memories, the concealed pursuits, the deep wounds that are still unhealed. It is only when all these have projected themselves and are understood, when the whole consciousness is unburdened, unfettered by any wound, by any memory whatsoever, that it is in a position to receive the eternal.
Meditation is self-knowledge and without self-knowledge there is no meditation. If you are not aware of all your responses all the time, if you are not fully conscious, fully cognizant of your daily activities, merely to lock yourself in a room and sit down in front of a picture of your guru, of your Master, to meditate, is an escape, because without self-knowledge there is no right thinking and, without right thinking, what you do has no meaning, however noble your intentions are.
Thus prayer has no significance without self-knowledge but when there is self-knowledge there is right thinking and hence right action. When there is right action, there is no confusion and therefore there is no supplication to someone else to lead you out of it. A man who is fully aware is meditating; he does not pray, because he does not want anything. Through prayer, through regimentation, through repetition and all the rest of it, you can bring about a certain stillness, but that is mere dullness, reducing the mind and the heart to a state of weariness. it is drugging the mind; and exclusion, which you call concentration, does not lead to reality - no exclusion ever can.
What brings about understanding is self-knowledge, and it is not very difficult to be aware if there is right intention. If you are interested to discover the whole process of yourself - not merely the superficial part but the total process of your whole being - then it is comparatively easy. If you really want to know yourself, you will search out your heart and your mind to know their full content and when there is the intention to know, you will know. Then you can follow, without condemnation or justification, every movement of thought and feeling; by following every thought and every feeling as it arises you bring about tranquillity which is not compelled, not regimented, but which is the outcome of having no problem, no contradiction. It is like the pool that becomes peaceful, quiet, any evening when there is no wind; when the mind is still, then that which is immeasurable comes into being.
Source - J. Krishnamurti The First and Last Freedom

J Krishnamurti - We are trapped because we do not understand Relationship

Question: You have shown me the superficiality and the futility of the life I am leading. I should like to change, but I am trapped by habit and environment. Should I leave everything and everyone and follow you?

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Do you think our problems are solved when we follow another? To follow another, no matter who it is, is to deny the understanding of yourself. And it is very easy to follow somebody. The greater the personality, the greater the power, the easier it is to follow; and in the very following you are destroying that understanding because the follower destroys - he is never the creator, he never brings about understanding. To follow is to deny all understanding and therefore to deny truth.

Now, if you do not follow, what are you to do? Since, as the questioner says, one is trapped by habit and environment, what is one to do? Surely, all that you can do is to understand the trap of habit and environment, the superficiality and the futility of your life. We are always in relationship, are we not? To be is to be related, and if you regard relationship as a trap from which you want to escape, then you will only fall into another trap - the trap of the teacher whom you follow. It may be a little more arduous, a little more inconvenient, a little less comfortable, but it will still be a trap; because, that also is relationship, and there too there are jealousies, envy, the desire to be the nearest disciple, and all the rest of the nonsense.

So, we are trapped because we do not understand relationship; and it is difficult to understand relationship if we are condemning, identifying ourselves with something, or if we are using relationship as a means of escape from ourselves, from that which we are. After all, relationship is a mirror, is it not? Relationship is a mirror in which I can see myself as I am. But to see ourselves directly as we are is very unpleasant, and so we avoid it by condemning it, justifying it, or merely identifying ourselves with it.
Without relationship there is no life, is there? Nothing can exist in isolation. And yet all our efforts are towards being isolated; relationship for most of us is a process of self-isolation, self-enclosure, and therefore there is friction. When there is friction, misery, pain, suffering, unhappiness, we want to run away, we want to follow someone else, to live in the shadow of another, and so we turn to the church, to a monastery, or to the latest teacher. They are all the same because they are all escapes, and our turning to them is obviously prompted by the desire to avoid that which is; and in the very running away we create further misery, further confusion.

So, most of us are trapped, whether we like it or not, because that is our world, that is our society; and awareness in relationship is the mirror in which we can see ourselves very clearly. To see clearly, there must obviously be no condemnation, acceptance, justification, or identification. If we are simply aware without choice, then we can observe, not only the superficial reactions of the mind, but also the deep and hidden reactions, which come out in the shape of dreams, or in moments when the superficial mind is quiet and there is spontaneity of response. But if the mind is conditioned, shaped, and bound by a particular belief, surely there can be no spontaneity, and therefore no direct perception of the responses of relationship.

It is important to see, is it not, that no one can give us freedom from the conflict of relationship. We can hide behind the screen of words, or follow a teacher, or run to a church, or lose ourselves in a cinema or a book, or keep on attending talks; but it is only when the fundamental process of thinking is uncovered through awareness in relationship that it is possible to understand and be free of that friction which we instinctively seek to avoid. Most of us use relationship as a means of escape from ourselves, from our own loneliness, from our own inward uncertainty and poverty, and so we cling to the outer things of relationship, which become very important to us.
But if, instead of escaping through relationship, we can look into relationship as a mirror and see very clearly, without any prejudice, exactly what is, then that very perception brings about a transformation of what is, without any effort to transform it. There is nothing to transform about a fact; it is what it is. But we approach the fact with hesitation, with fear, with a sense of prejudice, and so we are always acting upon the fact and therefore never perceiving the fact as it is. When we see the fact as it is, then that very fact is the truth which resolves the problem.

So, in all this the important thing is not what another says, however great or stupid he may be, but to be aware of oneself, to see the fact of what is, from moment to moment, without accumulating. When you accumulate, you cannot see the fact; then you see the accumulation, and not the fact. But when you can see the fact independently of the accumulation, independently of the thought process, which is the response of accumulated experience, then it is possible to go beyond the fact. It is the avoidance of the fact that brings about conflict, but when you recognize the truth of the fact, then there is a quietness of mind in which conflict ceases.
So, do what you will, you cannot escape through relationship; and if you do escape, you will only create further isolation, further misery and confusion, because to use relationship as a means of self-fulfillment is to deny relationship. If we look at this problem very clearly, we can see that life is a process of relationship; and if, instead of understanding relationship, we seek to withdraw from it, enclosing ourselves in ideas, in superstitions, in various forms of addiction, these self-enclosures only create more of the very conflict we are trying to avoid.
Source: Jiddu Krishnamurti Talk at New York & Seattle 1950

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.
Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti talk at Ojai, August 27, 1949

Jiddu krishnamurti on Action based on idea is very Superficial

Question: For Truth to come, you advocate action without idea. Is it possible to act at all times without idea, that is, without a purpose in view?
Jiddu Krishnamurti: What is our action at present? What do we mean by action? Our action - what we want to do or to be - is based on idea, is it not? That is all we know; we have ideas, ideals, promises, various formulas as to what we are and what we are not. The basis of our action is reward in the future or fear of punishment. We know that, don’t we? Such activity is isolating, self-enclosing.

You have an idea of virtue and according to that idea you live, you act, in relationship. To you, relationship, collective or individual, is action which is towards the ideal, towards virtue, towards achievement and so on. When my action is based on an ideal which is an idea - such as ”I must be brave”, ”I must follow the example”, ”I must he charitable”, ”I must be socially conscious” and so on - that idea shapes my action, guides my action. We all say, ”There is an example of virtue which I must follow; which means, ”I must live according to that”. So action is based on that idea. Between action and idea, there is a gulf, a division, there is a time process. That is so, is it not?
In other words, I am not charitable, I am not loving, there is no forgiveness in my heart but I feel I must be charitable. So there is a gap, between what I am and what I should be; we are all the time trying to bridge that gap. That is our activity, is it not? Now what would happen if the idea did not exist? At one stroke, you would have removed the gap, would you not? You would be what you are. You say ”I am ugly, I must become beautiful; what
am I to do?” - which is action based on idea. You say ”I am not compassionate, I must become compassionate”.
So you introduce idea separate from action. Therefore there is never true action of what you are but always action based on the ideal of what you will he. The stupid man always says he is going to become clever. He sits working, struggling to become; he never stops, he never says ”I am stupid”. So his action, which is based on idea, is not action at all.

Action means doing, moving. But when you have idea, it is merely ideation going on, thought process going on in relation to action. If there is no idea, what would happen? You are what you are. You are uncharitable, you are unforgiving, you are cruel, stupid, thoughtless. Can you remain with that? If you do, then see what happens. When I recognize I am uncharitable, stupid, what happens when I am aware it is so? Is there not charity, is there not intelligence? When I recognize uncharitableness completely, not verbally, not artificially, when I realize I am uncharitable and unloving, in that very
seeing of what is is there not love? Don’t I immediately become charitable? If I see the necessity of being clean, it is very simple; I go and wash, But if it is an ideal that I should be clean, then what happens? Cleanliness is then postponed or is superficial.
Action based on idea is very superficial, is not true action at all, is only ideation, which is merely the thought process going on. Action which transforms us as human beings, which brings regeneration, redemption, transformation - call it what you will - such action is not based on idea. It is action irrespective of the sequence of reward or punishment. Such action is timeless, because mind, which is the time process, the calculating process, the dividing, isolating process, does not enter into it.
This question is not so easily solved. Most of you put questions and expect an answer ”yes” or ”no”. It is easy to ask questions like ”What do you mean?” and then sit back and let me explain but it is much more arduous to find out the answer for yourselves, go into the problem so profoundly, so clearly and without any corruption that the problem ceases to be. That can only happen when the mind is really silent in the face of the problem. The problem, if you love it, is as beautiful as the sunset. If you are antagonistic to the problem, you will never understand. Most of us are antagonistic because we are frightened of the result, of what may happen if we proceed, so we lose the significance and the purview of the problem.

u Krishnamurti - Our problems arise because we are conditioned

Question: Do you have a technique which I can learn from you, so that I, too, can carry your message to those who are full of sorrow?

Jiddu Krishnamurti : Sir, what do you mean by carrying a message? Do you mean repeating the words - propaganda? The very nature of propaganda is to condition the mind. Every form of propaganda - the Communist propaganda, the religious propaganda, and so on - is to condition the mind, is it not? If you learn a technique as you call it, a way, and you learn it by heart and repeat it, you will be a good propagandist; if you are keen, clever, if you are capable of using words, you will condition those that hear you in a new way instead of the old way, but it is still conditioning; it is still limited. And that is our problem, is it not?

Our problems arise because we are conditioned. Our education conditions us. Is it possible for the mind ever to be free from conditioning? You can only discover that state. You cannot say whether it is possible or not possible. When you ask, "Have you a technique?" what do you mean? Perhaps you mean a method, a system, which you learn like a schoolboy and repeat it. Sir, surely the problem is something much more fundamental, radically different, is it not? There is no technique to learn. You do not have to carry my message, what you carry is your message, not mine, sirs.

This existence, this misery, this confusion is your problem. If you understand it, if you can understand the experience of a conditioned mind and go beyond, then you will be the person who is teaching; then there will be no teacher and no disciple. But then, you have to understand yourself, not learn my technique or carry my message.
Sir, what is important is to understand that this is our world, that together we can build this world happily, that we - you and I - are related together, that what you do and what I do inwardly matters, that how we think is important, and that thought, which is always conditioned, will not solve our problem. What will solve our problem is to understand the ways of our thinking.
The moment we understand how we think, there will be a radical change inwardly; we will no longer be Hindus, Christians, Communists, socialists, or capitalists; we shall be human beings, human beings with passion, with love, with consideration. That cannot come about by merely learning a technique or carrying somebody's message.

You cannot have love through technique. You can have sensation through a technique, but that is not love. Love is something that cannot be told, that cannot be carried across through newspapers or through techniques or through propaganda. It must be felt, it must be understood. But if you repeat love, love, love, it has no meaning. You will know of that love when the mind is quiet, when the mind is free from its conditioning, from its anxieties, from its fears. And it is that love which is the true revolution that will alter the whole process of our being.

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti, First Talk in Bombay 1953


Jiddu Krishnamurti on best way to help in spreading his Teachings

Questioner: I would like to help you by doing propaganda for your teachings. Can you advise the best way?
Jiddu Krishnamurti : To be a propagandist is to be a liar. Propaganda is mere repetition and a repetition of a truth is a lie. When you repeat what you consider to be the truth of another, it ceases to be truth. Repetition has no value, it only dulls the mind and wearies the heart. You cannot repeat truth, for truth is never constant, is never fixed. Truth is the state of experiencing, and what you can repeat is a static state, and so it ceases to be the truth.
Propaganda, which is repetition, does infinite harm. A lecturer who goes out doing propaganda for an idea is really a destroyer of intelligence. He repeats an experience which he or another has had. Truth cannot be repeated; truth must be experienced by each one.
Now, with this understanding, what can you do to help further my teaching? All that you can do is to live it, to live that which you understand completely and vitally, enthusiastically, with vigor. Then, like a flower in a garden, the perfume is spread abroad. So, likewise, the perfume of your life will be carried by the winds. You do not need to do propaganda for the jasmine; its perfume, its loveliness bring life. Only when you have not the loveliness, the beauty, you talk about it and thereby cover your own emptiness and ugliness by words which have little meaning.
But, when you yourself have an understanding, then you inevitably talk about it and shout about it from housetops. A dead thought can never be systematized and spread abroad through propaganda. A living thought cannot be the instrument of exploitation; a living thought cannot be accepted from another, you must discover it.
As the bees come to a flower, and as the flower does not do any propaganda for itself that it has honey, so a living thought creates the nectar. But without this nectar, to do propaganda is to deceive people, to exploit people, to create division among them, and to breed envy and antagonism. But if there is that nectar of understanding, however little, then it will nourish people.
If there is understanding in your heart, that itself will bring about the miracle of regeneration, not tomorrow, but from moment to moment. There is understanding only in the now. Love is not in the net of time - you either love now or never.
Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti book "On living and dying"

Jiddu Krishnamurti on being aware of an Emotion with out Labelling

Question: How can one be aware of an emotion without naming or labelling it? If I am aware of a feeling, I seem to know what that feeling is almost immediately after it arises. Or do you mean something different when you say, ‘Do not name’?
Jiddu Krishnamurti : Why do we name anything? Why do we give a label to a flower, to a person, to a feeling? Either to communicate one’s feelings, to describe the flower and so on and so on; or to identify oneself with that feeling. Is not that so? I name something, a feeling, to communicate it. ‘I am angry.’ Or I identify myself with that feeling in order to strengthen it or to dissolve it or to do something about 1t. We give a name to something, to a rose, to communicate it to others or, by giving it a name, we think we have understood it.
We say, ”That is a rose”, rapidly look at it and go on. By giving it a name, we think we have understood it; we have classified it and think that thereby we have understood the whole content and beauty of that flower. By giving a name to something, we have merely put it into a category and we think we have understood it; we don’t look at it more closely. If we do not give it a name, however, we are forced to look at it. That is we approach the flower or whatever it is with a newness, with a new quality of examination; we look at it as though we had never looked at it before. Naming is a very convenient way of disposing of things and of people - by saying that they are Germans, Japanese, Americans, Hindus, you can give them a label and destroy the label. If you do not give a label to people you are forced to look at them and then it is much more difficult to kill somebody.
You can destroy the label with a bomb and feel righteous, but if you do not give a label and must therefore look at the individual thing - whether it is a man or a flower or an incident or an emotion - then you are forced to consider your relationship with it, and with the action following. So terming or giving a label is a very convenient way of disposing of anything, of denying, condemning or justifying it. That is one side of the question. What is the core from which you name, what is the centre which is always naming, choosing, labelling.


We all feel there is a centre, a core, do we not?, from which we are acting, from which we are judging, from which we are naming. What is that centre, that core? Some would like to think it is a spiritual essence, God, or what you will. So let us find out what is that core, that centre, which is naming, terming, judging. Surely that core is memory, isn’t it? A series of sensations, identified and enclosed - the past, given life through the present. That core, that centre, feeds on the present through naming, labelling, remembering.

We will see presently, as we unfold it, that so long as this centre, this core, exists, there can be no understanding. It is only with the dissipation of this core that there is understanding, because, after all, that core is memory; memory of various experiences which have been given names, labels, identifications. With those named and labelled experiences, from that centre, there is acceptance and rejection, determination to be or not to be, according to the sensations, pleasures and pains of the memory of experience. So that centre is the word. If you do not name that centre, is there a centre? That is if you do not think in terms of words, if you do not use words, can you think?

Thinking comes into being through verbalization; or verbalization begins to respond to thinking. The centre, the core is the memory of innumerable experiences of pleasure and pain, verbalized. Watch it in yourself, please, and you will see that words have become much more important, labels have become much more important, than the substance; and we live on words. For us, words like truth, God, have become very important - or the feeling which those words represent. When we say the word ‘American’, ‘Christian’, ‘Hindu’ or the word ‘anger’ - we are the word representing the feeling.
But we don’t know what that feeling is, because the word has become important. When you call yourself a Buddhist, a Christian, what does the word mean, what is the meaning behind that word, which you have never examined? Our centre, the core is the word, the label. If the label does not matter, if what matters is that which is behind the label, then you are able to inquire but if you are identified with the label and stuck with it, you cannot proceed. And we are identified with the label: the house, the form, the name, the furniture, the bank account, our opinions, our stimulants and so on and so on. We are all those things - those things being represented by a name. The things have become important, the names, the labels; and therefore the centre, the core, is the word.

If there is no word, no label, there is no centre, is there? There is a dissolution, there is an emptiness - not the emptiness of fear, which is quite a different thing. There is a sense of being as nothing; because you have removed all the labels or rather because you have understood why you give labels to feelings and ideas you are completely new, are you not? There is no centre from which you are acting. The centre, which is the word, has been dissolved. The label has been taken away and where are you as the centre? You are there but there has been a transformation. That transformation is a little bit frightening; therefore, you do not proceed with what is still involved in it; you are already beginning to judge it, to decide whether you like it or don’t like it. You don’t proceed with the understanding of what is coming but you are already judging, which means that you have a centre from which you are acting.
Therefore you stay fixed the moment you judge; the words ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ become important. But what happens when you do not name? You look at an emotion, at a sensation, more directly and therefore have quite a different relationship to it, just as you have to a flower when you do not name it. You are forced to look at it anew. When you do not name a group of people, you are compelled to look at each individual face and not treat them all as the mass. Therefore you are much more alert, much more observing, more understanding; you have a deeper sense of pity, love; but if you treat them all as the mass, it is over.
If you do not label, you have to regard every feeling as it arises. When you label, is the feeling different from the label? Or does the label awaken the feeling? Please think it over. When we label, most of us intensify the feeling. The feeling and the naming are instantaneous. If there were a gap between naming and feeling, then you could find out if the feeling is different from the naming and then you would be able to deal with the feeling without naming it.

The problem is this, is it not?, how to be free from a feeling which we name, such as anger? Not how to subjugate it, sublimate it, suppress it, which are all idiotic and immature, but how to be really free from it? To be really free from it, we have to discover whether the word is more important than the feeling. The word ‘anger’ has more significance than the feeling itself. Really to find that out there must be a gap between the feeling and the naming. That is one part.

If I do not name a feeling, that is to say if thought is not functioning merely because of words or if I do not think in terms of words, images or symbols, which most of us do - then what happens? Surely the mind then is not merely the observer. When the mind is not thinking in terms of words, symbols, images, there is no thinker separate from the thought, which is the word. Then the mind is quiet, is it not? - not made quiet, it is quiet. When the mind is really quiet, then the feelings which arise can be dealt with immediately. It is only when we give names to feelings and thereby strengthen them that the feelings have continuity; they are stored up in the centre, from which we give further labels, either to strengthen or to communicate them.
When the mind is no longer the centre, as the thinker made up of words, of past experiences - which are all memories, labels, stored up and put in categories, in pigeonholes - when it is not doing any of those things, then, obviously the mind is quiet. It is no longer bound, it has no longer a centre as the me - my house, my achievement, my work - which are still words, giving impetus to feeling and thereby strengthening memory. When none of these things is happening, the mind is very quiet. That state is not negation. On the contrary, to come to that point, you have to go through all this, which is an enormous undertaking; it is not merely learning a few sets of words and repeating them like a school-boy - ‘not to name’, ‘not to name’.
To follow through all its implications, to experience it, to see how the mind works and thereby come to that point when you are no longer naming, which means that there is no longer a centre apart from thought - surely this whole process is real meditation. When the mind is really tranquil, then it is possible for that which is immeasurable to come into being. Any other process, any other search for reality, is merely self-projected, homemade and therefore unreal. But this process is arduous and it means that the mind has to be constantly aware of everything that is inwardly happening to it. To come to this point, there can be no judgement or justification from the beginning to the end - not that this is an end.
There is no end, because there is something extraordinary still going on. This is no promise. It is for you to experiment, to go into yourself deeper and deeper and deeper, so that all the many layers of the centre are dissolved and you can do it rapidly or lazily. It is extraordinarily interesting to watch the process of the mind, how it depends on words, how the words stimulate memory or resuscitate the dead experience and give life to it. In that process the mind is living either in the future or in the past.
Therefore words have an enormous significance, neurologically as well as psychologically. And please do not learn all this from me or from a book. You cannot learn it from another or find it in a book. What you learn or find in a book will not be the real. But you can experience it, you can watch yourself in action, watch yourself thinking, see how you think, how rapidly you are naming the feeling as it arises - and watching the whole process frees the mind from its centre. Then the mind, being quiet, can receive that which is eternal.

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Meditation is not a means to an end

Jiddu Krishnamurti - What is important in meditation is the quality of the mind and the heart. It is not what you achieve, or what you say you attain, but rather the quality of a mind that is innocent and vulnerable. Through negation there is the positive state. Merely to gather, or to live in, experience, denies the purity of meditation.
Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end. The mind can never be made innocent through experience. It is the negation of experience that brings about that positive state of innocency which cannot be cultivated by thought. Thought is never innocent. Meditation is the ending of thought, not by the meditator, for the meditator is the meditation. If there is no meditation, then you are like a blind man in a world of great beauty, light and colour.


Wander by the seashore and let this meditative quality come upon you. If it does, don't pursue it. What you pursue will be the memory of what it was - and what was is the death of what is. Or when you wander among the hills, let everything tell you the beauty and the pain of life, so that you awaken to your own sorrow and to the ending of it. Meditation is the root, the plant, the flower and the fruit. It is words that divide the fruit, the flower, the plant and the root. In this separation action does not bring about goodness: virtue is the total perception.
It was a long shady road with trees on both sides - a narrow road that wound through the green fields of glistening, ripening wheat. The sun made sharp shadows, and the villages on both sides of the road were dirty, ill-kept and poverty-ridden. The older people looked ill and sad, but the children were shouting and playing in the dust and throwing stones at the birds high up in the trees. It was a very pleasant cool morning and a fresh breeze was blowing over the hills.

The parrots and the mynahs were making a great deal of noise that morning. The parrots were hardly visible among the green leaves of the trees; in the tamarind they had several holes which were their home. Their zig-zag flight was always screechy and raucous. The mynahs were on the ground, fairly tame. They would let you come quite near them before they flew away. And the golden fly-catcher, the green and golden bird, was on the wires across the road. It was a beautiful morning and the sun was not too hot yet. There was a benediction in the air and there was that peace before man wakes up.

On that road a horse-drawn vehicle with two wheels and a platform with four posts and an awning was passing by. On it, stretched across the wheels, wrapped up in a white and red cloth, was a dead body being carried to the river to be burnt on its banks. There was a man sitting beside the driver, probably a relative, and the body was jolting up and down on that not too smooth road. They had come from some distance for the horse was sweating, and the dead body had been shaking all the way and it seemed to be quite rigid.

The man who came to see us later that day said he was a gunnery instructor in the navy. He had come with his wife and two children and he seemed a very serious man. After salutations he said that he would like to find God. He was not too articulate, probably he was rather shy. His hands and face looked capable but there was a certain hardness in his voice and look - for, after all, he was an instructor in the ways of killing. God seemed to be so remote from his everyday activities. It all seemed so weird, for here was a man who said he was in earnest in his search for God and yet his livelihood forced him to teach others the art of killing.

He said he was a religious man and had wandered through many schools of different so-called holy men. He was dissatisfied with them all, and now he had taken a long journey by train and bus to come and see us for he wanted to know how to come upon that strange world which men and saints have sought. His wife and children sat very silent and respectful, and on a branch just outside the window sat a dove, light brown, softly cooing to itself. The man never looked at it, and the children with their mother sat rigid, nervous and unsmiling.

You can't find God; there is no way to it. Man has invented many paths, many religions, many beliefs, saviours and teachers whom he thinks will help him to find the bliss that is not passing. The misery of search is that it leads to some fancy of the mind, to some vision which the mind has projected and measured by things known. The love which he seeks is destroyed by the way of his life. You cannot have a gun in one hand and God in the other. God is only a symbol, a word, that has really lost its meaning, for the churches and places of worship have destroyed it.
Of course, if you don't believe in God you are like the believer; both suffer and go through the sorrow of a short and vain life; and the bitterness of every day makes life a meaningless thing. Reality is not at the end of the stream of thought, and the empty heart is filled by the words of thought. We become very clever, inventing new philosophies, and then there is the bitterness of their failure. We have invented theories about how to reach the ultimate, and the devotee goes to the temple and loses himself in the imaginations of his own mind. The monk and the saint do not find that reality for both are part of a tradition, of a culture, that accepts them as being saints and monks. The dove has flown away, and the beauty of the mountain of cloud is upon the land - and truth is there, where you never look.

Jiddu Krishnamurti on living a Spiritual Life

Question: Is it possible for the ordinary individual to lead a spiritual life without having a set of beliefs or taking part in ceremonies and ritual?

Jiddu Krishnamurti : I wonder what we mean by a spiritual life? Do you become spiritual by performing ceremonies and rituals, having innumerable beliefs, or by having principles according to which you are trying to live? Does that make you spiritual? Ceremonies and rituals sometimes, perhaps at the beginning, give a certain sensation, so-called uplift. But they are repetitious, and every sensation that is repeated soon wearies of itself.
The mind likes to establish itself in a routine, in a habit; and rituals, ceremonies, provide this and give to the mind an opportunity to separate itself, to feel itself superior, to feel that it knows more, and to enjoy the sensations of repetitious pleasures. Surely there is nothing spiritual about rituals and ceremonies; they only divide man against man. Since they are repetitious, they do not free the mind from its own self-projected sensations. On the contrary, for a spiritual life - a free life, a free mind, a mind that is not burdened by the ego, the 'me' - it is essential to see the falsity of ceremonies. To find reality or God or what you will, there must be no ceremonies, no rituals round which the mind can wrap itself and feel itself different, enjoying the sensations of oft-repeated action.

And a mind burdened with belief - is such a mind capable of perception, of understanding? Surely, a mind burdened with belief is an enclosed mind - no matter what belief it is, whether it is in nationalism, or any particular principle, or the belief in its own knowledge. A mind that is burdened with beliefs, either of the past or of the future, is surely not a free mind. A mind crippled with belief is incapable of investigation, of discovery, of looking within itself. But the mind likes beliefs because belief gives to it a certain security, makes it feel strong, energetic, aloof, separative.

We know all this as an everyday fact. And yet we continue in our beliefs - that you are a Christian and I am a Hindu - I with my set of idiosyncrasies, traditions, and experience handed down from the past, and you with yours. Obviously, belief does not bring us together. Only when there is no belief, only when we have understood the whole process of belief - then perhaps we can come together. The mind desires constantly to be secure, to be in a state of knowledge, to know; and belief offers a very convenient security. Belief in something, belief in a certain economic system for which one is willing to sacrifice oneself and others - in that the mind takes shelter; it is certain there. Or, belief in God, in a certain spiritual system; there again the mind feels secure, certain.

Belief, after all, is a word. The mind lives on words; it has its being in words, and there it takes shelter and finds certainty. And a mind that is sheltered, secure, certain, is surely incapable of understanding anything new, or receiving that which is not measurable. So belief acts as a barrier, not only between man and man, but also, surely, as a block, as a hindrance, to something that is creative, that is new. But to be in a state of uncertainty, of not knowing, of not acquiring, is extremely difficult, is it not - perhaps not difficult, but it requires a certain earnestness, without any distraction, inward or outward. But unfortunately most of us inwardly want to be distracted, and beliefs, ceremonies, rituals offer good, respectable distractions.

So, what is important in this question is, is it not, to free the mind from its own self-created habits, from its own self-projected experiences, from its own knowledge - which is, from the entity which is gathering, accumulating. That is the real problem - to be free inwardly, to be in that state when the mind is no longer inviting or accumulating experience. That is extremely arduous. And it is for everyone, not for the few, to free themselves from the process of time, which is the process of accumulation, gathering in, the desire for the 'more'.
This is only possible when we understand the ways of the mind, how it is constantly seeking security, permanency, either in beliefs, in rituals, in ceremonies, or in knowledge. All these are distractions, and a mind that is distracted is incapable of quietness. To go into this problem very deeply, one has to be aware inwardly, both at the conscious and at the unconscious level, of those attractions and distractions that the mind has cultivated - to observe them, and not try to transform them into something else but merely observe. Then begins the freedom in which the mind is no longer acquiring, accumulating.
Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti Talk April 8, 1952

Jiddu Krishnamurti on following Him, Gurus, Leaders

Questioner: Surely, sir, in spite of all that you have said about following, you are aware that you are being continually followed. What is your action about it, as it is an evil, according to you?
Jiddu Krishnamurti : Sir, we know that we follow - we follow the political leader, the guru, or we follow a pattern, or an experience. Our whole culture, our education, is based on imitation, authority, following. I say all following is evil, including the following of me. Following is evil, destructive, and yet the mind follows, does it not? It follows the Buddha or Christ or some idea or a perfect utopia because the mind itself is in a state of uncertainty, but it wants certitude. Following is the demand for certitude. The mind, demanding certitude, is creating authority - political, religious, or the authority of oneself - and it copies; therefore, everlastingly it struggles. The follower never knows the freedom of not following. You can only be free when there is uncertainty, not when the mind is pursuing certainty.
A mind that is following is imitating, is creating authority, and therefore has fear. That is really the problem. We all know that we do follow, we accept some theories, some ideas, a utopia, or something else because deep down in the conscious, as well as in the unconscious, there is fear. A mind that has no fear does not create the opposite, it has no problem of following, it has no guru, it has no pattern, it is living. The mind is in a state of fear - fear of death, fear of something - and to be free it does various activities which lead to frustration; then the problem arises: Can the mind be free from fear, not how to be free? ''How to be free from fear'' is a schoolboy question. From that question, all problems arise - struggle, the achieving of an end, and therefore the conflict of the opposites. Can the mind be free from fear?
What is fear? Fear only exists in relation to something. Fear is not an abstract thing by itself, it is in relation to something. I am afraid of public opinion, I am afraid of my boss, my wife, my husband; I am afraid of death; afraid of my loneliness; I am afraid that I shall not reach, I shall not know happiness in this life, I shall not know God, truth, and so on. So fear is always in relation to something.
What is that fear? I think that if we can understand the question of desire, the problem of desire, then we will understand and be free from fear. ''I want to be something'' - that is the root of all fear. When I want to be something, my wanting to be something and my not being that something create fear, not only in a narrow sense but in the widest sense. So, as long as there is the desire to be something, there must be fear.
The freedom from desire is not the mental projection of a state which my desire says I must be in. You have simply to see the fact of desire, just be aware of it - as you see your image in a mirror in which there is no distortion, in which you see your face as it is and not as you wish it to be. The reflection of your face in the mirror is very exact; if you can be aware of desire in that sense, without any condemnation, if you merely look at it, seeing all its facets, all its activities, then you will find that desire has quite a different significance.
The desire of the mind is entirely different from the desire in which there is no choice. What we are fighting is the desire of the mind - the desire to become something. That is why we follow, that is why we have gurus. All the sacred books lead you to confusion because you interpret them according to your desire, and therefore you see only the reflection of your own fears and anxieties; you never see the truth. So it is only the mind that is really in a state in which there is no desire that does not follow, that has no guru. Such a mind is totally empty of all movement; only then, the bliss of the real comes into being.
Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti talk February 24, 1954

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Prayer, Concentration and Meditation

Question: Is not the longing expressed in prayer a way to God?
Jiddu Krishnamurti: First of all, we are going to examine the problems contained in this question. In it are implied prayer, concentration and meditation. Now what do we mean by prayer? First of all, in prayer there is petition, supplication to what you call God, reality. You, as an individual, are demanding, petitioning, begging, seeking guidance from something which you call God; therefore your approach is one of seeking a reward, seeking a gratification.
You are in trouble, national or individual, and you pray for guidance; or you are confused and you beg for clarity, you look for help to what you call God. In this is implied that God, whatever God may be - we won't discuss that for the moment - is going to clear up the confusion which you and I have created. After all, it is we who have brought about the confusion, the misery, the chaos, the appalling tyranny, the lack of love, and we want what we call God to clear it up. In other words, we want our confusion, our misery, our sorrow, our conflict, to be cleared away by somebody else, we petition another to bring us light and happiness.
Now when you pray, when you beg, petition for something, it generally comes into being. When you ask, you receive; but what you receive will not create order, because what you receive does not bring clarity, understanding. it only satisfies, gives gratification but does not bring about understanding, because, when you demand, you receive that which you yourself project. How can reality, God, answer your particular demand? Can the immeasurable, the unutterable, be concerned with our petty little worries, miseries, confusions, which we ourselves have created?
Therefore what is it that answers? Obviously the immeasurable cannot answer the measured, the petty, the small. But what is it that answers? At the moment when we pray we are fairly silent, in a state of receptivity; then our own subconscious brings a momentary clarity. You want something, you are longing for it, and in that moment of longing, of obsequious begging, you are fairly receptive; your conscious, active mind is comparatively still, so the unconscious projects itself into that and you have an answer. It is surely not an answer from reality, from the immeasurable - it is your own unconscious responding. So don't let us be confused and think that when your prayer is answered you are in relationship with reality. Reality must come to you; you cannot go to it.
In this problem of prayer there is another factor involved: the response of that which we call the inner voice. As I said, when the mind is supplicating, petitioning, it is comparatively still; when you hear the inner voice, it is your own voice projecting itself into that comparatively still mind. Again, how can it be the voice of reality? A mind that is confused, ignorant, craving, demanding, petitioning, how can it understand. reality? The mind can receive reality only when it is absolutely still, not demanding, not craving, not longing, not asking, whether for yourself, for the nation or for another.
When the mind is absolutely still, when desire ceases, then only reality comes into being. A person who is demanding, petitioning, supplicating, longing for direction will find what he seeks but it will not be the truth. What he receives will be the response of the unconscious layers of his own mind which project themselves into the conscious; that still, small voice which directs him is not the real but only the response of the unconscious.
In this problem of prayer there is also the question of concentration. With most of us, concentration is a process of exclusion. Concentration is brought about through effort, compulsion, direction, imitation, and so concentration is a process of exclusion. I am interested in so-called meditation but my thoughts are distracted, so I fix my mind on a picture, an image, or an idea and exclude all other thoughts.
This process of concentration, which is exclusion, is considered to be a means of meditating. That is what you do, is it not? When you sit down to meditate, you fix your mind on a word, on an image, or on a picture but the mind wanders all over the place. There is the constant interruption of other ideas, other thoughts, other emotions and you try to push them away; you spend your time battling with your thoughts.
This process you call meditation. That is you are trying to concentrate on something in which you are not interested and your thoughts keep on multiplying, increasing, interrupting, so you spend your energy in exclusion, in warding off; pushing away; if you can concentrate on your chosen thought, on a particular object, you think you have at last succeeded in meditation. Surely that is not meditation, is it? Meditation is not an exclusive process - exclusive in the sense of warding off, building resistance against encroaching ideas. Prayer is not meditation and concentration as exclusion is not meditation.
What is meditation? Concentration is not meditation, because where there is interest it is comparatively easy to concentrate on something. A general who is planning war, butchery, is very concentrated. A business man making money is very concentrated - he may even be ruthless, putting aside every other feeling and concentrating completely on what he wants. A man who is interested in anything is naturally, spontaneously concentrated. Such concentration is not meditation, it is merely exclusion.
So what is meditation? Surely meditation is understanding - meditation of the heart is understanding. How can there be understanding if there is exclusion? How can there be understanding when there is petition, supplication? In understanding there is peace, there is freedom; that which you understand, from that you are liberated. Merely to concentrate or to pray does not bring understanding.
Understanding is the very basis, the fundamental process of meditation. You don't have to accept my word for it but if you examine prayer and concentration very carefully, deeply, you will find that neither of them leads to understanding. They merely lead to obstinacy, to a fixation, to illusion. Whereas meditation, in which there is understanding, brings about freedom, clarity and 1ntegration.
What, then, do we mean by understanding? Understanding means giving right significance, right valuation, to all things. To be ignorant is to give wrong values; the very nature of stupidity is the lack of comprehension of right values. Understanding comes into being when there are right values, when right values are established. And how is one to establish right values - the right value of property, the right value of relationship, the right value of ideas? For the right values to come into being, you must understand the thinker, must you not? If I don't understand the thinker, which is myself what I choose has no meaning; that is if I don't know myself, then my action, my thought, has no foundation whatsoever.
Therefore self-knowledge is the beginning of meditation - not the knowledge that you pick up from my books, from authorities, from gurus, but the knowledge that comes into being through self-inquiry, which is self-awareness. Meditation is the beginning of self-knowledge and without self-knowledge there is no meditation. If I don't understand the ways of my thoughts, of my feelings, if I don't understand my motives, my desires, my demands, my pursuit of patterns of action, which are ideas - if I do not know myself, there is no foundation for thinking; the thinker who merely asks, prays, or excludes, without understanding himself, must inevitably end in confusion, in illusion.
The beginning of meditation is self-knowledge, which means being aware of every movement of thought and feeling, knowing all the layers of my consciousness, not only the superficial layers but the hidden, the deeply concealed activities. To know the deeply concealed activities, the hidden motives, responses, thoughts and feelings, there must be tranquillity in the conscious mind; that is the conscious mind must be still in order to receive the projection of the unconscious.
The superficial, conscious mind is occupied with its daily activities, with earning a livelihood, deceiving others, exploiting others, running away from problems - all the daily activities of our existence. That superficial mind must understand the right significance of its own activities and thereby bring tranquillity to itself. It cannot bring about tranquillity, stillness, by mere regimentation, by compulsion, by discipline. It can bring about tranquillity, peace, stillness, only by understanding its own activities, by observing them, by being aware of them, by seeing its own ruthlessness, how it talks to the servant, to the wife, to the daughter, to the mother and so on.
When the superficial, conscious mind 1s thus fully aware of all its activities, through that understanding it becomes spontaneously quiet, not drugged by compulsion or regimented by desire; then it is in a position to receive the intimation, the hints of the unconscious, of the many, many hidden layers of the mind - the racial instincts, the buried memories, the concealed pursuits, the deep wounds that are still unhealed. It is only when all these have projected themselves and are understood, when the whole consciousness is unburdened, unfettered by any wound, by any memory whatsoever, that it is in a position to receive the eternal.
Meditation is self-knowledge and without self-knowledge there is no meditation. If you are not aware of all your responses all the time, if you are not fully conscious, fully cognizant of your daily activities, merely to lock yourself in a room and sit down in front of a picture of your guru, of your Master, to meditate, is an escape, because without self-knowledge there is no right thinking and, without right thinking, what you do has no meaning, however noble your intentions are.
Thus prayer has no significance without self-knowledge but when there is self-knowledge there is right thinking and hence right action. When there is right action, there is no confusion and therefore there is no supplication to someone else to lead you out of it. A man who is fully aware is meditating; he does not pray, because he does not want anything. Through prayer, through regimentation, through repetition and all the rest of it, you can bring about a certain stillness, but that is mere dullness, reducing the mind and the heart to a state of weariness. it is drugging the mind; and exclusion, which you call concentration, does not lead to reality - no exclusion ever can.
What brings about understanding is self-knowledge, and it is not very difficult to be aware if there is right intention. If you are interested to discover the whole process of yourself - not merely the superficial part but the total process of your whole being - then it is comparatively easy. If you really want to know yourself, you will search out your heart and your mind to know their full content and when there is the intention to know, you will know. Then you can follow, without condemnation or justification, every movement of thought and feeling; by following every thought and every feeling as it arises you bring about tranquillity which is not compelled, not regimented, but which is the outcome of having no problem, no contradiction. It is like the pool that becomes peaceful, quiet, any evening when there is no wind; when the mind is still, then that which is immeasurable comes into being.
Source - J. Krishnamurti The First and Last Freedom

Jiddu Krishnamurti on being aware of an Emotion with out Labelling

Question: How can one be aware of an emotion without naming or labelling it? If I am aware of a feeling, I seem to know what that feeling is almost immediately after it arises. Or do you mean something different when you say, ‘Do not name’?
Jiddu Krishnamurti : Why do we name anything? Why do we give a label to a flower, to a person, to a feeling? Either to communicate one’s feelings, to describe the flower and so on and so on; or to identify oneself with that feeling. Is not that so? I name something, a feeling, to communicate it. ‘I am angry.’ Or I identify myself with that feeling in order to strengthen it or to dissolve it or to do something about 1t. We give a name to something, to a rose, to communicate it to others or, by giving it a name, we think we have understood it.
We say, ”That is a rose”, rapidly look at it and go on. By giving it a name, we think we have understood it; we have classified it and think that thereby we have understood the whole content and beauty of that flower. By giving a name to something, we have merely put it into a category and we think we have understood it; we don’t look at it more closely. If we do not give it a name, however, we are forced to look at it. That is we approach the flower or whatever it is with a newness, with a new quality of examination; we look at it as though we had never looked at it before. Naming is a very convenient way of disposing of things and of people - by saying that they are Germans, Japanese, Americans, Hindus, you can give them a label and destroy the label. If you do not give a label to people you are forced to look at them and then it is much more difficult to kill somebody.
You can destroy the label with a bomb and feel righteous, but if you do not give a label and must therefore look at the individual thing - whether it is a man or a flower or an incident or an emotion - then you are forced to consider your relationship with it, and with the action following. So terming or giving a label is a very convenient way of disposing of anything, of denying, condemning or justifying it. That is one side of the question. What is the core from which you name, what is the centre which is always naming, choosing, labelling.


We all feel there is a centre, a core, do we not?, from which we are acting, from which we are judging, from which we are naming. What is that centre, that core? Some would like to think it is a spiritual essence, God, or what you will. So let us find out what is that core, that centre, which is naming, terming, judging. Surely that core is memory, isn’t it? A series of sensations, identified and enclosed - the past, given life through the present. That core, that centre, feeds on the present through naming, labelling, remembering.

We will see presently, as we unfold it, that so long as this centre, this core, exists, there can be no understanding. It is only with the dissipation of this core that there is understanding, because, after all, that core is memory; memory of various experiences which have been given names, labels, identifications. With those named and labelled experiences, from that centre, there is acceptance and rejection, determination to be or not to be, according to the sensations, pleasures and pains of the memory of experience. So that centre is the word. If you do not name that centre, is there a centre? That is if you do not think in terms of words, if you do not use words, can you think?

Thinking comes into being through verbalization; or verbalization begins to respond to thinking. The centre, the core is the memory of innumerable experiences of pleasure and pain, verbalized. Watch it in yourself, please, and you will see that words have become much more important, labels have become much more important, than the substance; and we live on words. For us, words like truth, God, have become very important - or the feeling which those words represent. When we say the word ‘American’, ‘Christian’, ‘Hindu’ or the word ‘anger’ - we are the word representing the feeling.
But we don’t know what that feeling is, because the word has become important. When you call yourself a Buddhist, a Christian, what does the word mean, what is the meaning behind that word, which you have never examined? Our centre, the core is the word, the label. If the label does not matter, if what matters is that which is behind the label, then you are able to inquire but if you are identified with the label and stuck with it, you cannot proceed. And we are identified with the label: the house, the form, the name, the furniture, the bank account, our opinions, our stimulants and so on and so on. We are all those things - those things being represented by a name. The things have become important, the names, the labels; and therefore the centre, the core, is the word.

If there is no word, no label, there is no centre, is there? There is a dissolution, there is an emptiness - not the emptiness of fear, which is quite a different thing. There is a sense of being as nothing; because you have removed all the labels or rather because you have understood why you give labels to feelings and ideas you are completely new, are you not? There is no centre from which you are acting. The centre, which is the word, has been dissolved. The label has been taken away and where are you as the centre? You are there but there has been a transformation. That transformation is a little bit frightening; therefore, you do not proceed with what is still involved in it; you are already beginning to judge it, to decide whether you like it or don’t like it. You don’t proceed with the understanding of what is coming but you are already judging, which means that you have a centre from which you are acting.
Therefore you stay fixed the moment you judge; the words ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ become important. But what happens when you do not name? You look at an emotion, at a sensation, more directly and therefore have quite a different relationship to it, just as you have to a flower when you do not name it. You are forced to look at it anew. When you do not name a group of people, you are compelled to look at each individual face and not treat them all as the mass. Therefore you are much more alert, much more observing, more understanding; you have a deeper sense of pity, love; but if you treat them all as the mass, it is over.
If you do not label, you have to regard every feeling as it arises. When you label, is the feeling different from the label? Or does the label awaken the feeling? Please think it over. When we label, most of us intensify the feeling. The feeling and the naming are instantaneous. If there were a gap between naming and feeling, then you could find out if the feeling is different from the naming and then you would be able to deal with the feeling without naming it.

The problem is this, is it not?, how to be free from a feeling which we name, such as anger? Not how to subjugate it, sublimate it, suppress it, which are all idiotic and immature, but how to be really free from it? To be really free from it, we have to discover whether the word is more important than the feeling. The word ‘anger’ has more significance than the feeling itself. Really to find that out there must be a gap between the feeling and the naming. That is one part.

If I do not name a feeling, that is to say if thought is not functioning merely because of words or if I do not think in terms of words, images or symbols, which most of us do - then what happens? Surely the mind then is not merely the observer. When the mind is not thinking in terms of words, symbols, images, there is no thinker separate from the thought, which is the word. Then the mind is quiet, is it not? - not made quiet, it is quiet. When the mind is really quiet, then the feelings which arise can be dealt with immediately. It is only when we give names to feelings and thereby strengthen them that the feelings have continuity; they are stored up in the centre, from which we give further labels, either to strengthen or to communicate them.
When the mind is no longer the centre, as the thinker made up of words, of past experiences - which are all memories, labels, stored up and put in categories, in pigeonholes - when it is not doing any of those things, then, obviously the mind is quiet. It is no longer bound, it has no longer a centre as the me - my house, my achievement, my work - which are still words, giving impetus to feeling and thereby strengthening memory. When none of these things is happening, the mind is very quiet. That state is not negation. On the contrary, to come to that point, you have to go through all this, which is an enormous undertaking; it is not merely learning a few sets of words and repeating them like a school-boy - ‘not to name’, ‘not to name’.
To follow through all its implications, to experience it, to see how the mind works and thereby come to that point when you are no longer naming, which means that there is no longer a centre apart from thought - surely this whole process is real meditation. When the mind is really tranquil, then it is possible for that which is immeasurable to come into being. Any other process, any other search for reality, is merely self-projected, homemade and therefore unreal. But this process is arduous and it means that the mind has to be constantly aware of everything that is inwardly happening to it. To come to this point, there can be no judgement or justification from the beginning to the end - not that this is an end.
There is no end, because there is something extraordinary still going on. This is no promise. It is for you to experiment, to go into yourself deeper and deeper and deeper, so that all the many layers of the centre are dissolved and you can do it rapidly or lazily. It is extraordinarily interesting to watch the process of the mind, how it depends on words, how the words stimulate memory or resuscitate the dead experience and give life to it. In that process the mind is living either in the future or in the past.
Therefore words have an enormous significance, neurologically as well as psychologically. And please do not learn all this from me or from a book. You cannot learn it from another or find it in a book. What you learn or find in a book will not be the real. But you can experience it, you can watch yourself in action, watch yourself thinking, see how you think, how rapidly you are naming the feeling as it arises - and watching the whole process frees the mind from its centre. Then the mind, being quiet, can receive that which is eternal.

Question :
Questioner: Some of us who have listened to you for many years agree, perhaps only verbally, with all that you say. But actually, in daily life, we are dull, and there is not the living from moment to moment that you speak of. Why is there such a huge gap between thought, or rather words, and action?
Jiddu Krishnamurti : I think we mistake verbal appreciation for real understanding. Verbally we understand each other, we understand the words. I communicate to you verbally certain thoughts that I have, and you remain on the verbal level, and from that verbal level, you hope to act. So, you will have to find out if verbal appreciation brings about understanding, action. For example, when I say that goodwill, affection, love, is the only solution, the only way out of this mess, verbally you understand, and if you are at all thoughtful, you will probably agree.
Now, why don't you act? For the very simple reason that the verbal response is identified with the intellectual response. That is, intellectually you think you have grasped the idea, and so there is division between idea and action. That is why the cultivation of ideas creates, not understanding, but mere opposition, counter - ideas; and although this opposition may bring about a revolution, it will not be a real transformation of the individual and therefore of society.
I do not know if I am making myself clear on this point. If we dwell on the verbal level, then we merely produce ideas because words are things of the mind. Words are sensate, and if we dwell on the verbal level, words can only create sensate ideas and values. That is, one set of ideas creates counter-ideas, and these counter-ideas produce an action, but that action is merely reaction, the response to an idea. Most of us live merely verbally, we feed on words; the Bhagavad-Gita. says this, the Puranas say that, or Marx says this, Einstein says that. Words can only produce ideas, and ideas will never produce action. Ideas can produce a reaction, but not action - and that is why we have this gap between verbal comprehension and action.
Now, the question wants to know how to build the bridge between word and action. I say you cannot, you cannot bridge the gap between word and action. Please see the importance of this. Words can never produce action. They can only produce a response, a counteraction or reaction, and therefore still further reaction, like a wave, and in that wave you are caught. Whereas, action is quite a different thing, it is not reaction. So, you cannot bridge the gap between the word and the action. You have to leave the word and then you will act.
Our difficulty, then, is how to leave the word. That means, how to act without reaction. Do you follow? Because as long as you are fed on words, you are bound to react; therefore, you have to empty yourself of words, which means emptying yourself of imitation. Words are imitation; living on the verbal level is to live in imitation, and since our whole life is based on imitation, on copying, naturally we have made ourselves incapable of action. Therefore you have to investigate the various patterns which make you copy, imitate, live on the verbal level; and as you begin to unravel the various patterns that have made you imitative, you will find that you act without reaction.
Sir, love is not a word, the word is not the thing, is it? God is not the word God, love is not the word love. But you are satisfied with the word because the word gives you a sensation. When somebody says, ''God,'' you are psychologically or nervously affected, and that response you call the understanding of God. So, the word affects you nervously and sensuously, and that produces certain action. But the word is not the thing, the word God is not God; you have merely been fed on words, on nervous, sensuous responses.
Please see the significance of this. How can you act if you have been fed on empty words? For words are empty, are they not? They can only produce a nervous response, but that is not action. Action can take place only when there is no imitative response, which means the mind must inquire into the whole process of verbal life. For example, some leader, political or religious, makes a statement, and without thought you say you agree, and then you wave a flag, you fight for India or Germany.
But you have not examined what was said, and since you have not examined, what you do is merely a reaction, and between reaction and action there can be no relationship. Most of us are conditioned to reaction, so you have to discover the causes of this conditioning, and as the mind begins to free itself from the conditioning, you will find that there is action. Such action is not reaction, it is its own vitality, it is its own eternity.
So, with most of us the difficulty is that we want to bridge the unbridgeable, we want to serve both God and mammon, we want to live on the verbal plane, and yet act. The two are incompatible. We all know reaction, but very few of us know action because action can come only when we understand that the word is not the thing. When we understand that, then we can go much deeper; we can begin to uncover in ourselves all the fears, the imitations, escapes, and authorities; but that means we have to live very dangerously, and very few of us want to live in a state of perpetual revolution.
What we want is a backwater refuge where we can settle down and be comforted, emotionally, physically, or psychologically. As between a lazy man and a very active man there is no relationship, so there is no relationship between word and action; but once we understand that and see the whole significance of it, then there is action. Such action, surely, leads to reality; it is the field in which reality can operate. Then we do not have to seek out reality; it comes directly, mysteriously, silently, stealthily. And a mind that is capable of receiving reality is blessed.
Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti talk in Bangalore, India July 25, 1948