135 Quotes & Sayings By Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti was a spiritual teacher from India, who lived from 1895 to 1980. He is known as the "Silent Sage", because he rarely gave interviews, and gave most of his talks not in words but in silences. In the same way that the Buddha was not interested in people's ideas of what he said, so Jiddu did not concern himself with what he had said. He was a master of the techniques of awareness and meditation.

It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be...
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It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free. Jiddu Krishnamurti
You can only be afraid of what you think you...
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You can only be afraid of what you think you know. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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We carry about us the burden of what thousands of people have said and the memories of all our misfortunes. To abandon all that is to be alone, and the mind that is alone is not only innocent but young -- not in time or age, but young, innocent, alive at whatever age -- and only such a mind can see that which is truth and that which is not measurable by words. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Thought is so cunning, so clever, that it distorts everything...
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Thought is so cunning, so clever, that it distorts everything for its own convenience. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Tell your friend that in his death, a part of...
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Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain, and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments — and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Do not repeat after me words that you do not...
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Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Acquiring knowledge is a form of imitation.
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Acquiring knowledge is a form of imitation. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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To ask the 'right' question is far more important than to receive the answer. The solution of a problem lies in the understanding of the problem; the answer is not outside the problem, it is in the problem. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased.
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Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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To understand a child we have to watch him at play, study him in his different moods; we cannot project upon him our own prejudices, hopes and fears, or mould him to fit the pattern of our desires. If we are constantly judging the child according to our personal likes and dislikes, we are bound to create barriers and hindrances in our relationship with him and in his relationships with the world. Unfortunately, most of us desire to shape the child in a way that is gratifying to our own vanities and idiosyncrasies; we find varying degrees of comfort and satisfaction in exclusive ownership and domination. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential, the what...
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Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential, the what is; and to awaken this capacity, in oneself and in others, is education. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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There is an efficiency inspired by love which goes far beyond and is much greater than the efficiency of ambition; and without love, which brings an integrated understanding of life, efficiency breeds ruthlessness. Is this not what is actually taking place all over the world? Our present education is geared to industrialization and war, its principal aim being to develop efficiency; and we are caught in this machine of ruthless competition and mutual destruction. If education leads to war, if it teaches us to destroy or be destroyed, has it not utterly failed? . Jiddu Krishnamurti
To understand life is to understand ourselves, and that is...
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To understand life is to understand ourselves, and that is both the beginning and the end of education. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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But what is the point of education at all? Is it merely to cultivate the capacity of memory, passing examinations and getting a job and all the rest, or is education something entirely different? Something more! Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Sirs, if you are listening and are not acting, it is like a man who is always tilling but never sowing. It is better not to listen to a truth than to listen without acting, for then it becomes a poison. Jiddu Krishnamurti
It is only the innocent mind which knows what love...
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It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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In order to observe the movement of your own mind and heart, of your whole being, you must have a free mind, not a mind that agrees and disagrees, taking sides in an argument, disputing over mere words, but rather following with an intention to understand - a very difficult thing to do because most of us don't know how to look at, or listen to, our own being any more than we know how to look at the beauty of a river or listen to the breeze among the trees . Jiddu Krishnamurti
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So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives delight - if you can look at it without wanting the experience to be repeated, then there will be no pain, no fear, and therefore tremendous joy. It is the struggle to repeat and perpetuate pleasure which turns it into pain. Watch it in yourself. The very demand for the repetition of pleasure brings about pain, because it is not the same, as it was yesterday. You struggle to achieve the same delight, not only to your aesthetic sense but the same inward quality of the mind, and you are hurt and disappointed because it is denied to you. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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So if you understand that where there is a search for pleasure there must be pain, live that way if you want to, but don't just slip into it. If you want to end pleasure, though, which is to end pain, you must be totally attentive to the whole structure of pleasure - not cut it out as monks and sannyasis do, never looking at a woman because they think it is a sin and thereby destroying the vitality of their understanding - but seeing the whole meaning and significance of pleasure. Then you will have tremendous joy in life. You cannot think about joy. Joy is an immediate thing and by thinking about it, you turn it into pleasure. Living in the present is the instant perception of beauty and the great delight in it without seeking pleasure from it. Jiddu Krishnamurti
To understand ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or...
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To understand ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or of a thousand years because we are living things, always moving, flowing, never resting. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution. Jiddu Krishnamurti
One is never afraid of the unknown one is afraid...
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One is never afraid of the unknown one is afraid of the known coming to an end. Jiddu Krishnamurti
The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.
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The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Life is a movement, a constant movement in relationship; and...
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Life is a movement, a constant movement in relationship; and thought, trying to capture that movement in terms of the past, as memory, is afraid of life. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Discipline must be without control, without suppression, without any form...
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Discipline must be without control, without suppression, without any form of fear... It is not discipline first and then freedom; freedom is at the very beginning, not at the end. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Seeing everything that goes on in your daily life, your daily activities - when you pick up a pen, when you talk, when you go out for a drive or when you are walking alone in the woods - can you with one breath, with one look, know yourself very simply as you are? When you know yourself as you are, then you understand the whole structure of man's endeavour, his deceptions, his hypocrisies, his search. To do this you must be tremendously honest with yourself throughout your being. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Virtue can flower only when there is freedom.
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Virtue can flower only when there is freedom. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Space and silence are necessary because it is only when...
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Space and silence are necessary because it is only when the mind is alone, uninfluenced, untrained, not held by infinite varieties of experience, that it can come upon something totally new. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Any movement which is worth while, any action which has any deep significance, must begin with each one of us. I must change first; I must see what is the nature and structure of my relationship with the world - and in the very seeing is the doing; therefore I, as a human being living in the world, bring about a different quality, and that quality, it seems to me, is the quality of the religious mind. The religious mind is something entirely different from the mind that believes in religion.. A religious mind does not seek at all, it cannot experiment with truth. Truth is not something dictated by your pleasure or pain, or by your conditioning as a Hindu or whatever religion you belong to. The religious mind is a state of mind in which there is no fear and therefore no belief whatsoever but only what is - what actually is. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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You have to be a light to yourself in a world that is utterly becoming dark. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Do it or don't do it but get on with it... Jiddu Krishnamurti
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The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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But if one observes, one will see that the body has its own intelligence; it requires a great deal of intelligence to observe the intelligence of the body. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgment. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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The word 'innocence' means a mind that is incapable of being hurt. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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To put it differently, as long as mind and heart are caught up in want, in desire, there must be emptiness. You want things, ideas, persons, only when you are conscious of your own emptiness, and that wanting creates a choice. When there is craving there must be choice, and choice precipitates you into the conflict of experiences. You have the capacity to choose, and thereby you limit yourself by your choice. Only when mind is free from choice is there liberation. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Passion is a rather frightening thing because if you have passion you don't know where it will take you. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Most of us waste this extraordinary thing called life. We have lived forty or sixty years, have gone to the office, engaged ourselves in social activity, escaping in various forms, and at the end of it, we have nothing but an empty, dull, stupid life, a wasted life. Now, please has created this pattern of social life. We take pleasure in ambition, in competition, in acquiring knowledge or power, or position, prestige, status. And that pursuit of pleasure as ambition, competition, greed, envy, status, domination, power is respectable. It is made respectable by a society which has only one concept: that you shall lead a moral life, which is a respectable life. You can be ambitious, you can be greedy, you can be violent, you can be competitive, you can be a ruthless human being, but society accepts it, because at the end of your ambition, you are either so called successful man with plenty of money, or a failure and therefore a frustrated human being. So social morality is immorality. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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One of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of society is copying, which is the worship of authority. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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We are so sluggish in our mentality that we think the world's problems are not our business, that they have to be resolved by the United Nations or by substituting new leaders for the old. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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One was watching the other day a red-tailed hawk, high in the heavens, circling effortlessly, without a beat of the wing, just for the fun of flying, just to be sustained by the air-currents. Then it was joined by another, and they were flying together for quite a while. They were marvellous creatures in that blue sky, and to hurt them in any way is a crime against heaven. Of course there is no heaven; man has invented heaven out of hope, for his life has become a hell, an endless conflict from birth to death, coming and going, making money, working endlessly. This life has become a turmoil, a travail of endless striving. One wonders if man, a human being, will ever live on this earth peacefully. Conflict has been the way of his life - within the skin and outside the skin, in the area of the psyche and in the society which that psyche has created. . Jiddu Krishnamurti
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We do not ask. We want to be told. One of the most curious things in the structure of our psyche is that we all want to be told because we are the result of the propaganda of ten thousand years. We want to have our thinking confirmed and corroborated by another, whereas to ask a question is to ask it of yourself. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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You cannot reconcile creativeness with technical achievement. You may be perfect in playing the piano, and not be creative. You may be able to handle color, to put paint on canvas most cleverly, and not be a creative painter..having lost the song, we pursue the singer. We learn from the singer the technique of song, but there is no song; and I say the song is essential, the joy of singing is essential. When the joy is there, the technique can be built up from nothing; you will invent your own technique, you won't have to study elocution or style. When you have, you see, and the very seeing of beauty is an art. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Because we want to be inwardly secure, we are constantly seeking methods and means for this security, and thereby we create authority, the worship of another, which destroys comprehension, that spontaneous tranquility of mind in which alone there can be a state of creativeness. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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There must be a certain amount of imitation, copying, in outward technique, but when there is inward, psychological imitation surely we cease to be creative. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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There are those who don’t believe in God and yet do good. There are those who believe in God and kill for that belief; those who prepare for war because they claim they want peace, and so on. So one has to ask oneself what need there is to believe at all in anything, though this doesn’t deny the extraordinary mystery of life. But belief is a word, a thought, and this is not the thing, anymore than your name is actually you. Through experience you hope to touch the truth of your belief, to prove it to yourself, but this belief conditions your experience. It isn’t that the experience comes to prove the belief, but rather that the belief begets the experience. Your belief in God will give you the experience of what you call God. You will always experience what you believe and nothing else. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Do you know that even when you look at a tree and say, `That is an oak tree', or `that is a banyan tree', the naming of the tree, which is botanical knowledge, has so conditioned your mind that the word comes between you and actually seeing the tree? To come in contact with the tree you have to put your hand on it and the word will not help you to touch it. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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To find out if there is actually such freedom one must be aware of one's own conditioning, of the problems, of the monotonous shallowness, emptiness, insufficiency of one's daily life, and above all one must be aware of fear. One must be aware of oneself neither introspectively nor analytically, but actually be aware of oneself as one is and see if it is at all possible to be entirely free of all those issues that seem to clog the mind. To explore, there must be freedom, not at the end, but right at the beginning. Unless one is free one cannot explore, investigate or examine. Two things are essential: freedom and the act of learning. One cannot learn about oneself unless one is free, free so that one can observe, not according to any pattern, formula or concept, but actually observe oneself as one is. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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To inquire and to learn is the function of the mind, By learning I do not mean the mere cultivation of memory or the accumulation of knowledge, but the capacity to think clearly and sanely without illusion, to start from facts and not from beliefs and ideals. There is no learning if thought originates from conclusions. Merely to acquire information of knowledge is to not to learn. Learning implies the love of understanding and the love of doing a thing for itself. Learning is possible only when there is no coercion through influence, thought attachment or threat, through persuasive encouragement or subtle forms of reward. Most people think that learning is encouraged through comparison, whereas the contrary is the fact. Comparison brings about frustration and merely encourages envy, which is called competition. Like other forms of persuasion, comparison prevents learning and breeds fear. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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To find out if there is actually such freedom one must be aware of one's own conditioning, of the problems, of the monotonous shallowness, emptiness, insufficiency of one's daily life, and above all one must be aware of fear. One must be aware of oneself neither introspectively nor analytically, but actually be aware of oneself as one is and see if it is at all possible to be entirely free of all those issues that seem to clog the mind. To explore, there must be freedom, not at the end, but right at the beginning. Unless one is free one cannot explore, investigate or examine. Two things are essential: freedom and the act of learning. One cannot learn about oneself unless one is free, free so that one can observe, not according to any pattern, formula or convept, but actually observe oneself as one is. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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To be free, you have to examine authority, the whole skeleton of authority, tearing to pieces the whole dirty thing. And that requires energy, actual physical energy, and also it demands psychological energy. By the energy is destroyed, is wasted when one is in conflict. So when there is the understanding of the whole process of conflict, there is the ending of conflict, there is abundance of energy. Then you can proceed tearing the house that you have built throughout the centuries and that has no meaning at all. You know, to destroy is to create. We must destroy, not the buildings, not the social or economic system, - this comes about daily — but the psychological, the unconscious and the rationally, individually, deeply and superficially. We must tear through all that to be utterly defenseless, because you must be defenseless to love and have affection. Then you see and understand ambition, authority, and you begin to see when authority is necessary and at what level. Then there is no authority of learning, no authority of knowledge, no authority of capacity; no authority that function assumes and which becomes status. To understand all authority — of the gurus, of the Masters, and others — requires a very sharp mind, a clear brain, not a muddy brain, not a dull brain. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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A dialogue is very important. It is a form of communication in which question and answer continue till a question is left without an answer. Thus the question is suspended between the two persons involved in this answer and question. It is like a bud with untouched blossoms . . If the question is left totally untouched by thought, it then has its own answer because the questioner and answerer, as persons, have disappeared. This is a form of dialogue in which investigation reaches a certain point of intensity and depth, which then has a quality that thought can never reach. . Jiddu Krishnamurti
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If I am all the time measuring myself against you, struggling to be like you, then I am denying what I am myself. Therefore I am creating an illusion. When I have understood that comparison in any form leads only to greater illusion and greater misery, just as when I analyse myself, add to my knowledge of myself bit by bit, or identify myself with something outside myself, whether it be the State, a saviour or an ideology - when I understand that all such processes lead only to greater conformity and therefore greater conflict - when I see all this I put it completely away. Then my mind is no longer seeking. It is very important to understand this. Then my mind is no longer groping, searching, questioning. This does not mean that my mind is satisfied with things as they are, but such a mind has no illusion. Such a mind can then move in a totally different dimension. The dimension in which we usually live, the life of every day which is pain, pleasure and fear, has conditioned the mind, limited the nature of the mind, and when that pain, pleasure and fear have gone (which does not mean that you no longer have joy: joy is something entirely different from pleasure) - then the mind functions in a different dimension in which there is no conflict, no sense of `otherness'. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence. Silence put together by thought is stagnation, is dead, but the silence that comes when thought has understood its own beginning, the nature of itself, understood how all thought is never free but always old - this silence is meditation in which the meditator is entirely absent, for the mind has emptied itself of the past. . Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Meditation is one of the most serious things; you do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody "I love you", when you are considering your children, when you educate them to become soldiers, to kill, to be nationalized, worshipping the flag, educating them to enter into this trap of the modern world; watching all that, realizing your part in it, all that is part of meditation. And when you so meditate you will find in it an extraordinary beauty; you will act rightly at every moment; and if you do not act rightly at a given moment it does not matter, you will pick it up again - you will not waste time in regret. Meditation is part of life, not something different from life. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Why are we such tortured human beings, with tears in our eyes and false laughter on our lips? If you could walk alone among those hills or in the woods or along the long, white, bleached sands, in that solitude you would know what meditation is. The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything. Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Action has meaning only in relationship, and without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breed conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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When one loses the deep intimate relationship with nature, then temples, mosques and churches become important. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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But there's a sacredness which is not of thought, nor of a feeling resuscitated by thought. It is not recognizable by thought nor can it be utilized by thought. Thought cannot formulate it. But there's a sacredness, untouched by any symbol or word. It is not communicable. It is a fact. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Love is something totally new every day, but pleasure is not, pleasure has continuity. Love is always new, and therefore it is its own eternity. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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And the idea of ourselves is our escape from the fact of what we really are. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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The significance of life is living. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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How do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your projection, through your ambitions, desires, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what you want to hear, only what will be satisfactory, what will gratify, what will give comfort, what will for the moment alleviate your suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires. And is there any other form of listening? Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything — to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby? Listening has importance only when on is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens. Can one put aside all these screens through which we listen, and really listen? . Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Poverty becomes a marvellously beautiful thing when the mindis free of society. One must become poor inwardly for then there isno seeking, no asking, no desire, no - nothing! It is only this inwardpoverty that can see the truth of a life in which there is no conflict at all Jiddu Krishnamurti
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You must be a light unto yourself. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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What we are trying to do is to understand this confusion and not cover it up with quotations. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Can you look at a flower without thinking? Jiddu Krishnamurti
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You say you love your wife. You depend on her; she has given you her body, her emotions, her encouragement, a certain feeling of security and well-being. Then she turns away from you; she gets bored or goes off with someone else, and your whole emotional balance is destroyed, and this disturbance, which you don’t like, is called jealousy. There is pain in it, anxiety, hate and violence. So what you are really saying is, ‘As long as you belong to me I love you but the moment you don’t I begin to hate you. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Silence is difficult and arduous, it is not to be played with. It isn't something that you can experience by reading a book, or by listening to a talk, or by sitting together, or by retiring into a wood or a monastery. I am afraid none of these things will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense psychological work. You have to be burningly aware of your snobbishness, aware of your fears, your anxieties, your sense of guilt. And when you die to all that, then out of that dying comes the beauty of silence. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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It is only in alert silence that truth can be. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something, and it is only such love that can know freedom. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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One saw a bird dying, shot by a man. It was flying with rhythmic beat and beautifully, with such freedom and lack of fear. And the gun shattered it; it fell to the earth and all the life had gone out of it. A dog fetched it, and the man collected other dead birds. He was chattering with his friend and seemed so utterly indifferent. All that he was concerned with was bringing down so many birds, and it was over as far as he was concerned. They are killing all over the world. Those marvellous, great animals of the sea, the whales, are killed by the million, and the tiger and so many other animals are now becoming endangered species. Man is the only animal that is to be dreaded. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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A man who knows what it is to have humility is a vain man. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Things, relationship, and ideas are so transparently impermanent, we are ever made unhappy by them... Things are impermanent, they wear out and are lost; relationship is constant friction and death awaits; ideas and beliefs have no stability, no permanency. We seek happiness in them and yet do not realize their impermanency. So sorrow becomes our constant companion and overcoming it our problem. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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The very desire to be certain, to be secure, is the beginning of bondage. It's only when the mind is not caught in the net of certainty, and is not seeking certainty, that it is in a state of discovery. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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While one is young is the time to investigate, to experiment with everything. The school should help its young people to discover their vocations and responsibilities, and not merely cram their minds with facts and technical knowledge; it should be the soil in which they can grow without fear, happily and integrally. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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It is only in virtue that you can discover, that you can live - not in the cultivation of a virtue, which merely brings about respectability, not understanding and freedom. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Religion is the sense of comprehension of the totality of existence. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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The transformation of the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself, because the self is the product and a part of the total process of human existence. To transform oneself, self-knowledge is essential; without knowing what you are, there is no basis for right thought, and without knowing yourself there cannot be transformation. One must know oneself as on is, not as on wishes to be, which is merely an ideal and there for fictitious, unreal; it is only that which is that can be transformed, not that which you wish to be. To know oneself as one is requires and extraordinary alertness of mind, because what is, is constantly undergoing transformation, change; and to follow it swiftly the mind must not be tethered to any particular dogma or belief, to any particular pattern of action. If you would follow anything, it is no good being tethered. To know yourself, there must be the awareness, the alertness of mind in which there is freedom from all beliefs, from all idealization, because beliefs and ideals only give you a color, perverting true perception. If you want to know what you are, you cannot imagine or have belief in something which you are not. If I am greedy, envious, violent, merely having an ideal of non-violence, of non-greed, is of little value. The understanding of what you are, whatever it be — ugly or beautiful, wicked or mischievous — the understanding of what you are, without distortion, is the beginning of virtue. Virtue is essential, for it gives freedom. . Jiddu Krishnamurti
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We are asking if thought can be aware of itself. That is rather a complex question, and requires very careful observation. Thought has created wars through nationalism, through sectarian religions. Thought has created all this; God has not created the hierarchy of the church--the pope, all the robes, all the rituals, the swinging of the incense, the candles. All that paraphernalia that goes on in a cathedral or in a church is put together by thought, copied, some of it, from the ancient Egyptians, from the ancient Hindus, and Hebrews. It is all thought. So "God" is created by thought. . Jiddu Krishnamurti
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You only learn when you give your whole being to something. When you give your whole being to mathematics, you learn; but when you are in a state of contradiction, when you do not want to learn but are forced to learn, then it becomes merely a process of accumulation. To learn is like reading a novel with innumerable characters; it requires your full attention, not contradictory attention. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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If you would listen, sir, in the sense of being aware of your conflicts and contradictions without forcing them into any particular pattern of thought, perhaps they might altogether cease. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Happy is the man who is nothing. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Analysis does not transform consciousness. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Beyond all explanations which a good brain can give, why do we choose the worse and not the better, why hate rather than love, why greed and not generosity, why self-centred activity and not open total action? Why be mean when there are soaring mountains and flashing streams? Why jealousy and not love? Why? Jiddu Krishnamurti
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If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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If, living in the world, you refuse to be a part of it, you will help others out of this chaos - not in the future, not tomorrow, but now. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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If, living in the world, you refuse to be a part of it, you will help other out of this chaos - not in the future, not tomorrow, but now. Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Identification with the rag called the national flag is an emotional and sentimental factor and for that factor you are willing to kill another - and that is called, the love of your country, love of the neighbor .. .? One can see that where sentiment and emotion come in, love is not. Jiddu Krishnamurti
96
Patriotism, whether it is of the Western kind, or of the Eastern kind, is the same, a poison in human beings that is really distorting thought. So patriotism is a disease, and when you begin to realize, become aware that it is a disease, then you will see how your mind is reacting to that disease. When, in time of war, the whole world talks of patriotism, you will know the falseness of it, and therefore you will act as a true human being . Jiddu Krishnamurti
97
I do not know if you have ever examined how you listen, it doesn't matter to what, whether to a bird, to the wind in the leaves, to the rushing waters, or how you listen to a dialogue with yourself, to your conversation in various relationships with your intimate friends, your wife or husband. If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult, because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate we hardly listen to what is being said. In that state there is no value at all. One listens and therefore learns, only in a state of attention, a state of silence in which this whole background is in abeyance, is quiet; then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate. . Jiddu Krishnamurti
98
You are now listening to me; you are not making an effort to pay attention, you are just listening; and if there is truth in what you hear, you will find remarkable change taking place in you — a change that is not premeditated or wished for, a transformation, a complete revolution in which the truth alone is master and not the creations of your mind. And if I may suggest it, you should listen in that way to everything — not only to what I am saying, but also to what other people are saying; to the birds, to the whistle of a locomotive, to the noise of the bus gong by. You will find that the more you listen to everything, the greater is the silence, and that silence is then not broken by noise. It is only when you are resisting something, when you are putting up a barrier between yourself and that to which you do not want to listen — it is only then that there is a struggle. . Jiddu Krishnamurti
99
You are this, which does not satisfy, so you want to be that. If there were an understanding of this, would that come into being? Because you do not understand this, you create that, hoping through that to understand or to escape from this. Jiddu Krishnamurti
100
Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay. Jiddu Krishnamurti