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by Jayaram V
 Jiddu
Krishnamurthy lived form moment to moment, without the conflict of
choice and recognition, with total awareness and understanding, and free
from the compulsions of a mind that is accustomed to conditioning and
the need for security. He was completely original in the sense that whatever
he said came out of his present awareness and his unadulterated
understanding of the immediate experience. There was no pretension or
recognition of any authority on his part. He was free completely and
truly. He recognized no authority, neither of Jesus nor of the Buddha
nor of his own. He approved no religion or religious dogma that demanded
recognition or acceptance or surrender. Throughout his teachings (if
you can call it that), he
quoted none, recommended no scripture, nor approved any saint or religious
guru as an authority figure.
I wonder how he managed to live in that state of complete freedom and
stay that way for a life time without being burdened by our compulsion to establish some kind of balance between our material and
spiritual needs. It is not easy to lead a life of a choiceless and
unconditional awareness and at the same time deal with the challenges of
modern life which does not approve even the slightest hint of
reservation against an established order or dictates of authority symbols.
It is difficult to say whether he had any particular aim or goal in
life, because to
say so means to contradict what he chose to oppose in
the first place. He was against all forms of conditioning and
recognition of authority. In his opinion to understand the ways of the
mind was the means to true awareness and understanding. The first step in gaining true
awareness is to understand
how the mind builds its own defenses to cope with fear or find
security through submission to authority and imitation of experience.
Through ones own personal observation and experience, one becomes truly
aware of how the conditioned self functions and through that awareness
one becomes truly free. This has to be done not because some one told you,
not because some one has experienced it and not because you have been prompted by
your own fear or expectation. It has to happen on its own,
spontaneously, the way a flower blooms or the sky opens up after a heavy
shower.
Freedom comes when you are truly free. True freedom is when you are
free from everything: your past, your conditioning, your experiences, your
knowledge, your reflexive actions and responses, your notions of this
and that, your acceptance of authority figures, your memory which is but
accumulated experience, and your very awareness that is rooted in the
memory of your previous experiences. Freedom does not come through dependence
upon or slavery to someone else's opinion or authority. True liberation
means unconditional freedom from all limitations and attachments. You are not
free as long as you are tied to things that are not truly yours or not
established in you. To experience truth you have to become truly aware
of it, right at this moment. Truth is not a recollection or restatement
of an accumulated memory.
It is a direct awareness borne out of a personal experience that cannot be explained
or transferred or communicated to others. It begins with self-awareness
or true knowledge of oneself, which comes from pure observation that is
not tainted by any expectation or notion or theory or compulsion or
authority and gives rise to
true awareness of self. This in brief is the summary of his entire philosophy.
What he spoke was not new. He was asking us to free ourselves from
our bondage to ignorance that comes from our conditioning and others'
knowledge. We can
find traces of it in the teachings of the Buddha, the Upanishads and the teachings of Saivism and Vaishnavism. However
Jiddu Krishnamurthy
put it all in an extraordinarily unique way, that is at once simple, personal,
modern and direct in its appeal, without the complexity and pretension
of religious jargon, so that no previous study or knowledge of any
ism or religion is required to understand it.
When he abandoned the theosophical movement and severed his
connection with his mentors, his action was not directed against one
specific movement or a group or organization. It was against all forms of authority
and conditioning itself. For him it was a necessary first step that was
in total conformity with the
fundamental shift in his awareness. It was a declaration of freedom,
total and complete, from his conditioned past and submission to
authority, borne not out of some personal need but out of an awareness of
true freedom. He renounced the world and its myriad tentacles of
control, just as the Buddha did a few thousand years ago, to regain the simplicity and directness of
moment to moment existence. He set aside all manners of
recognition, authority, previous knowledge, sense of duality, importance
of experience and acceptance of previous conditioning to find the
presence of eternity and oneness of existence in the moment of his
attention.
Probably J. Krishnamurthy would not have personally approved what I
am trying to do here: quoting him or writing about him. He would have
said that whatever I was writing here was not true because it came from my accumulated
knowledge, my conditioned self, my notions of authority figures and a
myriad other things, but not from my true awareness of pure and direct experience. He
would have politely asked me with his big expressive eyes not to quote
him as an authority figure or a standard measure of knowledge and
wisdom.
So true to his approach, the best way to view these quotations is to
pay attention to them with a fresh mind, free from the compulsions of formal
education, authority of scriptures, personalities, dogmas and religion,
accumulated knowledge, experience and mental conditioning.
Is that
possible for ordinary human beings? See for your self.
Jayaram V
02/28/2007
Excerpts From the Teachings and Speeches of J.Krishnamurthy
- Experience:
- One cannot describe or give to
another the fullness of an experience. Each one must live it for
himself. (ALPINO, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 1ST JULY, 1933)
- Do you have an experience which is not
recognized? Do you understand what it means? Because that is after
all God, that is the Truth, that is the Eternal or what you will.
The moment you have a measure with which to measure, that is not
Truth. Our Gods are measurable; we know them previously. Our
scriptures, our friends and our religious teachers have so
conditioned us that we know what every thing is. All that we are
doing is merely this process of recognition. MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK
5TH JANUARY 1952
- Awareness:
- How can you find out what you really feel and think? From my point
of view, you can do that only by being aware of your whole life. (ALPINO, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 1ST
JULY, 1933)
- Authority:
- As long as you do not understand the cause of authority, you are
but an imitative machine, and where there is imitation there cannot
be the rich fulfillment of life. (ALPINO, ITALY
1ST PUBLIC TALK 1ST JULY, 1933)
- You are responsible for such
external authorities as religion, politics, morality, for such
authorities as economic and social standards. Out of your emptiness,
out of your incompleteness, you have created these external
standards from which you now try to free yourself. (ALPINO, ITALY
1ST PUBLIC TALK 1ST JULY, 1933)
- Problems:
- Now it is my intention to show
that so long as we deal with these problems apart, separately, we
but increase the misunderstanding, and therefore the conflict, and
thereby the suffering and the pain; whereas, until we deal with the
social problem and the religious and economic problems as a
comprehensive whole, not as divided, but rather see the delicate and
the subtle connection between what we call religious, social or
economic problems - until you see this real connection, this
intimate and subtle connection between these three, whatever problem
you may have, you are not going to solve it. AUCKLAND
NEW ZEALAND 1ST PUBLIC TALK 28TH MARCH, 1934
- System:
- I have no system. I think
systems are pernicious things, because they may for the moment
alleviate the problems, but if you merely follow a system you are a
slave to it. AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND 1ST PUBLIC TALK 28TH
MARCH, 1934
- What brings about comprehension
is not to search for a new system, but to discover for yourselves,
as individuals, not as a collective machine but as individuals, what
is false and what is true in the existing system, not to substitute
a new system for the old. AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND 1ST PUBLIC TALK 28TH
MARCH, 1934
- God:
- Sir, why do you want to know whether God is masculine or feminine?
Why do we question? Why do we try to find out if there is a God, if
it is personal, if it is masculine? Is it not because we feel the
insufficiency of living? AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND TALK
TO BUSINESSMEN 6TH APRIL, 1934
- Our God is merely a means of
escape from these things; whereas, to me, there is something much
more fundamental, real. I say there is something like God; let us
not inquire into what it is. You will find out if you begin to
really understand the very conflict which is crippling the mind and
heart: this continual struggle for self-security, this horror of
exploitation, wars and nationalities, and the absurdities of
organized religion. If we can face these and understand them, then
we shall find out the real meaning instead of speculating; the real
meaning of life, the real meaning of God. AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND TALK
TO BUSINESSMEN 6TH APRIL, 1934
- Do you have an experience which is not
recognized? Do you understand what it means? Because that is after
all God, that is the Truth, that is the Eternal or what you will.
The moment you have a measure with which to measure, that is not
Truth. MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK
5TH JANUARY 1952
- Completeness of Action:
- Only when mind is free of the division of time can true action
result. STRESA, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC
TALK 2ND JULY, 1933
- When action is born of completeness, not in the division of
time, then that action is harmonious and is freed from the trammels
of society, classes, races, religions and acquisitiveness. To put it
differently, action must become truly individual. STRESA, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC
TALK 2ND JULY, 1933
- By individual action I mean action that
is born of complete comprehension, complete understanding by the
individual, understanding not imposed by others. Where that
understanding exists, there is true individuality, true aloneness -
not the aloneness of escape into solitude, but the aloneness that is
born of the full comprehension of the experiences of life. STRESA, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC
TALK 2ND JULY, 1933
- For the
completeness of action, mind must be free of this idea of time as
yesterday, today, and tomorrow. If mind is not liberated from that
division, then conflict arises and leads to suffering and to the
search for escapes from that suffering. STRESA, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC
TALK 2ND JULY, 1933
- Security
- Physical security is a crude form of security, but since it has
been impossible for the majority of mankind to attain that security,
man has turned to the subtle form of security which he calls
spiritual or religious. STRESA, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK
2ND JULY, 1933
- When you are satiated with physical security or when you cannot
attain it, you turn to what you call spiritual security. And when
you turn to that, you establish and vitalize those things which you
call religion and organized spiritual beliefs. STRESA, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK
2ND JULY, 1933
- Because you seek
security you establish a form of religion, a system of philosophical
thought in which you are caught, to which you become a slave.
Therefore, from my point of view, religions with all their
intermediaries, their ceremonies, their priests, destroy creative
understanding and pervert judgment. STRESA, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK
2ND JULY, 1933
- So security is but escape. And since most people are trying to
escape, they have made themselves into machines of habit in order to
avoid conflict. They create religious beliefs, ideas; they worship
the image of an imitation which they call God; they try to forget
their inability to face the struggle by losing themselves in work.
All these are ways of escape.
- Belief in God
- Most of our conceptions of God, of reality, of
truth, are merely speculative imitations. Therefore they are utterly
false, and all our religions are based on such falsities.
- A man who
has lived all his life in a prison can only speculate about freedom;
a man who has never experienced the ecstasy of freedom cannot know
freedom. So it is of little avail to discuss God, truth; but if you
have the intelligence, the intensity to destroy the barriers around
you, then you will know for yourself the fulfillment of life. You
will then no longer be a slave in a social or religious system.
STRESA, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 2ND JULY, 1933
- Authority:
- Now in order to safeguard security,
you create authority. Isn't that so? To receive comfort, you must
have someone or some system to give you comfort. STRESA,
ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 2ND JULY, 1933
- To have security,
there must be a person, an idea, a belief, a tradition, that gives
you the assurance of security. So in our attempt to find security,
we set up an authority and become slaves to that authority. STRESA,
ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 2ND JULY, 1933
- In our
search for security we set up religious ideals that we, in our fear,
have created; we seek security through priests or spiritual guides
whom we call teachers or masters. Or, again, we seek our authority
in the power of tradition - social, economic, or political. STRESA,
ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 2ND JULY, 1933
- Method:
- So I say, do not seek a way, a method. There is no method, no way
to truth.STRESA, ITALY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 2ND JULY, 1933
- Immortality:
- You have many ideas concerning completeness of life and
immortality. But, to me, this immortality, this richness, this
completeness of life can only be understood and lived when the mind
is wholly free from the limitations, the stupidities, that
environment, past and present, inherited or acquired, is continually
placing about us. NEW YORK CITY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 11TH MARCH, 1935
- Conditioning:
- Now, you are conditioned by environment. You are the result of
your past and present environment, and what you express, calling it
individuality or self-expression, is nothing but the expression of
that conditioning environment. NEW YORK CITY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 11TH MARCH, 1935
- To me, the true expression of
individuality is that intelligence which is awakened through freeing
the mind from the conditioning environment of the past and the
present. NEW YORK CITY 1ST PUBLIC TALK 11TH MARCH, 1935
- Freedom from Inner Limitations:
- Until we discover, through experiment, our
subtle and deep limitations, with their reactions, and so free
ourselves from them, we shall lead a life of confusion and strife.
For these limitations prevent the pliability of mind-emotion, making
it incapable of true adjustment to the movement of life. This lack
of pliability is the source of our egotistic competition, fear and
the pursuit of security, leading to many comforting illusions. OJAI
1ST TALK IN THE OAK GROVE 5TH APRIL, 1936
- Clarity of Thought:
- To understand the confusion and misery that exist in ourselves,
and so in the world, we must first find clarity within ourselves and
this clarity comes about through right thinking.
- This clarity is not
to be organized for it cannot be exchanged with another.
-
Clarity is not the result of verbal assertion but of intense
self-awareness and right thinking
- Group Thinking:
- Organized
group thought becomes dangerous however good it may appear;
organized group thought can be used, exploited; group thought ceases
to be right thinking, it is merely repetitive. Clarity is essential
for without it change and reform merely lead to further confusion.
OJAI
1ST PUBLIC TALK 1945
- Self Knowledge:
- Right thinking comes with
self-knowledge. Without understanding yourself, you have no basis
for thought; without self-knowledge what you think is not true. OJAI
1ST PUBLIC TALK 1945
- Without self-knowledge understanding is not possible. OJAI
1ST PUBLIC TALK 1945
- You must approach the understanding of the self
simply, without any pretensions, without any theories. OJAI
1ST PUBLIC TALK 1945
- If I would
understand you I must have no preconceived formulations about you,
there must be no prejudice; I must be open, without judgment,
without comparison. OJAI
1ST PUBLIC TALK 1945
- Through
approximation we think we are understanding, but is understanding
born of comparison, judgment? Or is it the outcome of
non-comparative thought? If you would understand something do you
compare it with something else or do you study it for itself? OJAI
1ST PUBLIC TALK 1945
- The understanding of oneself is
from moment to moment; if we merely accumulate knowledge of the
self, that very knowledge prevents further understanding, because
accumulated knowledge and experience becomes the center through
which thought focuses and has its being. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM
CHAPTER 4 'SELF-KNOWLEDGE'
- 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. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 4 'SELF-KNOWLEDGE'
- If we have no beliefs with which the mind
has identified itself, then the mind, without identification, is
capable of looking at itself as it is - and then, surely, there is
the beginning of the understanding of oneself. THE FIRST AND LAST
FREEDOM CHAPTER 6 'BELIEF'
- The Problem of Duality:
- Change or reform merely
within the pattern of duality produces only further confusion and
pain and hence is retrogression. OJAI 1ST PUBLIC TALK 1945
- Listening:
- Though we appear to be incapable of listening, it seems to me that
it is one of the most necessary and essential things that we have to
do, you and I have to do. MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK 5TH JANUARY 1952
- You should not translate what I am saying,
or interpret what I am saying, or understand it according to your
background; because when you do that, you stop all thinking. MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK 5TH JANUARY 1952
- To
listen without interpretation requires extraordinary alertness of
mind. Please try during these discussions and at home to really
listen to each other without interpretation, just to listen without
translating according to your prejudices. MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK 5TH JANUARY 1952
- After all, translations
mean that you have previous knowledge which confines thought,
prevents it from penetrating further and deeper. So it is essential
that you and I should establish the right kind of relationship. MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK 5TH JANUARY 1952
- I do
not believe in authority of any kind; and if you treat what I am
saying as authoritarian, then you stop listening. MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK 5TH JANUARY 1952
- Recognition:
- By recognition, I
mean something that happens when you meet or see somebody. You then
have a subjective reaction, emotion, and you recognize; you give it
a name; and that recognition only strengthens each experience; and
each experience limits, conditions, and narrows down the self.
MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK
5TH JANUARY 1952
- So,
if you would understand what is reality, what is God, that centre of
recognition must completely end. Otherwise, what have you? The
projection of your mind and memory, what you have learnt from the
past, with which you recognize what is happening. And what is
happening is your own experience projected. MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK
5TH JANUARY 1952
- If I want to know what
truth is, my mind must be in a state in which no recognition can
ever take place. Is that possible? MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK
5TH JANUARY 1952
- Do you have an experience which is not
recognized? Do you understand what it means? Because that is after
all God, that is the Truth, that is the Eternal or what you will.
The moment you have a measure with which to measure, that is not
Truth.
- Our Gods are measurable; we know them previously. Our
scriptures, our friends and our religious teachers have so
conditioned us that we know what every thing is. All that we are
doing is merely this process of recognition. MADRAS 1ST PUBLIC TALK
5TH JANUARY 1952
- Retreating From Conditioning:
- And I think it is essential sometimes to go to retreat, to stop
everything that you have been doing, to stop your beliefs and
experiences completely, and look at them anew, not keep on repeating
like machines whether you believe or do not believe. You would then
let in fresh air into your minds. MADRAS 1ST
PUBLIC TALK 5TH JANUARY 1952
- Stop being a member of
some society. Stop being a Brahmin, a Hindu, a Christian, a
Mussulman. Stop your worship, rituals, take a complete retreat from
all those and see what happens. MADRAS 1ST
PUBLIC TALK 5TH JANUARY 1952
- In a retreat, do not plunge into
something else, do not take some book and be absorbed in new
knowledge and new acquisition. Have a complete break with the past
and see what happens. Sirs, do it, and you will see delight. You
will see vast expanses of love, understanding and freedom. When your
heart is open, then reality can come. Then the whisperings of your
own prejudices, your own noises, are not heard. That is why it is
good to take a retreat, to go away and to stop the routine - not
only the routine of out ward existence but the routine which the
mind establishes for its own safety and convenience. MADRAS 1ST
PUBLIC TALK 5TH JANUARY 1952
- The Unconscious:
- The conscious
mind can absorb very little. You can only absorb what has been
taught in the school; that is not very much. But the unconscious is
also being treated in the school, the interactions between you and
the teacher, between you and your friends; all that is going on
underground. That matters much more than the mere absorption of
facts on the surface. RAJGHAT 3RD TALK TO BOYS AND GIRLS 12TH
DECEMBER 1952
- Comparison:
- One of the things that prevents the sense of being secure is
comparison. When you are compared with somebody else, in your
studies or in your games or in your looks, you have a sense of
anxiety, a sense of fear, a sense of uncertainty. So, as we were
discussing yesterday with some of the teachers, it is very important
to eliminate, in our school here at Rajghat, this sense of
comparison, this sense of giving you grades or marks, and ultimately
the fear of examination. BANARAS, INDIA 7TH JANUARY 1954 4TH TALK TO
STUDENTS AT RAJGHAT SCHOOL
- Being:
- To be is to be related, and there is no such thing as living in
isolation. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 4 'SELF-KNOWLEDGE'
- When one is interested in
understanding what is, the actual state of the mind, one does not
need to force, discipline, or control it; on the contrary, there is
passive alertness, watchfulness. This state of awareness comes when
there is interest, the intention to understand. THE FIRST AND LAST
FREEDOM CHAPTER 4 'SELF-KNOWLEDGE'
- Memory and Experience:
- The fundamental understanding of oneself does not come through
knowledge or through the accumulation of experiences, which is
merely the cultivation of memory. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM
CHAPTER 4 'SELF-KNOWLEDGE'
- Fear:
- If you consider, you will see that one of the reasons for the
desire to accept a belief is fear. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM
CHAPTER 6 'BELIEF'
- Belief:
- If we have no beliefs with which the mind
has identified itself, then the mind, without identification, is
capable of looking at itself as it is - and then, surely, there is
the beginning of the understanding of oneself. THE FIRST AND LAST
FREEDOM CHAPTER 6 'BELIEF'
- Belief destroys; and this is seen in our everyday lifeTHE FIRST AND
LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 6 'BELIEF'
- Effort and Control:
- I think we shall understand the significance of life if we
understand what it means to make an effort. Does happiness come
through effort? Have you ever tried to be happy? It is impossible,
is it not? You struggle to be happy and there is no happiness, is
there? THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 7 'EFFORT'
- Joy does not come through suppression, through control or
indulgence. You may indulge but there is bitterness at the end. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 7 'EFFORT'
- You
may suppress or control, but there is always strife in the hidden.
Therefore happiness does not come through effort, nor joy through
control and suppression; and still all our life is a series of
suppressions, a series of controls, a series of regretful
indulgences. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 7 'EFFORT'
- Does love or understanding come by strife? I think it is
very important to understand what we mean by struggle, strife or
effort. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 7 'EFFORT'
- Struggle:
- Being aware that we are empty, inwardly
poor, we struggle either to collect things outwardly, or to
cultivate inward riches. There is effort only when there is an
escape from that inward void through action, through contemplation,
through acquisition, through achievement, through power, and so on.
That is our daily existence. I am aware of my insufficiency, my
inward poverty, and I struggle to run away from it or to fill it.
This running away, avoiding, or trying to cover up the void, entails
struggle, strife, effort. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 7
'EFFORT'
- Simplicity:
- Simplicity is not merely adjustment to a pattern. It requires a
great deal of intelligence to be simple and not merely conform to a
particular pattern, however worthy outwardly. THE FIRST AND LAST
FREEDOM CHAPTER 11 'SIMPLICITY'
- A great many saints, a great many teachers, have
renounced the world; and it seems to me that such a renunciation on
the part of any of us does not solve the problem. Simplicity which
is fundamental, real, can only come into being inwardly; and from
that there is an outward expression. THE FIRST AND LAST
FREEDOM CHAPTER 11 'SIMPLICITY'
- A simple person sees much more directly, has a more direct
experience, than the complex person. THE FIRST AND LAST
FREEDOM CHAPTER 11 'SIMPLICITY'
- That
simplicity comes only through self-knowledge, through understanding
ourselves; the ways of our thinking and feeling; the movements of
our thoughts; our responses; how we conform ...to
be safe, to be secure. THE FIRST AND LAST
FREEDOM CHAPTER 11 'SIMPLICITY'
- When one is seeking security, one is
obviously in a state of fear and therefore there is no simplicity.
- Without being simple, one cannot be
sensitive - to the trees, to the birds, to the mountains, to the
wind, to all the things which are going on about us in the world; if
one is not simple one cannot be sensitive to the inward intimation
of things.
- Most of us live so superficially, on the upper level of
our consciousness; there we try to be thoughtful or intelligent,
which is synonymous with being religious; there we try to make our
minds simple, through compulsion, through discipline. But that is
not simplicity.
- To be simple in the whole, total process of our
consciousness is extremely arduous; because there must be no inward
reservation, there must be an eagerness to find out, to inquire into
the process of our being, which means to be awake to every
intimation, to every hint; to be aware of our fears, of our hopes,
and to investigate and to be free of them more and more and more.
Only then, when the mind and the heart are really simple, not
encrusted, are we able to solve the many problems that confront us.
THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 11 'SIMPLICITY'
- Awareness:
- When you are aware, you see the whole process of your thinking and
action; but it can happen only when there is no condemnation.
- When I
condemn something, I do not understand it, and it is one way of
avoiding any kind of understanding. I think most of us do that
purposely; we condemn immediately and we think we have understood.
If we do not condemn but regard it, are aware of it, then the
content, the significance of that action begins to open up. Just be aware -
without any sense of justification - which may appear rather
negative but is not negative. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 12 'AWARENESS'
- If I want to understand you, I have to be
passively aware; then you begin to tell me all your story. Surely
that is not a question of capacity or specialization. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 12 'AWARENESS'
- To Be Aware Without Choice:
- What is important, surely, is to be aware without choice, because
choice brings about conflict. The chooser is in confusion, therefore
he chooses; if he is not in confusion, there is no choice. Only the
person who is confused chooses what he shall do or shall not do. The
man who is clear and simple does not choose; what is, is. Action
based on an idea is obviously the action of choice and such action
is not liberating; on the contrary, it only creates further
resistance, further conflict, according to that conditioned
thinking. THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 12 'AWARENESS'
- To Be Aware Without Memory:
- The important thing, therefore, is to be aware from moment to
moment without accumulating the experience which awareness brings;
because, the moment you accumulate, you are aware only according to
that accumulation, according to that pattern, according to that
experience. That is your awareness is conditioned by your
accumulation and therefore there is no longer observation but merely
translation. THE
FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 12 'AWARENESS'
- Where there is translation, there is choice, and choice
creates conflict; in conflict there can be no understanding. THE
FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM CHAPTER 12 'AWARENESS'
- Self Centered Love:
- Love is the only thing that is eternally new. Since most of us
have cultivated the mind, which is the result of time, we do not
know what love is. THE FIRST AND LAST
FREEDOM CHAPTER 19 'SELF-CENTRED ACTIVITY'
- We talk about love; we say we love people, that
we love our children, our wife, our neighbor, that we love nature;
but the moment we are conscious that we love, self-activity has come
into being; therefore it ceases to be love. THE FIRST AND LAST
FREEDOM CHAPTER 19 'SELF-CENTRED ACTIVITY'
- Organized Religion:
- First of all, one cannot belong to any organized religion. I think
that is one of the most difficult things for most human beings; they
want to cling to some kind of hope, belief, some kind of theory or
conclusion, or an experience of their own, giving it a religious
significance. Any kind of attachment and therefore dependence on
one’s particular, secret experience or the accumulated experience
of the so-called saints, the mystics, or your own particular guru or
teacher, all that must be completely and wholly set aside. I hope
you are doing it, because a religious mind is not burdened with
fear, or seeking out any form of security and pleasure. A mind that
is not burdened with experience is absolutely necessary to find out
what meditation is. In seeking experience lies the way to illusion.
Beyond Violence Chapter 10 The Religious Mind
- Meditation:
- Meditation is the emptying of the mind, totally. The content of
the mind is the result of time, of what is called evolution; it is
the result of a thousand experiences, a vast accumulation of
knowledge, of memories. - Beyond
Violence Chapter 10 The Religious Mind
- The mind is so burdened with the past
because all knowledge is the past, all experience is the past, and
all memory is the accumulated result of a thousand
experiences—that is the known. Beyond
Violence Chapter 10 The Religious Mind
- Authority:
- I am saying this most undogmatically: do not listen to
anybody—including the speaker, especially the speaker—because
you are very easily influenced, because you are all wanting
something, craving for something, craving for enlightenment, for
joy, for ecstasy, for heaven; you are caught very easily. So you
have to find it out completely by yourself. Therefore there is no
need to go to India, or to any Zen Buddhist monastery, to meditate,
or to look to any teacher; because if you know how to look,
everything is in you. Therefore you put aside completely all
authority, all looking to anybody, because truth does not belong to
anybody, it is not a personal matter. Meditation is not a private,
personal pleasure or experience. Beyond Violence Chapter 10 The
Religious Mind
Suggested Further Reading
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