Some words of J.Krishnamurti  

 

 Action

Action does not follow clarity; Clarity is action. You are concerned with what you should do, and not with being clear. You are torn between respectability and what you should do, between the hope and what is. The dual desire for respectability and for some ideal action brings conflict and confusion and only when you are capable of looking at what is, is there clarity. What is is not what should be, which is desire distorted to particular pattern; what is is actual, not the desirable but the fact. Whatever choice you make in state of confusion can only lead to further confusion.

 - Commentaries on Living, P.184

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Attachment

"We are the things we possess, we are that to which we are attached. Attachment has no nobility. Attachment to knowledge is not different from any other gratifying addiction. Attachment to anything is self-deception, it is an escape from hollowness of self. The things to which we are attached—property, people, ideas—become extraordinarily important for without the many things which fill its emptiness, self is not. The fear of not being makes for possession; and fear breeds illusions, the bondage to conclusions. Conclusions prevent the fruition of intelligence, the freedom in which alone reality comes to being; and without this freedom cunning is taken for intelligence.

It is this self-protective cunning that makes for attachment; and when attachment causes pain, it is the same cunning that seeks detachment and finds pleasure in the pride and vanity of renunciation. The understanding of the ways of cunning, the ways of self is the beginning of intelligence.

 - Commentaries on Living :1, P.113

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Belief

Belief is one thing, reality another. One leads to bondage and other is possible only in freedom. The two have no relationship. Belief can never lead to reality. Belief is the result of conditioning or outcome of fear, or the result of an outer or inner authority which gives comfort. The believing mind is not an enquiring mind, and so it remains within the limits of the formula or the principle. What is important is not what you believe but why you have beliefs at all.

They are result of fear or of the habit of accepting. It is the basic fear which prevents you being involved in what actually is.

To SEE, belief is not necessary, but absence of belief is necessary.

- THE ONLY REVOLUTION, P.163-165

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Pleasure and Joy

Thought wants to repeat the experience and more you repeat, the more mechanical it becomes, the more you think about it, the more strength thought gives to pleasure. So thought creates and sustains pleasure through desire and gives continuity.

Thought is never new, for thought is the response of memory, experience, knowledge. Thought, because it is old, makes this thing which you have looked at with delight, old. From the old you derive pleasure, never from the new. There is no time in the new. So if you can look at things without wanting the experience to be repeated then there will be no pain, fear and therefore tremendous joy. It is the struggle to repeat and perpetuate pleasure which turns into pain. 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 great delight in it without seeking pleasure from it.

- FREEDOM FROM THE KNOWN, P.36-38

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 Actuality

The actual is your life in the present...... but as the actual is confusing and painful, you turn to an experience which is over and dead. You may remember that experience, but it is finished; you give it life only through memory. It is like pumping life into a dead thing. The present being dull, shallow, we turn to the past or look to a self-projected future. This escape from the present inevitably leads to illusion. To see the present as it actually is, without condemnation or justification, is to understand what is, and then there is action which brings about a transformation in what is..

- Commentaries on Living 1, P. 121

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The Flame and the Smoke

"The smoke is not the flame, but we mistake it for the flame. Be aware of the smoke, that which is, without blowing away the smoke to see the flame.

"Is it possible to have that flame, or is it only for the few?"

Whether it is for the few or the many is not the point, is it? If we pursue that path it can only lead to ignorance and illusion. Our concern is with the flame. Can you have that flame, without smoke? Find out; observe the smoke silently and patiently. You cannot dispel the smoke, for you are the smoke. As the smoke goes, the flame will come. This flame is inexhaustible. Everything has a beginning and an ending, it is soon exhausted, worn out. When the heart is empty of the things of he mind, and the mind is empty of thought, then is there love. That which is empty is inexhaustible.

The battle is not between the flame and the smoke, but between the different responses within the smoke. The flame and the smoke can never be in conflict with each other. To be in conflict, they must be in relationship; and how can there be relationship between them? The one is when the other is not.

 - Commentaries on Living 1, p. 166

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 Shadow of the Past

How we are bound to the past! But we are not bound to the past : we are the past. And what a complicated thing the past is, layer upon layer of undigested memories, both cherished and sorrowful. It pursues us day and night, and occasionally there is a break-through, revealing a clear light. The past is like a shadow, making things dull and weary; in that shadow, the present loses its clarity, its freshness, and tomorrow is the continuation of the shadow.

The past, the present and the future are tied together by the long string of memory; the whole bundle is memory, with little fragrance. Thought moves through the present to the future and back again; like a restless animal tied to a post, it moves within its own radius, narrow or wide, but it is never free of its own shadow. This movement is the occupation of the mind with the past, the present and the future. The mind is the occupation. If the mind is not occupied, it ceases to exist; its very occupation is its existence. The occupation with insult and flattery, with God and drink, with virtue and passion, with work and expression, with storing up and giving, is all the same; it is still occupation worry, restlessness. To be occupied with something, whether with furniture or God, is a state of pettiness, shallowness.

 

- Commentaries on Living 1, p. 167

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Sensitivity

How insensitive we are, how lacking in swift and adequate response, how little free to observe ! Without sensitivity, how can there be pliability and a quickening perception; how can there be receptivity, an understanding free of striving? The very striving prevents understanding.

Understanding comes with high sensitivity, but sensitivity is not a thing to be cultivated. That which is cultivated is a pose, an artificial veneer; and this coating is not sensitivity, it is a mannerism, shallow or deep according to influence. Sensitivity is not a cultural effect, the result of influence; it is a state of being vulnerable, open. The open is the implicit, the unknown, the imponderable. But we take care not to be sensitive; it is too painful, too exacting. It demands constant adjustment, which is consideration. To consider is to be watchful; but we would rather be comforted, put to sleep, made dull. The newspapers, the magazines, the books, through our addiction to reading, leave their dulling imprint; for reading is a marvellous escape, like drink or a ceremony. We want to escape from the pain of life, and dullness is the most effective way; the dullness brought about by explanations, by following a leader or an ideal, by being identified with some achievement, some label of characteristic. Most of us want to be made dull and habit is very effective in putting the mind to sleep. The habit of discipline, of practice, of sustained effort to become—these are respectable ways of being made insensitive.

What do the dull and insensitive bring to the world? What is the outcome of their "effective" action? Wars, confusion within and without, ruthlessness and increasing misery for themselves and so for the world. The action of the unwatchful inevitably leads to destruction, to physical insecurity, to disintegration. But sensitivity is not easy to come by; sensitivity is the understanding of the simple, which is highly complex. It is not a withdrawal, a shrivelling up, an isolating process. To act with sensitivity is to be aware of the total process of the actor.

 - Commentaries on Living 1, p. 180

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Sensitivity

The man who possesses, whether property or knowledge, can never be sensitive, he can never be vulnerable or open. To possess is to be made dull, whether the possession is virtue or coins. To possess a person is to be unaware of that person; to seek and to possess reality is to deny it. When you try to become virtuous, you are no longer virtuous; your seeking virtue is only the attainment or gratification at different level.

Gratification is not virtue, but virtue is freedom. How can the dull, the respectable the unvirtuous be free? The freedom of aloneness is not the enclosing process of isolation. To be isolated in wealth or in poverty, in knowledge or in success, in idea or in virtue, is to be dull, insensitive. The dull, the respectable cannot commune; and when they do it is with their own self-projections. To commune there must be sensitivity vulnerability, the freedom from becoming which is freedom from fear.

Love is not a becoming, a state of "I shall be". That which is becoming cannot commune, for it is ever isolating itself. Love is the vulnerable; love is the open, the imponderable, the unknown.

 - Commentaries on Living, I, P. 182

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Fulfilment

There is no self-fulfilment, but only self perpetuation with its ever increasing conflicts, antagonism, and miseries. To seek lasting gratification at any level of own being is to bring about confusion and sorrow; for gratification can never be permanent.

Ignorance of the ways of self leads to the illusion, and once caught in the net of illusion, it is extremely hard to break through it. It is difficult to recognize an illusion, for having created it, the mind cannot be aware of it. It must be approached negatively, indirectly. Unless the ways of desire are understood, illusion is inevitable. Illusion is very gratifying, and hence our attachment to it. Only through passive yet alert awareness is there freedom from fear.

- Commentaries on Living, P. 82

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Barriers

How easy it is to destroy the thing we love ! How quickly a barrier comes between us, a word, a gesture, a smile ! Health, mood and desire cast a shadow, and what was bright becomes dull and burdensome. Through usage we wear ourselves out, and that which was sharp and clear becomes wearisome and confused. Through constant friction, hope and frustration, that which was beautiful and simple becomes fearful and expectant.

 - Commentaries on Living, P. 40

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 Belief

How easily we destroy the delicate sensitivity of our being! The incessant strife and struggle, the anxious escapes and fears soon dull the mind and the heart, and the cunning mind quickly finds substitutes for the sensitivity of life. Amusements, family, politics, beliefs and gods, take the place of clarity and love. Clarity is lost by knowledge and belief, and love by sensations. Does belief bring clarity? Does the tightly enclosing wall of belief bring understanding?

What is the necessity of beliefs, and do they not darken the already crowded mind? The understanding of what is does not demand beliefs, but direct perception, which is to be directly aware without the interference of desire. It is desire that makes for confusion, and belief is the extension of desire. The ways of desire are subtle, and without understanding them belief only increases conflict, confusion and antagonism. The other name for belief is faith, and faith is also the refuge of desire.

We turn to belief as a means of action. Belief gives us that peculiar strength which comes from exclusion; and as most of us are concerned with doing, belief becomes a necessity. We feel we cannot act without belief, because it is belief that gives us something to live for, to work for. To most of us, life has no meaning but that which belief gives it; belief has greater significance than life. We think that life must be lived in the pattern of belief; for without a pattern of some kind, how can there be action? So our action is based on idea, or is the outcome of idea ; and action, then, is not as important as idea.

Can the things of the mind, however brilliant and subtle, ever bring about the completeness of action, a radical transformation in one’s being and so in the social order? Is idea the means of action? Idea may bring about a certain series of actions, but that is mere activity; and activity is wholly different from action. It is in this activity that one is caught; and when for some reason or other activity stops, then one feels lost and life becomes meaningless, empty. We are aware of this emptiness, consciously or unconsciously and so idea and activity become all important. We fill this emptiness with belief, and activity becomes an intoxicating necessity. For the sake of this activity, we will renounce; we will adjust ourselves to any inconvenience, to any illusion.

The activity of belief is confusing and destructive, it may at first seem orderly and constructive, but in its wake there is conflict and misery.

 - Commentaries on Living 1, P. 55

 

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Love

The process of thought ever denies love. It is thought, that has emotional complications, not love. Thought is the greatest hindrance to love. Thought creates a division between what is and what should be, and on this division morality is based; but neither the moral nor the immoral know love. This moral structure, created by the mind to hold social relationships together, is not love, but a hardening process like that of cement. Thought does not lead to love, thought does not cultivate love; for love can not be cultivated as a plant in a garden. The very desire to cultivate love is the action of thought.

If you are at all aware you will see what an important part thought plays in your life. Thought obviously has its place, but it is in no way related to love.

 - Commentaries on Living, 1, P. 16

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The person who is uncertain of his own judgement, resorts instinctively to authority and tradition, and the effect is to weaken his capacity for judgement and to defraud it of its true aim.

TALKS IN OJAI : 1930

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Separation between God or reality and yourself is brought about by you, by the mind that clings to the known, to certainty, to security. This separation cannot be bridged over; nobody can lead you to the real or destroy this separation. The division is not between the real and yourself; it is in yourself.

Commentaries on Living  Vol.1, P.95