Here you will find some thoughts and quotes by J.Krishnamurti from various sources - these first few passages are mainly dealing with Fear and the Art of Seeing ----------------------------------------------------- From The Awakening of Intelligence - Fear and Pleasure I see also, that I want a great deal of pleasure, sexual pleasure, the pleasure of achieving, fulfilling, of being somebody. I want those pleasures, which I have had, repeated. And when I get bored with them I want wider, deeper pleasures. My principle drive is pleasure - in every direction. So I want to avoid fear and I want more pleasure. This is what we all want. Is pleasure seperate from fear ? Or are they the two sides of the same coin ? I must find out not say "Yes or No" I must put my teeth into it and find out whether pleasure does breed fear and whether fear is the result of my demand for pleasure. You have understood my question ? That's all I am talking of. We are demanding, pursueing, pleasure ; everything is based on this. And when that is not fulfilled, I become uncertain. So I am asking myself whether pleasure and fear don't go together. I never question pleasure, I never say, " Should I have so much pleasure ?" " Where does it lead ?" but I want more of it, in heaven, on earth, in my family, in sex - it is driving me in everything. And fear is there also. Look at it please, don't stick to your particular opinion, for God's sake move from it ! Find out ! So follow this: I want certainty of tomorrow, and certainty can only exist where there is knowledge, when I say, " I know " . Can I know anything except the past ? The moment I say I " I know " it is already the past. When I say " I know my wife ", I know her in terms of the past. In the past there is certainty and in the future there is uncertainty. So I want to draw the future into the past so that I will be completely safe. I see fear arises where thought is operating ; if I did not think about tomorrow there would be no fear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The man who wants to live a rich, complete life, a life full of beauty and vitality has to be really free of fear J.K ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From The Awakening of Intelligence - Freedom So to understand this living we have to look at it; to come intimately into contact with it, not have the space and time interval between yourself and it. You don't have this time space interval when you have deep physical pain, you act, you don't theorise, you don't quarrel about whether there is Atman or no Atman, soul or no soul, you don't begin to quote the Gita, the Upanishads, the Koran, or the Bible or some saint. Then you are face to face with actual life. Life is that movement which is active, the doing, the thinking, the feeling, the fears, the guilt, the despair - that is life. And one has to be intimately in contact with it. And one cannot be intensely, passionately, vitally, in contact, if there is fear. Fear is what makes us believe, whether our belief is in the ideological community of the Communist, or the theocratical idea of a clergyman or a priest. All these things are born out of fear; obviously all gods, all, are the outcome of our agony; and when we worship them we are worshipping our agony; our lonliness, despair, misery and sorrow. Do please listen to all this -- it is your life, not my life. You have to face this and so you have to understand fear. And you cannot understand fear if you don't understand life. You have to uinderstand the jealousy that you have, the envy - envy and jealousy which are merely the indications of fear. And you can understand totally (not intellectually, there is no such thing as understanding intellectually, there is only understanding totally), you can understand totally and it is like looking at that sunset with your mind, with your heart, with your eyes, with your nerves; it is then you understand. And to understand jealousy, envy, ambition, cruelty, violence (to understand them and give your complete attention at the moment you feel envious, angry, jealous or full of hate, or feel dishonest in yourself), then, if you understand that, you will understand fear. But you can't take fear as an abstraction. After all fear exists in relation to something. Are you not afraid of your neighbour, of the government, of your wife, or your husband, afraid of death, and so on? You have to observe, not fear, but enquire as to what has brought this about. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To live fully is to live without fear, without sorrow, without asking a thing of the gods, because you would be a light unto yourself - J.K ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From the Awakening of Intelligence - The Art of Seeing So it is very important to understand that the act of seeing is the only truth; there is nothing else. If I know how to see a tree, or a bird, or a lovely face, or the smile of a child - there it is, I don't have to do anything more. But that seeing of the bird, of the leaf, listening to the noise of the birds, becomes almost impossible because of the image that one has built, not only about nature but also about others. And these images actually prevent us from seeing and feeling; feeling being entirely different from sentimentality and emotion. -------------------------------- So what one has to do is to see. You cannot see, if you are not sensitive and you are not sensitive if you have an image between you and the thing seen. Do you understand ? So seeing is the act of love. You know what makes the total mind sensitive ? - only love. You can learn a technique and yet love; but if you have technique and no love you are going to destroy the world. Do watch it in yourselves, Sirs, do go into it in your own minds and hearts and you will see it for yourselves. Seeing, observing, listening, these are the greatest acts, because you cannot see if you are looking out from that little corner, you cannot see what is happening in the world, the despair, the anxiety, the aching loneliness, the tears of the mothers, wives, lovers, of those people who have been killed. But you have to see all this, not emotionally, nor sentimentally, not saying, " Well I am against war" or "I am for war" , as that sentimentality and emotionalism are the most destructive things - they avoid facts and so avoid what is. So the seeing is all important. The seeing is the understanding; you cannot understand through the mind, through the intellect, or understand through a fragment. There is undestanding only when the mind is completely quiet, which means when there is no image. Seeing destroys all barriers. Looks Sirs, as long as there is seperation between you and the tree, between you and me and between you and your neighbour (that neighbour being a thousand miles away or next door) , there must be conflict. Seperation means conflict, that is very simple. And we have lived in conflict, we are used to conflict and to seperation. You see India as a unit -geographical, political. economical, social, cultural, and the same goes for Europe, and America, and Russia : seperate units, each against the other, and all this seperation is bound to breed war. This does'nt mean that we must all agree, or if we disagree that I am doing battle with you; there is no disagreement whatsoever, or agreement, when you see something as it is. It is only when you have opinions about what you see, that there is disagreement and that there is seperation. When you and I see that it is the moon, then there is no disagreement, it is the moon. But if you think it is something, and I think it is something else, then there is conflict. So in seeing a tree, when you actually see it, there is no division between you and the tree, there is no observer seeing the tree. We were talking one day to a very learned doctor, who had taken a drug called L.S.D ., a minute dosage, and there were two doctors beside him with a tape recorder registering what he was saying. After a few seconds he saw the flowers on the table in front of him, and between those flowers and himself there was no space, which means that there was no observer. We are not advocating that you should take L.S.D., because it has it's own deleterious effects; and also when you take such things you become a slave to them. But there is a much simpler, more direct, more natural way, which is to observe for yourself a tree, a flower, the face of a person; to look at any one of them, and so look that the space between you and them is non-existent. And you can only look that way when there is love - that word which has been so misused. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And in that seeing there is all beauty, and with beauty there is love. Then when there is love there is nothing more to do. Then where you are, you have heaven; then all seeking comes to an end. - J.K -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next |
| Briefly - for those who have never heard of J.Krishnamurti he was not some mystical Indian Guru or a leader of any whacko cult, in fact he was just the opposite, he was anti Guru's anti clubs, cults etc. He did'nt have much time for traditions or religions either. He was all for people thinking & observing for themselves - will put a more descriptive bio up soon. |