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Only observation - JKOnline Daily Quotes |
| Posted: Q:You tell us to observe our actions in daily life but what is the entity that decides what to observe and when? Who decides if one should observe? Krishnamurti:Do you decide to observe? Or do you merely observe? Do you decide and say, `I am going to observe and learn'? For then there is the question: `Who is deciding?' Is it will that says, `I must'? And when it fails, it chastises itself further and says, `I must, must, must; in that there is conflict; therefore the state of mind that has decided to observe is not observation at all. You are walking down the road, somebody passes you by, you observe and you may say to yourself, `How ugly he is; how he smells; I wish he would not do this or that'. You are aware of your responses to that passer-by, you are aware that you are judging, condemning or justifying; you are observing. You do not say, `I must not judge, I must not justify'. In being aware of your responses, there is no decision at all. You see somebody who insulted you yesterday. Immediately all your hackles are up, you become nervous or anxious, you begin to dislike; be aware of your dislike, be aware of all that, do not `decide' to be aware. Observe, and in that observation there is neither the `observer' nor the `observed' - there is only observation taking place. The `observer' exists only when you accumulate in the observation; when you say, `He is my friend because he has flattered me', or, `He is not my friend, because he has said something ugly about me, or something true which I do not like,. That is accumulation through observation and that accumulation is the observer. When you observe without accumulation, then there is no judgement. You can do this all the time; in that observation naturally certain definite decisions are natural results, not decisions made by the observer who has accumulated. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti 5th Public Talk Saanen 26th July 1970 |
| Posted: Surely, since you have burnt yourself in politics, your problem is not only to break away from society, but to come totally to life again, to love and to be simple. Without love, do what you may, you will not know the total action which alone can save man. "That is true, sir: we don't love, we aren't really simple." Why? Because you are concerned with reforms, with duties, with respectability, with becoming something, with breaking through to the other side. In the name of another, you are concerned with yourself; you are caught in your own cockleshell. You think you are the center of this beautiful earth. You never pause to look at a tree, at a flower, at the flowing river; and if by chance you do look, your eyes are filled with the things of the mind, and not with beauty and love. "Again, that is true; but what is one to do?" Look and be simple. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series III |
| Posted: The earth and everything upon it became holy. It was not that the mind was aware of this peace as something outside of itself, something to be remembered and communicated, but there was a total absence of any movement of the mind. There was only the immeasurable. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series III |
| Posted: The craving for experience is the beginning of illusion. As you now realize, your visions were but the projections of your background, of your conditioning, and it is these projections that you have experienced. Surely this is not meditation. The beginning of meditation is the understanding of the background, of the self, and without this understanding, what is called meditation, however pleasurable or painful, is merely a form of self-hypnosis. You have practised self-control, mastered thought, and concentrated on the furthering of experience. This is a self-centred occupation, it is not meditation; and to perceive that it is not meditation is the beginning of meditation. To see the truth in the false sets the mind free from the false. Freedom from the false does not come about through the desire to achieve it; it comes when the mind is no longer concerned with success with the attainment of an end. There must be the cessation of all search, and only then is there a possibility of the coming into being of that which is nameless. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series III |
| Is there such thing as transformation? Posted: Q: Is there such a thing as transformation? What is it to be transformed? Krishnamurti: When you are observing, seeing the dirt on the road, seeing how politicians behave, seeing your own attitude towards your wife, your children and so on, transformation is there. Do you understand? To bring about some kind of order in daily life, that is transformation; not something extraordinary, out of this world. When one is not thinking clearly, rationally, be aware of that and change it, break it. That is transformation. If you are jealous watch it, don't give it time to flower, change it immediately. That is transformation. When you are greedy, violent, ambitious, trying to become some kind of holy man, see how it is creating a world of tremendous uselessness. I don't know if you are aware of this. Competition is destroying the world. The world is becoming more and more competetive, more and more aggressive, and if you change it immediately, that is transformation. And if you go very much deeper into the problem, it is clear that thought denies love. Therefore one has to find out whether there is an end to thought, an end to time, not philosophize over it and discuss it, but find out. Truly that is transformation, and if you go into it very deeply, transformation means never a thought of becoming, comparing; it is being absolutely nothing. - Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti Foudation Trust Bulletin 42, 1982 |
| Posted: The essence of goodness is a mind that is not in conflict. Examine it, look at it. Goodness cannot flower through another, through a religious figure, through dogma, through belief, it can only flower in the soil of total attention in which there is no authority. You are following all this? Is this all too complex? And goodness implies great responsibility. You cannot be good and allow wars to take place. So a man that is really good is totally responsible for all his life. - Krishnamurti, This Light in Oneself, conversation 1316, Ojai, April 1979 |
| Goodness, love and intelligence Posted: The only thing that really matters is that there be an action of goodness, love and intelligence in living. Is goodness individual or collective, is love personal or impersonal, is intelligence yours, mine or somebody else? If it is yours or mine then it is not intelligence, or love, or goodness. If goodness is an affair of the individual or of the collective, according to one s particular preference or decision, then it is no longer goodness. Goodness is not in the backyard of the individual nor in the open field of the collective; goodness flowers only in freedom from both. - Krishnamurti, The Urgency of Change, Conversation 5. |
| Posted: Goodness has no opposite. Most of us consider goodness as the opposite of the bad or evil and so throughout history in any culture goodness has been considered the other face of that which is brutal. So man has always struggled against evil in order to be good; but goodness can never come into being if there is any form of violence or struggle. - Krishnamurti, Letters to the Schools vol I |
| Goodness shows itself in behaviour Posted: Goodness shows itself in behaviour and action and in relationship. Generally our daily behaviour is based on either the following of certain patterns - mechanical and therefore superficial - or according to very carefully thought-out motive, based on reward or punishment. So our behaviour, consciously or unconsciously, is calculated. This is not good behaviour. When one realizes this, not merely intellectually or by putting words together, then out of this total negation comes true behaviour. - Krishnamurti, Letters to the Schools vol I |
| Posted: Goodness can flower only in freedom. It cannot bloom in the soil of persuasion in any form, nor under compulsion, nor is it the outcome of reward. It does not reveal itself when there is any kind of imitation or conformity, and naturally it cannot exist when there is fear. Goodnessshows itself in behaviour and this behaviour is based on sensitivity. This goodness is expressed in action. The whole movement of thought is not goodness. Thought, which is so very complex, must be understood, but the very understanding of it awakens thought to its own limitation. - Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti Letters to Schools Volume One 1st September, 1978 |
| To remain with a fact without trying to change Posted: To say, I am angry and remain with that fact without trying to change, without trying to explain it away, is very difficult. I do not know if you have noticed that to live with an ugly thing without its corrupting you is very difficult. To live with an ugly picture and not let it pervert your sensitivity is very difficult because to live with an ugly thing releases a tremendous amount of energy, just as living with a beautiful thing does. You see a lovely tree in your garden, and you are proud of it, or you are used to it. Or, you see a filthy road, and you get used to it. To live with it and not let that dirty road corrupt you, or to live with something very beautiful without getting used to it, you need a great deal of energy, you need a great deal of sensitive awareness, don't you? Otherwise you get used to both; you become dull to beauty and to ugliness. So a mind that has become accustomed to ideals has become dull; it accepts postponing, and postponement is a facile habit. If you deny ideas, if you deny ideals, then you are free to face the fact. - Krishnamurti, The Collected Works vol XII, p 290 |
| Posted: For most of us, change implies the continuation of ourselves in a modified form. If we are dissatisfied with a particular pattern of ideas, of rituals, of conditioning, we throw it aside and pick up the same pattern in a different milieu, a different colour, with different rituals, different words. Instead of Latin it is Sanskrit, or some other language, but it is still the old pattern repeated over and over and over again; and within this pattern we think we are moving, changing. Because we are dissatisfied with what we are, we go from one teacher to another. Seeing confusion about us and in ourselves, seeing perpetual wars, ever-increasing destruction, devastation and misery, we want some haven, some peace; and if we can find a refuge that gives us a sense of security, a sense of permanency, with that we are satisfied.So, when the mind projects an idea and clings to it, struggles towards it, surely that is not change, that is not transformation, that is not revolution, because it is still within the field of the mind, the field of time. To clear away all that, we must be conscious of what we are doing, we must be aware of it. - Krishnamurti, The Collected Works vol VII, pp 7-8 |
| The self is nothing but words and memories Posted: So what are you? You are a name, a form, the result of a society, a culture which has emphasized throughout the ages that you are separate, something indefinitely identifiable. Right? You have your character, your particular tendency, either aggressive or yielding. Is that not put together by the culture which has been brought about by thought? It is very difficult for people to accept a very simple, logical examination, because they would like to think that the self is something most extraordinary. We are pointing out that the self is nothing but words and memories. - Krishnamurti, On Mind and Thought, pp 68-69 |
| The self is a book of many volumes Posted: To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found. - Krishnamurti, The Collected Works vol III, p 219 |
| All authority must come to an end Posted: What we are going to do is to learn about ourselves —not according to the speaker, or to Freud, or to Jung, to some analyst or philosopher— but to learn actually what we are. If we learn about ourselves according to Freud we learn about Freud, not about ourselves. To learn about oneself, all authority must come to an end, all authority—whether it be the authority of the church or of the local priest, or the famous analyst, or of the greatest philosophers with their intellectual formulas, and so on. So the first thing that one has to realize when we become serious, demanding a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, is that there is no authority of any kind. That is very difficult, for there is not only the outward authority, which one can easily reject, but there is inward authority: the inward authority of one's own experience, of one's own accumulated knowledge, of the opinions, ideas, ideals which guide one's life and according to which one tries to live. - Krishnamurti, Talks and Dialogues Saanen 1967, p 11 |
| The real problem is the mind itself Posted: It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness. If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it.It is the same with the problem of existence, the problem of bread, the problem of love, the problem of sex, the problem of relationship, the problem of death. These are all enormous problems, and we approach them with a small mind; we try to resolve them with a mind that is very limited. Though it has extraordinary capacities and is capable of invention, of subtle, cunning thought, the mind is still petty. It may be able to quote Marx, or the Gita, or some other religious book, but it is still a small mind, and a small mind confronted with a complex problem can only translate that problem in terms of itself, and therefore the problem, the misery increases. So the question is: Can the mind that is small, petty, be transformed into something which is not bound by its own limitations? - Krishnamurti, The Collected Works vol X, pp 155-156 |
| Why can’t we…not seek an answer to a problem? Posted: The answer is in the problem, not away from the problem. I go through the searching, analysing, dissecting process, in order to escape from the problem. But, if I do not escape from the problem and try to look at the problem without any fear or anxiety, if I merely look at the problem—mathematical, political, religious, or any other—and not look to an answer, then the problem will begin to tell me. Surely, this is what happens. We go through this process and eventually throw it aside because there is no way out of it. So, why can't we start right from the beginning, that is, not seek an answer to a problem?—which is extremely arduous, isn't it? Because, the more I understand the problem, the more significance there is in it. To understand, I must approach it quietly, not impose on the problem my ideas, my feelings of like and dislike. Then the problem will reveal its significance.Why is it not possible to have tranquillity of the mind right from the beginning? - Krishnamurti, The Collected Works vol V, p 283 |
| Posted: From childhood we are trained to have problems. When we are sent to school, we have to learn how to write, how to read, and all the rest of it. How to write becomes a problem to the child. Please follow this carefully. Mathematics becomes a problem, history becomes a problem, as does chemistry. So the child is educated, from childhood, to live with problems—the problem of God, problem of a dozen things. So our brains are conditioned, trained, educated to live with problems. From childhood we have done this. What happens when a brain is educated in problems? It can never solve problems; it can only create more problems. When a brain that is trained to have problems, and to live with problems, solves one problem, in the very solution of that problem, it creates more problems. From childhood we are trained, educated to live with problems and, therefore, being centred in problems, we can never solve any problem completely. It is only the free brain that is not conditioned to problems that can solve problems. It is one of our constant burdens to have problems all the time. Therefore our brains are never quiet, free to observe, to look. So we are asking: Is it possible not to have a single problem but to face problems? But to understand those problems, and to totally resolve them, the brain must be free. - Krishnamurti, That Benediction is Where You Are, pp 18-19 |
| To look at life not as a problem Posted: First, we must be very clear that you and the speaker are treating life not as a problem but as a tremendous movement. If your brain is trained to solve problems, then you will treat this movement as a problem to be solved. Is it possible to look at life with all its questions, with all its issues, which is tremendously complex, to look at it not as a problem, but to observe it clearly, without bias, without coming to some conclusion which will then dictate your observation? You have to observe this vast movement of life, not only your own particular life, but the life of all humanity, the life of the earth, the life of the trees, the life of the whole world—look at it, observe it, move with it, but if you treat it as a problem, then you will create more problems. - Krishnamurti, Mind Without Measure, p105 |
| We are really inquiring into the whole human being Posted: I would like now, if I may, to go into the problem of observing ourselves. When we observe ourselves we are not isolating ourselves, limiting ourselves, becoming self-centred, because, as we explained, we are the world and the world is us. This is a fact. And when we, as human beings, examine the whole content of our consciousness, of ourselves, we are really inquiring into the whole human being—whether he lives in Asia, Europe, or America. So it is not a self-centred activity. When we are observing ourselves, we are not becoming selfish, self-centred, becoming more and more neurotic, lopsided; on the contrary, we are examining, when we look at ourselves, the whole human problem of misery, conflict and the appalling things that man has made for himself and for others. So it is very important to understand this fact that we are the world and the world is us. You may have superficial mannerisms, superficial tendencies, but basically all human beings throughout this unfortunate world go through misery, confusion, turmoil, violence, despair, agony. So there is a common ground upon which we all meet. So when we observe ourselves, we are observing human beings. - Krishnamurti, On Mind and Thought, pp 62-63 |
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