Truth is a pathless land 

- My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free -

"I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect"

"Freedom comes with self-knowledge, when the mind goes above and beyond the hindrances it has created for itself through craving its own security"

"Understanding can never be made into a habit, a matter of routine; it demands constant watchfulness, alertness. To understand, there must be pliability, sensitivity, a warmth that has nothing to do with sentimentality"

- J. Krishnamurti

 The First & Last Freedom 

“It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.”

“Virtue can flower only when there is freedom.”

“To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. It is only in that state that one learns and observes.”

"This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies."

- J. Krishnamurti

 Don't follow any authority 

Question:

We have been told that thought must be controlled to bring about that state of tranquillity necessary to understand reality. Could you please tell us how to control thought?

Krishnamurti:

First, Sir, don't follow any authority. Authority is evil. Authority destroys, authority perverts, authority corrupts; and a man who follows authority, is destroying himself, and destroying also that which he has placed in a position of authority. The follower destroys the master, as the master destroys the follower. The guru destroys the pupil, as the pupil destroys the guru.

Through authority you will never find anything. You must be free of authority to find reality. It is one of the most difficult things to be free of authority, both the outer and the inner. Inner authority is the consciousness of experience, consciousness of knowledge. And outward authority is the State, the party, the group, the community. A man who would find reality must shun all authority, external and inward. So, don't be told what to think. That is the curse of reading: the word of another becomes all-important.

The questioner begins by saying: "We have been told." Who is there to tell you? Sir, don't you see that leaders and saints and great teachers have failed, be cause you are what you are? So leave them alone. You have made them failures because you are not seeking truth, you want gratification. Don't follow anyone, including myself; don't make of another your authority. You yourself have to be the master and the pupil. The moment you acknowledge another as a master and yourself as a pupil, you are denying truth. There is no master, no pupil, in the search for truth.

The search for Truth is important, not you or the master who is going to help you to find the truth. You see, modern education, and also the previous education, have taught you what to think, not how to think. They have put you within a frame, and that frame has destroyed you; because you seek out a guru, a teacher, a leader, political or other, only when you are confused. Otherwise you never follow anybody. If you are very clear, if you are inwardly a light unto yourself, you will never follow anyone. But because you are not, you follow, you follow out of your confusion; and what you follow must also be confused. Your elders, as well as yourself, are confused, politically and religiously. Therefore, first clear up your own confusion, become a light unto yourself, and then the problem will cease. The division between the master and the pupil is unspiritual.

Now, the questioner wants to know how to control thought. First of all, to control it, you must know what thought is and who is the controller. Are they two separate processes, or a joint phenomenon? You must first understand what thought is, must you not?, before you say, "I will control thought; and also you must know what the controller is. Is there a controller without thought? If you have no thoughts, is there a thinker? The thinker is the thought, the thought is not separate from the thinker, they form a single process.

 
- J. Krishnamurti talk February 20, 1949

 Osho on "The Observer is the Observed" 

Question:

Osho,

There is a statement by J. Krishnamurti that "the Observer is the Observed." will you please kindly elaborate and explain what it means?

The statement that “the observer is the observed” is one of the most significant things ever said by any man on the earth. The statement is as extraordinary as J. Krishnamurti was.

It is difficult to understand it only intellectually, because the way of the intellect is dialectical, dualistic.

On the path of intellect the subject can never be the object, the seer can never be the seen. The observer cannot be the observed. As far as intellect is concerned, it is an absurd statement, meaningless – not only meaningless, but insane.

The intellectual approach towards reality is that of division: the knower and the known have to be separate. Only then is there a possibility of knowledge between the two. The scientist cannot become science, the scientist has to remain separate from what he is doing. The experimenter is not allowed to become the experiment itself. As far as intellect is concerned, logic is concerned, it looks absolutely valid.

But there is a knowledge that passeth understanding, there is a knowing that goes beyond science.

Only because that kind of knowing which goes beyond science is possible, is mysticism possible, is religiousness possible.

Let us move from a different direction. Science divides the whole of human experience and existence into two parts: the known and the unknown. That which is known today was unknown yesterday. That which is unknown today may become known tomorrow, so the distance is not impossible, unbridgeable. The distance is only because man’s knowledge is growing, and as his knowledge grows the area of his ignorance diminishes. In other words, as he knows more, the area of the unknown becomes less and the area of the known becomes bigger.

If we follow this logic, the ultimate result will be that one day there will be nothing left as unknown.

Slowly, slowly, the unknown will change into the known, and the moment will come when there is nothing left as unknown. That is the goal of science, to destroy ignorance – but to destroy ignorance means to destroy all possibilities of exploration, all possibilities of the unknown challenging you to move forward.

The destruction of ignorance means the death of all intelligence, because there will be no need for intelligence anymore. It will be simply something which was useful in the past – you can put it in a museum – but it is of no use anymore. This is not a very exciting picture.

Mysticism does not agree with science, it goes beyond it.

According to mysticism, existence and experience is divided into three parts: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. The known was unknown one day, the unknown will become known one day, but the unknowable will remain unknowable; it will remain mysterious. Whatever you do, the mystery will always surround existence. The mystery will always be there around life, around love, around meditation.

The mystery cannot be destroyed.

Ignorance can be destroyed, but by destroying ignorance you cannot destroy the miraculous, the mysterious.

J. Krishnamurti’s statement belongs to the unknowable.

I have been telling you that as you meditate… and by meditation I simply mean as you become more and more aware of your mind process. If the mind process is one hundred percent, taking your whole energy, you will be fast asleep inside – there will be no alertness. [....]

Your mind is a constant traffic of thoughts, and it is always rush hour, day in, day out.

Meditation means to watch the movement of thoughts in the mind.

Just be an observer, as if you are standing by the side of the road watching the traffic – no judgment, no evaluation, no condemnation, no appreciation – just pure observation.

As you become more and more accustomed to observation, a strange phenomenon starts happening. If you are ten percent aware, that much energy has moved from the mind process to the observer; now the mind has only ninety percent energy available. A moment comes… you have fifty percent of energy. And your energy goes on growing as mind goes on losing its energy.

The traffic becomes less and less and less, and you become more and more and more.

Your witnessing self goes on increasing in integrity, expanding; it becomes stronger and stronger.

And the mind goes on becoming weaker and weaker: ninety percent observer and ten percent mind, ninety-nine percent observer and only one percent mind.

One hundred percent observer and the mind disappears, the road is empty; the screen of the mind becomes completely empty, nothing moves. There is only the observer.

This is the state J. Krishnamurti’s statement is pointing at. When there is nothing to observe, when there is only the observer left, then the observer itself becomes the observed – because there is nothing else to observe, what else to do? The knower simply knows itself. The seer sees himself.

The energy that was going towards objects, thoughts… there are no thoughts, no objects. The energy has no way to go anywhere; it simply becomes a light unto itself. There is nothing that it lights, it lights only itself – a flame surrounded by silence, surrounded by nothingness.

That is Krishnamurti’s way of saying it, that the observer becomes the observed. You can call it enlightenment, it is the same thing: the light simply lights itself, there is nothing else to fall upon. You have dissolved the mind. You are alone, fully alert and aware.

Krishnamurti is using a phrase of his own. He was a little fussy about it… not to use anybody else’s phrase, anybody else’s word – not to use anything that has been used by other masters. So his whole life, he was coining his own phrases.

But you can change only the expression, you cannot change the experience. The experience is eternal. It makes no difference whether somebody calls it enlightenment, somebody calls it nirvana, somebody calls it samadhi, somebody calls it something else. You can give it your own name but remember, the experience should not be changed by your words.

And it is not changed by J. Krishnamurti’s words. They are perfectly applicable, although they are not so glamorous as nirvana, Gautam Buddha’s word, or samadhi, Patanjali’s word, or il’aham, Mohammed’s word. ”The observer is the observed” looks too mundane. It certainly points to the reality, but the words in themselves are not very poetic, are very ordinary. And the extraordinary should not be indicated by the ordinary; that is sacrilegious.

So there are many people around the world who have been listening to J. Krishnamurti. They will listen to these words, “The observer becomes the observed,” and they will not have even a far-off notion of nirvana or enlightenment or samadhi.

I don’t like this fussiness. I don’t want to say anything against that old man because he is dead. If he were alive I would say something against him, certainly. His whole effort – and he lived long, ninety years – was somehow to prove that he was original in everything, even in expressions.

I don’t feel the necessity. If you are original, you are original. There is no need to shout from the housetops that “I am original,” that “I am fortunate that I have not read any sacred scriptures.”

And this is not true, because even to avoid samadhi, nirvana, enlightenment, you have to know those words; otherwise, how can you avoid them? He may not have read them himself; somebody else may have read them, and he must have heard it.

And that’s what actually had happened: from his childhood he was being taught to become a world teacher, so others were telling him…. He was just nine years old, so he was not telling a lie by saying that he had not read the sacred scriptures; but the sacred scriptures were read to him.[....]

For thousands of years, anybody who has reached to the point of no-mind and only awareness has given names which are far more meaningful than J. Krishnamurti’s words. For example, Patanjali’s word is the most important and the most ancient: samadhi. In Sanskrit, sickness is called vyadhi, and to go beyond all sickness is called samadhi. It has a beauty – going beyond all sickness; attaining wholeness, perfection. It has a beauty and a meaning.

Gautam Buddha used the word nirvana… because he was trying to make an effort twenty-five centuries after Patanjali. In these twenty-five centuries Patanjali had been misused. The people who were trying to reach samadhi made it some kind of ego trip. The word ‘samadhi’ is very positive – beyond all illness, wholeness. There is a loophole in it: it can give you an idea that “I will become perfect, beyond all limitations, all sicknesses. I will become whole.” But the danger is that this “I” may be your ego – most probably it will be, because your mind is still there.

The samadhi is true when the mind is gone. Then you can say, “I have gone beyond sickness” because the ego was also a sickness – in fact, the greatest sickness that man suffers from. Now your “I” does not mean ego. It simply means your individuality, not your personality. It simply means the universal in you, just the dewdrop which contains the ocean. The emphasis has changed completely. It is not the dewdrop that is claiming; it is the ocean that is proclaiming.

But because many people became egoistic… and you can see those people even today. Your saints, sages, mahatmas, are so full of ego that one is surprised – even ordinary people are not so full of ego. But their egos are very subtle, very refined.

Gautam Buddha had to find a new word, and the word had to be negative so that ego could not make a trick for itself. ‘Nirvana’ is a negative word; it simply means “blowing out the candle”… a very beautiful word. Blowing out the candle, what happens? – Just pure darkness remains.

Buddha is saying that when your ego has disappeared like the flame of the candle, what remains – that silence, that peace, that eternal bliss – is nirvana.

And certainly he was successful: nobody has been able to make nirvana an ego-trip. How can you make nirvana an ego-trip? The ego has to die. It is implied in the word itself, that you will have to disappear in smoke. What will be left behind is your true reality, is your pure existence, is your truth, is your being – and to find it is to find all.

But Buddha had a reason to change the word ‘samadhi’ into ‘nirvana’. J. Krishnamurti had no reason at all, except that he was obsessed with being original. What he says describes the fact: the observer is the observed – but it has no poetry. It is true, but it has no music.

But that is true about J. Krishnamurti’s whole philosophy: it has no music, it has no poetry. It is purely a rational, logical, intellectual approach. He was trying hard somehow to express the mystic experience in rational and logical terms, and he has been successful in many ways, but he has destroyed the beauty.

He has brought the mystic experience closer to rational philosophizing; but the mystic experience is not philosophy, it is always poetry. It is closer to painting, closer to singing, closer to dancing, but not closer to logic – and that’s what he was doing. And my opposition to him is based on this ground. My effort is to bring mysticism to your dance, to your song, to your love, to your poetry, to your painting – not to your logic.

Logic is good for business, it is good for mathematics. It is absolutely useless as far as higher values are concerned.

- Osho, "The Osho Upanishad, #14"

 Osho on J.D Krishnamurti 

Contradictions are our creations -- remember it -- because we cannot see the total, because we can only see the partial. Hence the contradiction. We can see only the aspect, never the whole -- hence the contradiction. Have you observed? Even if you are watching a small pebble in your palm, you cannot see the whole at one time. You see one part, the other part is hidden. when you see the other part, the first part goes into hiding. You can never see even a small pebble in its totality; not even a grain of sand can you see in its totality. When you are looking at my face, my back is just an inference: maybe it is there, maybe it is not there. When you look at my back, my face is just an inference: it may be there, it may not be there. We never see anything in totality, because the mind cannot see totality in anything. The mind is a partial outlook.

When the mind is dropped, and the meditation has arisen, then you see the total. Then you see the whole as it is, all the aspects together. Then summer and winter are not separate, then spring and fall are not separate. Then you will see that birth and death are two aspects of the same process. Then happiness and unhappiness are not opposites, they are joined together; like a valley and a mountain, they are together.

And when you see this togetherness of life, choice stops. Then there is nothing to choose. Have you not seen it? Whenever you choose happiness, you become the victim of unhappiness; whenever you want success, failure comes in; whenever you hope, frustration is waiting for you. whenever you cling to life, death comes and destroys.

Have you not seen it happen every day, every moment? These are not opposites, they are together. When one sees them together, then what is there to choose? There is nothing to choose; one becomes choiceless. That's what Krishnamurti goes on saying: Be choiceless, be in a state of choiceless awareness -- but it cannot happen unless you have seen the togetherness of things. Once realized, that all things are together, then the choice becomes impossible. Then there is nothing to choose, because whatsoever you choose comes with the opposite. Then what is the point? You choose love and hate comes; you choose friendship and the enemy comes; you choose ANYTHING, and immediately the opposite comes as a shadow. One stops choosing. One remains choiceless.

And when one is choiceless one has transcended all contradictions. To transcend contradictions is to transcend mind, and to transcend mind is to know what love is. Whatsoever you have known up to now as love has nothing to do with love. It is a misuse of the word. `Love' has been very much misused. There are only a few words which have been misused like `love'. `God' is another, `peace' is another. But `love' is at the top of the list. Everybody talks about love and nobody knows what it is. People sing about it, people write poetry about it, and they don't know what love is.

- Osho, "The Path of Love, #1"

Krishnamurti has been saying that there is no need for a Master. He is right -- and absolutely wrong also. He is right because when you become awakened, you also know that there was no need, you were dreaming. When you become alert, dreaming stops, and then you can't feel what the need was.' It was just a dream, I could have shaken myself out of it.' But it is an afterthought. Even Krishnamurti needed Annie Besant and Leadbeater -- he had his own Masters.

It is an afterthought. When a thing happens, then you can always feel: I could have done it. But when it has not happened, you cannot even think because your thinking will also be a part of your dream.

A Master is needed when you are asleep. When you become awakened, you also will think a Master was not needed. Then for you, of course, the Master is not needed. But then many will be deluded because many egoists will surround you, as you will find. You cannot find anywhere else such a mass of egoists as you will find near Krishnamurti, because the moment the egoist hears that no Master is needed, he feels very happy. He says: Right! He always thinks he is the Ultimate; no need to surrender to anybody because ego resists surrender. And this man says that no Master is needed -- egoists feel very happy. Around Krishnamurti you will find all sorts of egoists because it seems very good, very convenient -- no need to surrender.

- Osho, Returning to the Source, #9

J. Krishnamurti, a man who struggled for ninety years -- his last words have some great meaning. One of my friends was present there. Krishnamurti lamented, he lamented his whole life. He lamented that "people have taken me as an entertainment. They come to listen to me...." There are people who have listened to him for fifty years continually, and still they are the same people as had come for the first time to listen to him. Naturally it is annoying and irritating that the same people... Most of them I know, because J. Krishnamurti used to come only once a year for two or three weeks to Bombay, and slowly, slowly all his followers in Bombay became acquainted with me. They all were sad about this point: What should be done? How can we make Krishnamurti happy?

The reason was that Krishnamurti only talked, but never gave any devices in which whatever he was talking about became an experience. It was totally his fault. Whatever he was saying was absolutely right, but he was not creating the right climate, the right milieu in which it could become a seed. Of course he was very much disappointed with humanity, and that there was not a single person who had become enlightened through his teachings. His teachings have all the seeds, but he never prepared the ground.

Zen does not deny entertainment the way J. Krishnamurti condemned it in his last testament to the world. He said, "Religion is not entertainment." That's true, but enlightenment can be vast enough to include entertainment in it.

Enlightenment can be multidimensional. It can include laughter, it can include love, it can include beauty, it can include creativity. There is nothing to keep it from the world and from transforming the world into a more poetic place, a more beautiful garden. Everything can be brought to a better state of grace.

- Osho, Rinzai: Master of the Irrational, #5

Krishnamurti fell into the hands of a very fanatical group -- theosophists. It was a new religion. Whenever a religion is new, it is very fanatical. By and by, it relaxes and compromises and becomes just a social phenomenon; then it is no more religion. Theosophy was just in its beginning, and Krishnamurti was only nine years old when he fell into the hands of those fanatics. They tried hard. They wouldn't allow Krishnamurti to meet and mix with ordinary children -- no -- because they had a goal that he had to become the world Teacher, JAGADGURU. He had to become the coming-Buddha; he had to become the incarnation of Maitreya.

He was not allowed to move with any girl, because he might have fallen in love and the whole dream of the theosophists would have been shattered. He was constantly guarded. He was not allowed to move alone; somebody was always with him, watching him. And he was forced to follow very strict rules: three o'clock in the morning he had to get up and take a cold bath; and then he had to learn Sanskrit and he had to learn French and he had to learn English and he had to learn Latin and Greek -- because a World Teacher should be well cultured, sophisticated. Just a nine-year-old child!

When he was twelve years old, they started forcing him to write a book. Now what can a twelve-year-old child write? In fact, the teacher, Leadbeater, he was writing in his name. Krishnamurti would write and Leadbeater would correct it and make it perfect. The book still exists. A beautiful book, but you cannot expect it of a boy just twelve years old. It is not from him. Even Krishnamurti cannot remember it. When he has been asked he has said, "I don't remember when I wrote it -- I don't remember at all how it came into being."

And they were talking nonsense -- esoteric nonsense: "In his dreams he goes to the seventh heaven, and there God Himself is teaching him." And just a twelve-year-old child -- very vulnerable, soft, receptive; he would trust. And these people were world-famous; they had great names. And the movement was really big and worldwide; thousands and thousands of lodges were opened all over the world. Just a twelve-year-old boy had become a world-famous personality. Wherever he was going, thousands of people would gather just to see him.

If you look at those pictures, you feel pity for him, compassion. He was continuously in a cage. And it was natural, I think it would have happened to anybody -- it had nothing to do with Krishnamurti. Anybody in his place, if he had any spirit left, would have renounced this whole nonsense, and would have come out of it. It was too much of a prison. He could not write letters to anybody because he might have made some relationship through the letters. A World Teacher needs to be completely unattached. He started feeling a little love for a woman who was old enough to be his mother, but even that was stopped. It was nothing to do with sexuality or anything; he just started feeling love from the woman. The woman was already a mother of three children -- but the theosophists wouldn't allow it. They stopped it.

He was completely in seclusion, never allowed to move into the outside world. He was not allowed to enter in any school, in any college, because there he would meet ordinary people and he would become ordinary. Special teachers were appointed; he was taught specially. And all around him, just a nine-year-old boy, all around him such big talk -- of Masters, Master K.H. sending messages, letters falling from the roof. They were all managed! Theosophists were caught later on -- they were all managed: the roof was specially made and a letter would drop suddenly, and it was for Krishnamurti -- a message had come from the unknown.

Just think of a small boy.... No freedom allowed became a great urge to be free. One day -- nobody was expecting it, that he would renounce it -- the theosophists had gathered from all over the world for the first declaration in which Krishnamurti was expected to declare that he was the World Teacher and that God had entered into him.

Suddenly, without saying anything to anybody.... He could not sleep the whole night. He brooded over it: he has become a slave, and they are all do-gooders; they have made you a slave because they want to do good to you; and they love you and their love became nauseating; and their well-wishing became poisonous. The whole night he brooded: what is he to do? Whether he has to continue and become part of this nonsense, or get out of it?

And blessed he is that in the morning when they had gathered and they were waiting for God to descend in him and to declare that he is now no more Krishnamurti but Lord Maitreya -- Buddha has entered in him -- he suddenly declined and he said, "It is all nonsense. Nobody is descending in me. I am simply Krishnamurti and I am nobody's Master. And I am not a Jagadguru, not a World Teacher. And I dissolve this nonsense and this organization and the whole thing that has been made around me."

They were shocked! They could not believe it: "Has he gone mad, crazy?" They had put much hope in him, much money; it was a great investment, years of training. But it was going to be so. If he had been absolutely a dead man, then only would he have accepted it. He was alive. They could not kill his life, that aliveness exploded. If he had been a dull, mediocre mind, maybe he would have accepted -- but he has an intelligence, a tremendous awareness. He got out of it. That whole movement and the whole organized thing functioned as a positive challenge.

- Osho, The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 3, #10

Krishnamurti is right when he says no Master is needed. Yes, one day you will also know that no Master is needed, but you will know only when somebody has awakened you or you have become awakened in somebody's presence. Then you will know, you will say 'Krishnamurti is right.' But if you listen to Krishnamurti right now and believe that no Master is needed, you will never come to know that Krishnamurti is right. You will remain unawakened.

- Osho, Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #12

Krishnamurti goes on saying that there is no need to do anything. In fact, for the first-rate mind there is no need to do anything; just by hearing, by right listening, one attains. But where to find the first-rate mind? It is very rare. Unless a Krishnamurti comes to listen to Krishnamurti it won't happen. But why should a Krishnamurti go to listen to a Krishnamurti? It is absurd. It has no meaning. A man who has that kind of perceptivity can become awakened just by listening to the song of a bird, just by listening to the breeze passing through the trees, just by listening to the sound of the water flowing -- that's enough, because from everywhere the Divine speaks. If you are perceptive, whatsoever you hear you have heard the Divine

- Osho, Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 2, #5

J. Krishnamurti is totally different in his expression, very logical, very rational. The beginning of his work is always with the mind; then slowly slowly he leads you beyond the mind.

- Osho, Take It Easy, Vol 1, #6

You can not like or dislike. It is not a question of your choice. Truth is! Whether you like it or do not like it is irrelevant. You can choose lies, but you cannot choose truth -- truth is there. That's why Krishnamurti insists so much on choiceless awareness. You cannot choose truth. Truth is already there! It has nothing to do with your choice, liking, disliking.

- Osho, The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #4

You will have to become more watchful about the thoughts, dreams, memories, flicking by, moving around you. You will have to have more attention focused on the thoughts. Thoughts are the objects and you will have to become aware of them. This is the first awareness: 'awareness one'. Krishnamurti talks about this, he calls it 'choiceless awareness'. Don't choose. Don't judge whatsoever thought is passing by, just watch it, just see that it is moving. If you go on watching, one day, thoughts don't move that fast; their speed has slowed down. Then, some day, gaps start coming: one thought goes and another does not come for a long time. Then, after some time, thoughts simply disappear for hours... and the road is just empty of traffic.

- Osho, The Tantra Vision, Vol 2, #6

Krishnamurti is right when he again and again emphasizes choicelessness. That is also the taste of Zen.

- Osho, Take It Easy, Vol 2, #7

My observation has been this: that Krishnamurti is surrounded by the most egoistic people of this world, and the reason is because there is a safe place -- no need to surrender, no need to drop your ego, no need to follow anybody. Your ego feels very strengthened and your ego feels that many rationalisations are given to you. So you protect yourself with those rationalisations.

- Osho, Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #12

J. Krishnamurti was very serious -- I don't think he ever smiled. A long life: ninety years. His fame started very early, at thirteen years old; so really he had a very long life of work and disappointments. Even the closest ones betrayed him. His whole life seems to be just a series of betrayals, and those who remained never managed to understand what he was saying. They listened to him for half a century, but still he could not cross their thick minds and reach to their being. And every day... if you look at his life, in the beginning he was very hopeful, very excited that man can be changed, that a new man can arrive. But slowly, slowly that hope disappeared, that excitement was no more there. And as he grew older, he became sadder.

- Osho, Beyond Psychology, #29

J. Krishnamurti goes on talking in abstract terms. The whole approach seems to be mental, as if only mind is to be used. The body need not be involved in it, emotions need not be involved in it: only the abstract mind, as if Brahman is a mathematical problem. It is not, it is an organic problem.

- Osho, The Supreme Doctrine, #14

Listening to Krishnamurti you are listening to the mind -- the purest mind. You will feel good. Listening, you will feel that you are understanding. Listening, you will feel that you are reaching somewhere. But you are learning only new words. You will learn 'awareness' -- the word, not awareness itself. You will learn 'choicelessness' -- the word, not choicelessness. And they will go on in the mind, and they will move in the mind, and you will become just a mind -- a cerebral center. Your emotions are not touched; your body remains untouched. Only your mind is touched. That is why Krishnamurti has been a failure. He is himself enlightened but he has been a failure. His whole life he has been working with the mind and whatsoever he says is true but it is not applicable because you are not only the mind: you are much more. And that "much more" has to be transformed with the mind. You have to be transformed as a totality.

- Osho, The Supreme Doctrine, #14

J. Krishnamurti is there. He talks; talks very intelligently. Remember, I will not say logically: talks very intelligently; goes into the analysis of any problem as deeply as is humanly possible. But he is not a philosopher either. All his talk is just like uprooting weeds from the garden. He destroys your problems through his analysis. He does not give you anything; he simply takes away all that you have been carrying in your mind. For a moment you are utterly lost -- and in that very moment you can see his reality. His experience starts flowing in you. People can miss him also.

- Osho, Take It Easy, Vol 1, #6

Krishnamurti has his way, and I am happy that he is in the world. He is at the other extreme. If he is gone, I will miss him more than anybody else in the world. But I can understand your question, Henk Faassen. This is not the only question; you have asked many more about the same thing. It seems it has hurt you deeply that I criticized Krishnamurti. You don't understand me yet. This is my way of paying respects to him. This is my way of declaring that there exists another enlightened person in the world.

If my orchestra does not suit you, then the only alternative possible is the solo flute-playing of J. Krishnamurti. There is no other, no third person who can be of any help to you. Either Krishnamurti or me -- there is no other alternative. Right now there is no other alternative. Krishnamurti is bound to criticize me; I can understand it. His standpoint is simple and clear, my standpoint is a little more unclear. Sometimes I will appreciate him tremendously, because I would like him to also become part of my orchestra. And sometimes I will criticize him, because my own liking is not for solo flutes.

- Osho, The Book of Wisdom, #10

Just last night I received the last book of J. Krishnamurti, in which he is not speaking to anybody -- he is speaking just to himself. The words are recorded but there was no audience, and perhaps in this book he comes closer to truth than in any of his other books. The audience is a limitation. This has been my experience too. If I am speaking to my own people, then there is no limitation; then I don't feel that I have to say something, or not to say something. Then I simply speak as if I am speaking to myself. When I am speaking to people who don't know me, who don't understand me -- moreover they misunderstand me -- there is a great limitation. Then I am not at freedom to speak. Their very faces, their eyes, their gestures prevent me from saying something that may hurt them.

- Osho, Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master, #13

When I say Krishnamurti can get angry, I don't mean, Henk, that he can get angry like you get angry. His anger is out of compassion. This situation is unbelievable! He wants to help this lady and he feels so helpless. He tries this way and that. His message is very simple, singular, one-dimensional. For fifty years he has been saying only a single word. In essence his whole teaching can be printed on one side of a postcard. He has been saying it in as many possible ways as one can invent, but it is the same citadel that he attacks from the north, from the south, from the west, from the east. And still people go on listening to him and go on asking the same old foolish questions.

He certainly gets angry. And when a man like Krishnamurti gets angry, he is pure anger. Many in India have felt very disappointed with Krishnamurti because he gets angry. They have a certain concept that a buddha should not get angry. They go with a prejudice. And when they see that Krishnamurti can get angry, they are disillusioned, "So this man is not a buddha, he has not become enlightened yet."

- Osho, The Book of Wisdom, #12

J. Krishnamurti has not received a Nobel Prize -- and he is one of those rare human beings, those few of the buddhas, who are really laying the foundation for world peace. And Mother Teresa has received the Nobel Prize for world peace. Now, I don't understand what she has done for world peace! George Gurdjieff didn't receive a Nobel Prize, and he was working hard to transform the inner core of human beings; Raman Maharshi didn't receive the Nobel Prize -- because their work is invisible: their work is that of bringing more consciousness to people. When you bring bread to people it is visible, when you bring clothes to people it is visible, when you bring medicines to people it is visible. When you bring God to people, it is absolutely invisible.

- Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6, #4

The path of affirmation seems the path of effort, great effort: one is trying to reach God, one has to make all the effort that is possible, one has to do the utmost, one has to put oneself at stake. In modern times, Gurdjieff, Ramakrishna-they followed the path of affirmation, VIA AFFIRMATIVA. The other path is VIA NEGATIVA, through negation, through the 'no'. Lao Tzu, Buddha, Nagarjuna -- they followed the path of negation. In modern times, Ramana Maharshi, J. Krishnamurti -- they follow the path of the 'no'.

- Osho, Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #9

Krishnamurti is the purest statement of the negative path as pure as Lao Tzu, as pure as Ashtavakra. A very pure statement, but pure statements become very difficult because you cannot understand them; they are so far away. You can only misunderstand them. So he has been misunderstood. He is the most misunderstood man. Nobody understands him, not even those who say that they follow him. They also cannot understand, because he says 'No following is allowed. You should not become imitators.' And they have become imitators. He says 'You cannot learn from me.' And they have learned from him. That's why he sometimes beats his own head

- Osho, Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #12

Intelligence has no choice. That's why Krishnamurti goes on defining intelligence as choiceless awareness.

- Osho, Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2, #15

 Dissolving the Order of the Star, 3 August 1929 

The Order of the Star in the East was founded by the Theosophical Society in 1911 to proclaim the coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti was made Head of the Order. On August 3, 1929, the opening day of the annual Star Camp in Ommen, Holland, Krishnamurti dissolved the Order before 3000 members. Below is the full text of the talk he gave on that occasion.

We are going to discuss this morning the dissolution of the Order of the Star. Many people will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, as I am going to explain. You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, 'What did that man pick up?' He picked up a piece of Truth,' said the devil. 'That is a very bad business for you, then,' said his friend. 'Oh, not at all,' the devil replied, 'I am going to let him organize it.'

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why the Order of the Star should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably form other Orders, you will continue to belong to other organizations searching for Truth. I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind, please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would take me to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of organization, merely mechanical, like the post or the telegraph. I would use a motor car or a steamship to travel, these are only physical mechanisms which have nothing whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality.

If an organization be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve it. No one has persuaded me to this decision. This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this: not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be! I do not want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality. Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come to a camp or live in a damp country! I am speaking frankly because I want this settled once and for all. I do not want these childish discussions year after year.

One newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organization in which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act because, he said: 'What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you.' If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves? If I speak strongly, please do not misunderstand me, it is not through lack of compassion. If you go to a surgeon for an operation, is it not kindness on his part to operate even if he cause you pain? So, in like manner, if I speak straightly, it is not through lack of real affection–on the contrary.

As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him towards freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of the self.

Because I am free, unconditioned, whole–not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal–I desire those, who seek to understand me to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears–from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want anything from anyone. You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers–a miracle–transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority.

You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyze what I am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage.

If I talk frankly, please remember that I do so, not out of harshness, not out of cruelty, not out of the enthusiasm of my purpose, but because I want you to understand what I am saying. That is the reason why you are here, and it would be a waste of time if I did not explain clearly, decisively, my point of view. For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the World Teacher. For eighteen years you have organized, you have looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would transform your whole life, who would give you a new understanding; for someone who would raise you to a new plane of life, who would give you a new encouragement, who would set you free–and now look what is happening! Consider, reason with yourselves, and discover in what way that belief has made you different–not with the superficial difference of the wearing of a badge, which is trivial, absurd. In what manner has such a belief swept away all the unessential things of life? That is the only way to judge: in what way are you freer, greater, more dangerous to every society which is based on the false and the unessential? In what way have the members of this organization of the Star become different? As I said, you have been preparing for eighteen years for me. I do not care if you believe that I am the World Teacher or not. That is of very little importance. Since you belong to the organization of the Order of the Star, you have given your sympathy, your energy, acknowledging that Krishnamurti is the World Teacher–partially or wholly: wholly for those who are really seeking, only partially for those who are satisfied with their own half-truths.

You have been preparing for eighteen years, and look how many difficulties there are in the way of your understanding, how many complications, how many trivial things. Your prejudices, your fears, your authorities, your Churches new and old–all these, I maintain, are a barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I am saying. This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face things as they are. You want to have your own gods–new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old–all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organization?

Why have false, hypocritical people following me, the embodiment of Truth? Please remember that I am not saying something harsh or unkind, but we have reached a situation when you must face things as they are. I said last year that I would not compromise. Very few listened to me then. This year I have made it absolutely clear. I do not know how many thousands throughout the world–members of the Order–have been preparing for me for eighteen years, and yet now they are not willing to listen unconditionally, wholly, to what I say.

As I said before, my purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal, is the harmony between reason and love. This is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which is life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom. And I, for whom you have been preparing for eighteen years, now say that you must be free of all these things, free from your complications, your entanglements. For this you need not have an organization based on spiritual belief. Why have an organization for five or ten people in the world who understand, who are struggling, who have put aside all trivial things? And for the weak people, there can be no organization to help them to find the Truth, because Truth is in everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there.

Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organizations become your chief concern.

'How many members are there in it?' That is the first question I am asked by newspaper reporters. 'How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false.' I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. As I said, if there were even one who had been set free, that is enough.

Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.

So you will see how absurd is the whole structure that you have built, looking for external help, depending on others for your comfort, for your happiness, for your strength. These can only be found within yourselves.

You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things.

But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship–which you do not seem to know–there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice.

So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set man absolutely, unconditionally free.'

- J. Krishnamurti

 WHAT ARE WE SEEKING? 

  WHAT IS IT THAT most of us are seeking? What is it  that each one of us wants ? Especially in this restless world,  where everybody is trying to find some kind of peace, some  kind of happiness, a refuge, surely it is important to find out,  isn't it ?, what it is that we are trying to seek, what it is that  we are trying to discover. Probably most of us are seeking  some kind of happiness, some kind of peace ; in a world that  is ridden with turmoil, wars, contention, strife, we want a  refuge where there can be some peace. I think that is what  most of us want. So we pursue, go from one leader to  another, from one religious organization to another, from  one teacher to another.

Now, is it that we are seeking happiness or is it that we  are seeking gratification of some kind from which we hope to  derive happiness ? There is a difference between happiness  and gratification. Can you seek happiness ? Perhaps you can  find gratification but surely you cannot find happiness.  Happiness is derivative ; it is a by-product of something else.  So, before we give our minds and hearts to something  which demands a great deal of earnestness, attention,  thought, care, we must find out, must we not ?, what it is  that we are seeking; whether it is happiness, or gratification.  I am afraid most of us are seeking gratification. We want to  be gratified, we want to find a sense of fullness at the end of  our search.

After all, if one is seeking peace one can find it very easily.  One can devote oneself blindly to some kind of cause,  to an idea, and take shelter Mere. Surely that does not solve  the problem. Mere isolation in an enclosing idea is not a release from conflict. So we must find, must we not ?, what it  is, inwardly, as well as outwardly, that each one of us wants.  If we are clear on that matter, then we don't have to go any-  where, to any teacher, to any church, to any organization.

Therefore our difficulty is, to be clear in ourselves regarding  our intention, is it not ? Can we be clear ? And does that  clarity come through searching, through trying to find out  what others say, from the highest teacher to the ordinary  preacher in a church round the corner ? Have you got to go  to somebody to find out ? Yet that is what we are doing, is it  not? We read innumerable books, we attend many meetings  and discuss, we join various organizations--trying thereby  to find a remedy to the conflict, to the miseries in our lives.  Or, if we don't do all that, we think we have found; that is  we say that a particular organization, a particular teacher,  a particular book satisfies us; we have found everything we  want in that; and we remain in that, crystallized and  enclosed.

Do we not seek, through all this confusion, something  permanent, something lasting, something which we call real,  God, truth, what you like—the name doesn't matter, the  word is not the thing, surely. So don't let us be caught in  words. Leave that to the professional lecturers. There is a  search for something permanent, is there not ?, in most of us  something we can cling to, something which will give us  assurance, a hope, a lasting enthusiasm, a lasting certainty,  because in ourselves we are so uncertain. We do not know  ourselves. We know a lot about facts, what the books have  said; but we do not know for ourselves, we do not have a  direct experience.

And what is it that we call permanent ? What is it that we  are seeking, which will, or which we hope will give us  permanency ? Are we not seeking lasting happiness, lasting  gratification, lasting certainty ? We want something that will  endure everlastingly, which will gratify us. If we strip our-  selves of all the words and phrases, and actually look at  it this is what we want. We want permanent pleasure, permanent gratification—which we call truth, God or what  you will.

Very well, we want pleasure. Perhaps that may be putting  it very crudely, but that is actually what we want—know-  ledge that will give us pleasure, experience that will give us  pleasure, a gratification that will not wither away by to-  morrow. And we have experimented with various gratifica-  tions, and they have all faded away ; and we hope now to find  permanent gratification in reality, in God. Surely, that is  what Av e are all seeking the clever ones and the stupid ones,  the theorist and the factual person who is striving after some-  thing. And is there permanent gratification ? Is there some   which will endure ?

Now, if you seek permanent gratification, calling it God,  or truth, or what you will the name does not matter  surely you must understand, must you not ?, the thing you  are seeking. When you say, "I am seeking permanent  happiness" God, or truth, or what you like —must you  not also understand the thing that is searching, the searcher,  the seeker ? Because there may be no such thing as permanent  security, permanent happiness. Truth may be something  entirely different; and I think it is utterly different from what  you can see, conceive, formulate. Therefore, before we seek  something permanent, is it not obviously necessary to  understand the seeker? Is the seeker different from the  thing he seeks ? When you say, "I am seeking happiness", is  the seeker different from the object of his search ? Is the  thinker different from the thought ? Are they not a joint  phenomenon, rather than separate processes ? Therefore it is  essential, is it not ?, to understand the seeker, before you try  to find out what it is he is seeking.

So we have to some to the point when we ask ourselves,  really earnestly and profoundly, if peace, happiness, reality,  God, or what you will, can be given to us by someone else.  Can this incessant search, this longing, give us that extra-  ordinary sense of reality, that creative being, which comes  when we really understand ourselves? Does self-knowledge come through search, through following someone else,  through belonging to any particular organization, through  reading books, and so on ? After all, that is the main issue,  is it not ?, that so long as I do not understand myself, I have  no basis for thought, and all my search will be in vain.

I can escape into illusions, I can run away from contention,  strife, struggle ; I can worship another ; I can look for my  salvation through somebody else. But so long as I am  ignorant of myself, so long as I am unaware of the total  process of myself, I have no basis for thought, for affection,  for action.

But that is the last thing we want: to know ourselves.  Surely that is the only foundation on which we can build.  But, before we can build, before we can transform, before  we can condemn or destroy, we must know that which we  are. To go out seeking, changing teachers, gurus, practising  yoga, breathing, performing rituals, following Masters and  all the rest of it, is utterly useless, is it not ? It has no meaning,  even though the very people whom we follow may say:  "Study yourself", because what we are, the world is. If we  are petty, jealous, vain, greedy—that is what we create  about us, that is the society in which we live.

It seems to me that before we set out on a journey to  find reality, to find God, before we can act, before we can  have any relationship with another, which is society, it is  essential that we begin to understand ourselves first. I con-  sider the earnest person to be one who is completely con-  cerned with this, first, and not with how to arrive at a  particular goal, because, if you and I do not understand  ourselves, how can we, in action, bring about a transforma-  tion in society, in relationship, in anything that we do ?  And it does not mean, obviously, that self-knowledge is  opposed to, or isolated from, relationship. It does not mean,  obviously, emphasis on the individual, the me, as opposed to  the mass, as opposed to another.

Now without knowing yourself, without knowing your  own way of thinking and why you think certain things,     without knowing the background of your conditioning and  why you have certain beliefs about art and religion, about  your country and your neighbour and about yourscif, how  can you think truly about anything ? Without knowing your  background, without knowing the substance of your thought  and whence it comes surely your search is utterly futile,  your action has no meaning, has it? Whether you are an  American or a Hindu or whatever your religion is has no  meaning either.

Before we can find out what the end-purpose of life is,  what it all means wars, national antagonisms, conflicts, the  whole mess—w€ must begin with ourselves, must we not ?

It sounds so simple, but it is extremely difficult. To follow  oneself, to see, how one's thought operates, one has to be  extraordinarily alert, so that as one begins to be more and  more alert to the intricacies of one's own thinking and  responses and feelings, one begins to have a greater aware.=  ness, not only of oneself but of another with whom one is in  relationship. To know oneself is to study oneself in action,  which is relationship. The difficulty is that we are so in-I-  patient; we want to get on, we want to reach an end, and so  we have neither the time nor the occasion to give ourselves  the opportunity to study, to observe. Alternatively we have  Committed ourselves to various activities—to earning a  livelihood, to rearing children—or have taken on certain  responsibilities of various organizations ; we have so com-  mitted ourselves in different ways that we have hardly any  time for self-reflection, to observe, to study. So really the  responsibility of the reaction depends on oneself, not on  another. The pursuit, all the world over, of gurus and their  systems, reading the latest books on this and that, and so on,  seems to Inc so utterly empty, so utterly futile, for you may  wander all over the earth but you have to come back to  yourself. And, as most of us are totally unaware of ourselves,  it is extremely difficult to begin to see clearly the process of  our thinking and feeling and acting.

The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end— you don't come to an achieve-  ment, you don't come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.  As one studies it, as one goes into it more and more, one finds  peace. Only when the mind is tranquil—through self-  knowledge and not through imposed self-discipline—only  then, in that tranquillity, in that silence, can reality some  into being. It is only then that there can be bliss, that there  can be creative action. And it seems to me that without this  understanding, without this experience, merely to read  books, to attend talks, to do propaganda, is so infantile  just an activity without much meaning; whereas if one is  able to understand oneself, and thereby bring about that  creative happiness, that experiencing of something that is not  of the mind, then perhaps there can be a transformation in  the immediate relationship about us and so in the world in  which we live.

- J.D Krishnamurti, "THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM"

 SELF-KNOWLEDGE 

THE PROBLEMS OF the world are so colossal, so very  complex, that to understand and so to resolve them one must  approach them in a very simple and direct manner ; and  simplicity, directness, do not depend on outward circum-  stances nor on our particular prejudices and moods. As  was pointing out, the solution is not to be found through  conferences, blue-prints, or through the substitution of new  leaders for old, and so on. The solution obviously lies in the  creator of the problem, in the creator of the mischief, of the  hate and of the enormous misunderstanding that exists  between human beings. The creator of this mischief, the  creator of these problems, is the individual, you and I, not  the world as we think of it. The world is your relationship  with another. The world is not something separate from  you and me; the world, society, is the relationship that we  establish or seek to establish between each other.

So you and I are the problem, and not the world, because  the world is the projection of ourselves and to understand the  world we must understand ourselves. The world is not  separate from us ; we are the world, and our problems are the  world's problems. This cannot be repeated too often, because  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. It is a very dull mentality that thinks like that, because  we are responsible for this frightful misery and confusion in  the world, this ever-impending war. To transform the world,  we must begin with ourselves ; and what is important in  beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to understand ourselves and not to leave it to others  to transform themselves or to bring about a modified  change through revolution, either of the left or of the right.

It is important to understand that this is our responsibility,  yours and mine; because, however small may be the world  we live in, if we can transform ourselves, bring about a  radically different point of view in our daily existence, then  perhaps we shall affect the world at large, the extended  relationship with others.

As I said, we are going to try and find out the process of  understanding ourselves, which is not an isolating process. It  is not withdrawal from the world, because you cannot live in  isolation. To be is to be related, and there is no such thing as  living in isolation. It is the lack of right relationship that  brings about conflicts, misery and strife ; however small our  world may be, if we can transform our relationship in that  narrow world, it will be like a wave extending outward all  the time. I think it is important to see that point, that the  world is our relationship, however narrow ; and if we can  bring a transformation there, not a superficial but a radical  transformation, then we shall begin actively to transform the  world. Real revolution is not according to any particular  pattern, either of the left or of the right, but it is a revolution  of values, a revolution from sensate values to the values that  are not sensate or created by environmental influences. To  find these true values which will bring about a radical  revolution, a transformation or a regeneration, it is essential  to understand oneself. Self-knowledge is the beginning of  wisdom, and therefore the beginning of transformation or  regeneration. To understand oneself there must be the  intention to understand—and that is where our difficulty  comes in. Although most of us are discontented, we desire to  bring about a sudden change, our discontent is canalized  merely to achieve a certain result ; being discontented, we  either seek a different job or merely succumb to environ-  ment. Discontent, instead of setting us aflame, causing us to  question life, the whole process of existence, is canalized, and thereby we become mediocre, losing that drive, that intensity  to find out the whole significance of existence. Therefore  it is important to discover these things for ourselves, because  self-knowledge cannot be given to us by another, it is not to  be found through any book. We must discover, and to  discover there must he the intention, the search, the inquiry.

So long as that intention to find out, to inquire deeply, is  weak or does not exist, mere assertion or a casual wish to  find out about oneself is of wry little significance.

Thus 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 one is, not as one wishes to be  which is merely an ideal and therefore 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 an  extraordinary alertness of mind, because what is is con-  stantly 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 idealiza-  tion because beliefs and ideals only give you a colour,  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. But  to know that one is greedy or violent, to know and under-  stand it, requires an extraordinary perception, does it not  It demands honesty, clarity of thought, whereas to pursue an  ideal away from what is is an escape ; it prevents you from  discovering and acting directly upon what you are.

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. It is only in virtue  that you can discover, that you can live—not in the cultiva-  tion of a virtue, which merely brings about respectability,  not understanding and freedom. There is a difference  between being virtuous and becoming virtuous. Being  virtuous comes through the understanding of what is,  whereas becoming virtuous is postponement, the covering up  of what is with what you would like to be. Therefore in  becoming virtuous you are avoiding action directly upon  what is. This process of avoiding what is through the  cultivation of the ideal is considered virtuous; but if you look  at it closely and directly you will see that it is nothing of the  kind. It is merely a postponement of coming face to face  with what is. Virtue is not the becoming of what is not;  virtue is the understanding of what is and therefore the  freedom from what is. Virtue is essential in a society that is  rapidly disintegrating. In order to create a new world, a  new structure away from the old, there must be freedom  to discover ; and to be free, there must be virtue, for without  virtue there is no freedom. Can the immoral man who is  striving to become virtuous ever know virtue ? The man who  is not moral can never be free, and therefore he can never  find out what reality is. Reality can be found only in  understanding what is; and to understand what is, there  must be freedom, freedom from the fear of what is.

To understand that process there must be the intention to  know what is, to follow every thought, feeling and action;  and to understand what is is extremely difficult, because what  is is never still, never static, it is always in movement. The  what is is what you are, not what you would like to be ; it  is not the ideal, because the ideal is fictitious, but it is  actually what you are doing, thinking and feeling from  moment to moment. What is is the actual, and to understand  the actual requires awareness, a very alert, swift mind. But  if we begin to condemn what is, if we begin to blame or  resist it then we shall not understand its movement. If  I want to understand somcbody, I cannot condemn him:  I must observe, study him. I must love the very thing I am  studying. If you want to understand a child, you must love  and not condemn him. You must play with him, watch his  movements, his idiosyncrasies, his ways of behaviour; but  if you merely condemn, resis.t or blame him, there is no  comprehension of the child. Similarly, to understand what  is, one must observe what one thinks, feels and does from  moment to momcnt. That is the actual. Any other action,  any ideal or ideological action, is not the actual; it is merely  a wish, a fictitious desire to be something other than what is.

To understand what is requires a state of mind in which  there is no idcritification or condemnation, which means a  mind that is alert and yet passive. liVe are in that state when  we really desire to understand something; when the intensity  of interest is there, that state of mind comes into being.  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, watch-  fulness. This state of awaieness comes when there is interest,  the intention to understand.

The fundamental understanding of oneself does not come  through knowledge or through the accumulation of ex-  periences, which is merely the cultivation of memory. The  understanding of oneself is from moment to moment; if we  merely accumulate knowledge of the self, that very know-  ledge prevents further understanding, because accumulated  knowledge and experience becomes the centre through  which thought focuses and has its being. The world is not  different from us and our activities because it is what we are  which creates the problems of the world ; the difficulty with  the majority of us is that we do not know ourselves directly,  but seek a system, a method, a means of operation by which  to solve the many human problems.

Now is there a means, a system, of knowing oneself?  Any clever person, any philosopher, can invent a system, a method; but surely the following of a system will merely  produce a result created by that system, will it not ? If I  follow a particular method of knowing myself, then I shall  have the result which that system necessitates ; but the result  will obviously not be the understanding of myself. That is  by following a method, a system, a means through which to  know myself, I shape my thinking, my activities, according  to a pattern; but the following of a pattern is not the under-  standing of oneself.

Therefore there is no method for self-knowledge. Seeking a  method invariably implies the desire to attain some result  and that is what we all want. We follow authority—if not  that of a person, then of a system, of an ideology—because we  want a result which will be satisfactory, which will give us  security. We really do not want to understand ourselves, our  impulses and reactions, the whole process of our thinking,  the conscious as well as the unconscious; we would rather  pursue a system which assures us of a result. But the pursuit  of a system is invariably the outcome of our desire for  security, for certainty, and the result is obviously not the  understanding of oneself. When we follow a method, we  must have authorities—the teacher, the guru, the saviour, the  Master—who will guarantee us what we desire ; and surely  that is not the way to self-knowledge.

Authority prevents the understanding of oneself, does it  not ? Under the shelter of an authority, a guide, you may  have temporarily a sense of security, a sense of well-being,  but that is not the understanding of the total process of  oneself. Authority in its very nature prevents the full aware-  ness of oneself and therefore ultimately destroys freedom ; in  freedom alone can there be creativeness. There can be  creativeness only through self-knowledge. Most of us are not  creative; we are repetitive machines, mere gramophone  records playing over and over again certain songs of ex-  perience, certain conclusions and memories, either our own  or those of another. Such repetition is not creative being—  but it is what we want. 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  tranquillity of mind in which alone there can be a state of  creativeness.

Surely our difficulty is that most of us have lost this sense  of creativeness. To be creative does not mean that we must  paint pictures or write poems and become famous. That is  not creativeness it is merely the capacity to express an  idea, which the public applauds or disregards. Capacity and  creativeness should not be confused. Capacity is not creative-  ncss. Creativeness is quite a different state of being, is it not ?  It is a state in which the self is absent, in which the mind is  no longer a focus of our experiences, our ambitions, our  pursuits and our desires. Creativeness is not a continuous  state, it is new from moment to moment, it is a movement  in which there is not the 'me, the 'mine, in which the  thought is not focused on any particular experience, am-  bition, achievement, purpose and motive. It is only when  the scif is not that there is creativeness that state of being  in which alone there can be reality, the creator of all things.  But that state cannot be conceived or imagined, it cannot be  formulated or copied, it cannot be attained through any  system, through any philosophy, through any discipline;  on the contrary, it comes into being only through under-  standing the total process of oneself.

The understanding of oneself is not a result, a culmination;  it is seeing oneself from moment to moment in the mirror of  relationship—one's relationship to property, to things, to  people and to ideas. But we find it difficult to be alert, to  be aware, and we prefer to dull our minds by following a  method, by accepting authorities, superstitions and gratifying  theories; so our minds become weary, exhausted and  insensitive. Such a mind cannot be in a state of creativeness.  That state of creativeness comes only when the self, which is  the process of recognition and accumulation, ceases to be;  because, after all, consciousness as the 'me' is the centre of recognition, and recognition is merely the process of the  accumulation of experience. But we are all afraid to be  nothing, because we all want to be something. The little  man wants to be a big man, the unvirtuous wants to be  virtuous, the weak and obscure crave power, position and  authority. This is the incessant activity of the mind. Such a  mind cannot be quiet and therefore can never understand  the state of creativeness.

In order to transform the world about us, with its misery,  wars, unemployment, starvation, class divisions and utter  confusion, there must be a transformation in ourselves. The  revolution must begin within oneself    but not according to  any belief or ideology, because revolution based on an idea,  or in conformity to a particular pattern, is obviously no  revolution at all. To bring about a fundamental revolution  in oneself, one must understand the whole process of one's  thought and feeling in relationship. That is the only solution  to all our problems—not to have more disciplines, more  beliefs, more ideologies and more teachers. If we can under-  stand ourselves as we are from moment to moment without  the process of accumulation, then we shall see how there  comes a tranquillity that is not a product of the mind, a  tranquillity that is neither imagined nor cultivated; and only  in that state of tranquillity can there be creativeness.

- J.D Krishnamurti, "THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM"

 WHAT IS THE SELF? 

DO WE KNOW WHAT we mean by the self? By that, I  mean the idea, the memory, the conclusion, the experience,  the various forms of nameable and unnameable intentions,  the conscious endeavour to be or not to be, the accumulated  memory of the unconscious, the racial, the group, the in-  dividual, the clan, and the whole of it all, whether it is  projected outwardly in action or projected spiritually as  virtue ; the striving after all this is the self. In it is included  the competition, the desire to be. The whole process of  that is the self; and we know actually when we are faced  with it tlit it is an evil thing. I am using the word 'evil'  intentionally, because the self is dividing: the self is self=  enclosing: its activities, however noble, are separative and  isolating. We know all this. We also know those extraordin-  ary moments when the self is not there, in which there is no  sense of endeavour, of effort, and which happens when there  is love.

It seems to me that it is important to understand how  experience strengthens the self. If we are earnest, we should  understand this problem of experience. Now what do we  mean by experience ? We have experience all the time,  impressions; and we translate those impressions, and we react  or act according to them ; we are calculating, cunning, and  so on. There is the constant interplay °between what is seen  objectively and our reaction to it, and interplay between the  conscious and the memories of the unconscious.  According to my memories, I react to whatever I see, to  whatever I feel. In this process of reacting to what I see, what  I feel, what I know, what I believe, experience is taking  place, is it not ? Reaction, response to something seen, is  experience. When I see you, I react; the naming of that  reaction is experience. If I do not name that reaction it is not  an experience. Watch your own responses and what is  taking place about you. There is no experience unless there  is a naming process going on at" the same time. If I do not  recognize you, how can I have the experience of meeting  you ? It sounds simple and right. Is it not a fact That is if  I do not react according to my memories, according to my  conditioning, according to my prejudices, how can I know  that I have had an experience?

Then there is the projection of various desires. I desire to  be protected, to have security inwardly; or I desire to have a  Master, a guru, a teacher, a God; and I experience that which  I have projected ; that is I have projected a desire which has  taken a form, to which I have given a name ; to that I  react. It is my projection. It is my naming. That desire which  gives me an experience makes me say: "I have experience",  "I have met the Master", or "I have not met the Master".  You know the whole process of naming an experience.  Desire is what you call experience, is it not?  When I desire silence of the mind, what is taking place?  What happens ? I see the importance of having a silent  mind, a quiet mind, for various reasons; because the  Upanishads have said so, religious scriptures have said so,  saints have said it, and also occasionally I myself feel how  good it is to be quiet, because my mind is so very chatty all  the day. At times I feel how nice, how pleasurable it is to have  a peaceful mind, a silent mind. The desire is to experience  silence. I want to have a silent mind, and so I ask "How can  I get it?" I know what this or that book says about medita-  tion, and the various forms of discipline. So through dis-  cipline I seek to experience silence. The sell, the 'me', has  therefore established itself in the experience of silence.  I want to understand what is truth; that is my desire, my  longing; then there follows my projection of what I consider  to be the truth, because I have read lots about it; I have heard many people talk about it; religious scriptures have  described it. I want all that. What happens ? The very want,  the very desire is projected, and I experience because I  recognize that projected state. If I did not recognize that  state, I would not call it truth. I recognize it and I experience  it; and that experience gives strength to the self, to the 'me',  does it not? So the self becomes entrenched in the experience.  Then you say "I know", "the Master exists", "there is God"  or "there is no God" ; you say that a particular political  system is right and all others are not.

So experience is always strengthening the 'rric'. The more  you are entrenched in your experience, the more does the  self get strengtheiiiii. As a result of this, you have a certain  strength of character, strength of knowledge, of belief, which  you display to other people .because you know they are not  as clever as yclu are, and because you have the gift of the pen  or of speech and you are cunning. Because the self- is still  acting, so your beliefs, your Masters, your castes, your  economic system are all a process of isolation, and they  therefore bring contention. You must, if you are at all serious  or earnest in this, dissolve this centre completely and not justify  it. That is why we must understand the process of experience.  Is it possible for the mind, for the self, not to project,  not to desire, not to experience ? We see that all experiences  of the self are a negation, a destruction, and yet we call  them positive action, don't we ? That is what we call the  positive way of life. To undo this whole process is, to you,  negation. Are you right in that ? Can we, you and I, as  individuals, go to the root of it and understand the process of  the self? Now what brings about dissolution of the self?  Religious and other groups have offered identification, have  they not ? "Identify yourself with a larger, and the self  disappears", is what they say. But surely identification is  still the process of the self; the larger is simply the projec-  tion of the 'me', which I experience and which therefore  strengthens the 'me'.

All the various forms of discipline, belief and knowledge surely only strengthen the self. Can we find an element which  will dissolve the self?* Or is that a wrong question ? That is  what we want basically. We want to find something which  will dissolve the 'me', do we not ? We think there are various  means, namely, identification, belief, etc. ; but all of them  are at the same level ; one is not superior to the other, because  all of them arc equally powerful in strengthening the self,  the 'me'. So can I see the 'me' wherever it functions, and see  its destructive forces and energy? Whatever name I may give  to it, it is an isolating force, it is a destructive force, and I  want to find a way of dissolving it. You must have asked  this yourself—"I see the    functioning all the time and  always bringing anxiety, fear, frustration, despair, misery,  not only to myself but to all around me. Is it possible for that  self to be dissolved, not partially but completely ?" Can we  go to the root of it and destroy it ? That is the only way of  truly functioning, is it not ? I do not want to be partially  intelligent but intelligent in an integrated manner. Most of us  are -intelligent in layers, you probably in one way and I in  some other way. Some of you are intelligent in your business  work, some others in your office work, and so on; people are  intelligent in different ways ; but we are not integrally in-  telligent. To be integrally intelligent means to be without the self.  Is it possible?

Is it possible for the self to be completely absent now?  You know it is possible. What are the necessary ingredients,  requirements ? What is the element that brings it about ?  Can I find it ? When I put that question "Can I find it ?"  surely I am convinced that it is possible; so I have already  created an experience in which the self is going to be  strengthened, is it not ? Understanding of the self requires a  great deal of intelligence, a great deal of watchfulness,  alertness, watching ceaselessly, so that it does not slip away.  I, who am very earnest, want to dissolve the self. When  I say that, I know it is possible to dissolve the self. The  moment I say "I want to dissolve this", in that there is still  the experiencing of the self; and so the self is strengthened. 

So how is it possible for the self not to experience ? One can  see that the state of creation is not at all the experience of the  self. Creation is when the self is not there, because creation is  not intellectual, is not of the mind, is not self-projected, is  something beyond all experiencing. So is it possible for the  mind to be quite still, in a state of non-recognition, or non-  experiencing, to be in a state in which creation can take  place, which means when the self is not there, when the self is  absent ? The problem is this, is it not ? Any movement of the  mind, positive or negative, is an experience which actually  strengthens the 'me'. Is it possible for the mind not to  recognize ? That can only take place when there is complete  silence, but not the silence which is an experience of the self  and which therefore strengthens the self.

Is there an entity apart from the self, which looks at the  self and dissolves the self? Is there a spiritual entity which  supersedes the self and destroys it, which puts it aside ? We  think there is, don't we ? Most religious people think there is  such an element. The materialist says, "It is impossible for  the self to be destroyed; it can only be conditioned and  restrained—politically, economically and socially; we can  hold it firmly within a certain pattern and we can break it;  and therefore it can be made to lead a high life, a moral life,  and not to interfere with anything but to follow the social  pattern, and to function merely as a machine". That we  know. There are other people, the so-called religious ones  —they are not really religious, though we call them so--  who say, "Fundamentally, there is such an element. If we  can get into touch with it, it will dissolve the self".  Is there such an element to dissolve the self? Please see  what we are doing. We are forcing the self into a corner.  If you allow yourself to be forced into the corner, you will see  what will happen. We should like there to be an element  which is timeless, which is not of the self, which, we hope, will  come and intercede and destroy the self-----and which we call  God. Now is there such a thing which the mind can conceive ?  There may be or there may not be; that is not the point.

But when the mind seeks a timeless spiritual state which will  go into action in order to destroy the self, is that not another  form of experience which is strengthening the 'me' ? When  you believe, is that not what is actually taking place?  When you believe that there is truth, God, the timeless  state, immortality, is that not the process of strengthening  the self? The self has projected that thing which you feel  and believe will come and destroy the self. So, having  projected this idea of continuance in a timeless state as a  spiritual entity, you have an experience; and such experience  only strengthens the self; and therefore what have you done?  You have not really destroyed the self but only given it a  different name, a different quality; the self is still there,  because you haire experienced it. Thus our action from the  beginning to the end is the same action, only we think it is  evolving, growing, becoming more and more beautiful;  but, if you observe inwardly, it is the same action going on,  the same 'me' functioning at different levels with different  labels, different names.

When you see the whole process, the cunning, extraordin-  ary inventions, the intelligence of the self, how it covers itself  up through identification, through virtue, through ex-  perience, through belief, through knowledge; when you see  that the mind is moving in a circle, in a cage of its own  making, what happens ? When you are aware of it, fully  cognizant of it, then are you not extraordinarily quiet—  not through compulsion, not through any reward, not  through any fear ? When you recognize that every movement  of the mind is merely a form of strengthening the self, when  you observe it, see it, when you are completely aware of it in  action, when you come to that point—not ideologically,  verbally, not through projected experiencing, but when you  are actually in that state—then you will see that the mind,  being utterly still, has no power of creating. Whatever the  mind creates is in a circle, within the field of the self. When  the mind is non-creating there is creation, which is not a  recognizable process.

Reality, truth, is not to be recognized. For truth to come,  belief, knowledge, experiencing, the pursuit of virtue—a11  this must go. The virtuous person who is conscious of  pursuing virtue can never find reality. He may be a very  decent person; but that is entirely different from being a  man of truth, a man who understands. To the man of truth,  truth has come into being. A virtuous man is a righteous man,  and a righteous man can never understand what is truth  because virtue to him is the covering of the self, the strength-  ening of the self, because he is pursuing virtue. When  he says "I must be without greed", the state of non-greed  which he experiences only strengthens the self. That is why  it is so important to be poor, not only in the things of the  world but also in belief and in knowledge. A man with  worldly riches or a man rich in knowledge and belief will  never know anything but darkness, and will be the centre  of all mischief and .misery. But if you and I, as individuals,  can see this whole working of the self, then we shall know  what love is. I assure you that is the only reformation which  can possibly change the world. Love is not of the self. Self  cannot recognize love. You say "I love" ; but then, in the  very saying of it, in the very experiencing of it, love is not.  But, when you know love, self is not. When there is love,  self is not.

- J.D Krishnamurti, "THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM"

 ON THE CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS MIND 

Question: The conscious mind is ignorant and afraid of the unconscious mind. You are addressing mainly the conscious mind and is that enough? Will your method bring about release of the unconscious? Please explain in detail how one can tackle the unconscious mind fully.

Krishnamurti:

We are aware that there is the conscious and the unconscious mind but most of us function only on the conscious level, in the upper layer of the mind, and our whole life is practically limited to that. We live in the so-called conscious mind and we never pay attention to the deeper unconscious mind from which there is occasionally an intimation, a hint; that hint is disregarded, perverted or translated according to our particular conscious demands at the moment. Now the questioner asks, "You are addressing mainly the conscious mind and is that enough?" Let us see what we mean by the conscious mind. Is the conscious mind different from the unconscious mind? We have divided the conscious from the unconscious; is this justified? Is this true? Is there such a division between the conscious and the unconscious? Is there a definite barrier, a line where the conscious ends and the unconscious begins? We are aware that the upper layer, the conscious mind, is active but is that the only instrument that is active throughout the day? If I were addressing merely the upper layer of the mind, then surely what I am saying would be valueless, it would have no meaning. Yet most of us cling to what the conscious mind has accepted, because the conscious mind finds it convenient to adjust to certain obvious facts; but the unconscious may rebel, and often does, and so there is conflict between the so-called conscious and the unconscious.

Therefore, our problem is this, is it not? There is in fact only one state, not two states such as the conscious and the unconscious; there is only a state of being, which is consciousness, though you may divide it as the conscious and the unconscious. But that consciousness is always of the past, never of the present; you are conscious only of things that are over. You are conscious of what I am trying to convey the second afterwards, are you not; you understand it a moment later. You are never conscious or aware of the now. Watch your own hearts and minds and you will see that consciousness is functioning between the past and the future and that the present is merely a passage of the past to the future. Consciousness is therefore a movement of the past to the future.

If you watch your own mind at work, you will see that the movement to the past and to the future is a process in which the present is not. Either the past is a means of escape from the present, which may be unpleasant, or the future is a hope away from the present. So the mind is occupied with the past or with the future and sloughs off the present. That is the mind is conditioned by the past, conditioned as an Indian, a Brahmin or a non-Brahmin, a Christian, a Buddhist and so on, and that conditioned mind projects itself into the future; therefore it is never capable of looking directly and impartially at any fact. It either condemns and rejects the fact or accepts and identifies itself with the fact. Such a mind is obviously not capable of seeing any fact as a fact. That is our state of consciousness which is conditioned by the past and our thought is the conditioned response to the challenge of a fact; the more you respond according to the conditioning of belief, of the past, the more there is the strengthening of the past. That strengthening of the past is obviously the continuity of itself, which it calls the future. So that is the state of our mind, of our consciousness - a pendulum swinging backwards and forwards between the past and the future. That is our consciousness, which is made up not only of the upper layers of the mind but of the deeper layers as well. Such consciousness obviously cannot function at a different level, because it only knows those two movements of backwards and forwards.

If you watch very carefully you will see that it is not a constant movement but that there is an interval between two thoughts; though it may be but an infinitesimal fraction of a second, there is an interval that has significance in the swinging backwards and forwards of the pendulum. We see the fact that our thinking is conditioned by the past which is projected into the future; the moment you admit the past, you must also admit the future, because there are not two such states as the past and the future but one state which includes both the conscious and the unconscious, both the collective past and the individual past. The collective and the individual past, in response to the present, give out certain responses which create the individual consciousness; therefore consciousness is of the past and that is the whole background of our existence. The moment you have the past, you inevitably have the future, because the future is merely the continuity of the modified past but it is still the past, so our problem is how to bring about a transformation in this process of the past without creating another conditioning, another past.

To put it differently, the problem is this: Most of us reject one particular form of conditioning and find another form, a wider, more significant or more pleasant conditioning. You give up one religion and take on another, reject one form of belief and accept another. Such substitution is obviously not understanding life, life being relationship. Our problem is how to be free from all conditioning. Either you say it is impossible, that no human mind can ever be free from conditioning, or you begin to experiment, to inquire, to discover. If you assert that it is impossible, obviously you are out of the running. Your assertion may be based on limited or wide experience or on the mere acceptance of a belief but such assertion is the denial of search, of research, of inquiry, of discovery. To find out if it is possible for the mind to be completely free from all conditioning, you must be free to inquire and to discover.

Now I say it is definitely possible for the mind to be free from all conditioning - not that you should accept my authority. If you accept it on authority, you will never discover, it will be another substitution and that will have no significance. When I say it is possible, I say it because for me it is a fact and I can show it to you verbally, but if you are to find the truth of it for yourself, you must experiment with it and follow it swiftly.

The understanding of the whole process of conditioning does not come to you through analysis or introspection, because the moment you have the analyser that very analyser himself is part of the background and therefore his analysis is of no significance. That is a fact and you must put it aside. The analyser who examines, who analyses the thing which he is looking at, is himself part of the conditioned state and therefore whatever his interpretation, his understanding, his analysis may be, it is still part of the background. So that way there is no escape and to break the background is essential, because to meet the challenge of the new, the mind must be new; to discover God, truth, or what you will, the mind must be fresh, uncontaminated by the past. To analyse the past, to arrive at conclusions through a series of experiments, to make assertions and denials and all the rest of it, implies, in its very essence, the continuance of the background in different forms; when you see the truth of that fact you will discover that the analyser has come to an end. Then there is no entity apart from the background: there is only thought as the background, thought being the response of memory, both conscious and unconscious, individual and collective.

The mind is the result of the past, which is the process of conditioning. How is it possible for the mind to be free? To be free, the mind must not only see and understand its pendulum-like swing between the past and the future but also be aware of the interval between thoughts. That interval is spontaneous, it is not brought about through any causation, through any wish, through any compulsion.

If you watch very carefully, you will see that though the response, the movement of thought, seems so swift, there are gaps, there are intervals between thoughts. Between two thoughts there is a period of silence which is not related to the thought process. If you observe you will see that that period of silence, that interval, is not of time and the discovery of that interval, the full experiencing of that interval, liberates you from conditioning - or rather it does not liberate 'you' but there is liberation from conditioning. So the understanding of the process of thinking is meditation. We are now not only discussing the structure and the process of thought, which is the background of memory, of experience, of knowledge, but we are also trying to find out if the mind can liberate itself from the background. It is only when the mind is not giving continuity to thought, when it is still with a stillness that is not induced, that is without any causation - it is only then that there can be freedom from the background.

- J.D Krishnamurti, "THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM"

 ON GOD 

Question: You have realized reality. Can you tell us what God is?

Krishnamurti:

How do you know I have realized? To know that I have realized, you also must have realized. This is not just a clever answer. To know something you must be of it. You must yourself have had the experience also and therefore your saying that I have realized has apparently no meaning. What does it matter if I have realized or have not realized? Is not what I am saying the truth? Even if I am the most perfect human being, if what I say is not the truth why would you even listen to me? Surely my realization has nothing whatever to do with what I am saying and the man who worships another because that other has realized is really worshipping authority and therefore he can never find the truth. To understand what has been realized and to know him who has realized is not at all important, is it?

I know the whole tradition says, "Be with a man who has realized." How can you know that he has realized? All that you can do is to keep company with him and even that is extremely difficult nowadays. There are very few good people, in the real sense of the word - people who are not seeking something, who are not after something. Those who are seeking something or are after something are exploiters and therefore it is very difficult for anyone to find a companion to love.

We idealize those who have realized and hope that they will give us something, which is a false relationship. How can the man who has realized communicate if there is no love? That is our difficulty. In all our discussions we do not really love each other; we are suspicious. You want something from me, knowledge, realization, or you want to keep company with me, all of which indicates that you do not love. You want something and therefore you are out to exploit. If we really love each other then there will be instantaneous communication. Then it does not matter if you have realized and I have not or if you are the high or the low. Since our hearts have withered, God has become awfully important. That is, you want to know God because you have lost the song in your heart and you pursue the singer and ask him whether he can teach you how to sing. He can teach you the technique but the technique will not lead you to creation. You cannot be a musician by merely knowing how to sing. You may know all the steps of a dance but if you have not creation in your heart, you are only functioning as a machine. You cannot love if your object is merely to achieve a result. There is no such thing as an ideal, because that is merely an achievement. Beauty is not an achievement, it is reality, now, not tomorrow. If there is love you will understand the unknown, you will know what God is and nobody need tell you - and that is the beauty of love. It is eternity in itself. Because there is no love, we want someone else, or God, to give it to us. If we really loved, do you know what a different world this would be? We should be really happy people. Therefore we should not invest our happiness in things, in family, in ideals. We should be happy and therefore things, people and ideals would not dominate our lives. They are all secondary things. Because we do not love and because we are not happy we invest in things, thinking they will give us happiness, and one of the things in which we invest is God.

You want me to tell you what reality is. Can the indescribable be put into words? Can you measure something immeasurable? Can you catch the wind in your fist? If you do, is that the wind? If you measure that which is immeasurable, is that the real? If you formulate it, is it the real? Surely not, for the moment you describe something which is indescribable, it ceases to be the real. The moment you translate the unknowable into the known, it ceases to be the unknowable. Yet that is what we are hankering after. All the time we want to know, because then we shall be able to continue, then we shall be able, we think, to capture ultimate happiness, permanency. We want to know because we are not happy, because we are striving miserably, because we are worn out, degraded. Yet instead of realizing the simple fact - that we are degraded, that we are dull, weary, in turmoil - we want to move away from what is the known into the unknown, which again becomes the known and therefore we can never find the real.

Therefore instead of asking who has realized or what God is why not give your whole attention and awareness to what is? Then you will find the unknown, or rather it will come to you. If you understand what is the known, you will experience that extraordinary silence which is not induced, not enforced, that creative emptiness in which alone reality can enter. It cannot come to that which is becoming, which is striving; it can only come to that which is being, which understands what is. Then you will see that reality is not in the distance; the unknown is not far off; it is in what is. As the answer to a problem is in the problem, so reality is in what is; if we can understand it, then we shall know truth.

It is extremely difficult to be aware of dullness, to be aware of greed, to be aware of ill will, ambition and so on. The very fact of being aware of what is is truth. It is truth that liberates, not your striving to be free. Thus reality is not far but we place it far away because we try to use it as a means of self-continuity. It is here, now, in the immediate. The eternal or the timeless is now and the now cannot be understood by a man who is caught in the net of time. To free thought from time demands action, but the mind is lazy, it is slothful, and therefore ever creates other hindrances. It is only possible by right meditation, which means complete action, not a continuous action, and complete action can only be understood when the mind comprehends the process of continuity, which is memory - not the factual but the psychological memory. As long as memory functions, the mind cannot understand what is. But one's mind, one's whole being, becomes extraordinarily creative, passively alert, when one understands the significance of ending, because in ending there is renewal, while in continuity there is death, there is decay.

- J. Krishnamurti The First and Last Freedom Questions and Answers Question 30 'ON GOD’

 Why do we want a guru? 

Question: You say that gurus are unnecessary, but how can I find truth without the wise help and guidance which only a guru can give?

Krishnamurti:

The question is whether a guru is necessary or not, Can truth be found through another? Some say it can and some say it cannot. We want to know the truth of this, not my opinion as against the opinion of another. I have no opinion in this matter. Either it is so or it is not. Whether it is essential that you should or should not have a guru is not a quest1on of opinion. The truth of the matter is not dependent on opinion, however profound, erudite, popular, universal. The truth of the matter is to be found out, in fact.

First of all, why do we want a guru? We say we need a guru because we are confused and the guru is helpful; he will point out what truth is, he will help us to understand, he knows much more about life than we do, he will act as a father, as a teacher to instruct us in life; he has vast experience and we have but little; he will help us through his greater experience and so on and on. That is, basically, you go to a teacher because you are confused. If you were clear, you would not go near a guru. Obviously if you were profoundly happy, if there were no problems, if you understood life completely, you would not go to any guru. I hope you see the significance of this. Because you are confused, you seek out a teacher. You go to him to give you a way of life to clarify your own confusion, to find truth. You choose your guru because you are confused and you hope he will give you what you ask. That is you choose a guru who will satisfy your demand; you choose according to the gratification he will give you and your choice is dependent on your gratification.

You do not choose a guru who says, "Depend on yourself; you choose him according to your prejudices. So since you choose your guru according to the gratification he gives you, you are not seeking truth but a way out of confusion; and the way out of confusion is mistakenly called truth.

Let us examine first this idea that a guru can clear up our confusion. Can anyone clear up our confusion? - confusion being the product of our responses. We have created it. Do you think someone else has created it - this misery, this battle at all levels of existence, within and without? It is the result of our own lack of knowledge of ourselves. It is because we do not understand ourselves, our conflicts, our responses, our miseries, that we go to a guru whom we think will help us to be free of that confusion. We can understand ourselves only in relationship to the present; and that relationship itself is the guru not someone outside. If I do not understand that relationship, whatever a guru may say is useless, because if I do not understand relationship, my relationship to property, to people, to ideas, who can resolve the conflict within me? To resolve that conflict, I must understand it myself, which means I must be aware of myself in relationship. To be aware, no guru is necessary. If I do not know myself, of what use is a guru? As a political leader is chosen by those who are in confusion and whose choice therefore is also confused, so I choose a guru. I can choose him only according to my confusion; hence he, like the political leader, is confused.

What is important is not who is right - whether I am right or whether those are right who say a guru is necessary; to find out why you need a guru is important. Gurus exist for exploitation of various kinds, but that is irrelevant. It gives you satisfaction if someone tells you how you are progressing, but to find out why you need a guru - there lies the key. Another can point out the way but you have to do all the work, even if you have a guru. Because you do not want to face that, you shift the responsibility to the guru. The guru becomes useless when there is a particle of self-knowledge. No guru, no book or scripture, can give you self-knowledge: it comes when you are aware of yourself in relationship. To be, is to be related; not to understand relationship is misery, strife. Not to be aware of your relationship to property is one of the causes of confusion. If you do not know your right relationship to property there is bound to be conflict, which increases the conflict in society. If you do not understand the relationship between yourself and your wife, between yourself and your child, how can another resolve the conflict arising out of that relationship? Similarly with ideas, beliefs and so on. Being confused in your relationship with people, with property, with ideas, you seek a guru. If he is a real guru, he will tell you to understand yourself. You are the source of all misunderstanding and confusion; and you can resolve that conflict only when you understand yourself in relationship.

You cannot find truth through anybody else. How can you? Truth is not something static; it has no fixed abode; it is not an end, a goal. On the contrary, it is living, dynamic, alert, alive. How can it be an end? If truth is a fixed point it is no longer truth; it is then a mere opinion. Truth is the unknown, and a mind that is seeking truth will never find it, for mind is made up of the known, it is the result of the past, the outcome of time - which you can observe for yourself. Mind is the instrument of the known, hence it cannot find the unknown; it can only move from the known to the known. When the mind seeks truth, the truth it has read about in books, that 'truth' is self-projected; for then the mind is merely in pursuit of the known, a more satisfactory known than the previous one. When the mind seeks truth, it is seeking its own self-projection, not truth. After all, an ideal is self-projected; it is fictitious, unreal. What is real is what is, not the opposite. But a mind that is seeking reality, seeking God, is seeking the known. When you think of God, your God is the projection of your own thought, the result of social influences. You can think only of the known; you cannot think of the unknown, you cannot concentrate on truth. The moment you think of the unknown, it is merely the self-projected known. God or truth cannot be thought about. If you think about it, it is not truth. Truth cannot be sought: it comes to you. You can go only after what is known. When the mind is not tortured by the known, by the effects of the known, then only can truth reveal itself. Truth is in every leaf, in every tear; it is to be known from moment to moment. No one can lead you to truth; and if anyone leads you, it can only be to the known.

Truth can only come to the mind that is empty of the known. It comes in a state in which the known is absent, not functioning. The mind is the warehouse of the known, the residue of the known; for the mind to be in that state in which the unknown comes into being, it must be aware of itself, of its previous experiences, the conscious as well as the unconscious, of its responses, reactions, and structure. When there is complete self-knowledge, then there is the ending of the known, then the mind is completely empty of the known. It is only then that truth can come to you uninvited. Truth does not belong to you or to me. You cannot worship it. The moment it is known, it is unreal. The symbol is not real, the image is not real; but when there is the understanding of self, the cessation of self, then eternity comes into being.

- J.D Krishnamurti, "THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM"

 ON RELATIONSHIP 

Question: You have often talked of relationship. What does it mean to you?

Krishnamurti:

First of all, there is no such thing as being isolated. To be is to be related and without relationship there is no existence. What do we mean by relationship? It is an interconnected challenge and response between two people, between you and me, the challenge which you throw out and which I accept or to which I respond; also the challenge I throw out to you. The relationship of two people creates society; society is not independent of you and me; the mass is not by itself a separate entity but you and I in our relationship to each other create the mass, the group, the society. Relationship is the awareness of interconnection between two people. What is that relationship generally based on? Is it not based on so-called interdependence, mutual assistance? At least, we say it is mutual help, mutual aid and so on, but actually, apart from words, apart from the emotional screen which we throw up against each other, what is it based upon? On mutual gratification, is it not? If I do not please you, you get rid of me; if I please you, you accept me either as your wife or as your neighbour or as your friend. That is the fact.

What is it that you call the family? Obviously it is a relationship of intimacy, of communion. In your family, in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, is there communion? Surely that is what we mean by relationship, do we not? Relationship means communion without fear, freedom to understand each other, to communicate directly. Obviously relationship means that - to be in communion with another. Are you? Are you in communion with your wife? Perhaps you are physically but that is not relationship. You and your wife live on opposite sides of a wall of isolation, do you not? You have your own pursuits, your ambitions, and she has hers. You live behind the wall and occasionally look over the top - and that you call relationship. That is a fact, is it not? You may enlarge it, soften it, introduce a new set of words to describe it. but that is the fact - that you and another live in isolation, and that life in isolation you call relationship.

If there is real relationship between two people, which means there is communion between them, then the implications are enormous. Then there is no isolation; there is love and not responsibility or duty. It is the people who are isolated behind their walls who talk about duty and responsibility. A man who loves does not talk about responsibility - he loves. Therefore he shares with another his joy, his sorrow, his money. Are your families such? Is there direct communion with your wife, with your children? Obviously not. Therefore the family is merely an excuse to continue your name or tradition, to give you what you want, sexually or psychologically, so the family becomes a means of self-perpetuation, of carrying on your name. That is one kind of immortality, one kind of permanency. The family is also used as a means of gratification. I exploit others ruthlessly in the business world, in the political or social world outside, and at home I try to be kind and generous. How absurd! Or the world is too much for me, I want peace and I go home. I suffer in the world and I go home and try to find comfort. So I use relationship as a means of gratification, which means I do not want to be disturbed by my relationship.

Thus relationship is sought where there is mutual satisfaction, gratification; when you do not find that satisfaction you change relationship; either you divorce or you remain together but seek gratification elsewhere or else you move from one relationship to another till you find what you seek - which is satisfaction, gratification, and a sense of self-protection and comfort. After all, that is our relationship in the world, and it is thus in fact. Relationship is sought where there can be security, where you as an individual can live in a state of security, in a state of gratification, in a state of ignorance - all of which always creates conflict, does it not? If you do not satisfy me and I am seeking satisfaction, naturally there must be conflict, because we are both seeking security in each other; when that security becomes uncertain you become jealous, you become violent, you become possessive and so on. So relationship invariably results in possession in condemnation, in self-assertive demands for security, for comfort and for gratification, and in that there is naturally no love.

We talk about love, we talk about responsibility, duty, but there is really no love; relationship is based on gratification, the effect of which we see in the present civilization. The way we treat our wives, children, neighbours, friends is an indication that in our relationship there is really no love at all. It is merely a mutual search for gratification. As this is so, what then is the purpose of relationship? What is its ultimate significance? If you observe yourself in relationship with others, do you not find that relationship is a process of self-revelation? Does not my contact with you reveal my own state of being if I am aware, if I am alert enough to be conscious of my own reaction in relationship? Relationship is really a process of self-revelation, which is a process of self-knowledge; in that revelation there are many unpleasant things, disquieting, uncomfortable thoughts, activities. Since I do not like what I discover, I run away from a relationship which is not pleasant to a relationship which is pleasant. Therefore, relationship has very little significance when we are merely seeking mutual gratification but becomes extraordinarily significant when it is a means of self-revelation and self-knowledge.

After all, there is no relationship in love, is there? It is only when you love something and expect a return of your love that there is a relationship. When you love, that is when you give yourself over to something entirely, wholly, then there is no relationship.

If you do love, if there is such a love, then it is a marvellous thing. In such love there is no friction, there is not the one and the other, there is complete unity. It is a state of integration, a complete being. There are such moments, such rare, happy, joyous moments, when there is complete love, complete communion. What generally happens is that love is not what is important but the other, the object of love becomes important; the one to whom love is given becomes important and not love itself. Then the object of love, for various reasons, either biological, verbal or because of a desire for gratification, for comfort and so on, becomes important and love recedes. Then possession, jealousy and demands create conflict and love recedes further and further; the further it recedes, the more the problem of relationship loses its significance, its worth and its meaning. Therefore, love is one of the most difficult things to comprehend. It cannot come through an intellectual urgency, it cannot be manufactured by various methods and means and disciplines. It is a state of being when the activities of the self have ceased; but they will not cease if you merely suppress them, shun them or discipline them. You must understand the activities of the self in all the different layers of consciousness. We have moments when we do love, when there is no thought, no motive, but those moments are very rare. Because they are rare we cling to them in memory and thus create a barrier between living reality and the action of our daily existence.

In order to understand relationship it is important to understand first of all what is, what is actually taking place in our lives, in all the different subtle forms; and also what relationship actually means. Relationship is self-revelation. it is because we do not want to be revealed to ourselves that we hide in comfort, and then relationship loses its extraordinary depth, significance and beauty. There can be true relationship only when there is love but love is not the search for gratification. Love exists only when there is self-forgetfulness, when there is complete communion, not between one or two, but communion with the highest; and that can only take place when the self is forgotten.

- J.D Krishnamurti, "THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM"

 ON THE MEANING OF LIFE 

Question: We live but we do not know why. To so many of us, life seems to have no meaning. Can you tell us the meaning and purpose of our living?

Krishnamurti:

Now why do you ask this question? Why are you asking me to tell you the meaning of life, the purpose of life? What do we mean by life? Does life have a meaning, a purpose? Is not living in itself its own purpose, its own meaning? Why do we want more? Because we are so dissatisfied with our life, our life is so empty, so tawdry, so monotonous, doing the same thing over and over again, we want something more, something beyond that which we are doing. Since our everyday life is so empty, so dull, so meaningless, so boring, so intolerably stupid, we say life must have a fuller meaning and that is why you ask this question. Surely a man who is living richly, a man who sees things as they are and is content with what he has, is not confused; he is clear, therefore he does not ask what is the purpose of life. For him the very living is the beginning and the end. Our difficulty is that, since our life is empty, we want to find a purpose to life and strive for it. Such a purpose of life can only be mere intellection, without any reality; when the purpose of life is pursued by a stupid, dull mind, by an empty heart, that purpose will also be empty. Therefore our purpose is how to make our life rich, not with money and all the rest of it but inwardly rich - which is not something cryptic. When you say that the purpose of life is to be happy, the purpose of life is to find God, surely that desire to find God is an escape from life and your God is merely a thing that is known. You can only make your way towards an object which you know; if you build a staircase to the thing that you call God, surely that is not God. Reality can be understood only in living, not in escape. When you seek a purpose of life, you are really escaping and not understanding what life is. Life is relationship, life is action in relationship; when I do not understand relationship, or when relationship is confused, then I seek a fuller meaning. Why are our lives so empty? Why are we so lonely, frustrated? Because we have never looked into ourselves and understood ourselves. We never admit to ourselves that this life is all we know and that it should therefore be understood fully and completely. We prefer to run away from ourselves and that is why we seek the purpose of life away from relationship. If we begin to understand action, which is our relationship with people, with property, with beliefs and ideas, then we will find that relationship itself brings its own reward. You do not have to seek. It is like seeking love. Can you find love by seeking it? Love cannot be cultivated. You will find love only in relationship, not outside relationship, and it is because we have no love that we want a purpose of life. When there is love, which is its own eternity, then there is no search for God, because love is God.

It is because our minds are full of technicalities and superstitious mutterings that our lives are so empty and that is why we seek a purpose beyond ourselves. To find life's purpose we must go through the door of ourselves; consciously or unconsciously we avoid facing things as they are in themselves and so we want God to open for us a door which is beyond. This question about the purpose of life is put only by those who do not love. Love can be found only in action, which is relationship.

- J.D Krishnamurti, "THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM"

 On Knowledge 

Question: I gather definitely from you that learning and knowledge are impediments. To what are impediments?

Krishnamurti :

Obviously knowledge and learning are an impediment to the understanding of the new, the timeless, the eternal. Developing a perfect technique does not make you creative. You may know how to paint marvellously, you may have the technique; but you may not be a creative painter. You may know how to write poems, technically most perfect; but you may not be a poet. To be a poet implies, does it not?, being capable of receiving the new; to be sensitive enough to respond to something new, fresh. With most of us knowledge or learning has become an addiction and we think that through knowing we shall be creative. A mind that is crowded, encased in facts, in knowledge—is it capable of receiving something new, sudden, spontaneous? If your mind is crowded with the known, is there any space in it to receive something that is of the unknown? Surely knowledge is always of the known; and with the known we are trying to understand the unknown, something which is beyond measure.

Take, for example, a very ordinary thing that happens to most of us: those who are religious—whatever that word may mean for the moment—try to imagine what God is or try to think about what God is. They have read innumerable books, they have read about the experiences of the various saints, the Masters, the Mahatmas and all the rest, and they try to imagine or try to feel what the experience of another is; that is with the known you try to approach the unknown. Can you do it? Can you think of something that is not knowable? You can only think of something that you know. But there is this extraordinary perversion taking place in the world at the present time: we think we shall understand if we have more information, more books, more printed matter.

To be aware of something that is not the projection of the known, there must be the elimination, through the understanding, of the process of the known. Why is it that the mind clings always to the known? Is it not because the mind is constantly seeking certainty, security? Its very nature is fixed in the known, in time; how can such a mind, whose very foundation is based on the past, on time, experience the timeless? It may conceive, formulate, picture the unknown, but that is all absurd. The unknown can come into being only when the known is understood, dissolved, put aside. That is extremely difficult, because the moment you have an experience of anything, the mind translates it into the terms of the known and reduces it to the past. I do not know if you have noticed that every experience is immediately translated into the known, given a name, tabulated and recorded. So the movement of the known is knowledge, and obviously such knowledge, learning, is a hindrance.

Suppose you had never read a book, religious or psychological, and you had to find the meaning, the significance of life. How would you set about it? Suppose there were no Masters, no religious organizations, no Buddha, no Christ, you had to begin from the beginning. How would you set bout it? First, you would have to understand your process of thinking, would you not ?—and not project yourself, your thoughts, into the future and create a God which pleases you; that would be too childish. So first you would have to understand the process of your thinking. That is the only way to discover anything new, is it not?

When we say that learning or knowledge is an impediment, a hindrance, we are not including technical knowledge—to drive a car, how to run machinery—or the efficiency which such knowledge brings. We have in mind quite a different thing: that sense of creative happiness which no amount of knowledge or learning will bring. To be creative in the truest sense of that word is to be free of the past from moment to moment, because it is the past that is continually shadowing the present. Merely to cling to information, to the experiences of others, to what someone has said, however great, and try to approximate your action to that—all that is knowledge, is it not? But to discover anything new you must start on your own; you must start on a journey completely denuded, especially of knowledge, because it is very easy, through knowledge and belief, to have experiences; but those experiences are merely the products of self-projection and therefore utterly unreal, false. If you are to discover for yourself what is the new, it is no good carrying the burden of the old, especially know­ledge—the knowledge of another, however great. You use knowledge as a means of self-protection, security, and you want to be quite sure that you have the same experiences as the Buddha or the Christ or X. But a man who is protecting himself constantly through knowledge is obviously not a truth-seeker.

For the discovery of truth there is no path. You must enter the uncharted sea—which is not depressing, which is not being adventurous. When you want to find something new, when you are experimenting with anything, your mind has to be very quiet, has it not? If your mind is crowded, filled with facts, knowledge, they act as an impediment to the new; the difficulty is for most of us that the mind has become so important, so predominantly significant, that it interferes constantly with anything that may be new, with anything that may exist simultaneously with the known. Thus knowledge and learning are impediments for those who would seek, for those who would try to understand that which is timeless.

- J.D Krishnamurti, "THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM"

 Accumulation of knowledge does not lead to intelligence 

Knowledge will not lead to intelligence. We accumulate a great deal of knowledge about many things, but to act intelligently about what one has learned seems almost impossible. Schools, colleges and universities cultivate knowledge about our behaviour, about the universe, about science and every form of technology, but these centres of education rarely help a human being to live a daily life of excellence. Scholars maintain that human beings can evolve only through vast accumulations of information and knowledge. Humanity has lived through thousands and thousands of wars; has accumulated a great deal of knowledge on how to kill, yet that very knowledge is preventing us from putting an end to all wars. We accept war as a way of life and all the brutalities, violence and killing as the normal course of our life. We know we should not kill another. This knowing is totally unrelated to the fact of killing; knowledge does not prevent our killing animals and destroying the earth. Knowledge cannot function through intelligence, but intelligence can function with knowledge. To know is not to know; the understanding of the fact that knowledge can never solve our human problems is intelligence.

Education in our schools is not only the acquisition of knowledge, but what is far more important the awakening of intelligence, which will then utilize knowledge. It is never the other way round. The awakening of intelligence is our concern in all these schools. The inevitable question then arises as to how this intelligence is to be awakened. What is the system, what is the method, what is the practice? This very question implies that one is still functioning in the field of knowledge. The realization that it is a wrong question is the beginning of the awakening of intelligence. Practice, method, system in our daily lives make routine, repetitive action and so a mechanical mind. The continuous movement of knowledge, however specialized, puts the mind into a groove, into a narrow way of life. To learn to observe and understand this whole structure of knowledge is to begin to awaken intelligence.

Our minds live in tradition. The very meaning of that word-to hand down-denies intelligence. It is easy and comfortable to follow tradition, whether it is political, religious or self-invented tradition. Then one does not have to think about it; one does not question it, it is part of tradition to accept and obey. The older the culture, the more the mind is bound to the past, lives in the past. The breaking down of one tradition will inevitably be followed by the imposition of another. A mind with many centuries of any particular tradition behind it refuses to let the old go until there is another tradition equally gratifying and secure. Tradition in all its various forms, from the religious to the academic, must deny intelligence. Intelligence is infinite. Knowledge, however vast, is finite, like tradition. In our schools the habit-forming mechanism of the mind must be observed. In this observation there is the quickening of intelligence.

It is part of human tradition to accept fear. Both the older and younger generation live with fear. Most are not aware that we live in fear. It is only in a mild form of crisis or a shattering incident that we become aware of this abiding fear. It is there. Some are aware of it, others shy away from it. Tradition says to control fear, run away from it, suppress it, analyse it, act upon it, or accept it. We have lived with fear for millennia and we somehow manage to get along with it. It is the nature of tradition to act upon it or run away from it; or sentimentally to accept it and look to some outside agency to resolve it. religions spring from this fear, and the politicians' compelling urge for power is born out of this fear. Any form of domination over another is the nature of fear. When a man or a woman possesses another, there is fear in the background, and this fear destroys every form of relationship.

It is the function of the educator to help the student to face this fear, whether it is fear of the parent, of the teacher or of an older student, the fear of being alone or the fear of nature. The central issue in understanding the nature and structure of fear is to face it; to face it not through the screen of words, but to observe the very happening of fear without any movement away from it. The movement away from the fact is to confound the fact. Our tradition, our education, encourages control, acceptance or denial, or very clever rationalization.

As a teacher, can you help the student and yourself to face every problem that arises in life? In learning, there is neither the teacher nor the taught, there is only learning. To learn about the whole movement of fear we must come to it with curiosity, which has its own vitality. Like a child who is very curious, in that curiosity there is intensity. It is the path of tradition to conquer what we do not understand, to beat it down, to trample it-or to worship it. Tradition is knowledge and the ending of knowledge is the birth of intelligence.

Now, realizing that there is neither the teacher nor the taught but only the act of learning on the part of the grownup and the student, can you, through direct perception of what is happening, learn about this fear? You can if you will allow fear to tell its ancient story. Listen to it attentively, without interference, for it is telling you the history of your own fear. When you so listen, you will discover that the fear is not separate from you. You are that very fear, that very reaction with a word attached to it. The word is not important. The word is knowledge, the tradition; but the actual, the now that is happening, is something totally new; it is the discovery of the newness of your own fear. Facing the fact of fear without any movement of thought, is the ending of fear. Not any particular fear but the very root of fear is disintegrated in this observation. There is no observer, only observation.

Fear is a very complex business, as ancient as the hills, ancient as humankind, and it has a very extraordinary story to tell. But you must know the art of listening to it, and there is great beauty in that listening. There is only listening and the story does not exist.

- J.D Krishnamurti, “Letters to the Schools, Vol. 1, Chapter 5”