Showing results by narrator "Jiddu Krishnamurti" in All Categories

Why is thought divisive? The desire to change in a particular direction gives an energy that is divisive. Will you free the mind taking time, through analysis, or can you look totally and therefore be totally free? Does choiceless rejection of the false give a different kind of energy? Does a foundation give me direction or does it bring confusion? Is the operation of intelligence insight? Questions from the audience followed the talk.

Without self-knowledge, we cannot go beyond the self-projected illusions of the mind. It’s only in relationship that one can know oneself as one is. A mind that is filled with beliefs, dogmas, assertions and quotations is an uncreative, repetitive mind. Can we look at ourselves without beliefs? A mind that is quiet because it understands fear and understands itself is creative.

Is there self-progress? Conflict. Security. Any form of division within oneself is a source of conflict. Can the brain be quiet?

How does it happen that the deep layers hidden in consciousness can be exposed? Comparison between what is with what has been, and what will be, is the process of fear....

Thought and the brain. Can the brain free itself from all self-delusion? Why has the self become important? Can there be only sensation, thought and no desire? Can desire—which brings illusion, self-deception and all the complications of changing desires—can the root of desire be dissipated? What prevents one from having a real insight? That is, seeing the truth of desire and therefore end it. Is it that we have never asked this question? When there is no desire whatsoever then there is a total revolution, and that will affect the consciousness of man.

Am I aware of the process of thinking? Can I see that thought is destructive, except where it is essential? Why is it that we don't see something immediately? Do you know when you are thinking? Is the thing that we call thinking thinking at all? Do you think from the background noise when a problem arises? When the mind becomes totally aware of the background, is there thinking when a problem arises? What happens when I am aware of this hum, this noise incessantly going on? Is the background noise different from the observer? How am I to live an everyday life with complete silence?

Consciousness, because it is in constant movement, has never found an energy which is not contradictory, which is not produced by desire and thought.

A Complete Stillness - 25th August 1965. Is there a single movement that will completely transform my whole way of life? The passion is there, but the perfume doesn’t take place. What am I to do?

Living together amicably, creatively, in complete relationship with one another – if that is what is essential then we need not only a different kind of mind but also a different quality of affection, love. What is the function of a religious mind? Our struggle in life is dualistic: good and bad, right and wrong, holy and unholy, the ideal and the fact. There is only the fact, not the ideal. Is it possible to look at life as though you are looking for the first time? What is the content of the unconscious?

Our education is concerned with the accumulation of knowledge. Very few of us are capable of living a life without the influence of specialists. What is the point of going to a university, getting a degree and disappearing into the vast structure of society? Q: How shall we approach the idea of study? If you express from something already accumulated it is a deadly bore, but if you are all the time watching, not only yourself but the world, you are learning.

Does learning require thinking, or only awareness? To be aware is to be conscious, to be in relationship with what you observe outwardly and also our inward reactions. Awareness reveals that I have a conclusion from which I act, which prevents the free flow of energy. You see that you have many opinions and conclusions. You don't know why you have them or how to be free of them. Start with not knowing.

You can learn easily when there is an atmosphere of freedom and friendship, a sense of happiness. That is denied when you are compelled. Compulsion is not righteous behaviour. Q: What is the foundation of religion? Q: Why does a man want success in life? What are you going to be when you grow up? Q: When bad thoughts come to our mind and we want to suppress them, even more bad thoughts come to our mind. Why is that? Q: How is one to keep happy and engaged, without external stimuli?

The problems of life do not demand a method, because they are so vital and alive that if we approach with a method we totally misunderstand and don’t adequately meet that problem. Where there is efficiency there is ruthlessness. The means and the end are not separate. Reality or God is something that cannot come by a technique, a means or through a long determined practice and discipline. Aloneness implies no means. You are not alone when you have a means.

Why is it that we dominate, consciously or unconsciously? To submit oneself to another is the negative form of domination. We shall not be able to solve this problem by thinking in terms of opposites. Is not domination a process of isolation, which denies relationship? Can there be relationship between two people if there is any sense of domination or submissiveness? Q: Is not the experience of the past a help towards freedom and right action in the present? Q: Is my believing in survival after death a hindrance to liberation through self-knowledge?

We are educated to follow, accept and conform. This is tradition, second-hand. When you become aware of conformity without reaction, is that awareness the act of intelligence? Does the mind realize the nature of conformity, intelligence and awareness? I am attentive for a minute and there is no border, no time, no ‘me’, no problem. The whole energy is involved in that attention. This is a tremendous movement. Attending, I can do things without effort and thought.

Violence. Why do you control? Security means to be in a state in which there is no choice at all. The mind has become sensitive because it has observed, not because it has experienced. Either you see the fact with the past or you see the fact as it is now. The word is of the past.

What is a religious mind? Must one go to an expert to tell us what the unconscious is or can one find it for oneself? Through the negation of disorder, order comes into being. It is only the meditative mind that can find out, not the curious mind or the mind that is everlastingly searching. To meditate implies to see very clearly. It is not possible to see clearly when there is space between the observer and the thing observed. It is only in silence that there is quite a different dimension. You have to find out for yourself; nobody can open the door for you.

The word chaste means pure, clean, untouched. Have we a chaste mind, a mind that has not been hurt, has no image, is free from the pleasure of yesterday and is innocent? Is chastity a quality of the mind? Can the mind be free of the word, symbols and the condemnation and approval of the word? What is the nature of the mind when there is no attempt through will or desire for any way out through the known? If you are really serious, not just with words but burning with responsibility, then you ask whether the mind can ever be free from the known.

Krishnamurti’s ‘process’ and his early years. The Indian tradition says that there is a manifestation of goodness which happens very rarely.

Can insight change the brain cells? In the brain, is there an activity that is not touched by consciousness? Insight is not dependent on the material process, which is thought. Where there is violence, peace cannot exist. Where there is peace, is there violence? As insight is causeless, is not born out of cause, that insight has a definite effect on that which has cause. The material process acts in ignorance, in darkness.