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Why Are We Such Tortured Human Beings, With Tears In Our Eyes And False Laughter On Our Lips? If You Could Walk Alone Among Those Hills Or In The Woods Or Along The Long, White, Bleached Sands, In That Solitude You Would Know What Meditation Is. The Ecstasy Of Solitude Comes When You Are Not Frightened To Be Alone No Longer Belonging To The World Or Attached To Anything. Then, Like That Dawn That Came Up This Morning, It Comes Silently, And Makes A Golden Path In The Very Stillness, Which Was At The Beginning, Which Is Now, And Which Will Be Always There.

-Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Why Are We Such

Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Why Are We Such Tortured Human Beings, With Tears In Our Eyes And False Laughter On Our Lips? If You Could Walk Alone Among Those Hills Or In The Woods Or Along The Long, White, Bleached Sands, In That Solitude You Would Know What Meditation Is. The Ecstasy Of Solitude Comes When You Are Not Frightened To Be Alone No Longer Belonging To The World Or Attached To Anything. Then, Like That Dawn That Came Up This Morning, It Comes Silently, And Makes A Golden Path In The Very Stillness, Which Was At The Beginning, Which Is Now, And Which Will Be Always There.

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To Revolt Within Society In Order To Make It A Little Better, To Bring About Certain Reforms, Is Like The Revolt Of Prisoners To Improve Their Life Within The Prison Walls; And Such Revolt Is No Revolt At All, It Is Just Mutiny. Do You See The Difference? Revolt Within Society Is Like The Mutiny Of Prisoners Who Want Better Food, Better Treatment Within The Prison; But Revolt Born Of Understanding Is An Individual Breaking Away From Society, And That Is Creative Revolution.

The Demand To Be Safe In A Relationship Inevitably Breeds Sorrow And Fear.

Without Understanding The Process Of The Self, There Is No Bais For Thought, There Is No Basis For Right Thinking.

We Have So Committed Ourselves In Different Ways That We Have Hardly Any Time For Self-reflection, To Observe, To Study.

Goodness, Generosity, Or Love Does Not Come Into Being Save Through The Search For Reality.

We Are Asking A Really Fundamental Question Whether Thought Can Ever Be Creative. If Thought Is Not The Ground Of Creation Then What Is Creation? Is Love The Only Factor That Is Creative?

Free Yourself From The Psychological Structure Of Society, Which Is To Free Yourself From The Essence Of Conflict.

Intelligence Comes Into Being When The Mind, The Heart And The Body Are Really Harmonious.

Without Love There Is No Art. When The Artist Is Playing Beautifully There Is No 'me; There Is Love And Beauty, And This Is Art. This Is Skill In Action.

It Is Raining And You Can Hear The Pattern Of The Drops. You Can Hear It With Your Ears, Or You Can Hear It Out Of That Deep Silence. If You Hear It With Complete Silence Of The Mind, Then The Beauty Of It Is Such That Cannot Be Put Into Words Or Onto Canvas, Because That Beauty Is Something Beyond Self-expression .

When You Practice Meditation, The Meditator Becomes All-important And Not The Movement Of Meditation.

What Is Correct Action In A Deteriorating World?

Doesn't Becoming Imply Time?

In The Space Which Thought Creates Around Itself There Is No Love. This Space Divides Man From Man.

After All You Grow By Experience. But While Your Son Is Young, You Should Try To Set Before Him His Ultimate Goal.

Intelligence Is The Capacity To Perceive The Essential, The What Is; And To Awaken This Capacity, In Oneself And In Others, Is Education.

Are You Aware Of The Significance Of Every Thought, Of Every Reaction That You Happen To Have?

There Is An Efficiency Inspired By Love Which Goes Far Beyond And Is Much Greater Than The Efficiency Of Ambition; And Without Love, Which Brings An Integrated Understanding Of Life, Efficiency Breeds Ruthlessness.

Does Choice Exist When I See Something Very Clearly?

There Is No Ideal In Observation. When You Have An Ideal, You Cease To Observe, You Are Then Merely Approximating The Present To The Idea, And Therefore There Is Duality, Conflict, And All The Rest Of It. The Mind Has To Be In The State When It Can See, Observe. The Experience Of The Observation Is Really An Astonishing State. In That There Is No Duality. The Mind Is Simply - Aware.

The Fact Is There Is Nothing That You Can Trust; And That Is A Terrible Fact, Whether You Like It Or Not. Psychologically There Is Nothing In The World, That You Can Put Your Faith, Your Trust, Or Your Belief In. Neither Your Gods, Nor Your Science Can Save You, Can Bring You Psychological Certainty; And You Have To Accept That You Can Trust In Absolutely Nothing.

Is There A Meditation That Is Not The Ego Trying To Become? Is Meditation Conscious If Every Effort Implies Time?

When Inquiry Is Suppressed By Previous Knowledge, Or By The Authority And Experience Of Another, Then Learning Becomes Mere Imitation, And Imitation Causes A Human Being To Repeat What Is Learned Without Experiencing It.

Achieve Order Within Yourself...an Inward Tranquility Which Knows No Disturbance At Any Moment...in The Daily Life Of The Home And The Office.

Those Who Play A Safe Game Die Very Safely.

Student: Sir, You Said You Must Change The World. How Can You Change It, Sir? Krishnamurti: What Is The World? The World Is Where You Live - Your Family, Your Friends, Your Neighbours. And Your Family, Your Friends, Your Neighbours Can Be Extended And That Is The World. Now, You Are The Centre Of That World. That Is The World You Live In. Now How Will You Change The World? By Changing Yourself?

Did You Ever Sit Quietly With Your Back Straight, Not Moving, Just Only Cherishing The Beauty Of Silence?

If You Seem Something That Is True And Do Not Act Then You Are Wasting Your Life. And Life Is Too Precious. It Is All That We Have.

My Chief Concern Is To Make Clear The Truth Which I Have Attained, To Give An Understanding Of The Truth, Which Is The Truth For All. And Hence, If There Is Understanding Rather Than Blind Following, People Will Not Create A Religion.

Living Is Not This Tawdry, Mediocre, Disciplined Thing Which We Call Our Existence. Living Is Something Entirely Different; It Is Abundantly Rich, Timelessly Changing, And As Long As We Don't Understand That Eternal Movement, Our Lives Are Bound To Have Very Little Meaning.

After All, Without Understanding Yourself, What Basis Have You For Right Thinking?

You Haven't Changed. You May Say: 'i'm Full Of Love, I'm Full Of Truth, I'm Full Of Knowledge, I'm Full Of Wisdom.' I Say: 'that's All Nonsense. Do You Behave? Are You Free Of Fear? Are You Free Of Ambition, Greed, Envy And The Desire To Achieve Success In Every Field? If Not, You Are Just Playing A Game. You Are Not Serious.'

All Outward Forms Of Change Brought About By Wars, Revolutions, Reformations, Laws And Ideologies Have Failed Completely To Change The Basic Nature Of Man And Therefore Of Society.

The Difference Between Me And You Is... That I Don't Mind What Happens.

Life Behind All Form Is One, The Expressions Of That Life Are Not Of Very Great Importance.

Surely, Life Is Not Merely A Job, An Occupation; Life Is Something Extraordinarily Wide And Profound, It Is A Great Mystery, A Vast Realm In Which We Function As Human Beings.

The Description Is Not The Described; I Can Describe The Mountain, But The Description Is Not The Mountain, And If You Are Caught Up In The Description, As Most People Are, Then You Will Never See The Mountain

The Primary Cause Of Disorder In Ourselves Is The Seeking Of Reality Promised By Another... It Is A Most Extraordinary Thing That Although Most Of Us Are Opposed To Political Tyranny And Dictatorship, We Inwardly Accept The Authority, The Tyranny, Of Another To Twist Our Minds And Our Way Of Life.

The Origin Is Nameless; The Origin Is Absolutely Quiet, It Is Not Whirring About Making Noise. Creation Is Something That Is Most Holy, That Is The Most Sacred Thing In Life, And If You Have Made A Mess Of Your Life, Change It. Change It Today, Not Tomorrow. If You Are Uncertain, Find Out Why And Be Certain. If Your Thinking Is Not Straight, Think Straight, Logically, Unless All That Is Prepared, All That Is Settled, You Cannot Enter Into This World, Into The World Of Creation.

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.

Teaching Is Not The Mere Imparting Of Information But The Cultivation Of An Inquiring Mind Which Will Penetrate Into The Question Of What Is Religion And Not Merely Accept The Established Religions, Churches, And Rituals.

Fear Is The Destructive Energy In Man. It Withers The Mind, It Distorts Thought, It Leads To All Kinds Of Extraordinarily Clever And Subtle Theories, Absurd Superstitions, Dogmas, And Beliefs.

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.

One Of The Functions Of Thought Is To Be Occupied All The Time With Something. Most Of Us Want To Have Our Minds Continually Occupied So That We Are Prevented From Seeing Ourselves As We Actually Are. We Are Afraid To Be Empty. We Are Afraid To Look At Our Fears.

The Reality Is That I Am The Teacher.

Without Discontentment, Without Revolt, You Can Never Attain Harmony. It Is A Necessary Stage, Which Must Be Gone Through By Everyone.

From These Prejudices There Arises Conflict, Transient Joys And Suffering. But We Are Unconscious Of This, Unconscious That We Are Slaves To Certain Forms Of Tradition, To Social And Political Environment, To False Values.

Freedom Is Not A Reaction; Freedom Is Not A Choice. . Freedom Is Found In The Choiceless Awareness Of Our Daily Existence And Activity.

Do You Know That Even When You Look At A Tree And Say, `that Is An Oak Tree', Or `that Is A Banyan Tree', The Naming Of The Tree, Which Is Botanical Knowledge, Has So Conditioned Your Mind That The Word Comes Between You And Actually Seeing The Tree? To Come In Contact With The Tree You Have To Put Your Hand On It And The Word Will Not Help You To Touch It.

Transformation Can Only Take Place Immediately; The Revolution Is Now, Not Tomorrow.

The Very Desire To Be Certain,to Be Secure,is The Beginning Of Bondage.it's Only When The Mind Is Not Caught In The Net Of Certainty,and Is Not Seeking Certainty, That It Is In A State Of Discovery.

To Concentrate Is Not To Meditate, Even Though That Is What Most Of You Do, Calling It Meditation. And If Concentration Is Not Meditation, Then What Is? Surely, Meditation Is To Understand Every Thought That Comes Into Being, And Not To Dwell Upon One Particular Thought; It Is To Invite All Thoughts So That You Understand The Whole Process Of Thinking.

You Only Learn When You Give Your Whole Being To Something. When You Give Your Whole Being To Mathematics,you Learn; But When You Are In A State Of Contradiction, When You Do Not Want To Learn But Are Forced To Learn, Then It Becomes Merely A Process Of Accumulation. To Learn Is Like Reading A Novel With Innumerable Characters; It Requires Your Full Attention, Not Contradictory Attention.

A Conditioned Mind May Be Inventive; It May Think Up New Ideas, New Phrases, New Gadgets; It May Build A Dam, Plan A New Society, And All The Rest Of It; But That Is Not Creativity. Creativity Is Something Much More Than The Mere Capacity To Acquire A Technique. It Is Because This Extraordinary Thing Called Creativity Is Not In Most Of Us That We Are So Shallow, Empty, Insufficient. And Only The Mind That Is Free Can Be Creative.

Only The Mind That Has Emptied Itself Of The Known Is Creative. That Is Creation. What It Creates Has Nothing To Do With It. Freedom From The Known Is The State Of A Mind That Is In Creation.

I Would Teach My Child To Respect What Is Right - The Word Right Is A Difficult Word To Use - I Would Teach Him To Respect The Intrinsic Value Of Things. Do You See What I Mean? The True Proportion Of Things.

The Very Urge To Get Rid Of Desire Is Still Desire, Is It Not?

Control Exists Only When There Is Action Of Will, Positively Or Negatively. Will Is Resistance. When The Mind Is Learning, There Is No Resistance.

Our Conflict Is In Relationship, At All Levels Of Our Existence; And The Understanding Of This Relationship, Completely And Extensively, Is The Only Real Problem That Each One Has.

The End Is The Beginning Of All Things, Suppressed And Hidden, Awaiting To Be Released Through The Rhythm Of Pain And Pleasure.

There Is Not First Understanding And Then Action. When You Understand, That Very Understanding Is Action.

A Man Who Is Seeking To Understand Violence Does Not Belong To Any Country, To Any Religion, To Any Political Party Or Partial System; He Is Concerned With The Total Understanding Of Mankind.

Take A Journey Into The Things Which You Are Carrying, The Known- Not Into The Unknown-into What You Already Know: Your Pleasures, Your Delights, Your Despairs, Your Sorrows. Take A Journey Into That, That Is All You Have.

I Was Supremely Happy, For I Had Seen. Nothing Could Ever Be The Same. I Have Drunk At The Clear And Pure Waters And My Thirst Was Appeased. ...i Have Seen The Light. I Have Touched Compassion Which Heals All Sorrow And Suffering; It Is Not For Myself, But For The World. ...love In All Its Glory Has Intoxicated My Heart; My Heart Can Never Be Closed. I Have Drunk At The Fountain Of Joy And Eternal Beauty. I Am God-intoxicated.

Fear Is Not Of The Unknown, But Of Loss Of The Known.

We Shall Quench Our Thirst, For We Shall Drink Deep At The Bubbling Fountain Of Wisdom.

Fear Is What Prevents The Flowering Of The Mind.

Energy Functioning In A Pattern Becomes Matter. That Is All Life Is... Matter And Energy Are Interrelated.

The Crisis Is Not Out There In The World, It Is Within Our Own Consciousness.

Beyond All Explanations Which A Good Brain Can Give, Why Do We Choose The Worse And Not The Better, Why Hate Rather Than Love, Why Greed And Not Generosity, Why Self-centred Activity And Not Open Total Action? Why Be Mean When There Are Soaring Mountains And Flashing Streams? Why Jealousy And Not Love? Why?

To Follow Implies Not Only The Denying Of One's Own Clarity, Investigation, Integrity And Honesty, But It Also Implies That Your Motive In Following Is Reward.

Real Learning Comes About When The Competitive Spirit Has Ceased.

Freedom From Something Is Not Freedom.

We Are Empty Shells If We Do Not Possess, If We Do Not Fill Our Life With Furniture, With Music, With Knowledge, With This Or That. And That Shell Makes A Lot Of Noise, And That Noise We Call Living, And With That We Are Satisfied.

As Long As You Are Held Within A Pattern You Must Create Disorder In The World.

It Is Very Easy To Conform To What Your Society Or Your Parents And Teachers Tell You. That Is A Safe And Easy Way Of Existing; But That Is Not Living...to Live Is To Find Out For Yourself What Is True.

The Word 'innocence' Means 'incapable Of Being Hurt'. To Have A Mind That Is Not Capable Of Being Hurt, Does Not Mean That It Has Built Up A Lot Of Resistance - On The Contrary, Such A Mind Is Dying To Everything That It Has Known In Which There Has Been Conflict, Pleasure And Pain. Only Then Is The Mind Innocent; That Means It Can Love. You Cannot Love With Memory, Love Is Not A Matter Of Remembrance, Of Time.

The Description Is Not The Described.

It Is Only In Alert Silence That Truth Can Be.

Tradition Implies Authority, Conformity, Imitation, Following.

What You Are The World Is. And Without Your Transformation, There Can Be No Transformation Of The World.

The Creative Knows The Great Beginnings. The Receptive Completes The Finished Things. The Creative Is Decided And Therefore Shows To Men The Easy. The Receptive Is Yielding And Therefore Shows To Men The Simple. Learning Is Movement From Moment To Moment.

And For This You Must Have Quiet And Solitude. But Society Does Not Allow You To Have Them. You Must Be With People, Outwardly Active At All Costs. If You Are Alone You Are Considered Antisocial Or Peculiar, Or You Are Afraid Of Your Own Loneliness.

Seeing, Observing, Listening, These Are The Greatest Acts

There Is Only That Inevitable Danger As Long As There Is Lack Of Understanding; But The Moment The Individual Understands, There Will Be No Formation Of Religion.

In The Search For Reality, Energy Creates Its Own Discipline. But Mere Discipline, Without Full Comprehension Of All This, Has No Meaning, It Is A Most Destructive Thing.

Intelligence Is Not Discernment And Judgment Or Critical Evaluation.

Isn't The Origin Of Conflict Ego? If There Is No Ego There Is No Becoming.

You Can Only Hear Clearly When You Sit Quietly, When You Give Your Attention. Nor Can You Have Order If You Are Not Free To Watch, If You Are Not Free To Listen, If You Are Not Free To Be Considerate. This Problem Of Freedom And Order Is One Of The Most Difficult And Urgent Problems In Life. It Is A Very Complex Problem. It Needs To Be Thought Over Much More Than Mathematics, Geography, Or History.

I Think It Is Absurd To Give Such Tremendous Importance To The Distinctions Between Men And Women. When I Meet Someone I Regard That Person As A Human Being. I Do Not Say "this Is A Man; This Is A Woman."

[on The Secret To A Happy, Content Life] Do You Want To Know What My Secret Is? I Don’t Mind What Happens.

Real Freedom Is Not Something To Be Acquired, It Is The Outcome Of Intelligence.

Tell Your Friend That In His Death, A Part Of You Dies And Goes With Him. Wherever He Goes, You Also Go. He Will Not Be Alone.

I Am All For Changing, Even If Mistakes Are Made In The Process. Mistakes Do Not Matter.

Do It Or Don't Do It But Get On With It.

If We Can Really Understand The Problem, The Answer Will Come Out Of It, Because The Answer Is Not Separate From The Problem.

And It Is Impossible To Treat Human Beings As Human Beings If You Label Them, If You Term Them, If You Give Them A Name As Hindus, Russians, Or What You Will. It Is So Much Easier To Label People, For Then You Can Pass By And Kick Them, Drop A Bomb On India Or Japan.

Where There Is Love, Do What You Will, It Will Be Right Action. It Will Never Bring Conflict To One's Life. In The Flame Of Love, All Fear Is Consumed.

Without Freedom, There Is No Creation.

Meditation Is The Emptying Of The Mind Of All The Things That The Mind Has Put Together. If You Do That -perhaps You Won't, But It Doesn't Matter, Just Listen To This- You Will Find That There Is An Extraordinary Space In The Mind, And That Space Is Freedom. So You Must Demand Freedom At The Very Beginning, And Not Just Wait, Hoping To Have It At The End. You Must Seek Out The Significance Of Freedom In Your Work, In Your Relationships, In Everything That You Do. Then You Will Find That Meditation Is Creation.

Conflict Exists Only When There Are Two Opposing Things: Fear And Non-fear, Violence And Non-violence.

What Is Important In Meditation Is The Quality Of The Mind And The Heart.it Is Not What You Achieve, Or What You Say You Attain, But Rather The Quality Of A Mind That Is Innocent And Vulnerable.

The More You Know Yourself, The More Clarity There Is.

We Are Concerned, Not With The Development Of Just One Capacity, Such As That Of A Mathematician, Or A Scientist, Or A Musician, But With The Total Development Of The Student As A Human Being.

Not To Know Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

What Is Needed, Rather Than Running Away Or Controlling Or Suppressing Or Any Other Resistance, Is Understanding Fear; That Means, Watch It, Learn About It, Come Directly Into Contact With It. We Are To Learn About Fear, Not How To Escape From It.

Any Acceptance Of Authority Is The Very Denial Of Truth.

By Our Pontifical Assertions, Our Superior Impatience, And Our Casual Brushing Aside Of Their Curiosity, We Do Not Encourage Their Inquiry, For We Are Rather Apprehensive Of What May Be Asked Of Us; We Do Not Foster Their Discontent, For We Ourselves Have Ceased To Question.

It Is Only When The Mind Is Free From The Old That It Meets Everything Anew, And In That There Is Joy.

Merely To Stuff The Child With A Lot Of Information, Making Him Pass Examinations, Is The Most Unintelligent Form Of Education.

You May Wish That Some Parts Of (your Face) Were Different, But The Actual Fact Is Shown In The Mirror. Now, Can You Look At Your Conditioning In A Similar Way?

Have You Ever Sat Very Quietly With Closed Eyes And Watched The Movement Of Your Own Thinking? Have You Watched Your Mind Working?or Rather, Has Your Mind Watched Itself In Operation, Just To See What Your Thoughts Are, What Your Feelings Are, How You Look At The Trees, At The Flowers, At The Birds, At People, How You Respond To A Suggestion Or React To A New Idea? Have You Ever Done This?

If Your Eyes Are Blinded With Your Worries, You Cannot See The Beauty Of The Sunset.

To Meditate Is To Observe Yourself, For You Are Totally Responsible For Your Body, Mind, Thought.

When You Call Yourself An Indian Or A Muslim Or A Christian Or A European, Or Anything Else, You Are Being Violent. Do You See Why It Is Violent? Because You Are Separating Yourself From The Rest Of Mankind. When You Separate Yourself By Belief, By Nationality, By Tradition, It Breeds Violence. So A Man Who Is Seeking To Understand Violence Does Not Belong To Any Country, To Any Religion, To Any Political Party Or Partial System; He Is Concerned With The Total Understanding Of Mankind.

If You Have This Extraordinary Thing Going In Your Life, Then It Is Everything; Then You Become The Teacher, The Disciple, The Neighbour, The Beauty Of The Cloud - You Are All That, And That Is Love.

If I Want To Understand Something, I Must Observe, I Must Not Criticize, I Must Not Condemn, I Must Not Pursue It As Pleasure Or Avoid It As Non-pleasure. There Must Merely Be The Silent Observation Of A Fact.

Religion Becomes A Matter Of Belief, And Belief Acts As A Limitation On The Mind; And The Mind Then Is Never Free. But It Is Only In Freedom That You Can Find Out What Is True, What Is God, Not Through Any Belief; Because Your Belief Projects What You Think God Ought To Be, What You Think Ought To Be True. If You Believe God Is Love, God Is Good, God Is This Or That, Your Very Belief Prevents You From Understanding What Is God, What Is True.

While Expressing Your Desires, You Would Need To Exercise Control In Order To Prevent Them From Doing Harm To You Or To Others.

Is It Possible To Observe Without The Observer?

Is There A Thinker Apart From Thought?

To Learn About Oneself, A Living Thing, You Have To Watch, Learn Anew Each Minute.

As We Are - The World Is.

So, To Meditate Is To Purge The Mind Of Its Self-centered Activity. And If You Have Come This Far In Meditation, You Will Find There Is Silence, A Total Emptiness. The Mind Is Uncontaminated By Society; It Is No Longer Subject To Any Influence, To The Pressure Of Any Desire. It Is Completely Alone, And Being Alone, Untouched It Is Innocent. Therefore There Is A Possibility For That Which Is Timeless, Eternal, To Come Into Being. This Whole Process Is Meditation.

The Significance Of Life Is Living.

Significance Of Life

Goodness Has No Opposite. Most Of Us Consider Goodness As The Opposite Of The Bad Or Evil And So Throughout History In Any Culture Goodness Has Been Considered The Other Face Of That Which Is Brutal. So Man Has Always Struggled Against Evil In Order To Be Good; But Goodness Can Never Come Into Being If There Is Any Form Of Violence Or Struggle.

It Is Astonishingly Beautiful And Interesting, How Thought Is Absent When You Have An Insight. Thought Cannot Have An Insight.

We Demand To Be Coaxed And Comforted, To Be Encouraged And Gratified, So We Choose A Teacher Who Will Give Us What We Crave For. We Do Not Search Out Reality, But Go After Gratification And Sensation.

A Man Who Is Not Afraid Is Not Aggressive, A Man Who Has No Sense Of Fear Of Any Kind Is Really A Free, A Peaceful Man.

Why Are We Such Tortured Human Beings, With Tears In Our Eyes And False Laughter On Our Lips? If You Could Walk Alone Among Those Hills Or In The Woods Or Along The Long, White, Bleached Sands, In That Solitude You Would Know What Meditation Is. The Ecstasy Of Solitude Comes When You Are Not Frightened To Be Alone No Longer Belonging To The World Or Attached To Anything. Then, Like That Dawn That Came Up This Morning, It Comes Silently, And Makes A Golden Path In The Very Stillness, Which Was At The Beginning, Which Is Now, And Which Will Be Always There.

Freedom Is Now Or Never.

Self-knowledge Is Only From Moment To Moment, And Therefore There Is A Creative Happiness From Moment To Moment.

To Me, Then, True Criticism Consists In Trying To Find Out The Intrinsic Worth Of The Thing Itself, And Not In Attributing A Quality To That Thing. You Attribute A Quality To An Environment, To An Experience, Only When You Want To Derive Something From It, When You Want To Gain Or To Have Power Or Happiness. Now This Destroys True Criticism. Your Desire Is Perverted Through Attributing Values, And Therefore You Cannot See Clearly. Instead Of Trying To See The Flower In Its Original And Entire Beauty, You Look At It Through Coloured Glasses, And Therefore You Can Never See It As It Is.

The Transformation Of The World Is Brought About By The Transformation Of Oneself.

Hitler And Mussolini Were Only The Primary Spokesmen For The Attitude Of Domination And Craving For Power That Are In The Heart Of Almost Everyone. Until The Source Is Cleared, There Will Always Be Confusion And Hate, Wars And Class Antagonisms.

When I Analyse Myself And My Reactions Or Behaviour, There Is The Act And The Actor. There Is A Division Between The Two And That Creates Conflict Between "what Is" And "what Should Be".

But If One Observes, One Will See That The Body Has Its Own Intelligence; It Requires A Great Deal Of Intelligence To Observe The Intelligence Of The Body.

A Dialogue Is Very Important. It Is A Form Of Communication In Which Question And Answer Continue Till A Question Is Left Without An Answer. Thus The Question Is Suspended Between The Two Persons Involved In This Answer And Question. It Is Like A Bud With Untouched Blossoms . . . If The Question Is Left Totally Untouched By Thought, It Then Has Its Own Answer Because The Questioner And Answerer, As Persons, Have Disappeared. This Is A Form Of Dialogue In Which Investigation Reaches A Certain Point Of Intensity And Depth, Which Then Has A Quality That Thought Can Never Reach.

Without Love The Acquisition Of Knowledge Only Increases Confusion And Leads To Self-destruction.

There Can Only Be A Relationship Between Human Beings When We Accept What Is, Not What Should Be.

I Am Life. I Have No Name. I Am As The Fresh Breeze Of The Mountains.

But Our Minds Are Bound To The Yardstick Of Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow, And With That Yardstick We Try To Inquire Into The Unknown, To Measure That Which Is Not Measurable.

As Long As The Mind Is Seeking To Fill Itself, It Will Always Be Empty. When The Mind Is No Longer Concerned With Filling Its Own Emptiness, Then Only Does That Emptiness Cease To Be.

What Is Of Great Importance Is That Everyone Should Concern Himself With What I Am Saying, Rather Than With The Personality Of The Teacher, The Body Of The Teacher, Where He Dwells, And So On. That Will Lead To Confusion.

Surely, It Is Only When The Mind Is Creatively Empty That It Is Capable Of Finding Out Whether There Is An Ultimate Reality Or Not. But, The Mind Is Never Creatively Empty; It Is Always Acquiring, Always Gathering, Living On The Past Or In The Future, Or Trying To Be Focused In The Immediate Present: It Is Never In That State Of Creativeness In Which A New Thing Can Take Place. As The Mind Is A Result Of Time, It Cannot Possibly Understand That Which Is Timeless, Eternal.

Goodness Is Not In The Backyard Of The Individual Nor In The Open Field Of The Collective; Goodness Flowers Only In Freedom From Both.

But The Healing Of The Mind Is Something Totally Different. That Healing Gradually Takes Place If You Are With Nature, With That Orange On The Tree, And The Blade Of Grass That Pushes Through The Cement, And The Hills Covered, Hidden, By The Clouds.

It Is Much Easier To Condemn A Child Than To Understand A Child.

I Hold That All The Teachers Of The World Have Attained That Life Which Is The Fulfilment Of Life. Hence, Whenever Anyone Enters That Life, Which Is The Culmination Of All Life, Then He Is Ipso Facto The Buddha, The Christ, The Lord Maitreya, Because There Is No Distinction There.

The Constant Assertion Of Belief Is An Indication Of Fear.

Thought Is Matter As Much As The Floor, The Wall, The Telephone, Are Matter.

To Go Far You Must Begin Near, And The Nearest Step Is The Most Important One.

Learning Is Not The Accumulation Of Knowledge. Learning Is Movement From Moment To Moment.

To Be Absolutely Nothing Is To Be Beyond Measure.

Absolutely Nothing

You Can Only Be Afraid Of What You Think You Know.

You Think You Know

If You Set Out To Meditate, It Will Not Be Meditation. If You Set Out To Be Good, Goodness Will Never Flower.

It Is Only The Religious Mind That Is A Truly Revolutionary Mind.

Do Not Repeat After Me Words That You Do Not Understand. Do Not Merely Put On A Mask Of My Ideas, For It Will Be An Illusion And You Will Thereby Deceive Yourself.

When You Once See Something As False Which You Have Accepted As True, As Natural, As Human, Then You Can Never Go Back To It.

Disillusionment

Is The Ground A Philosophical Concept? Has Mind A Relationship To The Ground? Is It An Idea To Be Investigated? Is The Ground Put Together By Thought?

To Come Upon Love Without Seeking It Is The Only Way To Find It.

A Consistent Thinker Is A Thoughtless Person, Because He Conforms To A Pattern; He Repeats Phrases And Thinks In A Groove.

Throughout Life, From Childhood, From School Until We Die, We Are Taught To Compare Ourselves With Another; Yet When I Compare Myself With Another I Am Destroying Myself.

Education In The True Sense Is Helping The Individual To Be Mature And Free, To Flower Greatly In Love And Goodness. That Is What We Should Be Interested In, And Not In Shaping The Child According To Some Idealistic Pattern.

Religion, Politics, Society Are Exploiting You, And You Are Being Conditioned By Them; You Are Being Forced In A Particular Direction. You Are Not Human Beings; You Are Mere Cogs In A Machine.

If People Are Foolish, They Are Bound To Mix The Personality And The Truth, And To Build A Temple Around The Personality And Form A Religion.

When You Identify Yourself With A Group Of People Or A Set Of Ideas, Aren't You Separating Yourself?

The First Thing To Realize In Meditation Is That There Is No Authority, That The Mind Must Be Completely Free To Examine, To Observe, To Learn. And So There Is No Following, No Accepting, No Obedience.

Look At That Battle You Are Involved In; You Are Caught In It: You Are It.

It Is Only The Dull, Sleepy Mind That Creates And Clings To Habit. A Mind That Is Attentive From Moment To Moment - Attentive To What It Is Saying, Attentive To The Movement Of Its Hands, Of Its Thoughts, Of Its Feelings - Will Discover That The Formation Of Further Habits Has Come To An End.

Fear Is Nonacceptance Of What Is.

The Very Attention Given To Finding Out If The Mind Can Be Completely Quiet Is Quietness.

How Is The Mind Which Functions On Knowledge How Is The Brain Which Is Recording All The Time To End, To See The Importance Of Recording And Not Let It Move In Any Other Direction? Very Simply: You Insult Me, You Hurt Me, By Word, Gesture, By An Actual Act; That Leaves A Mark On The Brain Which Is Memory. That Memory Is Knowledge, That Knowledge Is Going To Interfere In My Meeting You Next Time Obviously.

Surely Love Has Nothing To Do With The Mind, It Is Not The Product Of The Mind; Love Is Entirely Independent Of Calculation, Of Thought.

Space And Time Are Real For The Man Who Is Yet Imperfect, And Space Is Divided For Him Into Dimensions; Time, Into Past, Present, And Future.

The Real Student Is Studying, Learning, Inquiring, Exploring, Not Just Until He Is Twenty Or Twenty-five, But Throughout Life.

You Are Christians; Find Out What Is True And False In Christianity - And You Will Then Find Out What Is True. Find Out What Is True And False In Your Environment With All Its Oppressions And Cruelties, And Then You Will Find Out What Is True. Why Do You Want Philosophies?

Be A Light Unto Oneself

Truth Is Something Which You Must See Immediately — And To See Something Clearly You Must Give Your Heart And Your Mind And Your Whole Being To It Immediately.

You Want To Be Loved Because You Do Not Love; But The Moment You Love, It Is Finished, You Are No Longer Inquiring Whether Or Not Somebody Loves You.

You Must Look Most Intimately And Discover For Yourself; Then It Is Your Own, Not Somebody Else’s, Not Something That You Have Been Told, Because There Is No Teacher And No Follower.

You Yourself Are The Teacher, And The Pupil, You're The Master, You're The Guru, You Are The Leader, You Are Everything! And, To Understand Is To Transform What Is.

Without Knowing Myself, I Have No Real Basis For Thinking.

It Seems To Me That The Real Problem Is The Mind Itself And Not The Problem Which The Mind Has Created And Tries To Solve.

We Need Tremendous Energy To Bring About A Psychological Change In Ourselves As Human Beings, Because We Have Lived Far Too Long In A World Of Make-belief, In A World Of Brutality, Violence, Despair, Anxiety. To Live Humanly, Sanely, One Has To Change.

I Should Say That All Compromise Is A "stepping Down" Of The Truth, Is Trying To Reduce Something Which Cannot Be Reduced, And That For Anyone Who Has Understood Life These Compromises Are Impossible.

Look What Is Happening In The World - We Are Being Conditioned By Society, By The Culture We Live In, And That Culture Is The Product Of Man. There Is Nothing Holy, Or Divine, Or Eternal About Culture.

Your Belief In God Is Merely An Escape From Your Monotonous, Stupid And Cruel Life.

Belief Creates Its Own Experience; Therefore, Such An Experience Is Not True.

You Cannot Say That All Experience Is Of Equal Value For All People.

Silence Is Difficult And Arduous; It Is Not To Be Played With. It Isn't Something That You Can Experience By Reading A Book, Or By Listening To A Talk, Or By Sitting Together, Or By Retiring Into A Wood Or A Monastery. I Am Afraid None Of These Things Will Bring About This Silence. This Silence Demands Intense Psychological Work. You Have To Be Burningly Aware - Aware Of Your Speech, Aware Of Your Snobbishness, Aware Of Your Fears, Your Anxieties, Your Sense Of Guilt. And When You Die To All That, Then Out Of That Dying Comes The Beauty Of Silence.

Meditation Is The Process Of Understanding Your Own Mind.

The Government That Is Wise Will Consider What Is Best For All Its People.

Everyone Must Go Through All Experiences But They Need Not Go Through Them All In Reality -they Can Do It Vicariously, By Imagination.

Meditation Is The Movement Of Love. It Isn't The Love Of The One Or Of The Many. It Is Like Water That Anyone Can Drink Out Of Any Jar.

Without Freedom From The Past, There Is No Freedom To All.

To Ask The 'right' Question Is Far More Important Than To Receive The Answer. The Solution Of A Problem Lies In The Understanding Of The Problem; The Answer Is Not Outside The Problem, It Is In The Problem.

Without Total Freedom, Every Perception, Every Objective Regard, Is Twisted. It Is Only The Man Who Is Totally Free That Can Look And Understand Immediately. Freedom Implies Really, Doesn't It, The Total Emptying Of The Mind. To Completely Empty The Whole Content Of The Mind — That Is Real Freedom.

The Guru Cannot Awaken You; All That He Can Do Is To Point Out What Is.

If You Begin To Understand What You Are Without Trying To Change It, Then What You Are Undergoes A Transformation.

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