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If I Do Not Know Reality, The Unknown, How Can I Search For It? Surely It Must Come But I Cannot Go After It. If I Go After It I Am Going After Something Which Is The Known, Projected By Me; By My Own Mind.

-Jiddu Krishnamurti

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If I Do Not

Jiddu Krishnamurti

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If I Do Not Know Reality, The Unknown, How Can I Search For It? Surely It Must Come But I Cannot Go After It. If I Go After It I Am Going After Something Which Is The Known, Projected By Me; By My Own Mind.

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Find Out What It Means To Die - Not Physically, That's Inevitable - But To Die To Everything That Is Known, To Die To Your Family, To Your Attachments, To All The Things That You Have Accumulated, The Known, The Known Pleasures, The Known Fears. Die To That Every Minute And You Will See What It Means To Die So That The Mind Is Made Fresh, Young, And Therefore Innocent, So That There Is Incarnation Not In A Next Life, But The Next Day.

The Observer Is The Observed.

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.

When We Suffer We Have Made It Into A Personal Affair. We Shut Out All The Suffering Of Mankind.

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.

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

To Seek Fulfillment Is To Invite Frustration.

That Is, Sir, There Can Only Be Communication, Communion, When You And I Are On The Same Level, And With The Same Intensity, At The Same Time.

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

Meditation, Then, Is A State Of Mind In Which The 'me' Is Absent. And Therefore That Very Absence Brings Order.

We Want The Children To Conform; We Want To Control Their Minds, To Shape Their Conduct, Their Way Of Living, So That They Will Fit Into The Pattern Of Society, That Is What Every Parent Wants, Is It Not? And That Is Exactly What Is Happening, Whether It Be In America Or In Europe, In Russia Or In India. The Pattern May Vary Slightly, But They All Want The Child To Conform.

When You Say That I Have Followers, Let Me Assure You That I Do Not Want Followers, Nor Would I Ever Encourage The Idea Of Following.

To Bring About A Fundamental, Radical Revolution, We Must Begin With Ourselves.

Identification With The Rag Called The National Flag Is An Emotional And Sentimental Factor And For That Factor You Are Willing To Kill Another - And That Is Called, The Love Of Your Country, Love Of The Neighbor . . .? One Can See That Where Sentiment And Emotion Come In, Love Is Not.

When I Understand Myself, I Understand You, And Out Of That Understanding Comes Love. Love Is The Missing Factor; There Is A Lack Of Affection, Of Warmth In Relationship; And Because We Lack That Love, That Tenderness, That Generosity, That Mercy In Relationship, We Escape Into Mass Action Which Produces Further Confusion, Further Misery. We Fill Our Hearts With Blueprints For World Reform And Do Not Look To That One Resolving Factor Which Is Love.

There Is Hope In People, Not In Society, Not In Systems, But In You And Me.

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

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

If You Have A Great Many Desires, You Will Gradually Eliminate Them One By One, Until You Allow Certain Desires To Dominate And The Others To Die Away.

To Understand The Present With Its Full, Rich Significance, The Mind Must Free Itself From The Habit Of Self-protecting Acquisition; When It Is Utterly Naked, Then There Is Immortality.

If You Leave The Pool You Have Dug For Yourself And Go Out Into The River Of Life Then Life Has An Astonishing Way Of Taking Care Of You, Because Then There Is No Taking Care On Your Part.

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.

Pain Itself Destroys Pain. Suffering Itself Frees Man From Suffering.

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

If You Realize That The Ultimate Happiness For All Depends Not On Disorder Of The Emotions For Either Sex, But In Harmonizing The Emotions, All The Problems Will Vanish.

Freedom Lies Beyond The Field Of Consciousness.

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?

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

So Through Identification You Have Pleasure And Pain.

All Life Is A Movement In Relationship. There Is No Living Thing On Earth Which Is Not Related To Something Or Other.

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.

A Man Who Says, 'i Want To Change, Tell Me How To', Seems Very Earnest, Very Serious, But He Is Not. He Wants An Authority Whom He Hopes Will Bring About Order In Himself. But Can Authority Ever Bring About Inward Order? Order Imposed From Without Must Always Breed Disorder.

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.

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."

To Be Is To Be Related.

The Fundamental Factor Of Self-deception Is This Constant Desire To Be Something In This World And In The World Hereafter.

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

Until A Radical Change Takes Place And We Wipe Out All Nationalities, All Ideologies, All Religious Divisions, And Establish A Global Relationship - Psychologically First, Inwardly Before Organizing The Outer - We Shall Go On With Wars.

Freedom Is Now Or Never.

When All Authority Of Every Kind Is Put Aside, Denied, Then You Can Find Out For Yourself.

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

Is It Possible To Live In This World Without The Operation Of Will?

The Only Freedom Is The Freedom From The Known.

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.

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.

We All Place Ourselves At Various Levels, And We Are Constantly Falling From These Heights. It Is The Falls We Are Ashamed Of. Self-esteem Is The Cause Of Our Shame, Of Our Fall. It Is This Self-esteem That Must Be Understood, And Not The Fall.

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

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.

Contentment Is Not Happiness. Contentment Is Stagnation And Decay, Whereas Happiness Is Life And Growth.

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.

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

Only When Your Hearts Are Empty Of The Things Of The Mind, Is There Love. Then You Will Know What It Is To Love Without Separation, Without Distance, Without Time, Without Fear.

There Is An Art Of Seeing Things As They Are: Without Naming, Without Being Caught In A Network Of Words, Without Thinking Interfering With Perception.

Passion Is A Rather Frightening Thing Because If You Have Passion You Don't Know Where It Will Take You.

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.

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

If You Lose Touch With Nature You Lose Touch With Humanity. If There's No Relationship With Nature Then You Become A Killer; Then You Kill Baby Seals, Whales, Dolphins, And Man Either For Gain, For "sport," For Food, Or For Knowledge. Then Nature Is Frightened Of You, Withdrawing Its Beauty. You May Take Long Walks In The Woods Or Camp In Lovely Places But You Are A Killer And So Lose Their Friendship. You Probably Are Not Related To Anything To Your Wife Or Your Husband.

So You Have To Be Your Own Teacher And Your Own Disciple, And There Is No Teacher Outside, No Saviour, No Master; You Yourself Have To Change, And Therefore You Have To Learn To Observe, To Know Yourself. This Learning About Yourself Is A Fascinating And Joyous Business.

To Know Oneself Is To Study Oneself In Action, Which Is Relationship.

Love Is Not Of The Mind, It Is Not In The Net Of Thought, It Cannot Be Sought Out, Cultivated, Cherished; It Is There When The Mind Is Silent And The Heart Is Empty Of The Things Of The Mind.

Not To Know Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

Psychological Knowledge Has Made Us Dull.

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.

When You Are Free, You Have No Choice.

Life Is A Joyous Thing Essentially, But When You Bind Life By All These Rigid Moralities And Traditions, And Dogmas And Creeds, Then There Is Misery.

You May Be Perfect In Playing The Piano, And Not Be Creative; You May Play The Piano Most Brilliantly, And Not Be A Musician. You May Be Able To Handle Color, To Put Paint On Canvas Most Cleverly, And Not Be A Creative Painter. You May Create A Face, An Image Out Of A Stone, Because You Have Learned The Technique, And Not Be A Master Creator. Creation Comes First, Not Technique.

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.

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.

There Are Two Kinds Of Freedom: One Is The Freedom From Something, Which Is A Reaction; And The Other Is Not A Reaction, It Is "being Free."

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

The Word 'innocence' Means A Mind That Is Incapable Of Being Hurt.

Meditation Practice

Any Acceptance Of Authority Is The Very Denial Of Truth.

Compassion Being Action Without Motive, Without Self-interest, Without Any Sense Of Fear, Without Any Sense Of Pleasure.

There Is Always Great Beauty, Not Of Images, Feeling Or Thought. Beauty Is Neither Thought Nor Feeling; It Has Nothing Whatsoever To Do With Emotion Or Sentiment. There Is Fear. Fear Is Never An Actuality; It Is Either Before Or After The Active Present. When There Is Fear In The Active Present, Is It Fear? It Is There And There Is No Escape From It, No Evasion Possible. There, At That Actual Moment, There Is Total Attention At The Moment Of Danger, Physical Or Psychological.

There Is No Such Thing As Living Alone, For All Living Is Relationship; But To Live Without Direct Relationship Demands High Intelligence, A Swifter And Greater Awareness For Self-discovery.

Do You Know Your Particular Fears? And What Do You Usually Do With Them? You Run Away From Them, Don't You, Or Invent Ideas And Images To Cover Them? But To Run Away From Fear Is Only To Increase It.

True Understanding Is Possible Only When We Are Fully Conscious Of Our Thought, Not As An Operative Observer On This Thought, But Completely And Without The Intervention Of A Choice.

Tradition Becomes Our Security, And When The Mind Is Secure It Is In Decay.

Is It Possible To Observe Without The Observer?

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

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 Come Into Being. It Is Only Then That There Can Be Bliss, That There Can Be Creative Action.

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.

From Innumerable Complexities We Must Grow To Simplicity; We Must Become Simple In Our Inward Life And In Our Outward Needs.

Buddha Called Himself 'the Enlightened One' And Jesus Called Himself 'the Son Of God'. To Me The Term 'world-teacher' Is Of As Little Importance As 'the Son Of God' Or 'the Enlightened One'.

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.

Till The False Is Seen As The False, Truth Is Not.

There Is No Partial Sensitivity; Either It Is The State Of One's Whole Being, Total Consciousness Or It Is Not There At All

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.

Through Self-knowledge You Begin To Find Out What Is God, What Is Truth, What Is That State Which Is Timeless. In Self-knowledge Is The Whole Universe; It Embraces All The Struggles Of Humanity.

Silence Is Difficult And Arduous, It Is Not To Be Played With.

The Thought Is Not The Thing.

Of Course It Is Better To Emphasize The Unity Of Human Beings Rather Than To Emphasize The Diversity Of Forms, That Is To Say, The Man And The Woman Separately. If You Have Separate Organizations For Men And Women You Will Tend To Set Them Apart From Each Other, Which Is What Often Happens At Present And Is Absurd!

I Don't Mind What Happens. That Is The Essence Of Inner Freedom. It Is A Timeless Spiritual Truth: Release Attachment To Outcomes, Deep Inside Yourself, You'll Feel Good No Matter What.

How Very Important It Is To Bring About In The Human Mind The Radical Revolution. The Crisis Is A Crisis In Consciousness, A Crisis That Cannot Anymore Accept The Old Norms, The Old Patterns, The Ancient Traditions. Considering What The World Is Now With All The Misery, Conflict, Destructive Brutality, Aggression And So On... Man Is Still As He Was, Is Still Brutal, Violent, Aggressive, Acquisitive, Competitive And Has Built A Society Along These Lines.

The Ending Of Sorrow Is The Beginning Of Wisdom. Knowledge Is Always Within The Shadow Of Ignorance. Meditation Is Freedom From Thought And A Movement In The Ecstasy Of Truth. Meditation Is Explosion Of Intelligence.

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.

But If You Have No Relationship With The Living Things On This Earth, You May Lose Whatever Relationship You Have With Humanity.

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

The Unknown Is Not Measurable By The Known. Time Cannot Measure The Timeless, The Eternal, That Immensity Which Has No Beginning And No End... When We Try To Measure Something Which Is Not Measurable, We Only Get Caught In Words.

A Man Who Is Really Earnest Must Begin With Himself, He Must Be Passively Aware Of All His Thoughts, Feelings And Actions.

This Is What I Am, And I Am Going To Understand This.

If You Wish To Produce A Perfect Rose, You Must Cut Off The Other Buds Which Are Spoiling The Growth Of The Perfect Flower.

All Tradition Is Merely The Past.

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".

A Mind That Practices Love Cannot Love.

Happiness Is A State Of Which You Are Unconscious. The Moment You Are Aware That You Are Happy, You Cease To Be Happy.

Happy Is The Man Who Is Nothing.

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

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.

In This Country, Unfortunately, As All Over The World, We Care So Little, We Have No Deep Feeling About Anything. Most Of Us Are Intellectual-intellectuals In The Superficial Sense Of Being Very Clever, Full Of Words And Theories About What Is Right And What Is Wrong, About How We Should Think, What We Should Do. Mentally We Are Highly Developed, But Inwardly There Is Very Little Substance Or Significance; And It Is This Inward Substance That Brings About True Action, Which Is Not Action According To An Idea.

If You Have No Love, Do What You Will - Go After All The Gods On Earth, Do All The Social Activities, Try To Reform The Poor, The Politics, Write Books, Write Poems - You Are A Dead Human Being. Without Love Your Problems Will Increase, Multiply Endlessly.

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.

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

Love May Be The Ultimate Solution To All Man's Difficulties, Problems And Travails.

It Is Very Difficult To Be Like The Other Guy, To Be Ordinary. Mediocrity Takes A Great Deal Of Energy. But To Be Ourselves Is Very Easy. You Don't Have To Do A Thing.

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.

It Does Not Matter What You Call The Gaoler So Long As He Has The Key That Will Open The Door Of Your Prison! Similarly, As I Have The Key To Release Life From Its Prison, It Does Not Matter In The Least What You Call Either The Key Or Myself. I Am Not Concerned About The Title.

Without An Integrated Understanding Of Life, Our Individual And Collective Problems Will Only Deepen And Extend. The Purpose Of Education Isn't To Produce Mere Scholars, Technicians And Job Hunters, But Integrated Men And Women Who Are Free Of Fear; For Only Between Such Human Beings Can There Be Enduring Peace.

Truth Is A Pathless Land.

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

To Understand Yourself Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

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

You May Repeat The Most Marvelous Poems. And That Is Not Worth A Cent If You Don't Live It.

Find Out For Yourself What Are The Possesions And Ideals That You Do Not Desire. By Knowing What You Do Not Want, By Elimination, You Will Unburden The Mind, And Only Then Will It Understand The Essential Which Is Ever There.

I Can Only Insist That Understanding, Not Blind Belief, Should Be The Goal.

And The Point Is, Is It Possible For The Mind To Be Totally Free From Suffering And Yet Not Become Indifferent, Callous, Irresponsible, But To Have That Passion, The Intensity, The Energy That Freedom Brings, Freedom From Suffering.

It's No Measure Of Health To Be Well Adjusted To A Profoundly Sick Society.

You Cannot Ask Which System Is The Better Because You Cannot Standardize One System For The Whole Of The World. You Cannot Have One Stereotyped Code Of Morality For Every Country. One System May Work Very Well In One Country And Very Badly In Another. You Cannot Grow A Tropical Flower In A Cold Climate.

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.

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.

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.

People Must Work Things Out For Themselves. It Is No Good Saying, "i Have Found A House Which Suits Me And Therefore Everybody Must Adopt The Same Kind Of House."

Why Haven't We, With All Our Cunning, Experience, Resolved This Problem Of Fear Completely? Isn't Fear The Cause Of The 'me'?

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.

If There Is No Order In Your Relationship With Your Wife, With Your Husband, With Your Children, With Your Neighbour - Whether That Neighbour Is Near Or Very Far Away - Forget About Meditation.

When You Do Not Name A Group Of People, You Are Compelled To Look At Each Individual Face And Not Treat Them All As The Mass.

It Is More Important To Find Out What You Are Giving To Society Than To Ask What Is The Right Means Of Livelihood.

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.

We All Want To Be Famous People, And The Moment We Want To Be Something We Are No Longer Free.

To Understand Life Is To Understand Ourselves, And That Is Both The Beginning And The End Of Education.

The Very Word "sorrow" Colours The Fact Of Sorrow, The Pain Of It.

In The Denial Of That Disorder There Is Order.

You Must Understand The Whole Of Life, Not Just One Little Part Of It.

Seeing, Observing, Listening, These Are The Greatest Acts

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.

Where There Is Fear There Is Aggression.

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 The 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 Help Him Organize It."

Violence Is Not Merely Killing Another. It Is Violence When We Use A Sharp Word, When We Make A Gesture To Brush Away A Person, When We Obey Because There Is Fear. So Violence Isn't Merely Organized Butchery In The Name Of God, In The Name Of Society Or Country. Violence Is Much More Subtle, Much Deeper, And We Are Inquiring Into The Very Depths Of Violence.

What Is The Difference Between Attention And Inattention? What Is Attention And What Is Concentration? ...attention Has No Centre.

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

If You Lose Touch With Nature You Lose Touch With Humanity.

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?

We Never See A Tree Except Through The Image That We Have Of It, The Concept Of That Tree; But The Concept, The Knowledge, The Experience, Is Entirely Different From The Actual Tree. Look At A Tree And You Will Find How Extraordinarily Difficult It Is To See It Completely, So That No Image, No Screen, Comes Between The Seeing And The Actual Fact. By Completely I Mean With The Totality Of Your Mind And Heart, Not A Fragment Of It.

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.

Religion Is The Frozen Thought Of Man Out Of Which They Build Temples.

The Crisis Is Not In The Outward Technological Advancement, But Rather In The Way We Think, And The Way We Live, And The Way We Feel. I Think That Is Where A Revolution Must Take Place.

If People Who Say They Love Their Children Meant It, Would There Be War? And Would There Be Division Of Nationalities - Would There Be These Separations?

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 Necessary For All Of Us To Awaken In Ourselves This Spirit Of Cooperation, For Then It Will Not Be A Mere Plan Or Agreement Which Causes Us To Work Together, But An Extraordinary Feeling Of Togetherness, The Sense Of Joy In Being And Doing Together Without Any Thought Of Reward Or Punishment.

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

It Is Love Alone That Leads To Right Action. What Brings Order In The World Is To Love And Let Love Do What It Will.

Discipline Is Necessary To Curb The Mind, Otherwise There Is No Peace.

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

The Mind Gives Meaning To Anything But The Meaning It Gives Is Meaningless.

The Man Who Is Seeking Truth Is Free Of All Societies And Cultures.

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?

The Moment You Venture Out, Something Takes Place In You And About You. Life Comes To Your Aid In Various Ways. You May Not Like The Form In Which It Comes To You - It May Be Misery, Struggle, Starvation - But When You Invite Life, Things Begin To Happen.

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?

There's A Great And Unutterable Beauty In All This.

Wherever There Is A Suitable Environment For The Fulfilment Of Life, It Will Fulfil Itself.

You Cannot Explain To Someone Who Comes With No Idea Of What You Are Talking About Without Being Misunderstood.

That Is The First Thing To Learn - Not To Seek. When You Seek You Are Really Only Window-shopping. The Question Of Whether Or Not There Is A God Or Truth Or Reality, Or Whatever You Like To Call It, Can Never Be Answered By Books, By Priests, Philosophers Or Saviours. Nobody And Nothing Can Answer The Question But You Yourself And That Is Why You Must Know Yourself. Immaturity Lies Only In Total Ignorance Of Self. To Understand Yourself Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

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.

Knowing The Cause Of Something Is Not Going To Help You To Be Free Of It.

The Significance Of Life Is Living.

Significance Of Life

Relationship Is A Mirror In Which You Can See Yourself, Not As You Would Wish To Be, But As You Are.

Freedom Comes With Self-knowledge, When The Mind Goes Above And Beyond The Hindrances It Has Created For Itself.

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.

Perception Without The Perceiver In Meditation Is To Commune With The Height And Depth Of The Immense. This Perception Is Entirely Different From Seeing An Object Without An Observer, Because In The Perception Of Meditation There Is No Object And Therefore No Experience. Can, However, Take Place When The Eyes Are Open And One Is Surrounded By Objects Of Every Kind. But Then These Objects Have No Importance At All. One Sees Them But There Is No Process Of Recognition, Which Means There Is No Experiencing.

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.

You Would Never Hear Any Song Played Twice In The Same Way. The Words Were Retained, But Within A Certain Frame There Was Great Latitude, And The Musician Could Improvise To His Heart's Content; And The More The Variations And Combinations, The Greater The Musician.

You Must Understand The Whole Of Life, Not Just One Little Part Of It. That Is Why You Must Read, That Is Why You Must Look At The Skies, That Is Why You Must Sing And Dance, And Write Poems And Suffer And Understand, For All That Is Life.

Truth Is A Pathless Land, And You Cannot Approach It By Any Path Whatsoever, By Any Religion, By Any Sect ... Your Have To Be Your Own Teacher And Your Own Disciple. You Have To Question Everything That Man Has Accepted As Valuable, As Necessary.

Meditation Is Not A Process Of Learning How To Meditate; It Is The Very Inquiry Into What Is Meditation. To Inquire Into What Is Meditation, The Mind Must Free Itself From What It Has Learnt About Meditation, And The Freeing Of The Mind From What It Has Learnt Is The Beginning Of Meditation.

Though We Are All Human Beings, We Have Built Walls Between Ourselves And Our Neighbors Through Nationalism, Through Race, Caste, And Class - Which Again Breeds Isolation, Loneliness.

If There Is No Meditation, Then You Are Like A Blind Man In A World Of Great Beauty, Light And Colour.

I Say That When You Have Perceived Or Attained The Goal, Compromises, Renunciations, Do Not Exist. If You Have Seen The Goal, Compromise Ceases To Exist. It Is Then A Question Of A Different Attitude.

Fear Is The Process Of The Mind In The Struggle Of Becoming. In Becoming Good There Is The Fear Of Evil; In Becoming Complete, There Is The Fear Of Loneliness.

True Education Is To Learn How To Think, Not What To Think. If You Know How To Think, If You Really Have That Capacity, Then You Are A Free Human Being-free Of Dogmas, Superstitions, Ceremonies-and Therefore You Can Find Out What Religion Is.

Fear Exists In The Process Of Accumulation And Belief In Something Is Part Of The Accumulative Process.

Those Who Play A Safe Game Die Very Safely.

As The World Has To Attain The Fulfilment Of Eternal Life, To Me It Does Not In The Least Matter What I Am Called -'enlightened One', 'son Of God', Or Something Else. To Me, It Has No Purpose - As Little As When The Buddha Said, 'i Am The Enlightened One'.

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

War Is The Spectacular And Bloody Projection Of Our Everyday Living. We Precipitate War Out Of Our Daily Lives; And Without A Transformation In Ourselves, There Are Bound To Be National And Racial Antagonisms, The Childish Quarreling Over Ideologies, The Multiplication Of Soldiers, The Saluting Of Flags, And All The Many Brutalities That Go To Create Organized Murder.

The Enemy Is Not The Other, The Enemy Is You

Can Another Help Bring About A Transformation In You? If He Can, You Are Not Transformed; You Are Merely Dominated, Influenced.

Constantly To Seek The Purpose Of Life Is One Of The Odd Escapes Of Man. If He Finds What He Seeks It Will Not Be Worth That Pebble On The Path.

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

All Authority Of Any Kind, Especially In The Field Of Thought And Understanding, Is The Most Destructive, Evil Thing. Leaders Destroy The Followers And Followers Destroy The Leaders. You Have To Be Your Own Teacher And Your Own Disciple. You Have To Question Everything That Man Has Accepted As Valuable, As Necessary.

Life In The Savage Appears Different From The Life That Dwells In You, Different In Its Expression, But It Is All One Life. Anyone Who Has Not Fulfilled That Life Must Step Down The Truth, And When He Does That, He Is Unconsciously Betraying The Truth.

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