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No Book Can Teach You About Yourself, No Psychologist, None Of The Professors Or Philosophers. What They Can Teach You Is What They Think You Are Or What They Think You Should Be.

-Jiddu Krishnamurti

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No Book Can Teach

Jiddu Krishnamurti

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No Book Can Teach You About Yourself, No Psychologist, None Of The Professors Or Philosophers. What They Can Teach You Is What They Think You Are Or What They Think You Should Be.

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

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.

Is There An Observation Which Is Not The Instrument Of Thought?

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.

A Mind That Practices Love Cannot Love.

The Idea, The Pattern, Is Self-projected; It Is A Form Of Self-worship, Of Self-perpetuation, And Hence Gratifying.

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

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."

What Has Validity Is Your Living, Not What Happens Tomorrow.

Charity Is Unconscious Of Itself, There Is No Accumulation First And Then Distribution. It Is Like The Flower - Natural, Open, Spontaneous.

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 Function Of Education Is To Help You From Childhood Not To Imitate Anybody, But Be Yourself All The Time.

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.

Only When The Mind Is Completely Alone Can It Know What Is Beauty, And Not In Any Other State.

Intuition Is The Only True Guide In 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.

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

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.

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

A Lily Or A Rose Never Pretends, And Its Beauty Is That It Is What It Is.

It Is What It Is

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

Freedom Lies Outside The Pattern Of Society; But To Be Free Of That Pattern You Have To Understand The Whole Content Of It, Which Is To Understand Your Own Mind.

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

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

You Must Know For Yourself, Directly, The Truth Of Yourself And You Cannot Realize It Through Another, However Great. There Is No Authority That Can Reveal It.

The More You Know Yourself, The More Clarity There Is. Self-knowledge Has No End - You Don't Come To An Achievement, You Don't Come To A Conclusion. It Is An Endless River.

A Mind That Is Always Comparing, Always Measuring, Will Always Engender Illusion. If I Am Measuring Myself Against You, Who Are Clever, More Intelligent, I Am Struggling To Be Like You And I Am Denying Myself As I Am. I Am Creating An Illusion.

I Have Only One Purpose: To Make People Free, To Urge Them Towards Freedom, To Help Them To Break Away From All Limitations, For That Alone Will Give Them Eternal Happiness, Will Give Them The Unconditional Realization Of Self.

To Concentrate Implies Bringing All Your Energy To Focus On A Certain Point; But Thought Wanders Away... Whereas Attention Has No Control, No Concentration. It Is Complete Attention, Which Means Giving All Your Energy, The Energy Of The Brain, Your Heart, Everything, To Attending.

Without Freedom, There Is No Creation.

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.

If You Would Listen, Sir, In The Sense Of Being Aware Of Your Conflicts And Contradictions Without Forcing Them Into Any Particular Pattern Of Thought, Perhaps They Might Altogether Cease.

It Is A Great Art To Have An Abundance Of Knowledge And Experience - To Know The Richness Of Life, The Beauty Of Existence, The Struggles, The Miseries, The Laughter, The Tears - And Yet Keep Your Mind Very Simple; And You Can Have A Simple Mind Only When You Know How To Love.

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

The Real Is Near, You Do Not Have To Seek It; And A Man Who Seeks Truth Will Never Find It. Truth Is In What Is - And That Is The Beauty Of It. But The Moment You Conceive It, The Moment You Seek It, You Begin To Struggle; And A Man Who Struggles Cannot Understand. That Is Why We Have To Be Still, Observant, Passively Aware.

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

Freedom Of Life Does Not Mean Disorder Of Life, Does Not Mean Chaos, And Just Everyone Doing Anything He Wants. That Is Not The Freedom Of Life. The Tree, When You Give It A Chance, Protect It When It Is Young, Will Grow Straight, Because It Has Developed Its Own Resistance; But The Moment You Make It Delicate, Then It Gets Crooked.

When Your Child Is Very Young, You Must Protect Him From Doing Harm To Himself And Others, Then Later By Precept, Explaining To Him What Is Going To Be For His Eventual Happiness.

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.

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.

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

Contentment Is Never The Outcome Of Fulfillment, Of Achievement, Or Of The Possession Of Things; It Is Not Born Of Action Or Inaction. It Comes With The Fullness Of What Is, Not In The Alteration Of It.

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.

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

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.

The Hindu, The Oriental, Says That The Physical Is But The Shadow Of The Eternal, Of The Truth; And He Says 'in Order To Understand The Truth, I Must Let The Shadow Go, And Not Concern Myself With It, But With The Understanding Of The Eternal.' So He Does Not Concern Himself With The Physical. He Is More Concerned With The Quality Of Mind And Heart. Hence There Is Disease, There Is Disorder, And There Is Chaos And Neglect And The Gradual Running Down Of The Physical.

You Cannot Lay Down A Standard Which All Must Follow.

Not To Know Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

Live With It. You Live With Pleasure, Don't You? Why Don't You Live With Suffering Completely? Can You Live With It In The Sense Of Not Escaping From It? What Takes Place? Watch. The Mind Is Very Clear, Sharp. It Is Faced With The Fact. The Very Suffering Transformed Into Passion Is Enormous. From That Arises A Mind That Can Never Be Hurt. Full Stop. That Is The Secret.

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

I Admire And Respect The Tenacity, Courage, And Patience Of The Unenlightened In The Face Of So Much Overwhelming Evidence

We Want To Be Famous As A Writer, As A Poet, As A Painter, As A Politician, As A Singer, Or What You Will. Why? Because We Really Don't Love What We Are Doing. If You Loved To Sing, Or To Paint, Or To Write Poems, If You Really Loved It You Would Not Be Concerned With Whether You Are Famous Or Not.

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

Those Who Play A Safe Game Die Very Safely.

Insight Is Not A Matter Of Memory, Of Knowledge And Time, Which Are All Thought.

While One Is Young Is The Time To Investigate, To Experiment With Everything. The School Should Help Its Young People To Discover Their Vocations And Responsibilities, And Not Merely Cram Their Minds With Facts And Technical Knowledge; It Should Be The Soil In Which They Can Grow Without Fear, Happily And Integrally.

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

That Is, When The Mind Ceases To Create, Then There Is Creation.

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.

When One Loses The Deep Intimate Relationship With Nature, Then Temples, Mosques And Churches Become Important.

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

In Our Relationship With Children And Young People, We Are Not Dealing With Mechanical Devices That Can Be Quickly Repaired, But With Living Beings Who Are Impressionable, Volatile, Sensitive, Afraid, Affectionate; And To Deal With Them We Have To Have Great Understanding, The Strength Of Patience And Love.

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.

Truth Is Not A Matter Of Argumentation And Conviction; It Is Not The Outcome Of Opinion.

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.

My Only Concern Is To Set Men Absolutely, Unconditionally Free.

Can The Mind Become Completely Still Without Coercion, Without Compulsion, Without Discipline?

Love, And Don't Be Caught In Opinions And Ideas About What Love Is Or Should Be.

Tradition, Long Conditioned Thinking, Can Bring About A Fixation, A Concept That One Readily Accepts, Perhaps Not With A Great Deal Of Thought.

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.

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

Truth Does Not Belong To An Individual.

Meditation Is Not A Means To An End. It Is Both The Means And The End.

If We Want To Change Existing Conditions, We Must First Transform Ourselves, Which Means That We Must Become Aware Of Our Own Actions, Thoughts And Feelings In Everyday Life.

Most Of Us Waste Our Energy Through Chattering - Endlessly Chattering, Gossiping, Criticising, Backbiting.

Hasn't Knowledge Only Crippled Me From Seeing Truth? Is Knowledge Itself Illusory?

What Brings Understanding Is Love. When Your Heart Is Full, Then You Will Listen To The Teacher, To The Beggar, To The Laughter Of Children, To The Rainbow, And To The Sorrow Of Man. Under Every Stone And Leaf, That Which Is Eternal Exists.

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

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.

Activity That Perishes, That Is Not Productive Of The Eternal, Of The Lasting, Is Of Very Little Use.

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

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

To Seek Fulfillment Is To Invite Frustration.

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."

Governments Want Efficient Technicians, Not Human Beings, Because Human Beings Become Dangerous To Governments – And To Organized Religions As Well. That Is Why Governments And Religious Organizations Seek To Control Education.

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.

The Intellect Is Not The Means Of Creation, And Creation Does Not Take Place Through The Functioning Of The Intellect; On The Contrary, There Is Creation When The Intellect Is Silent.

Intuition Is The Whisper Of The Soul.

Understanding Does Not Come Through Analysis;understanding Comes Only When The Mind Is Very Quite,unburdened,no Longer Seeking Success And Therefore Being Thwarted,afraid Of Faluire.

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

Can't You Fall In Love And Not Have A Possessive Relationship? I Love Someone And She Loves Me And We Get Married - That Is All Perfectly Straightforward And Simple, In That There Is No Conflict At All.

Falling In Love

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.

Seeing, Observing, Listening, These Are The Greatest Acts

Why Is One A Slave To Thought ? Why Has Thought Become So Important In All Our Lives -thought Being Ideas, Being The Response To The Accumulated Memories In The Brain Cells? Perhaps Many Of You Have Not Even Asked Such A Question Before, Or If You Have You May Have Said, "it's Of Very Little Importance- What Is Important Is Emotion." But I Don't See How You Can Separate The Two. If Thought Does Not Give Continuity To Feeling, Feeling Dies Very Quickly. So Why In Our Daily Lives, In Our Grinding, Boring, Frightened Lives, Has Thought Taken On Such Inordinate Importance?

Whatever Discipline You Exercise Should Be Based On The Goal Your Child Is Eventually To Reach, Namely, Freedom And Happiness. I Would Show Him Towards What He Is Growing, His Ultimate Fulfilment, And Help Him To Adapt Himself To That. In Everything That You Do, You Should Keep The Goal In View, And Hence Your Discipline Must Aim At Helping The Child To Realize That At A Certain Stage He Will Be Above All Discipline.

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?

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.

How Can One Be Compassionate If You Belong To Any Religion, Follow Any Guru, Believe In Something, Believe In Your Scriptures, And So On, Attached To A Conclusion? When You Accept Your Guru, You Have Come To A Conclusion, Or When You Strongly Believe In God Or In A Saviour, This Or That, Can There Be Compassion? You May Do Social Work, Help The Poor Out Of Pity, Out Of Sympathy, Out Of Charity, But Is All That Love And Compassion?

Here Is My Secret: I Don't Mind What Happens.

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

As Long As The Mind Is In Conflict-blaming, Resisting, Condemning-there Can Be No Understanding. If I Want To Understand You, I Must Not Condemn You, Obviously.

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

You Think You Know

You Can Be Creative Only When There Is Abandonment-which Means, Really, There Is No Sense Of Compulsion, No Fear Of Not Being, Of Not Gaining, Of Not Arriving. Then There Is Great Austerity, Simplicity, And With It There Is Love.

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.

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.

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

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 Only Freedom Is The Freedom From The Known.

When I Said That I Am The Buddha, The Christ, The Lord Maitreya, And More, It Was Not A Question Of Superiority Or Inferiority. I Added That Phrase 'and More' Very Carefully, Because I Knew That People Had A Very Limited Understanding Of The Buddha And The Christ, And Hence If I Said: 'i Am The Christ, The Buddha', They Would Limit That Reality To Their Own Conceptions Of The Buddha Or The Christ, And Life Has No Limit.

My Contention Is That It Is Impossible To Limit Truth, For That Would Mean That You Were Stepping Down The Truth To The Individual, Who Is Limited. It Would Be Useless To Lay Down A Crystallized Method For Everyone To Follow.

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

There You Have The Two Extremes: The Man That Is Concerned Mainly With The Hidden Life, And The Man Who Seriously Concerns Himself With The Expression Of That Life. What I Want To Do Is To Bring About Harmony Between The Two Extremes, For Therein Lies The Truth. The Harmony Of Life Is The Understanding Of Truth.

Happy Is The Man Who Is Nothing.

Can The Mind Resolve A Psychological Problem Immediately?

Order Cannot Possibly Be Brought About Through Conformity To A Pattern, Under Any Circumstances.

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.

The Constant Assertion Of Belief Is An Indication Of Fear.

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.

No Book Can Teach You About Yourself, No Psychologist, None Of The Professors Or Philosophers. What They Can Teach You Is What They Think You Are Or What They Think You Should Be.

Put Away The Book, The Description, The Tradition, The Authority, And Take The Journey Of Self-discovery. Love, And Don't Be Caught In Opinions And Ideas About What Love Is Or Should Be. When You Love, Everything Will Come Right. Love Has Its Own Action.

Understanding Of The Self Only Arises In Relationship, In Watching Yourself In Relationship To People, Ideas, And Things; To Trees, The Earth, And The World Around You And Within You. Relationship Is The Mirror In Which The Self Is Revealed. Without Self-knowledge There Is No Basis For Right Thought And Action.

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

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 .

Only In Relationship Can You Know Yourself, Not In Abstraction, And Certainly Not In Isolation.

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

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

...choice In Every Form Is Conflict. Contradiction Is Inevitable In Choice; This Contradiction, Inner And Outer Breeds Confusion And Misery.

Surely Education Has No Meaning Unless It Helps You Understand The Vast Experience Of Life With All Its Subtleties, With Its Extraordinary Beauty, Its Sorrows And Joys. You May Earn Degrees, You May Have A Series Of Letters After Your Name And Land A Good Job, But Then What? What Is The Point Of It All If In The Process Your Mind Becomes Dull, Weary, Stupid?

Extraordinary Beauty

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".

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

The Thought Is Not The Thing.

Be A Light Unto Oneself

The Primary Cause Of Disorder In Ourselves Is The Seeking Of Reality Promised By Another.

Any Acceptance Of Authority Is The Very Denial Of Truth.

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.

Being Discontented, We Either Seek A Different Job Or Merely Succumb To Environment...instead Of Causing Us To Question Life, The Whole Process Of Existence.

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'.

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

Can I Reject Everything My Brain Experienced? Is Intellectual Understanding Any Understanding At All?

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

I Think One Has To Understand, Not As A Theory, Not As A Speculative, Entertaining Concept, But Rather As An Actual Fact - That We Are The World And The World Is Us. The World Is Each One Of Us; To Feel That, To Be Really Committed To It And To Nothing Else, Brings About A Feeling Of Great Responsibility And An Action That Must Not Be Fragmentary, But Whole.

The Moment I Am Aware That I Am Aware, I Am Not Aware. Awareness Means The Observer Is Not.

A Mind That Is Afraid Withers Away; It Cannot Function Properly.

The Becoming Still Can Never Be The Being Still; Only With The Death Of Becoming Is There Being.

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.

Truth Is A Pathless Land, And You Cannot Approach It By Any Path Whatsoever, By Any Religion, By Any Sect. Truth, Being Limitless, Unconditioned, Unapproachable By Any Path Whatsoever, Cannot Be Organized; Nor Should Any Organisation Be Formed To Lead Or To Coerce People Along Any Particular Path.

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.

Do You Decide To Observe? Or Do You Merely Observe?

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.

It Is Intelligence That Brings Order, Not Discipline.

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

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

Most People Are Unhappy; And They Are Unhappy Because There Is No Love In Their Hearts.

Meditation Is Not A Withdrawal From Life. Meditation Is A Process Of Understanding Oneself.

If The Mind Could Cease Measuring Itself Against The Hero, The Perfect, The Glorious And All That, It Would Be What It Is.

Ugliness And Evil Are Necessary For Growth But They May Be Experienced Vicariously.

Why Does The Brain Retain The Memory Of The Hurt From Yesterday?

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

Real Learning Comes About When The Competitive Spirit Has Ceased.

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

Only When The Mind Is Still, Tranquil, Not Expecting Or Grasping Or Resisting A Single Thing, Is It Possible To See What Is True. It Is The Truth That Liberates, Not Your Effort To Be Free.

Again, I Maintain That No Organization Can Lead Man To Spirituality.

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.

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

Meditation Practice

One Is Never Afraid Of The Unknown; One Is Afraid Of The Known Coming To An End.

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.

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

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

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

Psychological Knowledge Has Made Us Dull.

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.

If You Come Across Fear, Stare It In Its Eyes. Face It And You Will Notice That Fear Fades Away.

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.

There Are Laws In Some Countries, I Believe, Which Prohibit Anyone From Following You In The Street, And If Someone Does, He Can Be Arrested And Put Into Prison. So, Spiritually, I Wish There Were A Police System Which Would Put People Into A Spiritual Prison For Following Others. In Fact, It Does Happen Automatically.

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

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.

When We Stop Fighting With Ourselves, We Aren't Creating Anymore Conflict In Our Mind. Then Our Mind Can For The First Time Relax And Be Still. Then For The First Time Our Consciousness Can Become Whole And Unfragmented. Then Total Attention Can Be Given To All Of Our Thoughts And Feelings. And Then There Will Be Found A Gentleness And A Goodness In Us That Can Embrace All That Is Been Given In The World. Then A Deep Love For Everything Will Be The Result Of This Deep Attention. For This Total Attention, This Soft And Pure Consciousness That We Are, Is Nothing But Love Itself.

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

The Reality Is That I Am The Teacher.

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.

Are You Trying To Grasp The Quality Of Intelligence, Compassion, The Immense Sense Of Beauty, The Perfume Of Love And That Truth Which Has No Path To It?

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

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

The Society In Which We Live Is The Result Of Our Psychological State.

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.

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

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

I Do Not Think That You Can Try And Systematize Education For The Whole World. I Would Try Experiments In Small Communities And In Schools To See How They Work Out, Instead Of Taking The Children Of An Entire Nation And Trying To Bring Them Up On The Same System.

Is There A Thinker Apart From Thought?

It Is Only Those Who Are In Constant Revolt That Discover What Is True, Not The Man Who Conforms, Who Follows Some Tradition. It Is Only When You Are Constantly Inquiring, Constantly Observing, Constantly Learning, That You Find Truth, God, Or Love.

It Is No Measure Of Health To Be Well Adjusted To A Profoundly Sick Society. We Have Lost It, Or We Have Never Had It; And, Because We Do Not Know How To Judge Anything, We Have Been Led Here And Pushed There, Beaten Up, Driven, Politically, Religiously And Socially. We Don't Know, But It Is Difficult To Say We Don't Know.

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

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

To Understand What Is Right Meditation There Must Be An Awareness Of The Operation Of One's Own Consciousness, And Then There Is Complete Attention.

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.

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

When The Mind Goes Beyond The Thought Of 'the Me,' The Experiencer, The Observer, The Thinker, Then There Is A Possibility Of A Happiness That Is Incorruptible.

Inspirational Life

You May Be Ignorant Of All The Books In The World, And I Hope You Are, Of All The Latest Theories, But That Is Not Ignorance.

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.

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