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Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti Quick Facts
Main Areas: Self-Awareness; Transformation; LearningBest Sellers: Freedom from the Known, Think on These Things, The First and Last Freedom, The Ending of Time
Career Focus: Author; Speaker; Educator; Religious Philosopher; 1895-1986
Affiliation: Krishnamurti Foundation of America, Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Krishnamurti Foundation India, Fundacion Krishnamurti Latinoamericana
"The free mind never asks how, but is always discovering, moving, living."
Krishnamurti spent
his adult life speaking to people around the world on the eternal
questions of life. One could say he was a philosopher in the original
sense of the word, not an academic or intellectual or an expert, but a lover of
truth. But who Krishnamurti was is probably not as important as what
Krishnamurti said, or rather the exploration we
can take through the words he has left:
“I
think it is important to understand that freedom is at the beginning
and not at the end. We think freedom is something to be achieved,
that liberation is an ideal state of mind to be gradually attained
through time, through various practices; but to me, this is a totally
wrong approach. Freedom is not to be achieved; liberation is not a
thing to be gained. Freedom, or liberation, is that state of mind
which is essential for the discovery of any truth, any reality;
therefore, it cannot be an ideal; it must exist right from the
beginning. Without freedom at the beginning, there can be no moments
of direct understanding because all thinking is then limited,
conditioned. If your mind is tethered to any conclusion, to any
experience, to any form of knowledge or belief, it is not free; and
such a mind cannot possibly perceive what is truth.”
Krishnamurti
raises questions such as:
-
“What
is it that we are seeking? And can a mind that is seeking ever find
something beyond time, beyond its own projections?” -
“Is
there such a thing as the absolute, the immeasurable, and is there
any relation between that immensity and our everyday living?” -
“Is
there freedom in thinking, or is all thought limited?”
Krishnamurti
challenges us to approach these questions in a way that defies
traditional roles of teacher and student. He does not see himself as
someone dispensing knowledge or ideas to be collected, and asks the
reader to find a relationship in which there is no following of an
authority, only discovery:
“I
do not believe that there is any teaching; there is only learning,
and this is very important to understand. When the individual who is
listening regards the speaker as one who is teaching him something,
such an attitude creates and maintains the division of the pupil and
the master, of the one who knows and the one who does not know. But
there is only learning, and I think it is very important from the
very beginning to understand this and to establish the right
relationship between us. The man who says he knows does not know; the
man who says he has attained liberation has not realized. If you
think you are going to learn something from me which I know and you
do not know, then you become a follower—and he who follows will
never find out what is truth. That is why it is very important for
you to understand this.”
More of
Krishnamurti's works, including quotes and audio and video streams
are available at jkrishnamurti.org.
You can also find information there regarding foundations with
libraries, retreats and study centers in India,
England,
Spain
and California.
Quotes
(c) KFA
Other Programs & Highlights
Throughout his lifetime, Krishnamurti insisted that he wanted no followers, and he authorized no one to become an interpreter of his work. He created the Krishnamurti Foundations to preserve an authentic record of his works, but not to be experts.
Favorite Quotes & Thoughts from Jiddu Krishnamurti
• So, it is not that one must be free from or resist fear but that one must understand the whole nature and structure of fear, understand it; that means, learn about it, watch it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it, not how to resist it… (The Flight of the Eagle, p. 90)
• 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. (Think on These Things, p. 35)
• The function of education, then, is to help you from childhood not to imitate anybody, but to be yourself all the time. (Think on These Things, p. 20)
• The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed. (ibid., p. 205)
• In oneself lies the whole world, and if you know how to look and learn, then the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself. (You are the World, p. 135)
Getting Started With Jiddu Krishnamurti
The Core of the Teaching, originally written by Krishnamurti for his biography by Mary Lutyen's, slightly revised in 1982:
***
The core of Krishnamurti’s teaching is contained in the statement he made in 1929 when he said: “Truth is a pathless land.” Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.
Man has built in himself images as a fence of security—religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man’s thinking, his relationships, and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems, for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind.
The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.
Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man’s pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity.
Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge, which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.
When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation, which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind.
Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence.
***
Good books to begin with: Freedom from the Known, Think on These Things, The First and Last Freedom.
