Krishnamurti & the Art of Awakening

Krishnamurti Quote of the Day

Ojai, California | 1st Public Talk, 1946

Questioner: Should we not establish a purpose in our lives?

Krishnamurti: The ego can choose a noble purpose and so utilize it as a means for its own expansion.

Questioner: If there is no self-expansion is there a purpose, as we know it now?

Krishnamurti: A man who is asleep dreams that he has a purpose or must choose a purpose but does he who is awake have a purpose? He is simply awake. Our frames of reference, our purposes are a means, negatively or positively, of measuring the growth of the self.

Questioner: Is fulfillment self-expansion?

Krishnamurti: If fulfillment is prevented is there not the pain of frustration of the self? Questions of similar kind will find their answer in discovering the truth concerning the self-expansive process; this depends on earnestness and on the open receptivity of the mind-heart.

Questioner: Must we not know what is the other way of life before we can relinquish self-aggrandizement?

Krishnamurti: How can we know or be aware of another way of life till we can perceive the falseness, the futility of acquisition and self-expansion? In understanding the ways of self-aggrandizement we shall become aware. To speculate about the way becomes a hindrance to the very understanding of that life which is not one of self-perpetuation. So must we not discover the truth concerning the habitual activities of the self? It is knowledge of the hindrance that is the liberating factor, not the attempt to be free from the hindrance. Effort made to be free without the liberating action of Truth is still within the enclosing walls of the self. You can discover Truth only if you are willing to give your whole mind and heart to it, not a few moments of your easily spared time. If we are earnest we will find Truth; but this earnestness cannot depend on stimulation of any kind. We must give our full and deep attention to the discovery of the truth of our problem, not for a few grudging moments but constantly. It is Truth alone that liberates thought from its own enclosing process.

Tags: effort, understanding

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We are in a state of continual effort, because that which to us is light, is not light, it is only the light, the good of the intellect.
Do you make an effort to discover the cause of joy? If you do, then joy ceases to be and only its memories and habits exist.
The desire to be satisfied creates will, which maintains itself by its own continual effort.
The very question of how to be free of desire is prompted by desire itself.
Neither postponement nor trying to seek an immediate solution to our human problems can free thought from bondage.
Without self-knowledge, to make a choice between the opposites must inevitably lead to further ignorance and sorrow.
Being is only when there is no effort, positive or negative, to become;
Unforced receptivity is much more significant than the effort made to understand.
These discussions will have meaning only if we are open to the experience of discovery, which is prevented by our clinging obstinately to beliefs, memories, and conditioned prejudices.
Questioner: We do have to make some kind of effort, do we not?
You may succeed in forcibly stilling the mind, but what is the outcome of such effort? Death, is it not?
Is understanding to come through effort, or is there a state in which effort has ceased for understanding to be?
'How' immediately becomes the problem and therefore you are back again where you were.
I think we will understand the significance of life if we understood what it means to make an effort.
The moment of creation is not born of struggle.
It is only when we are not aware of exactly 'what is', that we make the effort to transform it.
The moment you are aware, which is neither to condemn nor justify, the moment you accept, look and observe what is, there is no effort; then the thing that you observe, that which is, that which you are aware of, has an extraordinary significance.
All greatness, like love, comes to you. If you pursue love it will never come, but if you are open, still, not demanding, it will come.
Most of you agree with what we have discussed so far in regard to the falseness of the trick played by the mind on itself; yet you have not seen the real depth of this problem and, therefore, it has not brought about clarification and transformation in you.
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Attention is not exclusive. If I exclude, there is effort and effort leads to distortion.
the explanation is never that thing which is explained, that is the word is never the thing.
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The essence of control is suppression.
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Conflict at any level, at any depth, indicates immaturity.
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Stillness cannot be cultivated, because if you cultivate a still mind, it is not a still mind, it is a dead mind.
When one merely understands intellectually, verbally or romantically or emotionally, it is just nothing at all.
In action born of choice there is no discernment, choice being calculation, a remembrance of incomplete action.
When you are awakened there is conflict, struggle. which you call suffering; but immediately you want to put away that struggle, that awakening;
In order to fight, you must know what you are fighting, so there must be understanding of the fundamental, not of the divisions between the false things.
Why do you want to eliminate self-consciousness?
Because what you can now discern as God must be limited, since your mind is circumscribed, held in bondage; therefore I will not describe that.
When you understand you don't seek to modify, to alter, to reform.
There is the reaction to environment when the mind does not understand the environment, and acts without understanding, thereby further increasing the limitation of environment
I doubt, if I may say so, that you really understand what I am saying, even intellectually;
There is either deep understanding or the creation of mere theory.
Truth, the beauty of reality, can be discerned only when the mind is fearless; not with the fearlessness of intellectuality, but of utter insecurity.
If you have beliefs, you are translating and moulding your experiences according to them, and so you are continuously forcing and limiting thought-emotion, and these limitations become the "I" process.
Both the religious and the materialistic mind are conditioned by their own prejudices which prevent the integral comprehension of truth and the communion with it.
The problem of starvation is not solved by merely discovering its causes - the bad economic system, over-production, maldistribution, and so on.
I can give you [also] a very good explanation, but we are trying to go beyond mere explanations.
I have explained what I mean by understanding. This understanding is not an intellectual, analytical process.
Understanding is not brought about through the mere exertion of a one-sided will but through that experimental approach which has that peculiar quality of wholeness.
All overcoming is a form of ignorance and violence; only understanding can free thought from bondage.
To understand the complex causes of conflict and the desire to be free from it, requires not the mere will to be free, but constant awareness in our daily life.
I am talking of understanding which transcends reason and emotion.
What is of primary importance [then] is understanding, in whose wake follows compassion.
Understanding is not a reward; in the very moment of awareness it is born.
Surely there is a difference between right thinking and right or conditioned thought.
It is natural, is it not, to be depressed at this present time when there is so much killing, confusion and sorrow?
To merely deny craving, to merely oppose its many expressions is not to transcend it but to continue in it.
Compulsion does not create understanding, whether it is from outside or from within.
To understand there must be no judgment or comparison, no acceptance or denial, for all identification prevents that passive awareness in which alone the discovery of what is true is made.
These talks will be utterly useless if you do not experience as you are listening.
Condemnation, judgment and comparison do not bring the experience of understanding; on the contrary they will stop experience
In the outer world there is no hope, no clarity, no creative and renewing understanding, there is only bloodshed and confusion and mounting disaster.
Instead of trying to control these wandering thoughts become aware of them, think-out, feel-out every thought, comprehend its significance, however pleasant or unpleasant;
Search to understand, not to know; for in understanding, the dual process of the knower and the known ceases.
Understanding comes when your whole being is deeply and silently aware.
Without understanding oneself meditation becomes a process of self-hypnosis inducing experiences according to one's conditioning, one's belief.
If you saw the truth about self-expansion problems would begin to fade away.
Our difficulty lies in that we have built around ourselves conclusions which we call understanding.
Understanding is not substitution; mere change of patterns, of conclusions, does not yield understanding.
It is truth alone that frees, not the activity of will.
As we have got a very difficult subject to deal with it requires a great deal of patience and we must not jump to conclusions.
I am not here to give you ideas but on the contrary, I am here to discuss together with you if we can, seriously and earnestly, the problem of living.
We use the present as a passage to the future.
Understanding is a total responsibility of your entire being, a perception which comes to you of the entire picture and not of a part only.
When the mind is dull, it is unwilling to look at 'what is' but wants to change itself into something else, thus bringing another element into the problem.
[Understanding] involves change of will altogether and not merely change in will.
You cannot overcome a hindrance; the hindrance has to be understood by approaching it without condemnation, without judging, without a desire to alter it.
A truth, probably heard by you, ceases to be a truth when you merely repeat it; it will be a truth to you only when you, for yourself, have discovered it to be true.
As long as the mind is moving from the known to the known, it is 'dead', and a 'dead' thing cannot understand anything.
Why do we not realise that our pursuit of drunkenness, God or an ideal is only the pursuit of our escape from facing the actual, and therefore reduces us to a state of dullness and insensitivity?
Is not knowledge different from understanding and does the mere accumulation of knowledge yield understanding?
As it is, our existence is pretty awful and merely to understand verbally what is being said and use it as a pattern to translate everyday existence will not bring about understanding.
You will have understanding only when you consider the problem, when you accept it, look at it, become aware of its significance completely, and even love it.
There is always in the 'thinker' a sense of permanency, a sense of continuity.
I am going to explain presently that truth can be understood instantaneously.
Outward action, when accomplished, is over, is static; and if the relationship between individuals, which is society, is not the outcome of inward revolution, then the social structure, being static, absorbs the individual, and therefore makes him equally static, repetitive.
Question: Can we realize on the spot the truth that you are speaking of, without any previous preparation?
Surely, meditation is understanding - meditation of the heart is understanding.
Self-knowledge is the beginning of meditation - not the knowledge that you pick up from my books, from authorities, from gurus, but the knowledge that comes into being through self-inquiry, which is self-awareness.
Peace can come into being only when the confusion which we have created is completely understood, not on the verbal level, but inwardly;
I cannot understand myself if I am tethered to anything - property, idea or thing.