Krishnamurti & the Art of Awakening

Krishnamurti Quote of the Day

Ojai, California | 6th Public Talk 1946

Questioner: You said the Real should not be an incentive. It seems to me that if I try to think of the Real I am better able to understand myself and my difficulties.

Krishnamurti: Is it possible to think about the Real? We may be able to formulate, imagine, speculate upon what we consider the Real to be but is it the Real? Can we think about the unknowable? Can we think, meditate upon the Timeless when our thought is the result of the past, of time? The past is ever the Known and thought which is based on it can only create the known. So to think about Truth is to be caught in the net of ignorance. If thought is able to think about Truth then it will not be Truth. Truth is a state of being in which the so-called activity of thought has ceased. Thinking, as we know it, is the result of the self-expansive process of time, of the past; it is the result of the movement of the known to the known. Thought which is the outcome of a cause can never formulate the Causeless. It can only think about the known for it is the product of the known.

What is known is not the Real. Our thought is occupied with the constant search for security, for certainty. Self-expansive intelligence by its very nature craves a refuge, either through negation or assertion. How can a mind that is ever seeking certainty, stimulation, encouragement, possibly think of that which is illimitable? You may read about it which is unfortunate, you may verbalize it which is a waste of time, but it is not the Real. When you say that by thinking about Truth you can better solve your difficulties and sorrows, you are using the supposed truth as a palliative; as with all drugs, sleep and dullness soon follow. Why seek external stimulants when the problem demands an understanding of its maker?

As I was saying, virtue gives freedom but there is no freedom in becoming virtuous. There is a vast and unbridgeable difference between being and becoming.

Tags: reality, thought

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