Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Jiddu Krishnamurti: A brief profile
Yogesh Khosla , Modern Sage "Daily Excelsior" 27/5/2018
"Daily Excelsior"
Mental peace and happiness are threatened by depression, anxiety, fear, jealousy and disintegrating personal relationships. Divisions, fragmentations and violence threaten the world as never before In these troubled times, sane guidance of J. Krishnamurti could be a light to the humanity.
THE EARLY YEARS
Born in 1895 at Madanapalle- a small hill town between Chennai and Bangalore, Jiddu Krishnamurti was identified as a world teacher by Annie Besant (President of Theosophical Society) when he was a small boy. Mrs. Besant adopted K and his brother Nitya, took them to England and took care of them as a mother. She arranged for K’s education and mentored and prepared him to be a world teacher. K later rose to become a leading teacher for Theosophical Society and was made the Head of the Order of the Star which had thousands of followers, scores of branches and centers and properties all over the world.
But destiny had other scheme for K. After acquiring enlightenment in his early thirties, K severed himself from the Theosophical Society in 1929. Glimpses of the path K had to take thereafter, came from his last address as the head of the Order of the Star:
“Truth is a pathless land and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any method, by any religion, by any sect. Truth being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized. You must climb towards the Truth, it cannot be “stepped down” or organized for you. If an organization is created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing. Therefore, I don’t want to belong to any organization. I am not a guru. I have no disciples. If there are only five people who will listen, who want to live differently, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it is sufficient.”
With these words, K disbanded Order of the Star and entered life afresh as an ordinary man- unattached and unburdened by any bondage whatsoever.
COMING OF A MASTER
Thereafter, K continued on his chosen path to alleviate human suffering- travelling, talking, discussing and questioning people who were serious. K’s communication was largely interactive- small group discussions, dialogues with scientists and philosophers, discussions with sanyasis, Q/A sessions with children, youth and common people. Participation in his talks was meditation in action. In fact, K taught us to live differently so that living itself becomes meditation. All his life, till his death in 1986 at the age of 90, K asserted that his words should not be followed blindly. Like Buddha, K advocated questioning, reasoning, critical thinking- depending only on realities of everyday life as evidence not on any scriptures or theories, however high sounding. He invited some of the leading global scientists, philosophers, educators, psychologists to discuss, challenge and refute what he was saying. Main reason for the lack of popular awareness of K’s teachings is his conscious efforts that no organization should be formed to interpret and evaluate his teachings for others. Fortunately, many books authored by K and videos of his talks and discussions are available as direct and unadulterated tools to guide future generations.
Initially, K was shy and reluctant to write. In 1938, a new friendship with eminent intellectual and author Aldous Huxley brought K’s teachings to the notice of the world. When Huxley first heard K speak, he remarked: “This was among the most impressive things I ever heard. It was like listening to a discourse of the Buddha- such power, such intrinsic authority, such an uncompromising refusal to allow any escapes or surrogates, any gurus or saviours.”
LESSONS FOR LIVING
Huxley persuaded K to write his observations as a daily journal. This journal was later published as a three volume series titled “Commentaries on Living”- a refreshingly new style of prose containing recordings of K’s observation of nature, his thoughts on life and accounts of his interactions with individuals and groups (keeping identities confidential). Some of K’s important books are “Freedom from the Known”, “The First and Last Freedom”, “You are the World”, “Ending of Time”, “On Self Knowledge” et al. Significant videos include a set of dialogues with scientists and psychotherapists titled “The Nature of the Mind”. These discussions are about the roots of psychological disorders and how a healthy mind can be developed by ending conflicts and suffering.
Another profound video is titled “The Transformation of Man”- a series of seven one hour dialogues with Dr David Bohm and Dr Shainberg (a prominent psychotherapist of USA) discussing why change is so difficult for human beings.
What are Krishnamurti’s essential teachings? Difficult to comprehend by eminent philosophers and psychotherapists, but easy enough to heal the suffering of an uneducated old lady, K’s teachings are sure to influence modern thought.
Nobody understood K’s teachings better than Dr. David Bohm with whom K had discussions on “Nature of the Mind”, “Psychological Time” and “Reality”. Dr. Bohm, whom Einstein regarded as his intellectual successor, was a foremost physicist and one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century. He was an authority in diverse fields like Quantum Mechanics, Theory of Relativity, Philosophy of Mind and Neuropsychology. Says Dr. Bohm: “Krishnamurti’s major discovery is that all the disorder, widespread misery and sorrow, is because we are ignorant of the general nature of our thought processes. To put it differently, it may be said that we do not see what is actually happening when we are engaged in the activity of thinking.
Krishnamurti’s work is permeated by what may be called the essence of the scientific approach- in its very highest and purest form.”
Some of K’s quotations are given hereunder:-
Regarding our mind: “Observer is the observed. Analyzer is the analyzed. There is no thought if the thinker is not?”
“Identification with any group or religion or caste or nation inevitably leads to divisions, conflicts and wars”
“Right thinking comes through self knowledge. Without self knowledge, what you think is not true.”
“Relationships are the mirror through which self knowledge can take place”
“Life has no meaning without right relationships and right relationships are not possible if we have images about self and others”
These quotations are presented out of context, but have huge implications for right living. Real meaning of these quotes can be understood if we seriously go a little deeper.
TOWARDS A NEW EDUCATION
Krishnamurti believed that change in human beings and therefore in society, is possible only through right education. Some alternate/ experimental schools, based on K’s teachings, were established in India, England and USA. New areas of learning like “self knowledge”,” living together through global outlook”, “development of intelligence and creativity without competition and comparisons”, “critical thinking” etc. were introduced in these schools about 50 years ago. These areas, identified recently by UNESCO as “Learning to Be” and “Learning to Live Together”, are now being recognized as the most important pillars of modern education and are being implemented in some of the best schools everywhere.
This is the story of an extraordinary man who was an original thinker, a sage, a philosopher of the mind, a psychotherapist, a teacher of teachers, who taught us a different way of living.
His philosophy
Ask why your mind is not free
J Krishnamurti, August 14, 2018: The Times of India
The word ‘freedom’ has been greatly abused by tyrannical as well as democratic governments, and religions too, everywhere in the world. Personal freedom and independence do not exist, except perhaps in the scientific world. It does not exist in the business world or in the religious structures which man has organised through fear and belief; it does not exist in governments or in any field of human activity. But man has consistently asserted that he is free and complained that it is environment that enslaves him.
Freedom, is independence to think for oneself clearly and not to act according to the dictates of society or one’s own personal inclinations … Freedom is not merely freedom from something, but is freedom in itself. This does not mean freedom to do whatever one likes, so one has to understand not merely verbally but factually what that word implies. We are not trying to define what freedom is; each one would interpret it according to his own inclination or upbringing, and some would even deny that there is such a thing at all.
Freedom is to be found not by seeking it, but rather by understanding what it is that imprisons the mind. When these prison walls are broken, then there is freedom naturally, and one does not have to seek it. So what is important is not how to achieve freedom or to ask what freedom is, but rather to ask why the mind, which is the product of time and environment and has had so many experiences of misery and conflict, is not free.
Find out why the mind still remains so heavily conditioned after so many millions of years. The mind is conditioned by society with its cultures, laws, religious sanctions, economic pressures and so on. The mind is, after all, the result of the past, and this past is tradition. It lives in this tradition with all its strife, wars and agonies. One must ask if it can be free from its own conditioning. Some have said that it must always remain conditioned and can never be free, and others have said this freedom from conditioning can never be found here but only in some future heaven, or at the end of some long sacrifice, discipline, programme of further conformity to a pattern of so called religious practice. Without freedom from conditioning, humanity will always remain a prisoner and life will remain a battlefield.
The first thing to understand in this inquiry is the nature of authority. In any community, law and the policeman are necessary, but we have also introduced a policeman into the inner world of thought and feeling. In this world, obedience has been instilled by tradition, experience and habit – obedience to one’s parents, to society, to the priest. But obedience is born of fear, fear of going wrong, of acting independently, of not being secure, of not being part of the community, of standing alone, of making a mistake.
A discipline which comes naturally, without any conformity, is the simple observation of all these fears, anxieties, and envies; to see your own fears, your own ambitions as you see a tree. This very seeing is that discipline. The word discipline means learning, not conformity, suppression or obedience. Learning the nature and the structure of conditioning brings order; not the order of society which is disorder.
The awakening of intelligence
Awakening Of Intelligence And What Is, June 23, 2017: The Times of India
Awakening of intelligence implies having an insight into all our problems psychological problems, crises, blockages and so on. The word `intelligence', according to a good dictionary , means reading between the lines, partly. And to have deep, true insight not an intellectual comprehension, not resolving the problem through conflict, but having an insight into a human issue. That very insight awakens this intelligence. Or, having this intelligence there is the insight both ways.
Having an insight involves no conflict, because when you see something very clearly , the truth of the matter, you don't fight against it, you don't try to control; you don't make all these calculated, motivated efforts.From that insight, which is intelligence, there is immediate action.
We are educated from childhood to exercise as deeply as possible, every form of effort. We make tremendous efforts to control ourselves, to suppress, to adjust, to modify ourselves to certain conclusions, pattern ourselves according to some patterns, or according to an objective that you or another has established, and so there is this constant struggle ... Is it possible to live daily life, without a single conflict?
Most of us are dissatisfied.When you are young this dissatisfaction becomes like a flame, and you have passion to do something: so you join some political party , the extreme revolutionary , and so on.
By joining, adopting certain attitudes, certain ideologies, that flame of discontent fades away , because you are then satisfied. You say, `This is what I want to do' and you pour your heart into it. And gradually you find, if you are at all awake to all the problems involved, that doesn't satisfy .But it is too late: you have already given half your life to something which you thought will be completely worthwhile, but when you find later on that it is not, then i am afraid one's energy , capacity, the drive, has withered away.
Discontent with regard to politics, discontent that questions religious attitudes, and dogmas, the orthodoxy of the priest, the gurus the dis content questions it, doubts it.
And gradually you like some body , or some idea ... so you adjust yourself to that pattern.
Gradually this real flame of discontent withers away.
Most of us fortunately, if we are at all alive to things, are discontented ... But to allow this flame to keep on burning, not be satisfied with anything, then superficial satisfactions have no place. This very dissatisfaction is demanding something much greater than the ideals, gurus, religions, establishment, ecology , and so on, they've become totally superficial. And that very flame of discontent, because it has no outlet, because it has no object in which it can fulfil itself, that flame becomes a great passion. And that passion is this intelligence.
And insight implies observing `what is' with a mind that is completely free and therefore empty to observe `what is' and therefore you have an insight.That is, when you are violent and you do not escape from violence, avoid it, try to transform it into some nonsensical non-violence and so on, then you are free of all that burden. Being free, the mind is empty; that emptiness gives you insight. And when you have insight into violence you are no longer violent.
Belief
Interaction: J Krishnamurti, September 7, 2020: The Times of India
Learning About Belief Is The End Of Belief
Questioner: Is there a god? If there isn’t, life has no meaning. Not knowing god, man has invented him in a thousand beliefs and images. All emphasised belief. “Believe and then you will know; without belief you can never know.” What do you think?
Krishnamurti: Is belief necessary to find out? To learn is far more important than to know. Learning about belief is the end of belief. When the mind is free of belief then it can look. It is belief, or disbelief, that binds; for disbelief and belief are the same – the opposite sides of the same coin. So we can completely put aside positive or negative belief; the believer and the non-believer are the same. When this actually takes place then the question, “Is there a god?” has quite a different meaning. The word god with all its tradition, its memory, its intellectual and sentimental connotations – all this is not god. The word is not the real. So can the mind be free of the word?
Questioner: I don’t know what that means.
Krishnamur ti: The word is the tradition, the hope, the desire to find the absolute, the striving after the ultimate; it’s the movement which gives vitality to existence. So the word itself becomes the ultimate, yet we can see that the word is not the thing. The mind is the word, and the word is thought.
Questioner: And you’re asking me to strip myself of the word? How can I do that? The word is the past; it is memory. The wife is the word, and the house is the word. In the beginning was the word. Also the word is the means of communication, identification. Your name is not you, and yet without your name I can’t ask about you. And you’re asking me if the mind can be free of the word – that is, can the mind be free of its own activity?
Krishnamur ti: In the case of the tree, the object is before our eyes, and the word refers to the tree by universal agreement. Now with the word ‘god’ there is nothing to which it refers, so each man can create his own image of that for which there is no reference. The theologian does it in one way, the intellectual in another, and the believer and the non-believer in their own different ways. Hope generates this belief, and then seeking. This hope is the outcome of despair – the despair of all we see around us in the world. From despair hope is born, they also are two sides of the same coin. When there is no hope there is hell, and this fear of hell gives us the vitality of hope. Then illusion begins. So the word has led us to illusion and not to god at all. God is the illusion which we worship; and the nonbeliever creates the illusion of another god which he worships – the Stase, or some utopia, or some book which he thinks contains all truth. So we are asking you whether you can be free of the word with its illusion.
Questioner: I must meditate on this.
Krishnamur ti: If there is no illusion, what is left?
Questioner: Only what is.
Krishnamur ti: The “what is” is the most holy.
Abridged excerpt from jkrishnamurti.org, Courtesy: KFI
Communion With Nature
J Krishnamurti, Being In Complete Communion With Nature, December 31, 2018: The Times of India
People are divided racially, religiously, politically, economically, and this division is fragmentation. This is what is happening; and the responsibility of the educator is really very great. He is concerned in all these schools to bring about a good human being who has a feeling of global relationship, who is not nationalistic, regional, separate, religiously clinging to old, dead traditions, which really have no value at all. The responsibility of the educator becomes more and more serious, more and more committed, more and more concerned with the education of his students.
What is education doing actually? Is it really helping mankind, our children, to become more concerned, more gentle and generous? The educator has to help the student to find out his relationship to the actual world in which all things are taking place; and also to the world of nature, to the desert, the jungle or the few trees that surround him, and to the animals of the world. (Animals, fortunately, are not nationalistic; they hunt only to survive.) If the educator and the student lose their relationship to nature, to the trees, to the rolling sea, each will certainly lose his relationship with humanity.
There is a great deal of talk about and endeavour to protect nature, flora and fauna and to clean polluted rivers and lakes ... Nature is part of our life. We grew out of the seed, the earth and we are part of all that, but we are rapidly losing the sense that we are animals like the others. You must have that sense of communion with nature around you. If you hurt nature, you are hurting yourself.
Have you ever woken up in the morning and looked out of the window, or gone out and looked at the trees and the spring dawn? Live with it. Listen to all the sounds, to the whisper, the slight breeze among the leaves. See the light on a leaf and watch the sun coming over the hill, over the meadow; and the dry river, or sheep grazing across the hill. Watch them; look at them with a sense of affection. When you have such communion with nature, then your relationship with another person becomes simple, clear, without conflict.
This is one of the responsibilities of the educator, not merely to teach mathematics or how to use a computer. It is far more important to have communion with other human beings who suffer, struggle and have great pain and the sorrow of poverty – and also with rich people. If the educator is concerned with this, he is helping the student to become sensitive to other people’s sorrows, struggles, anxieties and worries. It should be the responsibility of the teacher to educate children to have such communion with the world. The world may be too large, but the world is where he is; that is his world. And this brings about a natural consideration, affection for others, courtesy and behaviour that is not rough, cruel, or vulgar.
The educator should talk about all these things – not just verbally, he must feel the world, the world of nature and the world of man. They are interrelated. When man destroys nature, he is destroying himself. When he kills another, he is killing himself. The enemy is not the other, but you. To live in such harmony with nature, with the world, naturally brings about a different world.
Education, the goals of
Shuvendu Patnaik, Reliving And Learning From Precious Memories, December 1, 2018: The Times of India
Excerpt from The Trail to Enlightenment: Life & Teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, Book 3: The Key To Super Consciousness, ProLibris Publishing Media Pvt Ltd
Whenever K (J Krishnamurti) visited Rishi Valley, he generally had his meals in his room. One evening in 1982, he came to the dining room for his meals. Someone asked him what his objectives for education were.
‘To our great surprise, he enumerated the following as his educational aims: Global outlook: Krishnamurti explained that this meant a vision of the whole as distinct from the part and that it should never be a sectarian outlook but always a holistic outlook free from all prejudice. He said that only a global approach could solve our problems, placed as we were at the end of the twentieth century, with unknown dangers from nuclear energy and hazardous wastes, population growth, environmental pollution and wars. He said that a sectarian outlook would invariably lead to bigotry and violence.
Concern for man and the environment: Krishnamurti said that man was part of nature and if nature was not cared for, it would boomerang on man. There was need for afforestation and conservation of soil. Ecologists were pointing out that the destructive nature of man had led to the disappearance of many species in the biosphere. Man was suffering and was confused. There were conflicts of all kinds, leading to violence and wars. He said that only right education and deep affection between people, which was necessary everywhere, would resolve many human problems.
Religious spirit, which includes scientific temper: Krishnamurti told us that the religious mind is alone, not lonely. It is in communion with people and nature. He said that the religious spirit is young and innocent and can explore into the present with creative zeal. While the scientific mind goes from fact to fact and observes, the religious mind alone could comprehend the fact and go beyond it from the known to the unknown. He said that only the non-sectarian and nondenominational religious spirit would bring about a new culture.
There was radiance in the dining room as he spoke to us till 9:00 PM.’ Swami Venkatesananda had a conversation with K at Saanen in 1969. The Swami had started referring to K as a guru, relating him to a guru, in the way the gurus talked to their disciples in the Upanishads. He asked K, what according to him, was the role of a guru? Referring to himself in third person, K said: ‘Sir, if you are using the word guru in the classical sense which is the dispeller of darkness, of ignorance, can another, whoever he be, enlightened or stupid, really help to dispel the darkness in oneself ? You might point out the door and say, Look, go through the door, but each man has to do the work entirely himself, and therefore he, K, did not consider himself to be a guru.’ When the Swami asked whether K accepted pointing out was necessary, he replied: ‘Yes, of course. I point out, I do that. We all do that. I ask a man on the road, “Will you please tell me which is the road to Saanen”, and he tells me; but I do not spend time and expect devotion and say, “My God, you are the greatest of men”. That is too childish!’
Education and The Need to Break Barriers
By J Krishnamurti, January 13, 2020: The Times of India
Co-operation and aggression can never go together. Co-operation is an absolute necessity in a world which is so splintered by national and religious beliefs, economic differences and intellectual over- and underdevelopment. There is a certain kind of co-operation in very close relationships, as in the family, but beyond that there are always differences of opinion, inclinations and knowledge. These differences become intensified through ambition and envy, and this obviously prevents co-operation.
Traditionally, co-operation meant working together for an ideology or around a dominant individual or for some utopian ideal, but such co-operation ceases or disintegrates when the individual or the ideology disappears. This is the pattern man has followed, hoping to bring about a different condition in the world, or for his own personal profit. Working together for an end, with each individual having his own motive for the achievement of that end, must inevitably breed conflict. Such working together is for a concept and not a factual necessity. Working together ceases to be a formula when there is not only understanding of the necessity but also when there is that relationship which comes with love. This relationship is denied when there is aggression. Man, by nature, is aggressive; this aggression comes from the animal. This aggressiveness, this violence, is encouraged in the family, in education, in the business world and in religious structures.
Aggression takes the form of ambition, which again is encouraged and respected. Aggression is violence, and to counteract this violence which is so prominent in the world, various forms of ideology have been developed; but this only helps to avoid the actual fact of violence. violence is not only on the battlefield but it is anger, hate and envy. It is the envy that makes us competitive, which again is a very highly respected thing in society, the very structure of which is based on violence.
Most of us can see the pattern of all this at least intellectually, but what makes us act is not an intellectual grasp but seeing the very truth of the matter. Seeing the truth is the only liberating factor, not all the intellectual arguments, the emotional adjustments or mere rationalisations. To see is to act, and that action is not the outcome of ideation.
Co-operation must exist, and it cannot possibly exist when each individual is in competition with other human beings and is pursuing his own fulfilment. In order to cooperate there can be no such thing as individual, family or national fulfilment, for this fulfilment emphasises separation, denying co-operation. When you see all this, not as a descriptive idea but as a danger to the total wellbeing of mankind, then that very seeing brings an action that will be non-aggressive and so co-operative. To see is to love and a man who loves is in a state of co-operation. Understanding co-operation, he will also see when not to co-operate.
In the fullness of co-operation, goodness, which is not sentimentality, can flower. It is authority that destroys co-operation, for love cannot possibly exist where there is authority. We have lived so long in the accepted patterns of life that it has become traditional, and freedom, love and co-operation have lost their fundamental meanings. Education is to break down these patterns. In the very breaking down of them is the seeing of the truth of the new.
Courtesy: KFI
Goals And Results
J Krishnamurti, Why Goals And Results Are Important To Us, July 18, 2018: The Times of India
Why is it that we seek results, goals? Why is it that the mind is ever pursuing an end? And why should it not pursue an end? In coming here, are we not seeking something, some experience, some delight? We are tired and fed up with the many things that we have been playing with; we have turned away from them, and now we want a new toy to play with. We go from one thing to another, till we find something that is entirely satisfying; and then we settle down to stagnate.
We are forever craving something; and having tasted many things which were mostly unsatisfactory, we now want the ultimate thing: God, truth, or what you will. We want a result, a new experience, a new sensation that will endure in spite of everything. We never see the futility of result, but only of a particular result; so we wander from one result to another, hoping always to find the one that will end all search.
The search for result, for success, is binding, limiting; it is ever coming to an end. Gaining is a process of ending. To arrive is death. Yet that is what we are seeking, is it not? We are seeking death, only we call it result, goal, purpose. We want to arrive. We are tired of this everlasting struggle, and we want to get there – “there” placed at whatever level. We do not see the wasteful destructiveness of struggle, but desire to be free of it through gaining a result. We do not see the truth of struggle, of conflict, and so we use it as a means of getting what we want, the most satisfying thing; and that which is most satisfying is determined by the intensity of our discontent. This desire for result always ends in gain; but we want a never-ending result So, what is our problem? How to be free from the craving for results, is that it?
I think that is it. The very desire to be free is also a desire for a result, is it not? We shall get thoroughly entangled if we pursue that line. Is it that we cannot see the futility of result, at whatever level we may place it? Is that our problem? Let us see our problem clearly, and then perhaps we shall be able to understand it. Is it a question of seeing the futility of one result and so discarding all desire for results? If we perceive the uselessness of one escape, then all escapes are vain. Is that our problem? Surely, it is not quite that, is it? Perhaps we can approach it differently.
Is not experience a result also? If we are to be free from results, must we not also be free from experience? For is not experience an outcome, an end? “The end of what?” The end of experiencing. Experience is the memory of experiencing, is it not? When experiencing ends there is experience, the result. While experiencing, there is no experience; experience is but the memory of having experienced.
As the state of experiencing fades, experience begins. Experience is ever hindering experiencing, living. Results, experiences, come to an end; but experiencing is inexhaustible. When the inexhaustible is hindered by memory, then the search for results begins. The mind, the result, is always seeking an end, a purpose, and that is death. Death is not when the experiencer is not. Only then is there the inexhaustible.
Obedience To The Past Is Disorder
J Krishnamurti, February 5, 2019: The Times of India
Except perhaps in nature, when you look around, you see that there is much misery, confusion and violence. If man had set out deliberately to bring about chaos in the world, he could not possibly have succeeded as much as the present actual state of destruction, hatred and anarchy. This is the result of the lives, attitudes, values and superstitions of past generations.
You often hear that the future is in the hands of the younger generation. Is this so? Or is it that younger generations are also so heavily conditioned by the past – of which they may not be conscious at all – that they revolt only superficially against the established order? This superficial revolt gives them a certain vitality and freshness which is mistaken for a new beginning. Every generation has been more or less in revolt against the past, but they are soon trapped by the past, by the society, culture in which they have lived.
Every one of us has to think, act and live in a totally different way that is not based on aggression, acquisitiveness and the predatory instinct that man has inherited. This revolution is not in the social or economic field but at a much greater depth; it is in the very structure of human consciousness. So the crisis is not one of youth against former generations, or one religious formula against another, or one country against another, but at the very root of our being. The decision is whether we continue with the past or find a way of living in which conflict in any form does not exist.
To find a new way of life, order is necessary. Order is not imitation or acceptance of a pattern as a way of life. It is not obedience to a higher authority, whether that authority is outer or inner. Order is not conformity either to a way of life established through tradition or to a way of life cultivated for oneself. All such order is essentially a form of acceptance of conformity.
Order cannot possibly exist when there is fear; fear and disorder go together. The social structure in which we live, by its very nature, produces this disorder. It is this disorder that we are frightened of ... our so-called morality is no more than adjustment to disorder.
When we talk of order we mean a state of mind that is the natural outcome of understanding the actual nature of disorder. It is not the cultivation of a new pattern or system to be followed; rather, it is seeing the nature of disorder and its danger. Freedom does not come from discipline as it is generally understood, which is to conform, to suppress, to obey, and so on. Discipline means learning.
So you have to become a disciple of freedom; and there is no guru to tell you what freedom is. So order is possible only when there is learning about freedom. This learning is the continuation of freedom in action.
So authority comes to an end. Of course there must be the authority of the policeman and the law, but there is no other authority. For freedom, which is order, cannot exist in the shadow of authority, whether it is the authority of tradition or the authority that one has gathered through experience and knowledge. Authority is always the past, and obedience to the past is disorder.
The Religious Mind
Shuvendu Patnaik, A Truly Religious Mind Is Free Of Belief, November 1, 2018: The Times of India
A truly religious mind is much more than an ordinary scientific mind. It is a deeply scientific mind that is constantly enquiring and discovering… not ensnared by established theories, formulae, dogmas or beliefs, whether they are scientific or theological in nature. It is a mind that is extraordinarily passionate, constantly questioning. It is a mind that can go beyond thought and discover the truth and after discovering, it moves on to discover more. Such a mind is a truly religious mind. It is a free and passionate mind.
Only a free mind can be a scientific mind and such a mind is also a religious mind. It is free and being free it is incapable of accumulating knowledge and beliefs. It refuses to accumulate knowledge because knowledge belongs to the past and the past is a calcification of the truth and no longer the truth. A calcified truth becomes a belief and therefore false. Truth can only be the living present and this is what many of us fail to see.
How can we develop such a mind? How can we develop a type of mind that is forever young and learning? How can we develop a mind that never cares for beliefs and is able to discover itself new every moment? What are the teachings for developing such a mind?
…Compartments can only contain stagnated air, and J Krishnamurti’s teachings are never stagnant. Let us begin with thinking and thought. Thoughts play an important role in our lives. We are governed by what we think and how we think. Our actions are a result of our thought. Knowledge and experience are also a result of our thought and an accumulation of inferences drawn from our thoughts. Beliefs are created by thought too and they occupy our minds. Living has a lot to do with thinking. To learn the art of living we need to understand the nature of thought and how it influences the mind.
Krishnamurti has dealt extensively with the nature and quality of the human mind and thoughts. There are two things about thought and thinking that we can learn from Krishnamurti. First, the mind is always occupied with thought. Second, thought is constantly wearing away our minds. Do we know this?
“Thought is the response of the past in conjunction with the present; that is, thought is experience responding to challenges, which is reaction. There is no thought if there is no reaction. Response is the past background – you respond as a Buddhist, a Christian, according to the left or right. That is the background and that is the constant response to challenge – and that response of the past to the present is called thinking. There is never a moment when thought is not. Have you noticed that your mind is incessantly occupied with something? It is constantly occupied; and what happens to your mind, what happens to any machinery that is in constant use? It wears away.”
The mind is never idle. It is always preoccupied with some thought and the thought keeps changing… What may perhaps come as a surprise is that thought wears away the mind. Abridged from Part 2 of ‘The Trail to Enlightenment, Life & Teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti’ in three volumes – Part 1: The Hidden Side of Life, Part 2: The Great Coming, Part 3: The Key to Super Consciousness (ProLibris Publishing Media)
Suffering
Ashok Vohra, February 17, 2022: The Times of India
The first noble truth of the Buddha, ‘All is suffering’, implies that our lived life is fraught with pain and misery. Suffering is a permanent human condition. Even what we call happy and content moments are beset with the painful awareness that they would soon come to an end.
Like the Buddha, Jiddu Krishnamurti also holds that everyone is in despair, sorrow, and frustration, but unlike the Buddha, he does not believe that the cause of human suffering is avidya, ignorance. Nor does he believe that human suffering can come to an end by activities like satsang, kirtan, reciting a particular individual mantra, or offering collective prayers. A deeper reflection, according to Krishnamurti, reveals that the reason for our existential predicament is our indolence or laziness. Because of our laziness, we always hope that some leader, guru, or an external agency will help us in ending our misery, conflict and chaos, and creating an order in which there will be no suffering.
Discarding the efficacy of any guru or any external authority, Krishnamurti asserts, ‘We cannot depend on anybody, there is no guide, there is no teacher, there is no authority, there is only oneself and one’s relationship with another and the world, there is nothing else. ’ Like Sartre, he upholds that we are abandoned. He advocates ‘self-help’ for each individual to alleviate his existential suffering. ‘Self-help’ doctrine of Krishnamurti is based on the principle that ‘There can be no universal solution to individual human problems as each man’s problem is unique in its own way and as such, he has to face and dissolve his problems by himself, and accordingly, has to find out the solution on his own. ’
The ‘way’ to annihilate suffering, according to Krishnamurti, is through appropriate action that will ‘wipe out all difficulties’ coming in the way of annihilating human misery. ‘We have to act, to do something vital, energetic, forceful to bring about a different mind, a different quality of existence. ’ Krishnamurti’s notion of action is quite comprehensive. It does not only mean physical movement in space and time but also includes ‘action of thought, the action of an idea, the action of a feeling, of environment, of opinion, the action of ambition, of food and psychological influences of which most of us are totally unaware’. It also includes the actions of the conscious as well as the unconscious mind.
His notion of action is like the one advocated in Bhagwad Gita, 3. 5, ‘There is no one who can remain without action even for a moment. Indeed, all beings are compelled to act by their qualities born of material nature, the three gunas’; and in Srimad Bhagwad Purana, 6. 1. 53, ‘Nobody can remain inactive for even a moment. Everyone is forced to act by their svabhava, modes of nature. ’ Influenced by these teachings, Krishnamurti also upholds that without acting one is as good as dead.
The decision about ‘what action one should perform’ depends on his needs. It is an individual decision; it is not dictated by any other individual or external agency but is guided by what brings about the inner transformation and leads to the cessation of suffering.
On war
J Krishnamurti: We must question whether there is a learning at all or just blind wandering. After ten thousand years or so, human beings haven’t learnt a very simple thing: don’t kill somebody, for God’s sake; you are killing yourself, you are killing your future. And that hasn’t been learnt.
Jonas Salk: It has been learnt by some, but not by all of us.
JK: Of course there are exceptions. They will always be there, fortunately. But the majority, who vote for war, for presidents, for prime ministers and all the rest of it, haven’t learnt a thing; they will destroy humanity.
JS: If we let them.
JK: But it is happening.
JS: The ultimate destruction has not happened yet. But we must be aware of that new danger, and something must arise within us now.
JK: I would like to go into this because i question whether experience has taught man anything, except to be more brutal, selfish, self-centred, more concerned with himself and his little group, with his little family. Tribal consciousness, which has become glorified as national consciousness, is destroying us. So, if ten thousand years, more or less, has not taught man to stop killing, there is something wrong.
JS: I’d like to look at it from an evolutionary point of view, and speculate that we are evolving through time, in which the exception to which you referred earlier may some day become the rule. How might this happen? It has to happen, or else there will be nothing to speak about after the event.
JK: I understand all this, sir. I have talked to a great many politicians, and their argument is that you and people like you must enter the arena. Now, wait a minute. We always deal with a crisis, not with what has brought about the crisis. When the crisis arises, our response is: Deal with the crisis, don’t bother about the past, don’t bother about anything else, just answer the crisis.
JS: And that’s why they need the wisdom of those like yourself, who see the future, who can see the writing on the wall, and will act before the wall begins to crumble.
JK: Therefore what i am saying is: Shouldn’t we inquire into the cause of all this?
JS: It will be of no great advantage to us to have others suffer and be a threat to us as well as to themselves, which is the state of affairs now with nuclear war.
JK: Therefore i am asking whether we learn through suffering, which we haven’t. We haven’t learnt from the agony of wars. So what will make us learn, change? What are the factors and the depth of it? Why are human beings, who have lived on this poor, unfortunate earth for so long, destroying the thing on which they are growing and destroying each other? What is the cause of all this? Not speculative causes, but the actual, deep human cause? Unless we find that, we will go on like this for the rest of our days.
If we have children, what’s their future? War? And how am i, as a parent, to see all this? How is one to awaken, to be aware of all this going on, and the relationship to what is going on? And if they don’t change, this will go on endlessly. (Excerpt from a 1983 conversation J Krishnamurti had with Jonas Salk, winner of the Nobel prize for developing the polio vaccine – published in the book, ‘Questioning
