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I wrote it [Krishnamurti's Notebook] as a diary while I was traveling but I did not write it for publication. I describe what I call the process-my sensation of being outside the ordinary world, of being completely at peace and removed from conflict. This happens only from time to time and clearly it is impossible to describe to anybody who has not experienced it. But I have attempted to put into words the actual pain and sensation which goes with the heightened consciousness. It is not intended in a romantic way: if you lead a certain type of disciplined, quiet life you realize a kind of energy-that's scientific fact-and this affects the non-mechanical part of your brain so that you enter into a new dimension. The physical organism is incapable of meetings it and so you get the pain. I am not suggesting that everyone should try to attain this, but it may be of interest to some people who have followed my thoughts and ideas to know what happens on a more personal level.
- J. Krishnamurti[Interview with The Guardian]
Thought
Thought is not the means of resolving any of our problems, because thought is the response of memory, and memory is the result of accumulated knowledge as experience.
- New Delhi : 2nd Public Talk : 17th February 1960
SufferingThe lives of most of us are pretty ugly, sordid, miserable, petty. Our existence is a series of conflicts, contradictions, a process of struggle, pain, fleeting joy, momentary satisfaction. We are bound by so many adjustments, conformity, patterns, and there is never a moment of freedom, never a sense of complete being. There is always frustration, because there is always the seeking to fulfill. We have no tranquility of mind, but are always tortured by various demands. So, to understand all these problems and go beyond them, it is surely necessary that we begin by understanding the nature of knowledge and the process of the mind.
- The Silent Mind (Choicless Awareness Part 3)
Observation
Now, is it possible to see, to observe, to be aware of the beautiful and the ugly things in life, and not say "I must have" or "I must not have"? Have you ever just observed anything? Do you understand, sirs? Have you ever observe your wife, your children, your friends, just looked at them? Have you ever look at a flower without calling it rose, without want to put it in your buttonhole, or take it home and give it to somebody? If you are capable of so observing, without all the values attributed by the mind, then you will find that desire is not such as monstrous thing. You can look at a car, see the beauty of it, and not be caught in the turmoil or contradiction of desire. But that requires an immense intensity of observation, not just a casual glance. It is not that you have no desire, but simply that the mind is capable of looking without describing.
- Bombay : 2nd Public Talk : 10th February 1957
Beauty
But there is a beauty that is not the outcome of a reaction or a stimulation. Now that sense of beauty is not merely color, proportion, texture, quality, but it is something far greater, much deeper; and it has nothing whatsoever to do with a passing stimulation. It is difficult to convey that feeling, the feeling of that sense of beauty where the mind, the heart, the nerves, the whole sensory organism is in complete coordination. That feeling is not induced or brought about by any stimulation, but actually is there, because you are throughout the day sensitive to everything - to your words, to your gesture, to your walk, to the dirt on the road, to the squalor of a house, to its disorderliness, the ugliness of the office, the brutal travail of man. You are aware, sensitive; and because you are so sensitive, you have activated every field of your being, activated every corner of your consciousness, of your state. It is only then that there is a sense of beauty, not stimulated by the lake, or by the mountain, or by a poem, or by the movement of a bird on the wing.
- Bombay: 6th Public Talk: 28th February 1965
Relationship
To be related means to be in contact. Contact must be something direct, not between two images. It requires a great deal of attention, an awareness, to look at another without the image which I have about that person, the image being my memories of that person, how he has insulted me, pleased me, given me pleasure, this or that. Only when there are no images between the two is there a relationship.- The Mirror of Relationship (Choiceless Awareness Part 2)
What do we mean by that word 'relationship'? Are we ever related to anyone, or is the relationship between two images which we have created about each other? I have an image about you and you have an image about me. I have an image about you as my wife or husband, or whatever it is, and you an image about me also. The relationship is between these two imagee and nothing else. To have relationship with one another is only possible when there is no image. When I can look at you and you can look at me, without the image of memory, of insults and all the rest, then there is a relationship...
- The Mirror of Relationship (Choiceless Awareness Part 2)
Image
What have I, who have lived forty, fifty, sixty, or whatever number of years it is that one has lived - why have I gathered this storehouseful - of what I think, what I feel, what I am, what I should be, this accumulcation of experience, knowledge? And if I had not done that, what would happen? If I had no concept about myself, what would happen to me? I would be lost, wouldn't I? I would be uncertain, terribly frightened of life. So I build an image, a myth, a concept, a conclusion about myself, because without this framework life would become for me utterly meaningless, uncertain, fearful...
Now what happens when I am aware of the fact that I have built an image of myself - as aware of it as I am of hunger?
- Facing Fact as Fact (Choiceless Awareness Part 1)
Actuality
When you are observing the actual fact of what you are, no one can hurt you. Then, if one is a liar and is told that one is a liar it does not mean that one is hurt; it is a fact. But when you are pretending you are not a liar and are told that you are, then you get angry, violent. So we are always living in an ideational world, a world of myth and never in a world of actuality. To observe what is, to see it, actually be familiar with it, there must be no judgement, no evaluation, no opinion, no fear.
- Paris: 4th Public Talk : 12th September 1961
Escapism
The reason for escape is obvious - we are dissatisfied with ourselves, with our state, outwardly and inwardly. And so we have many escapes; and we think we shall understand, dissolve the escape, the drinking, when we discover the cause. When we know the cause of escape, do we stop escaping? When I know that I am drinking because I am quarelling with my wife, or because I have a rotten job - when I know the cause, do I stop drinking? Surely not. I stop drinking only when I establish right relationship with my wife, with another, and remove the conflict which is causing pain.
- London : 2nd Public Talk : 9th October 1949
Revolution
To understand this problem of change, it is necessary first of all, to understand the process of thinking and the nature of knowledge. Unless we go into this rather deeply, any change will have very little meaning, because merely to change on the surface is to perpetuate the very things we are trying to alter. All revolutions set out to change the relationship of man to man, to create a better society, a different way of living; but through the gradual process of time the very abuses which the revolution was supposed to remove recur in another way with a different group of people, and the same old process goes on. We start out to change, to bring about a classless society, only to find that, through time, through the pressure of circumstances, a different group becomes the new upper class. The revolution is never radical, fundamental.
- New Delhi : 2nd Public Talk : 17th February 1960
A man who is passionate about the world and the necessity for change, must be free from political activity, religious conformity and tradition - which means, free from all action of will; this is the new human being. This only is the social, psychological, and even the political revolution.
- The Urgency of Change, Part 2
Be concerned with radical change, with total revolution. The only revolution is the revolution between man and man, between human beings. That is our only concern. In this revolution there are no blueprints, no ideologies, no conceptual utopias. We must take the fact of the actual relationship between men and change that radically. That is the real thing.
- The Urgency of Change, Part 1
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