Patience

Patience is not time. Impatience is time. Patience has no time.

J. Krishnamurti

Psychological Evolution

After a million years, of fifty thousand years, have we changed deeply? Aren't we very primitive, barbarous? So I am asking if you will consider whether there is psychological evolution at all? I question it. Personally, to the speaker, there is no psychological evolution: there is only the ending of sorrow, of pain, anxiety, loneliness, despair and all that. Man has lived with it for a million years. And if we rely on time, which is thought - time and thought go together - if we rely on evolution then another thousand years or more, and we will still be barbarous.

J. Krishnamurti New York United Nations 11th April 1985

To have self-knowledge is to know the ways of your mind, to be aware of its subtleties, with all their implications; and for that you don't have to read a single book.

J. Krishnamurti

Understanding comes when you investigate, when you enquire, when you search out, which requires care, consideration, thought, affection.

Krishnamurti,  Bombay 13th March, 1948

The Religious Man

But the religious man is he who, through self-knowledge, begins to discover his conditioning and to break through it; and the breaking through is not a matter of time.

Krishnamurti Poona 6th Public Talk 24th September 1958

Remembrance

The remembrance of yesterday only darkens today, and comparison prevents perception. How lovely were those red and yellow flowers ! Loveliness is not of time. We carry our burdens from day to day, and there is never a day without the shadow of many yesterdays. Our days are one continuous movement, yesterday mingling with today and tomorrow; there is never an ending. We are frightened of ending; but without ending, how can there be the new? Without death, how can there be life? And how little we know of either!

Krishnamurti in "Commentaries on Living Series I" Satisfaction

Only a quiet mind can understand

It is only when the mind is silent that we can understand anything. If I want to understand somebody, my mind must be quiet, not chattering, not prejudiced, not having innumerable opinions and experiences, for they prevent the observation and the understanding. One can see directly that it is only when the mind is very quiet that there is a possibility of clarity;

Krishnamurti

There is no such thing as distraction

So a mind that has the power of concentration, that says it has complete control over thought, is a stupid mind. If that is so, then you must find a way of enquiring which is not merely through concentration. Concentration implies distraction, does it not? The mind takes up a position and says everything else is a distraction. It says I must think about this and exclude everything else. Now to me there is no such thing as distraction because there is no central position which the mind takes and then says: I will pursue this and not that. So let us remove both the word and the condemnatory feeling of distraction. Please experience what I am saying. Remove that word distraction not merely verbally but emotionally, inwardly. Then you will see what happens to your mind. To us at present there is concentration and distraction, a concentrated outlook and a wandering off. So you see we have created a duality, and therefore a conflict. You spend your life battling between the chosen thought and the distractions, and when you can get an hour when you are completely held by an idea you feel you have achieved something. But if you remove this idea of distraction altogether then you will find that your mind is in a state of reaction - in a state of association which you call "wandering". That is the fact, and you have removed the element of conflict. Then you are free to deal with the wanderings; you can enquire as to why the mind wanders and not merely try to stop it, to control it. Then, since you have removed the word, the feeling of being distracted, what is now operating is a mind that is attentive to the wandering, to reaction.

Krishnamurti Collected Works, Poona 4th Public Talk 17th September 1958

Remain with a feeling

Try remaining with the feeling of hate, with the feeling of envy, jealousy, with the venom of ambition; for after all, that's what you have in daily life, though you may want to live with love, or with the word `love'. Since you have the feeling of hate, of wanting to hurt somebody with a gesture or a burning word, see if you can stay with that feeling. Can you? Have you ever tried? Try to remain with a feeling, and see what happens. You will find it amazingly difficult. Your mind will not leave the feeling alone; it comes rushing in with its remembrances, its associations, its do's and don'ts, its everlasting chatter. Pick up a piece of shell. Can you look at it, wonder at its delicate beauty, without saying how pretty it is, or what animal made it? Can you look without the movement of the mind? Can you live with the feeling behind the word, without the feeling that the word builds up? If you can, then you will discover an extraordinary thing, a movement beyond the measure of time, a spring that knows no summer.

Krishnamurti in Commentaries On Living Series III Chapter 37 Aloneness Beyond Loneliness

The meditator is the meditation.
The observer is the observed.

Krishnamurti

Creation can take place only in the mind that is totally empty

The cup is useful only when it is empty.  With most of us, the mind is clouded, cluttered up with so many things - pleasant and unpleasant experiences, knowledge, patterns or formulas of behaviour, and so on.  It is never empty.  And creation can take place only in the mind that is totally empty.  Creation is always new, and therefore the mind is made constantly fresh, young, innocent; it doesn't repeat, and therefore doesn't create habits. I don't know if you have ever noticed what sometimes happens when you have a problem, either mathematical or psychological.  You think about it a great deal, you worry over it like a dog chewing on a bone, but you can't find an answer.  Then you let it alone, you go away from it, you take a walk; and suddenly, out of that emptiness, comes the answer.  This must have happened to many of us.  Now, how does this take place?  Your mind has been very active within its own limitations about that problem, but you have not found the answer, so you have put the problem aside.  Then your mind becomes somewhat quiet, somewhat still, empty; and in that stillness, that emptiness, the problem is resolved.

Krishnamurti in Saanen 10th Public Talk 1st August 1965

Truth is a state of experiencing

You cannot repeat truth, because truth is never constant. Truth is a state of experiencing, and what you can repeat is a static state; therefore it is not the truth.

Krishnamurti

Just observe

Most people are unhappy; and they are unhappy because there is no love in their hearts. Love will arise in your heart when you have no barrier between yourself and another, when you meet and observe people without judging them, when you just see the sailboat on the river and enjoy the beauty of it. Don't let your prejudices cloud your observation of things as they are; just observe, and you will discover that out of this simple observation, out of this awareness of trees, of birds, of people walking, working, smiling, something happens to you inside. Without this extraordinary thing happening to you, without the arising of love in your heart, life has very little meaning.

Krishnamurti "This Matter of Culture"

We don't want to live with what we actually are

So, can you and I, live with what we actually are? Being dull, envious, fearful,thinking that we have tremendous affection when we have not, getting easily hurt, flattered, bored, can we live with these actualities, neither accepting nor denying, but observing, living with them without becoming morbid, depressed or elated? Then you will find that one of the major reasons for fear is that we don't want to live with what we are.

Krishnamurti, Saanen, 5th Public Talk 18th July 1967

Comparison

Comparison prevents perception.

Krishnamurti

Cultivate sensitivity through solitude

For the total development of the human being, solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. One has to know what it is to be alone, what it is to meditate, what it is to die; and the implications of solitude, of meditation, of death, can be known only by seeking them out. These implications cannot be taught, they must be learnt. One can indicate, but learning by what is indicated is not the experiencing of solitude or meditation. To experience what is solitude and what is meditation, one must be in a state of inquiry; only a mind that is in a state of inquiry is capable of learning. But when inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority and experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and imitation causes a human being to repeat what is learnt without experiencing it.

Krishnamurti in "Life Ahead" Page 14

Retire before you are too old

It would be wise if after a certain age, perhaps let us say forty or forty-five, or younger still, you retired from the world, before you are too old. What would happen if you did retire not merely to enjoy the fruit of sensate gatherings but retired in order to find yourself, in order to think feel profoundly, to meditate, to discover reality? Perhaps you may save mankind from the sensate, worldly path it is following, with all its brutality, deception and sorrow. Thus there may be a group of people, being disassociated from worldliness, from its identifications and demands, able to guide it, to teach it. Being free from worldliness they will have no authority, no importance and so will not be drawn into its stupidities and calamities. For a man who is not free from authority, from position, is not able to guide, to teach another. A man who is in authority is identified with his position, with his importance, with his work and so is in bondage. To understand the freedom of truth there must be freedom to experience. If such a group came into being then they could produce a new world, a new culture.

Krishnamurti - Ojai 4th Public Talk 4th June, 1944

Why are we such snobs?

Why is it that we crave to be recognized, to be made much of, to be encouraged? Why is it that we are such snobs? Why is it that we cling to our exclusiveness of name, position, acquisition? Is anonymity degrading, and to be unknown despicable? Why do we pursue the famous, the popular? Why is it that we are not content to be ourselves? Are we frightened and ashamed of what we are, that name, position and acquisition become so all-important? It is curious how strong is the desire to be recognized, to be applauded. In the excitement of a battle, one does incredible things for which one is honoured; one becomes a hero for killing a fellow man. Through privilege, cleverness, or capacity and efficiency, one arrives somewhere near the top - though the top is never the top, for there is always more and more in the intoxication of success. The country or the business is yourself; on you depend the issues, you are the power. Organized religion offers position, prestige and honour; there too you are somebody, apart and important. Or again you become the disciple of a teacher, of a guru or Master, or you co-operate with them in their work. You are still important, you represent them, you share their responsibility, you have and others receive. Though in their name, you are still the means. You may put on a loincloth or the monk's robe, but it is you who are making the gesture, it is you who are renouncing.

Krishnamurti in Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 22

Truth must be discovered

There is no path to truth. Truth must be discovered, but there is no formula for its discovery. What is formulated is not true. You must set out on the uncharted sea, and the uncharted sea is yourself. You must set out to discover yourself, but not according to any plan or pattern, for then there is no discovery. Discovery brings joy - not the remembered, comparative joy, but joy that is ever new. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom in whose tranquillity and silence there is the immeasurable.

Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series I, My Path and Your Path

Meditation cannot be cultivated

If you set out to meditate it will not be meditation. If you set out to be good, goodness will never flower. If you cultivate humility, it ceases to be. Meditation is like the breeze that comes in when you leave the window open; but if you deliberately keep it open, deliberately invite it to come, it will never appear.

Krishnamurti The Only Revolution India Part 6