It is your responsibility

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As an individual, it is your responsibility to bring about a tremendous change in the world. It is your responsibility, because you are part of this society, because you are part of this tremendous sorrow of man, this constant effort, struggle, pain, and anxiety. You are responsible. Unless you realize that immense responsibility and come directly in contact with that responsibility and listen to the whole structure, the machinery of that responsibility, do what you will, go to every temple, to every guru, to every Master, to every religious book in the world, your action has no meaning whatsoever.

J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. XV",52, Social Responsibility

Competitiveness between nations is destroying the world

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When one has that feeling, that reality, sees the truth that every human being living on this earth is responsible not only for himself, but responsible for everything that is happening, how will one translate that in daily life? How will you translate it if you have that feeling? Not as an intellectual conclusion, as an ideal and so on, then it has no reality. But if the truth is that you are standing on the ground which is common to all mankind, and you feel totally responsible, then what is your action towards society, towards the world in which you are actually living? The world as it is now is full of violence. Only a very, very few people escape from it because they are carefully guarded, protected. Suppose I realize I am totally responsible, what is my action then? Shall I join a group of terrorists? Obviously not. Obviously competitiveness between nations is destroying the world, the most powerful, the less powerful, and the less powerful trying to become more powerful, which is competition. Shall I, realizing that I am the rest of mankind and I am totally responsible, shall I be competitive? Please answer these questions. When I feel responsible for this naturally I cease to be competitive.

J. Krishnamurti/Ojai, California 14 May 1982, Social Responsibility

Transformation of the individual

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It seems to me very important, then, to understand the total process of individuality, because it is only when the individual changes radically that there can be a fundamental revolution in society. It is always the individual, never the group or the collective, that brings about a radical change in the world, and this again is historically so.

    Now, can the individual, that is, you and I, change radically? This transformation of the individual –but not according to a pattern- is what we are concerned with, and to me it is the highest form of education. It is this transformation of the individual that constitutes spirituality, not the mere acceptance of a dogma, a belief, which is not spirituality at all. The mind that is conditioned to a particular pattern which it calls religion, whether Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, or what you will, is not a spiritual mind, however much it may practice all the so-called religious ideals.

J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. IX",226,Social Responsibility

Where are we to begin?

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So, seeing all this, where are we to begin? Where does one begin to bring about this fundamental change which is so obviously essential in the social order? Surely, the individual problem is the world problem. Society is what we have made it. There are those who have, and those who have not, those who know, and those who are ignorant, those who are fulfilling their ambition, and those who are frustrated; there are the various religions, with their ceremonies and dogmatic beliefs, and the ceaseless battle within society, this everlasting struggle.

J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. IX",226,Social Responsibility

Revolution must begin with you and me

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Revolution must begin with you and me. That revolution, that individual transformation, can take place only when we understand relationship, which is the process of self-knowledge. Without knowing the whole process of my relationship at all the different levels, what I think and what I do has no value at all. What basis have I for thinking if I do not know myself? We are so desirous to act, so eager to do something, to bring some kind of revolution, some kind of amelioration.

J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. VI",38 ,Social Responsibility

All reform needs further reform

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In all our relationships with people, with nature, with ideas, with things, we seem to create more and more problems. In trying to solve one problem, whether economic, political, social, collective, or individual, we introduce many other problems. We seem somehow to breed more and more conflict and need more and more reform. Obviously, all reform needs further reform, and therefore it is really retrogression. As long as revolution, whether of the left or the right, is merely the continuity of what has been in terms of what shall be, it also is retrogression. There can be fundamental revolution, a constant inward transformation, only when we, as individuals, understand our relationship to the collective. The revolution must begin with each one of us, and not with external, environmental influences. After all, we are the collective; both the conscious and the unconscious in us is the residue of all the political, social, cultural influences of man. Therefore, to bring about a fundamental outward revolution, there must be a radical transformation.

J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, vol. VI",37,Social Responsibility

Can the mind free itself from the more?

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Being the result of time, the mind is always thinking in terms of growth, of achievement; and can the mind free itself from the 'more', which is really to dissociate itself completely from society? Society insists on the 'more'. After all, our culture is based on envy and acquisitiveness, is it not? Our acquisitiveness is not only in material things but also in the realm of so-called spirituality, where we want to have more virtue, to be nearer the Master, the guru. So the whole structure of our thinking is based on the 'more', and when one completely understands the demand for the 'more', with all its results, there is surely a complete dissociation from society; and only the individual who is completely dissociated from society can act upon society. The man who puts on a loincloth or a sanyasi's robe, who merely becomes a monk, is not disassociated from society; he is still part of society, only his demand for the 'more' is at another level. He is still conditioned by, and therefore caught within, the limits of a particular culture.I think this is the real issue, and not how to produce more things and distribute what is produced.
J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. IX",195, Social Responsibility

Self-analysis does not reveal the totality of the mind

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This self-knowledge is not to be learned from another. I cannot tell you what it is. But one can see how the mind operates, not just the mind that is active every day, but the totality of the mind, the mind that is conscious as well as hidden. All the many layers of the mind have to be perceived, investigated,which does not mean introspection.

J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. IX",195,Social Responsibility

Discover it in relationship

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    Revolution, it seems to me, can take place only at the highest level, which must be discovered; and you can discover it only through self-knowledge, not through the knowledge gathered from your ancient books, or from the books of modern analysts. You must discover it in relationship, discover it, and not merely repeat something that you have read or heard. Then you will find that the mind becomes extraordinarily clear. After all, the mind is the only instrument we have. If that mind is clogged, petty, fearful, as most of our minds are, its belief in God, its worship, its search for truth has no meaning at all. It is only the mind that is capable of clear perception, and therefore of being very quiet, that can discover whether there is truth or not, and it is only such a mind that can bring about revolution at the highest level. Only the spiritual mind is truly revolutionary, and the spiritual mind is not the mind that repeats, that goes to church or to the temple, that does puja every morning, that follows some kind of guru or worships an idol. Such a mind is not spiritual; it is really a silly, limited mind; therefore, it can never freely respond to challenge.

J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, vol. IX",195,Social Responsibility

Any problem is always new

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To every challenge there must obviously be a new response because today the problem is entirely different from what it was yesterday. Any problem is always new; it is undergoing transformation all the time. Each challenge demands a new response, and there can be no new response if the mind is not free. So freedom is at the beginning, not just at the end. Revolution must begin, surely, not at the social, cultural, or economic level, but at the highest level; and the discovery of the highest level is the problem -the discovery of it, not the acceptance of what is said to be the highest level. I don't know if I am explaining myself clearly on this point. One can be told what is the highest level by some guru, some clever individual, and one can repeat what one has heard, but that process is not discovery; it is merely the acceptance of authority, and most of us accept authority because we are lazy. It has all been thought out, and we merely repeat it like a gramophone record.
Now, I see the necessity of discovery because it is obvious that we have to create a totally different kind of culture -a culture not based on authority but on the discovery by each individual of what is true, and that discovery demands complete freedom. If a mind is held, however long its tether, it can only function within a fixed radius, and therefore it is not free. So what is important is to discover the highest level at which revolution can take place, and that demands great clarity of thought; it demands a good mind -not a phony mind which is repetitive, but a mind that is capable of hard thinking, of reasoning to the end, clearly, logically, sanely. One must have such a mind, and only then is it possible to go beyond.
J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. IX",Social Responsibility

This extraordinary question of the nature of death

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Then we come again to this extraordinary question of the nature of death. That must be answered, neither with fear, nor by escaping from that absolute fact, nor by belief, nor hope. There is an answer, the right answer, but to find the right answer one has to put the right question. But you cannot possibly put the right question if you are merely seeking a way out of it, if the question is born of fear, of despair and of loneliness. Then if you do put the right question with regard to reality, with regard to man's relationship to man, and what that thing called love is, and also this immense question of death, then out of the right question will come the right answer. From that answer comes right action. Right action is in the answer itself. And we are responsible. Don't fool yourself by saying 'What can I do? What can I, an individual, living a shoddy little life, with all its confusion and ignorance, what can I do?' Ignorance exists only when you don't know yourself. Self-knowing is wisdom. You may be ignorant of all the books in the world (and I hope you are), of all the latest theories, but that is not ignorance. Not knowing oneself deeply, profoundly, is ignorance; and you cannot know yourself if you cannot look at yourself, see yourself actually as you are, without any distortion, without any wish to change. Then what you see is transformed because the distance between the observer and the observed is removed and hence there is no conflict.
J. Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968, Social Responsibility

When the mind is isolated it is not sane

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To look at social injustice, social misery, social morality and culture in the midst of which organized religions exist, and to deny their validity psychologically, is to become extraordinarily moral. Because after all morality is order; virtue is complete order. And that can only come into being when you deny disorder, the disorder in which we live, the disorder of conflict, of fear in which each individual is seeking personal security. I do not know if you have ever considered the question of security. You know we find security in commitment; in being committed to something there is a great feeling of security, in being a Communist, in being a Frenchman, or an Englishman, or anything else. That commitment gives us security. If you have committed yourself to a course of action, that commitment gives a great deal of surety, assurance, certainty. But that commitment always breeds disorder, and this is what is actually taking place. I am a Communist and you are not -whatever you are. We are committed to ideas, to theories, to slogans and so we divide, as you are this and I am that. Whereas if we are involved, not committed, involved in the whole movement of life then there is no division; then we are human beings in sorrow, not a Frenchman in sorrow, not a Catholic in sorrow, but human beings who are guilty, anxious, in agony, lonely, bored with the routine of life. If you are involved in it, then we'll find a way out of it together. But we like to be committed, we like to be separately secure, not only nationalistically, communally, but also individually. And in this commitment there is isolation. When the mind is isolated it is not sane.

J. Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968, Social Responsibility

Don't you often wonder why politicians exist at all?

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Don't you often wonder why politicians exist at all? A government can be run by computers, impersonal, non-ambitious, not people who are seeking their own personal glory in the name of their nation; then we might have a sane government! But you see, unfortunately, human beings are not sane, they want to live in this immense mess. And you and I are responsible for it. Don't, please, merely agree, or shake your head in assent; you have to do something about it. The doing is the seeing, the listening. You know when you see a danger you act, there is no hesitation, there is no argument, there is no personal opinion, there is immediate action. But you don't see the immense danger of what is going on in the world around you, in the educational system, the business world, the religious world -you don't see the danger of all that. But to see the danger of it is to act. When you see something actually then there is no conflict, there is immediate movement away from the thing, without resistance, without conflict.

J. Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968, Social Responsibility

What can I do faced with this colossal machine?

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Then there is the fundamental question of man's relationship to man. This relationship is society, the society which we have created through our envy, greed, hatred, brutality, competition and violence. Our chosen relationship to society, based on a life of battle, of wars, of conflict, of violence, of aggression, has gone on for thousands of years and has become our daily life, in the office, at home, in the factory, in churches. We have invented a morality out of this conflict, but it is no morality at all, it is a morality of respectability, which has no meaning whatsoever. You go to church and love your neighbor there and in the office you destroy him. When there are nationalistic differences based on ideas, opinions, prejudices, a society in which there is terrible injustice, inequality -we all know this, we are terribly aware of all this- aware of the war that is going on, of the action of the politicians and the economists trying to bring order out of disorder, we are aware of this. And we say, 'What can we do?' We are aware that we have chosen a way of life that leads ultimately to the field of murder. We have probably asked this, if we are at all serious, a thousand times but we say 'I, as a human being, can't do anything. What can I do faced with this colossal machine?'
    When one puts a question to oneself such as 'What can I do?' I think one is putting the wrong question. To that there is no answer. If you do answer it then you will form an organization, belong to something, commit yourself to a particular course of political, economic, social action; and you are back again in the same old circle in your particular organization with its presidents, secretaries, money, its own little group, against all other groups. We are caught in this. 'What can I do?' is a totally wrong question, you can't do a thing when you put the question that way. But you can, when you actually see (as you see the microphone and the speaker sitting here) actually see that each one of us is responsible for the war that is going on in the Far East, and that it is not the Americans, nor the Vietnamese, nor the Communists, but you and I who are responsible, actually, desperately responsible for what is going on in the world, not only there but everywhere. We are responsible for the politicians, whom we have brought into being, responsible for the army which is trained to kill, responsible for all our actions, conscious or unconscious.

J. Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968, Social Responsibility

Actually looking at ourselves

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There will be division as long as there is the image which engenders the whole structure of conflict. So one must learn the art of looking, not only at the clouds and the flowers, at the movement of a tree in the wind, but actually looking at ourselves as we are, not saying, 'It is ugly', 'It is beautiful, or 'Is that all?', all the verbal assertions that one has with regard to oneself. When we can look at ourselves clearly, without the image, then perhaps we shall be able to discover what is true for ourselves. And that truth is not in the realm of thought but of direct perception, in which there is no separation between the observer and the observed.

J. Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968, Social Responsibility

Can we find reality for ourselves?

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One of the primary questions is: what is this thing called reality? Can you and I, living our daily lives (not retiring into a monastery, or becoming disciples of some guru, or running off to some strange academy in India) can we find this reality for ourselves? And we must -not through prayers, nor imitation, nor following somebody, but through becoming aware of our own conditioning, seeing it actually not theoretically, seeing as you would see a flower, a cloud and seeing without separation. I do not know if you have ever tried to look at anything, to look, for example, at your own wife or husband; to look without the image that you or he has built through a relationship of many years, of many irritations, pleasures, angers, to look at each other without the image. I do not know if you have ever tried this; but, if you have, you will have found how extraordinarily difficult it is to be free of images. It is these images which are expected to enter into relationship, not human beings.

J. Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968, Social Responsibility

A life at a different dimension

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If one is really earnest in the sense that one is willing to go to the very end, then there must be this freedom -freedom from all nationalities, freedom from all dogma, ritual, beliefs. And apparently this is one of the most difficult things to do. You find in India people who have thought a great deal about these matters and yet they remain soaked in Hindu tradition. In the West they are immersed in the Catholic, Protestant, or Communist dogmas and so they cannot possibly break through. And if one is to have a different kind of life, a life at a different dimension, one must not only be free consciously from all this, but also deep down in the very roots of one's being. Then only is one capable of really looking, seeing. Because to find reality the mind must be sane, healthy, highly intelligent, which means highly sensitive.

J Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968, Social Responsibility

A thing that has no symbol

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We want to find out first if there is something immeasurable (beyond all reach of thought, above all measurement) a thing that cannot possibly be touched by words, that has no symbol. Is it possible, first of all -not mystically, not romantically or emotionally, but actually- to discoverer, or to come upon this extraordinary state? The ancients and some who throughout the world have perhaps come upon it unknowingly, have said 'there is something'. Serious-minded men for millions of years have attempted to find that. Those who are casual, flippant, have their own reward, their own way of life, but there is always a small minority who are really earnest, who come upon this endless, measureless thing. To understand it, one must obviously be free of all dogma, of all belief, of all the traditional impediments which condition the mind, which are merely inventions of thought. We are human beings, suffering, lonely, confused, in great sorrow, whether we call ourselves Communists or Socialists or anything else -we are human beings. But apparently the important thing for us is the label, French, German or any other. It is important to be free from all this because you need freedom, not merely verbally but actually. It is only in freedom that you can discover what is the real, not through beliefs and dogmas.
J. Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968, Social Responsibility

The symbol is never the actual

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One of the fundamental questions consists in man's relationship to reality. That reality has been expressed in different ways: in the East in one way and in the West in another. If we do not discover for ourselves what that relationship is, independently of the theoreticians and the theologians and the priests, we are incapable of discovering what relationship with reality is. That reality may be named as God, and the name is really of very little importance,because the name, the word, the symbol, is never the actual, and to be caught in symbols and words seems utterly foolish -and yet we are so caught, Christians in one way, Hindus, Muslims and others in other ways -and words and symbols have become extraordinarily significant. But the symbol, the word, is never the actual, the real thing. So in asking the question, as to what is the true relationship of man to reality, one must be free of the word with all its associations, with all its prejudices and conditions. If we do not find that relationship, then life has really very little meaning; then our confusion, our misery is bound to grow, and life will become more and more intolerable, superficial, meaningless. One must be extraordinarily serious to find out if there is such a reality, or if there is not, and what is man's relationship to it.
J. Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968,48, Social Responsibility