A man who says, 'I want to change, tell me how to', seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known ,17
When we look at what is taking place in the world we begin to understand that there is no outer and inner process; there is only one unitary process, it is a whole, total movement, the inner movement expressing itself as the outer and the outer reacting again on the inner. To be able to look at this seems to me all that is needed, because if we know how to look, then the whole thing becomes very clear, and to look needs no philosophy, no teacher. Nobody need tell you how to look. You just look.
J. Krishnmaurti/Freedom from the Known, 16
It is important to understand from the very beginning that I am not formulating any philosophy or any theological structure of ideas or theological concepts. It seems to me that all ideologies are utterly idiotic. What is important is not a philosophy of life but to observe what is actually taking place in our daily life, inwardly and outwardly. If you observe very closely what is taking place and examine it, you will see that it is based on an intellectual conception, and the intellect is not the whole field of existence; it is a fragment, and a fragment, however cleverly put together, however ancient and traditional, is still a small part of existence whereas we have to deal with the totality of life.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 16
Can you and I, then, bring about in ourselves without any outside influence, without any persuasion, without any fear of punishment- can we bring about in the very essence of our being a total revolution, a psychological mutation, so that we are no longer brutal, violent, competitive, anxious, fearful, greedy, envious and all the rest of the manifestations of our nature which we have built up the rotten society in which we live our daily lives?
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known ,15
We have been told that all paths lead to truth. You have a path as a Hindu and someone else has a path as a Christian and another as a Muslim, and they all meet at the same door- which is, when you look at it, so obviously absurd. Truth as no path, and that is the beauty of truth, it is living.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 15
We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us. And only when we realize, not intellectually but actually, as actually as we would recognize that we are hungry or in pain, that you and I are responsible for all this existing chaos, for all the misery throughout the entire world because we have contributed to it in our daily lives and are part of this monstrous society with its wars, divisions, its ugliness, brutality and greed -only then we will act.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 14
All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society. As human beings living in this monstrously ugly world, let us ask ourselves, can this society, based on competition, brutality and fear, come to an end? Not as an intellectual conception, not as a hope, but as an actual fact, so that the mind is made fresh, new and innocent and can bring about a different world altogether? It can only happen, I think, if each one of us recognises the central fact that we, as individuals, as human beings, in whatever part of the world we happen to live or whatever culture we happen to belong to, are totally responsible for the whole state of the world.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 14
Do observe what is actually taking place within yourself and outside yourself in the competitive culture in which you live with its desire for power, position, prestige, name, success and all the rest of it.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 13
We human beings are what we have been for millions of years -colossally greedy, envious, aggressive, jealous, anxious and despairing, with occasional flashes of joy and affection. We are a strange mixture of hate, fear and gentleness; we are both violence and peace. There has been outward progress from the bullock cart to the jet plane but psychologically, the indiividual has not changed at all.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 13
And what is yourself, the individual you? I think there is a difference between the human being and the individual. The individual is a local entity, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular culture, particular society, particular religion. The human being is not a local entity. He is everywhere. If the individual merely acts in a particular corner of the vast field of life, then his action is totally unrelated to the whole. So one has to bear in mind that we are talking of the whole not the part, because in the greater the lesser is, but in the lesser the greater is not. The individual is the little conditioned, miserable, frustrated entity, satisfied with his little gods and his little traditions, whereas a human being is concerned with the total welfare, the total misery and total confusion of the world.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known ,13
The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 12
The world accepts and follows the traditional approach. The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another; we mechanically follow somebody who will assure us a comfortable spiritual life. It is a most extraordinary thing that although most of us are opposed to political tyranny and dictatorship, we inwardly accept the authority, the tyranny, of another to twist our minds and our way of life. So fl we completely reject, not intellectually but actually, all so-called spiritual authority, all ceremonies, rituals and dogmas, it means that we stand alone and are already in conflict with society; we cease to be respectable human beings. A respectable human being cannot possibly come near to that infinite, immeasurable, reality.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 11
To put an end to outward war, you must begin to put an end to war in yourself. Some of you will nod your heads and say, 'I agree,' and go outside and do exactly the same as you have been doing for the last ten or twenty years. Your agreement is merely verbal and has no significance, for the world's miseries and wars are not going to be stopped by your casual assent.They will be stopped only when you realize the danger, when you realize your responsibility, when you do not leave it to somebody else. If you realize the suffering, if you see the urgency of immediate action and do not postpone, then you will transform yourself. Peace will come only when you yourself are peaceful, when you yourself are at peace with your neighbor.
J. Krishnamurti/The First and Last Freedom,185, Social Responsibility
The social pattern is set up by man; it is not independent of man, though it has a life of its own, and man is not independent of it; they are interrelated. Change within the pattern is no change at all; it is mere modification, reformation. Only by breaking away from the social pattern without building another can you 'help' society. As long as you belong to society, you are only helping it to deteriorate. All societies, including the most marvelously utopian, have within them the seeds of their own corruption. To change society, you must break away from it.
J. Krishnamurti/Commentaries on Living, Series III",82, Social Responsibility
Relationship is the only thing that we have, and without understanding that relationship we can never find out what reality is or God is. So, to bring about a complete change in the social structure, in society, the individual must cleanse his relationship, and the cleansing of relationship is the beginning of his own transformation.
J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. VI", 136, Social Responsibility
Life is relationship, and without relationship there is no possibility of life. There is no living in isolation, because living is a process of relationship, and relationship is not with abstractions; it is your relationship to property, to people, and to ideas.
J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. VI",136, Social Responsibility
Religions have made self-knowledge very mystical, abstract, and far away, but if you look at it more closely, you will see that self-knowledge is very simple and demands simple attention in relationship- and it is essential if there is to be a fundamental revolution in the structure of society.
J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. VI",136, Social Responsibility
Life, living and action, is a very complex problem which, if you would understand, must be approached very simply. If you would understand a child, a complex entity, you must not impose upon it your conditioning; you must observe without condemnation. If you see a lovely sunset and you compare it with other sunsets you have seen, then the present sunset has no joy. To understand, there must be a mind that is simple, not an innocent mind, but that which perceives directly, and not translates it according to its conditioning. This is one of our major difficulties in the right approach to the comprehension of life.
J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. IV",87, Social Responsibility
We seem to forget that the world problem is the individual problem, that the problems of the world are created by you and me as individuals.The problems of war, starvation, exploitation, and all the other innumerable problems that confront each one of us are created by you and me, and as long as we do not understand ourselves at every level, we will maintain the rottenness of the present society.
J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. VI",136,Social Responsibility
So we have to understand the existence, this life, our relationship to society. We have not only to understand our relationship with each other, with society, but to bring about a radical change in that relationship. And that is our responsibility. I do not think we feel this urgency.
J. Krishnamurti/Collected Works, Vol. XV",52,Social Responsibility
