Changing your relationship

To live is to be related. So I have got to understand it and I have got to change it. I have to find out how to bring about a radical change in my relationship, because, after all, that produces wars; that is what is happening in this country between the Pakistanis and the Hindus, between the Muslim and the Hindu, between the Arab and the Jew. So there is no way out through the temple, through the mosque, through Christian churches, through discussing Vedanta, this and that and the other different systems. There is no way out unless you, as a human being, radically change your relationship.

Now the problem arises: How am I to change, not abstractly, the relationship that is now based on self-centred pursuits and pleasures?

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XVI pp 34-35

Relationship as a means of escape

Relationship has true significance only when it is a process of self-revelation, when it is revealing oneself in the very action of relationship. But most of us do not want to be revealed in relationship. On the contrary, we use relationship as a means of covering up our own insufficiency, our own troubles, our own uncertainty. So relationship becomes mere movement, mere activity. I do not know if you have noticed that relationship is very painful, and that as long as it is not a revealing process, in which you are discovering yourself, relationship is merely a means of escape from yourself.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol V p 230

Neither renunciation nor acquiescence

To understand oneself profoundly, one needs balance. That is, one cannot abandon the world, hoping to understand oneself, or be so tangled in the world that there is no occasion to comprehend oneself. There must be balance, neither renunciation nor acquiescence.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol III p 22

To live is to be related

The understanding of oneself does not come through the process of withdrawal from society or through retirement into an ivory tower. If you and I really go into the matter carefully and intelligently, we will see that we can understand ourselves only in relationship and not in isolation. Nobody can live in isolation. To live is to be related. It is only in the mirror of relationship that I understand myself, which means that I must be extraordinarily alert in my thoughts, feelings, and actions in relationship. This is not a difficult process or a superhuman endeavour; and as with all rivers, while the source is hardly perceptible, the waters gather momentum as they move, as they deepen. In this mad and chaotic world, if you go into this process advisedly, with care, with patience, without condemning, you will see how it begins to gather momentum and that it is not a matter of time.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol VI, pp 37-8

Tackle the problem on a small scale

In a world of vast organizations, vast mobilizations of people, mass movements, we are afraid to act on a small scale; we are afraid to be little people clearing up our own patch. We say to ourselves, “What can I personally do? I must join a mass movement in order to reform.” On the contrary, real revolution takes place not through mass movement but through the inward revolution of relationship—that alone is real reformation, a radical, continuous revolution. We are afraid to begin on a small scale. Because the problem is so vast, we think we must meet it with large numbers of people, with a great organization, with mass movements. Surely, we must begin to tackle the problem on a small scale, and the small scale in the “me” and the “you”. When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol V p 96

What can I do?

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. 

J. Krishnamurti/Talks in Europe 1968, p 56

Crisis in consciousness

We are facing a tremendous crisis; a crisis which the politicians can never solve because they are programmed to think in a particular way—nor can the scientists understand or solve the crisis; nor yet the business world, the world of money. The turning point, the perceptive decision, the challenge, is not in politics, in religion, in the scientific world; it is in our consciousness. One has to understand the consciousness of mankind, which has brought us to this point.

J. Krishnamurti/The Network of Thought, p 9

Man has divided the earth

It is our earth, not yours or mine of his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other. This is not some romantic nonsense but the actual fact. But man has divided the earth, hoping thereby that in the particular he is going to find happiness, security, a sense of abiding comfort. Until a radical change takes place and we wipe out all nationalities, all ideologies, all religious divisions, and establish a global relationship—psychologically first, inwardly, before organizing the outer—we shall go on with wars. If you harm others, if you kill others, whether in anger or by organized murder which is called war, you—who are the rest of humanity, not a separate human being fighting the rest of mankind—are destroying yourself.

J. Krishnamurti/Krishnamurti to Himself, p 60

Division between man and man

Why is there, one must ask, this division—the Russian, the American, the British, the French, the German, and so on—why is there this division between man and man, between race and race, culture against culture, one series of ideologies against another? Why? Where is there this separation? Man has divided the earth as yours and mine—why? Is it that we try to find security, self-protection, in a particular group, or in a particular belief, faith? For religions also have divided man, put man against man—the Hindus, the Muslims, the Christians, the Jews and so on. Nationalism, with its unfortunate patriotism, is really a glorified form, an ennobled form, of tribalism. In a small tribe or in a very large tribe there is a sense of being together, having the same language, the same superstitions, the same kind of political, religious system. And one feels safe, protected, happy, comforted. And for that safety, comfort, we are willing to kill others who have the same kind of desire to be safe, to feel protected, to belong to something. This terrible desire to identify oneself with a group, with a flag, with a religious ritual and so on gives us the feeling that we have roots, that we are not homeless wanderers.

J. Krishnamurti/Krishnamurti to Himself, pp 59-60

A radical change in society

In bringing about a radical change in the human being, in you, you are naturally bringing about a radical change in the structure and the nature of society. I think it must be very clearly understood that the human mind, with all its complexity, its intricate network, is part of this external world. The “you” is the world, and in bringing about a fundamental revolution—neither communist nor socialist, but a totally different kind of revolution, within the very structure and nature of the psyche, of yourself—you will bring about a social revolution. It must begin, not outwardly but inwardly, because the outer is the result of our private, inner life.

When there is a radical revolution in the very nature of thought, feeling and action, then obviously there will be a change in the structure of society.

J.Krishnamurti/Talks with American Students, p 8-9

What you are is the external world

Most of us in this confused and brutal world try to carve out a private life of our own, a life in which we can be happy and peaceful and yet live with the things of this world. We seem to think that the daily life we lead, the life of struggle, conflict, pain and sorrow is something separate from the outer world of misery and confusion. We seem to think the individual, the “you”, is different from the rest of the world with all its atrocities, wars and riots, inequality and injustice and that this is something entirely different from our particular individual life. When you look a little more closely, not only at your own life but also at the world, you will see that what you are—your daily life, what you think, what you feel—is the external world, the world about you.

J. Krishnamurti/Talks with American Students, p 8

Responsibility for these problems

Is this vast problem of the world your problem and my problem, or is it independent of us? Is war independent of you? Is the national strife independent of you, the communal strife independent of you? The corruption, the degradation, the moral disintegration—are they independent of each one of us? This disintegration is directly related to us, and therefore the responsibility rests with each one of us. Surely, that is the main problem, isn’t it? That is, to put it differently: Is the problem to be left to the few leaders, either of the left or the right, to the party, to the discipline, to an ideology, to the United Nations, to the expert, to the specialist? Or is it a problem that directly involves us, which means: Are we directly responsible for these problems, or are we not? Surely, that is the issue, is it not?

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol V, pp 182

You and society

What is the relationship between yourself and the misery, the confusion, in and around you? Surely this confusion, this misery, did not come into being by itself. You and I have created it, not a capitalist or a communist or a fascist society, but you and I have created it in our relationship with each other. What you are within has been projected without, on to the world; what you are, what you think and what you feel, what you do in your everyday existence is projected outwardly, and that constitutes the world. If we are miserable, confused, chaotic within, by projection that becomes the world, that becomes society, because the relationship between yourself and myself, between myself and another is society—society is the product of our relationship—and if our relationship is confused, egocentric, narrow, limited, national, we project that and bring chaos into the world.

J. Krishnamurti/The First and Last Freedom, p 36

Death…may be what we call God

When death comes, it does not ask your permission; it comes and takes you; it destroys you on the spot. In the same way, can you totally drop hate, envy, pride of possession, attachment to beliefs, to opinions, to ideas, to a particular way of thinking? Can you drop all that in an instant? There is no “how to drop it”, because that is only another form of continuity. To drop opinion, belief, attachment, greed, or envy is to die—to die every day, every moment. If there is the coming to an end of all ambition from moment to moment, then you will know the extraordinary state of being nothing, of coming to the abyss of an eternal movement, as it were, and dropping over the edge—which is death.
    I want to know all about death, because death may be reality; it may be what we call God—that most extraordinary something that lives and moves and yet has no beginning and no end.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XI, p 242

If you had only one hour to live, what would you do?

    “May I ask just one question?” put in one of the others. “In what manner should one live one’s daily life?”
    As though one were living for that single day, for that single hour.
    “How?”
    If you had only one hour to live, what would you do?
    “I really don’t know,” he replied anxiously. Would you not arrange what is necessary outwardly, your affairs, your will, and so on? Would you not call your family and friends together and ask their forgiveness for the harm that you might have done to them, and forgive them for whatever harm they might have done to you? Would you not die completely to the things of the mind, to desires and to the world? And if it can be done for an hour, then it can also be done for the days and years that may remain.
    “Is such a thing really possible, sir?”
    Try it and you will find out.

J. Krishnamurti/Commentaries on Living Third Series, p 303

Can one die every day…?

Now, can one die every day to everything that one knows—except, of course, the technological knowledge, the direction where your home is, and so on; that is, to end, psychologically, every day, so that the mind remains fresh, young and innocent? That is death. And to come upon that there must be no shadow of fear. To give up without argument, without any resistance. That is dying. Have you ever tried it? To give up without a murmur, without restraint, without resistance, the thing that gives you most pleasure (the things that are painful, of course, one wants to give up in any case). Actually to let go. Try it. Then, if you do it, you will see that the mind becomes extraordinarily alert, alive and sensitive, free and unburdened. Old age then takes on quite a different meaning, not something to be dreaded.

J. Krishnamurti/You are the World, p 135

To end…while living

You always ask what happens after death. But you have never asked what happens before death, what happens now in your life. What is your life?—working, office, money, pain, striving, climbing the ladder of success. That is your life. And death puts an end to all that. So, is it possible, while living, to end—end your attachment, end your belief? To end, the beauty of ending something voluntarily, without motive, without pleasure—can you do it?
 In ending there is a new beginning. If you end, there is something, the doors are opened, but you want to be sure before you end that the door will open. So you never end, never end your motive. The understanding of death is to live a life, inwardly ending.

J. Krishnamurti/Mind Without Measure, p 30

To die to everything of the past

So we never come into contact with that extraordinary thing called death. Death is to die to everything of the past, to die to your pleasure.

Have you ever tried without argument, without persuasion, without compulsion, without necessity, to die to a pleasure? You are going to die inevitably. But have you tried to die today, easily, happily, to your pleasure, to your remembrances, to your hates, to your ambitions, to your urgency to gather money? All that you want of life is money, position, power, and the envy of another. Can you die to them, can you die to the things that you know, easily, without any argument, without any explanation? Please bear in mind that you are not hearing a few words and ideas, but you are actually coming into contact with a pleasure—your sexual pleasure, for example—and dying to it. That is what you are going to do anyhow. You are going to die—that is, die to everything you know, your body, your mind, the things that you have built up.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XV, p 79

The unconscious is the residue of the past

So it is very important to understand not only the conscious, but also the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is much more powerful, much more insistent much more directive and conservative than the conscious mind; because the conscious is merely the educated mind which adjusts itself to the environment. He is adjusting himself, as you do, to the environment, to the pressure from outside, but inwardly he is the same - that is, the unconscious is still the residue of the past.

J. Krishnamurti/1957 3rd Public Talk, Colombo

The hidden battle

Conflict can exist only so long as there is reaction to that environment which produces the "I", the self. The majority of people are unconscious of this conflict - the conflict between one's self, which is but the result of the environment, and the environment itself; very few are conscious of this continuous battle. One becomes conscious of that conflict, that disharmony, that struggle between the false creation of the environment, which is the "I", and the environment itself, only through suffering.

J. Krishnamurti/1934 2nd Public Talk, Ojai