Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes

From innumerable complexities we must grow to simplicity; we must become simple in our inward life and in our outward needs.

If the mind could cease measuring itself against the hero, the perfect, the glorious and all that, it would be what it is.

Student: Sir, you said you must change the world. How can you change it, sir? Krishnamurti: What is the world? The world is where you live - your family, your friends, your neighbours. And your family, your friends, your neighbours can be extended and that is the world. Now, you are the centre of that world. That is the world you live in. Now how will you change the world? By changing yourself?

It is love alone that leads to right action. What brings order in the world is to love and let love do what it will.

Conflict is not in the feeling of being in love. The feeling of being in love is utterly without conflict. There is no loss of energy in being in love.

Training the intellect does not result in intelligence. Intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony, both intellectually and emotionally.

What you are the world is. And without your transformation, there can be no transformation of the world.

That is, sir, there can only be communication, communion, when you and I are on the same level, and with the same intensity, at the same time.

Intelligence is the seeing of what is.

Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.

To know yourself you need not go to any book, to any priest, to any psychologist. The whole treasure is within yourself.

If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.

As the world has to attain the fulfilment of eternal life, to me it does not in the least matter what I am called -'Enlightened One', 'Son of God', or something else. To me, it has no purpose - as little as when the Buddha said, 'I am the Enlightened One'.

Belief conditions experience, and experience then strengthens belief.

Do you know your particular fears? And what do you usually do with them? You run away from them, don't you, or invent ideas and images to cover them? But to run away from fear is only to increase it.

The real is near, you do not have to seek it; and a man who seeks truth will never find it. Truth is in what is - and that is the beauty of it. But the moment you conceive it, the moment you seek it, you begin to struggle; and a man who struggles cannot understand. That is why we have to be still, observant, passively aware.

The very attention given to finding out if the mind can be completely quiet is quietness.

So, to meditate is to purge the mind of its self-centered activity. And if you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness. The mind is uncontaminated by society; it is no longer subject to any influence, to the pressure of any desire. It is completely alone, and being alone, untouched it is innocent. Therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being. This whole process is meditation.

Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.

If there is no order in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, with your children, with your neighbour - whether that neighbour is near or very far away - forget about meditation.

We have so committed ourselves in different ways that we have hardly any time for self-reflection, to observe, to study.

If you lose touch with nature you lose touch with humanity. If there's no relationship with nature then you become a killer; then you kill baby seals, whales, dolphins, and man either for gain, for "sport," for food, or for knowledge. Then nature is frightened of you, withdrawing its beauty. You may take long walks in the woods or camp in lovely places but you are a killer and so lose their friendship. You probably are not related to anything to your wife or your husband.

Sir, when two people have the extraordinary quality of this state, words are not necessary. Where that quality of love exists, words become unnecessary. There is instant communication.

Why do you want to read others' books when there is the book of yourself?

You would never hear any song played twice in the same way. The words were retained, but within a certain frame there was great latitude, and the musician could improvise to his heart's content; and the more the variations and combinations, the greater the musician.

Happiness comes uninvited: and the moment that you are conscious that you are happy, you are no longer happy.

I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

In the space which thought creates around itself there is no love. This space divides man from man, and in it is all the becoming, the battle of life, the agony and fear. Meditation is the ending of this space, the ending of the me.

Space and time are real for the man who is yet imperfect, and space is divided for him into dimensions; time, into past, present, and future.

It is only the religious mind that is a truly revolutionary mind.

It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. It is only when you are constantly inquiring, constantly observing, constantly learning, that you find truth, God, or love.

You must look most intimately and discover for yourself; then it is your own, not somebody else’s, not something that you have been told, because there is no teacher and no follower.

The beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.

The enemy is not the other, the enemy is you

You may be reborn a thousand times, but you can never know the real, for only that which dies, that which comes to an end, can renew itself.

A man who is really earnest must begin with himself, he must be passively aware of all his thoughts, feelings and actions.

Using another as a means of satisfaction and security is not love. Love is never security; love is a state in which there is no desire to be secure; it is a state of vulnerability.

Without love the acquisition of knowledge only increases confusion and leads to self-destruction.

Real freedom is not something to be acquired, it is the outcome of intelligence.

You know, in the case of most of us, the mind is noisy, everlastingly chattering to itself, soliloquizing or chattering about something, or trying to talk to itself, to convince itself of something; it is always moving, noisy.

A mind that is afraid withers away; it cannot function properly.

This is what I am, and I am going to understand this.

Your belief in God is merely an escape from your monotonous, stupid and cruel life.

If I do not know reality, the unknown, how can I search for it? Surely it must come but I cannot go after it. If I go after it I am going after something which is the known, projected by me; by my own mind.

We all want to be famous people, and the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.

Adhere to the Truth rather than to the personality, and take to heart the Truth rather than the authority of another.

There is hope in people, not in society, not in systems, but in you and me.

To understand the present with its full, rich significance, the mind must free itself from the habit of self-protecting acquisition; when it is utterly naked, then there is immortality.