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JKrishnamurti.org Quotes:

 

This Pure Flame of Passion

 

In most of us there is very little passion. We may be lustful, we may

be longing for something, we may be wanting to escape from something,

and all this does give one a certain intensity. But unless we awaken and

feel our way into this flame of passion without a cause, we shall not

be able to understand that which we call sorrow. To understand something

you must have passion, the intensity of complete attention. Where there

is the passion for something, which produces contradiction, conflict,

this pure flame of passion cannot be; and this pure flame of passion

must exist in order to end sorrow, dissipate it completely.

 

Beauty Beyond Feeling

 

Without passion how can there be beauty? I do not mean the beauty of

pictures, buildings, painted women, and all the rest of it. They have

their own forms of beauty. A thing put together by man, like a cathedral,

a temple, a picture, a poem, or a statue may or may not be beautiful.

But there is a beauty which is beyond feeling and thought and which

cannot be realized, understood, or known if there is not passion. So do not

misunderstand the word passion. It is not an ugly word; it is not a

thing you can buy in the market or talk about romantically. It has nothing

whatever to do with emotion, feeling. It is not a respectable thing; it

is a flame that destroys anything that is false. And we are always so

afraid to allow that flame to devour the things that we hold dear, the

things that we call important.

 

A Passion for Everything

 

For most of us, passion is employed only with regard to one thing, sex;

or you suffer passionately and try to resolve that suffering. But I am

using the word passion in the sense of a state of mind, a state of

being, a state of your inward core, if there is such a thing, that feels

very strongly, that is highly sensitive—sensitive alike to dirt, to

squalor, to poverty, and to enormous riches and corruption, to the beauty of

a tree, of a bird, to the flow of water, and to a pond that has the

evening sky reflected upon it. To feel all this intensely, strongly, is

necessary. Because without passion life becomes empty, shallow, and

without much meaning. If you cannot see the beauty of a tree and love that

tree, if you cannot care for it intensely, you are not living.

 

Total Abandonment

 

Perhaps you have never experienced that state of mind in which there is

total abandonment of everything, a complete letting go. And you cannot

abandon everything without deep passion, can you? You cannot abandon

everything intellectually or emotionally. There is total abandonment,

surely, only when there is intense passion. Don't be alarmed by that word

because a man who is not passionate, who is not intense, can never

understand or feel the quality of beauty. The mind that holds something in

reserve, the mind that has a vested interest, the mind that clings to

position, power, prestige, the mind that is respectable, which is a

horror—such a mind can never abandon itself.

 

A Thing of the Mind

 

What we call our love is a thing of the mind. Look at yourselves, sirs

and ladies, and you will see that what I am saying is obviously true;

otherwise, our lives, our marriage, our relationships, would be entirely

different, we would have a new society. We bind ourselves to another,

not through fusion, but through contract, which is called love,

marriage. Love does not fuse, adjust—it is neither personal nor impersonal, it

is a state of being. The man who desires to fuse with something

greater, to unite himself with another, is avoiding misery, confusion; but the

mind is still in separation, which is disintegration. Love knows

neither fusion nor diffusion, it is nether personal nor impersonal, it is a

state of being which the mind cannot find; it can describe it, give it a

term, a name, but the word, the description, is not love. It is only

when the mind is quiet that it shall know love, and that state of

quietness is not a thing to be cultivated.

 

Sex

 

Sex is a problem because it would seem that in that act there is

complete absence of the self. In that moment you are happy, because there

is the cessation of self-consciousness, of the “me”; and desiring more of

it—more of the abnegation of the self in which there is complete

happiness, without the past or the future?demanding that complete happiness

through full fusion, integration, naturally it becomes all-important.

Isn't that so? Because it is something that gives me unadulterated joy,

complete self-forgetfulness, I want more and more of it. Now, why do I

want more of it? Because, everywhere else I am in conflict, everywhere

else, at all the different levels of existence, there is the strengthening of

the self. Economically, socially, religiously, there is the constant

thickening of self-consciousness, which is conflict.

After all, you are self-conscious only when there is conflict.

Self-consciousness is in its very nature the result of conflict. . . .

 

So, the problem is not sex, surely, but how to be free from the self.

You have tasted that state of being in which the self is not, if only

for a few seconds, if only for a day, or what you will; and where the

self is, there is conflict, there is misery, there is strife. So, there is

the constant longing for more of that self-free state.

 

We Have Made Sex a Problem

 

Why is it that whatever we touch we turn into a problem? ...Why has sex

become a problem? Why do we submit to living with problems; why do we

not put an end to them? Why do we not die to our problems instead of

carrying them day after day, year after year? Surely, sex is a relevant

question, which I shall answer presently, but there is the primary

question: why do we make life into a problem? Working, sex, earning money,

thinking, feeling, experiencing, you know, the whole business of

living—why is it a problem? Is it not essentially because we always think from

a particular point of view, from a fixed point of view? We are always

thinking from a center towards the periphery, but the periphery is the

center for most of us, and so anything we touch is superficial. But life

is not superficial; it demands living completely, and because we are

living only superficially, we know only superficial reaction. Whatever we

do on the periphery must inevitably create a problem, and that is our

life—we live in the superficial and we are content to live there with

all the problems of the superficial. So, problems exist as long as we

live in the superficial, on the periphery—the periphery being the "me" and

its sensations, which can be externalized or made subjective, which can

be identified with the universe, with the country, or with some other

thing made up by the mind. So, as long as we live within the field of

the mind there must be complications, there must be problems; and that is

all we know.

 

To Love Is to Be Chaste

 

This problem of sex is not simple and it cannot be solved on its own

level. To try to solve it purely biologically is absurd; and to approach

it through religion or to try to solve it as though it were a mere

matter of physical adjustment, of glandular action, or to hedge it in with

taboos and condemnations is all too immature, childish, and stupid. It

requires intelligence of the highest order. To understand ourselves in

our relationship with another requires intelligence far more swift and

subtle than to understand nature. But we seek to understand without

intelligence; we want immediate action, an immediate solution, and the

problem becomes more and more important. . . . Love is not mere thought;

thoughts are only the external action of the brain. Love is much deeper,

much more profound, and the profundity of life can be discovered only

in love. Without love, life has no meaning—and that is the sad part of

our existence. We grow old while still immature; our bodies become old,

fat, and ugly, and we remain thoughtless. Though we read and talk about

it, we have never known the perfume of life. Mere reading and

verbalizing indicates an utter lack of the warmth of heart that enriches life;

and without that quality of love, do what you will, join any society,

bring about any law, you will not solve this problem. To love is to be

chaste.

 

Mere intellect is not chastity. The man who tries to be chaste in

thought, is unchaste, because he has no love. Only the man who loves is

chaste, pure, incorruptible.

 

What Do You Mean by Love?

 

Love is the unknowable. It can be realized only when the known is

understood and transcended. Only when the mind is free of the known, then

only there will be love. So, we must approach love negatively, not

positively.

 

What is love to most of us? With us, when we love, in it there is

possessiveness, dominance, or subservience. From this possession arises

jealously and fear of loss, and we legalize this possessive instinct. From

possessiveness arise jealousy and the innumerable conflicts with which

each one is familiar. Possessiveness, then, is not love. Nor is love

sentimental. To be sentimental, to be emotional, excludes love.

Sensitivity and emotions are merely sensations.

 

.. . . Love alone can transform insanity, confusion, and strife. No

system, no theory of the left or of the right can bring peace and happiness

to man. Where there is love, there is no possessiveness, no envy; there

is mercy and compassion, not in theory, but actually—for your wife and

for your children, for your neighbor and for your servant. . . . Love

alone can bring about mercy and beauty, order and peace. There is love

with its blessing when "you" cease to be.

 

Constant Thought Is a Waste of Energy

 

Most of us spend our life in effort, in struggle; and the effort, the

struggle, the striving, is a dissipation of that energy. Man, throughout

the historical period of man, has said that to find that reality or

God—whatever name he may give to it—you must be celibate; that is, you

take a vow of chastity and suppress, control, battle with yourself

endlessly all your life, to keep your vow. Look at the waste of energy! It is

also a waste of energy to indulge. And it has far more significance

when you suppress. The effort that has gone into suppression, into

control, into this denial of your desire distorts your mind, and through that

distortion you have a certain sense of austerity which becomes harsh.

Please listen. Observe it in yourself and observe the people around you.

And observe this waste of energy, the battle. Not the implications of

sex, not the actual act, but the ideals, the images, the pleasure—the

constant thought about them is a waste of energy. And most people waste

their energy either through denial, or through a vow of chastity, or in

thinking about it endlessly.

 

The Idealist Cannot Know Love

 

Those who are trying to be celibate in order to achieve God are

unchaste for they are seeking a result or gain and so substituting the end,

the result, for sex—which is fear. Their hearts are without love, and

there can be no purity, and a pure heart alone can find reality. A

disciplined heart, a suppressed heart, cannot know what love is. It cannot

know love if it is caught in habit, in sensation—religious or physical,

psychological or sensate. The idealist is an imitator and therefore he

cannot know love. He cannot be generous, give himself over completely

without the thought of himself. Only when the mind and heart are

unburdened of fear, of the routine of sensational habits, when there is

generosity and compassion, there is love. Such love is chaste.

 

Fear Is Nonacceptance of What Is

 

Fear finds various escapes. The common variety is identification, is it

not?—identification with country, with society, with an idea. Haven't

you noticed how you respond when you see a procession, a military

procession or a religious procession, or when the country is in danger of

being invaded? You then identify yourself with the country, with a being,

with an ideology. There are other times when you identify yourself with

your child, with your wife, with a particular form of action, or

inaction. Identification is a process of self-forgetfulness. So long as I am

conscious of the "me" I know there is pain, there is struggle, there is

constant fear. But if I can identify myself with something greater,

with something worthwhile, with beauty, with life, with truth, with

belief, with knowledge, at least temporarily, there is an escape from the

"me," is there not? If I talk about "my country" I forget myself

temporarily, do I not? If I can say something about God, I forget myself. If I

can identify myself with my family, with a group, with a particular

party, with a certain ideology, then there is a temporary escape.

 

Do we now know what fear is? Is it not the non-acceptance of what is?

We must understand the word acceptance. I am not using that word as

meaning the effort made to accept. There is no question of accepting when I

perceive what is. When I do not see clearly what is, then I bring in

the process of acceptance. Therefore, fear is the non-acceptance of what

is.

 

 

 

Understanding Desire

 

We have to understand desire; and it is very difficult to understand

something which is so vital, so demanding, so urgent, because in the very

fulfillment of desire passion is engendered with the pleasure and the

pain of it. And if one is to understand desire, obviously, there must be

no choice. You cannot judge desire as being good or bad, noble or

ignoble, or say, "I will keep this desire and deny that one." All that must

be set aside if we are to find out the truth of desire—the beauty of

it, the ugliness or whatever it may be.

 

The Door to Understanding

 

You cannot wipe away fear without understanding, without actually

seeing into the nature of time, which means thought, which means word. From

that arises the question: Is there a thought without word, is there a

thinking without the word which is memory? Sir, without seeing the

nature of the mind, the movement of the mind, the process of self-knowing,

merely saying that I must be free of it, has very little meaning. You

have to take fear in the context of the whole of the mind. To see, to go

into all this, you need energy. Energy does not come through eating

food—that is a part of physical necessity. But to see, in the sense I am

using that word, requires an enormous energy; and that energy is

dissipated when you are battling with words, when you are resisting,

condemning, when you are full of opinions which are preventing

you from looking, seeing— your energy is all gone in that.

So in the consideration of this perception, this seeing,

again you open the door.

 

Understanding Passion

 

Is it a religious life to punish oneself? Is mortification of the body

or of the mind a sign of understanding? Is self-torture a way to

reality? Is chastity denial? Do you think you can go far through

renunciation? Do you really think there can be peace through conflict? Does not

the

means matter infinitely more than the end? The end may be, but the

means is. The actual, the what is, must be understood and not smothered by

determinations, ideals, and clever rationalizations. Sorrow is not the

way of happiness. The thing called passion has to be understood and not

suppressed or sublimated, and it is no good finding a substitute for

it. Whatever you may do, any device that you invent, will only strengthen

that which has not been loved and understood. To love what we call

passion is to understand it. To love is to be in direct communion; and you

cannot love something if you resent it, if you have ideas, conclusions

about it. How can you love and understand passion if you have taken a

vow against it? A vow is a form of resistance, and what you resist

ultimately conquers you. Truth is not to be conquered; you cannot storm it;

it will slip through your hands if you try to grasp it. Truth comes

silently, without your knowing. What you know is not truth, it is only an

idea, a symbol. The shadow is not the real.

 

Face-to-Face with the Fact

 

Are we afraid of a fact or of an idea about the fact? Are we afraid of

the thing as it is, or are we afraid of what we think it is? Take

death, for example. Are we afraid of the fact of death or of the idea of

death? The fact is one thing and the idea about the fact is another. Am I

afraid of the word death or of the fact itself? Because I am afraid of

the word, of the idea, I never understand the fact, I never look at the

fact, I am never in direct relation with the fact. It is only when I am

in complete communion with the fact that there is no fear. If I am not

in communion with the fact, then there is fear, and there is no

communion with the fact so long as I have an idea, an opinion, a theory, about

the fact; so I have to be very clear whether I am afraid of the word,

the idea, or the fact. If I am face-to-face with the fact, there is

nothing to understand about it: the fact is there, and I can deal with it.

If I am afraid of the word, then I must understand the word, go into

the whole process of what the word, the term, implies.

 

It is my opinion, my idea, my experience, my knowledge about the fact,

that creates fear. So long as there is verbalization of the fact,

giving the fact a name and therefore identifying or condemning it, so long

as thought is judging the fact as an observer, there must be fear.

Thought is the product of the past; it can only exist through verbalization,

through symbols, through images. So long as thought is regarding or

translating the fact, there must be fear. Thought is the product of the

past, it can only exist through verbalization, through symbols, through

images; so long as thought is regarding or translating the fact, there

must be fear.

 

You and I Are the Problem, Not the World

 

The world is not something separate from you and me; the world,

society, is the relationship that we establish or seek to establish between

each other. So you and I are the problem, and not the world, because the

world is the projection of ourselves, and to understand the world we

must understand ourselves. That world is not separate from us; we are the

world, and our problems are the world's problems.

 

Face the Fact and See What Happens. . .

 

We have all had the experience of tremendous loneliness, where books,

religion, everything is gone and we are tremendously, inwardly, lonely,

empty. Most of us can't face that emptiness, that loneliness, and we

run away from it. Dependence is one of the things we run to, depend on,

because we can't stand being alone with ourselves. We must have the

radio or books or talking, incessant chatter about this and that, about art

and culture. So we come to that point when we know there is this

extraordinary sense of self-isolation. We may have a very good job, work

furiously, write books, but inwardly there is this tremendous vacuum. We

want to fill that and dependence is one of the ways. We use dependence,

amusement, church work, religions, drink, women, a dozen things to fill

it up, cover it up. If we see that it is absolutely futile to try to

cover it up, completely futile—not verbally, not with conviction and

therefore agreement and determination—but if we see the total absurdity of

it ... then we are faced with a fact. It is not a question of how to be

free from dependence; that's not a fact; that's only a reaction to a

fact. ...Why don't I face the fact and see what happens?

 

The problem now arises of the observer and the observed. The observer

says, "I am empty; I don't like it," and runs away from it. The observer

says, "I am different from the emptiness." But the observer is the

emptiness; it is not emptiness seen by an observer. The observer is the

observed. There is a tremendous revolution in thinking, in feeling, when

that takes place.

 

Attachment Is Escape

 

Just try to be aware of your conditioning. You can only know it

indirectly, in relation to something else. You cannot be aware of your

conditioning as an abstraction, for then it is merely verbal, without much

significance. We are only aware of conflict. Conflict exists when there is

no integration between challenge and response. This conflict is the

result of our conditioning. Conditioning is attachment: attachment to

work, to tradition, to property, to people, to ideas, and so on. If there

were no attachment, would there be conditioning? Of course not. So why

are we attached? I am attached to my country because through

identification with it I become somebody.

I identify myself with my work, and the work becomes important.

I am my family, my property; I am attached to

them. The object of attachment offers me the means of

escape from my own emptiness. Attachment is escape,

and it is escape that strengthens conditioning.

 

To Exploit Is to Be Exploited

 

As most of us seek power in one form or another, the hierarchical

principle is established, the novice and the initiate, the pupil and the

Master, and even among the Masters there are degrees of spiritual growth.

Most of us love to exploit and be exploited, and this system offers the

means, whether hidden or open. To exploit is to be exploited. The

desire to use others for your psychological necessities makes for

dependence, and when you depend you must hold, possess;

and what you possess possesses you. Without dependence,

subtle or gross, without possessing things, people, and ideas,

you are empty, a thing of no importance. You want to be something,

and to avoid the gnawing fear of being nothing you

belong to this or that organization, to this or that ideology, to this

church or that temple; so you are exploited, and you in your turn

exploit.

 

There is Some Deeper Factor That Makes Us Depend

 

We know we depend—on our relationship with people or on some ideal or

on a system of thought. Why?

 

… Actually, I do not think dependence is the problem; I think there is

some other deeper factor that makes us depend. And if we can unravel

that, then both dependence and the struggle for freedom will have very

little significance; then all the problems which arise though dependence

will wither away. So, what is the deeper issue? Is it that the mind

abhors, fears, the idea of being alone? And does the mind know that state

which it avoids? So long as that loneliness is not really understood,

felt, penetrated, dissolved—whatever word you may like to use—so long as

that sense of loneliness remains, dependence is inevitable, and one can

never be free; one can never find out for oneself that which is true,

that which is religion.

 

Justifying Evil

 

Obviously the present crisis throughout the world is exceptional,

without precedent. There have been crises of varying types at different

periods throughout history—social, national, political. Crises come and go;

economic recessions, depressions, come, get modified, and continue in a

different form. We know that; we are familiar with that process. Surely

the present crisis is different, is it not? It is different first

because we are dealing not with money nor with tangible things but with

ideas. The crisis is exceptional because it is in the field of ideation. We

are quarreling with ideas, we are justifying murder; everywhere in the

world we are justifying murder as a means to a righteous end, which in

itself is unprecedented. Before, evil was recognized to be evil, murder

was recognized to be murder, but now murder is a means to achieve a

noble result. Murder, whether of one person or of a group of people, is

justified, because the murderer, or the group that the murderer

represent, justifies it as a means of achieving a result that will be beneficial

to man. That is, we sacrifice the present for the future—and it does

not matter what means we employ as long as our declared purpose is to

produce a result that we say will be beneficial to man. Therefore, the

implication is that a wrong means will produce a right end and you justify

the wrong means through ideation. ...We have a magnificent structure of

ideas to justify evil and surely that is unprecedented. Evil is evil;

it cannot bring about good. War is not a means to peace.

 

Human Evolution

 

Must we know drunkenness to know sobriety? Must you go through hate in

order to know what it is to be compassionate? Must you go through wars,

destroying yourself and others, to know what peace is? Surely, this is

an utterly false way of thinking, is it not? First you assume that

there is evolution, growth, a moving from bad to good, and then you fit

your thinking into that pattern. Obviously, there is physical growth, the

little plant becoming the big tree; there is technological progress,

the wheel evolving through centuries into the jet plane. But is there

psychological progress, evolution? That is what we are discussing —whether

there is a growth, an evolution of the "me," beginning with evil and

ending up in good. Through a process of evolution, through time, can the

"me," which is the center of evil, ever become noble, good? Obviously

not. That which is evil, the psychological "me," will always remain

evil. But we do not want to face that. We think that through the process of

time, through growth and change, the "I" will ultimately become

reality. This is our hope, that is our longing—that the "I" will be made

perfect through time. What is this "I," this "me"? It is a name, a form, a

bundle of memories, hopes, frustrations, longings, pains, sorrows,

passing joys. We want this "me" to continue and become perfect, and so we

say that beyond the "me" there is a "super-me," a higher self, a

spiritual entity which is timeless but since we have thought of it, that

"spiritual" entity is still within the field of time, is it not? If we can

think about it, it is obviously within the field of our reasoning.

You need to be free, because you will see that a mind that is free has

the essence of humility. Such a mind, which is free and therefore has

humility, can learn—not a mind that resists.

 

Learning is an extraordinary thing—to learn, not to accumulate

knowledge. Accumulating knowledge is quite a different thing.

What we call knowledge is comparatively easy, because

that is a movement from the known to the known.

But to learn is a movement from the known to the

unknown— you learn only like that, do you not.

 

Craving Is Always Craving

 

To avoid suffering we cultivate detachment. Being forewarned that

attachment sooner or later entails sorrow, we want to become detached.

Attachment is gratifying, but perceiving the pain in it, we want to be

gratified in another manner, through detachment. Detachment is the same as

attachment as long as it yields gratification. So what we are really

seeking is gratification, we crave to be satisfied by whatever means.

 

We are dependent or attached because it gives us pleasure, security,

power, a sense of well-being, though in it there is sorrow and fear. We

seek detachment also for pleasure, in order not to be hurt, not to be

inwardly wounded. Our search is for pleasure, gratification. Without

condemning or justifying we must try to understand this process, for unless

we understand it there is no way out of our confusion and

contradiction. Can craving ever be satisfied, or is it a bottomless pit?

Whether we crave for the low or for the high, craving is always craving,

a burning fire, and what can be consumed by it soon becomes ashes;

but craving for gratification still remains, ever burning,

ever consuming, and there is no end to it. Attachment

and detachment are equally binding, and

both must be transcended.

 

----------JK Quotes ----------The Book of Life

 

anand

 

 

 

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