Krishnamurti Quote of the Day

Ojai, California | 2nd Public Talk 17th June, 1934

Tags: escape, intelligence, suffering

Related Quotes

There is a common need to escape, and mutually we use each other. This usage is called love.

We are as war-minded as ever, we hate some other group of people, we despise this political leader and support that, we are duped by organized religions, we are nationalistic, and our miseries continue;

With most of us, the difficulty is that we are unaware of our escapes. We are so conditioned, so accustomed to our escapes, that we take them as realities.

The shallow are ever afraid of what they are; but what they are is the truth.

To worship another is to worship oneself; the image, the symbol, is a projection of oneself.

Your business, your religion, your gods, your leaders, your political and economic actions, your escapes, your social activities, your joining one party and rejecting another - all that is emphasizing and giving strength to the 'me'.

Most of us do not want to die to anything, particularly to that which gives us pleasure, to the memory of things that we have known and cherished.

Whatever you try to do, you do intellectually, and therefore falsely.

Our very seeking for God or truth is an escape.

When all the avenues of escape which the mind has invented have been understood and blocked, there remains only suffering, and then you will understand it.

Most of you who are religiously inclined, are in search of truth, and that very search indicates that you are escaping from the conflict of the present

Heaven knows, we have conflicts all day long, but we have trained our mind to be cunning, and so pass over these conflicts lightly, escape from them.

You merely seek to adjust yourselves to a pattern, in order to escape from conflict or from your environment.

To me religion is the false result of a false cause, the cause being conflict, and religion merely a means of escape from that conflict.

Perhaps you are merely trying to use my words as a means of escape; perhaps you are using my words, my ideas to fill your own emptiness.

Explanations and formulas offer only means of escape from conflict.

We have built up through many centuries an environment of such illusions as authority, imitativeness, beliefs, ideals, which give us the opportunity of subtle escape.

The very search for reality is an illusion, because it is but an escape.

The future is nothing but an escape from actuality, through an ideal to which we try to adjust the present, the immediate action.

We have many stupidities and limitations which are slowly destroying intelligence, such as ideals, beliefs, dogmas, nationalism and the possessive idea of family;

The subtle desire for ideals and their permanence indicates that you want to cross the ocean of life without suffering.

Where there is the disturbance of our security through the action of life, that we call suffering.

For most people, what they call reality or God or happiness is merely an escape from suffering, from this continual tension between action and understanding.

[The] process of escape from actuality, from uncertainty, must lead to illusion, abnormality, neurosis and unbalance.

To understand life and to have true values, you must perceive how you are held by the opposites, and before rejecting them, you must discern their deep significance.

Suffering, from which we are ever trying to escape, can lead us to the comprehension of the "I" process, to the profound knowledge of oneself, but all escapes into illusion must cease.

You should not withdraw from life to consider life.

As a man takes refuge in the rationalized conclusion [that all things must decay], and thereby softens his suffering, so by taking refuge in a belief, in a supposed fact, you also deaden the action of sorrow.

You may have faith in love, another in God, and so on. All such faith is an anchorage for the mind.

We all have to live in this world; we cannot escape from it.

It is natural, is it not, to be depressed at this present time when there is so much killing, confusion and sorrow?

Why do we not realise that our pursuit of drunkenness, God or an ideal is only the pursuit of our escape from facing the actual, and therefore reduces us to a state of dullness and insensitivity?

What generally happens is that we become very skilful, very clever in our escapes, but suffering continues and this becoming intelligent in escapes is called intelligent living.

The moment you are aware of confusion, of exactly what is, you try to escape from it.

An intelligent mind acts in the field of thought intelligently, sanely, without resistance;

An ambitious man, whether he be a merchant, a politician, or a so-called saint is essentially a self-contradictory human being.

Don't change. It's very simple. If you want to remain as you are, carry on, nobody is going to prevent you.

The highest form of sensitivity is the highest intelligence, and no drug ever invented by man will give this intelligence.

Sensitivity in its highest form is intelligence.

Intelligence does not offer shelter from the struggles and turmoils of life, nor does it give comfort; it only creates understanding.

To understand anything, one must find out what it is all about.

To be integrally intelligent means to be without the self.

When the mind is attached to an idea or a belief, or to a past experience, it reveals the lack of intelligence.

There is a vast distinction between intellect and intelligence

To live a natural life, full, spontaneous life, creative, intelligent life, you can only do that when you understand the false standards and the true standards of society, and have broken away from it because you understand their significance;

To me, all ideals must be the means of alleviation of suffering, and, therefore, cannot possibly explain to you the reason of suffering.

We can talk about tolerance, which is an intellectual invention to keep you where you are and to keep me where I am, and try to be friendly.

When your whole being becomes conscious of something which is poisonous, there is no effort to throw it out; you have already moved away from it.

In the process of discovering, there is born intelligence, understanding; and that supreme intelligence is life itself. You don't want any more.

Exploitation comes into being when individuals seek more than their essential needs;

I do not want to give you examples and similes, because I want you to think it out, and if I give examples I do all the thinking and you merely listen.

in that state of acuteness of suffering, in that intensity of suffering in which there is no longer escape, the mind itself becomes intelligence.

If you experiment with this, you will see that I am not giving you theories, but something with which you can work, something which is practical.

If you are in conflict, naturally you must question the environment, but most minds have become so perverted that they are not aware that they are seeking solutions, escapes through their marvellous theories.

If there is intelligence, then environment has no value, no significance, because intelligence is then freed from circumstance, it is functioning fully.

The mind which is really intelligent is free of self-discipline, for intelligence is born out of the questioning of environment, and the discovery of the true significance of environment.

Intelligence is not born out of self-discipline or suppression.

The test of right action is in its spontaneity, but to act spontaneously is to be greatly intelligent.

Where there is intelligence, the mind is not conditioned by any environment, because it is all the time conscious, aware and functioning, and therefore discerning, perceiving the full worth of the environment.

Every struggle, every effort to attain liberation indicates an escape from the present.

To me there is no division between mind and intelligence.

the individual builds up a romantic haven of escape in which he seeks compensation for the loss and suffering in the outer world.

The expression of creative intelligence is very rare, and though it has the appearance of individuality or separativeness, to me it is not individuality but intelligence.

Because what you can now discern as God must be limited, since your mind is circumscribed, held in bondage; therefore I will not describe that.

The more you battle against environment without understanding, the more you struggle against circumstances, the more you become conscious, in that effort, of your limitation.

We are discussing what exists, not what should exist.

I am not giving you a mould or a code by which you can live, or a system which you can follow.

There is self-discipline only where there is no intelligence.

To awaken true intelligence we must first inquire into the many stupidities which cripple the mind and heart, and not seek a definition of intelligence;

To discover what is true one requires great intelligence.

Intelligence is the only solution that will bring about harmony in this world of conflict, harmony between mind and heart in action.

Question: How can I awaken intelligence?

To find out your needs requires intelligence, for needs are constantly changing, constantly renewing themselves.

We all desire to help the world, but we never begin with ourselves.

Question: Is man in any sense superior to woman?

Question: How can you prevent people from following you as their authority?

Almost all people are unconscious both of the intelligence and of the stupidity about them.

The function of real suffering, which is to awaken intelligence, is denied through the search for comfort.

To understand and awaken [this] harmonious intelligence, one must begin, not with assumptions and authoritative assertions, but negatively.

Most of us do not realize that we are unique, that the process of creating ignorance and sorrow lies within our own power, and that only through the comprehension of ourselves can there be freedom from them.

Intelligence is not a gift but can be cultivated, awakened, through alertness of mind and choiceless life.

There are many organizations for peace, but there are very few individuals who are free, who are intelligent in the true sense of the word.

The process of choice is merely one want overcoming another, one illusion dispelling another, one set of values substituting itself for another.

If you can perceive for yourself that ideals, beliefs, traditions, values, are constantly twisting your thought-action, then by becoming aware of these distortions intelligence is awakened.

Creative intelligence cannot be invited or measured, but the mind seeks definition, description, and is ever caught in the illusion of words.

To be aware without choice, to be conscious of the many activities of the mind, its richness, its subtleties, its deceptions, its illusions, is to be intelligent.

When we are integrally aware of the process of ignorance, voluntarily, spontaneously, there is the beginning of that intelligence which meets all conditioning influences.

Lasting order and peace can be brought about only when the individual voluntarily and intelligently consents to think without hate, greed, ambition, and so on.

Intelligence is the discovery, by each one, of what is of primary importance and the capacity to pursue it.

If we do not understand our own make up, our own psyche, our own thought-feeling, then how can we understand anything else?

Through constant awareness of every thought-feeling the ways of the self are known, and out of self-knowledge comes right thinking.

If we would understand a problem we must set aside our desires, our accumulated experiences, our patterns of thought.

An intelligence which is the product of desire, of self-expansion, is ever creating resistance, and it can never bring about tranquillity.

We shall know, as experience, the new form of intelligence only when the self-protective and self-expansive intelligence ceases.

Questioner: We do have to make some kind of effort, do we not?

How can thought which is the outcome of time, of self-protective activity, comprehend that which is not of time?

We have spent our days and our energies in transforming what is without understanding what is.

Intellect is producing such havoc, degradation and misery, but that is not reason, it is merely intellectuality concerned only with the superficial, responding to the immediate challenge.

Is not suffering an indication of ignorance?

You are changing. So also is your neighbour. Yet when you meet your neighbour, you have your old picture of that person.

Conditioned thought that seeks to modify or change itself merely continues the conditioned state.

Is it not important at all times, and especially during these critical days, to think very clearly and to know our feelings very intimately?

Intelligence is the understanding of sorrow.

Instead of discerning the cause, you think that you can comprehend yourself through another. This looking to the example of another only leads to illusion and suffering.

Become aware of the cause that prevents you from living completely.

When we suffer we seek immediate consolation, comfort, and therefore there is no longer questioning; there is no longer doubt, but mere acceptance.

You are not concerned with what causes suffering, but you are concerned with the way of escaping from that suffering into perfection.

That you are awakened to suffering is but the indication that mind is trying to free itself from all standards;

What can one do for another when that person is suffering?

Our very seeking for God or truth is an escape.

When all the avenues of escape which the mind has invented have been understood and blocked, there remains only suffering, and then you will understand it.

When you are awakened there is conflict, struggle. which you call suffering; but immediately you want to put away that struggle, that awakening;

Though we may think we have solved one problem, that problem again arises in a different form, so we go on through life solving problem after problem, struggle after struggle, without fully comprehending the full significance of our living.

Most of you who are religiously inclined, are in search of truth, and that very search indicates that you are escaping from the conflict of the present

in that state of acuteness of suffering, in that intensity of suffering in which there is no longer escape, the mind itself becomes intelligence.

If you experiment with this, you will see that I am not giving you theories, but something with which you can work, something which is practical.

the individual builds up a romantic haven of escape in which he seeks compensation for the loss and suffering in the outer world.

Suffering is merely that high, intense clarity of thought and emotion which forces you to recognize things as they are.

Explanations and formulas offer only means of escape from conflict.

The subtle desire for ideals and their permanence indicates that you want to cross the ocean of life without suffering.

The function of real suffering, which is to awaken intelligence, is denied through the search for comfort.

Where there is the disturbance of our security through the action of life, that we call suffering.

When the mind is stagnant, drugged to sleep by beliefs, crippled by limitations, and is awakened by the movement of life, that awakening we call suffering.

For most people, what they call reality or God or happiness is merely an escape from suffering, from this continual tension between action and understanding.

There are many kinds of suffering, and if you begin to discern their cause, you will perceive that suffering must coexist with the demand on the part of each individual to be secure, whether financially, spiritually, or in human relationship.

All of us are in some measure caught up in suffering, whether economic, physical, psychological or spiritual.

The comprehension of reality, truth, comes with the cessation of sorrow.

Suffering, from which we are ever trying to escape, can lead us to the comprehension of the "I" process, to the profound knowledge of oneself, but all escapes into illusion must cease.

As long as there is a conscious or unconscious craving to escape from sorrow, illusion in many forms must exist.

Is not suffering an indication of ignorance?

If you examine a little more closely you will find that suffering like pain and conflict really dulls what is and to regard suffering as a means to understanding or intelligence is really fallacious.

What generally happens is that we become very skilful, very clever in our escapes, but suffering continues and this becoming intelligent in escapes is called intelligent living.

Suffering is really to be understood and not overcome, because any form of overcoming can be conquered again

Suffering is the state of disturbance. Either you try to avoid it through some system or escape, or you understand its true significance.

Craving is the cause of suffering. Without understanding this, your attempt merely to get rid of suffering is bound to be futile.

Is suffering merely a state of disturbance? Is it not a warning that you should wake up and not sleep?

Being attached, you find pain and strife in attachment; and in order to overcome that pain and strife, you say 'I must be detached.'

Does sorrow, suffering, come to an end through effort, through a thought process?

Does sorrow, suffering, come to an end through effort, through a thought process?