Krishnamurti & the Art of Awakening

«« previous quote

next quote »

Krishnamurti Quote of the Day

Public Talk, 22nd February 1948 | Mumbai, India

So, then, what do we mean by understanding? Understanding means giving right significance, right valuation, to all things. To be ignorant is to give wrong values; the very nature of stupidity is the lack of comprehension of right values. So, understanding comes into being when there are right values, when right values are established. And how is one to establish right values - the right value of property, the right value of relationship, the right value of ideas? For the right values to come into being, you must understand the thinker, must you not? If I don't understand the thinker, which is myself, what I choose has no meaning, that is, if I don't know myself, then my action, my thought, have no foundation whatsoever. So, self-knowledge is the beginning of meditation - not the knowledge that you pick up from my books, from authorities, from gurus, but the knowledge that comes into being through self-inquiry, which is self-awareness. Meditation is the beginning of self-knowledge, and without self-knowledge there is no meditation. Because, if I don't understand the ways of my thoughts, of my feelings, if I don't understand my motives, my desires, my demands, my pursuit of patterns of action, which are ideas - I do not know myself, there is no foundation for thinking; and the thinker who merely asks, prays, or excludes, without understanding himself, must inevitably end in confusion, in illusion.

Tags: self-knowledge, understanding

Related Quotes
Demand is born out of duality. 'I am un- happy and I must be happy.'
We are going to find out together what is true, and that requires an open mind, an intelligent mind, an enquiring mind, an alert mind;
Self-knowledge is not a conclusion, an end; it has no beginning and no end.
To go beyond the self-enclosing activities of the mind, you must understand them;
Until I, in my relationship to you, understand myself, I am the cause of chaos, misery, destruction, fear, brutality.
Self-knowledge is only from moment to moment, and therefore there is a creative happiness from moment to moment.
Man is a total process. The totality must be understood and not merely a part, however temporarily important this part may be.
If you find the garden that you have so carefully cultivated has produced only poisonous weeds, you have to tear them out by the roots;
Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom.
To be fully aware of the present is an extraordinarily difficult task because the mind is incapable of facing a fact directly without deception.
Is it possible for the mind to be so attentive all the time, so sensitive that every challenge is answered completely and immediately, and to come to a state when there is no challenge and no response, when it is no longer in a state of experiencing?
We are attempting to understand ourselves, to open up the hidden corners of the mind, to see the various escapes, so that spontaneously we shall face life, deeply and fully.
Instead of being concerned with the change that must take place in ourselves, let us see if we have preconceived ideas of what we should be.
If we can but realize that it is not how another acts that is of primary importance, but how each one of us acts and reacts and if that reaction and action can be fundamentally, deeply understood, then relationship will undergo a deep and radical change.
If you can find out what are the causes of your thought-feeling, and from that discovery know how to think-feel, then there is the beginning of understanding.
In understanding myself, I shall understand my relationship with another, with the world; for in me, as in each one, is the whole;
Without self-knowledge, to make a choice between the opposites must inevitably lead to further ignorance and sorrow.
What is important is to become aware of every thought-feeling, from which arises self-knowledge.
Gentleness, compassion, is not the result of suppression or substitution but is the outcome of self-knowledge and right thinking.
We can think - feel completely only when we are not seeking a result, an end.
Through the present the past is revealed;
Do not depend on time but be arduous in the search of self-knowledge.
... through self-knowledge thought-feeling frees itself from its own self-created impediments of ill will and ignorance, worldliness and craving
Self-knowledge is a process of creative discovery which is hindered when thought-feeling is concerned with gain.
Constant alertness is arduous because we are lazy; we would rather gain through others, through much reading, but information is not self-knowledge.
Understanding is not substitution; mere change of patterns, of conclusions, does not yield understanding.
Seeking security is an indication that you do not know what you are.
Self-knowledge is not an end in itself. It is like following a stream to its source. Is there a source to a stream? Surely not.
Self-knowledge as distinct from factual knowledge or the knowledge of a technique, is not a matter of learning from another;
If you go into this problem [of self-knowledge] and become aware of its significance you will see what it reveals and that is what I have just now shown - a series of imitations, a series of habits, a series of clouds, and memories.
I mean by self-knowledge, not the mysterious, the hidden, the super-self, the higher self, the Atman or anything of that kind;
We use belief as the most gratifying means to guide ourselves.
Mere gathering of knowledge from books really conditions your mind because you search for security in knowledge, and you agree with what is pleasant to you;
To know the deeply concealed activities, the hidden motives, responses, thoughts and feelings, there must be tranquillity in the conscious mind; that is, the conscious mind must be still in order to receive the projection of the unconscious.
Without self-knowledge there is no right thinking, and without right thinking, what you do has no meaning, however noble your intentions are.
Experiencing is not possible to him for whom the result is far more important than the means;
Very few of us have self-knowledge, the knowledge of what one actually is.
You must understand where you are limited, the extent of your limitation; you must be passively aware of it, and in that passivity truth comes into being.
the explanation is never that thing which is explained, that is the word is never the thing.
We don't love children, because we have no love in our own hearts. We just breed children.
The essence of control is suppression.
A mind that is indifferent, is aware of the shoddiness of our civilization, the shoddiness of our thought, the ugly relationships;
Mere reformation of the pattern of society only alters the surface, it brings about a more respectable form of ambition.
Until I, in my relationship to you, understand myself, I am the cause of chaos, misery, destruction, fear, brutality.
Life itself has no system, for it is always in movement;
In the confusion and turmoil of life, in its continual bustle and conflict, every individual is caught.
Criticism is only of value in so far as it trains your observation so that it can eventually be turned on yourself.
Desire, which has been the driving force in man, has created a great many pleasant and useful things; desire also, in man's relationships, has created a great many problems and turmoil and misery - the desire for pleasure.
As fear cannot free itself through any means, for all its efforts spring from its own source, there must be the cessation of all intellectual safeguards.
Conflict at any level, at any depth, indicates immaturity.
There is no essential difference between the old and the young, for both are slaves to their own desires and gratifications.
Is it possible for the mind to be so attentive all the time, so sensitive that every challenge is answered completely and immediately, and to come to a state when there is no challenge and no response, when it is no longer in a state of experiencing?
There is a vast difference, then, between the mental examination of a fact and the understanding of that fact.
We are not concerned with individual salvation or individual liberation, or whatever the individual is trying to seek but rather with the whole movement of life, the understanding of the whole current of existence;
to observe means to observe without the interference of one's background; but one is the background - you follow?-one's whole being which looks is one's background - as a Christian, as a Frenchman, or as an intellectual.
Stillness cannot be cultivated, because if you cultivate a still mind, it is not a still mind, it is a dead mind.
When one merely understands intellectually, verbally or romantically or emotionally, it is just nothing at all.
In action born of choice there is no discernment, choice being calculation, a remembrance of incomplete action.
When you are awakened there is conflict, struggle. which you call suffering; but immediately you want to put away that struggle, that awakening;
In order to fight, you must know what you are fighting, so there must be understanding of the fundamental, not of the divisions between the false things.
Why do you want to eliminate self-consciousness?
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.
When you understand you don't seek to modify, to alter, to reform.
There is the reaction to environment when the mind does not understand the environment, and acts without understanding, thereby further increasing the limitation of environment
I doubt, if I may say so, that you really understand what I am saying, even intellectually;
There is either deep understanding or the creation of mere theory.
Truth, the beauty of reality, can be discerned only when the mind is fearless; not with the fearlessness of intellectuality, but of utter insecurity.
If you have beliefs, you are translating and moulding your experiences according to them, and so you are continuously forcing and limiting thought-emotion, and these limitations become the "I" process.
Both the religious and the materialistic mind are conditioned by their own prejudices which prevent the integral comprehension of truth and the communion with it.
The problem of starvation is not solved by merely discovering its causes - the bad economic system, over-production, maldistribution, and so on.
I can give you [also] a very good explanation, but we are trying to go beyond mere explanations.
I have explained what I mean by understanding. This understanding is not an intellectual, analytical process.
Understanding is not brought about through the mere exertion of a one-sided will but through that experimental approach which has that peculiar quality of wholeness.
All overcoming is a form of ignorance and violence; only understanding can free thought from bondage.
To understand the complex causes of conflict and the desire to be free from it, requires not the mere will to be free, but constant awareness in our daily life.
I am talking of understanding which transcends reason and emotion.
What is of primary importance [then] is understanding, in whose wake follows compassion.
Understanding is not a reward; in the very moment of awareness it is born.
Surely there is a difference between right thinking and right or conditioned thought.
It is natural, is it not, to be depressed at this present time when there is so much killing, confusion and sorrow?
To merely deny craving, to merely oppose its many expressions is not to transcend it but to continue in it.
Compulsion does not create understanding, whether it is from outside or from within.
To understand there must be no judgment or comparison, no acceptance or denial, for all identification prevents that passive awareness in which alone the discovery of what is true is made.
These talks will be utterly useless if you do not experience as you are listening.
Condemnation, judgment and comparison do not bring the experience of understanding; on the contrary they will stop experience
In the outer world there is no hope, no clarity, no creative and renewing understanding, there is only bloodshed and confusion and mounting disaster.
Instead of trying to control these wandering thoughts become aware of them, think-out, feel-out every thought, comprehend its significance, however pleasant or unpleasant;
Search to understand, not to know; for in understanding, the dual process of the knower and the known ceases.
Understanding comes when your whole being is deeply and silently aware.
Without understanding oneself meditation becomes a process of self-hypnosis inducing experiences according to one's conditioning, one's belief.
Effort made to be free without the liberating action of Truth is still within the enclosing walls of the self.
If you saw the truth about self-expansion problems would begin to fade away.
Our difficulty lies in that we have built around ourselves conclusions which we call understanding.
Understanding is not substitution; mere change of patterns, of conclusions, does not yield understanding.
It is truth alone that frees, not the activity of will.
As we have got a very difficult subject to deal with it requires a great deal of patience and we must not jump to conclusions.
I am not here to give you ideas but on the contrary, I am here to discuss together with you if we can, seriously and earnestly, the problem of living.
We use the present as a passage to the future.
Understanding is a total responsibility of your entire being, a perception which comes to you of the entire picture and not of a part only.
When the mind is dull, it is unwilling to look at 'what is' but wants to change itself into something else, thus bringing another element into the problem.
[Understanding] involves change of will altogether and not merely change in will.
You cannot overcome a hindrance; the hindrance has to be understood by approaching it without condemnation, without judging, without a desire to alter it.
A truth, probably heard by you, ceases to be a truth when you merely repeat it; it will be a truth to you only when you, for yourself, have discovered it to be true.
As long as the mind is moving from the known to the known, it is 'dead', and a 'dead' thing cannot understand anything.
Is understanding to come through effort, or is there a state in which effort has ceased for understanding to be?
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?
Is not knowledge different from understanding and does the mere accumulation of knowledge yield understanding?
As it is, our existence is pretty awful and merely to understand verbally what is being said and use it as a pattern to translate everyday existence will not bring about understanding.
You will have understanding only when you consider the problem, when you accept it, look at it, become aware of its significance completely, and even love it.
If I want to understand what is, I must give my whole attention, my whole being to it and not be distracted by the opposites.
There is always in the 'thinker' a sense of permanency, a sense of continuity.
Most of you agree with what we have discussed so far in regard to the falseness of the trick played by the mind on itself; yet you have not seen the real depth of this problem and, therefore, it has not brought about clarification and transformation in you.
I am going to explain presently that truth can be understood instantaneously.
Outward action, when accomplished, is over, is static; and if the relationship between individuals, which is society, is not the outcome of inward revolution, then the social structure, being static, absorbs the individual, and therefore makes him equally static, repetitive.
Question: Can we realize on the spot the truth that you are speaking of, without any previous preparation?
Surely, meditation is understanding - meditation of the heart is understanding.
Peace can come into being only when the confusion which we have created is completely understood, not on the verbal level, but inwardly;
I cannot understand myself if I am tethered to anything - property, idea or thing.