A Light to Yourself (eBook)

The Collected Works of J Krishnamurti 1956 - 1957

J Krishnamurti (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
145 Seiten
Krishnamurti Foundation America (Verlag)
978-1-912875-00-9 (ISBN)

Infos

I n t h e s e t a l k s , g i v e n i n E u r o p e a n d I n d i a , K r i s h n a m u r t i g o e s i n t o t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f g o i n g i n t o p r o b l e m s o p e n l y , w i t h o u t c o n c l u s i o n s . ' . . b e c a u s e w e a p p r o a c h o u r p r o b l e m s p a r t i a l l y , t h r o u g h a l l t h e s e v a r i o u s f o r m s o f c o n d i t i o n i n g , i t s e e m s t o m e t h a t w e a r e t h e r e b y n o t u n d e r s t a n d i n g t h e m . I f e e l t h a t t h e a p p r o a c h t o a n y p r o b l e m i s o f m u c h m o r e s i g n i f i c a n c e t h a n t h e p r o b l e m i t s e l f , a n d t h a t i f w e c o u l d a p p r o a c h o u r m a n y d i f f i c u l t i e s w i t h o u t a n y p a r t i c u l a r f o r m o f c o n d i t i o n i n g o r p r e j u d i c e , t h e n p e r h a p s w e w o u l d c o m e t o a f u n d a m e n t a l u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f t h e m . ' A n e x t e n s i v e c o m p e n d i u m o f K r i s h n a m u r t i ' s t a l k s a n d d i s c u s s i o n s i n t h e U S A , E u r o p e , I n d i a , N e w Z e a l a n d , a n d S o u t h A f r i c a f r o m 1 9 3 3 t o 1 9 6 7 t h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s h a v e b e e n c a r e f u l l y a u t h e n t i c a t e d a g a i n s t e x i s t i n g t r a n s c r i p t s a n d t a p e s . E a c h v o l u m e i n c l u d e s a f r o n t i s p i e c e p h o t o g r a p h o f K r i s h n a m u r t i , w i t h q u e s t i o n a n d s u b j e c t i n d e x e s a t t h e e n d . T h e c o n t e n t o f e a c h v o l u m e i s n o t l i m i t e d t o t h e s u b j e c t o f t h e t i t l e , b u t r a t h e r o f f e r s a u n i q u e v i e w o f K r i s h n a m u r t i ' s e x t r a o r d i n a r y t e a c h i n g s i n s e l e c t e d y e a r s . T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f f e r s t h e r e a d e r t h e o p p o r t u n i t y t o e x p l o r e t h e e a r l y w r i t i n g s a n d d i a l o g u e s i n t h e i r m o s t c o m p l e t e a n d a u t h e n t i c f o r m

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI (18951986) is regarded internationally as one of the great educators and philosophers of our time. Born in South India, he was educated in England, and traveled the world, giving public talks, holding dia logues, writing, and founding schools until the end of his life at the age of ninety. He claimed allegiance to no caste, nationality, or religion and was bound by no tradition. Time magazine named Krishnamurti, along with Mother Teresa, 'one of the five saints of the 20th century,' and the Dalai Lama calls Krishnamurti 'one of the greatest thinkers of the age.' His teachings are published in 75 books, 700 audiocas settes, and 1200 videocassettes. Thus far, over 4,000,000 copies of his books have been sold in over thirty languages. The rejection of all spiritual and psychological authority, including his own, is a fundamental theme. He said human beings have to free themselves of fear, conditioning, authority, and dogma through selfknowledge. He suggested that this will bring about order and real psychological change. Our violent, conflictridden world cannot be transformed into a life of goodness, love, and compassion by any political, social, or economic strategies. It can be transformed only through mutation in individuals brought about through their own observation without any guru or organized religion. Krishnamurti's stature as an original philosopher attracted traditional and also creative people from all walks of life. Heads of state, eminent scientists, prominent leaders of the United Nations and various religious organizations, psychiatrists and psychologists, and university professors all engaged in dialogue with Krishnamurti. Students, teachers, and millions of people from all walks of life read his books and came to hear him speak. He bridged science and reli gion without the use of jargon, so scientists and lay people alike could understand his discussions of time, thought, insight, and death. During his lifetime, Krishnamurti established foundations in the United States, India, England, Canada, and Spain. Their defined role is the preservation and dissemination of the teachings, but without any authority to interpret or deify the teachings or the person. Krishnamurti also founded schools in India, England, and the United States. He envisioned that education should emphasize the understanding of the whole human being, mind and heart, not the mere acquisition of academic and intellectual skills. Education must be for learning skills in the art of living, not only the technology to make a living. Krishnamurti said, 'Surely a school is a place where one learns about the totality, the wholeness of life. Academic excellence is absolutely necessary, but a school includes much more than that. It is a place where both the teacher and the taught explore, not only the outer world, the world of knowledge, but also their own thinking, their behavior.' He said of his work, 'There is no belief demanded or asked, there are no followers, there are no cults, there is no persuasion of any kind, in any direction, and therefore only then we can meet on the same platform, on the same ground, at the same level. Then we can together observe the extraor dinary phenomena of human existence.'

Textauszug

Brussels, Belgium, 1956

First Talk in Brussels

It seems to me that it would be wise if we could put away from our minds the various forms of prejudice that we have built up, especially the idea which many of us have that wisdom lies with those people who come from the Orient. That is really quite an absurd idea because human beings all the world over have essentially the same problems, whether they happen to live in the Orient or in the Occident. The Orient, from where I happen to come, is no different fundamentally from the Occident. The people over there have problems similar to ours—the same economic and social struggles, and the same problems of the spirit, of the mind, of the heart. We are all alike in our suffering, in our search, in our loneliness, and in the things which give the mind the power to create its own delusions.

It is surely important from the very beginning for you to understand not only what is being said but your own reaction to it, and to know why you have come here. After all, most of us come to these talks with the hope of finding something, do we not? We are all groping, seeking a better attitude or way of life, a more realistic evaluation of the things that matter. We are seeking something which we feel is very essential. So I think it would be good if we could go into this problem, to the very heart of it, and find out what it is that each one of us is earnestly seeking. We spend our days and our years in struggling to find out what life is all about. And it seems to me that our problem is not to find some satisfactory explanation of what life is about but rather to understand life directly for ourselves.

Our problems, which are many, cannot be translated either in terms of the Occident or the Orient. Many of us think that if we can follow a particular system of philosophy or some method, the more mystical the better, it will lead us to a higher form of happiness or to a greater depth of understanding. So we read, we search, we go to lectures, we follow teachers, we join religious organizations with their creeds and dogmas—but unfortunately we never find what we are looking for because we do not know exactly what it is we want. Within ourselves we want so many things; we are confused. Therefore it is obviously very important to spend some time, energy, and thought in inquiring into what it is that each one of us is seeking.

First of all, is it possible to find out what it is we are seeking? Our minds are so conditioned by the collective; we are either Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or we are trying to follow some other system. Our minds are so shaped, so controlled, so conditioned by the particular society in which we live—economically, socially, and religiously—that we only seek whatever is promised by that particular tradition or system of thought. So we are always conditioned in our search. And I think it is very important to understand this conditioning. Because so long as our minds are conditioned as Christians, as Buddhists, as Hindus, or what you will, our search is of no avail. So long as the mind is limited, shaped by a particular belief or dogma, our search can only lead to whatever that dogma or belief promises. Only the mind which liberates itself from dogma, from belief, will find out what is true.

Whether one comes from the East or from the West, it is extraordinarily difficult to liberate oneself, culturally as well as religiously, from the various encrustations which society has imposed so that the mind is free to inquire. Without this freedom, surely, no inquiry is possible, especially in matters appertaining to the spirit, to the mind. And I think it is most essential not merely to grope vaguely after some kind of happiness, some kind of comfort or security, which almost any form of authority can give, but rather to inquire, with a free mind, to find out if there is reality, if there is God. Only such a mind can discover, and not the mind that believes, that is held in a dogma, however venerable and apparently worthwhile. A mind caught in belief is incapable of finding out if there is reality, if there is something beyond its own projections.

But it is not easy for the mind to free itself from the ideas in which it has been brought up, especially with regard to psychological issues, because it is ever eager to be comforted, to feel secure; so it creates or accepts some form of authority which promises the comfort it wants, an illusory reality without substance.

So, if our inquiry is to be at all worthwhile, I think that with attention, with purposefulness, we must go deeply into what it is that each one of us is seeking. Most religious people assert they are seeking God, truth, peace, or what you will. But those are just words, without much substance. The believer is as the nonbeliever, for both are conditioned by the particular society in which they have grown up. And one can put aside all the beliefs, the dogmas, the prejudices one has acquired only when there is deep discontent. Surely truth, or reality, is not for the man who is seeking comfort, but rather for those who have a deep inward discontent which is not easily canalized or assuaged through any particular satisfaction or gratification, but which is steadily intensified so that the mind rejects reasonably the comforting illusions which churches, so-called religious organizations, and one’s own crippling desires have projected. Only a mind sharpened by thought, by reason, by doubt, is capable of inquiry. Such a mind is aware of its own workings, of its own background, of the values it has created, of the beliefs, the illusions, the hopes to which it clings; and it is only when all these things are set aside that the mind can find out whether or not there is a reality, something beyond its own projections.

Most of us live very shallow lives; we are lonely people, and we try to enrich our poverty-stricken minds with a great deal of knowledge, information, facts. But the mind is not capable of deep inquiry if it is filled with knowledge, or if it is bound to any form of dogmatic belief. What matters is to ask ourselves whether the mind is capable of self-knowledge. That is, can I know myself, am I able to observe, to inquire into the whole movement of my mind—not with morbidity, not with despair, not with the idea that it is ugly or beautiful, but just to watch it? It seems to me that this capacity to be alertly watchful of one’s own mind is of the greatest importance because it is only through self-knowledge that one can under stand those things which are crippling the mind.

To know oneself is an extraordinary process because the self is never the same from moment to moment; there are so many contradictory desires, so many compulsions, so many urges. And unless we understand the totality of it all, how can the mind be free? Only the mind that is free can really experience something beyond its own limitations, beyond its conditioning beliefs and dogmas.

It seems to me that these talks will be worthwhile only if we can really listen to what is being said. Most of us never listen to another, and when we do hear what someone says, we are always interpreting it. Such interpretation is not listening. Whereas, if we can listen, not with enforced concentration, but freely giving attention to what is being said, then the deep significance of the words will penetrate the mind, and I think such listening is far more vital than merely struggling to understand through the screen of our prejudices and preconceptions. That is, if you can listen to what is being said without resisting, without intellectually projecting reasonable arguments, without opposing or accepting, then I think the very act of listening is a purgation of the mind. It is like a seed that is planted in the earth; if the seed has vitality, it will grow of itself.

But unfortunately most of us are so concerned with our own ideas, with our own beliefs and prejudices, that there is no attention. Attention is the total good, but we do not know how to attend. We never really look at anything either. I do not know if you have ever experimented with really looking at something—by which I mean looking without naming, without giving it a label, without interpreting it. Then you see much more, you see with greater intensity the clarity of the color, the beauty or ugliness of the shape, and so on. And if you are capable of listening with that kind of attention, then your mind will be the soil in which something totally new can be born. Then you will find, at the end of these talks, that I have really told you” nothing at all. Because what is it that we are trying to do in these talks? You are not trying to understand me; you are trying to understand yourself. And to understand yourself, you have to look within yourself. But a mind that is authority-ridden never looks within itself; a mind that is desirous of achieving an end, a goal, cannot possibly understand itself.

So it seems to me that what is of prime importance is to understand oneself. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. But we know so little about ourselves; we do not know the unconscious as well as the conscious parts of ourselves, the totality of our whole being. And is it possible to know ourselves totally? Surely, if one is incapable of knowing oneself, the totality of one’s being, then all search is without meaning. Then search becomes a contradiction, one desire against another desire. But if we can understand ourselves, if we can patiently and diligently observe the functioning of our whole being, then we shall find that the mind becomes very clear and free. Only such a mind is capable of inquiring into, searching out the eternal—and then perhaps there is no search at all,...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.9.2022
• Reihe/Serie: The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti 1956-1957
• Reihe/Serie: The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti 1956-1957
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie des Mittelalters
• Schlagworte: Analysis • clarity • Emotional Clarity • freedom • India • KFA • learning • Logic • Meaning • Mind • Philosophy • Self Help • Teach • Teachings • Thought • Truth
• ISBN-10: 1-912875-00-4 / 1912875004
• ISBN-13: 978-1-912875-00-9 / 9781912875009