Beginning to understand what I am

Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself.

In a school, in an ordinary school where there are a lot of boys, when one boy is compared with another who is very clever, who is the head of the class, what is actually taking place? You are destroying the boy. That’s what we are doing throughout life. Now, can I live without comparison—without comparison with anybody?

This means there is no high, no low—there is not the one who is superior and the other who is inferior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end.

If I am always comparing myself with some saint or some teacher, some businessman, writer, poet, and all the rest, what has happened to me—what have I done? I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to become—but when I don’t compare I am beginning to understand what I am.

Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating, far more interesting; it goes beyond all this stupid comparison.

- J Krishnamurti
Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1967, p 86

We don't have to beg for help

To follow another, however great, prevents the discovery of the ways of the self; to run after the promise of some ready-made utopia makes the mind utterly unaware of the enclosing action of its own desire for comfort, for authority, for someone else’s help. The priest, the politician, the lawyer, the soldier are all there to “help” us; but such help destroys intelligence and freedom. The help we need does not lie outside ourselves.

We do not have to beg for help; it comes without our seeking it when we are humble in our dedicated work, when we are open to the understanding of our daily trials and accidents.We must avoid the conscious or unconscious craving for support and encouragement, for such craving creates its own response, which is always gratifying.

It is comforting to have someone to encourage us, to give us a lead , to pacify us; but this habit of turning to another as a guide, as an authority soon becomes a poison in our system. The moment we depend on another for guidance, we forget our original intention, which was to awaken individual freedom and intelligence.

J Krishnamurti

Education and the Significance of Life, p 109

The real problem is the mind itself

It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness.

If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it. It is the same with the problem of existence, the problem of bread, the problem of love, the problem of sex, the problem of relationship, the problem of death. These are all enormous problems, and we approach them with a small mind; we try to resolve them with a mind that is very limited.

Though it has extraordinary capacities and is capable of invention, of subtle, cunning thought, the mind is still petty. It may be able to quote Marx, or the Gita, or some other religious book, but it is still a small mind, and a small mind confronted with a complex problem can only translate that problem in terms of itself, and therefore the problem, the misery increases.

So the question is: Can the mind that is small, petty, be transformed into something which is not bound by its own limitations?

J Krishnamurti

The Collected Works vol X, pp 155-156

The purpose of human existence

Questioner: What is the ultimate reason or purpose of human existence?

J Krishnamurti: Do you know any purposes? The way we live has no meaning and no purpose. We can invent a purpose, the purpose of perfection, enlightenment, reaching the highest form of sensitivity; we can invent endless theories. And we are caught in those theories, making them our problems.

Our daily life has no meaning, no purpose, except to make a bit of money and lead an idiotic kind of life. One can observe all this, not in theory but actually in oneself; the endless battle in oneself, seeking a purpose, seeking enlightenment, going all over the world—specially to India or to Japan—to learn a technique of meditation.

You can invent a thousand purposes but you need not go anywhere, not to the Himalayas, to a monastery, or to any ashram—which is another form of concentration camp—because everything is in you.

The highest, the immeasurable, is in you, if you know how to look. Do not assume it is there; that is one of the stupid tricks we play upon ourselves: that we are God, that we are the ‘perfect’ and all the rest of that childish stuff. Yet through the illusion, through ‘what is’, through the measurable, you find something that is immeasurable; but you must begin with yourself, where you can discover for yourself how to look.

Beyond Violence, pp 106-107

The Secret

J. Krishnamurti, the great Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher, spoke and traveled almost continuously all over the world for more than fifty years - attempting to convey through words—which are content—that which is beyond words, beyond content. At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he surprised his audience by asking, "Do you want to know my secret?"

Everyone became very alert. Many people in the audience had been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still failed to grasp the essence of his teaching. Finally, after all these years, the master would give them the key to understanding. "This is my secret," he said. "I don't mind what happens."