U. G. Krishnamurti

“ I think, therefore, I am. If you don't think it never occurs to you that you are alive or dead. Since we think all the time, the very birth of thought creates fear, and it is out of fear that all experience springs. ”

“ Man has always lived in hope and will probably die in hope. In the light of the tremendous destructive power he now has at his command, he will probably take every other form of life with him when he goes. This is not my doomsday song, but when you look realistically at our situation this seems to be the lot of us all, like it or not. You are mistaken if you think or hope that we can put the whole momentum of human history on a different track. We need to be saved from those saviors who promise the millennium just around the corner. ”

“ Even if you try to pluck a fruit from a tree, the tree belongs to someone or to society. So you have to become a part of society. That's why I always say that the world does not owe a living to me. If I wish to enjoy the benefits of organized society, I must contribute something to it. This society has created us all. Society is always interested in the status quo, in maintaining its own continuity. ”

“ The actual sunset is beyond your experiencing structure to capture. The observer is the observed. You cannot separate yourself from what you see. The moment you separate yourself from the sunset, the poet in you comes out. Out of that separation poets and painters have tried to express themselves, to share their experiences with others. All that is culture. Culture induces its own responses. ”

“ Both "inner" and "outer" worlds proceed from a point of thought. Everything you experience is born out of thought. So, everything you experience, or can experience, is an illusion. The self-absorption in thought creates a self-centeredness in man; that is all that is there. All relationships based upon that will inevitably create misery for man. These are bogus relationships. As far as you are concerned, there is no such thing as a relationship. And yet society demands not just relationships, but permanent relationships. ”

“ India is not in a position to affect the world. Although there is no sure way to divide up opinions into spiritual, political, or otherwise. You may call this a political opinion. How can India give direction to or influence the world? India has neither the power nor the moral status. The spirituality you claim does not actually work in the life of the country. You have to show the world that the oneness of life you have preached for centuries operates in the daily life of this country, as well as in the lives of individuals. That is difficult. No one is interested in what India says or does. ”

“ In order to concentrate or focus on one thing you must block out the others. By concentrating upon what you take to be "nothing", you withdraw and separate yourself from the natural flow of life through and around you. You are part of a generalized magnetic field and what separates you from others is thought. You are concerned only with your happiness and unhappiness, the video set you are watching. ”

“ Man's insistence that thought must be continuous denies the nature of thought, which is short-lived. Thought has created for itself a separate destiny. It has been very successful in creating for itself a separate parallel existence. ”

“ The military wars out there are the extension of what is going on all the time inside you. Why is there a war waging inside you? Because you search for peace. The instrument you are using in your attempt to be at peace with yourself is war. There is already peace in man. You need not search. The living organism is functioning in an extraordinarily peaceful way. Man's search for truth is born out of this same search for peace. He only ends up disturbing and violating the peace that is already there in the body. So what we are left with is the war within man, and the war without. ”

“ What do you want to do with the trees? They are not even self-conscious that they are useful to other forms of life, providing shade.... Like the tree, I am never conscious that I can be of service to anyone. ”

“ You see, it all depends on what we mean by culture. That part of culture that promises you peace, bliss, heaven, moksha, and selflessness is the problem. To separate the rest of culture—how you entertain yourself, how you eat, your work habits, and language—from this counter-reality created by culture is a mistake. The so-called savages are functioning in exactly the same way we are functioning today. Basically, there is no difference. In either the primitive or modern cultures there is no peace.
Q: So your message is that man cannot be at peace with himself. ”

“ This was really my problem, you know.
Q: You reject things on both sentimental and rational grounds. What is left?
U.G.: It is like the man who is riding a tiger and is thrown off. The tiger, maintaining its own momentum, continues on—it's gone. That's all there is to it. You cannot do anything with the tiger anymore. So you never again have the fear of encountering or riding the tiger. It is finished. It has gone. So I think there is little point in my doing anything in society—it has its own momentum. ”

“ Don't you think that an individual who has seen the light should lighten the way for others? Don't you feel some sense of responsibility for your fellow beings? Isn't it incumbent upon you to share with the world the truth you have "stumbled upon"? ”

“ If what you are saying is true, the no one has any freedom of action, for everything one does has a cause, and all causes have a final cause.
U.G.: Aha! Why do you assume that everything must have a beginning, an ultimate cause? Cause-and-effect may be just a casual thing. Events may just occur, just happen. The whole process of evolution may be just another happening, a causeless event. Why must you insist that everything must have a creator, that the whole thing must have sprung from some ultimate cause? ”

“ Marxism as a religion has failed. Even Maoism is dead. Even the Marxist countries are looking for a new God now. They have lost faith in man and are once again looking for a new God, new Church, new Bible, and a new priest. ”

“ You actually have no way of looking at the sunset because you are not separate from the sunset, much less writing poetry about it. The experience you have, the extraordinary experience you have when looking at a sunset you want to share. Using poetry, music, or painting as a medium, you attempt to share your experience with another person. ”

“ We take it for granted that we can channel life in the direction we want, but there is no guarantee we will succeed. Events are really independent of one another. We create and put them together. We have created the philosophical structure of thought, but that does not mean that there is a pattern or purpose for everything. ”

“ Your ruminations about other forms of life and other worlds is just a wish for unlimited extension into the future and far-off places. Thought is trying to give itself continuity, and speculations about the future and undiscovered worlds is a convenient way to do it! ”

“ You corrupt that feeling, the immediate response, which is not just a thought or petty emotion, when you attempt to institutionalize generosity and empathy. It is the immediate response to the situation that counts.
Q: Institutionalization is the attempt to take a one-time situation and a one-time response and make out of them a continuous, predictable response. A single act of a good Samaritan becomes a way of looking at and doing things generally. Loving thy neighbor becomes a fact when everyone is doing it as a matter of course, not as a result of isolated acts of compassion. ”

“ By positing the unknown, the Beyond, the immortal, it has created for itself a way to continue on. There is no timeless, only time. When thought creates time, a space is created there; so thought is also space as well. Thought also creates matter; no thought, no matter. Thought is a manifestation or expression of life, and to make of it a separate thing, impute to it a life of its own, and then allow it to create a future for its own unobstructed continuity, is man's tragedy.
Q: But if thought can create matter, how do you explain phenomena like Sai Baba producing watches out of thin air? ”

“ In that state there are no longer two things—lover and beloved, pursuer and pursued. What you call "a beautiful woman"—which is an idea—gives way to something else. And there comes a time when you can't love her in the old way any more. ”

“ The only difference between the East and the West is the difference in our religions. Christianity has not produced such weird characters as we have in this country. Here religion is an individual affair. Each one has set up his own shop and is selling his particular wares. That's why we have the variety here, which is lacking in the West. This variety is the most attractive part of our so-called heritage. Hinduism is not a religion. ”

“ You will only succeed in creating disturbances within the body, disturbing the harmony that is already there. By bringing about strange hallucinations and unnatural metabolic changes you only harm the body. That's all there is to it. There is nothing you can do to reverse this, to change direction.
Q: Not even a radical, even if temporary, break from tradition? If one could divorce one's actions from thought, one might be able to act without guilt, and without worrying about the consequences of one's actions. Action would be freed to do new, creative things perhaps. ”

“ Romanticism is not my reality. Nothing has ever, or will ever, sweep me off my feet. It is not that I am the opposite of that, a man of reason. It is the element of reason in me that revolted against itself. ”

“ I know all about these saviors, saints, and sages. They have all cheated themselves and fooled everybody. But you may be sure that I am not going to be fooled by anybody. I am in a position to say they are ALL wrong. The "change', if that is the word you want to use, that occurred to me is a purely physiological event, with no mystical or spiritual overtones at all. Anybody who gives a religious slant to any physical happening like this is kidding himself and is kidding the whole of mankind. The more clever and cunning you are, the more successful you will be in persuading people. ”

“ It doesn't have the necessary stature to affect world events. The only thing about India that interests the rest of the world is the question, "What will happen to her millions and millions of people? In which direction, towards what camp, is she going to move?" ”

“ I am not a savior of mankind, or any such thing. People come here. Why they come is not my concern. They come out of their own free will and volition because they have heard of me or out of sheer curiosity. ”

“ You view and experience things from a different viewpoint than others, that's all. You think that you are having a subjective experience of an objective thing. There is nothing there, only your relative, experiential data, your "truth". There is no such thing as objective truth at all. There is nothing which exists "outside" or independent of our minds. ”

“ The demand for survival and the need to reproduce oneself is inherent in the nature of life. Your sexuality, your progeny, your family structure, and so much more is an extension of this basic natural drive to survive and procreate. ”

“ First of all, you see, to divide life into the material and the spiritual has absolutely no meaning to me. All this hogwash about spiritual life is born out of the assumption that there is a spirit which has an independent existence of its own. ”

“ Now the problem is greatly increased by the fact that our technologies guarantee the extinction of all life forms, not just man, in the event war breaks out at the higher levels.
U.G.: The day man felt this self-consciousness in him, which made him feel superior to every other species on the planet, is the day he set out on the road to complete and total self-destruction. If man is destroyed, probably nothing is lost. ”

“ Inspiration is a meaningless thing. So many things and people inspire us, but the actions born out of inspiration are meaningless. Lost, desperate people create a market for inspiration. So, I am not interested in inspiring anybody. All inspired action will eventually destroy you and your kind. ”

“ Those who have claimed such things have fooled themselves and others. All of them are wrong. Not that I am superior to them or any such thing; it is just that they are making claims that have no real basis at all. That was and is my certainty. There is no power in the world that can make me accept anything. ”

“ Man has always wanted to entertain himself with something or the other. The rituals have provided him with the necessary entertainment over the years, and now they have been replaced by movies, videos, television, circuses, J. Krishnamurti talks, and the whole lot. There are many of them, you see. Each one is trying to sell his own particular brand of cigarettes, his own particular commodity. ”

“ Haven't you ever been carried away by anything, say, a beautiful woman, a beautiful sunset, or a beautiful piece of music? Has nothing ever totally swamped you and made you want to go away from everything, I don't know where to...? ”

“ Humility is an art that one practices. There is no such thing as humility. As long as you know, there is no humility there. The known and humility cannot coexist. In saying this I am not giving you a new definition of humility. ”