Krishnamurti What Are You Seeking ?

The Collected Works of J Krishnamurti 1934 - 1935
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-912875-13-9
Verlag: Krishnamurti Foundation America
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 145 Seiten

In these talks, given in Ojai and India, Krishnamurti discusses the nature of the observer. He states in the beginning, 'to understand the confusion and misery that exist in ourselves, and in the world, we must first find clarity within ourselves and this clarity comes about through right thinking...Right thinking comes with self knowledge. Without understanding yourself, you have no basis for thought; without self-knowledge what you think is not true.'

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.'

Autoren/Hrsg.

Krishnamurti, J.

Leseproben

Ojai, California, 1946

First Talk in The Oak Grove

Though this is not a small group we will try to have a free and serious discussion instead of turning these gatherings into question and answer meetings. Some, no doubt, would prefer uninterrupted talks, but it seems to me to be more advantageous for all of us to join in a purposeful discussion which requires earnestness and sustained interest.

For what are we striving? What is it that each one is seeking? Until we are aware of our separate pursuits, it is not possible to establish right relationship between us. One might be seeking fulfillment and success, another wealth and power, another fame and popularity; some may wish to accumulate and some to renounce; there might be some who are earnestly seeking to dissolve the ego, while others may wish merely to talk about it. Is it not important for us to find out what it is we are seeking? To extricate ourselves from the confusion and misery in and about us, we must be aware of our instinctive and cultivated desires and tendencies. We think and feel in terms of achievement, of gain and loss, and so there is constant strife; but there is a way of living, a state of being, in which conflict and sorrow have no place.

So to make these discussions fruitful it is necessary, is it not, first to understand our own intentions. When we observe what is taking place in our lives and in the world, we perceive that most of us, in subtle or crude ways, are occupied with the expansion of the self. We crave self-expansion now or in the future; for us life is a process of the continuous expansion of the ego through power, wealth, asceticism, or the cultivation of virtue and so on. Not only for the individual but for the group, for the nation, this process signifies fulfilling, becoming, growing and has ever led to great disasters and miseries. We are ever striving within the framework of the self, however much it may be enlarged and glorified. If this be your aim, and mine wholly different, then we will have no relationship though we may meet; then our discussions will be purposeless and confused. So first we must be very clear in our intention. We must be clear and definite as to what we are seeking. Are we craving self-expansion, the constant nourishment of the ego, the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’, or are we seeking to understand and so transcend the process of the self? Will self-expansion bring about understanding, enlightenment; or is there illumination, liberation, only when the process of self-expansion has ceased? Can we reveal ourselves sufficiently to discern in which direction our interest lies? You must have come here with serious intent; therefore we will discuss in order to clarify that intent, and consider if our daily life indicates what our pursuits are and whether we are nourishing the ego or not. So these discussions can be a means of self-exposure to each one of us. In this self-exposure we will discover the true significance of life.

Must we not first have freedom to discover? There can be no freedom if our action is ever enclosing. Is not the action of the ego, the sense of the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’, ever a process of limitation? We are trying to find out, are we not, if the process of self-expansion leads to reality or if reality comes into being only when the self ceases.

Question: Must one not go through the self-expansive process in order to realize the immeasurable?

KRISHNAMURTI: May I put the same question differently? Must one go through drunkenness to know sobriety? Must one go through the various states of craving only to renounce them?

Question: Can one do anything with regard to this self-expansive process?

KRISHNAMURTI: May I elaborate this question? We are, are we not, positively encouraging through many actions the expansion of the ego. Our tradition, our education, our social conditioning sustain positively the activities of the ego. This positive activity may take a negative form—not to be something. So our action is still a positive or negative activity of the self. Through centuries of tradition and education, thought accepts as natural and inevitable the self-expansive life, positively or negatively. How can thought free itself from this conditioning? How can it be tranquil, silent? If there is that stillness, that is, if it is not caught in self-expansive processes, then there is reality.

Question: If I rightly understand, surely you are reaching way out into the abstract, are you not? You are speaking about reincarnation, I presume?

KRISHNAMURTI: I am not, sir, nor am I reaching out into the abstract. Our social and religious structure is based on the urge to become something, positively or negatively. Such a process is the very nourishment of the ego through name, family, achievement, through identification of the ‘me’ and ‘mine’, which is ever causing conflict and sorrow. We perceive the results of this way of life—strife, confusion, and antagonism, ever spreading, ever engulfing. How is one to transcend strife and sorrow? This is what we are attempting to understand during these discussions.

Is not craving the very root of the self? How is thought, which has become the means of self-expansion, to act without giving sustenance to the ego, the cause of conflict and sorrow? Is this not an important question? Do not let me make it important to you. Is this not a vital question to each one? If it is, must we not find the true answer? We are nourishing the ego in many ways, and before we condemn or encourage, we must understand its significance, must we not? We use religion and philosophy as a means of self-expansion; our social structure is based on the aggrandizement of the self; the clerk will become the manager and later the owner, the pupil will become the Master and so on. In this process there is ever conflict, antagonism, sorrow. Is this an intelligent and inevitable process? We can discover truth for ourselves only when we do not depend on another; no specialist can give us the right answer. Each one has to find the right answer directly for himself. For this reason it is important to be earnest.

We vary in our earnestness according to circumstances, our moods and fancies. Earnestness must be independent of circumstances and moods, of persuasion and hope. We often think that perhaps through shock we shall be made earnest, but dependence is never productive of earnestness. Earnestness comes into being with inquiring awareness, and are we so alertly aware? If you are aware you will realize that your mind is constantly engaged in the activities of the ego and its identification; if you pursue this activity further, you will find the deep-seated self-interest. These thoughts of self-interest arise from the needs of daily life, things you do from moment to moment, your role in society and so on, all of which build up the structure of the ego. This seems so strangely inevitable, but before we accept this inevitability, must we not be aware of our purposive intention, whether we desire to nourish the ego or not? For according to our hidden intentions we will act. We know how the self is built up and strengthened through the pleasure and pain principle, through memory, through identification and so on. This process is the cause of conflict and sorrow. Do we earnestly seek to put an end to the cause of sorrow?

Question: How do we know our intention is right before we understand the truth of the matter? If we do not first comprehend truth, then we shall go off the beam, founding communities, forming groups, having half-baked ideas. Is it not necessary, as you have suggested, to know oneself first? I have tried to write down my thoughts-feelings as has been suggested, but I find myself blocked and unable to follow my thoughts right through.

KRISHNAMURTI: Through being choicelessly aware of your intentions, the truth of the matter is known. We are often blocked because, unconsciously, we are afraid to take action which might lead to further trouble and suffering. But no clear and definite action can take place if we have not uncovered our deep and hidden intention with regard to nourishing and maintaining the self.

Is not this fear which hinders understanding the result of projection, speculation? You imagine that freedom from self-expansion is a state of nothingness, an emptiness, and this creates fear, thus preventing any actual experience. Through speculation, through imagination, you prevent the discovery of what is. As the self is in constant flux, we seek, through identification, permanency. Identification brings about the illusion of permanency, and it is the loss of this which causes fear. We recognize that the self is in constant flux, yet we cling to something which we call the permanent in the self, an enduring self which we fabricate out of the impermanent self. If we deeply experienced and understood that the self is ever impermanent, then there would be no identification with any particular form of craving, with any particular country, nation, or with any organized system of thought or religion, for with identification comes the horror of war, the ruthlessness of so-called civilization.

Question: Is the fact of this constant flux not enough to make us identify? It seems to me that we cling to something called the ‘me’, the self, for it is a pleasant habit of sound. We know a river even when it is dry; similarly we cling to something that is ‘me’ even though we know its impermanency. The ‘me’ is shallow or deep, in full flood or dry, but it is always the ‘me’ to be encouraged, nourished, maintained at any cost. Why must the...