Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes

We all want to be famous people — and the moment we want to be something, we are no longer free.

To understand life is to understand ourselves, and that is both the beginning and the end of education.

A mind that is in meditation is concerned only with meditation, not with the meditator. The meditator is the observer, the senser, the thinker, the experiencer, and when there is the experiencer, the thinker, then he is concerned with reaching out, gaining, achieving, experiencing. And that thing which is timeless cannot be experienced. There is no experience at all. There is only that which is not nameable. ...You know, in all this there are various powers like clairvoyance, reading somebody’s thought — which is the most disgusting thing to do: it is like reading letters that are private. There are various powers. You know what I am talking about, don’t you? You call them siddhis, don’t you? Do you know that all these things are like candles in the sun? When there is no sun there is darkness, and then the candle and the light of the candle become very important. But when there is the sun, the light, the beauty, the clarity, then all these powers, these siddhis — developing various centres, chakras, kundalini, you know all that business — are like candlelight; they have no value at all. And when you have that light, you don’t want anything else.

Love is love, not to be defined or described by the mind as exclusive or inclusive. Love is its own eternity: it is the real, the supreme, the immeasurable.

There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.

You must be a light unto yourself.

If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.

Woke up early this morning with an enormous sense of power, beauty and incorruptibility…in which nothing could exist that could become corrupt, deteriorate. It was too immense for the brain to grasp…limitless, untouchable, impenetrable. Because of its incorruptibility, there was in it beauty. Not the beauty that fades… One felt that in its presence all essence exists and so it was sacred. It was a life in which nothing could perish…With it all there was a sense of power – strength as solid as that mountain. (...) Yesterday, driving through the narrow valley … there was this benediction. It was very strong and everything was bathed in it.The noise of the stream was part of it and the high waterfall… It was like the gentle rain … and one became utterly vulnerable; the body seemed to have become light as a leaf, exposed and trembling. This went on … talk became monosyllabic. The beauty of it seemed incredible.

It is only in alert silence that truth can be.

"Meditation is one of the most serious things; you do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody "I love you", when you are considering your children, when you educate them to become soldiers, to kill, to be nationalized, worshipping the flag, educating them to enter into this trap of the modern world; watching all that, realizing your part in it, all that is part of meditation. And when you so meditate you will find in it an extraordinary beauty; you will act rightly at every moment; and if you do not act rightly at a given moment it does not matter, you will pick it up again - you will not waste time in regret. Meditation is part of life, not something different from life."

Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed. Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action.

So freedom lies, not in trying to become something different, nor in doing whatever you happen to feel like doing, nor in following the authority of tradition, of your parents, of your guru, but in understanding what you are from moment to moment.

To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to understand ourselves and not to leave it to others to transform themselves or to bring about a modified change through revolution, either of the left or of the right. It is important to understand that this is our responsibility, yours and mine...

You have to be a light to yourself in a world that is utterly becoming dark.

Alone has quite a different meaning; alone has beauty. To be alone means something entirely different. And you must be alone. When man frees himself from the social structure of greed, envy, ambition, arrogance, achievement, status — when he frees himself from those, then he is completely alone. That is quite a different thing. Then there is great beauty, the feeling of great energy.