Most of us waste this extraordinary thing called life. We have lived forty or sixty years, have gone to the office, engaged ourselves in social activ… - Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Engraved portrait of Jiddu Krishnamurti, facing right

Most of us waste this extraordinary thing called life. We have lived forty or sixty years, have gone to the office, engaged ourselves in social activity, escaping in various forms, and at the end of it, we have nothing but an empty, dull, stupid life, a wasted life.

Now, pleasure has created this pattern of social life. We take pleasure in ambition, in competition, in acquiring knowledge or power, or position, prestige, status. And that pursuit of pleasure as ambition, competition, greed, envy, status, domination, power is respectable. It is made respectable by a society which has only one concept: that you shall lead a moral life, which is a respectable life. You can be ambitious, you can be greedy, you can be violent, you can be competitive, you can be a ruthless human being, but society accepts it, because at the end of your ambition, you are either so called successful man with plenty of money, or a failure and therefore a frustrated human being. So social morality is immorality.

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About Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti (11 May 1895 – 17 February 1986) was a spiritual teacher, public speaker, and writer, on psychological, sociological, and spiritual subjects.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Pen Names: K
Native Name: జిడ్డు
Alternative Names: J. Krishnamurti Krishnamurti J Krishnamurti Jiddu Krishnamurthy Alsion K.

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Additional quotes by Jiddu Krishnamurti

What is important in meditation is the quality of the mind and the heart.It is not what you achieve, or what you say you attain, but rather the quality of a mind that is innocent and vulnerable.

If you do not follow somebody you feel very lonely. Be lonely
then. Why are you frightened of being alone? Because you are
faced with yourself as you are and you find that you are empty,
dull, stupid, ugly, guilty and anxious - a petty, shoddy, secondhand
entity. Face the fact; look at it, do not run away from it. The
moment you run away fear begins.

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Thought itself must deny itself. Thought itself sees what it is doing and therefore thought itself realizes that it has to come of itself to an end. There is no other factor than itself. Therefore when thought realizes that whatever it does, any movement that it makes, is disorder (we are taking that as an example) then there is silence.

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