Question: What is enlightenment? Answer: Again this is one of those words that have come from India – to be enlightened. To be enlightened about what? Please let us be rational. For instance, one is enlightened about one’s relationship with another. That is, one has understood that one’s relationship with another is based on one’s image […]
Question: What do you mean by love? Krishnamurti: We are going to discover by understanding what love is not, because, as love is the unknown, we must come to it by discarding the known. The unknown cannot be discovered by a mind that is full of the known. What we are going to do is […]
I see there are several questions here, and before we go into them may I point out that we seem to live on explanations. You put a question and if there is an answer to it we are either satisfied or dissatisfied, and explanations, descriptions and commentaries are really a lot of words, a lot […]
I ask of any book three basic questions: 1.Is it human centered or god-centered? 2.Is it this world-centered or other world-centered? 3.Is it optimistic or pessimistic? When it passes all the three tests by adopting the former of the pairs, I take the book and read it. One can ask: How can you judge before […]
Body like dry bone Mind like dead ashes This is true knowledge Not to strive after knowing the whence. In darkness, in obscurity The mindless* cannot plan- What manner of man is that? – Chuang-tzu * (wu-hsin; no-mind) It is painful to learn about his ordeal of four-time surgical removal of the tumor,medically termed tumourectomy, […]
Questioner: May I interrupt a moment, sir? I wonder if the group might find it a little more interesting if you could address yourself to some of the striking statements that are in your tapes and books that I have read. I will give you an example of the sort of thing that could be […]
6th Question: Kindly give a straight reply. Does god exist, or not? Yes, or no? If yes, how best to realize him in this life? (Laughs) This is a lovely question, isn’t it? (Laughter) Man throughout history from the ancient Greeks, from the ancient Sumerians, has had this idea of god. Right? I am not at all sure whether in the Upanishads […]
Questioner: Will the practice of Yoga as it is being done in Europe and America help to bring about a spiritual awakening? Is it true that Yoga will awaken deeper energy, which is called Kundalini? Krishnamurti: May I read it once more? Is it not necessary? Audience: No. Krishnamurti: Right. The so-called Yoga which the west and part of the east in India, was invented […]
Questioner: I would like to talk about suicide – not because of any crisis in my own life, nor because I have any reason for suicide, but because the subject is bound to come up when one sees the tragedy of old age – the tragedy of physical disintegration, the breaking up of the body, […]
Question: We know sex as an inescapable physical and psychological necessity and it seems to be a root cause of chaos in the personal life of our generation. How can we deal with this problem? Krishnamurti: Why is it that whatever we touch we turn into a problem? We have made God a problem, we […]
The biggest conundrum with regard to the teachings of Buddha is the idea of non self, anata. It poses an insurmountable challenge for an ordinary mind to understand what it means in its truest sense, as it were perceived by the Buddha after his awakening. What is meant by ordinary mind here is an unprocessed […]
Introduction The five basic elements – known as Pancamahabhutas – have their own history in the Indian (both Hindu and Buddhist) literature. They are discussed in different philosophical systems, interpreted thematically in different contexts such as religion, aesthetics, ecology, astrology etc. The basic concept implied here is harmony, interconnections between Religion, philosophy and medicine. Here […]