Quotes from Jiddu Krishnamurti

Life behind all form is one, the expressions of that life are not of very great importance.

To be whole, nonfragmented in action, in life, in every kind of relationship, that is the very essence of sanity. Sanity means to be whole, healthy and holy.

To bring about a fundamental, radical revolution, we must begin with ourselves.

We never look deeply into the quality of a tree; we never really touch it, feel its solidity, its rough bark, and hear the sound that is part of the tree. Not the sound of wind through the leaves, not the breeze of a morning that flutters the leaves, but its own sound, the sound of the trunk and the silent sound of the roots.

You must look most intimately and discover for yourself; then it is your own, not somebody else's, not something that you have been told, because there is no teacher and no follower.

If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.

Buddha called himself 'The Enlightened One' and Jesus called himself 'The Son of God'. To me the term 'World-Teacher' is of as little importance as 'The Son of God' or 'The Enlightened One'.

Charity is unconscious of itself, there is no accumulation first and then distribution. It is like the flower - natural, open, spontaneous.

Life is both pleasure and pain, is it not? But why should we cling to pleasure and avoid pain? Why not merely live with both? If you cling to pleasure what happens? You get attached, do you not?

Can I live a life, daily life, without sense of self-concern?

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw's plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education?

Have you ever asked yourselves what you are going to do when you grow up? In all likelihood you will get married, and before you know where you are, you will be mothers and fathers; and you will then be tied to a job, or to the kitchen, in which you will gradually wither away. Is that all that your life is going to be?

All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.

The movement of search can only be from the known to the known, and all that the mind can do is to be aware that this movement will never uncover the unknown. Any movement on the part of the known is still within the field of the known.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

What religion a man holds, to what race he belongs, these things are not important; the really important thing is this knowledge: the knowledge of God's plan for men. For God has a plan, and that plan is evolution.

The function of education is to help you from childhood not to imitate anybody, but be yourself all the time.

We have so committed ourselves in different ways that we have hardly any time for self-reflection, to observe, to study.

If one has fear, there can be no initiative in the creative sense of the word. To have initiative in this sense is to do something original - to do it spontaneously, naturally, without being guided, forced, controlled. It is to do something which you love to do.

It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one's own desires through which one listens.

Is there a meditation that is not the ego trying to become? Is meditation conscious if every effort implies time?

Tradition implies authority, conformity, imitation, following.

Wherever there is a suitable environment for the fulfilment of Life, it will fulfil itself.