J. Krishnamurti - Teachings

There is no Eastern thinking or Western thinking, there is only thinking. Truth is not yours or mine. It has no path to it. A mind that is religious does not belong to any nationality, has no belief, but such a mind has exercised the quality of doubt so that it questions, doesn't obey the edicts of any religion, sect, or guru. We have banished religion from our life. We have banished death from our life. We have postponed it. Why do we banish the actual demand for truth? Why does the mind...

Why is there this inward disorder which naturally must express itself in outward disorder? Can there be absolute order? What is the cause of the division in us as well as in the world? Detachment is attachment. If I try to become detached I am attached to that detachment. When there is complete attention there is no confusion. When there is fear we become violent, we want to destroy in the name of god, in the name of religion, in the name of social revolution. If you realise that fear is you...

Can the brain change itself completely? Doubt purges the mind. Desire has significance and vitality only when thought creates the image. Insight can only take place when knowledge has come to an end and there is merely a pure observation, without any direction. Is it possible to live together without a single image? Can there be discontent by itself, or is it always associated with something? Can the mind be free of all comparisons?

Psychologically, we are the world. And the world is us, each one of us. Our responsibility is something global, not just for one's family, for one's children; those are important, but we are responsible for the whole of mankind because we are mankind. Can one actually be free of all attachment? What will persuade you, what will make you, what will drive you, what will influence you to change? Thought by its very nature is fragmentary, and we, our struggle, the whole of our being, is the...

Can we observe together what is living and what it means to die? Is it possible while one is living, with all the turmoil, with that energy, capacity, to end attachment? Why has religion played such a great part in our lives from the most ancient times until today? A religious mind is complete without the disorder. In meditation there is no system, no practice; but the clarity of perception of a mind that is free, that has no direction, no choice, and is free to observe. Conflict exists only...

The crisis is not in the economic world nor in the political world, but in our consciousness. We have been trained, educated, religiously as well as scholastically, that we are separate souls, individuals, striving for ourselves, but that is an illusion because our consciousness is common to all mankind. We are mankind. We are not separate individuals fighting for ourselves. Why have human beings, who have lived for over a million years, not solved this problem of relationship? The thought...

There is no psychological evolution | J. Krishnamurti Extract from Public Talk #3, Madras (Chennai), India, 1979