Jiddu Krishnamurti

The man considered to be enlightened by hindu sannyasins, tibetan lamas etc, even though he heavily criticized any form of organized religion.

In my view the greatest philosopher of 20th century.

Here are some of his quotes:

- "All existence is choice; only in aloneness there is no choice. Choice, in every form, is conflict. Contradiction is inevitable in choice; this contradiction, inner and outer breeds confusion and misery. To escape from this misery, gods, beliefs, nationalism, commitment to various patterns of activities become compulsive necessities. Having escaped, they become all important and escape is the way of illusion; then fear and anxiety set in. Despair and sorrow is the way of choice and there is no end to pain. Choice, selection, must always exist as long as there is the chooser, the accumulated memory of pain and pleasure, and every experience of choice only strengthens memory whose response becomes thought and feeling. Memory has only a partial significance, to respond mechanically; this response is choice. There is no freedom in choice. You choose according to the background you have been brought up in, according to to your social, economic, religious conditioning. Choice invariably strengthens this conditioning; there is no escape from this conditioning, it only breeds more suffering. [...] Choice is always breeding misery. Watch it and you will see it, lurking, demanding, insisting and begging, and before you know where you are you are caught in its net of inescapable duties, responsibilities and despairs. Watch it and you will be aware of the fact. Be aware of the fact; you cannot change the fact; you may cover it up, run away from it, but you cannot change it. It is there. If you will let it alone, not interfering with it with your opinions and hopes, fears and despairs, with your calculated and cunning judgements, it will flower and show all its intricacies, its subtle ways and there are many, its seeming importance and ethics, its hidden motives and fancies. If you will leave the fact alone, it will show you all these and more. But you must be choicelessly aware of it, walking softly. Then you will see that choice, having flowered, dies and there is freedom, not that you are free but there is freedom. You are the maker of choice; you have ceased to make choice. There is nothing to choose. Out of this choiceless state there flowers aloneness. Its death is never ending. It is always flowering and it is always new. Dying to the known is to be alone. All choice is in the field of the known; action in this field always breeds sorrow. There is the ending of sorrow in aloneness." From Krishnamurti's Notebook (written 1961/62), Harper & Row , 1984; ISBN 0-06-064795-7 ---

- "To the so-called religious to be sensitive is to sin, an evil reserved for the worldly; to the religious the beautiful is temptation, to be resisted; it's an evil distraction to be denied. Good works are not a substitute for love, and without love all activity leads to sorrow, noble or ignoble. The essence of affection is sensitivity and without it all worship is an escape from reality. To the monk, to the sanyasi, the senses are the way of pain, save thought which must be dedicated to the god of their conditioning. But thought is of the senses. It is thought that puts together time and it is thought that makes sensitivity sinful. To go beyond thought is virtue and that virtue is heightened sensitivity which is love. Love and there is no sin; love and do what you will and then there is no sorrow." From Krishnamurti's Notebook (written 1961/62), Harper & Row , 1984; ISBN 0-06-064795-7

- "All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary." J. Krishnamurti, "Freedom from the Known," p.21

- "We have been told that all paths lead to truth -- you have your path as a Hindu and someone else has his path as a Christian and another as a Muslim, and they all meet at the same door -- which is, when you look at it, so obviously absurd. Truth has no path, and that is the beauty of truth, it is living. A dead thing has a path to it because it is static, but when you see that truth is something living, moving, which has no resting place, which is in no temple, mosque or church, which no religion, no teacher, no philosopher, nobody can lead you to -- then you will also see that this living thing is what you actually are -- your anger, your brutality, your violence, your despair, the agony and sorrow you live in. In the understanding of all this is the truth, and you can understand it only if you know how to look at those things in your life. And you cannot look through an ideology, through a screen of words, through hopes and fears. So you see that you cannot depend on anybody. There IS no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you -- your relationship with others and the world -- there is nothing else." J. Krishnamurti Page 15, 'Freedom From the Known', HarperSanFrancisco, ISBN 0-06-064808-2

More Quotes

"All existence is choice; only in aloneness Oneness there is no choice. Choice, in every form, is conflict. Other than the formless. Contradiction is inevitable in choice; this contradiction, inner and outer breeds confusion and misery. The nature of our existence in this Causal Realm. To escape from this misery, gods, beliefs, nationalism, commitment to various patterns of activities become compulsive necessities. Having escaped, they become all important and escape is the way of illusion; then fear and anxiety set in. Despair and sorrow is the way of choice and there is no end to pain. The Mind holds us in this illusion. Choice, selection, must always exist as long as there is the chooser, as long as there is Mind the accumulated memory of pain and pleasure, the cycle of Chaurasi and every experience of choice only strengthens memory whose response becomes thought and feeling. Memory has only a partial significance, to respond mechanically; this response is choice. There is no freedom in choice. You choose according to the background you have been brought up in, your karmas according to your social, economic, religious conditioning.The family and cultural narrative. Choice invariably strengthens this conditioning; there is no escape from this conditioning, it only breeds more suffering. We are trapped in the net of this illusion. Choice is always breeding misery. Watch it and you will see it, lurking, demanding, insisting and begging, and before you know where you are you are caught in its net of inescapable duties, responsibilities and despairs. Watch it and you will be aware of the fact. Be aware of the fact; you cannot change the fact; you may cover it up, run away from it, but you cannot change it. It is there. The Mind If you will let it alone, not interfering with it with your opinions and hopes, fears and despairs, with your calculated and cunning judgements, it will flower and show all its intricacies, its subtle ways and there are many, its seeming importance and ethics, its hidden motives and fancies. If you will leave the fact alone, it will show you all these and more. But you must be choicelessly aware of it, walking softly. Karmaless Action, Where there is no Mind there is No Karma (Choice) Then you will see that choice, having flowered, dies and there is freedom, not that you are free but there is freedom. You are the maker of choice; you have ceased to make choice. There is nothing to choose. Out of this choiceless state there flowers aloneness. There Flowers Oneness Its death is never ending. It is always flowering and it is always new. Dying to the known is to be alone. Dying while living, ~ meditation on the sound current. All choice is in the field of the known; action in this field always breeds sorrow. The Causal Realm, the Realm of Illusion. There is the ending of sorrow in aloneness." Merging into the Sound Current and becoming One with the Shabd.

Zenkris, I have always enjoyed the way he speaks as it takes very careful attention to understand what he is saying. One on the most important things I remember he said was to do with listening, consciously listening, putting your full attention into what another person is saying. This is the only way that we will hear what another person says and if we are to have a conversation then, this it is our duty to listen.

I have a list of 3 most profound people, 1~ Param Sant Satguru Baba Sawan Singh Ji Maharaj; 2 ~ Meher Baba; 3 ~ Krishnamurti.

nice to see you read the quotes i posted, mira4bai4.

i find that in this day and age most people don't have either the patience or the mental power to read someone like k.

i like it that he points out directly to our illusions instead of giving us a substitute.
for example in the school of advaita god is also considered an illusion, but they mostly (with a few exceptions) teach that worship can be useful while we are still in illusion ourselves. krishnamurti doesn't give any room to any illusions.

mostly i like that his work can be read over and over again, and each time you (at least think you) understand more and gain new insights. i know much of the "spiritual litterature" claims the same, but for me most of it can be read max. 2 or 3 times.

but i find he is a unique case in recent "spiritual" history that he is strongly respected even by people whose work and philosophy he is attacking.
i used to stay in an ashram in kerala, called anandashram, where they had his photo on the wall next to guys like jesus, buddha and ramakrishna. and that even though the ashram's guru was opposed to some things krishnamurti said/wrote.

I find that many things that JK write are cloaked, almost a double speak, depends where your head is at the time. I started off watching a couple of videos on conversations with JK, it was much easier as you could rewind and play back over an over until you saw the pattern or the picture that was being painted. It is all an interesting language.

Meher Baba, in his book God Speaks, is very similar, huge depth in his work. He writes or dictates should I say in a manner like rewinding and playing back, repeating something from earlier pages and adding another layer to it. It takes great concentration.

As I highlighted he talks about the Illusions and these are with us as we depart from the Mind and until our Self has reached that point of Consciousness where it is in the "IS" State as Meher Baba puts it. At what is called the "God state we are Conscious of Illusion, but Unconscious of Self, later we get to the Beyond - God State which is Conscious of Self and the Three infinite Aspects (Creator is Himself Created, Preserver is Himself Preserved and Destroyer is himself destroyed) but Unconscious of Illusion (no pattern or design) since there is only "ONENESS", then we reach the point Beyond Beyond - God, which is the "IS" State, Unconscious of Self and of Illusion." JK is also alluding to this in his own language. While God created all including the Illusions, God is not an Illusion but going Beyond Beyond - God to the "IS" State the Soul has become Unconscious of Self and of Illusions, they have all dropped away like the Mind did and with it Karma. So when the Soul moves into the "IS" State, all drops away as only the purity of the Shabd remains, all else has fallen away and the complete merging with the Shabd has occurred. As the drop is in the ocean, so the ocean is in the drop.

This is the beauty of the writings of Param Sant Satguru Baba Sawan Singh Ji Maharaj, the deep very complicated language of both Krishnamurti and Meher Baba are put into a spiritual writing form that grabs the heart more than the mind. All three say the same in different dialect so to speak. To me it is like Sawan Singh gives us a description that speaks to those that are not needing a complicated answer or description but it is still there for those that can see the depth, Meher Baba gets right into the full process of the whole spiritual spectrum of evolution, nothing is left out; Krishnamurti speaks but does not necessarily convey the visual image of his language. I have to add here the Meher Baba in his book God Speaks has these amazing diagrams that clarify everything in the evolution of the Soul.

All good stuff and it lays out a map that is not to difficult to read.

"Enlightened" people don't necessary understand what their "enlightment" is all about. They undergone a structural change that has trasformed their views, but they, more often than not do not understand it and give advices that often have little meaning for those who are not enlightened themselves, because those advices reflect the new perspective and have am meaning in that perspective.
In fact, I would venture to say that most "enlightened ones" don't have a clue how it really happened to them and what really happened, the just describe their new perspective from their new point of view, which is many times pretty useless.

Here are some links to pages of "Enlightened" people. Their differential comparison is interesting and instructive:

Wolfgang Bernard


Actual Freedom


U.G. Krisnamurti (not Jiddu):

Link 1 - Link 2 - Link 3

thanks for the input, ivan.

yes, i agree that "enlightened" people don't neccessarily know what caused the change in their outlook/perception of things.
i read krishnamurti and similar authors (like alan watts) mainly as an intellectual pleasure, i doubt that following anyone will lead to the same state through the same process/transformation.

i'll check the sites you proposed, except for ug, whom i already know. he somehow just doesn't fascinate me, especially when he tries to imitate osho type "zen master type" provocations, like "buddha was the biggest bastard that ever lived, but i cannot explain it".
unnecessary.

JK is very good.
But there are other great down to earth philosophers in India.
Philosophy is a very contentious subject. Players play hard. Observers get really confused.
You read each one, after some time you feel it is perfectly correct and it is only correct. You read more of the same person. You will feel it is the only one correct and others are wrong. You involve with the same person some more. You are Obsessively Compulsively attached.
Ancient Indian philosophy teaches detachment.
So read some ancient philosphy, Bhagavad Gita. It is about god, it is about you.
Take it easy

i agree about attachment to a doctrine/philosophy of a certain person. but i think a vipassana/zazen type of meditation helps with that kind of attachment.
i did read A LOT of ancient philosophy.

however most people who get obsessively compulsively attached are usually just those - people who study ancient philosophy/theology. i've seen this in too many "spiritual groups". excessive attachment to the god/guru of their conditioning, as k would have put it.
an example - a student politician here stole from the university funds to give the money to his iskcon/hare krishna guru.

for a fun philosopher, an expert on eastern religion, i would definitely recommend alan watts, if nothings else, for his wittiness.

Oh, I'm not fascinated by any of the people whose links I suggested.
That's not the point either. What's interesting about them in not following any of them, it is about trying to find useful information in what they say, even if something they say could be wrong or even crap.

Too many people mystify these subjects, they don't approach them as any other subject, any phenomena, any science or mixture of knowledge and beliefs about something.
They expect answers from the "liberated/enlightened ones" instead of looking at them as study objects who happened to go trough some change they probably don't understand, or understand very partially and could even have developped wrong theories about.
Also, there can be differences between them that can be instructive about the real phenomena behind their transformations.

For example, of those tree "liberated" people that I mentioned, I feel closest to Wolfgang Bernard. But on the other hand, I consider his theory of original belief and essential value as incomplete and not covering the real fundamental structures involved. But still, it can be very insructive reading.

QUOTE "Enlightened" people don't necessary understand what their "enlightment" is all about. Perhaps they do understand what it is but it is not something that can be easily put into words to us mere mortals who are still battling with the self-not self which they have gone beyond (transcended) which seems to be the problem (for us not them) with most religions/philosophies that they are trying to talk about something which it is not actually possible to talk about, something (or no-thing) which cannot be put into words. If we could all understand the no-thing they are talking about then we would all be enlightened & there would be no such thing as enlightenment! Does anyone know anything about the seven initiations taken by Krishnaji when he was in adyar madras & ojai california they are talked about often in theosophical journals but never in any detail?

wowe, y'all are really smart!
I've yet to progress beyond phallic worship

Or perhaps they simply don't understand it

That "nothingness" or "void" is perhaps a concept that arises in the "liberated ones" when they look at the "place" where their self was and they don't see anything there anymore. They could still try to understand their nature the wrong way, trying to search for contents where there are no more referential contents. If they made the copernican twist of not looking for contents but for processes, things could become a lot clearer.

But I believe that it is very difficult for someone who reached liberation from the self trough non fundamental understanding of the human system and structure (and that probably includes all of them so far) to then structurally understand anything.

Because, once the "self" is gone, once that structure is gone, the reference for the structural understanding of how that self really worked and how it used the resources of some underlying more basic processes is gone too.

Thats the reason why, in my view, what the liberated ones tell us is mostly useless.

Only when someone reaches liberation trough full structural understanding, will things change.

But for that true structural understanding, there is a need for a lot of structural research and a lot of conceptual jumps. I have some reasons to believe that it is possible, but it is not possible by just "staring", because "staring" will bring "nothing".
"Spiritual" research should inspire itself from what other sciences do.
When a process is a "black box" in theoretical terms, one must use very subtle investigative differential methods to buid the theory of what is inside the black box, what process it represent, then test, then build again, retest...

It is not something someone who suddenly got rid of the wrong way of doing things (self) can just automatically understand.
If someone gets rid of certain hierarchies of identifications, certain semantic incorrect structural constructs, that doesn't mean that this person automatically understands the underlying processes that produce action, perception, attention, not the true nature of their relationships.

If they try to find out by "staring" they will see "nothingness" because the processes/contents that used to hijack the true feedback loops of the system are gone. All they see then is the phenomenon (not the process itself) of creation of actions, perceptions etc. which is not referenced to anything known, to no "self" anymore.
It appears as "nothingness", but it is very much process, but cannot be understood if it is stared at as a content.

Interestingly, one of the people I mentioned, Wolfgang Bernard, mentions that even if there is no "self", even if there remains "nothing", there is still an "unfathomable" feeling of one's own!
It is "unfathomable" only because it is searched for the same way the self was, as a referential set of contents. But since this is not a content but the process that we really are, that way of looking at it produces the impression of "nothingness".

And to finish, I would like to mention that the guy from the "actual freedom" link that I gave, says that he lost his ability to visualise when he reached his "actual state".
So one should be prudent with techniques, because one does not need to turn off the electricity in the whole house to turn off one light bulb.

bijapuri, it looks like you are on-time again for short and sweet replies.
I vaguely remember phallic worshippers too, are smart. LOL.

Ivan, as Meher Baba has put it

"Om" Point
"Therefore, when this most finite Nothing becomes manifested as Nothingness, the manifestation of the most finite Nothing closely linked with, and stretched forth by, the simultaneous projection of the latent all-pervading infinite trio-nature of God, gradually expands ad infinitum and gets apparently manifested as infinite Nothingness or the Creation; and hence the universe of Nothingness which is illusory can be called God's "shadow" and, God being infinite, His shadow is also infinite.

When it manifests, the Nothing, which is most finite and latent in Everything, projects out from a most finite point in the Everything where the Nothing as most finite is embodied.

The most finite point where the Nothing projects out as Nothingness is called the Creation Point or the Om Point. This creation point is naturally also the Everything, which means God in the Beyond the Beyond state.

So the most finite Nothing projects as the Creation out of the infinite Everything through the most finite "creation point," into the infinity of the infinitude of the God-Is-state.

In short, when the most finite Nothing gets projected as Nothingness through the most finite creation point, which is also in the infinity pervaded by the infinite trio-nature of God, the projection of the most finite Nothingness ~ closely linked with and upheld by the all-pervading infinite trio-nature of God ~ gradually expands ad infinitum and manifests apparently as infinite Nothingness or as infinite Creation."