Krishnamurti's Statement about his teachings

[Guest guest]

/The Core of the Teachings/

 

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The following statement was written by Krishnamurti himself on October

21, 1980 in which he summarizes the teachings. It may be copied and used

provided this is done in its entirety. No editing or change of any kind

is permitted. No extracts may be used.

 

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/"The core of Krishnamurti's teaching is contained in the statement he

made in 1929 when he said: 'Truth is a pathless land'. Man cannot come

to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma,

priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological

technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through

the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation

and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man

has built in himself images as a fence of security - religious,

political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The

burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and

his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they

divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts

already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his

entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The

individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires

from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in

the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his

consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual./

 

/Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man's

pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure

observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward.

Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of

man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one

begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the

choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is

time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable

from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our

action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a

slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant

conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution./

 

/When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see

the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the

observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this

division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is

insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight

brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind./

 

/Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation

of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only

then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence."/

 

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©1993 The Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd,

Brockwood Park, Bramdean, Hampshire, England.