The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti

by J. Krishnamurti

we never watch a blade of grass, touch it with our hand and know the quality of its being. This is not just being poetic, so please do not go off into a speculative, emotional state. I say it is essential to have that deep feeling for life and not be caught in intellectual ramifications, discussions, passing examinations, quoting and brushing something new aside by saying it has already been said. Intellect

is not the way. Intellect will not solve our problems; the intellect will not give us that nourishment which is imperishable.

but intellect is limited, for intellect is the result of...

There is no abstract truth. But truth is very subtle…. Like a thief in the night, it comes darkly, not when you are prepared to receive it.

the spontaneous must be the new, the unknown, the incalculable, the creative, that which must be expressed, loved, in which the will as the process of intellect, controlling, directing, has no part.

The moment you have the past, you inevitably have the future, because the future is merely the continuity of the modified past, but it is

still the past, so our problem is how to bring about a transformation in this process of the past without creating another conditioning, another past.

If action has an end in view, the gaining of that end brings about the actor.

If the thinker comes first, then the thinker is more important than thought, and all the philosophies, customs, and activities of the present civilization are based on this assumption; but if thought comes first then thought is more important than the thinker.

To be creative in the truest sense of that word is to be free of the past from moment to moment, because it is the past that is continually shadowing the present.

Information, the knowledge of facts, though ever increasing, is by its very nature limited. Wisdom is infinite, it includes knowledge and the way of action; but

We have separated intellect from feeling, and have developed intellect at the expense of feeling.

Intelligence is much greater than intellect, for it is the integration of reason and love; but there can be intelligence only when there is self-knowledge, the deep understanding of the total process of oneself.

To know the function of the intellect, and to be aware of that pure feeling, without letting the two mingle and destroy each other, requires a very clear, sharp awareness….

machine is never capable of learning, except in the additive sense. Learning is something quite different, as I shall try to show you.

To me, learning is something entirely different. I am learning about myself from moment to moment, and the myself is extraordinarily vital; it is living, moving; it has no beginning and no end. When I say, “I know myself,” learning has come to an end in accumulated knowledge. Learning is never cumulative; it is a movement of knowing which has no beginning and no end.

The mind that is learning is an innocent mind, whereas the mind that is merely acquiring knowledge is old, stagnant, corrupted by the past. An innocent mind perceives instantly; it is learning all the time without accumulating, and such a mind alone is mature.

The mind is the result of the brain. The brain produces the mind. Without the brain there is no mind, but the mind is separate from the brain. It is the child of the brain. If the brain is limited, damaged, the mind is also damaged. The brain, which records every sensation, every feeling of pleasure or pain, the brain with all its tissues, with all its responses, creates what we call the mind, although the mind is independent of the brain.

Fear is not of the unknown, but of the loss of the known.

The unknown does not incite fear, but dependence on the known does.

The conscious mind may to some extent control and guide itself, but in the unconscious your ambitions, your unsolved problems, your compulsions, superstitions, fears, are waiting, throbbing, urging….

This whole field of the mind is the result of time; it is the result of conflicts and adjustments, of a whole series of acceptances without full comprehension. Therefore, we live in a state of contradiction; our life is a process of endless struggle.

it possible for the mind to be without a pattern, to be free of this backward and forward swing of desire? It is definitely possible. Such action is living in the now. To live is to be without hope, without the care of tomorrow; it is not hopelessness or indifference.

That quality of newness gives an extraordinary passion, a tremendous enthusiasm that brings about a deep inward revolution: and it is this inward revolution which alone can transform the world, not any political or economic system.

there is only a state of being, which is consciousness, though you may divide it as the conscious and the unconscious. But that consciousness is always of the past, never of the present; you are conscious only of things that are over.

You are conscious of what I am trying to convey the second afterwards, are you not? You understand it a moment later.

You are never conscious or aware of the now. Watch your own hearts and minds and you will see that consciousness is functioning between the past and the future and that the presen...

Our only concern is to find an immediate answer to our various problems. But sooner or later the immediate answers are found to be unsatisfactory because no problem has an answer apart from the problem itself.

But if I can understand the problem, all the intricacies of it, then the problem no longer exists.

What are most of us interested in? If we have money, we turn to so-called spiritual things, or to intellectual amusements, or we discuss art, or take up a painting to express ourselves.

If we have no money, our time is taken up day after day with earning it, and we are caught in that misery, in the endless routine and boredom of it.

A religious mind is free of all authority.

The religious mind includes the scientific mind, but the mind that is trained in the knowledge of science is not a religious mind.

A religious mind is concerned with the totality—not with a particular function, but with the total functioning of human existence.

So where there is specialization there must be contradiction and a narrowing-down, and that is the function of the brain.

So, to understand fear, one must be aware of time—time as distance, space, “me,” which thought creates as yesterday, today, and tomorrow, using the memory of yesterday to adjust itself to the present and so to condition the future.

So there is no gradual process of getting rid of fear, just as there is no gradual process of getting rid of the poison of nationalism.

Truth or understanding comes in a flash, and that flash has no continuity;

Our thinking is the known, it is the outcome of the known, and the known is the process of time; and with that mind we are trying to find out what it is to be immortal, beyond time, which is a vain pursuit.

The man who sees something totally, who sees life totally, must obviously be out of time.

You are left with the problem, and there is no way out. Having inquired into the problem to the full extent of your capacity, you leave it alone. Your mind is no longer worried, no longer tearing at the problem, no longer saying, “I must find an answer”; so it becomes quiet, does it not? And in that quietness you find the answer. Hasn’t that sometimes happened to you? It is not an enormous thing. It happens to great mathematicians and scientists, and people experience it occasionally in everyday life. Which means what? The mind has exercised fully its capacity to think, and has come to the edge of all thought without having found an answer; therefore it becomes quiet—not through weariness, not through fatigue, not by saying, “I will be quiet and thereby find the answer.” Having already done everything possible to find the answer, the mind becomes spontaneously quiet. There is an awareness without choice, without any demand, an awareness in which there is no anxiety; and in that state of mind there is perception. It is this perception alone that will resolve all our problems.

mind that is free from something is not a free mind; such freedom, the freedom from something, is only a reaction, and it is not freedom.

A mind that is seeking freedom is never free. But the mind is free when it understands the fact, as it is, without translating, without condemning, without judging; and being free, such a mind is an innocent mind, though it lived 100 days, 100 years, having all the experiences. It is innocent because it is free, not from anything, but in itself. It is only such a mind that can perceive that which is true, which is beyond time.

the beliefs you cling to—all this is making the margin of freedom more and more narrow. If you are aware of this process going on, if you actually perceive the narrowness of the spirit, the increasing slavery of the mind, then you will find that out of perception comes energy; and it is this energy born of perception that is going to shatter the petty mind,

the respectable mind, the mind that goes to the temple, the mind that is afraid. So perception is the way of truth.

So, what is happening is that through pressure, through stress, through strain, our minds are being crowded, drowned by influence, by sorrow, consciously or unconsciously…. We are wearing down the mind, not using it.

think constant endeavor to be something, to become something, is the real cause of the destructiveness and the aging of the mind.

mind that has decided and lives according to its decisions is dead.

method as habit must go completely because it is false…. Method only conditions the mind according to the result that is desired.

But the brain is not asleep; it is very active, but it is quiet. It has come to that quietness through observation, through investigation. And to investigate, to observe, you must have light; and the light is your constant alertness.