The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti

by J. Krishnamurti

A change is possible only from the known to the unknown, not from the known to the known. Do please think this over with me. In the change from the known to the known, there is authority, there is a hierarchical outlook of life—You know, I do not know. Therefore, I worship you, I create a system, I go after a guru, I follow you because you are giving me what I want to know, you are giving me a certainty of conduct that will produce the result, the success and the result. Success is the known. I know what it is to be successful. That is what I want. So we proceed from the known to the known, in which authority must exist—the authority of sanction, the authority of the leader, the guru, the hierarchy, the one who knows and the other who does not know—and the one who knows must guarantee me the success, the success in my endeavor, in change, so that I will be happy, I will have what I want. Is that not the motive for most of us to change? Do please observe your own thinking, and you will see the ways of your own life and conduct…. When you look at it, is that change? Change, revolution, is something from the known to the unknown, in which there is no authority, in which there may be total failure. But if you are assured that you will achieve, you will succeed, you will be happy, you will have everlasting life, then there is no problem. Then you pursue the well-known course of action, which is, yourself being always at the center of things.