The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti

by J. Krishnamurti

Is it not essentially because we always think from a particular point of view, from a fixed point of view? We are always thinking from a center towards the periphery, but the periphery is the center for most of us, and so anything we touch is superficial. But life is not superficial; it demands living completely, and because we are living only superficially, we know only superficial reaction. Whatever we do on the periphery must inevitably create a problem, and that is our life—we live in the superficial and we are content to live there with all the problems of the superficial. So, problems exist as long as we live in the superficial, on the periphery—the periphery being the “me” and its sensations, which can be externalized or made subjective, which can be identified with the universe, with the country, or with some other thing made up by the mind. So, as long as we live within the field of the mind there must be complications, there must be problems; and that is all we know.