Think on These Things

by J. Krishnamurti

Sir, anything truly revolutionary is created by a few who see what is true and are willing to live according to that truth; but to discover what is true demands freedom from tradition, which means freedom from all fears.

So freedom lies, not in trying to become something different, nor in doing whatever you happen to feel like doing, nor in following the authority of tradition, of your parents, of your guru, but in understanding what you are from moment to moment.

We don’t just love and leave it there, but we ask something in return; and in that very asking we become dependent.

A wrong means can never be used towards a right end. If the means is evil, the end will also be evil. Good is not the opposite of evil; it comes into being only when that which is evil has utterly ceased.

To understand what you are is immensely difficult, because it requires complete freedom from all desire to change what you are into something else.

The desire to change yourself breeds envy, jealousy; whereas, in the understanding of what you are, there is a transformation of what you are.

Surely, contentment is something entirely different. It comes into being only when you see yourself as you are without any desire to change, without any condemnation or comparison—which does not mean that you merely accept what you see and go to sleep. But when the mind is no longer comparing, judging, evaluating, and is therefore capable of seeing what is from moment to moment without wanting to change it—in that very perception is the eternal.

Our present education is rotten because it teaches us to love success and not what we are doing. The result has become more important than the action.

With the achievement of great success there is also great sorrow; but most of us are caught up in the desire to achieve, and success is much more important to us than the understanding and dissolution of sorrow.

But you see, the superficial differences destroy our awareness of the fundamental similarity between us as human beings.

But what do we mean by love? When you love someone because that person loves you in return, surely that is not love. To love is to have that extraordinary feeling of affection without asking anything in return.