Commentaries on Living Quotes

“You are this, which does not satisfy, so you want to be that. If there were an understanding of this, would that come into being? Because you do not understand this, you create that, hoping through that to understand or to escape from this.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“It is only in alert silence that truth can be.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“To forgive, there must have been a wound; and to be wounded, there must have been the gatherings of pride. There is no generosity of heart as long as there is a referential memory, the "me" and the "mine.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Beware of the man who offers you a reward in this world or in the next.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Life is a total process, the inner as well as the outer; the outer definitely affects the inner, but the inner invariably overcomes the outer. What you are, you bring about outwardly. The outer and the inner cannot be separated and kept in watertight compartments, for they are constantly interacting upon each other; but the inner craving, the hidden pursuits and motives, are always more powerful. Life is not dependent upon political or economic activity; life is not a mere outward show, any more than a tree is the leaf or the branch. Life is a total process whose beauty is to be discovered only in its integration.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“It is so much easier to throw oneself into social and political activity than to understand life as a whole; to be associated with any organized thought, with political or religious activity, offers a respectable escape from the pettiness and drudgery of everyday life. With”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Respectability is a curse; it is an "evil" that corrodes the mind and heart. It creeps upon one unknowingly and destroys love.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Reward in any form is extremely gratifying, especially a so-called spiritual reward when one is somewhat indifferent to the honors of the world. Or when one is not very successful in this world, it is very gratifying to belong to a group especially chosen by someone who is supposed to be a highly advanced spiritual being, for then one is part of a team working for a great idea, and naturally one must be rewarded for one's obedience and for the sacrifices one has made for the cause. If”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“The more externalized we are, the more sensations and distractions there must be, and this gives rise to a mind that is never quiet, that is not capable of deep search and discovery.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“To talk about another, pleasantly or viciously, is an escape from oneself, and escape is the cause of restlessness.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the under standing of a problem. This freedom gives the ease of full attention; the mind is not distracted by any secondary issues.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“The respectable, like the despised, are always at the mercy of circumstances; the influences of environment and the weight of tradition are vastly important to them, for these hide their inward poverty.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Addiction to knowledge is like any other addiction; it offers an escape from the fear of emptiness, of loneliness, of frustration, the fear of being nothing. The”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Knowledge is a flash of light between two darknesses; but knowledge cannot go above and beyond that darkness. Knowledge is essential to technique, as coal to the engine; but it cannot reach out into the unknown. The unknown is not to be caught in the net of the known. Knowledge must be set aside for the unknown to be; but how difficult that is!”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“The mind finds security and strength in religious and political patterns, and this is what gives stamina to the organizations.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“If you would discover the supreme happiness of truth, you must break away from all ceremonies and ideological patterns.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“You can be converted from one belief to another, from one dogma to another, but you cannot be converted to the under standing of reality. Belief is not reality. You”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Self-expansion in any form, whether through wealth or through virtue, is a process of conflict, causing antagonism and confusion.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Without first knowing yourself, how can you know what is true? Illusion is inevitable without self knowledge. It is childish to be told and to accept that you are this or that. Beware”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Where jealousy is, obviously love is not; and yet with most people, jealousy is taken as an indication of love. Jealousy”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“He who has identified him self can never know freedom, in which alone all truth comes into being.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“If we did not worry, most of us would feel that we were not alive; to be struggling with a problem is for the majority of us an indication of existence. We cannot imagine life with out a problem; and the more we are occupied with a problem, the more alert we think we are. The constant tension over a problem which thought itself has created only dulls the mind, making it insensitive and weary.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“As we are concerned with what others think of us, so we are anxious to know all about them; and from this arise the crude and subtle forms of snobbishness and the worship of authority. Thus we become more and more externalized and inwardly empty. The more externalized we are, the more sensations and distractions there must be, and this gives rise to a mind that is never quiet, that is not capable of deep search and discovery.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“The now has greater significance than the tomorrow. In the now is all time, and to understand the now is to be free of time.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Discipline is the cultivation of resistance, and where there is resistance there is no understanding. A well disciplined mind is not a free mind, and it is only in freedom that any discovery can be made.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“With so much poverty and degradation, one must have a very thick skin to be rich. Some”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Humility is unaware of the division of the superior and the inferior, of the Master and the pupil. As”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Thought with its emotional and sensational content, is not love. Thought”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“This identification puts an end to all creative under standing, and then one becomes a mere tool in the hands of the party boss, the priest or the favored leader.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“Ambition in any form for the group, for individual salvation, or for spiritual achievement is action postponed. Desire is ever of the future; the desire to become is inaction in the present. The now has greater significance than the tomorrow. In the now is all time, and to understand the now is to be free of time. Becoming is the continuation of time, of sorrow. Becoming does not contain being. Being is always in the present, and being is the highest form of transformation. Becoming is merely modified continuity, and there is radical transformation only in the present, in being.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series