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Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes

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Famous Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes

“Surely education has no meaning unless it helps you understand the vast experience of life with all its subtleties, with its extraordinary beauty, its sorrows and joys. You may earn degrees, you may have a series of letters after your name and land a good job, but then what? What is the point of it all if in the process your mind becomes dull, weary, stupid?”

IfsMindMayHelpingJobsJoyNamesProcessLandStupidSorrowDegreesLettersSeriesExtraordinaryDullWearyGood JobSubtletyExtraordinary Beauty
Author:Jiddu Krishnamurti
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“The only thing that really matters is that there be an action of goodness, love and intelligence in living. Is goodness individual or collective, is love personal or impersonal, is intelligence yours, mine or somebody else? If it is yours or mine then it is not intelligence, or love, or goodness. If goodness is an affair of the individual or of the collective, according to one's particular preference or decision, then it is no longer goodness.”

IfsLifeMatterActionIndividualDecisionMinesParticularGoodnessAffairCollectivesPreference
Author:Jiddu Krishnamurti
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“Meditation is the most extraordinary thing if you know how to do it, and you cannot possibly learn from anybody; and that's the beauty of it. It isn't something you learn, a technique, and therefore there is no authority. Therefore if you will learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, the way you talk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy. If you are aware of it without any choice, all that is part of meditation, and as you go, as you journey, as that movement goes, all that movement is meditation. Then that movement is endless, timeless.”

IfsKnowsWayHateChoicesWalksWatchesKnow HowMeditationJourneyMovementAuthorityExtraordinaryTechniqueEndlessGossipAbout YourselfTimelessExtraordinary Things
Author:Jiddu Krishnamurti
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“Religion becomes a matter of belief, and belief acts as a limitation on the mind; and the mind then is never free. But it is only in freedom that you can find out what is true, what is God, not through any belief; because your belief projects what you think God ought to be, what you think ought to be true. If you believe God is love, God is good, God is this or that, your very belief prevents you from understanding what is God, what is true.”

IfsThinkingMindBelieveMatterBeliefUnderstandingPowerfulOughtProjectsBeing TrueLimitationGod LoveBelieve In GodIf You BelieveGod Is LoveGood God
Book:Life Ahead
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“So let us decide whether you want a shelter, a safety zone, which will no longer yield conflict, whether you want to escape from the present conflict to enter a condition in which there shall be no conflict; or whether you are unaware, unconscious of this conflict in which you exist. If you are unconscious of the conflict, that is, the battle that is taking place between that self and the environment, if you are unconscious of that battle, then why do you seek further remedies? Remain unconscious.”

IfsWantLoveLifeSelfTruthEnvironmentConditionsBattleConflictSafetyUnconsciousZoneYieldTruth Of LifeRemedyShelterTruth LoveSafety Zone
Book:The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti 1934-1935: What Is Right Action
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“You haven't changed. You may say: 'I'm full of love, I'm full of truth, I'm full of knowledge, I'm full of wisdom.' I say: 'That's all nonsense. Do you behave? Are you free of fear? Are you free of ambition, greed, envy and the desire to achieve success in every field? If not, you are just playing a game. You are not serious.'”

IfsMayTruthDesireGamesFearAchieveHavensFieldsChangedSeriousAmbitionGreedEnvyBehaveNonsenseDesire To Achieve
Book:A Wholly Different Way of Living
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“If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult, because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate, we hardly listen at all to what is being said...One listens and therefore learns, only in a state of silence, in which this whole background is in abeyance, is quite; then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate”

IfsTryingSaidIdeasStatesWholeSeemsDifficultSilenceOpinionListeningPrejudiceCommunicateBackgroundsImpulseInclination
Book:Talks & Dialogues, Saanen, 1967
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“Why is one a slave to thought ? Why has thought become so important in all our lives -thought being ideas, being the response to the accumulated memories in the brain cells? Perhaps many of you have not even asked such a question before, or if you have you may have said, "it's of very little importance- what is important is emotion." But I don't see how you can separate the two. If thought does not give continuity to feeling, feeling dies very quickly. So why in our daily lives, in our grinding, boring, frightened lives, has thought taken on such inordinate importance?”

IfsGivingMayLittlesDoeSaidTwoImportantIdeasFeelingsDiesMemoriesEmotionBrainTakenFocusOur LivesImportanceSlaveResponseBoringCellsDaily LifeFrightenedContinuityThoughts On LifeBrain Cells
Author:Jiddu Krishnamurti
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“How do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your projection, through your ambitions, desire, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what you want to hear, only what will be satisfactory, what will gratify, what will give comfort, what will for the moment alleviate your suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice.”

IfsWantGivingMomentsDesireSufferingVoiceHealingComfortConflictAnxietyAmbitionHearingWhat You WantScreensProjectionAlleviate
Author:Jiddu Krishnamurti
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“So, to meditate is to purge the mind of its self-centered activity. And if you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness. The mind is uncontaminated by society; it is no longer subject to any influence, to the pressure of any desire. It is completely alone, and being alone, untouched it is innocent. Therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being. This whole process is meditation.”

IfsMindSelfWholeDesireProcessSilenceMeditationInfluenceSubjectsPossibilityActivityEternalPressureInnocentEmptinessTimelessSelf Centered
Author:Jiddu Krishnamurti
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“You can only hear clearly when you sit quietly, when you give your attention. Nor can you have order if you are not free to watch, if you are not free to listen, if you are not free to be considerate. This problem of freedom and order is one of the most difficult and urgent problems in life. It is a very complex problem. It needs to be thought over much more than mathematics, geography, or history.”

IfsNeedsGivingProblemOrderDifficultAttentionWatchesMathematicsComplexesTaoUrgentGeographyConsiderateProblems In LifeBe ConsiderateComplex Problems
Book:Krishnamurti on Education
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“I do not know if you have ever noticed that the more you struggle to understand, the less you understand any problem. But, the moment you cease to struggle and let the problem tell you the whole story, give all its significance - then there is understanding, which means, obviously, that to understand, the mind must be quiet.”

IfsThinkingKnowsGivingMindMeanWholeMomentsStoriesProblemUnderstandingStruggleQuietCeaseSignificance
Book:The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti: 1948-1949 : Choiceless awareness
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“And for this you must have quiet and solitude. But society does not allow you to have them. You must be with people, outwardly active at all costs. If you are alone you are considered antisocial or peculiar, or you are afraid of your own loneliness.”

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Book:The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti: 1936-1944, The mirror of relationship
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