Krishnamurti: life & individuality
 

life is a pathless land ...............................................................................1

the purpose of life.....................................................................................2

the ‘I’ .......................................................................................................8

desire...is life itself ..................................................................................11

individual uniqueness ...............................................................................16

in life there are no stages..........................................................................26

Action is the instrument by which life becomes conscious of itself ...............32

Freedom of consciousness...is life itself ....................................................39

emotional awareness.................................................................................58

1

“life is a pathless land”

p. 94 (28 December 1929, Winter, Adyar)

If you want to discover whether what I say is true, you must judge

impersonally, that is, put aside your personal likes and dislikes, your personal

beliefs, because you are trying to seek the understanding of the significance of the

whole of life, not merely of your particular individual life. Every one tries to seek

truth — that is, the rich, full, harmonious life — according to his particular

whims, according to his particular beliefs, dogmas and religions. The Hindu will

seek truth — that fullness of life — through Hinduism, the Christian through

Christianity, the Buddhist through Buddhism, and so on, taking for granted

certain experiences of others and thereby forming a sect through which each

thinks he will discover the truth. If you want to discover truth, you must put

aside Hinduism, Buddhism, all religions and seek for yourself wholly, entirely,

because truth is a pathless land, life is a pathless land, and you cannot approach

it from any point of view, by any path whatever. Please do not agree or disagree,

but examine this statement sanely, rationally. If you think it is wrong, leave it

alone and go your own sweet way. There is no question of tolerance or

intolerance. Truth, if I may give a crude example, is like a vulture that awaits a

dying animal: it has infinite patience. What I say is, to me, absolute,

unconditional, and I have patience. If you think it is right, then live by it,

because that alone has value and not what you profess with your lips.

[Page numbers refer to Krishnamurti: Selected Early Talks & Writings. Bolding has been

added as a means of explaining the choice of each selection.]

2
 

“the purpose of life”

pp. 139-40 (10 April 1930, Los Angeles)

Why do you make yourself into a type? Why do you imitate someone else?

Why do you follow authority? In spiritual matters there cannot be authority; in

thought and belief there cannot be authority; it is experience alone that is of

importance. Experience is the only master. Why is it then that you make yourself

into a type, into a machine? It is because fear plays the dominant part in your

lives. You are afraid of your own thoughts, you are uncertain; and hence you seek

for leaders in spiritual matters. The moment there is desire for comfort, fear is

born. Struggle breeds either fear or understanding. The moment you are afraid

to struggle, you seek shelters, you look to authority in matters spiritual, you want

to be told what is right, what is wrong, what is failure, what is success. But the

moment there is the desire to understand this immense struggle that is going on,

you do not bind yourself with fear and you try to understand every experience

that comes to you.

Conformity is not culture. You cannot educate yourself through conformity.

You must make proper environments, so that the individual is all the time

struggling, choosing, assimilating and rejecting, and thus growing. Individuality

is not an end in itself, because individuality is division, and individuality is trying

all the time by continual contact with life, to wear down the barrier that

separates it from others. In other words, individuality is made up of our

unconquered reactions. Reactions create barriers and divisions. But the moment

you have conquered your reactions, there are no barriers and no divisions.

Therefore, it is the ego, the individuality which has not transmuted its reaction,

that creates barriers. But the true self resides in the region of pure action, so to

attain to that self, to find out pure action, you must go through the process of

reaction, of likes and dislikes, joys and pleasures, sorrows and great ecstasies,

and gradually eliminate all reactions, till you arrive at your own dwelling-place,

from which you act, but where there are no reactions. This is the purpose of

life.

Hence, awareness in all things, in your acts, your thoughts and your

emotions, and the achievement that is not born of reactions, is the highest

spirituality, not the conforming to a pattern. You must create in yourself, by the

excessive heights of the conflict between emotion and reason, the desire to be

perfectly poised. But to arrive at balance you must pass through this extreme

struggle, you cannot escape or grow weary of the world. The moment you are in

the excessive heights of struggle between emotion and thought, the desire is born

in you to be perfectly poised, and you are beginning to be poised. You can have

any number of books that will explain all your sorrows and your struggles, your

pains and your pleasures. It is very easy to explain things away. This is what all

people are seeking — explanation. Does the man who is really in sorrow seek

explanation? If someone whom you love dies, of what value are the explanations

to you? You want him because you are lonely. Loneliness cannot be explained

3

away. No amount of theories or explanations will make loneliness disappear. But

the moment you are really struggling in sorrow, and feel that sorrow in its

uttermost depths, then you are seeking the root, the cause of sorrow, and not the

explanation of sorrow. Sorrow then becomes as a soil through which you must

grow, a soil for nourishment, not a thing to be avoided.

Now, the enrichment of life by continual experience is pure action, is

incorruption. The poverty of life, the lack of experience is corruption. So, you

must not mould yourself after a pattern. You must be the whole, all-inclusive.

Thought, which is at first personal, is by experience evolving more and more

towards the impersonal, and when thought is impersonal, it is intelligent. And

intelligence takes you to that realm of pure consciousness, which is the

consummation of human life. To be perfectly poised in that pure action, is the

goal of life, the result of all experience; then life is rich, whole, all-inclusive,

complete; then your problems as an individual are solved, and you are then

able to give to the world that perfume, that understanding which is necessary

for the maintenance of the whole.

pp. 180-2 (18 July 1930, Summer, Ommen)
 

So this morning I am going to try to describe, define, that which is really

indescribable and indefinable; to put into words that which is only realisable

when there is a perfectly stable mind, pliable, serviceable, eager, stripped of all

personal whims and personal points of view. It is absolutely necessary not to be

self-opinionated, not to be caught in opinions. Life is creation, and you cannot

apply to creation the words, “Happiness” or “Unhappiness”. Life is creation, is

movement, and in it there is manifestation and non-manifestation, phenomenon

and non-phenomenon. So do not approach the understanding of life with any

qualitative relations, special circumstances, or attributes. That is why I said that

to understand the ultimate reality, the end of life, life itself, you must come to it

with a mind free of all these attributes, qualities. Life is creation, and Nature

conceals life — that is, everything that is in manifestation conceals life in itself.

When that life in Nature develops and becomes concentrated in the individual,

then Nature has fulfilled itself. (This is not a theory; you can think it out and

you will see.) The whole destiny and function of Nature is to create the

individual who is self-conscious, who knows the pairs of opposites, who knows

that he is an entity in himself, conscious and separate. So, life in Nature,

through its development, becomes self-conscious in the awakened, concentrated

individual. That is a separate being — an individual who is self-conscious, who

knows that he is different from another, in whom there is a separation of the

“you” and the “I”. When that self-conscious life in the individual, held in the

bondage of limitations, knowing the separation of “you” and “I”, of object and

subject, has liberated itself from that limitation, is has achieved the end, it has

fulfilled itself. Therefore self-consciousness is effort. If you do not make an

effort, if there is not this effort against limitation, there is no longer selfconsciousness

and individuality. Individuality is imperfection; it is not an end.

When individuality has fulfilled itself through ceaseless effort, destroying, tearing

4

down the wall of separateness, it reaches that sense of effortless being; then the

self-consciousness in the individual realises the pure knowledge in which there is

neither subject nor object.

My point is that you must first know towards what life is going — and by

life I mean this individual existence which achieves its end in liberation. The

man who knows separation is but the subject, which is limited, and in him the

object has not yet been realised. He must realise towards what life is working, the

purpose of life; otherwise experience has no meaning, creation has no meaning,

perfection has no meaning, uniqueness has no meaning. If that individual, in

whom there is the consciousness of separation, of subject and object, does not

understand the purpose of life, he becomes merely a slave to experience, to

creation. So my point is, first understand the purpose of life, understand what it

is towards which you are struggling, then utilise every experience, every emotion,

every thought, to strengthen you, to wear down this veil of separation.

To the self-conscious individual there is subject and object, and the object

becomes a far-off entity to whom he is looking for aid, to whom he gives his

adoration, his love, his affection, his whole being. Is not everyone doing that? To

the separate individual, life becomes subject and object, but the end of life, the

fulfillment of life, is to realise the totality of the whole — objectiveless,

subjectiveless being — which is pure life. So it is in the subjectivity of the

individual that the object really exists. In the individual is the beginning and the

end. In him is the totality of all experience, of all thought, of all emotion. In him

is all potentiality, and his task is to realise that totality in the subjective; that is,

in his own consciousness.

The purpose of life, then, is, by a series of efforts — every day, every

minute, every second — to arrive at that pure being which is effortlessness —

which is, not to know the sense of separateness, of individual consciousness.

Because individual consciousness is effort. When you realise that within your

own self lies the whole universe — the universe of life, not of manifestation —

then, through outward going, you inevitably return to the source of all existence,

which is in yourself. Hence this pure being, this pure life, is all-inclusive; though

outside of it there is time and space, in itself there is not time and space.

So, pure being, life, is beyond time and space, and, being beyond, it is

undisturbed, tranquil, serene, pliable happiness. The moment you depend on

time and space there is limitation and there is unhappiness. This pure being,

which is impersonal, though it is not thought, nor emotion, though it is not

desire, is yet the end of desire, the goal of thought, the end of will. It is intuition.

Intuition, though it is not thought or emotion, yet is the goal and the end of

both. This pure life is impersonal; but you must arrive at it by personal effort, by

the purification of thought and emotion. Pure being is not to be found in

objective external things, but in one’s own self; and to find your true self means

ceaseless effort.

When you have reached pure being, pure life, however — when you have

found the truth which cannot be approached by any path — then you have

cessation of effort; then you live by pure intuition, which is to be found

potentially in every self-conscious individual. By continual conquering, by the

5

understanding of your inner cravings, your passions, your hopes, your despairs,

your vain pursuits, and your desire to be consoled and comforted, — by

gradually wearing these down, you arrive at the liberated life which is happiness,

which is the dwelling place of pure intuition, and of pure action. Whenever

objects are presented to this intuition, it gives always the right response. When

once you understand the purpose of life — however objective it may be at the

beginning, however outside you it is at first — you will be all the time

watching, aware, self-recollected, so as to utilise every experience and every

thought as a means to guide you towards that. Hence, you become your own

liberator.

To such a man there is no fear. He has removed the fundamental cause of

fear. The man who does not rely upon outward circumstances for his inward

growth, masters the space between his self-conscious separateness and his

fulfillment. That is liberation, that is happiness — not the intermediary stages,

which are only delusions of the mind. I expect you will ask me questions about

this, but it is an indescribable living reality, to be realised only by yourself. It

cannot be transmitted by me to you. So it is no good waiting for me to fill that

void, that emptiness. But the moment you are aware of that emptiness, you are

filling it; the moment you are aware of the purpose of life and your own separate

existence, of your self-conscious individuality, then you are bridging the gap,

through constant, ceaseless effort. The man who is happy is he who has

conquered all effort, because, after all, true virtue is spontaneous, is effortlessness.

While there is an effort towards virtue, it is not yet virtue. While there is an

effort, you are not yet liberated. There is not yet that state of understanding, of

pure being, of pure happiness and pure intuition. To arrive at that, there must

be this intense watchfulness, constant continual effort, adjustment, choice; and

all this requires the great energy of awakened intelligence. For a man who desires

to realise this state of liberation — of happiness and pure life and pure being —

there must be constant awareness of the true worth of all the things about him.

Such a man is becoming illumined, for he is no longer a slave to things that have

no value.

pp. 182-4 (19 July 1930, Summer, Ommen)
 

Question: Yesterday you spoke of the purpose of life. By this we understand you to

mean the purpose of individual existence. Can you develop the idea that pure life can

have no purpose?

KRISHNAMURTI: Naturally, life, pure action, pure life itself, the

totality, the summation of all life, has no purpose. It is. That life is of no

particular temperament or kind; it is impersonal. So Life cannot be understood

through any temperament, through any path; it is the Self of everything. But

between that Self and the understanding of it by the individual, lies this

individual existence, this scar of suffering. In wearing down this individuality,

this ego of reaction, lies the purpose of individual existence, of life with a small

“l”. In Life, on the other hand — Life with a capital “L” — in the pure Life

6

which is purposeless, there is no division; there is no distinction between

manifestation and life. In the individual, who is self-conscious, there is a

purpose — namely, that he shall realise completely, without any attributes,

qualities, special relations, this totality which is self-existent, self-caused. But

in that self-existing, self-caused Life, there is no purpose. The individual who

knows separation, is caught up in effort (effort being imperfection) and for

him, as a separate segment of that Life, there is a purpose. So one must realise

the truth of this Self, which is pure Being, which is in all things, and in so

realising it, fulfill the separate consciousness of the individual. Separation is

limitation, sorrow, unhappiness, effort. And in and through this unhappiness,

choice, effort and continual adjustment, the individual existence must all the

time adjust itself with that Truth. So he must have conceived, have caught a

glimpse of this pure Life, this pure Being which is the summation of all effort

and hence is effortlessness. It is the summation of good, — of a good in which

there is no effort. Realising this, understanding this, he will, through

spontaneous action, wear away the wall of separation. When there is total

realisation, or union with that Life, then there is no longer the craving for

separate existence, — he is everything, he is creation, he is perfection —

unblemished, because the scar of individuality has vanished away.

I know most of you will think immediately that this means total

annihilation because, you will say, how can it be achieved without the

destruction of individual existence? The moment you look at it from that point

of view, your individual existence becomes the most important thing; whereas,

from the point of view of Life, individuality is imperfection, is a segment merely

of the totality, and it is because it feels itself to be only a part, that it is all the

time seeking to fulfil itself, to realise itself in the totality. The idea that truth is

the development of the individual must be set aside. You cannot develop

something which is, of its very nature, imperfect — and this individuality is. But

you can wear it down by constant adjustments — by adjustments of conduct in

action. That is why it matters vitally what you are now, and why you should put

aside all philosophical and metaphysical theories. What matters is the manner of

your life, the manner of your behaviour, your conduct, your action, your choice

— not whether the Self exists, or whether that which exists is not the Self —

whether it is the “I” that progresses, or the “not I”. Who eventually cares for

these theories? What really matters is that you are in sorrow. When a man is

caught in sorrow he wants to be free, he wants to establish within himself a

tranquility, and a peace; he needs a mind that is pliable and eager, and this can

only be developed through continual choice. Choice is the continual discovery of

truth. There must be that eager awareness for continual adjustment — never

yielding for a second. This is not a theory with me; because I myself have done

it. I am putting it forward to you either to take it or to leave it. The wise man,

the man who is in sorrow (and the wise man is in sorrow because he is all the

time struggling to find out) examines, analyses, seeks out by criticism the

fundamental principle; and through that criticism, through impersonal

examination, he becomes aware of the total reality.

7

pp. 203-4 (25 July 1930, Summer, Ommen)
 

Question: You often speak of the aim of life as being happiness. I find that, as I grow

in life, happiness and unhappiness begin to mean less and less. Their place is taken by

certainty, reality, compared to which happiness and unhappiness are as the rise and

fall of waves to the ocean. That reality is my aim, whether it makes me happy or

unhappy. In fact, I believe that, as one reaches it, one is beyond either happiness or

unhappiness. So why speak of happiness as the aim of life? This is not just a question

of terms.

KRISHNAMURTI : Life, as such, has no purpose, no aim; but individual

existence has a purpose, which is to realise this being in which there is no

“you” and “I”, in which there is no separation of subject and object, in which

there is absolute unity of being. Now you can call that intuition, happiness or

liberation. I use the word happiness because, when there is the state of equal

happiness and unhappiness, it is merely negative, whereas this state of bliss is

positive. One has, unfortunately, to use words to convey the meaning of

something which cannot be described in its totality, however much one may try

to do so.

How can you describe to a blind man the beauty of sunrise or sunset? You may

attempt it. You may say: It is warmth, it is light, it is this or that; but the real

beauty, to be fully realised, must be seen. Words, therefore, can only be a bridge.

I use ordinary words with a very definite intention, giving to them a new

meaning. To me, this state of equal happiness and unhappiness, which is

analogous to the rise and ebb of the sea, is but a state of negation, a negative

condition. Whereas the positive state is Being—that bliss which is the essence of

all happiness and unhappiness—which you need not call “happiness” if you do

not wish to do so. It is liberation from all limitation of emotion, of reason; and

yet it is the goal of all reason and all emotion and all thought. To me, this

happiness is a condition in which all states of happiness exist, and it is not

dependent on changes of pleasure and pain. To realise this highest reality you go

through doubt, faith, certainty, recollectedness, in which is involved happiness

and unhappiness, sorrow, pain, joy, envy, greed—all these, however, being but

the steps of a ladder. When once you have reached the highest step, you are no

longer dependent on the lower steps. The highest is the positive, to which you

can give any name you like. That is why I am quite willing to yield to a different

name. The name does not matter; what matters is that it is positive. This

supreme positiveness is the essence of positive and negative, it is the quintessence

of all things in their variety of expressions, in their changes, in their moods; and

therefore it is Life itself.

8
 

“the ‘I’”

p. 121 (2 January 1930, Winter, Adyar)

The self is the residuum of all experience; not only of the accidental, but

of all time; not of the moment, but of eternity; not of a traditional, cast-iron

system, but of life which is free. That self is the outcome of the development of

your own uniqueness, your own growth, through which you gain understanding.

This is individuality. Do not confuse the individual with the personal. In

individuality, if you can trace it to its source, if you can separate it from your

personality, you will find the truth, that intuition which is reason, which is the

consummation of intelligence.

On the one side, there is the self which is of the eternal, which can only be

developed through your own uniqueness, which is the residue of all experience,

which is intelligence, intuition, reason; and on the other side there is the

personality, which is of the moment, the result of birth, nationality, class and so

on. That is why I have urged over and over again that you must cast aside the

personal, which is the unessential, and judge everything from the point of view

of the eternal, which is the individual. And in order to discover the individual,

you must put aside all your personal point of view. This requires constant

balance, adjustment and thought.

To understand the significance of life, you must not be caught in the

momentary, in the personal, but rather shed that completely, dissociate yourself

entirely from it, and then look at all things from the point of view of the eternal,

that is, of the self. Bearing this in mind, ask yourself what is the “I” trying to

achieve; what is the individuality, developed through uniqueness, through

experience, trying to seek and attain? It is trying to set aside the limitations of

the personality, of the momentary, the incidental; and so release the life.

pp. 335-6 (31 July 1931, Summer, Ommen)

The “I”, the ego, is impermanent, it is an illusion, it is a bundle of qualities, a

centre of virtues, sins, ideals, a circumference in which there is a beginning and

an end. Now, that “I” is formed through the senses, through the emotions,

through the perception, and from that perception arises thought, which creates

consciousness and out of this is born the separate “I”-ness. The “I” does not exist

by itself, the “I” is not something which feels by itself: you feel and the “I” is

created; you think and the “I” is created; you have strong emotions and the “I” is

created. It is not the “I” that feels and thinks; the “I” is but the coordination,

the coming together of corporeal existence which forms the body of sensation,

perception, thought, which becomes consciousness. That consciousness of the

mind creates the “I”. Therefore you say: “I want to exist, I have a separate

existence.” Therefore you say: “I feel, I think, I perceive, I am conscious.” If you

are seeking Truth, then you have senses and yet the mind is not creating the

“I” through those senses; you have feelings, but the mind is not creating the

9

“I”; you must have perception, which is the capacity to distinguish, to

discriminate, and yet through that discrimination, the “I” must not be made.

You must think, and yet through thought there must not be this illusion of

“I”.

So consciousness is but self-consciousness. It is but the bundle, the

coordination of all these things which create the “I”; but to be conscious of that

“I”-ness, as you must, you must begin to be responsible, you must begin to think

for yourself, to feel for yourself. The “I” is an illusion, and if you base all your

civilization, your thought, your culture, your intercourse, your conduct on that

illusion, you will not understand Truth, you will not live in that completeness.

You are but caught up in an illusion of separateness which is the cause of sorrow,

but as soon as you realize the cause you begin to alter your whole outlook, and

therefore your conduct and civilization.

pp. 339-40 (1 August 1931, Summer, Ommen)

To understand the cause and the subject of suffering let us find out what is the

“I”. This body of mine has its sensations of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting,

and feeling. This group we shall call sensation. Then there is perception, the

power to create images, imagination. There is the mind which thinks, and there

is consciousness. I am dividing them for convenience, not to create a new

system. All these: body, sensation, perception, thought, consciousness, go to

create the “I”. It is not the “I” which creates them, not the “I” which thinks,

which feels, which perceives, which is conscious. The “I” begins to acquire,

grasp, hold, and through this grasping, holding, self-consciousness is created.

Thus all self-consciousness is acquisition.

The “I” does not exist by itself, it exists only through sensation. To me there

is no “I”; it is but sensation, body, perception, thought, consciousness, that

create the “I”; and because it must live in separateness, that “I” must acquire,

must possess. So consciousness, that “I”, must hold, must grasp, must acquire,

and in opposition to that, death seems like annihilation. Now this acquiring,

grasping “I”, thinks that through these accumulations it will acquire happiness,

completeness. Through that desire of acquisition it sets up the idea of continuity

and the fear of annihilation. So the “I” is created in the mind, the “I” does not

exist by itself. For its well-being, for its maintenance of separateness, it demands

the standardization of thought, with all its implications, and evades all changes.

Then there is the standardization of morality, laws framed to check the “I” from

becoming too greedy in acquisition, and from this arises fear, the fear of that

independent thought which leads man to become his own law.

Naturally, from all this, there is the emphasis on individuality in the wrong

place; that is, you think that because the individual is separate and the quality

of individuality is acquisition, you should emphasize that quality of acquisition

in work. You think that through work the individual will gain more and more

for himself and become more possessive in qualities, friendships and objects. The

emphasis is laid on the gain to the individual through work. Work must be

collective, not individualistic. There must be the planning of cooperative work

10

for the whole and not for the individual alone. We must plan together for the

whole of mankind, and in that there cannot be separation into countries,

nationalities, peoples.

On the other hand, there is the individual who must free himself, through

his own effort, from his “I”, self-consciousness. For that there can be no

authority— though there must be an authority in work. Authority must be in

the right sphere and not in the wrong sphere as it is at present. You have spiritual

authority, that is, you follow someone, a saviour, a guru. There cannot be

authority towards the freedom of self-consciousness, because Truth is purely an

individual perception and in that perception you must become a law to yourself

and cannot follow another.

Because of the false emphasis on individuality, there is the idea either of

annihilation or of continuity. The mind is all the time occupied with the “I”:

whether “I” shall always exist, whether “I” have enough possessions, power,

glory, comfort—all the time grasping, acquiring, growing, and this kind of

growth is entirely based on sensation. The “I” exists in that consciousness which

depends on sensation, so the mind is occupied with all these longings; and you

imagine that the more you acquire, the happier you will be. Examine your

systems of life and you will see that everything is based on this. While you are

caught up in this division of “yours” and of “mine”, there are many ways of

deceiving yourself. But when the mind is free of the “I”, it can begin to renew

itself, to recreate itself.

11
 

“desire...is life itself”

p. 141 (10 April 1930, Los Angeles)

Question: Must there not be a creative urge or power, outside the control of the

individual, which impels him to attain the abundant life?

KRISHNAMURTI: What greater urge do you need than of laughter and

tears? That is why I have been talking about tears and laughter, and not the

explanations of them. If you do not know how to suffer, if you have never cried,

how can you understand, and what greater urge is there than desire? What are

you doing all the time with your desire? Your highest aim is to kill it, but you

cannot kill desire. What you perceive, you desire; but if your perception is small,

your desires are small. If your vision is large, your desires are large. If you are in

chaos, it is not the fault of desire, it is the fault of your perception.

pp. 151-2 (31 May 1930, Ojai)

Now, when you ask yourself what you are seeking, what you really desire to

understand is how life works as a whole, what truth is as a whole. You wish to

find the universal within all the mass of particulars. You want to understand life

in all its various shades of expression and the way in which you, as an individual,

can express that life, and how you can assimilate the happiness which is the fruit

of life. And you will notice that every individual, whether advanced or not,

wishes to understand life in his own particular way, to narrow it down to suit

himself. The philosopher will intellectualize life and have many systems and

explanations of things, and will seek life along that particular line. The poet will

seek the understanding of life in the balance and beauty of words; and so forth.

Everyone, in brief, wants to interpret life according to his own desires, or in

terms of the particular system or religion to which he belongs.

Now, if you wish to understand truth in its totality, you cannot come to it

along any of these particular lines, because life is all inclusive; it lies beyond all

philosophies, beyond the garland of words, beyond ugliness and beauty, beyond

poverty and riches; and yet, because it is beyond these, it is in them all. So, if you

would realize with serious intent, you must grasp at this fullness, this totality,

and must free yourself from all the special fantasies of desire. Life, as an inner

principle, is the completeness of thought and love; and the way to this

completeness is from the personal to the impersonal. There must ever,

therefore, be a conflict between emotion and mind until they become poised in

self-existent happiness in the liberated life. All particular desires — whether

they be of the poet or the philosopher, or of the thoughtless seeker after

pleasure — are, at bottom, the desire for this self-existent, enduring happiness.

That is what your own life — separate as it is, caught in reactions, urged about

by fear — is really seeking. For life, this is its ultimate potentiality, which it is

ever craving to bring into actualization....... *

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[Original asterisk footnote:] * Krishnamurti here traced once more the three stages

of desire, as outlined on pages 5 and 13 of this issue.

Any unreal satisfaction of the inner want, which we call desire, is usually

accompanied by a desire to pass on all this unreality to somebody else. I will

explain. You want to give understanding and love in a particular way, which is

your way; and you are hurt when this is not accepted. But such giving is the

giving of illusion, not reality. Also, there is cruelty in it, for it arises from the

desire to dominate, to guide, and control; and it is out of this kind of giving that

we get our steel-bound morality. Both giving and wanting come to the same

thing. Giving is but weakening the individual, and wanting is but relying on

something external. Therefore, neither of these have anything to do with truth.

The point is that, at the root of both wanting and giving, there is a going

outwards away from yourself; and this is what you have to resist. But, if you

do, what is left? When you are not giving or wanting something, what are you?

You are Being, which is the only positive thing in man.

Being is fearless and does not depend on anything outside itself; hence it

does not cast a shadow. It knows no separation and it is immortal. And so, when

you as an individual enter into that pure Being, you become the delight of life’s

expression, because you have been through everything. Such Being is life’s

fulfillment. That is what everyone is seeking — to be himself; not to depend on

external things for his wanting or giving. When you are such Being, you are as

the sunshine in which all things grow and in which there is nothing which is

either evil or good, bad or indifferent.

So do not seek to understand this Being through any one particular

channel. It is far above all these petty creations of illusion. Seek it by casting out

all fear, for when that is done life will show you what it means you to be.

pp. 154-5 (1 June 1930, Ojai)

Now desire, contrary to general belief, is the most precious possession of

man. It is the eternal flame of life; it is life itself. When its nature and functions

are not understood, however, it becomes cruel, tyrannical, bestial, stupid.

Therefore your business is not to kill desire as most spiritual people in the world

are trying to do, but to understand it. If you kill your desire, you are like the

withered branch of a lovely tree. Desire must keep growing and find out its true

meaning through conflict and friction. Only by the continuance of the conflict

can understanding come. This is what most people do not see. As soon as the

conflict comes, and the sorrow born of conflict, they at once seek comfort.

Comfort, in its turn, breeds fear. Fear leads to imitation and the sheltering

behind established tradition. From this come rigid systems of morality, laying

down what is spiritual and what is not spiritual, what is the religious life and

what is not the religious life. It is the fear of life which produces guides, teachers,

gurus, churches, religions. Please, I know.

None of these things are going to satisfy a mind which is really enquiring,

which is really in revolt. As soon as you fear, you have the desire to conform, to

13

listen to everybody, to become a machine, a type. And all this is but contraction,

and contraction is slow death. It is not in this way that desire can ever fulfil itself.

Growth can only come by the liberation of desire, and liberation here means

freeing it from all fear, and so from the cruelty and exploitation which results

from the quest of comfort, which is the refuge of fear. And this, in its turn, can

only come about through the wearing down of the egotism in desire by contact

with life itself. Only in this way can the reality be reached which is the true

consummation of desire. And so, truly to grow is to learn to love more and

more, to think more and more impersonally, through experience.

Desire, freed from its limitations and from the illusion of fear, becomes joy,

which is but the true poise of reason and love. From being at first personal,

limited, anxious, clinging, it grows by suffering till it becomes all-inclusive, till it

is as the sunset which gives and does not ask anything in return. In the same

way, by continual experience, by choosing, by assimilating and rejecting,

thought becomes more and more impersonal. When both thought and desire

are purified, then we get the perfect balance and harmony between the two,

which is the fulfillment of life and which we speak of as intuition. Such

purified life is the highest reality, and I say that every man and woman must

sooner or later attain to it. It is not reserved for the few, because life is not the

possession of the few. It is that which is struggling for realization in every

human being, and the path to realization is the same in all cases. It is by

struggle, effort, choice and conflict.

Now this highest reality is something which I assert that I have attained. For

me, it is not a theological concept. It is my own life-experience, definite, real,

concrete. I can, therefore, speak of what is necessary for its achievement, and I

say that the first thing is the recognizing exactly what desire must become in

order to fulfil itself, and then to discipline oneself so that at every moment, one

is watching one’s own desires, and guiding them towards that all-inclusiveness of

impersonal love and thought which must be their true consummation. When

you have established the discipline of this constant awareness, this constant

watchfulness upon all that you think and feel and do, then life ceases to be the

tyrannical, tedious, confusing thing that it is for most of us, and becomes but a

series of opportunities for growing towards that perfect fulfillment.

The goal of life is, therefore, not something far off, to be attained only in the

distant future, but it is to be realized moment by moment in that Now which is

all eternity. In such realization every moment controls the future; by what you

are now, you make yourself the master of tomorrow. To understand life and to

live it with understanding you must make yourself free of all the illusions which

desire throws up in its efforts to grow. And this means that you must be free of

fear, for all such illusions are born of fear. Once you have attained to fearlessness,

then you will understand clearly what desire is really seeking, and how it may

attain its end. The man who is seeking happiness, and understands what he is

seeking, must have no divorce between his desires and his actions. Knowing what

desire really wants, he will translate this into daily action. In other words, all his

actions will show forth that poise of reason and of love, which is desire’s true

goal because it is the liberation of life.

14

pp. 191-2 (22 July 1930, Summer, Ommen)
 

Question: How would you distinguish between the emotional or intellectual

reaction created in an ordinary man by a sunset, and the creative thoughts and

feelings perceived in the sunset by a great artist or a liberated man? What is the

nature of the difference between the two modes of experience?

KRISHNAMURTI: In one case there is excitement; in the other there is no

excitement. Excitement means reaction, and the liberated man is free of all

reactions. His energy is outward-going; reactions are inward-going. Please do

not look for sunsets to inspire you. You are only transferring to Nature the

inspiration you looked for in a Master. You are trying to become something, to

imitate something, instead of realising your own self, in which the whole

summation of truth lies hidden. It is not in the worship of another “I am” that

you find truth. That is only an illusion. In the realisation of one’s being, which is

the being of all things, alone is happiness.

p. 247 (6 August 1930, Summer, Ommen)
 

Question: In answer to a question yesterday about the civilised man asking

nothing for himself from anyone, you said, “One must make compromises with

physical things”. This is likely to lead to misunderstanding. Could you explain

further?

KRISHNAMURTI: To explain further, you must look at desire. Desire is

seeking happiness in many ways, and in its search it is creating conflict. Now

one man seeks happiness through a multitude of things — possessions, money,

houses, clothes, all the perquisites of modern civilization. Then he goes to a

subtler world of enjoyment, where desire is still seeking happiness. He does not

find it there, so he becomes indifferent, which is to be free from sorrow in a

negative way — it is not a state of positive being. So again he must suffer till he

comes to that state of true being which is the summation of happiness.

When I said yesterday that one must make a compromise with physical things,

please understand what I mean: There must be total detachment from all things

— from all comforts, the desire for possessions, from both gross or subtle

enjoyment — not because of authority or fear, but because you desire it yourself;

and out of that desire will come ecstasy and activity of being. When I said that

we must compromise with physical things, I meant to convey that I must put on

a pair of trousers, for instance, but that it is no good multiplying those trousers

to many hundreds. Happiness does not lie in that direction. You must have a

certain minimum, but without attachment; and then you are free, indifferent to

these things. I know you will immediately translate this into all kinds of things.

That is why I introduced it by saying: Examine your desires, find out if your

desire is clinging to comfort, to popularity, to fashions, to all the innumerable

idiosyncrasies of man — or rather, to the not-yet-man. Then, after great

examination and careful thought, you will be free of these things. Then there

will no longer be a question of compromise. But it requires great concentration,

great thoughtfulness, to recognise the pursuit of desire. You may give up your

15

clothes, smoking, eating meat, and all the rest of it, but yet that desire may cling

passionately to something else. It is by utter detachment, freedom from all

attachments, without compromise of any kind, that you arrive at the full

realisation of truth. You may be free from physical attachment, free from the

desire for comfort; but if you have the desire to shelter yourself from fear, to have

mental tabernacles in which you take refuge, comforting ideas in which you find

consolation — then you are not really detached. With all these things there must

be no compromise. When there is no longer that aching attachment to things,

gross, subtle, or formless, then from that detachment comes the ecstasy of

living, of being, which is but the perfect balance of naturalness.

p. 301 (1931 Summer, Ommen, VI)
 

Question: Are we to see in the most fundamental human emotions—hunger, thirst,

sex, love—something of which to be ashamed; or are we to recognize them as

expressions of life and at the same time try to purge them of egotism?

KRISHNAMURTI: You cannot purge, clean, that which is the true expression

of Life. You can only clean that which is the expression of egotism. The true

expression of Life is free, not limited by self-consciousness. Therefore it is, and

there is nothing to be cleansed. It is a part of the essential loveliness which is

Life. It is complete; it knows no separation, it does not spring out of sorrow,

pain, fear of the opposites. Love, which is its own eternity, is Life. In

completeness love knows no person, no mine and yours, no division, no

attraction or repulsion. It is the same with intelligence, the pure inward

perception, which is the true attribute of Life, its true outward expression.

As long as man holds to his self-consciousness there is a struggle between the

opposites, like and dislike, attraction and repulsion. A man who desires to be free

of self-consciousness must be normal, he must not suppress any of his desires

through fear, but must understand his conflict, his love, his sex. This

understanding shall make him free from self-consciousness. In man lies at all

times that Life in its completeness; but so long as there is self-consciousness with

all its qualities, opposites, virtues, fears, attachments, he is held in the bondage of

illusion. He thinks of himself as incomplete, and out of that incompleteness

there arises oppression, the expression of authority, the sense of possession, of

power. When a man really desires to be free, really wishes to realize that

completeness, he uses these as stepping stones; through his conflicts he gathers

the significance of experience.

16
 

“individual uniqueness”

p. 64 (NOW, 1929 Ommen camp)

What I mean by self-discipline is not discipline imposed through fear of

punishment and desire of reward which, when removed, enables you to return to

your old, senseless ways. True self-discipline is far greater, far more intense,

because it cuts at the roots of that “I”ness which creates barriers. Self-discipline is

the realisation of the freedom of the self. Individual uniqueness consists in the

process and not in the attainment. Intelligence consists in choosing the essential

and must be born from the love of perfection, from the love of that which is

eternal.

Understand the purpose of life, and from that very understanding will arise

self-discipline. Do not discipline yourself because you think that I have rewards

or punishments for you, or because you think that there is a heaven or a hell, or

because you desire to cooperate with something greater than yourself. These are

all childish reasons. If you merely discipline yourself without understanding, you

are creating greater barriers, greater misunderstandings, greater sorrows for

yourself and for others. Self-discipline must be born out of the love of Life —

vast, immeasurable, whole, unconditioned, limitless, to which all humanity

belongs. The encouragement, the nourishment, the fostering of that love will

lead to incorruptibility, because you love that which is eternal. Because you love

that freedom which is absolute, which is Truth itself, which is Life eternal, which

is perfection, which is incorruptibility, which is harmony — by the very force of

that love, your self-discipline will make you incorruptible; so you must nourish

that love. The incorruptibility of the self is the perfection of life. Into the

vastness of that Life which is unconditioned, all things enter, as all rivers enter

the sea.

p. 87-8 (14 November 1929, Benares)

Bearing in mind that you must be assured, certain for yourself beyond the

shadow of doubt, as to what is the purpose of life, from that point of view

examine the individual. I am only concerned with the individual, though in the

present civilisation the group is striving to dominate the individual, irrespective

of his growth. It is the individual that matters, because if the individual is clear in

his purpose, is assured, certain, then the struggle against society will cease. Then

he will not be dominated by society; he will be free and independent of society,

of the morality, of the narrowness, of the conventions of societies and groups.

The individual is the whole universe, the individual is the whole world, not

part of the world. The individual is the all-inclusive, not the all-exclusive,

because the self in each one is constantly making efforts, experimenting in

different directions; but the self in you and in me and in hundreds of others is

the same, though the expressions may vary and should vary.

17

The individual is the focus of the universe. So long as you do not

understand yourself, so long as you do not fathom the fullness of yourself, you

can be dominated, controlled, guided, helped, urged, caught up in the wheel of

continual strife. So you must concern yourself with the individual, that is, with

yourself. I am not preaching a selfish point of view at all. Experiment with what

you yourself think is right and not with what another says.

pp. 114-5 (1 January 1930, Winter, Adyar)

Another point which I would bring to your notice is this: life is not working

to produce a type; life is not creating waxen images.

Life wants you to be entirely different one from the other, and in diversity

must your fulfillment be and not in the production of a type. Look at what is

happening at present. You worship the many in the one, you worship the whole

of life personified in one being. This is worshipping a type, a waxen image, and

thereby making yourself into a type, into an image; and that image is a limitation

and hence there is sorrow. Whereas if you worship the one in the many, you will

not make yourself into a type. This is not a philosophical or a metaphysical idea

at all. Man, because he is afraid to be kindly, affectionate to the many, gives all

his respect, his worship, his prayers to the one—that is, he creates an image. But

life does not make types, it has nothing to do with images. To worship the one

in the many needs constant awareness of thought, constant apprehension of

the impersonal, constant adjustment of the point of view of the individual to

the many, which is life. If you create a type and merely adjust the balance

between yourself and that type, it is not a true adjustment, it is purely a personal

whim. Whereas if you make an adjustment between yourself and the one in the

many, then you are not creating an image, nor a type, but rather are being

moulded by life itself.

p. 129 (est. January 1930, Winter, Adyar)

What are you seeking? If you are seeking comfort, that putrefying

satisfaction, then you will naturally invent many things to support you in your

sorrow but will never eradicate the root of sorrow. But if you are seeking

freedom, you are beginning to destroy all these limitations, you are not a

worshipper of anything, you are seeking that perfection of the self which is the

perfection of the whole.

The self which is in every being is life and life is thought in action at the

beginning and, as it grows to its final fulfillment, it is thought in being. We will

discuss this later; but, as I said before, do not accept anything unless your hearts,

your minds are certain without a shadow of doubt, and then alter and destroy

the unessential things that are around you and be free. Then you will be in full

ecstasy with life, in love with life, with every dancing shadow, with every cry,

with every sound of laughter. Do not translate this into mysticism; truth has

nothing to do with such things. It is the whole, and to understand the whole you

18

must not approach it by any path. You must have the uniqueness of the self in

you.

p. 196-7 (24 July 1930, Summer, Ommen)
 

Question: Does life, for the realisation of which the individual is struggling,

appear differently to different temperaments?

KRISHNAMURTI: Certainly not. Temperaments exist because of separate

individual existences; but that which knows no separation cannot be translated

into temperaments; you cannot approach it through a particular temperament.

If you look at it from the point of view of the part, you do not see the whole,

and naturally the whole appears in terms of the part, and so you translate that

part as temperament. Through a temperament you cannot perceive that which is

beyond all temperaments. As a person realises this life, he may translate it

differently, using different terms, a different language, but it will be the same

picture. It is like two artists who paint the same scene. If you try to find unity in

those two pictures on the canvas, you will be utterly confused; but if you perceive

the scene itself, you will find there the unity that has been translated into two

different expressions. Now expressions are temperaments, and in temperaments

there cannot be unity; but there is unity in that which creates temperaments.
 

Question: Would you kindly speak further to us concerning the distinction

between individual temperament and what you have called individual uniqueness?

KRISHNAMURTI: Individual temperament varies, whereas individual

uniqueness is continuous until it achieves, until it has realised. Individual

temperament depends on birth, involving change of environment, personality,