Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes: 233 Quotes to Inspire Personal Transformation, Education, and Self-Awareness

“The answer is in the problem, not away from the problem. I go through the searching, analysing, dissecting process, in order to escape from the problem. But, if I do not escape from the problem and try to look at the problem without any fear or anxiety, if I merely look at the problem — mathematical, political, religious, or any other — and not look to an answer, then the problem will begin to tell me. Surely, this is what happens. We go through this process and eventually throw it aside because there is no way out of it. So, why can’t we start right from the beginning, that is, not seek an answer to a problem? — which is extremely arduous, isn’t it? Because, the more I understand the problem, the more significance there is in it. To understand, I must approach it quietly, not impose on the problem my ideas, my feelings of like and dislike. Then the problem will reveal its significance. Why is it not possible to have tranquillity of the mind right from the beginning?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Eighth Talk in The Oak Grove, 7 August 1949" http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=320&chid=4643&w=%22The+answer+is+in+the+problem%2C+not+away+from+the+problem%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 490807, Vol. V, p. 283
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

Fear , Way , Feeling , Search

“Waiting the word of the Master,
Watching the Hidden Light;
Listening to his orders In the very midst of the fight; Seeing His slightest signal
Across the heads of the throng;
Hearing His faintest whisper
Above earth's loudest song.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Closing poem
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)

Light , Waiting , Fight

“Thought nourishes, sustains and gives continuity to fear and pleasure.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

3rd Public Talk, Bombay (Mumbai), India (14 February 1971)
1970s

Pleasure , Fear

“Goodness has no opposite. Most of us consider goodness as the opposite of the bad or evil and so throughout history in any culture goodness has been considered the other face of that which is brutal. So man has always struggled against evil in order to be good; but goodness can never come into being if there is any form of violence or struggle.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Vol. I, p. 12
1980s, Letters to the Schools (1981, 1985)

History , Evil

“You can look only when the mind is completely quiet.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

2nd Public Talk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (12 May 1968)
1960s

“There's a great and unutterable beauty in all this.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Source: 1970s, Krishnamurti's Notebook (1976), p. 166

Beauty

“The moment I am aware that I am aware, I am not aware. Awareness means the observer is not.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

7th Public Discussion, Saanen, Switzerland (10 August 1971)
1970s

“Surely, the violence and the entity who says, "I must change violence into non-violence", are both the same. To recognize that fact is to put an end to all conflict, is it not? There is no longer the conflict of trying to change, because I see that the very movement of the mind not to be violent is itself the outcome of violence.
So, the questioner wants to know why it is that he cannot go beyond all these superficial wrangles of the mind. For the simple reason that, consciously or unconsciously, the mind is always seeking something, and that very search brings violence, competition, the sense of utter dissatisfaction. It is only when the mind is completely still that there is a possibility of touching the deep waters.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Further response to the above question
1950s, Freedom From the Self (1955)

Search , Question , Sense , Water

“Sacredness is the essence of religion. You know, a great river may become polluted as it flows past a town, but if the pollution isn’t too great, the river cleanses itself as it goes along, and within a few miles it is again clean, fresh, pure. Similarly, when once the mind comes upon this sacredness, then every act is a cleansing act. Through its very movement the mind is making itself innocent, and therefore it is not accumulating. A mind that has discovered this sacredness is in constant revolution — not economic or social revolution, but an inner revolution through which it is endlessly purifying itself. Its action is not based on some idea or formula. As the river, with a tremendous volume of water behind it, cleanses itself as it flows, so does the mind cleanse itself when once it has come upon this religious sacredness.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Vol. XV, p. 244
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

Religion , Idea , Water , Past

“To learn about oneself, a living thing, you have to watch, learn anew each minute.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

4th Public Talk, Bombay (Mumbai), India (17 February 1971)
1970s

Learning

“Goodness is not in the backyard of the individual nor in the open field of the collective; goodness flowers only in freedom from both.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Conversation 5
1970s, The Urgency of Change (1970)

Flowers , Freedom

“In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be. We look to someone to tell us what is right or wrong behaviour, what is right or wrong thought, and in following this pattern our conduct and our thinking become mechanical, our responses automatic. We can observe this very easily in ourselves.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1960s, (1969)

Thinking , Parting

“Does choice exist when I see something very clearly?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

2nd Question & Answer Meeting, Brockwood Park, UK (11 September 1971)
1970s

“Control exists only when there is action of will, positively or negatively. Will is resistance. When the mind is learning, there is no resistance.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

3rd Public Talk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (24 May 1971)
1970s

Learning

“Is there a thinker apart from thought?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

12th Public Talk, London, UK (28 May 1961)
1960s

“Can you look at a flower without thinking?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

4th Discussion with Young People, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (23 May 1968)
1960s

Flowers , Thinking

“When you identify yourself with a group of people or a set of ideas, aren't you separating yourself?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1st Discussion with Young People, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (26 May 1971)
1970s

People , Idea

“The very word "sorrow" colours the fact of sorrow, the pain of it.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

3rd Public Talk, Brockwood Park, UK (5 September 1981)
1980s

Pain

“Psychological knowledge has made us dull.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

4th Public Talk, Ojai, California (10 April 1980)
1980s

Knowledge

“To die every day to every problem, every pleasure, and not carry over any problem at all; so the mind remains tremendously attentive, active, clear.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

3rd Public Talk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (24 May 1967)
1960s

Pleasure , Problem

“Meditation is a state of mind in which the operation and exercise of will is not.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

3rd Public Talk, Bangalore, India (13 January 1973)
1970s

Exercises

“Meditation is not a process of learning how to meditate; it is the very inquiry into what is meditation. To inquire into what is meditation, the mind must free itself from what it has learnt about meditation, and the freeing of the mind from what it has learnt is the beginning of meditation.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Third Talk at Rajghat" (25 December 1955) http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=527&chid=4846&w=%22Meditation+is+not+a+process+of+learning+how+to+meditate%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 551225, Vol. IX, p. 192
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

Learning

“There are many for whom the Qualification of Desirelessness is a difficult one, for they feel that they are their desires — that if their distinctive desires, their likings and dislikings, are taken away from them, there will be no self left. But these are only they who have not seen the Master; in the light of His holy Presence all desire dies, but the desire to be like Him.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

§ II
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)

Feeling , Light

“It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

As quoted in The Eden Express https://books.google.com/books?id=o89v2m2ybCEC&q=%22well-adjusted+to+a+profoundly+sick+society%22 (1975) by Mark Vonnegut, p. 208
1970s

Health

“No book can teach you about yourself, no psychologist, none of the professors or philosophers. What they can teach you is what they think you are or what they think you should be.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1st Public Talk, Bangalore, India (30 January 1971)
1970s

Books , Thinking

“The world is me and I am the world.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

2nd Seminar Meeting, Brockwood Park, UK (14 September 1979)
1970s

World

“Learning implies a mind that doesn't know.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

2nd Public Talk, Saanen, Switzerland (20 July 1971)
1970s

Learning

“Throughout theological history we have been assured by religious leaders that if we perform certain rituals, repeat certain prayers or mantras, conform to certain patterns, suppress our desires, control our thoughts, sublimate our passions, limit our appetites and refrain from sexual indulgence, we shall, after sufficient torture of the mind and body, find something beyond this little life. And that is what millions of so-called religious people have done through the ages, either in isolation, going off into the desert or into the mountains or a cave or wandering from village to village with a begging bowl, or, in a group, joining a monastery, forcing their minds to conform to an established pattern. But a tortured mind, a broken mind, a mind which wants to escape from all turmoil, which has denied the outer world and been made dull through discipline and conformity — such a mind, however long it seeks, will find only according to its own distortion.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1960s, (1969)

Life , People , Age , World

“In the denial of disorder there is order.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

4th Public Talk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (19 May 1968)
1960s

“The transformation of the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1950s, The First and Last Freedom (1954)

World

“The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all humanity.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1980s

Lie , Freedom

“Knowing the cause of something is not going to help you to be free of it.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1st Discussion with Young People, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (14 May 1968)
1960s

Help

“Passion is something which very few of us have really felt. What we may have felt is enthusiasm, which is being caught up in an emotional state over something. Our passion is for something: for music, for painting, for literature, for a country, for a woman or a man; it is always the effect of a cause. When you fall in love with someone, you are in a great state of emotion, which is the effect of that particular cause; and what I am talking about is passion without a cause. It is to be passionate about everything, not just about something, whereas most of us are passionate about a particular person or thing. I think one must see this distinction very clearly. In the state of passion without a cause, there is intensity free of all attachment; but when passion has a cause, there is attachment, and attachment is the beginning of sorrow.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Vol. XIII, p. 251
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

Love , Music , Literature , Thinking

“When all authority of every kind is put aside, denied, then you can find out for yourself.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

4th Public Talk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (28 May 1967)
1960s

“To follow implies not only the denying of one's own clarity, investigation, integrity and honesty, but it also implies that your motive in following is reward. Truth is not a reward.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

4th Public Talk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (19 May 1968)
1960s

Truth , Motivation

“Where there is fear there is aggression.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1st Public Talk, Berkeley, California (3 February 1969)
1960s

Fear

“Hold back your mind from pride, for pride comes only from ignorance. The man who does not know thinks that he is great, that he has done this or that great thing; the wise man knows that only God is great, that all good work is done by God alone.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

§ III
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)

God , Thinking

“Is there an observation which is not the instrument of thought?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

2nd Public Talk, Brockwood Park, UK (26th August 1979)
1970s

“Can the mind become completely still without coercion, without compulsion, without discipline?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

7th Public Discussion, Saanen, Switzerland (10 August 1971)
1970s

“When I analyse myself and my reactions or behaviour, there is the act and the actor. There is a division between the two and that creates conflict between "what is" and "what should be."”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1st Question & Answer Meeting, Brockwood Park, UK (7 September 1971)
1970s

“Why does the brain retain the memory of the hurt from yesterday?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

5th Public Discussion, Saanen, Switzerland (8 August 1971)
1970s

Memory , Hurt

“Can I live a life, daily life, without sense of self-concern?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

4th Public Talk, Saanen, Switzerland (25 July 1971)
1970s

Life , Sense

“When you practice meditation, the meditator becomes all-important and not the movement of meditation.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

3rd Public Talk, Bangalore, India (13 January 1973)
1970s

“Truth does not belong to an individual.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

10th Conversation with D. Bohm, Brockwood Park, UK and Gstaad, Switzerland (27 September 1975)
1970s

Truth

“We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)
Context: We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.

“If there is no meditation, then you are like a blind man in a world of great beauty, light and colour.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Talks in Europe 1968
1970s, Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader (1973)

World , Beauty , Light

“Is it possible to live in this world without the operation of will?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

6th Public Talk, Saanen, Switzerland (29 July 1971)
1970s

World

“Can thought be silent?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

2nd Public Talk, Berkeley, California (4 February 1969)
1960s

“The answer is in the problem, not away from the problem. I go through the searching, analysing, dissecting process, in order to escape from the problem. But, if I do not escape from the problem and try to look at the problem without any fear or anxiety, if I merely look at the problem — mathematical, political, religious, or any other — and not look to an answer, then the problem will begin to tell me. Surely, this is what happens. We go through this process and eventually throw it aside because there is no way out of it. So, why can’t we start right from the beginning, that is, not seek an answer to a problem?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

which is extremely arduous, isn’t it? Because, the more I understand the problem, the more significance there is in it. To understand, I must approach it quietly, not impose on the problem my ideas, my feelings of like and dislike. Then the problem will reveal its significance. Why is it not possible to have tranquillity of the mind right from the beginning?
"Eighth Talk in The Oak Grove, 7 August 1949" http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=320&chid=4643&w=%22The+answer+is+in+the+problem%2C+not+away+from+the+problem%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 490807, Vol. V, p. 283
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

Search , Problem , Mathematics , Way

“When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

"The core of the teachings (1980) http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/about-krishnamurti/dissolution-speech.php
1980s

Past , Time