Source: 1970s, Krishnamurti in India, 1970-71 (1971), p. 157
Context: In seeking there are several things involved: there is the seeker and the thing that he seeks after. When the seeker finds what he thinks is truth, is God, is enlightenment, he must be able to recognize it. He must recognize it, right? Recognition implies previous knowledge, otherwise you cannot recognize. I cannot recognize you if I had not met you yesterday. Therefore when I say this is truth, I have already known it and therefore it is not truth. So a man who is seeking truth lives a life of hypocrisy, because his truth is the projection of his memory, of his desire, of his intentions to find something other than "what is", a formula. So seeking implies duality — the one who seeks and the thing sought after — and where there is duality there is conflict. There is wastage of energy. So you can never find it, you can never invite it.
“The thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it.”
Bayazid Bastami (804–846) Persian Sufi mystic
Quoted in James Fadiman and Robert Frager, eds., Essential Sufism (Castle Books, 1998, ISBN 0-7858-0906-6, p. 37. <br class="br">Quoted earlier in " Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose https://archive.org/stream/translationsofea00nich#page/140/mode/2up/search/impossible" by RA Nicholson (p.140) (Macmillan, 1922)
Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader
Self-Enquiry paraphrased, as spoken by Ram Dass in the film 'Abide as the Self.'
Abide as the Self
Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist
Where Is Science Going? (1932)
Source: Where is Science Going?
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher
Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected "Problems" of "Logic" (Grundfragen der Philosophie: Ausgewählte "Probleme" der "Logik" (1984), translated by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer, Indiana University Press, 1994, ISBN 0253004381, p. 7)
“For I have always been a seeker, a dreamer, and a ponderer on seeking and dreaming…”
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Source: Night Ocean et autres nouvelles
Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) Benedictine monk, philosopher, and prelate
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 123.
“That is the first thing to learn — not to seek.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)
Context: That is the first thing to learn — not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping. The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.
Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician
To leigh Sales "Tony Abbott blames carbon tax for 'uncertainty'" http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3573785.htm 7.30 Report, August 22, 2012. <br class="br">2012
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831–1891) English statesman and poet
Part ii, canto ii.
Lucile (1860)
