When you look around you, not so much in the human world as in nature, in the heavens, you see an extraordinary sense of order, balance, and harmony. Every tree and flower has its own order, its own beauty; every hilltop and every valley has a sense of its own rhythm and stability. Though man tries to control the rivers and pollutes their waters, they have their own flow, their own far-reaching movement. Apart from man, in the seas, in the air and the vast expanse of the heavens there is an extraordinary sense of purity and orderly existence. Though the fox kills the chicken, and the bigger animals live on the little animals, what appears to be cruelty is a design of order in this universe, except for man. When man doesn’t interfere, there is great beauty of balance and harmony.
The Whole Movement of Life is
Learning: Letters to the Schools, Ch. 70
When we lose contact with nature, we lose contact with each other. When you lose contact with the birds, the shy and timid quail, then you lose contact with your child and the person across the street. When you kill an animal to eat, you are also cultivating insensitivity which will kill that man across the border. When you lose contact with the enormous movement of life, you lose all relationship. Then you—the ego with all its fanciful urges, demands, and pursuits—become all-important, and the gulf between you and the world widens in endless conflicts.
The Whole Movement of Life is
Learning: Letters to the Schools, Ch. 67.
It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature. We never seem to have a feeling for all the living things on the earth. If we could establish a deep, abiding relationship with nature, we would never kill an animal for our appetite; we would never harm, vivisect a monkey, a dog, a guinea pig for our benefit. We would find other ways to heal our wounds, heal our bodies. But the healing of the mind is something totally different. That healing gradually takes place if you are with nature.
Krishnamurti to Himself, 25 February 1983