J. Krishnamurti

What is compassion? Is it emotion, something romantic? Does it expend  itself in some kind of social work? One has to find out what compassion  is, what love is. Is love desire? Is love pleasure? And can there be love  where there is ambition? Can there be love when one is trying to become  something—not only in the outward world but also psychologically  where there is this constant struggle to be or to become something? Can  there be love when there is jealousy and violence; when there is division  between you and me? Can there be love when you are nationalistic?

So, if you will this morning apply the art, the art of listening. We rarely  listen to anybody. We are so full of our own conclusions, our own  experiences, our own problems, our own judgements, so we have no  space in which to listen. We ought to have some space so that as two  friends, you and I, the speaker, are talking over together their problems,  amicably, under the shade of a tree, sitting down and looking at the  mountains, but concerned with their problems, and so they are willing  to listen to each other.

How would you, if you had a son here or a daughter, you want to educate them, or bring about a holistic life? You’ve got so many students here, capable, intelligent—at least some of them—and would you bring about, through what means, through what kind of attitude, what kind of verbal explanation, would you go

Have you not noticed that if you sit quietly on the banks of the river you hear its song—the lapping of the water, the sound of the current going by? There is always a sense of movement, an extraordinary movement towards the wider and the deeper. But in the little pool there is no movement at all, its water is stagnant. And if you observe you will see that this is what most of us want: little stagnant pools of existence away from life.

In our search for knowledge, in our acquisitive desires, we are losing love, we are blunting the feeling for beauty, the sensitivity to cruelty; we are becoming more and more specialized and less and less integrated. Wisdom cannot be replaced by knowledge, and no amount of explanation, no accumulation of facts, will free man from suffering. Knowledge is necessary, science has its place; but if the mind and heart are suffocated by knowledge, and if the cause of suffering is explained away, life becomes vain
and meaningless….

On Goodness
J KRISHNAMURTI

W e are concerned with the whole existence of man and whether a human being can ever be free from his travail, his efforts, his anxieties, violence and brutality, and whether there is an end to sorrow. Why have human beings, throughout the ages, sustained and put up with suffering? Can there be a…

If one listens…without effort, with clarity, then I think that very listening is the vehicle of action.
You do not have to do anything about it – the very act of listening is action. It is like seeing something, it is like looking at a flower. We never actually look at a flower, because we look …

W hen asked in 1974 by his biographer, Mary
Lutyens, to define his teachings Krishnamurti wrote the following:
The core of Krishnamurti’s teaching is contained in the statement he made in 1929 when he said Truth is a pathless land.
Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed…

W hen 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 tr…

You must have a clear mind, a free untethered mind; this is essential, you cannot have a clear, penetrating mind if there is fear of any sort. Fear clogs the mind. If the mind does not face its own self-created problems, it is not a clear, deep mind.
To face its own peculiarities, to be aware of…

What Do You Mean by Karma?
J KRISHNAMURTI