Jiddu Krishnamurti

Most of us are frightened of dying because we don't know what it meant to live.We don't know how to live,therefore we don't know how to die

Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident-prone.

The guru cannot awaken you; all that he can do is to point out what is.

Take a journey into the things which you are carrying, the known- not into the unknown-into what you already know: your pleasures, your delights, your despairs, your sorrows. Take a journey into that, that is all you have.

Fear is what prevents the flowering of the mind.

From these prejudices there arises conflict, transient joys and suffering. But we are unconscious of this, unconscious that we are slaves to certain forms of tradition, to social and political environment, to false values.

Why do you want to read others' books when there is the book of yourself?

Truth is more in the process than in the result.

All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.

You are Christians; find out what is true and false in Christianity - and you will then find out what is true. Find out what is true and false in your environment with all its oppressions and cruelties, and then you will find out what is true. Why do you want philosophies?

In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.

And the point is, is it possible for the mind to be totally free from suffering and yet not become indifferent, callous, irresponsible, but to have that passion, the intensity, the energy that freedom brings, freedom from suffering.

If there is no order in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, with your children, with your neighbour - whether that neighbour is near or very far away - forget about meditation.

Begin where you are. Read every word, every phrase, every paragraph of the mind, as it operates through thought.

In obedience there is always fear, and fear darkens the mind.

True education is to learn how to think, not what to think. If you know how to think, if you really have that capacity, then you are a free human being-free of dogmas, superstitions, ceremonies-and therefore you can find out what religion is.

Religion becomes a matter of belief, and belief acts as a limitation on the mind; and the mind then is never free. But it is only in freedom that you can find out what is true, what is God, not through any belief; because your belief projects what you think God ought to be, what you think ought to be true. If you believe God is love, God is good, God is this or that, your very belief prevents you from understanding what is God, what is true.

If people who say they love their children meant it, would there be war? And would there be division of nationalities - would there be these separations?

True understanding is possible only when we are fully conscious of our thought, not as an operative observer on this thought, but completely and without the intervention of a choice.

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. . Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity.

The mind gives meaning to anything but the meaning it gives is meaningless.