A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations is really an uncreative mind.
Interpretation
A clear and open mind is necessary for creativity, not one filled with unexamined beliefs.
Jiddu Krishnamurti's quote emphasizes the importance of maintaining an open and empty mind, akin to an empty cup, in order to foster creativity and original thought. He suggests that when one's mind is cluttered with preconceived notions, rigid beliefs, and quotes from others, it hinders the capacity for true creativity and personal insight.
In practice
During a workshop on creativity, this quote can be used to encourage participants to let go of limiting beliefs.
The following of authority is the denial of intelligence. [It] may help us temporarily to cover up our difficulties and problems; but to avoid a problem is only to intensify it, and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.
If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.
All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.
To speculate without facts is to attempt to enter a house of which one has not the key, by wandering aimlessly round and round, searching the walls and now and then peeping through the windows. Facts are the key.
He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward.
It is a good discipline to be forced to work for work's sake, even to the length of not being allowed to enjoy the fruits of one's labour.
Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end - no apologies, no regrets.
The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, the skillful direct it.
Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.
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