To know oneself is to study oneself in action, which is relationship.
Interpretation
Understanding oneself comes through observing one's actions and interactions, particularly in relationships.
Jiddu Krishnamurti emphasizes the importance of self-awareness by suggesting that true knowledge of oneself is not found in isolation but in the context of actions and interactions with others. By engaging in relationships, one can gain insights into their behavior, motivations, and the nature of the self, thus facilitating personal growth and understanding.
In practice
In a workshop about personal development, this quote can inspire participants to reflect on their interactions.
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.
Those who call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize it is never the oppressed who determine the bounds of censorship.
According to their [Newton and his followers] doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's making, so imperfect, according to these gentlemen; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as clockmaker mends his work.
It's the tide. It's the dismal tide. It's not the one thing.
The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.
Economics and a reliance on science and technology to solve our problems has led to an unsustainable situation where continued growth in consumption is required for governments and business to be considered successful. This is a form of insanity. Economics is at the heart of our destructive ways and our faith in it has blinded us
The most formidable people in the world, and now the most dangerous, people who... lay down the doctrine that every frontier must be the starting out point for invasion.
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