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.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how ignorance of our ingrained beliefs and societal influences leads to conflict and suffering.
Jiddu Krishnamurti's quote delves into the idea that many of our conflicts arise from unexamined prejudices and traditions that we blindly adhere to. He suggests that we often remain unaware of how these beliefs enslave us, binding our perceptions and behaviors to societal norms and false values, which ultimately results in a cycle of transient joys followed by suffering.
In practice
In a discussion about societal norms, this quote can be used to encourage critical thinking about inherited 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.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A youth to fortune and to fame unknown: Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Any effort to make the death penalty speedier and less costly - more 'efficient' - will inevitably make it less just.
Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.
The challenge today is to convince people of the value of truth, honesty, compassion and a concern for others.
We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
I was Catholic. You talk about a minority within a minority within a minority: a black Catholic in Savannah, GA.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.