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.
I always felt the true test of a man's character is how he treats people he can't use.
But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else.
The punitive use of force tends to generate hostility and to reinforce resistance to the very behavior we are seeking.
Once you buy the argument that some segment of the citizenry should lose their rights, just because they are envied or resented, you are putting your own rights in jeopardy - quite aside from undermining any moral basis for respecting anybody's rights. You are opening the floodgates to arbitrary power. And once you open the floodgates, you can't tell the water where to go.
How small life is here and how big nothingness. The sky, tired of light, has given everything to the snow. The two trees bow their heads to each other. Clouds cross the world’s silence in a circle dance
Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.
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