Krishnamurti Quote of the Day

Ojai, California | 7th Public Talk 24th June, 1934

Tags: individuality, intelligence

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One cannot find out what is true value as long as one's mind is seeking consolation;

As long as I accept the dictates of tradition, of a particular culture, as long as I carry the weight of my memories, my experiences - which after all are the result of my conditioning - I am not an individual, but merely a product.

I think individuality comes into being only when one is fully aware of this encroaching movement of environment and tradition that makes the mind a slave.

The present civilization is based on greed and individual competition; it cannot last forever, because it has no intrinsic value.

Please understand what I mean by being individual; I do not mean individualistic.

you must begin to understand, and therefore act, to discover what is false in the existing system, and thereby you will, as individuals, form a nucleus.

Individuality, this consciousness, this limited self-consciousness, is a fact in life. It is a fact in your life, isn't it? It is a fact, but it has no reality.

We must begin to create intelligent opinion, and thereby we shall have a world where individuality is not crushed out, beaten to a particular pattern, but becomes a means of expression of life;

The more you battle against environment without understanding, the more you struggle against circumstances, the more you become conscious, in that effort, of your limitation.

Do not suppose the opposite of [the] limited consciousness to be complete annihilation, or mechanical functioning, or group activity.

The individual, as he is now, is nothing else than the exaggerated expression of environment, environment being the past and the present, the inherited and the acquired.

As long as one is a slave to unexplored, unquestioned environment and values, both past and present, they must pervert the completeness of action.

Question: Are you preaching individualism?

Economically, man certainly cannot be individualistic, which he has been through these many centuries, causing chaos, exploitation and misery.

Question: How can you talk about human suffering when you yourself have never experienced it?

Each individual is nothing but a series of conditioned memories, which impede complete and intelligent adjustment to the living, moving present.

We have to realize profoundly, not casually or superficially, that no one particular person or system is wholly going to solve for us our agonizing problems and clarify our complex and subtle reactions.

The mouthing of such words as truth, God, perfection, can have no deep significance and import.

Each one of us is unique in the sense that each one is continually creating his own ignorance, which is without a beginning and is self-sustained through its own actions.

Choice in action creates duality, and this affirms the process of consciousness as individuality.

In completely discerning the "I" process, you cease to be a victim who struggles alone in an emptiness.

You and I are the results of that energy which in the course of its development creates those prejudices, tendencies and cravings that make each individual unique.

How can there be true relationship between two individualized patterns, though there may be mechanical response from each?

If we, wherever we find ourselves, try earnestly to understand our environment and free thought from our particular tendencies and limited experiences, then we will comprehend life as a whole, and not be bound by the prejudices, the traditions, and values of our particular environment.

Can there be individuality in the widest and deepest sense, if one belongs to society?

It is possible to be a true individual in the highest sense, only if one is not identified with any special conditioning.

When one has liberated oneself from society, group, race, family, and from all separative conditioning, and has become an undivided, integral being the problems which now torment the citizens of various particularized states will have utterly lost their significance.

To think of myself as separate, different in consciousness, is to identify myself with fundamental ignorance;

When we do not understand the makeup of our background ...

As long as we regard ourselves as individuals apart from the whole, competing, obstructing, opposing, sacrificing the many for the particular or the particular for the many, all those problems that arise out of this conflicting antagonism will have no happy and enduring solution;

You and I are one; there is neither the East nor the West.

What do you mean when you use the term myself?

Enchaining habit-memory binds thought, and so intelligence is imprisoned in the self.

The very awareness of what is is a liberative process.

You don't know God but you know only the 'me'.

When your neighbour and yourself are each behind his own wall, how can you understand each other?

An intelligent mind acts in the field of thought intelligently, sanely, without resistance;

An ambitious man, whether he be a merchant, a politician, or a so-called saint is essentially a self-contradictory human being.

Don't change. It's very simple. If you want to remain as you are, carry on, nobody is going to prevent you.

The highest form of sensitivity is the highest intelligence, and no drug ever invented by man will give this intelligence.

Sensitivity in its highest form is intelligence.

Intelligence does not offer shelter from the struggles and turmoils of life, nor does it give comfort; it only creates understanding.

To understand anything, one must find out what it is all about.

To be integrally intelligent means to be without the self.

When the mind is attached to an idea or a belief, or to a past experience, it reveals the lack of intelligence.

There is a vast distinction between intellect and intelligence

To live a natural life, full, spontaneous life, creative, intelligent life, you can only do that when you understand the false standards and the true standards of society, and have broken away from it because you understand their significance;

To me, all ideals must be the means of alleviation of suffering, and, therefore, cannot possibly explain to you the reason of suffering.

We can talk about tolerance, which is an intellectual invention to keep you where you are and to keep me where I am, and try to be friendly.

When your whole being becomes conscious of something which is poisonous, there is no effort to throw it out; you have already moved away from it.

In the process of discovering, there is born intelligence, understanding; and that supreme intelligence is life itself. You don't want any more.

Exploitation comes into being when individuals seek more than their essential needs;

I do not want to give you examples and similes, because I want you to think it out, and if I give examples I do all the thinking and you merely listen.

in that state of acuteness of suffering, in that intensity of suffering in which there is no longer escape, the mind itself becomes intelligence.

If you experiment with this, you will see that I am not giving you theories, but something with which you can work, something which is practical.

One should bear in mind that what we call accumulation of sorrows does not lead to intensity, nor does the multiplication of suffering lead to its own dissolution;

If you are in conflict, naturally you must question the environment, but most minds have become so perverted that they are not aware that they are seeking solutions, escapes through their marvellous theories.

If there is intelligence, then environment has no value, no significance, because intelligence is then freed from circumstance, it is functioning fully.

The mind which is really intelligent is free of self-discipline, for intelligence is born out of the questioning of environment, and the discovery of the true significance of environment.

Intelligence is not born out of self-discipline or suppression.

The test of right action is in its spontaneity, but to act spontaneously is to be greatly intelligent.

Where there is intelligence, the mind is not conditioned by any environment, because it is all the time conscious, aware and functioning, and therefore discerning, perceiving the full worth of the environment.

Every struggle, every effort to attain liberation indicates an escape from the present.

To me there is no division between mind and intelligence.

the individual builds up a romantic haven of escape in which he seeks compensation for the loss and suffering in the outer world.

Because what you can now discern as God must be limited, since your mind is circumscribed, held in bondage; therefore I will not describe that.

The more you battle against environment without understanding, the more you struggle against circumstances, the more you become conscious, in that effort, of your limitation.

We are discussing what exists, not what should exist.

I am not giving you a mould or a code by which you can live, or a system which you can follow.

There is self-discipline only where there is no intelligence.

To awaken true intelligence we must first inquire into the many stupidities which cripple the mind and heart, and not seek a definition of intelligence;

To discover what is true one requires great intelligence.

Intelligence is the only solution that will bring about harmony in this world of conflict, harmony between mind and heart in action.

Question: How can I awaken intelligence?

To find out your needs requires intelligence, for needs are constantly changing, constantly renewing themselves.

We all desire to help the world, but we never begin with ourselves.

Question: Is man in any sense superior to woman?

Question: How can you prevent people from following you as their authority?

Almost all people are unconscious both of the intelligence and of the stupidity about them.

The function of real suffering, which is to awaken intelligence, is denied through the search for comfort.

To understand and awaken [this] harmonious intelligence, one must begin, not with assumptions and authoritative assertions, but negatively.

Most of us do not realize that we are unique, that the process of creating ignorance and sorrow lies within our own power, and that only through the comprehension of ourselves can there be freedom from them.

Intelligence is not a gift but can be cultivated, awakened, through alertness of mind and choiceless life.

There are many organizations for peace, but there are very few individuals who are free, who are intelligent in the true sense of the word.

The process of choice is merely one want overcoming another, one illusion dispelling another, one set of values substituting itself for another.

If you can perceive for yourself that ideals, beliefs, traditions, values, are constantly twisting your thought-action, then by becoming aware of these distortions intelligence is awakened.

Creative intelligence cannot be invited or measured, but the mind seeks definition, description, and is ever caught in the illusion of words.

To be aware without choice, to be conscious of the many activities of the mind, its richness, its subtleties, its deceptions, its illusions, is to be intelligent.

When we are integrally aware of the process of ignorance, voluntarily, spontaneously, there is the beginning of that intelligence which meets all conditioning influences.

Lasting order and peace can be brought about only when the individual voluntarily and intelligently consents to think without hate, greed, ambition, and so on.

Intelligence is the discovery, by each one, of what is of primary importance and the capacity to pursue it.

If we do not understand our own make up, our own psyche, our own thought-feeling, then how can we understand anything else?

Through constant awareness of every thought-feeling the ways of the self are known, and out of self-knowledge comes right thinking.

If we would understand a problem we must set aside our desires, our accumulated experiences, our patterns of thought.

An intelligence which is the product of desire, of self-expansion, is ever creating resistance, and it can never bring about tranquillity.

We shall know, as experience, the new form of intelligence only when the self-protective and self-expansive intelligence ceases.

Questioner: We do have to make some kind of effort, do we not?

How can thought which is the outcome of time, of self-protective activity, comprehend that which is not of time?

We have spent our days and our energies in transforming what is without understanding what is.

Intellect is producing such havoc, degradation and misery, but that is not reason, it is merely intellectuality concerned only with the superficial, responding to the immediate challenge.

Is not suffering an indication of ignorance?

You are changing. So also is your neighbour. Yet when you meet your neighbour, you have your old picture of that person.

Conditioned thought that seeks to modify or change itself merely continues the conditioned state.

Is it not important at all times, and especially during these critical days, to think very clearly and to know our feelings very intimately?

Intelligence is the understanding of sorrow.