Question: You never mention God, Has he no place in your teachings?

Krishnamurti: You talk a great deal about God, don't you? Your books are full of it. You build churches, temples, you make sacrifices, you do rituals, perform ceremonies, and you are full of ideas about God, are you not? You repeat the word, but your acts are not godly, are they? Though you worship what you call God, your ways, your thoughts, your existence, are not godly, are they? Though you repeat the word `God', you exploit others, do you not? You have your gods - Hindu, Mussulman, Christian, and all the rest of it. You build temples; and the richer you get, the more temples you build. (Laughter.)

Don't laugh, Sir, you would do the same yourself - only you are still trying to become rich, that is all. So, you are very familiar with God, at least with the word; but the word is not God, the word is not the thing. So, let us be very clear on that point: The word is not God. You may use the word `God' or some other word, but God is not the word which you use. Because you use it, it does not mean that you know God; you merely know the word. I don't use that word for the very simple reason that you know it. What you know is not the real. And besides, to find reality, all verbal mutterings of the mind must cease, must they not? You have images of God, but the image is not God, surely. How can you know God? Obviously, not through an image, not through a temple. To receive God, the unknown, the mind must be the unknown. If you pursue God, then you already know God, you know the end; you know what you are pursuing, don't you? If you seek God, you must know what God is; otherwise, you wouldn't seek him, would you? You seek him either according to your books, or according to your feelings; and your feelings are merely the response of memory.

Therefore, that which you seek is already created, either through memory or through hearsay, and that which is created is not the eternal - it is the product of the mind. Sirs if there were no books, if there were no gurus, no formulas to be repeated you would only know sorrow and happiness, wouldn't you? - constant sorrow and misery, and rare moments of happiness; and then you would want to know why you suffer. You couldn't escape to God - but you would probably escape in other ways, and soon invent gods as an escape. But, if you really want to understand the whole process of suffering, as a new man; a fresh man, enquiring and not escaping, then you will free yourself from sorrow, then you will find out what reality is, what God is. But a man in sorrow cannot find God or reality; reality can be found only when sorrow ceases, when there is happiness, not as a contrast, not as an opposite, but that state of being in which there are no opposites.

So, the unknown, that which is not created by the mind, cannot be formulated by the mind. That which is unknown cannot be thought about. The moment you think about the unknown, it is already the known. Surely you cannot think about the unknown, can you? You can think only about the known. Thought moves from the known to the known; and what is known is not reality, is it? So, when you think and meditate, when you sit down and think about God, you only think about what is known, and what is known is in time; it is caught in the net of time, and is therefore not the real. Reality can come into being only when the mind is free from the net of time. When the mind ceases to create, there is creation. That is, the mind must be absolutely still, but not with an induced, a hypnotized stillness, which is merely a result. Trying to become still in order to experience reality is another form of escape. There is silence only when all problems have ceased; as the pool is quiet when the breeze stops, so the mind is naturally quiet when the agitator, the thinker, ceases.

To put an end to the thinker, all the thoughts which he manufactures must be thought out. It is no good erecting a barrier, a resistance, against thought; because, thoughts must be felt out, the mind is still, reality, the indescribable, comes into being. You cannot invite it. To invite it, you must know it, and what is known is not the real. So, the mind must be simple, unburdened by belief, by ideation; and when there is stillness, when there is no desire, no longing, when the mind is absolutely quiet with a stillness that is not induced, then reality comes. And that truth, that reality, is the only transforming agent; it is the only factor that brings a fundamental, radical revolution in existence, in our daily life. And to find that reality is not to seek it, but to understand the factors that agitate the mind, that disturb the mind itself. Then the mind is simple, quiet, still. In that stillness the unknown, the unknowable, comes into being; and when that happens, there is a blessing.