The Spiritual Seeker

Jiddu Krishnamurti (various writings)

Most people are unhappy; and they are unhappy because there is no love in their hearts.

Freedom lies outside the pattern of society; but to be free of that pattern you have to understand the whole content of it, which is to understand your own mind.

You can be creative only when there is abandonment--which means, really, there is no sense of compulsion, no fear of not being, of not gaining, of not arriving. Then there is great austerity, simplicity, and with it there is love.

It is necessary for all of us to awaken in ourselves this spirit of cooperation, for then it will not be a mere plan or agreement which causes us to work together, but an extraordinary feeling of togetherness, the sense of joy in being and doing together without any thought of reward or punishment.

Through self-knowledge you begin to find out what is God, what is truth, what is that state which is timeless. In self-knowledge is the whole universe; it embraces all the struggles of humanity.

To understand what is right meditation there must be an awareness of the operation of one's own consciousness, and then there is complete attention.

As long as you ask questions you are breaking through, but the moment you begin to accept, you are psychologically dead. So right through life don't accept a thing, but inquire, investigate. Then you will find that your mind is something really extraordinary, it has no end, and to such a mind there is no death.

It is only in a very quiet mind that great things are born; and a quiet mind does not come about through effort, through control, through discipline.

A mind that practices love cannot love.

Do not pursue what should be, but understand what is.

Love is the most practical thing in the world. To love, to be kind, not to be greedy, not to be ambitious, not to be influenced by people but to think for yourself--these are all very practical things, and they will bring about a practical, happy society.

In the search for reality, energy creates its own discipline. But mere discipline, without full comprehension of all this, has no meaning, it is a most destructive thing.

The man who is seeking truth is free of all societies and cultures.

Meditation is the process of understanding your own mind.

Are you aware of the significance of every thought, of every reaction that you happen to have?

When the mind sees itself in the mirror of relationship, from that perception there is self-knowledge.

Goodness, generosity, or love does not come into being save through the search for reality.

Mere isolation in an enclosing idea is not a release from conflict.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action, which is relationship.

We have so committed ourselves in different ways that we have hardly any time for self-reflection, to observe, to study.

The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is.

Only when the mind is tranquil--through self-knowledge and not through imposed self-discipline--only then, in that tranquillity, in that silence, can reality come into being. It is only then that there can be bliss, that there can be creative action.

Being discontented, we either seek a different job or merely succumb to environment…instead of causing us to question life, the whole process of existence.

We are empty shells if we do not possess, if we do not fill our life with furniture, with music, with knowledge, with this or that. And that shell makes a lot of noise, and that noise we call living; and with that we are satisfied. When there is a disruption, a breaking away of that, then there is sorrow, because you suddenly discover yourself as you are--an empty shell, without much meaning.

The very attention given to finding out if the mind can be completely quiet is quietness.

Most people like to live in illusions.

Our conflict is in relationship, at all levels of our existence; and the understanding of this relationship, completely and extensively, is the only real problem that each one has.

Achieve order within yourself…an inward tranquility which knows no disturbance at any moment…in the daily life of the home and the office.

Free yourself from the psychological structure of society, which is to free yourself from the essence of conflict.

Freedom lies beyond the field of consciousness.