Vinstant

That is not change

For most of us, change implies the continuation of ourselves in a modified form. If we are dissatisfied with a particular pattern of ideas, of rituals, of conditioning, we throw it aside and pick up the same pattern in a different milieu, a different colour, with different rituals, different words. Instead of Latin it is Sanskrit, or some other language, but it is still the old pattern repeated over and over and over again; and within this pattern we think we are moving, changing. Because we are dissatisfied with what we are, we go from one teacher to another. Seeing confusion about us and in ourselves, seeing perpetual wars, ever-increasing destruction, devastation and misery, we want some haven, some peace; and if we can find a refuge that gives us a sense of security, a sense of permanency, with that we are satisfied.

     So, when the mind projects an idea and clings to it, struggles towards it, surely that is not change, that is not transformation, that is not revolution, because it is still within the field of the mind, the field of time. To clear away all that, we must be conscious of what we are doing, we must be aware of it.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol VII, pp 7-8

Perception of the importance of change

Question: Is it possible for any of us, who are living in this particular society, to bring about the change of which you are talking?

Krishnamurti: If we as individuals do not bring about this change, how is it to be done? If you and I, living in this society, do not do it, who will? The powerful, the millionaires, the people of great possessions are not going to do it. It must surely be done by ordinary people like you and me—and I am not saying this rhetorically, stupidly. If you and I see the importance of this change, then it is not courage but the very perception of the importance of change which will bring it about. A man may have the courage to stand against the dictates of society, but it is the man who understands the complex problem of change, who understands the whole structure of society—which is himself—it is he alone who becomes an individual and is not merely a representative of the collective. Only the individual who is not caught in society can fundamentally affect society…

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol X, p 13

Life and change are synonymous

You do not want to change when change means danger, lest you lose your job or your wife. You may ask,  “What is the need for change?” If you do not change, you are dead, obviously. Life means moving, and not  stagnation. If you deny life, you are dead. Life and change are synonymous. You are changing, your body is  changing, you are getting older, your senses are changing. And inwardly you do not want to change because  you have found a belief, an idea, some superstition, a conclusion, and an experience; from that you do not  want to move because it is pleasurable, profitable. If it is painful, you want to change it, you put it away.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XII, p 291

How do you change?

Do you see yourself as you are? Have you ever been self-critically aware of yourself? Have you known  what you are—angry, jealous, envious, ambitious, hating, and all the rest of it? Now, what will make you change? Let us start with it. How do you change?  What makes you change? Do you change because it helps you? Do you change because it is pleasurable? Do you change because fear is involved? Or because you think that by changing, you will be a better man? Or because if you conform, you will get more money, you will be more respectable, and so on? Is that the way you change, if you have changed at all? And have youchanged in anything? Do ask these questions, please. Don’t let me put these questions to you; you are asking the questions yourself. Have you changed in anything?

And if you have, what made you change?

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XII, p 291

It is not mere selfish investigation

It is not mere selfish investigation You are the world psychologically, and the world is you; and when you understand yourself you are understanding the whole human structure and nature. It is not mere selfish investigation, because when you understand yourself you go beyond yourself, a different dimension comes into being. What will make us change? More shocks? More catastrophes? Different forms of government? Different images? Different ideals? You have had varieties of these, and yet you have not changed. The more sophisticated our education, the more civilized we become—civilized in the sense of being more removed from nature—the more inhuman we become. So what shall we do? As none of these things outside of me are going to help, including all the gods, then it becomes obvious that I alone have to understand myself. I have to see what I am and change myself radically. 

J. Krishnamurti/ This Light in Oneself, pp 14-15

The true function of man

You and I have to be free from the causes that are producing conflict in ourselves. And the centre of conflict is the self, the “me”. But most of us do not want to be free from that “me”. That is the difficulty. Most of us like the pleasures and the pains that the “me” brings; and as long as we are controlled by the pleasures and the pains of the “me”, there will be conflict between the “me” and society, between the “me” and the collective; and the collective will dominate the “me”, and destroy the “me” if it can.  But the “me” is much stronger than the collective; so it always circumvents it, and tries to get a position in it, to expand, to fulfil.

    Surely, the freedom from the self, and therefore the search for reality, the discovery and  the coming into being of reality, is the true function of man.

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol V, p 278

You are nothing

Why do we store up flattery and insult, hurt and affection? Without this accumulation of experiences and their responses, we are not; we are nothing if we have no name, no attachment, no belief. It is the fear of being nothing that compels us to accumulate; and it is this very fear, whether conscious or unconscious, that, in spite of our accumulative activities, brings about our disintegration and destruction. If we can be aware of the truth of this fear, then it is the truth that liberates us from it, and not our purposeful determination to be free.

You are nothing. You may have your name and title, your property and bank account, you may have power and be famous; but in spite of all these safeguards, you are as nothing. You may be totally unaware of this emptiness, this nothingness, or you may simply not want to be aware of it; but it is there, do what you will to avoid it. You may try to escape from it in devious ways, through personal or collective violence, through individual or collective worship, through knowledge or amusement; but whether you are asleep or awake, it is always there.

J. Krishnamurti/Commentaries on Living First Series, p 92

The self hides under every stone

The self hides in many ways, under every stone, the self can hide in compassion, going to India and looking after poor people, because the self is attached to some idea, faith, conclusion, belief, which makes me compassionate because I love Jesus or Krishna, and I go up to heaven. The self has many masks, the mask of meditation, the mask of achieving the highest, the mask that I am enlightened, that “I know of what I speak.” All this concern about humanity is another mask. So one has to have an extraordinary, subtle, quick brain to see where it is hiding. It requires great attention, watching, watching, watching.

J. Krishnamurti/On Mind and Thought, p 133

The self is nothing but words and memories

So what are you? You are a name, a form, the result of a society, a culture which has emphasized throughout the ages that you are separate, something indefinitely identifiable. Right? You have your character, your particular tendency, either aggressive or yielding. Is that not put together by the culture which has been brought about by thought? It is very difficult for people to accept a very simple, logical examination, because they would like to think that the self is something most extraordinary. We are pointing out that the self is nothing but words and memories. 

J. Krishnamurti/ On Mind and Thought, pp 68-69

The mind is the “me”

So we are going to find out what this extraordinary thing called the mind is, because that is the problem and nothing else. It is the mind that creates the problem; it is the thought, the conditioned mind, the mind that is petty, narrow, bigoted, which has created beliefs, ideas and knowledge, and which is crippled by its own concepts, vanities, greeds, ambitions and frustrations. So it is the mind which has to be understood, and that mind is the “me”, that mind is the self—not  some higher self. The mind invents the higher self and then says it is only a tool for the higher. Such thinking is absurd, immature. It is the mind which invents all these avenues of escape and then proceeds from there to assert.
So we are going to find out what the mind is. Now, you cannot find out from my description. I am going to talk about it, but if you merely recognize it through the description then you are not knowing the state of your own mind.  
J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XI, p 64