The Krishnamurti Reader by J. Krishnamurti

Author:J. Krishnamurti
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Shambhala Publications

10

Love, Freedom, Goodness, Beauty Are One

WE ARE TALKING about the art of living. I think we ought to go much more into it. Most of us have given very little thought to it; we have hardly inquired into the nature of what life is and how to live our daily life with all its ugly turmoil, passing pleasures, and a great deal of entertainment, both religious and otherwise. We have studied academic subjects, spent years to become a doctor, a surgeon, or an engineer, and never at the end asked how to live a life without any conflict, without any of the problems that are involved in our daily unfortunate lives. We are always striving, reaching out, getting somewhere, and when a question, a challenge, is put before us, we say, “Yes, it sounds good, but tell me how to do it, what is the method, what is the system, so that we can live a life of great tranquillity, with a great sense of wonder, a sense of great beauty?”

I think we ought to banish “how” from our minds, not in the academic subjects, but in the psychological world. If one may most respectfully point out, never ask anybody how. They can only offer you a system, a method, which then becomes another bondage, another trap in which you are caught.

We have talked about wars. We have talked about how human beings are hurt psychologically from their childhood, hurt by their parents, by their schools, by their families. They are wounded people, and that wound inevitably breeds fear. We talked about fear a great deal. And we also talked about time, not only chronological time by the watch, but also time as a psychological means of achievement: “I am this, but I will be that,” “I am violent, I will one day be nonviolent.” This constant becoming from what is to what should be is also an element of time. Time is very important for us, not only physical time, to get from here to there, but also the ideal that thought has invented; to achieve an ideal also requires time. So we are bound to time. Writers and some other people have asked if there is an end to time, a stop to time.

Please kindly remember that we are investigating together deeply, seriously and with great honesty, how to live a life that is really a great art. So let’s begin to inquire more. Humility is necessary to learn, isn’t it? Humility, not humbleness, not a sense of remote acceptance; one needs a great deal of humility to learn. Most of us have not that quality of humility. It is not what you give to somebody whom you respect; that is not humility, that is merely acceptance of authority, and then you worship the authority.

Humility is necessary to understand the extraordinary complexity of living, humility with freedom. We think we are all very free to do what we want to do, to fulfill our desires. One of the structures of society is that each one of us is free to do exactly what he wants to do.

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