July 29 : An immensity beyond all measure


What happens when you lose someone by death? The immediate reaction is a sense of paralysis, and when you come out of that state of shock, there is what we call sorrow. Now, what does that word sorrow mean?

The companionship, the happy words, the walks, the many pleasant things you did and hoped to do together—all this is taken away in a second, and you are left empty, naked, lonely. That is what you are objecting to, that is what the mind rebels against: being suddenly left to itself, utterly lonely, empty, without any support. Now, what matters is to live with that emptiness, just to live with it without any reaction, without rationalizing it, without running away from it to mediums, to the theory of reincarnation, and all that stupid nonsense—to live with it with your whole being.

And if you go into it step by step you will find that there is an ending of sorrow—a real ending, not just a verbal ending, not the superficial ending that comes through escape, through identification with a concept, or commitment to an idea. Then you will find there is nothing to protect, because the mind is completely empty and is no longer reacting in the sense of trying to fill that emptiness; and when all sorrow has thus come to an end, you will have started on another journey—a journey that has no ending and no beginning. There is an immensity that is beyond all measure, but you cannot possibly enter into that world without the total ending of sorrow.

#Krishnamurti #BookofLife : Jul, 29

July 28 : The center of suffering


When you see a most lovely thing, a beautiful mountain, a beautiful sunset, a ravishing smile, a ravishing face, that fact stuns you, and you are silent; hasn’t it ever happened to you? Then you hug the world in your arms. But that is something from outside which comes to your mind, but I am talking of the mind which is not stunned but which wants to look, to observe.

Now, can you observe without all this upsurging of conditioning? To a person in sorrow, I explain in words; sorrow is inevitable, sorrow is the result of fulfillment. When all explanations have completely stopped, then only can you look— which means you are not looking from the center.

When you look from a center, your faculties of observation are limited. If I hold to a post and want to be there, there is a strain, there is pain. When I look from the center into suffering, there is suffering. It is the incapacity to observe that creates pain.

I cannot observe if I think, function, see from a center—as when I say, “I must have no pain, I must find out why I suffer, I must escape.” When I observe from a center, whether the center is a conclusion, an idea, hope, despair, or anything else, that observation is very restricted, very narrow, very small, and that engenders sorrow.

#Krishnamurti #BookofLife – Jul, 28

July 27 : Spontaneous comprehension


We never say, “Let me see what that thing is that suffers.” You cannot see by enforcement, by discipline. You must look with interest, with spontaneous comprehension.

Then you will see that the thing we call suffering, pain, the thing that we avoid, and the discipline, have all gone.

As long as I have no relationship to the thing as outside me, the problem is not; the moment I establish a relationship with it outside me, the problem is.

As long as I treat suffering as something outside—I suffer because I lost my brother, because I have no money, because of this or that—I establish a relationship to it and that relationship is fictitious.

But if I am that thing, if I see the fact, then the whole thing is transformed, it all has a different meaning. Then there is full attention, integrated attention and that which is completely regarded is understood and dissolved, and so there is no fear and therefore the word sorrow is non-existent.

#Krishnamurti #BookofLife

July 26 : Follow the movement of suffering


What is suffering?…What does it mean? What is it that is suffering? Not why there is suffering, not what is the cause of suffering, but what is actually happening? I do not know if you see the difference. Then I am simply aware of suffering, not as apart from me, not as an observer watching suffering—it is part of me, that is, the whole of me is suffering.

Then I am able to follow its movement, see where it leads. Surely if I do that, it opens up, does it not? Then I see that I have laid emphasis on the “me”—not on the person whom I love. He only acted to cover me from my misery, from my loneliness, from my misfortune. As I am not something, I hoped he would be that. That has gone; I am left, I am lost, I am lonely. Without him, I am nothing. So I cry. It is not that he is gone but that I am left. I am alone.

…There are innumerable people to help me to escape—thousands of so-called religious people, with their beliefs and dogmas, hopes and fantasies—“It is karma, it is God’s will”—you know, all giving me a way out.

But if I can stay with it and not put it away from me, not try to circumscribe or deny it, then what happens? What is the state of my mind when it is thus following the movement of suffering?

#Krishnamurti #BookofLife – Jul, 27

July 25 Evading sorrow


Most of us have sorrow in different forms—in relationship, in the death of someone, in not fulfilling oneself and withering away to nothing, or in trying to achieve, trying to become something, and meeting with total failure. And there is the whole problem of sorrow on the physical side—illness, blindness, incapacitation, paralysis, and so on.

Everywhere there is this extraordinary thing called sorrow—with death waiting round the corner. And we do not know how to meet sorrow, so either we worship it, or rationalize it, or try to run away from it. Go to any Christian church and you will find that sorrow is worshipped; it is made into something extraordinary, holy, and it is said that only through sorrow, through the crucified Christ, can you find God. In the East they have their own forms of evasion, other ways of avoiding sorrow, and it seems to me an extraordinary thing that so very few, whether in the East or in the West, are really free of sorrow.


It would be a marvelous thing if in the process of your listening—unemotionally, not sentimentally—to what is being said…you could really understand sorrow and be totally free of it; because then there would be no self-deception, no illusions, no anxieties, no fear, and the brain could function clearly, sharply, logically. And then, perhaps, one would know what love is.

#Jiddu #Krishnamurti #BookofLife

July 24 Meeting sorrow


How do you meet sorrow? I’m afraid that most of us meet it very superficially. Our education, our training, our knowledge, the sociological influences to which we are exposed, all make us superficial. A superficial mind is one that escapes to the church, to some conclusion, to some concept, to some belief or idea. Those are all a refuge for the superficial mind that is in sorrow. And if you cannot find a refuge, you build a wall around yourself and become cynical, hard, indifferent, or you escape through some facile, neurotic reaction. All such defenses against suffering prevent further inquiry.

…Please watch your own mind; observe how you explain your sorrows away, lose yourself in work, in ideas, or cling to a belief in God, or in a future life. And if no explanation, no belief has been satisfactory, you escape through drink, through sex, or by becoming cynical, hard, bitter brittle

…Generation after generation it has been passed onby parents to their children, and the superficial mind never takes the bandage off that wound; it does not really know, it is not really acquainted with sorrow. It merely has an idea about sorrow. It has a picture, a symbol of sorrow, but it never meets sorrow—it meets only the word sorrow.

#Jiddu #Krishnamurti #BookofLife

July 23 The end of sorrow


If you walk down the road, you will see the splendour of nature, the extraordinary beauty of the green fields and the open skies; and you will hear the laughter of children. But in spite of all that, there is a sense of sorrow. There is the anguish of a woman bearing a child; there is sorrow in death; there is sorrow when you are looking forward to something, and it does not happen; there is sorrow when a nation runs down, goes to seed; and there is the sorrow of corruption, not only in the collective, but also in the individual. There is sorrow in your own house, if you look deeply—the sorrow of not being able to fulfill, the sorrow of your own pettiness or incapacity, and various unconscious sorrows.

There is also laughter in life. Laughter is a lovely thing—to laugh without reason, to have joy in one’s heart without cause, to love without seeking anything in return. But such laughter rarely happens to us. We are burdened with sorrow; our life is a process of misery and strife, a continuous disintegration, and we almost never know what it is to love with our whole being…

We want to find a solution, a means, a method by which to resolve this burden of life, and so we never actually look at sorrow. We try to escape through myths, through images, through speculation; we hope to find some way to avoid this weight, to stay ahead of the wave of sorrow.

…Sorrow has an ending, but it does not come about through any system or method. There is no sorrow when there is perception of what is.

#Jiddu #Krishnamurti #BookofLife

July 22 The nature of the trap


Sorrow is the result of a shock, it is the temporary shaking up of a mind that has settled down, that has accepted the routine of life. Something happens—a death, the loss of a job, the questioning of a cherished belief—and the mind is disturbed. But what does a disturbed mind do? It finds a way to be undisturbed again; it takes refuge in another belief, in a more secure job, in a new relationship. Again the wave of life comes along and shatters its safeguards, but the mind soon finds still further defenses; and so it goes on. This is not the way of intelligence, is it?
No form of external or inward compulsion will help, will it? All compulsion, however subtle, is the outcome of ignorance; it is born of the desire for reward or the fear of punishment.

To understand the whole nature of the trap is to be free of it; no person, no system, no belief can set you free. The truth of this is the only liberating factor—but you have to see it for yourself, and not merely be persuaded. You have to take the voyage on an uncharted sea.

#Jiddu #Krishnamurti #BookofLife