Jiddu Krishnamurti - Self Quotes

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The following of authority is the denial of intelligence... and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
What does it mean to be compassionate? Not merely verbally, but actually to be compassionate? Is compassion a matter of habit, of thought, a matter of the mechanical repetition of being kind, polite, gentle, tender? Can the mind which is caught in the activity of thought with its conditioning, its mechanical repetition, be compassionate at all? It can talk about it, it can encourage social reform, be kind to the poor heathen and so on; but is that compassion? When thought dictates, when thought is active, can there be any place for compassion? Compassion being action without motive, without self-interest, without any sense of fear, without any sense of pleasure.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
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.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
That is the first thing to learn — not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping. The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
Can I live a life, daily life, without sense of self-concern?

Jiddu Krishnamurti
The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end - you don't come to an achievement, you don't come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.

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

Jiddu Krishnamurti
So, a man who is really earnest must begin with himself, he must be passively aware of all his thoughts, feelings and actions. Again, this is not a matter of time. There is no end to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is only from moment to moment, and therefore there is a creative happiness from moment to moment.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
You cannot depend upon anybody. There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you — your relationship with others and with the world — there is nothing else. When you realize this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else is responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
The idea, the pattern, is self-projected; it is a form of self-worship, of self-perpetuation, and hence gratifying.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
Without love the acquisition of knowledge only increases confusion and leads to self-destruction.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
Imagination builds the image of the self, and thought then functions within its shadows. From this self-concept grows the conflict between what is and what should be, the conflict in duality.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all thought, for thought and feeling dissipate energy. They are repetitive, producing mechanical activities which are a necessary part of existence. But they are only part, and thought and feeling cannot possibly enter into the immensity of life. Quite a different approach is necessary, not the path of habit, association and the known; there must be freedom from these. Meditation is the emptying of the mind of the known. It cannot be done by thought or by the hidden prompting of thought, nor by desire in the form of prayer, nor through the self-effacing hypnotism of words, images, hopes, and vanities. All these have to come to an end, easily, without effort and choice, in the flame of awareness.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
We all place ourselves at various levels, and we are constantly falling from these heights. It is the falls we are ashamed of. Self-esteem is the cause of our shame, of our fall. It is this self-esteem that must be understood, and not the fall.

Jiddu Krishnamurti