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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti
1895 - 1986

The mind must become entirely free of the bondage of time, go beyond the structure of thought, a timeless dimension wherein the mind is no longer caught in its own structure.

 
 

 

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Editor’s prefatory comments:

Jiddu Krishnamurti has been an important teacher in my life. I began learning about the “true” and “false” selves about 15 years ago, and his insights served to inaugurate this vital area of enquiry.

He was the one to make clear that “guru” signifies merely “one who points,” not “infallible sage.” Pointing the way is what even the best teachers provide, but no more. One must walk the path of enlightenment alone, no one can do this for us.

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Public Talk 2, New York - 28 Sept 1966

excerpt

As human beings we do not seem to be able to solve our problems totally. We move from one problem to another endlessly. Man has tried every way to escape from these problems, to avoid them or to find some excuse for not resolving them.
 
We probably do not have the capacity, the energy, the drive to resolve them, and we have built a network of escapes so cunningly that we do not even know that we are escaping from the main issue.
 
It seems to me that there must be a total change, a total revolution in the mind, not a modified continuity, but a total psychological mutation, so that the mind is entirely free from all the bondage of time, so that it can go beyond the structure of thought, not into some metaphysical region, but rather into a timeless dimension where the mind is no longer caught in its own structure, in its own problems... 
 
Editor's note: Kant taught that the mind's structures modify sensations of objects in the outer world. This seems to be correct, but mere knowledge of this will not address the problems of humankind.
 
We have tried so many ways, including LSD, beliefs, dogmas, joining various sects, going through various disciplines of meditation. The mind, at the end of all this, remains just the same: petty, narrow, limited, anxious...
 
There seems to be no freedom. As we were saying the other day, is it possible for man to be totally free, psychologically? We don't know what that freedom means. We can only build an image, or an idea, a conclusion as to what freedom should be or should not be. To actually experience it, to actually come upon it requires a great deal of examination, a great deal of penetration into our process of thinking...
 
How can a mind that has been so conditioned by everyday experience, by knowledge, by social and economic influences, by the culture in which that mind lives - how can such a mind bring about a total revolution, a mutation in itself? ...
 
The word "change" implies a movement from what has been to what will be. There is a time sequence: what was, what is and what should be. And in this time interval, from what is to what should be, there is effort to achieve the what should be. What should be is already preconceived, predetermined by what has been...
 
Editor's note: But problems cannot be solved in time but in a timeless dimension.
 
The animal wants only pleasure. And as I said, there is a great deal of the animal in us. Unless one understands the nature and the structure of pleasure, change or mutation is merely a form of the continuity of pleasure, in which there is always pain...
 
Editor's note: Our solutions to problems, in effect, are attempts to secure pleasure.
 
 
 

Editor's last word: