Tuesday, September 09, 2008

5. KRISHNAMURTI: RIGHT MEANS


“Goodness can only flower in freedom, not in tradition. The world needs change, you need tremendous revolution in yourself. … Order is peace; and this order, with its virtue and peace, can only come about when you come directly into contact with disorder in your daily life. Then out of that blossoms goodness, and then there will be no seeking any more. For that which ’is,’ is sacred.”

“Peace is from within, not from without.”

“A belief is ever of the past, of the created, and such a belief becomes a hindrance to the experiencing of the real. When thought-feeling is anchored, made dependent, understanding of the real is not possible. There must be open, still freedom from the past, a spontaneous overflow of silence in which alone the real can flower….”

“If you assert and I assert, if you stick to your opinion, to your dogma, to your experience, to your knowledge, and I stick to mine, then there can be no real discussion because neither of us is free to inquire. To discuss is not to share our experiences with each other. There is no sharing at all; there is only the beauty of truth, which neither you nor I can possess. It is simply there.… We are neither asserting nor seeking to dominate each other, but each is talking easily, affably, in an atmosphere of friendly companionship, trying to discover. And in that state of mind we do discover, but I assure you, what we discover has very little importance. The important thing is to discover, and after discovering, to keep going. It is detrimental to stay with what you have discovered, for then your mind is closed, finished. But if you die to what you have discovered the moment you have discovered it, then you can flow like the stream, like a river that has an abundance of water.”

“Is it not very evident that each one of us is responsible for war? Wars do not come into being out of unknown causes; they have definite sources, and those who wish to extricate themselves from this periodic madness called war must search out these causes and free themselves. War is one of the greatest calamities that could happen to man [woman] [human], who is capable of experiencing the real. He [she] must be concerned with eliminating the cause of war within himself, not with who is less or more degraded and terrible in war. We must not be carried away with secondary issues but be aware of the primary issue, which is organized killing itself….. Having lost the eternal value, the passing sensory values become all-important. There is no end to ever-expanding desire. Things are necessary but have no eternal value, and the mad desire for possessions ever leads to strife and misery.

“When acquisitiveness in every form is encouraged, when nationalism and separate sovereign states exist, when religion separates, when there is intolerance and ignorance, then killing your fellow man [woman] [human] is inevitable. War is the result of our everyday life. Passion, ill will and oppression are justified when they are national; to kill for the state, for the country, for an ideology is considered necessary, noble. Each one indulges in this degrading ruthlessness, for there is in each one the desire to do harm. War becomes a means of releasing one’s own brutal instincts and encourages irresponsibility. Such a state is only possible when sensate values predominate.”

“[Then] we have lost the feeling of humanity; we feel responsible only to the class or group to which we belong; we feel responsible to a name, to a label. We have lost compassion, the love of the whole, and without this quickening flame of life we look to politicians, to priests, to some economic planning for peace and happiness. In these there is no hope. In each one alone is their creative understanding, that compassion which is necessary for the well-being of man. Right means create right ends, wrong means will bring only emptiness and death, not peace and joy.”

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