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    The World Within: You Are The Story of Humanity
    The World Within: You Are The Story of Humanity
    The World Within: You Are The Story of Humanity
    Ebook248 pages6 hours

    The World Within: You Are The Story of Humanity

    By Jiddu Krishnamurti

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    About this ebook

    In this series of commentaries J. Krishnamurti, one of the great thinkers of our time, touches upon many human problems-our hopes, our fears, our illusions, our beliefs, our prejudices-and in the simplest language seems to pierce to their roots."The sheer simplicity is breathtaking. The reader is given, in one paragraph, often in one sentence, enough to keep him exploring, questioning, thinking for days." -Anne Morrow Lindbergh."The insight, spiritual and poetic, of these commentaries is as simply expressed as it is searching in its demand."-Times Literary Supplement (London)."Krishnamurti is no other than he seems, a free man, one of the first quality, growing older as diamonds do but the gem-like flame not dating, and alive in these Commentaries. It is a treasure."-Francis Hacket, The New Republic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKrishnamurti Foundation America
    Release dateSep 9, 2022
    ISBN9781912875153
    The World Within: You Are The Story of Humanity
    Author

    Jiddu Krishnamurti

    J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was a renowned spiritual teacher whose lectures and writings have inspired thousands. His works include On Mind and Thought, On Nature and the Environment, On Relationship, On Living and Dying, On Love and Lonliness, On Fear, and On Freedom.

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      Book preview

      The World Within - Jiddu Krishnamurti

      The World Within

      YOU ARE THE STORY OF HUMANITY

      J. Krishnamurti

      Krishnamurti Foundation of America

      Ojai, Californiax

      © 2014, Krishnamurti Foundation of America

      Published by Krishnamurti Foundation of America

      The World Within

      You Are the Story of Humanity

      ISBN: 1502928248

      ISBN 13: 9781502928245

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Krishnamurti Foundation of America

      PO Box 1560

      Ojai, California, 93024

      www.kfa.org

      www.jkrishnamurti.org

      CONTENTS

      Foreword

      1. Anger And Intolerance

      2. The Voice of Reality?

      3. The Joyous and Aching Problem of Birth And Death

      4. The ‘Me’ and the ‘Mine’

      5. Psychological Dependence

      6. Man and Machine

      7. Lust Is in the Mind

      8. Charity Without Barriers

      9. Devotions Nullified by Antagonism

      10. A Different Standard of Living

      11. You Have Created the World’s Problem

      12. Healing Oneself

      13. Society’s Barbarous Game

      14. A Peaceful Interval or True Peace?

      15. The Problem of Sex

      16. Writing Down Your Thoughts

      17. Right Thinking, Not Right Thoughts

      18. The Self-Enclosing Walls

      19. Beyond All Religions

      20. What Is the Label, What Is the Actual?

      21. Not by Bread Alone

      22. Was it His Karma to Die in This Way?

      23. The Poison of Hate

      24. At the Crossroads of Life

      25. Seeking Encouragement from Outside

      26. Asceticism and the Other Ways of Power

      27. What Is Awareness?

      28. Disturbing Dreams

      29. The Greatness of Relationship Is Its Very Insecurity

      30. To Affect the Whole, the Part Must Transform Itself

      31. Right Livelihood

      32. Decision or Understanding?

      33. Turning Everything to One’s Benefit

      34. Prayer, a Complex Affair

      35. Crying for the Living or for the Dead?

      36. The Unspiritual Closed Circle

      37. The Pages of Self-Knowledge

      38. Your Subconscious Demands

      39. Belief in the Masters

      40. Loneliness, With Its Panicky Fears

      41. Nationalism, a Poison

      42. The Dull and the Sensitive Areas

      43. How the Mind Reproduces Itself

      44. On Smoking—and the Much Larger Problem

      45. The Profession of Acting

      46. On Homosexuality

      47. The Flow of Self-Awareness into Pools of Meditation

      48. When Your Inner Light Goes Out

      49. Become Aware of the Past Through the Present

      50. The Seeds of Corruption in Organizations

      51. To Live Alone or in Close Relationship?

      52. Aren’t You Wasting Your Life?

      53. Repetitive, Trivial, Unfinished Thoughts

      54. Digging Deeply and Lying Fallow

      55. Understand a Problem Not on Its Own Level

      56. Attachment and Detachment Are Both Gratifying

      57. Theories and Explanations Are Hindrances

      58. To Kill or Not to Kill

      59. Re-Educating the Parents

      60. The Observer and the Observed

      61. The Conflict Between Instinct and Conditioning

      62. Between Awareness and Distraction

      63. The Mind Becomes What It Possesses

      64. Aggressiveness in Relationships

      65. Thought Points Out the Thinker

      66. Feel out Rather Than Be Clever

      67. Learning Through War Games the Language Of Killing

      68. Escaping Through the Ideal and Through Insensitivity

      69. Your Overcrowded Mind

      70. To Think Is to Be Afraid

      71. The Two Ways of Accepting Sorrow

      72. The Clever, Forewarned Intellect

      73. A Family to Fill Your Emptiness

      74. The Maker of Effort, of Choice

      75. Capacities and Gifts Are Dangerous Friends

      76. In Seeking the Real, Bread Will Be Supplied

      77. Memory Must Become as an Empty Shell

      78. The Helper and the Helped

      79. The Scars That Experience Leaves

      80. To Reform Politics Is to Waste Thought

      81. Speculation About Reality or Direct Experience?

      82. Will You Allow Yourself to Be Killed by the Enemy?

      83. A Teacher’s Dilemmas

      84. Can I Find God in a Fox-Hole?

      85. In the Immediate Does Not Lie the Answer

      86. The Educated Shell of Our Conditioning

      87. To Be Successful Is Misery to Others and for Oneself

      88. Understanding Conflict

      89. Patterns Comfort Us into Dullness

      90. Right Meditation

      FOREWORD

      Truth is not something that is mysterious; truth is where you are. From there you can begin. The truth is that I am angry, I am jealous, I am aggressive, I quarrel. That is a fact. So one must begin, if one may most respectfully point out, from where one is. That is why it is important to know yourself, to have complete knowledge of yourself, not from others, not from psychologists, brain specialists and so on, but to know what you are. Because, you are the story of mankind. If you know how to read that book which is yourself, then you know all the activities and brutalities and stupidities of mankind because you are the rest of the world.

      – J. Krishnamurti, 1st Question and Answer

      Meeting at Brockwood Park 1983

      Reading the teachings of J. Krishnamurti, one is immediately struck by how personal the words are to one’s own thinking and what a close mirror they are of our human psychological activity. His language is not bound by time, place, or circumstance, and so readers in any era or on any continent can find themselves clearly and compassionately made plain.

      Krishnamurti’s heuristic approach was typical not only of his dialogues or interviews, but also of his public talks where an attendee in an audience of thousands felt in direct contact with the speaker. His language was simple, without jargon or without any assumptions about the audience by the speaker. Krishnamurti helped the interviewees, without intending to, to see for themselves the intricacies of their thinking and of their problems.

      During the Second World War (1939-1945) Krishnamurti did not speak publicly in the United States, but lived quietly in Ojai, California. People sought him out and came to dialogue with him on many issues of the times or their own personal dilemmas. Their problems were universal human problems, and each made true his statement that ‘You are the world.’ As Krishnamurti unwound the tight threads of their thinking and feeling, the core or source of a concern was revealed, unadorned and without blame or guilt.

      After the Second World War years, there was a set of three volumes of interviews with Krishnamurti that appeared worldwide, titled Commentaries on Living. This new book, The World Within, out of the Krishnamurti Archives, is a compendium of additional perennial questions with their timeless answers. The inquiry is still fresh, after seventy years, and readers will find themselves in both the questions and the responses.

      Mark Lee

      Chapter 1

      ANGER AND INTOLERANCE

      E. came to ask how to overcome anger, as he was particularly incensed with his colleague, irritated with his ways and behaviour.

      After some further talk, we pointed out that such anger arose as E. wished to make his colleague conform to a pattern of behaviour that E. had, which bred in him intolerance; and intolerance is thoughtlessness. If he left his present colleague and sought another job, the same problem would arise, for he was the problem and not his colleague. E. must understand the circumstances and not merely change them. If he depended on the environment to free him from anger, then he would be a slave to it. If he depended on the environment, then he would become thoughtless. It is like those who seek constant change in their relationship—being disillusioned or tired of the one or of the group, they seek friendship or love in another. Because they have not fully comprehended relationship, mere change of environment will again produce the same conflicts, disillusionment, and satiety under different forms.

      So E. must become aware of his own thoughtlessness and its cause.

      Chapter 2

      THE VOICE OF REALITY?

      S. came from a long distance to find out whether the voice which she heard was her own intuitive voice or the voice, or the thought, of tradition.

      After questioning her, we found that this voice has been beneficent, leading her away from the sensate world to more and more nobility of thought and service to others. But now she was doubtful, questioning the voice, becoming anxious. The voice had asked her to obey and not question, and now it was indifferent after a number of years. What was she to do? Was the voice the voice of reality?

      After talking the matter over considerably, we went into the question of desire, want: how it arises—perception, sensation, desire, identification, I want and I do not want—and expresses itself, fulfils itself through sensuousness, craving for immortality, and worldliness.

      S. said she now meditated regularly, sitting on the floor.

      Without understanding the course of desire, meditation will not lead to enlightenment.

      She was meditating on the oneness of God and so on, as she was a student of Vedanta.

      Meditation must be based on right thinking, not on mere formulations, however noble. Right thinking proceeds from the comprehension of desire as the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’. This selfishness is the selfishness of everyone, whether one lives in India, China, Europe, or here. The world is the projection of oneself. To understand the problems of the world, one must first understand oneself, not in self-enclosing comprehension but through that disinterested and kindly awareness of oneself. Self-knowledge is the beginning of right thinking, which is the true beginning of meditation.

      She said her problem was taking on a new meaning: how, through her own craving, she was giving a significance to the voice, which might perhaps be her own intuitive perception.

      Chapter 3

      THE JOYOUS AND ACHING PROBLEM OF BIRTH AND DEATH

      R. was greatly and grievously upset over the loss of her son in the war. Does he continue? Is reincarnation true?

      It is difficult to consider wisely the problem of death when one is almost paralysed with sorrow. What is your chief consideration: your son or your own loss? Every person in the world is faced with this problem: the universality of birth and death, of joy and sorrow. None can escape from it; one may escape from it in fantasy, in some theory or belief, in some self-forgetfulness; but birth and death remain, a mystery to be solved not through rationalization, but through the experience of that which is eternal and which has no beginning and no ending.

      Hatred of those who helped in bringing about your son’s death does not create the necessary state of mind which alone can experience reality. On the contrary, hate, grief, and possessiveness prevent the comprehension and experience of timelessness. In transcending hate, resentment, and anger, there is the dawning of compassion, which will purify the tortured mind. If you are concerned about the dead, you will create more death, but if you are concerned about the living, you will know of life’s eternity.

      She said she did not understand what I was talking about. Mustn’t she love her son? Must she not hate those who killed him, must she forgive, must she embrace evil? Was not war necessary in purifying the world?

      Evil means do not produce good ends, violent means do not result in peace. Each one of us has brought about this spectacular chaos through our daily so-called peaceful days, which are made up of envy, greed, ill will, antagonism, and suspicion. The other mother is also crying for her son, the other mother whom you hate. She is also tortured by grief. To her too there is the joyous and aching problem of birth and death. Hate does not solve this problem; hate only perpetuates the cruelty of man to man.

      Gradually, I led her to her first question of continuity. She was too shaken to go into it, but came back again another day.

      Chapter 4

      THE ‘ME’ AND THE ‘MINE’

      We must understand the creator of time—the past, present, and future—for time is birth and death. The consciousness of time creates continuity, everlastingness, but it is not the eternal, it is not timelessness.

      The creator of time is the self, the consciousness of the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’: my property, my son, my power, my success, my experience, my immortality. The concern of the self over its own state creates time. The self is the cause of ignorance and sorrow, and its cause and effect is desire, the craving for power, wealth, fame. This self is unified by the will of desire, with its past memories, present resolutions, and future determinations. The future then becomes a form of lust, the present a passage to the future, and the past the driving motive. The self is a wheel within a wheel of pleasure and pain, enjoyment and grief, love and hate, ruthlessness and gentleness. These opposites are created for its own advantage, for its own gain, out of its own uncertainty. It is the cause of my birth, my death. Thought is held by the will of desire, by the will of self, but sorrow and pain begin their work of awakening thought; and if this awakening is not maintained, thought slips into comforting beliefs, into personal fantasies and hopes.

      But if the slowly awakening thought begins to gently and patiently study the cause of sorrow and so begins to comprehend it, it will find that there is another will: the will of understanding. This will of understanding is not personal; it is of no country, of no people, of no religion. It is this will that opens the door to the eternal, to the timeless.

      The study of the self is the beginning of right thinking—the self that is held in the will of desire. This self creates continuity by craving for immortality, but with it comes the everlastingness of sorrow, pain, and the conflict of the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’. There is no end to this save in the will of understanding, which alone dissolves the cause of sorrow.

      Become aware of the course of desire; out of that awareness, there is born right thinking. Virtue is freeing thought from the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’ for compassion for the uncertainty that self-desire creates.

      Chapter 5

      PSYCHOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE

      C. asked how it was that she was so tired; though she had plenty of energy for general work, deep in herself she was tired.

      After some talk, we discovered that she was greatly dependent on her husband and her environment. This dependence, which was not financial, made her nervous, exhausted, anxious, impatient, and quick tempered.

      Some psychological need must inevitably create dependence, which prevents coordination and integration.

      She said she was aware of this need, but somehow she could not overcome it. She had determined not to be dependent, yet she could not be free from it. Dependence, we agreed, was not lack of love, but it confused love. It brought in other elements which were not of love; it created uncertainty and estrangement.

      Dependence sets going the movement of aloofness and attachment, a constant conflict without comprehension, without a release. She must become aware of this process of attachment and detachment, become aware without condemnation, without judgement, and then she will perceive the significance of this conflict of opposites.

      If she becomes deeply aware and so consciously directs thought towards comprehending the full meaning of dependence and need, then when her conscious mind is open and clear about it, the unconscious with its hidden motives, pursuits, intentions will project itself into the conscious. When this happens, she must study and understand each intimation of the subconscious. If she does this many times, becoming aware of the projections of the subconscious after the conscious has thought out the problem as clearly as possible, then even though she may give her attention to other matters, the conscious and the unconscious will be working out the problem of dependence or any other problem. Thus there is a constant awareness established which will patiently and gently bring about integration. This will, if her health and diet are all right, bring about fullness of being.

      Chapter 6

      MAN AND MACHINE

      B. came from a long distance, and his problem was how to build the spirit of love into the aeroplane, for he was working in an aeroplane factory. He said he was seriously concerned about the state of the world, and since the aeroplane was here to stay, could not the spirit of love be built into it? Could he not, by being himself without hate, without the desire to kill, and with goodwill, build something of that quality into the machine of terror and destruction?

      He was a seriously intentioned man, and so we discussed ignorance and the right means of livelihood. A machine, an inanimate thing put together by man, is not in itself either good or bad; it depends on the use man puts it to. So it is not the machine but man that must be considered. Does not ignorance lie in giving false values, in putting emphasis on things that have little significance, in giving importance to things that are unimportant? Till one changes one’s values, the machine will be used for mischievous and destructive ends.

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