(please click the X button or the double arrow tab usually found in a far corner of a Geocities advertisement to close such an insert within any page whenever necessary) Jiddu Krishnamurti was often mistaken as a mystic...he much preferred to have people thinking for themselves, and on this life and world. PAGE 1 of 2 Submitted in 2002; On "Culture" and "Participation" [There are more links, and a lighter precautionary blurb with a photo of me for the even more shallower dummies amongst us, that are supplied after the following excerpt stolen from Krishnamurti* (anyone who reads the entirety of all these pages would be deemed certifiable; please do not feel so obliged!)] |
"I am not sure I understand you," my visitor began, "when you say that knowledge must be set aside to understand truth." He was an elderly man, much travelled and well-read. He had spent a year or so in a monastery, he explained, and had wandered all over the world, from port to port, working on ships, saving money and gathering knowledge. "I don't mean mere book knowledge," he went on; "I mean the knowledge that men have gathered but have not put down on paper, the mysterious tradition that's beyond scrolls and sacred books. I have dabbled in occultism, but that has always seemed to me rather stupid and superficial.
A good microscope is vastly more beneficial than the clairvoyance of a man who sees superphysical things. I have read some of the great historians, with their theories and their visions, but ... given a first-rate mind and the capacity to accumulate knowledge, a man should be able to do immense good. I know it isn't the fashion, but have a sneaking compulsion to reform the world, and knowledge is my passion. I have always been a passionate person in many ways, and now I am consumed with this urge to know. The other day I read something of yours which intrigued me, and when you said that there must be freedom from knowledge, I decided to come and see you-not as a follower, but as an inquirer." Scientific and medical information, the technical 'know-how' of the material world, is rooted principally in the consciousness of western man, just as in the consciousness of eastern man there is the greater sensitivity of unworldliness. All this is knowledge, embracing not only what is already known, but what is being discovered from day to day, knowledge is an additive, deathless process, there is no end to it, and it may therefore be the immortal that man is after. So I can't understand why you say that all knowledge must be set aside if there is to be the understanding of truth."
To follow another, however learned or noble, is to block all understanding, isn't it?
"Then we can talk freely and with mutual respect."
If I may ask, what do you mean by knowledge?
"Yes, that's a good question to begin with. Knowledge is everything that man has learnt through experience; it is what he has gathered by study, through centuries of struggle and pain, in the many fields of endeavor, both scientific and psychological. As even the greatest historian interprets history according to his learning and mood, so an ordinary scholar like me may translate knowledge into action, either 'good' or 'bad'. Though we are not concerned with action at the moment, it is inevitably related to knowledge, which is what man has experienced or learnt through thought, through meditation, through sorrow. Knowledge is vast; it is not only written down in books, but it exists in the individual as well as in the collective or racial consciousness of man.
The division between knowledge and understanding is artificial, it really doesn't exist; but to be free of this division, which is to perceive the difference between them, we must find out what is the highest form of thinking, otherwise there will be confusion.
Does thinking begin with a conclusion? Is thinking a movement from one conclusion to another? Can there be thinking, if thinking is positive? Is not the highest form of thinking negative? Is not all knowledge an accumulation of definitions, conclusions and positive assertions? Positive thought, which is based on experience, is always the outcome of the past, and such thought can never uncover the new.
"You are stating that knowledge is ever in the past, and that thought originating from the past must inevitably cloud the perception of that which may be called truth. However, without the past as memory, we could not recognize this object which we have agreed to call a chair. The word 'chair' reflects a conclusion reached by common consent, and all communication would cease if such conclusions were not taken for granted. Most of our thinking is based on conclusions, on traditions, on the experiences of others, and life would be impossible without the more obvious and inevitable of these conclusions. Surely you don't mean that we should put aside all conclusions, all memories and traditions?"
The ways of tradition inevitably lead to mediocrity, and a mind caught in tradition cannot perceive what is true. Tradition may be one day old, or it may go back for a thousand years. Obviously it would be absurd for an engineer to set aside the engineering knowledge he has gained through the experience of a thousand others; and if one were to try to set aside the memory of where one lived, it would only indicate a neurotic state. But the gathering of facts does not make for the understanding, of life. Knowledge is one thing, and understanding another. Knowledge does not lead to understanding; but understanding may enrich knowledge, and knowledge may implement understanding. "Knowledge is essential and not to be despised. Without knowledge, modern surgery and a hundred other marvels could not exist."
We are not attacking or defending knowledge, but trying to understand the whole problem. Knowledge is only a part of life, not the totality, and when that part assumes all-consuming importance, as it is threatening to do now, then life becomes superficial, a dull routine from which man seeks to escape through every form of diversion and superstition, with disastrous consequences. Mere knowledge, however wide and cunningly put together, will not resolve our human problems; to assume that it will is to invite frustration and misery. Something much more profound is needed. One may know that hate is futile, but to be free of hate is quite another matter. Love is not a question of knowledge.
To go back, positive thinking is no thinking at all; it is merely a modified continuity of what has been thought. The outward shape of it may change from time to time, depending on compulsions and pressures, but the core of positive thinking is always tradition. Positive thinking is the process of conformity, and the mind that conforms can never be in a state of discovery.
"But can positive thinking be discarded? Is it not necessary at a certain level of human existence?" Of course, but that's not the whole issue, We are trying to find out if knowledge may become a hindrance to the understanding of truth. Knowledge, is essential, for without it we should have to begin all over again in certain areas of our existence. This is fairly simple and clear. But will accumulated knowledge, however vast, help us to understand truth?
"What is truth? Is it a common ground to be trodden by all? Or is it a subjective, individual experience?" By whatever name it may be called, truth must ever be new, living; but the words 'new' and 'living' are used only to convey a state that is not static, not dead, not a fixed point within the mind of man. Truth must be discovered anew from moment to moment, it is not an experience that can be repeated; it has no continuity, it is a timeless state. The division between the many and the one must cease for truth to be. It is not a state to be achieved, nor a point towards which the mind can evolve, grow. If truth is conceived as a thing to be gained, then the cultivation of knowledge and the accumulations of memory become necessary, giving rise to the guru and the follower, the one who knows and the one who does not know.
"Then you are against gurus and followers?"
It's not a matter of being against something, but of perceiving that conformity, which is the desire for security, with its fears, prevents the experiencing of the timeless.
"I think I understand what you mean. But is it not immensely difficult to renounce all that one has gathered? Indeed, is it possible?"
To give up in order to gain is no renunciation at all. To see the false as the false, to see the true in the false, and to see the true as the true - it is this that sets the mind free.
THE FOLLOWING IS GIVEN IN PREPARATION FOR THE NEXT PAGE AND IS NOT INTENDED TO DISTRACT FROM THE OVERALL TONE (if there is one)
Excuse the tackiness of having some images on this site which others insisted I included - and I was also having a play around with my computer as I was trying to meet such demands, I guess (these images are patently unproportionate in many ways). Note that I do wear leather and actually eat meat from animals domesticated in countries where there is at least fairly binding animal welfare awareness and legislation - I'm certainly not trying to be all that pure.
Jiddu Krishnamurti has had quite an affirming effect on me through a phase in my life where I found his words to be what I needed. I have been asked on occasion to be more clear on how what I have read affects me personally, and then to be even more general than that in writing about just myself. I tried to tack a bit on here as the second part of this page - back then this page used to be an introduction to my website and so I guess that's why others expected a piece more about me - but now this has become just a page among the others. I think the more personable part comes through as requested in how chatty I can be with what I wrote in this second part of this page. I've tried to stay in keeping with what I find so interesting about Krishnamurti, but sometimes I read this and think how bloody disjointed this is with points raised seemingly coming out from nowhere. I welcome those who just come along for the ride not worrying too much about how much smoother I guess I could have made it.
Facets from Gossip.
Before it is used to globally undermine any credibility I place in his work (notably on my next webpage rather than with respect to the piece above), according to one reasonably authoritative biography (also under my bed), Krishnamurti wasn't at all pure either with the wife of his very faithfully longstanding transcriptor. Apparently this occurred with the full knowledge of some of her children. But, as emotionally immature as open relationships now seem to me personally, maybe all involved consented and discussed it as responsibly as they thought they could with the kids? Who knows? I am surmising away like hell here.
Supposing what has been alleged has any merit, his teaching would stand, or fall, alone on it's own grounds even though some could say his own conduct was in direct conflict with his words through numerous works on how important kindness and feelings are. I suspect he would have appreciated the way I acknowledge and transcend this gossip on the way to finding what I myself can take away. I vaguely allude to what I take from this as I write below - (Jesus, is this not a roundabout way of avoiding that I can be a stupidly flaky vain bitch in light of my photograph above, and to dodge what I know should be done about the transportation of livestock and treatment of farm effluent runoff!?!).
I know he had one hell of a giggle at times over what others reported about him.
If I may use this writing to articulate what I can further, and also in everyday terms easily drawn from my own life again for a minute, it still amazes me how seriously people come running to my defence at times when I just want to make them all relax. I become frustrated that I can't squeeze just a bit of humour out of people in that state, and have known people to take that frustration away with them and remember it for ages as confirmation that whatever it was they were mad at on my behalf, mattered to me! Thus, life around here can get quite nuts...!
I really enjoy not having to be cheerful all the time now, when I actually am concentrating and pretty wrapt up in taking the world in, but some of the things people think I must be worried about, are actually just fucking ridiculous. It's really a reflection of them.
If the validity of the claims about Krishnamurti are false, or have been manipulated, my guess is that he'd be satisfied with what he really knew and help others affected to do this without overdue dwelling on it. Well, that's how I apply what he has said for general purposes.
He used to read junky murder mysteries in his spare time, and that alone creates doubts in my head of him being anything more than whatever he was. |
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*All publishing details concerning Krishnamurti are available from me on request at
- Email me also for help and to know how much I appreciate the references not properly cited on the next page too - Krishnamurti on conditioning, relationship, loneliness and independence
Recovery or still recovering ? : Kay Neich at the end of 2004 - mid 2006 - issues not usually realised - late 2004 - mid 2006 : the relevance of the possible involvement of pervasive psychological processes emerges with everything else (Manifest narcissism in ourselves and others : Regaining and growing again in the capacity for intimacy and feeling as I used to be : - a discussion to the extent I believe that the self-object construct can have validity)
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What Matters ? I also mention what I just have for the incredibly feebleminded who would also write the guy off immediately for saying what I think is extremely insightful : that it is morality which is essentially immoral. This in no way has to be taken as an excuse for not caring deeply for others and being mindful in everything we do. |
I argue that if we made an effort to obtain an ongoing empathy and understanding of emotional dynamics in ourselves and each other, then a set "morality", which is always at risk of leading to rigid thinking and ideology, would end up being superfluous. Alternatively, with such rigidity from a morality in place, this would not lead to much understanding behind our actions. The outcome would be of less effective and of less compassionate responses. Gradually, a sense of ownership could easily be lost at depths which would otherwise be enriching, and as so, the scope for novel approaches would get lost too. Individuals, I believe, would just become disenfranchised, and the social and natural world would ultimately become a desolate wasteland devoid of personal meaning and become ripe for neglectful abuse. Scientific knowledge, even though it really is so interpretive, would still remain crucial if we really cared about the impacts we have as we go about living and taking in as much of we can of our world to embrace. Who said values cannot be forever reviewed in light of how understandings can continually be informed? To do this, we need to maintain clear heads, each in our own ways. Surely, if it is acknowledged how science is interpretive, then we must keep abreast, as far as we're able, of our value judgments too. It will come across in my writing, but those who know me would be quite sick of hearing how I have construed such thoughts. This was even before I knew of anyone needing to struggle before adopting similar views, and I was glad to find Krishnamurti to refer to. Eventually, after bouncing against extremes, I needed to hear of likeminded others as I had first thought there always were, to suggest that my thinking as a mere beginner has some sense to it after all. Still, I am always hoping that I can maintain an awareness of how any thoughts can turn into rigid ideology. I'm quite sick of myself in many ways too... |
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"A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. The truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. You must climb toward the truth, it cannot be "stepped down" or organized for you. Interest in ideas is mainly sustained by organizations, but organizations only awaken interest from without. Interest which is not born out of love of truth for its own sake, but aroused by an organization, is of no value. The organization becomes a framework into which its members can conveniently fit. They no longer strive after truth or the mountaintop, but rather carve for themselves a convenient niche in which they put themselves, or let the organization place them, and consider that the organization will thereby lead them to truth." |
- Krishnamurti |
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late 2004 : my leadership is (thankfully) a joke - how not to motivate kids (This link essentially is a layperson's applied and personal debunking of functionalism when seen in it's totality) |
link to page 2 - On Krishnamurti : conditioning, relationship, loneliness and independenceEmail me also for help and to know how much I appreciate the references not properly cited on this next page too |