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"No expert, no specialist, can show us how to understand the process of the self. One has to study
it for oneself. You and I can help each other by talking about it, but none can unfold it for us,
no specialist, no teacher, can explore it for us.
We can be aware of it only in our relationship - in our relationship to things, to property, to people and to ideas." The First and Last Freedom, p.75 |
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"...when the mind seeks a timeless spiritual state which will go into action in order to destroy
the self, is that not another form of experience which is strengthening the 'me'?...The self has
projected that thing which you feel and believe will come and destroy the self.
...Thus our action from the beginning to the end is the same action, only we think it is evolving, growing, becoming more and more beautiful; but, if you observe inwardly, it is the same action going on, the same 'me' functioning at different levels with different labels, different names. When you see the whole process, the cunning, extraordinary inventions, the intelligence of the self, how it covers itself up through identification, through virtue, through experience, through belief, through knowledge; when you see that the mind is moving in a circle, in a cage of its own making, what happens? When you are aware of it, fully cognizant of it, then are you not extraordinarily quiet - not through compulsion, not through any reward, not through any fear?" The First and Last Freedom, p.81 |
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"The self is a problem that thought cannot resolve. There must be an awareness which is not of
thought. To be aware, without condemnation or justification, of the activities of the self - just
to be aware - is sufficient. If you are aware in order to find out how to resolve the problem,
in order to transform it, in order to produce a result, then it is still within the field of the self,
of the 'me.' So long as we are seeking a result, whether through analysis, through awareness,
through constant examination of every thought, we are still within the field of thought, which is
within the field of the 'me,' the 'I,' of the ego, or what you will."
The First and Last Freedom, p.113 |
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"The self cannot be destroyed through discipline, because discipline is a process of strengthening
the self. Yet all your religions support it; all your meditations, your assertions are based on
this. Will knowledge destroy the self? Will belief destroy it? In other words, will anything
that we are at present doing, any of the activities in which we are at present engaged in order to
get at the root of the self, will any of that succeed? Is not all this a fundamental waste in a
thought process which is a process of isolation, of reaction? What do you do when you realize
fundamentally or deeply that thought cannot end itself? What happens? Watch yourself..."
The First and Last Freedom, p.118 |
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"...when there is an awareness of the self and a realization that
all its activities, however subtle, must inevitably
lead to conflict and pain, then the craving for
certainty, for self-continuance comes to an end."
Education and the Significance of Life |
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"To know oneself is an extraordinary process,
because the self is never the same from moment
to moment; there are so many contradictory
desires, so many compulsions, so many urges."
Talks by Krishnamurti in Europe, 1956 |
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"When a machine is revolving very fast, as a fan
with several blades, the separate parts are not
visible but appear as one. So the self, the me,
seems to be a unified entity but if its activities
can be slowed down then we shall perceive that
it is not a unified entity but made up of many
separate and contending desires and pursuits.
These separate wants and hopes, fears and joys
make up the self.
The self is a term to cover craving in its different forms.
To understand the self there must be an awareness
of craving in its multiple aspects."
1945 |
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"Every effort of the self to be or not to be is a movement away from what it is. Apart from
its name, attributes, idiosyncrasies, possessions, what is the self? Is there the 'I,' the self,
when its qualities are taken away? It is this fear of being nothing that drives the self into
activity; but it is nothing, it is an emptiness."
Commentaries on Living, First Series, p.54 |
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"Though there may be unpleasant discoveries, the movements of the self must be exposed and understood...
Only in discovery can there be joy - the discovery from moment to moment of the ways of the self." Commentaries on Living, First Series, p.68 |
