"...if you are caught up in the description, in the words, then you are certainly lost forever."

The Awakening of Intelligence, "Freedom"


"The description is not the described; I can describe the mountain, but the description is not the mountain, and if you are caught up in the description, as most people are, then you will never see the mountain."

The Awakening of Intelligence


"Do not be caught in the illusion of words. Try to see the significance of the idea which lies behind the words."

Early Writings, from Harmonious Living, Vol.IV


"Our brains have become so small by the words we have used. When one speaks to a group of scientists, specialists in various disciplines - one sees that their lives have become so small. They are measuring everything in terms of words, experiences. And it is not a matter of word or experience. Words are limited; all experiences are limited. They cover a very small area."

J. Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti, A Biography by Pupul Jayakar, p.488


"It was a beautiful day, a cloudless day, a day of shadows and light...Shadows are more alive than the reality; the shadows are longer, deeper, richer; they seem to have a life of their own, independent and protecting; there is a peculiar satisfaction in their invitation. The symbol becomes more important than the reality. The symbol gives a shelter; it is easy to take comfort in its shelter. You can do what you will with it, it will never contradict, it will never change; it can be covered with garlands or ashes.

There's an extraordinary satisfaction in a dead thing, in a picture, in a conclusion, in a word. They are dead, past all recalling and there is pleasure in the many smells of yesterday. The brain is always the yesterday, and today is the shadow of yesterday, and tomorrow is the continuation of that shadow, somewhat changed but it still smells of yesterday. So the brain lives and has its being in shadows; it is safer, more comforting."

Krishnamurti's Notebook, p.54


"How few see the mountains or a cloud. They look, make some remarks and pass on. Words, gestures, emotions prevent seeing. A tree, a flower, is given a name, out into a category and that's that...to see there must be humility whose essence is innocency.

There's that mountain with the evening sun on it; to see it for the first time, to see it, as though it had never been seen before, to see it with innocency, to see it with eyes that have been bathed in emptiness, that have not been hurt with knowledge - to see then is an extraordinary experience. The word experience is ugly, with it goes emotion, knowledge, recognition and continuity; it is none of these things. It is something totally new."

Krishnamurti's Notebook, p.80


"Reincarnation is in the whole of Asia, and the modern people who believe in it say there is a permanent ego. You take many lives so that it can become dissolved and be absorbed in Brahma and all that. Now, is there from the beginning a permanent entity, an entity that lasts centuries and centuries? There is no such permanent entity, obviously. I like to think I'm permanent. My permanence is identified with my furniture, my wife, my husband, circumstances. These are words and images of thought. I don't actually possess that chair. I call it mine."

Krishnamurti, The Reluctant Messiah


"Verbally we can go only so far: what lies beyond cannot be put into words because the word is not the thing. Up to now we can describe, explain, but no words or explanations can open the door. What will open the door is daily awareness and attention..."

Freedom from the Known, p.32-33


"It is extraordinarily interesting to watch the process of the mind, how it depends on words, how the words stimulate memory or resuscitate the dead experience and give life to it. In that process the mind is living either in the future or in the past. Therefore words have an enormous significance, neurologically as well as psychologically. And please do not learn all this from me or from a book. You cannot learn it from another or find it in a book. What you learn or find in a book will not be the real. But you can experience it, you can watch yourself in action, watch yourself thinking, see how you think, how rapidly you are naming the feeling as it arises - and watching the whole process frees the mind from its centre. Then the mind, being quiet, can receive that which is eternal."

The First and Last Freedom, p.253