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The Core of the Teachings
The following statement was written by Krishnamurti himself on
October 21, 1980 in which he summarises the teachings.
"The core of Krishnamurti's teaching is contained in the statement he made in
1929 when he said: 'Truth is a pathless land'. Man cannot come to it through any
organisation, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not
through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it
through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of
his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or
introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security
- religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The
burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his daily
life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man.
His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his
mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is
common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial
culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does
not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his
consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.
Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man's pretence that
because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction,
without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not
at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence.
In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in
the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time.
Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and
the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on
knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is
ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no
psychological evolution.
When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the
division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the
experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an
illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any
shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical
mutation in the mind.
Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all
those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there
love, which is compassion and intelligence.
©1993 The Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd,
Brockwood Park, Bramdean, Hampshire, England.
This article may be copied and used provided this is done in its entirety. No
editing or change of any kind is permitted. No extracts may be used.
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