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"Letters to a Young Friend"
book #7.09
Between 1948 and the early 1960s, Krishnaji was easily accessible and many
people came to him. On walks, in personal meetings, through letters, the
relationships blossomed. He wrote the following letters to a young friend who
came to him wounded in body and mind. The letters, written between June 1948 and
March 1960, reveal a rare compassion and clarity: the teaching and healing
unfold; separation and distance disappear; the words flow; not a word is
superfluous; the healing and teaching are simultaneous.
“Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals”
by Mary Lutyens
book #9.11
and
“Statement by the
Krishnamurti Foundation of America about
the Radha Sloss
book ‘Lives in the Shadow with J Krishnamurti’ “
booklet #9.12
In 1991 a book was
published entitled “Lives in the Shadow with J Krishnamurti". It was written by
Radha Sloss, daughter to Rosalind Rajagopal. She and her husband had been almost
life long associates of Krishnamurti, and K had had a physical relationship with
Rosalind. Rajagopal was head of KWINC, an organisation which published K’s
writings in America and held various copyrights. The Krishnamurti Foundation of
America brought lengthy lawsuits against Rajagopal to recover these copyrights
and titles to certain properties.
The book made many
accusations against Krishnamurti, and was critical of him in various areas.
These two books are a
refutation of many of Sloss’s claims. Mary Lutyens (a biographer of K and a long
term friend) writes in her book:
“It contains many misstatements of fact, false inferences and snide
innuendoes, and it is heavily biased to justify the author’s parents at
Krishnamurti’s expense."
Talks by Krishnamurti in Ceylon - 1957
booklet #1.025
This is a new addition
to the library, and the talks are older than much of the other material (with
the exception of “Talks in Auckland” 1934 and Ojai 1944). It is a 37 page
booklet, and contains a series of 5 talks.
Each talk is followed
by questions from the audience, and the nature of the questions reflect the
Buddhist and Hindu background of the audience. They include “What is the
religious Life?”, “Methods of ending thought”, “What is Karma”, “Meditation”,
and others.
To borrow this book, or
any other material, click here. The
minimum cost is just 90 cents for postage
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One Thousand Moons -
Krishnamurti at eighty five
books #9.09 & 9.10
and
One thousand Suns
In 1984 Pupul Jayakar, a friend and
biographer of Krishnamurti, put this question to him:
“Who is Krishnamurti? What is
his lineage?”
K replied:
“ . . . keep the challenge –
work with it – forget the person.
Look what religions have done:
concentrated on the teacher and forgotten the teaching. Why do we give such
importance to the person of the teacher? The teacher may be necessary to
manifest the teaching, but beyond that, what? The vase contains water; you
have to drink the water, not worship the vase. Humanity worships the vase,
forgets the teacher”.
However, people continue to be
fascinated by the person of Krishnamurti, and he did in fact approve the
publication of several books of a biographical and descriptive nature. Some of
these are held in the library (#9.). The one richest in photography is called:
One Thousand Moons, Krishnamurti at Eighty-Five.
From the front piece of this book:
In One Thousand Moons,
Krishnamurti is sensitively presented by Asit Chandmal, an India businessman,
who has known him from childhood. Chandmal’s fascinating photo-essay and text
reveal Krishnamurti at the age of eighty-five, vigorous and active, a source
of continuing inspiration.
More than 150 illustrations,
including 120 photographs in full colour, depict the private person behind the
world renowned figure. Krishnamurti is seen in the activities of everyday life
– with friends, walking and contemplating. Chandmal also tells of the reaction
of crowds listening to Krishnamurti speak: the calmness he elicits, and the
reverence he evokes. The phenomenon of Krishnamurti is here revealed
intimately and respectfully, through the eyes of one who is profoundly
convinced of the value of his teachings.
A revised version of this book,
called “One Thousand Suns” was published at the centennial anniversary of
Krishnamurti’s birth. This contains Chandmal’s moving and personal account “The
Last Walk”, which includes a poignant look at Krishnamurti’s final days. He was
with K until the end.
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"Where do you find
security?"
audiotape #1.2 & #1.21
There are two tapes in this
collection.
The first one was a public talk
delivered in Saanen
July 14 1983, and has been entitled “Where do you find security?”. Here are the
notes from the original tape, classified as #1.2:
Where does one find total,
complete security? The brain needs security. But at present the brain is
confused. Unless the brain is completely secure, completely certain,
unconfused, it must be in turmoil, right? And if you examine your own life,
your own existence, you will see how confused you are, how uncertain, how you
cannot rely on anything. So, where do you find security? Not outwardly,
obviously. And will you find security in the psyche? In the me? In the self?
Then we have to ask: what is the self?
The second tape in the series
(#1.21) is entitled “Is there security in relationship?”. This talk was given on
12 July 1977 in Saanen.
One needs physical security.
And why have not human beings, though they have the capacity to organise, the
energy to see that everyone has enough food, clothes, and shelter? That is one
problem. And the other is: each human being seeks psychological security,
inward security, relying on belief, holding on, hoping thereby to find
security in an ideal, in a person, in a concept in an experience. But does he
ever find security in any of this? And if he doesn’t, why does he hold on to
that?
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Krishnamurti A Biography By Pupul Jayakar
book
#9.08
This substantial book (hardback, 516 pages) was
published in the year of Krishnamurti's death, 1986. As is written in the front
piece:
"From her unique vantage in
Indian society – as recognised philosopher, cultural leader, and close associate
of Krishnamurti himself – Pupul Jayakar has written a major biographical
interpretation of one of the greatest spiritual sages of our times."
Jayakar draws from her long years of friendship
with Krishnamurti, and sources never before published, including her own diaries
and Krishnamurti's letters and conversations. She reveals the full story of his
early years as a child-teacher-saviour and media darling and offers behind the
scenes insights into his later years as an influential and unique teacher and
thinker".
The biography can be considered as complementary
to the set of biographies by Mary Lutyens. It focuses on his life in India,
although not exclusively so. There are quite a few dialogues between K and
friends included not published elsewhere. For example:
Is it possible to keep the brain very young?
Negation and the ancient mind.
Doubt as the essence of the religious enquiry.
The nature of God.
The meaning of death.
How far can one travel?
An excerpt:
In mid-February of 1948 I
went to see him again. He asked me whether I had noticed anything different in
my thinking process. I said I was not getting as many thoughts as I did before.
My mind was not as restless as it used to be.
He said, "If you have been
experimenting with self-knowing, you will notice that your thinking process has
slowed down, that your mind. is not restlessly wandering!' For a time he was
silent; I waited for him to continue. "Try working out each thought to its
completion, carry it right through to the end. You will find that this is very
difficult, for no sooner does one thought come into being than it is pursued by
another thought. The mind refuses to complete a thought. It escapes from thought
to thought. . . .
"If you follow each thought to its completion, you will see that at the
end of it there is silence. From that there is renewal. Thought that arises from
this silence no longer has desire as its motive force; it emerges from a state
that is not clogged with memory.
"But if again the thought that so arises is not completed, it leaves a
residue. Then there is no renewal and the mind is caught again in a
consciousness which is memory, bound by the past, by yesterday. Each thought,
then to the next, is the yesterday-that which has no reality.
"The
new approach is to bring time to an end," Krishnaji concluded. I did not
understand then, but came away with the words alive within me.
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The Accompanying Cd – A Variety Of
Excerpts from J. Krishnamurti
CD #RR04C3
Tracks 1-2
(19 minutes)
From: "Can Insight Uncondition
the Mind"
This is from a series of dialogues
between Krishnamurti and Professor David Bohm, who was Professor of
Theoretical Physics at the University of London.
It is available form the
Krishnamurti-nz CD library - # BR80D2 (see also #BR80D1)
The full series of 15 dialogues,
commonly known as "The Ending of Time", is available from the Audio
tape library #4.701 - #4.715.
12 of these dialogues, which took
place over the year 1980 at the Krishnamurti Centres at Brockwood Park, UK and
Ojai, California, were published as a book entitled "The Ending of Time";
this is also available from the book library #6.05.
"Has humanity taken a wrong
turn?"
"Can psychological time end,
completely?"
"Death has very little meaning"
Track 3
(14 minutes)
From "Awakening Intelligence in
Students"
This was a discussion with
teachers at one of the Krishnamurti Schools in India, Rishi Valley, in 1970.
The complete discussion is
available from the CD library #RV70DA&B (two CDs).
"Is it possible to awaken, or
bring about, a quality if Intelligence which will act adequately when any
problem arises in the life if the student?"
Tracks 4 – 7 (19
minutes)
From "The Art of Listening"
This is number 10 in a series of
dialogues between Krishnamurti and Allan W Anderson, who was professor of
religious studies at San Diego State University.
There are 18 discussions in all;
they took place in 1974 and have been entitled "A Wholly Different Way of
Living".
All 18 dialogues are available
from the CD library #SD74D1 - D18
"Do we actually see, or do we
see through a screen darkly? A screen of prejudice, a screen of our
idiosyncrasies, experiences, our wishes, pleasures, fears, and obviously our
images about that which we see and about ourselves? So we have this screen
after screen between us and the object of perception. So do we ever see the
thing at all?"
Tracks 8 – 9 (17
minutes)
From the start of the first public
talk given at Ojai, California in 1983.
This has been entitled "You are
a Bundle of Memories" and also "Responsibility for the World"
Available from the CD library
#OJ83T1.
" This society, in which we all
live, is corrupt, immoral, aggressive, destructive; and this society has been
going on for thousands of years modified or primitive; but it is the same
pattern being repeated thousands of years upon thousands of years. These are
all facts. This is not the opinion or the judgment of the speaker.
So, as one must ask, and I hope
you will ask, who is responsible? And what is one to do, confronted, facing
this enormous crisis; if one is at all aware of this crisis?"
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Education and the Significance of Life
book #2.01
Education and the Significance of Life
is a penetrating inquiry into the nature and requirements of the kind of
education which can lead to self-fulfilment and to world peace. Krishnamurti
stresses self-knowledge and creating an environment free from fear to help
create an atmosphere in which real education can take place. Krishnamurti had a
lifelong interest in education and founded schools on three continents. In this
seminal book he critically examines what is wrong with education as it stands,
relating it to society at large and the need for a new and different world
order. The book speaks practically of such matters as class size and the
function of leadership, while never losing the central vision that
"true culture is founded... on the educators."
"WHEN one travels around the world, one notices to what an extraordinary degree
human nature is the same, whether in India or America, in Europe or Australia.
This is especially true in colleges and universities. We are turning out, as if
through a mould, a type of human being whose chief interest is to find security,
to become somebody important, or to have a good time with as little thought as
possible.
Conventional education makes independent thinking extremely difficult.
Conformity leads to mediocrity. To be different from the group or to resist
environment is not easy and is often risky as long as we worship success. The
urge to be successful, which is the pursuit of reward whether in the material or
in the so-called spiritual sphere, the search for inward or outward security,
the desire for comfort - this whole process smothers discontent, puts an end to
spontaneity and breeds fear; and fear blocks the intelligent understanding of
life. With increasing age, dullness of mind and heart sets in.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is
a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
This fear of life, this fear of struggle and of new experience, kills in us the
spirit of adventure; our whole upbringing and education have made us afraid to
be different from our neighbour, afraid to think contrary to the established
pattern of society, falsely respectful of authority and tradition."
(Page 9 of " Education and the Significance of Life" )
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"Krishnamurti for the young"
books #2.10,
#2.11, #2.12
To suit the needs of the younger
children – perhaps from around 11 to 14 years — the Krishnamurti Foundation of
India is now bringing out a series of small books entitled "Krishnamurti for the
young".
The books contain simple and short
excerpts on themes that children can easily grasp, besides Krishnamurti’s
answers to questions from children.
Attractive colour drawings and
‘Things to do’ are the other features of the books (28 pages). So far available
titles in the series are:
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#2.10 What is it to care?
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#2.11 What does freedom mean?
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#2.12 What does fear do to you?
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"Krishnamurti for the young" is a
series of books designed to help young people to understand and deal with the
world within themselves – the world of hurts, fears, pleasures, ambitions,
success, failures and so on.
Isn't there another whole area of life that
you would like to be aware of, be introduced to – the world of thoughts and
feelings inside you? Must you not learn how you are hurt sometimes, what are
the things that make you angry and how to deal with them or what your fears
are and how they affect your relationship with teachers and parents or
friends? Don't you want to know how you respond to the beauty of life in trees
and plants and animals around you or how you feel when you see human beings
suffer? Would you not like to find out what you love to do most so that what
you do later as you grow up gives you a lot of joy?
From the
introduction to the series "for the young"
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1st Question & Answer Meeting
audiotape #2.87
Ojai, California, 6th May, 1980
Duration 70 min.
Q1: What is the significance of
history in the education of the young?
Q2: Does awareness lead to analysis?
Q3: What is psychological knowledge?
Q4: Why is knowledge always incomplete?
Q5: When one is observing is one aware that one is observing, or only aware of
the thing being observed?
Q6: How to eliminate the image?
Q7: Does thought originate as a defence against pain?
Q8: What did Christ say?
2nd Question & Answer
Meeting
audiotape #2.88
Ojai, California, 8th May, 1980
Duration 67 min.
Q1: There is a prevalent assumption
that everything is relative and a matter of personal opinion, that there is no
such thing as truth or fact.
Q2: How can we take responsibility for what is happening in the world while
continuing to function in our daily life?
Q3: What is right action with regard to violence, and when faced with violence?
Q4: The hope that tomorrow will solve our problems prevents our seeing the
absolute urgency of change. How does one deal with this?
Q5: Are there any psychological needs for which we are responsible in our daily
relationship with others? Is there a true psychological need?
Q6: What does it mean to see the totality of something? Is it ever possible to
perceive the totality of something which is moving?
Q7: Is there a state which has no opposite and may we know and communicate with
it?
3rd Question & Answer
Meeting
audiotape #2.89
Ojai, California, 13th May, 1980
Duration 67 min.
Q1: What is true creativity? And how
is it different from that which is celebrated in popular culture?
Q2: You said in the very seeing there is action. Is this action the same as the
expression of action? Is there a connection and how do they relate to
suppression?
Q3: For the making of images to end must thought also end? Is one necessarily
implied in the other?
Q4: Is the end of image-making merely a foundation upon which we can begin to
discover what love and truth are? Or is that ending the very essence of truth
and love?
Q5: Would you please make a definitive statement about the non-existence of
reincarnation?
4th Question & Answer
Meeting
audiotape #2.895
Ojai, California, 15th May, 1980
Duration 68 min.
Q1: What is the actual substance of
fear; what am I to look at when I look at fear itself? Can this looking take
place when fear is not immediately present?
Q2: When one sees no demonstrable, universal principle of justice, I feel no
compelling reason to change. I see no criteria to measure the consequences of
action.
Q3: Can we die to the self? To find out is a process of choiceless awareness. To
observe we must have died to the me. How can I observe in my state of
fragmentation?
Q4: What is the relationship of attention to thought? Is there a gap between
attention and thought?
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What Are You Doing
With Your Life?
A book for teenagers #7.08
- published 2001
- compiled from the talks of J. Krishnamurti
"If
you really love to be an engineer or a scientist, or if you can plant a tree, or
paint a picture, not to gain recognition but just because you love to do it,
then you will find that you never compete with another. I think this is the real
key: to love what you do."
This is what rediff.com had to say
about this book:
·
Don't
you want to find out what you really love to do in life, instead of merely
aiming at a career?
·
Are ambition
and competition really necessary in order to live in this modern world?
·
What is your
response to the problems of society, such as poverty, corruption, violence?
·
What is your
relationship to your parents and teachers based on? Rebellion? Understanding?
·
How do you
deal with your own psychological problems like boredom, jealousy, hurt,
pleasure, fear, and sorrow?
- J Krishnamurti's investigation of these questions
constitutes a most original and authentic contribution to the educational
thought of the twentieth century. In holding discussions with students in
different parts of the world, what he sought to impart was not a 'philosophy' of
life but rather the art of observing directly one's life. And he talked to them
as a friend, and not as a guru or an expert on these issues.
The book is organised very clearly in sections and sub-sections, typically half
a page long. For example: Self-Esteem; Success and Failure; Loneliness;
Depression; Confusion; Nature and Earth; Truth: God; Death.
It is also indexed for ready access
to any topic.
Krishnamurti never dictates, never
prescribes – rather he invites one to enquire together. Life, he said, is a
voyage on an uncharted sea. He said of his own work:
"There is no belief demanded or asked, there are no followers, there are no
cults, there is no persuasion of any kind, in any direction. And therefore only
then we can meet on the same ground, at the same level. Then we can together
observe the extraordinary phenomena of human existence".
Reviews from amazon.com:
·
A deftly
presented spiritual as well as practical work.
·
A very
highly recommended addition to school, and community library philosophy
collections for adolescent and young adult readers.
·
I highly
recommend this book to teens, their parents, and anyone else looking for love
and silence at the heart of their everyday lives.
"When
you are young one must be revolutionary, not merely in revolt . . .
To be psychologically revolutionary means non-acceptance of every pattern."
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Question and Answer Session
audiotape #5.005
Brockwood Park 1979 1st
Public Question & Answer Meeting -28th August, 1979. 77 min.
Questions put were:
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Is it really possible to
be free of self-centred activity?
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Is there a real self
apart from the self-created image?
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Will the practice of
yoga bring spiritual awakening, awaken the deeper energy called Kundalini?
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Can there be absolute
security for man in this life?
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Our emotions and
attachments are strong - how does looking reduce their strength and power?
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Why does the mind so
readily accept trivial answers to such deeply felt questions?
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Can there be health when
there is conflict?
audiotape #8.115
2nd
Public Talk, Saanen, Switzerland, 10th July, 1984 Duration 72 min.
Is freedom choice? Is it
there in becoming? Does it lie in expressing ambition trying to fulfil desires?
Does language encourage the limited activity of the brain?
Does the constant conflict in which human beings live contribute to health?
Has our brain evolved through conflict? Is there an energy uncontaminated by
conflict?
Is the brain itself a problem? Does being free of problems imply an enquiry into
time?
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The public talks at
Brockwood Park 1980
audiotapes #2.61
- #2.65
#2.61 Talk 1 (30 August) -Can One Live Without Fragmentation?
Realizing I am the world what is my responsibility? What is our responsibility
to all of mankind and what is the right action in this insane world?
Is one's
whole life an illusion a constant battle, confusion and sorrow? Can the brain
change its whole structure its whole nature? Can we observe the activity of our
own brains? It is the brain of mankind.
Can
fragmentation brought about through attachment, ideas, and images be totally set
aside so that there is a different way of living with love and a great sense of
compassion? To live in images is the very essence of a destructive way of life.
What will make me let images fall away?
#2.62
Talk 2 (31 August) - Images and Desire in Relationship
Are we
separate entities trying to be related?
Why does
the division exist? Does division exist because of the word because of culture?
Is it possible to live together without a single image about another, to live in
the actual world of relationship between man and woman without any division?
Can the
brain, the most important factor in our life change itself completely? Why
should the brain register insult or flattery? Is it possible to end the building
of images?
Can
insight take place only when knowledge ends? When there is observation without
direction are the brain cells transformed?
#2.63
Talk 3 (6 September) - Inner and Outer Disorder and Division
Where
there is division there must be conflict.
Why have
people divided themselves religiously and through nationalism? Is world disorder
different from our disorder? Is this division and confusion different from the
observer who is observing it?
Why does
the mind accept and live with disorder and a sense of division?
In
complete attention, is there confusion?
Can we
examine fear, pleasure, and suffering not separately but as a total movement of
life? Are you separating yourself from the fact of fear?
#2.64
Talk 4 (7 September)- Can a Religious Mind Come About?
Can I in
living end my anxiety, my fears? Can "what is" be transformed immediately?
Why does
the mind demand experience? Why have we not the demand to live a tremendously
diligent life? Do we banish the demand for truth? Is the mind caught in time
because it moves away from the fact? Can we be free of non-fact and live with
facts?
Does the
constant struggle to become wear out the cells of the brain? Can the mind not
being hurt keep young, and never grow senile? Why is the human mind caught in
psychological time? Why has man always talked about religion? Is meditation the
practice of a system? Why have we made meditation so unnatural?
#2.65
Question & Answer session 1 (2 September)
The
Questions asked were:
Q1:
Why do you have schools and foundations?
Q2:
Why do you speak?
Q3: Is
it always wrong or misguided to work with an enlightened man and be a sannyasi?
Q4:
Why am I responsible for the whole world?
Q5: My
urgency to change fades when I go home. What can I do?
Q6: Is
suffering necessary to make us face the necessity to change?
Q7: My
problem is I have a ten-foot wall around me. What am I to do?
Q8: I
derive strength from concentrating on a symbol. Is this an illusion?
Question
& Answer session 2 is not available from the Krishnamurti-nz library.
Roots of Psychological Disorder
cd #OJ82CNM1
Ojai 1982 1st Conversation with Drs.
Bohm, Sheldrake & Hidley - 16th April, 1982
What is psychological disorder?
Isn't self-centred activity the origin of all disorder? Disorder is the very
nature of the self - have psychologists tackled this problem? Is to struggle, to
suffer, to live in disorder, a natural way of living? I am society, the result
of all its conditioning, also my individualistic activity has created this
society. Do we accept this conditioning - is it possible to be free of it?
60 min.
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Psychological Suffering
cd #OJ82CNM2
Ojai 1982 2nd Conversation with Drs.
Bohm, Sheldrake & Hidley - 17th April, 1982
Is it possible to live a life free
from disorder? What is security? Not being hurt and not hurting. Ideas,
emotions, reactions - all this is me. The possibility of not having images.
Identifying and wanting to become. Avoidance of "what is" is an escape but to
look at it is not. If I see the fact that responsibility is order, I am
responsible. In division we think there is security. No security or order in
isolation. 60 min.
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The Need for Security
cd #OJ82CNM3
Ojai 1982 3rd Conversation with Drs.
Bohm, Sheldrake & Hidley - 17th April, 1982
Is there such a thing as absolute
psychological security, and why do I want it? Is it to feel content, without
fear, anxiety, agony? Is it that unconsciously we know the self is unstable? If
the content of our consciousness can be changed, would there be need for
security? The content of one's consciousness is unclear, messy, but we don't
recognize this mess is me. To empty the content of consciousness so that the
self is not. 61 min.
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What Is a Healthy Mind?
cd #OJ82CNM4
Ojai 1982 4th Conversation with Drs.
Bohm, Sheldrake & Hidley - 18th April, 1982
The importance of attention.
Attention implies a great deal of care, affection, love, not just mental but
with all your being. Thought thinks what it has created is holy - can we
understand that there is nothing holy about thought? To find out if there is
anything sacred I must start very near - with me. Is attention an act of will?
In attention is the mind silent? When there is a great silence, then that which
is eternal is. 57 min.
Can Insight Uncondition the Mind?
audiotape #4.712
cd #BP80D2
Brockwood Park 1980 12th
Conversation with Dr. David Bohm - 16th September, 1980
Is there security in accumulation?
The movement of accumulation brings division. Insight is a totally different
kind of movement. The general and the particular are one, not divided. Isn't the
outward urge to accumulate carried inward? Psychological accumulation is time
and thought. If you accumulate knowledge of yourself then you build an image.
Intelligence, love will break down the wall built by accumulating.
63 min.
An Order Beyond All Human Order and Disorder
audiotape #4.711 cd #BP80D1
Brockwood Park 1980 11th Conversation with Dr. David Bohm - 14th September, 1980
Is there an order which is universal? Is there a ground of all human movement?
Nature is order unless man interferes. Isn't the "me" and the attempt of the
mind to measure itself, the source of disorder? The man-made mind is limited,
illusory. Will emptying the consciousness of its content end that limitation?
Can there be an insight that transforms the man-made mind, that will alter my
whole structure, that will clear away all attachment? 76 min.
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Questions and Answers:
audiotape #5.03
Saanen 1980 4th Public Question &
Answer Meeting - 26th July, 1980
Is sitting quietly daily to observe
the movement of thought a practice and therefore without value? Identifying with
pain. Physical illness. Is it possible to heal cancer? Is enlightenment a matter
of time? Are experiences beyond the senses a part of enlightenment? The nature
of insight. 88 min.
Questions and Answers:
audiotape #2.15
Ojai 1983 1st Public Question & Answer Meeting - 17th May, 1983. 86
min.
Q1: What is the role of the artist in life? What is the significance of music,
poetry and all art in our relationship to each other and the world?
Q2: Is not the observation of thought a continuing use of thought and therefore
contradiction?
Q3: You refer to marriage as that terrible institution. Could you elaborate?
Q4: You have said that quietness, silence comes unsought. But can we live in
ways that will allow it to come more readily?
Q5: Is there such a thing as a true guru?
Q6: Is there ever a right use of mantras?
Questions and Answers:
audiotape #2.16
Ojai 1983 2nd Public Question &
Answer Meeting 19th May, 1983. 108 min.
Q1: Why don't you be more practical and not so abstract in what you are saying?
Q2: Most of my energy and time goes into the struggle to earn a living. Is it
possible for me to be deeply unselfish and intelligent?
Q3: I must stay with my family in one place. How am I to have this global
vision?
Q4: You have stated that if one stays with fear and not try to escape and
realize one is fear, then fear goes away. How does this come about?
Q5: Is it some lack of energy that keeps us from going to the very end of the
problem? Does this require special or basic energy?
Q6: Could you go into the nature of intelligence which manifests itself when
perception takes place and is this the only true source of action?
Questions and Answers:
audiotape #2.05
Brockwood Park 1985 1st Public Question & Answer Meeting - 27th August, 1985
Spiritual and mystical experiences. Is illness due simply to degeneration or
abuse of the body, or does it have some other significance? Responsibility in
the world crisis. Does asking for guidance prevent understanding, or can it be a
means of discovering ourselves? If it prevents understanding, what is the sense
of our listening to you, Krishnamurti? Total vision - is it an extension of our
normal brain function or something totally different? 84 min.
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Questions and Answers:
audiotape #2.06
Brockwood Park 1985 2nd Public Question & Answer Meeting - 29th August, 1985
No path to truth outside myself - what will give me the energy to move in this
direction? Fear of change and what will happen afterwards. Meeting aggression
and psychological attack from a close relative from whom one cannot escape.
People who pick part of what you say that fits their problems or interest and
discard the rest. Accounts of people following a particular discipline who come
upon the immeasurable - are they self-deluded? 87 min.
Can We Live without Identifying?
audiotape #4.62 & cd #BR78D2
Brockwood Park 2nd Conversation with Buddhist Scholars - 23rd June, 1978
(this tape is incomplete)
Brushing aside all organized religions. What is death? Is there life after death
- if not, what is the point of living? Identification process is the essence of
the self - without identification is there the self? Can thought end while
living? The possibility of living a daily life with death, which is the ending
of the self. The moment you have an insight it is finished.
94 min.
Does Free Will Exist?
audiotape
#4.63 & cd #BR78D3
The Buddhist philosopher Nairanjana.
Shunyata. Nirvana. The concepts of
sunyatasatva and paramatasatva.
The meaning of "will", and its
relationship to desire. Is there such a thing as "free will"?
What is action without choice and
will?
The necessity of moving away from
theories, ideas, and conclusions.
Why does thought identify?
The nature of Insight.
What is the beginning of thought?
Is there an action which is total,
complete, whole, not partial?
To love is to see the whole.
Two CDs, 62 and 53
minutes.
Why Can't Man Live Peacefully on the
Earth?
audiotape #8.30
United Nations 1985 Public Talk -
11th April, 1985
Summary:
Man has not lived peacefully.
Organizations have not brought peace to man. The effect on mankind if we have
the vitality, the energy to end conflict within ourselves, and to realize, not
theoretically but actually, the consequences of being programmed. Man is trapped
in a psychological movement, without ending this it is not possible to see
something afresh. 68 min.
Four Schools of Yoga
audiotape #4.501 & cds #SA69D1
Discussions between Krishnamurti
and Swami Venkatesunanda; in Saanen, Switzerland in July 1969.
The guru in the Upanishads, the
dispeller of darkness. Why do people seek?
The four schools of Yoga, (Karma,
Bhakti, Raja, Gnana Yoga). 77 minutes.
Four Sayings from
the Upanishads
audiotape #4.502
& cds #SA69D2
The four "mahavakyas"
(sayings) from the Upanishads are discussed. The topic "Communication and
the Bodhisatta idea" follows, and finally "Vedanta and the ending of
knowledge". 59 minutes
The above two discussions is published in the book "The
Awakening of Intelligence" which is available from the Krishnamurti-nz
lending library (click here)
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What is the right way of earning a living?
audiotape #5.02
The questions asked are as follows:
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I work as a teacher and I am in
constant conflict with the system of the school and with the pattern of
society. Must I give up all work? What is the right way to earn a living? Is
there a way of living that does not perpetuate conflict?
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Is it possible to be so completely aware
at the moment of perception that the mind does not record the event?
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In your talks you have said death is
total annihilation. You have also said there is immortality, a sense of timeless existence. Can one live in that state?
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(24/7/80 Saanen Q/A part 2)
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Going to the Office
audiotape #5.01
Tape #5.01 is part of a two-tape
collection entitled "Problems of Living". The Questions asked are as follows:
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The Speaker has said that going to an
office every day from 9 to 5 is an intolerable imprisonment. But in any
society all kinds of jobs have to be done. Is K's teachings therefore only for
the few?
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Isn't insight, intuition? What do you
mean by insight: is it a momentary thing or can it be continuous?
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You say organizations will not help man
to find what we Christians call salvation: so why do you have your own
organization?
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Is sex compatible with religious life?
What place has human relationship in spiritual endeavour?
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Can thought be aware of itself as it is
taking place, or does awareness come after the thought?
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Can consciousness be aware of its whole
content?
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(Brockwood Park 30 August 1979 Q/A 2)
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Questions and Answers
Sessions
audiotapes #5. . .
& book #4.06
Sometimes Krishnamurti invited questions
from the audience immediately after giving a public talk. More commonly, when
yearly gatherings were arranged, as at Brockwood and Saanen, there would be four
or more talks, and two or more sessions devoted to questions from the audience.
These questions were handed in on paper before the session, and some selected by
a panel. Krishnamurti never saw the questions before he looked at them on the
stage.
Sometimes the questions seemed to take K
along paths of enquiry he didn't normally take in his talks.
K made it clear he was no "Delphic Oracle"
when giving answers. At the beginning of one session he said:
"May I remind you that these questions
are really put to oneself, not to the speaker, though he will try to answer
them. As we have said, the answers to these questions lie in the questions
themselves. Not outside, beyond the question. And that we are both of us, you
and the speaker, exploring the question and thereby together finding the answer.
If we look to another, we are lost, and I
really mean it. Because it's our problem."
A collection of 50 questions and answers
from 1979/80 have been collected together in the book simply entitled "Questions
and Answers"; available from the library of Krishnamurti books (http://www.krishnamurti-nz.org/books.htm)
A Dialogue with Oneself
booklet
#8.11
This nine page booklet is a succinct
analysis of the problems involved in human relationship. The extract is from a
discussion meeting. But it seems as if Krishnamurti is here addressing himself
rather than the audience. In doing so, he reveals brilliantly the subtle process
of enquiring into oneself, into one's attachment, loneliness and lack of love.
"I started out having a dialogue with
myself. I asked myself what this strange thing called love is; everybody talks
about it, writes about it – all the romantic poems, pictures, sex and all the
other areas of it. I ask: Is there such a thing as love?"
"I am not trying to tell loneliness
what it should do, or what it is; I am watching for it to tell me".
"The Art of Meditation"
audiotapes
#1.24 and #1.25
This is a set of two audio tapes
comprising:
-
"The Art of Meditation", a talk
given in San Francisco on 25th March 1975.
-
"Meditation in Daily Life", a
talk given in London on March 23rd 1969
Krishnamurti spoke often about the topic
of meditation. However, to him meditation seemed to hold a very different
meaning and significance than to other people. He held meditation can never be
practised.
Here are the notes from the original audio
cassette "The Art of Meditation", published by the Krishnamurti
Foundation of India.
Meditation in daily life is the
transformation of the mind, a psychological revolution, so that we live a
daily life –not in theory, not as an ideal, but in every movement of our life
– in which there is compassion, love, and the energy to transcend all the
pettiness, the narrowness, the shallow life one leads. When that mind is quiet
– really still, not made still through desire or will – then there is a
totally different kind of movement, which is not of time. To go into that
would be absurd, it would be a verbal description and therefore not real.
What is important is the art of
meditation. The word art means to put everything in its right place. Not that
which is contained in the museums, but putting everything in our life, in our
daily life, in the right place. That is the art of meditation.
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"J
Krishnamurti – An Introduction"
audiotapes
1.011, 1.012, 1.013, 1.014.
(Notes taken from the published audio
tapes)
This is a series of four talks given
by Krishnamurti in Brockwood Park, England in 1983. The set is meant primarily
to introduce Krishnamurti's teachings to those not previously acquainted with
it. Krishnamurti's statements here are simple and direct and cover all aspects
of life that he generally touched upon – chaos in the world, conflict between
human beings and within oneself, the limitation of knowledge and thought, the
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