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Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Knowledge

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) was originally selected by the Theosophical Society to serve as the vehicle of the World Teacher and in 1929 publicly dissolved the organization founded to support that role, on the ground that "truth is a pathless land" inaccessible to any organized doctrine, guru, or system. The teachings he subsequently delivered for over half a century — collected in volumes such as Freedom from the Known (1969) and the Commentaries on Living — return repeatedly to the analysis of "choiceless awareness" as the only form of cognition not corrupted by accumulated knowledge, conditioning, and the mediation of the recording self.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti:

    “Truth is a pathless land.”

  • Attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti:

    “The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”

  • Attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti:

    “Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.”

  • Attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti:

    “To understand life is to understand ourselves.”

  • “Hold back your mind from pride , for pride comes only from ignorance . The man who does not know thinks that he is great, that he has done this or that great thing; the wise man knows that only God is great , that all good work is done by God alone.”

    § III
  • “And as we are — the world is. That is, if we are greedy , envious , competitive , our society will be competitive, envious, greedy, which brings misery and war . The State is what we are. To bring about order and peace, we must begin with ourselves and not with society, not with the State, for the world is ourselves … If we would bring about a sane and happy society we must begin with ourselves an”

    Second Public Talk at Ojai (21 May 1944) J.Krishnamurti Online , JKO Serial No. 440521, published in Authentic Report of Ten Talks, Ojai, 1944 (1945), p. 7, OCLC 67727800
  • “What brings understanding is love . When your heart is full, then you will listen to the teacher , to the beggar, to the laughter of children , to the rainbow , and to the sorrow of man. Under every stone and leaf, that which is eternal exists. But we do not know how to look for it. Our minds and hearts are filled with other things than understanding of "what is". Love and mercy, kindliness and ge”

    Ninth Talk in Bombay, (14 March 1948) , J.Krishnamurti Online , JKO Serial No. BO48Q1, published in The Collected Works , Vol. IV, p. 200
  • “So, a man who is really earnest must begin with himself, he must be passively aware of all his thoughts, feelings and actions. Again, this is not a matter of time. There is no end to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is only from moment to moment, and therefore there is a creative happiness from moment to moment.”

    New Delhi India 1st Public Talk (14 November 1948)
  • “New Delhi India 1st Public Talk (14 November 1948)”

    So, a man who is really earnest must begin with himself, he must be passively aware of all his thoughts, feelings and actions. Again, this is not a matter of time. There is no end to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is only from moment to moment, and therefore there is a creative happiness from moment to moment.
  • “It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness. If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with gr”

    Sixth Talk in New Delhi (31 October 1956) , J.Krishnamurti Online , JKO Serial No. 561031, Vol. X, p. 155

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