Jiddu Krishnamurti on Existence of God

Question: I pray to God, and my prayers are answered Is this not proof of the existence of God?

Jiddu Krishnamurti : If you have proof of the existence of God, then it is not God (Laughter) because proof is of the mind. How can the mind prove or disprove God? Therefore, your god is a projection of the mind according to your satisfaction, appetite, happiness, pleasure, or fear. Such a thing is not God but merely a creation of thought, a projection of the known, which is past. What is known is not God, though the mind may look for it, may be active in the search for God.

The questioner says that his prayers are answered and asks if this is not proof of the existence of God. Do you want proof of love? When you love somebody, do you seek proof? If you demand proof of love, is that love? If you love your wife, your child, and you want proof, then love is surely a bargain. So your prayer to God is merely bargaining. (Laughter) Don't laugh it off, look at it seriously, as a fact.

The questioner approaches what he calls God through supplication and petition. You cannot find reality through sacrifice, through duty, through responsibility, because these are means to an end, and the end is not different from the means. The means are the end.

The other part of the question is, "I pray to God, and my prayers are answered." Let us examine that. What do you mean by prayer? Do you pray when you are joyous, when you are happy, when there is no confusion, no misery? You pray when there is misery, when there is disturbance, fear, turmoil, and your prayer is supplication, petition. When you are in misery, you want somebody to help you out, a higher entity to give you a helping hand, and that process of supplication in different forms is called prayer.

So, what happens? You put out your begging bowl to someone; it does not matter who it is - an angel, or your own projection whom you call God. The moment you beg, you have something - but whether that something is real or not is a different question. You want your confusion, your miseries solved, so you get out your traditional phrases, you turn on your devotion, and the constant repetition obviously makes the mind quiet.

But that is not quietness - the mind is merely dulled and put to sleep. In that induced quiet, when there is supplication, there is an answer. But it is not at all an answer from God - it is from your own ornamental projection. Here is the answer to the question. But you do not want to inquire into all this, that is why the question is put. Your prayer is supplication - you are only concerned to get a response to your prayer because you want to be free from trouble. Something is gnawing at your heart, and by praying, you make yourself dull and quiet.

In that artificial quietness there is a response - obviously satisfying, otherwise you would reject it. Your prayer is satisfying, and therefore it is what you yourself have created. It is your own projection that helps you out - that is one type of prayer. Then there is the deliberative type of prayer to make the mind quiet, receptive, and open. How can the mind be open when it is conditioned by tradition, the background of the past? Openness implies understanding, the capacity to follow the imponderable. When the mind is held, tethered to a belief, it cannot be open.

When it is deliberately opened, obviously any answer it receives is a projection of itself. Only when the mind is unconditioned, when it knows how to deal with each problem as it arises - only then is there no longer a problem. As long as the background continues, it must create a problem; as long as there is continuity, there must be ever increasing turmoil and misery. Receptivity is the capacity to be open, without condemnation or justification, to what is; and it is that from which you try to escape through prayer.

Source: Jiddu Krishnamurti Talk in Sri Lanka, January 8, 1950

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