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Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Awareness
- One has to learn the art of looking,
observing. You cannot observe what is happening actually in the
world if you are attached to one particular part of that world. If I
am attached to this country saying, I am a Hindu, I am proud of
being a Hindu, I am ancient, blah, blah, blah, blah - all that, if I
am attached to that, I cannot possibly observe the division that is
going on in the world - the Arab, the Jew, the Communists, the
Socialists and so on, so on, so on.
- When you are aware, you see the whole
process of your thinking and action, but it can happen only when
there is no condemnation. That is, when I condemn something, I do
not understand it, and it is one way of avoiding any kind of
understanding. I think most of us do that purposely; we condemn
immediately, and we think we have understood. If we do not condemn
but regard it, are aware of it, then the content, the significance
of that action begins to open up. Experiment with this and you will
see for yourself. Just be aware - without any sense of justification
- which may appear rather negative, but is not negative. On the
contrary, it has the quality of passivity which is direct action,
and you will discover this if you experiment with it.
- Through observation you become a light to
yourself.
- Awareness is that state of mind which
observes something without any condemnation or acceptance, which
merely faces the thing as it is. When you look at a flower
nonbotanically, then you see the totality of the flower; but if your
mind is completely taken up with the botanical knowledge of what the
flower is, you are not totally looking at the flower. Though you may
have knowledge of the flower, if that knowledge takes the whole
ground of your mind, the whole field of your mind, then you are not
looking totally at the flower.
- Can you live without an image. Of course
one can. But that demands attention. Attention at the moment when
the image is being formed, when somebody insults you, at that moment
to be completely attentive. Or at the moment when somebody flatters
you, to be totally aware. Then you will find no image is formed,
which means there is no recording of that insult or flattery on the
brain.
- When you are passively aware, you will see
that out of that passivity - which is not idleness, which is not
sleep, but extreme alertness - the problem has quite a different
significance, which means there is no longer identification with the
problem, and therefore there is no judgment, and hence the problem
begins to reveal its content. If you are able to do that constantly,
continuously, then every problem can be solved fundamentally, not
superficially. And that is the difficulty because most of us are
incapable of being passively aware, letting the problem tell the
story without our interpreting it. We do not know how to look at a
problem dispassionately.
- This passive awareness does not come
through any form of discipline, through any practice. It is to be
just aware, from moment to moment, of our thinking and feeling, not
only when we are awake, for we will see, as we go into it deeper,
that we begin to dream, that we begin to throw up all kinds of
symbols which we translate as dreams.
- Awareness means to observe the whole
movement of like and dislike, of your suppressions. If you are
old-fashioned you don't talk about sex, you suppress it, but you go
on thinking about it - one has to be aware of all that.
- In self-awareness there is no need for
confession, for self-awareness creates the mirror in which all
things are reflected without distortion. Every thought- feeling is
thrown, as it were, on the screen of awareness to be observed,
studied and understood; but this flow of understanding is blocked
when there is condemnation or acceptance, judgment or
identification. The more the screen is watched and understood—not as
a duty or enforced practice, but because pain and sorrow have
created the insatiable interest that brings its own discipline—the
greater the intensity of awareness, and this in turn brings
heightened understanding.
- Awareness is from moment to moment, it is
not the cumulative effect of self-protective memories. Awareness is
not determination nor is it the action of will. Awareness is the
complete and unconditional surrender to what is, without
rationalization, without the division of the observer and the
observed. As awareness is nonaccumulative, nonresidual, it does not
build up the self, positively or negatively. Awareness is ever in
the present and so, nonidentifying and nonrepetitive; nor does it
create habit.
- Be aware; there is a fundamental
difference between being and becoming. To become aware you make
effort, and effort implies resistance and time and leads to
conflict. If you are aware in the moment, there is no effort, no
continuance of the self-protective intelligence. You are aware or
you are not; the desire to be aware is only the activity of the
sleeper, the dreamer. Awareness reveals the problem completely,
fully, without denial or acceptance, justification or
identification, and it is freedom which quickens understanding.
Awareness is a unitary process of the observer and the observed.
- Unless we understand this problem of
opposites with its conflicts and miseries, our efforts will be in
vain. Through self -awareness, craving to become, the cause of
conflict, must be observed and understood; but understanding ceases
if there is identification, if there is acceptance or denial or
comparison. With kindly dispassion, craving must be deeply
understood and so transcended.
- In awareness there is observation without
condemnation, without denial or acceptance. That awareness begins
with outward things, being aware, being in contact with objects,
with nature. First, there is awareness of things about one, being
sensitive to objects, to nature, then to people, which means
relationship; then there is awareness of ideas. This awareness,
being sensitive to things, to nature, to people, to ideas, is not
made up of separate processes, but is one unitary process. It is a
constant observation of everything, of every thought and feeling and
action as they arise within oneself. As awareness is not
condemnatory, there is no accumulation. You condemn only when you
have a standard, which means there is accumulation and therefore
improvement of the self.
- Awareness is to understand the activities
of the self, the 'I', in its relationship with people, with ideas
and with things. That awareness is from moment to moment and
therefore it cannot be practised. When you practise a thing, it
becomes a habit and awareness is not habit. A mind that is habitual
is insensitive, a mind that is functioning within the groove of a
particular action is dull, unpliable, whereas awareness demands
constant pliability, alertness. This is not difficult.
- It is what you actually do when you are
interested in something, when you are interested in watching your
child, your wife, your plants, the trees, the birds. You observe
without condemnation, without identification; therefore in that
observation there is complete communion; the observer and the
observed are completely in communion. This actually takes place when
you are deeply, profoundly interested in something.
- Awareness is observation without
condemnation. Awareness brings understanding, because there is no
condemnation or identification but silent observation. If I want to
understand something, I must observe, I must not criticize, I must
not condemn, I must not pursue it as pleasure or avoid it as
non-pleasure. There must merely be the silent observation of a fact.
There is no end in view but awareness of everything as it arises.
That observation and the understanding of that observation cease
when there is condemnation, identification, or justification.
- Awareness is not self-improvement. On the
contrary, it is the ending of the self, of the 'I', with all its
peculiar idiosyncrasies, memories, demands and pursuits. In
introspection there is identification and condemnation. In awareness
there is no condemnation or identification.
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