The new challenge to human beings who have lived for so long in such misery which is now increased by dreadful destructive instruments, the challenge is that you must change instantly. And if your response is not new, you will be in greater conflict, you will be contributing to greater sorrows for men. So you must respond to the new challenge in a new way. And that is only possible when you understand the whole structure and nature of thought.
If you respond intellectually, verbally, conceptually, then it is the operation and the approach of the old. So, is it possible - please listen to this, however absurd it may sound, please listen to it first - is it possible to respond without thought, respond with your whole being and not part of your being? Thought or the intellect is a fragment of your whole being, obviously, and when a partial, a fragmentary part answers to an immense challenge, it creates more conflict. So thought, the intellect, as it is a fragment of the total human being will not produce a radical change, it is not the means of approaching this challenge. It is only when the totality of the human mind - mind being the nervous responses, the emotions, the everything that is you - completely responds, without any fragmentation in that response, that there is a new action taking place.
If I respond to this challenge intellectually, verbally, it will only be a fragmentary response, it will not be a total, human response. And the total human response is only possible when I give my mind and heart to it completely. That is, the response to the new challenge to be adequate, to be complete, is one unique response, which is not intellectual, nor verbal, nor theoretical; and that response is (if I may use that word which has been so spoilt) love.
J.K. - Talks with American Students
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The Book of Mankind (is you)
ReplyDeleteQ: I am a student of chartered accountancy. Even though I could understand each and every word of JK, the message remains vague. What should I do to understand his message fully? Krishnamurti: Don't understand his message! He is not bringing a message. He is pointing out your life, not his life, or his message, he is pointing out how you live, what's your daily life. And we are unwilling to face that. We are unwilling to go into our sorrow, our tortures of anxiety, loneliness, the depressions we go through, the desire to fulfil, to become something. You are unwilling to face all that, and wanting to be led by somebody, wanting to understand the message of the Gita, or some other nonsensical book, including the speaker. The speaker says over and over again, he acts as a mirror into which you can look, the activity of your own self. And to look very carefully you have to pay attention, you have to listen - if you are interested - listen and find out the art of listening, the art of seeing, the art of learning. It's all there as a book, which is yourself. The book of mankind is you. - J. Krishnamurti Madras 1st Public Question & Answer Meeting 6th January 1981