Theos-Talk Archives (October 2009 Message tt00161)

Thanks, 
I enjoyed reading the post it gives good tips for idiots lol. Also I want to add all the way through reading it I kept having the thought that is was words of Master Suma Ching Hai who says many of the same things that Krishnamurti did. Morale of the story is that tyrants are always tyrants to themselves first like the Blind king Dritarashtra in BG. 
Nice post, send more, finially something worth reading. 

John 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thuan Do" <dothuan@sbcglobal.net> 
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 11:14:29 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific 
Subject: Theos-World Fw: Truth has no path - excerpt from "Freedom From the Known" by Krishnamurti 







".....The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or 
whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by 
priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the 
question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. 
Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself 
is the beginning of wisdom. 


And what is yourself, the individual you? I think there is a difference 
between the human being and the individual. The individual is a local 
entity, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular 
culture, particular society, particular religion. The human being is 
not a local entity. He is everywhere. If the individual merely acts in 
a particular corner of the vast field of life, then his action is 
totally unrelated to the whole. So one has to bear in mind that we are 
talking of the whole not the part, because in the greater the lesser 
is, but in the lesser the greater is not. The individual is the little 
conditioned, miserable, frustrated entity, satisfied with his little 
gods and his little traditions, whereas a human being is concerned with 
the total welfare, the total misery and total confusion of the world. 


We human beings are what we have been for millions of years - 
-colossally greedy, envious, aggressive, jealous, anxious and 
despairing, with occasional flashes of joy and affection. We are a 
strange mixture of hate, fear and gentleness; we are both violence and 
peace. There has been outward progress from the bullock cart to the jet 
plane but psychologically the individual has not changed at all, and 
the structure of society throughout the world has been created by 
individuals. The outward social structure is the result of the inward 
psychological structure of our human relationships, for the individual 
is the result of the total experience, knowledge and conduct of man. 
Each one of us is the storehouse of all the past. The individual is the 
human who is all mankind. The whole history of man is written in 
ourselves. 


Do observe what is actually taking place within yourself and outside 
yourself in the competitive culture in which you live with its desire 
for power, position, prestige, name, success and all the rest of it - 
observe the achievements of which you are so proud, this whole field 
you call living in which there is conflict in every form of 
relationship, breeding hatred, antagonism, brutality and endless wars. 
This field, this life, is all we know, and being unable to understand 
the enormous battle of existence we are naturally afraid of it and find 
escape from it in all sorts of subtle ways. And we are frightened also 
of the unknown - frightened of death, frightened of what lies beyond 
tomorrow. So we are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That 
is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every 
form of philosophy, every form of theo- logical concept, is merely an 
escape from the actual reality of what is. 


All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, 
reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the 
basic nature of man and therefore of society. As human beings living in 
this monstrously ugly world, let us ask ourselves, can this society, 
based on competition, brutality and fear, come to an end? Not as an 
intellectual conception, not as a hope, but as an actual fact, so that 
the mind is made fresh, new and innocent and can bring about a 
different world altogether? It can only happen, I think, if each one of 
us recognises the central fact that we, as individuals, as human 
beings, in whatever part of the world we happen to live or whatever 
culture we happen to belong to, are totally responsible for the whole 
state of the world. 


We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the 
aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our 
selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide 
us. And only when we realize, not intellectually but actually, as 
actually as we would recognise that we are hungry or in pain, that you 
and I are responsible for all this existing chaos, for all the misery 
throughout the entire world because we have contributed to it in our 
daily lives and are part of this monstrous society with its wars, 
divisions, its ugliness, brutality and greed - only then will we act. 


But what can a human being do - what can you and I do - to create a 
completely different society? We are asking ourselves a very serious 
question. Is there anything to be done at all? What can we do? Will 
somebody tell us? People have told us. The so-called spiritual leaders, 
who are supposed to understand these things better than we do, have 
told us by trying to twist and mould us into a new pattern, and that 
hasn't led us very far; sophisticated and learned men have told us and 
that has led us no further. We have been told that all paths lead to 
truth - you have your path as a Hindu and someone else has his path as 
a Christian and another as a Muslim, and they all meet at the same door 
- which is, when you look at it, so obviously absurd. Truth has no 
path, and that is the beauty of truth, it is living. A dead thing has a 
path to it because it is static, but when you see that truth is 
something living, moving, which has no resting place, which is in no 
temple, mosque or church, which no religion, no teacher, no 
philosopher, nobody can lead you to - then you will also see that this 
living thing is what you actually are - your anger, your brutality, 
your violence, your despair, the agony and sorrow you live in. In the 
understanding of all this is the truth, and you can understand it only 
if you know how to look at those things in your life. And you cannot 
look through an ideology, through a screen of words, through hopes and 
fears. 


So you see that you cannot depend upon anybody. There is no guide, no 
teacher, no authority. There is only you - your relationship with 
others and with the world - there is nothing else. When you realize 
this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and 
bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else is 
responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what 
you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we thrive on 
blaming others, which is a form of self-pity. 


Can you and I, then, bring about in ourselves without any outside 
influence, without any persuasion, without any fear of punishment - can 
we bring about in the very essence of our being a total revolution, a 
psychological mutation, so that we are no longer brutal, violent, 
competitive, anxious, fearful, greedy, envious and all the rest of the 
manifestations of our nature which have built up the rotten society in 
which we live our daily lives? 


It is important to understand from the very beginning that I am not 
formulating any philosophy or any theological structure of ideas or 
theological concepts. It seems to me that all ideologies are utterly 
idiotic. What is important is not a philosophy of life but to observe 
what is actually taking place in our daily life, inwardly and 
outwardly. If you observe very closely what is taking place and examine 
it, you will see that it is based on an intellectual conception, and 
the intellect is not the whole field of existence; it is a fragment, 
and a fragment, however cleverly put together, however ancient and 
traditional, is still a small part of existence whereas we have to deal 
with the totality of life. And when we look at what is taking place in 
the world we begin to understand that there is no outer and inner 
process; there is only one unitary process, it is a whole, total 
movement, the inner movement expressing itself as the outer and the 
outer reacting again on the inner. To be able to look at this seems to 
me all that is needed, because if we know how to look, then the whole 
thing becomes very clear, and to look needs no philosophy, no teacher. 
Nobody need tell you how to look. You just look. 


Can you then, seeing this whole picture, seeing it not verbally but 
actually, can you easily, spontaneously, transform yourself? That is 
the real issue. Is it possible to bring about a complete revolution in 
the psyche? 


I wonder what your reaction is to such a question? You may say, 'I 
don't want to change', and most people don't, especially those who are 
fairly secure socially and economically or who hold dogmatic beliefs 
and are content to accept themselves and things as they are or in a 
slightly modified form. With those people we are not concerned. Or you 
may say more subtly, 'Well, it's too difficult, it's not for me', in 
which case you will have already blocked yourself, you will have ceased 
to enquire and it will be no use going any further. Or else you may 
say, 'I see the necessity for a fundamental inward change in myself but 
how am I to bring it about? Please show me the way, help me towards 
it.' If you say that, then what you are concerned with is not change 
itself; you are not really interested in a fundamental revolution: you 
are merely searching for a method, a system, to bring about change. 


If I were foolish enough to give you a system and if you were foolish 
enough to follow it, you would merely be copying, imitating, 
conforming, accepting, and when you do that you have set up in yourself 
the authority of another and hence there is conflict between you and 
that authority. You feel you must do such and such a thing because you 
have been told to do it and yet you are incapable of doing it. You have 
your own particular inclinations, tendencies and pressures which 
conflict with the system you think you ought to follow and therefore 
there is a contradiction. So you will lead a double life between the 
ideology of the system and the actuality of your daily existence. In 
trying to conform to the ideology, you suppress yourself - whereas what 
is actually true is not the ideology but what you are. If you try to 
study yourself according to another you will always remain a secondhand 
human being. 


A man who says, 'I want to change, tell me how to', seems very earnest, 
very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will 
bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward 
order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder. You may 
see the truth of this intellectually but can you actually apply it so 
that your mind no longer projects any authority, the authority of a 
book, a teacher, a wife or husband, a parent, a friend or of society? 
Because we have always functioned within the pattern of a formula, the 
formula becomes the ideology and the authority; but the moment you 
really see that the question, 'How can I change?' sets up a new 
authority, you have finished with authority for ever. 


Let us state it again clearly: I see that I must change completely from 
the roots of my being; I can no longer depend on any tradition because 
tradition has brought about this colossal laziness, acceptance and 
obedience; I cannot possibly look to another to help me to change, not 
to any teacher, any God, any belief, any system, any outside pressure 
or influence. What then takes place? 


First of all, can you reject all authority? If you can it means that 
you are no longer afraid. Then what happens? When you reject something 
false which you have been carrying about with you for generations, when 
you throw off a burden of any kind, what takes place? You have more 
energy, haven't you? You have more capacity, more drive, greater 
intensity and vitality. If you do not feel this, then you have not 
thrown off the burden, you have not discarded the dead weight of 
authority. 


But when you have thrown it off and have this energy in which there is 
no fear at all - no fear of making a mistake, no fear of doing right or 
wrong - then is not that energy itself the mutation? We need a 
tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when 
there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, 
that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution. You do not 
have to do a thing about it. 


So you are left with yourself, and that is the actual state for a man 
to be who is very serious about all this; and as you are no longer 
looking to anybody or anything for help, you are already free to 
discover. And when there is freedom, there is energy; and when there is 
freedom it can never do anything wrong. Freedom is entirely different 
from revolt. There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there 
is freedom. You are free and from that centre you act. And hence there 
is no fear, and a mind that has no fear is capable of great love. And 
when there is love it can do what it will. 


What we are now going to do, therefore, is to learn about ourselves, 
not according to me or to some analyst or philosopher - because if we 
learn about ourselves according to someone else, we learn about them, 
not ourselves - we are going to learn what we actually are. 


Having realized that we can depend on no outside authority in bringing 
about a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, there 
is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our own inward 
authority, the authority of our own particular little experiences and 
accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and ideals. You had an 
experience yesterday which taught you something and what it taught you 
becomes a new authority - and that authority of yesterday is as 
destructive as the authority of a thousand years. To understand 
ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or of a thousand years 
because we are living things, always moving, flowing, never resting. 
When we look at ourselves with the dead authority of yesterday, we will 
fail to understand the living movement and the beauty and quality of 
that movement. 


To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die 
to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always 
young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. It is only in that state 
that one learns and observes. And for this a great deal of awareness is 
required, actual awareness of what is going on inside yourself, without 
correcting it or telling it what it should or should not be, because 
the moment you correct it you have established another authority, a 
censor. 


So now we are going to investigate ourselves together - not one person 
explaining while you read, agreeing or disagreeing with him as you 
follow the words on the page, but taking a journey together, a journey 
of discovery into the most secret corners of our minds. And to take 
such a journey we must travel light; we cannot be burdened with 
opinions, prejudices and conclusions - all that old furniture we have 
collected for the last two thousand years and more. Forget all you know 
about yourself; forget all you have ever thought about yourself; we are 
going to start as if we knew nothing. 


It rained last night heavily, and now the skies are beginning to clear; 
it is a new fresh day. Let us meet that fresh day as if it were the 
only day. Let us start on our journey together with all the remembrance 
of yesterday left behind - and begin to understand ourselves for the 
first time...." (Krishnamurti - "Freedom From the Known") 

Do Thi Thuan 
http://anhduong.net 
http://hoangvan.net 
______________________________________ 
Moi quà vi nghe bÃi hÃt Duoi ChÃn ThÃy 
______________________________________ 
Toi la mot nguoi bo 
hanh phieu lang 
Duong tran gian xuoi nguoc de vui choi 
The Lu 

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