KFA - Krishnamurti Foundation of America

Hi sds, in which thread of kio is it that you shared?  Haven't had the time to catch up with all the threads.


Good to know you took wonderful care of her while she was there.  Looks like you shared a wonderful time, together.  I'm happy for ya.  when the self steps out what is there but pure friendship, joy, compassion, genuine care for 'your' girl friend, or with anyone for that matter.  But let me remind you, not that I think you're not aware of it, but the moment you, or I think we have been selfless then it's not selfness, isn't it?  But, I understand you wanted to share in your own words and there's no misunderstanding here.

I do think men and women should have genuine respect, care, compassion for one another like you shared, and not try to compete, dominate, out do each other, as they can learn much together, grow into whole individuals by themselves and, together.   there is such beauty when and where that takes place where the ego is absent. It seems to me like you're really maturing and growing boundlessly as a humanbeing with each day.  Keep up the great work, and thanks for sharing with us, and being back with vengeance! :-)

I'll read it.

Thanks for not taking it personally when I talked about being selfless, I'm also learning, looking with you simultanoeulsy, and in such a learning there is no place for authority, I mean no 'pearl' as authority, nor sds.

My friend tells me," you're so wise beyond your years and yet look so young beyond your years", and we laughed asking ourselves, how can that be possible! There's this amazing man who is a good freind to me, and tells me often that he feels that I treat him so well, unlike any other woman, that he's never met a woman who's been so kind and treated him with such respect, I mean genuine respect.  Well, he treats me with the same respect and kindness.  We simply share great friendhsip.

There is a phrase Pearl, which goes "You are a very old soul." Not I do not take it literally but its meaning is that you are wise beyond your years, that your essence or being is very wise, old, mature, not so much chronologically, but inwardly. You talked about this in some posts and resonated with it.

I am sure you treat others like no other. That you truly love and care and have respect for them, and they feel it, can sense it, and it is so different to them than how others treat them.

Genuine respect is one of the keys to all relationships. To truly respect another is where it is at. Awesome.....

sds wrote:

There is a phrase Pearl, which goes "You are a very old soul." Not I do not take it literally but its meaning is that you are wise beyond your years, that your essence or being is very wise, old, mature, not so much chronologically, but inwardly. You talked about this in some posts and resonated with it.

I am sure you treat others like no other. That you truly love and care and have respect for them, and they feel it, can sense it, and it is so different to them than how others treat them.

Genuine respect is one of the keys to all relationships. To truly respect another is where it is at. Awesome.....

It is awesome indeed, to look together...to share with those who are also on their own, and walking alone...I mean simply beautiful.  And yes, if you, I truly care about ourselves then that care, respect would be extended to others as well, naturally, and without effort.

sds wrote:

Now Eden might chime in and say all this relationship stuff we are talking is beginners 101 or however he phrases it, but I really feel it is the beginning, the middle, and the end all of relationships.

To truly be alone but not lonely, to truly be oneself totally, fully, completely, without needing a single thing psychologically from another, and truly meeting them in the present, without the past, and truly respecting them, true respect and care for self and other, in that meeting is relationship. And in that is love....

And this is the most difficult thing for most of us to do. It is so easy to want something from another and not be totally fulfilled on ones own.

It is difficult until it is not difficult anymore, and then it is the easiest and most natural thing.  Beginners 101 indeed....chimey chime chime.

Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Love

Love is not identification; it is not thought about the loved. You do not think about love when it is there; you think about it only when it is absent, when there is distance between you and the object of your love. When there is direct communion, there is no thought, no image, no revival of memory; it is when the communion breaks, at any level, that the process of thought, of imagination, begins.

Love is not to be cultivated. Love cannot be divided into divine and physical; it is only love—not that you love many or the one. That again is an absurd question to ask: "Do you love all?" You know, a flower that has perfume is not concerned who comes to smell it, or who turns his back upon it. So is love. Love is not a memory. Love is not a thing of the mind or the intellect. But it comes into being naturally as compassion, when this whole problem of existence—as fear, greed, envy, despair, hope—has been understood and resolved.

As long as we possess, we shall never love. We know love as sensation, do we not? When we say we love, we know jealousy, we know fear, we know anxiety. When you say you love someone, all that is implied: envy, the desire to possess, the desire to own, to dominate, the fear of loss, and so on. All this we call love, and we do not know love without fear, without envy, without possession; we merely verbalize that state of love which is without fear, we call it impersonal, pure, divine, or God knows what else; but the fact is that we are jealous, we are dominating, possessive.

Love is different from emotion and feeling. Love cannot be brought into the field of thought; whereas feeling and emotion can be brought. Love is a flame without smoke, ever fresh, creative, joyous. Such love is dangerous to society, to relationship.

Love is a state of being, and in that state, the 'me', with its identifications, anxieties, and possessions, is absent. Love cannot be, as long as the activities of the self, of the 'me', whether conscious or unconscious, continue to exist. That is why it is important to understand the process of the self, the center of recognition which is the 'me'.

When there is love, there is no duty. When you love your wife, you share everything with her—your property, your trouble, your anxiety, your joy. You do not dominate. You are not the man and she the woman to be used and thrown aside, a sort of breeding machine to carry on your name. When there is love, the word duty disappears.

Love implies great freedom—not to do what you like. But love comes only when the mind is very quiet, disinterested, not self-centered. These are not ideals. If you have no love, do what you will—go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the poor, the politics, write books, write poems—you are a dead human being. And without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly. And with love, do what you will, there is no risk; there is no conflict. Then love is the essence of virtue. And a mind that is not in a state of love is not a religious mind at all. And it is only the religious mind that is freed from problems, and that knows the beauty of love and truth.

Love cannot be thought about, love cannot be cultivated, love cannot be practised. The practice of love, the practice of brotherhood, is still within the field of the mind, therefore it is not love. When all this has stopped, then love comes into being, then you will know what it is to love. Then love is not quantitative but qualitative.

Love is not of the mind, it is not in the net of thought, it cannot be sought out, cultivated, cherished; it is there when the mind is silent and the heart is empty of the things of the mind.

Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Relationship

Do what you will, withdraw to the mountains, sit in a forest, you cannot live in isolation. You can live only in relationship, and as long as relationship is not understood, there can be no right action. Right action comes in understanding relationship, which reveals the process of oneself. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, it is a field of affection, warmth, and love, therefore a field rich with flowers.

Relationship, surely, is the mirror in which you discover yourself. Without relationship you are not; to be is to be related; to be related is existence. And you exist only in relationship; otherwise, you do not exist, existence has no meaning. It is not because you think you are that you come into existence. You exist because you are related, and it is the lack of understanding of relationship that causes conflict.

Without relationship, there is no existence; to be is to be related. If I merely use relationship without understanding myself, I increase the mess and contribute to further confusion. Most of us do not seem to realize this - that the world is my relationship with others, whether one or many. My problem is that of relationship. What I am, that I project; and obviously, if I do not understand myself, the whole of relationship is one of confusion in ever-widening circles.

We use relationship as a means of self-forgetfulness, and as long as relationship does not show us what we actually are, we are satisfied. That is why we accept the domination of another. When my wife or husband dominates me, it does not reveal what I am but is a source of gratification. If my wife does not dominate me, if she is indifferent and I discover what I really am, it is very disturbing. What am I? I am an empty, dour, sloppy being with certain appetites - and I am afraid to face all that emptiness. Therefore I accept the domination of my wife or husband because it makes me feel very close to him or to her, and I do not want to see myself as I am.

Life is relationship with things, people, and ideas; and if we do not meet these relationships rightly, fully, then conflicts arise from the impact of the challenge.

That capacity to understand life comes into being only when one understands relationship. Relationship is a mirror. It must reflect, not as one wishes oneself to be, ideally or romantically, but what one actually is, and it is very difficult to perceive oneself as one actually is because one is so accustomed to escaping from what is; it is arduous to perceive, to observe silently what is, because one is so used to condemning, justifying, comparing, identifying. And in that process of justification, condemnation, that which is, is not understood. Only in the understanding of what is is there freedom from what is.

So, life has problems and conflicts and miseries only when you use relationship as a means of becoming, that is, when you gratify yourself through relationship. When I use another, or when I use property or an idea as a means of self-expansion, which is the perpetuation of gratification, then life becomes a series of ceaseless conflicts and miseries. It is only when I understand relationship - which is the beginning of self-knowledge - that self-knowledge brings about right thinking with regard to what is; and it is right thinking that dissolves our problems - not the gurus, not the heroes, not the mahatmas, not the literature, but the capacity to see what is and not escape from what is.

Since we surround ourselves with inaction, with escape, with ideals, we are running away from what is, which is relationship; but it is only in that relationship that we see ourselves clearly as we are. The more you go into what is, the more you see the deeper layers of consciousness, that is, life at different levels.

A man who seeks to avoid the world is still related; he is running away from conflict and not understanding it. In relationship, which is activity between you and another, the ways of the self are revealed.

To understand our human problems there must be love. Mere legislation cannot bring about the tender intelligence which brings understanding in relationship.

The relationship of utility is based on violence; the family as a means of mutual inward security makes for conflict and confusion.

Love alone can bring about a radical revolution or transformation in relationship; and love is not a thing of the mind. Thought can plan and formulate magnificent structures of hope, but thought will only lead to further conflict, confusion and misery. Love is when the cunning, self-enclosing mind is not.

Conflict and confusion result from our own wrong relationship with people, things and ideas, and until we understand that relationship and alter it, mere learning, the gathering of facts and the acquiring of various skills, can only lead us to engulfing chaos and destruction.

In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them, we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.

Religious education in the true sense is to encourage the child to understand his own relationship to people, to things and to nature. There is no existence without relationship; and without self-knowledge, all relationship, with the one and with the many, brings conflict and sorrow. Of course, to explain this fully to a child is impossible; but if the educator and the parents deeply grasp the full significance of relationship, then by their attitude, conduct and speech they will surely be able to convey to the child, without too many words and explanations, the meaning of a spiritual life.

Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Loneliness

If you all see the point, if you are all aware of this, loneliness, and running away from it, trying to cover it up, trying to fill it through various forms of entertainment, religious, football or this or that. So that's what we do. Now I'm asking myself: what has brought this loneliness about? Right? What are the reasons for it?

When I am ambitious, I am isolating myself. No? When I am competitive, I am isolating myself; when I want to be superior to you, I am isolating myself; when I am seeking, pursuing pleasure, I am isolating myself. I don't know if you see all this. Right? So, this loneliness is a form of isolation which the mind has cultivated through ambition, through competition, through the desire for success, through the pursuit of pleasure, and this has brought about this sense of complete isolation, loneliness.

I am pointing out how this loneliness takes place. If I don't understand the reason for this loneliness, merely to escape from it, merely to cover it up, merely try to fill it, has no meaning. Therefore I must see how this has come about. And I see ambition has made this - obviously. I am ambitious in the factory, in the office, and I am not ambitious at home - there oh, I am very friendly, affectionate with my children, wife, but I am ambitious outside. So you see what is taking place: so gradually I am isolating myself all the time.

I don't see that loneliness is the action of my thinking which has brought about this division, because I thought I must be a great man, I must do this.

Loneliness is the result of our daily life. Each one of us, from the highest to the lowest, is completely convinced that he is a separate soul, separate entity, and all his activity is self-centred. The daily activity of this self-centredness will inevitably bring about solitude, loneliness, separatism, division.

Can I look at the fact of my loneliness, not running away from it, not trying to find an answer for it, or trying to have a motive to say, 'Look, what am I to do with it?' Can you just look at a fact and keep looking at it?

Most people find it most difficult to look at a fact; look at the fact that you're jealous, look at the fact that you're violent, look at the fact that you are ugly, both facially or inwardly, or you may be most beautiful and look at the fact, in the mirror. To look in the mirror and not compare yourself with somebody else who is more or less. So what happens? Can you look at that loneliness, without any deviation, without any motive, just look?

Look, can I observe my loneliness. And hear all the noise, the emptiness, the silence, the inwardness of it - observing means also listening. Can I do that? It might tell me, it might tell its content, you follow? If I know how to look, if I know how to listen to the thing that I've called loneliness. It may be the most extraordinary factor involved in it. But if I run away, escape, and all that, it's not telling its story to me, it's not revealing its story.

Sir, look. I am asking myself: I am lonely - ambition, greed, competition has brought about this loneliness, and I see the destructive nature of this loneliness; it prevents really affection, care, love and to me that is tremendously important. Loneliness is terrible, it is really destructive, it is poisonous.

Can one remain with that pain? Can I look at that pain, hold it, hold it as a precious jewel - not escape, not suppress, not rationalize it, not seek the cause of it, but hold it as a vessel holds water? Hold this thing called sorrow, the pain, that is, I have lost my son and I am lonely, not to escape from that loneliness, not to suppress it, not to intellectually rationalize it, but to look at that loneliness, understand the depth of it, the nature of it. Loneliness is total isolation which is brought about through our daily activity of selfish ambitions or ideological ambitions, competitions, each one out for himself. Those are the activities which bring about loneliness. But if you run away from it, you will never solve sorrow.

To be lonely, that is to feel oneself isolated, having no relationship with anything; in that sense of loneliness there is despair - there are moods, one is familiar with that sense of loneliness - and one runs away from it by turning on the radio, by reading a book, by sex and ten different activities. That loneliness is the very essence of self-consciousness. And when one goes beyond that, there is this state of attention in which there is complete aloneness, which is not isolation, which is not separation, which is not a withdrawal. Because it is only this aloneness, when the mind is no longer a plaything of thought, when thought has been understood totally - then out of that comes this sense of aloneness. it is that which is innocence, and it is that innocence which is beyond all mortality.

sds wrote:

Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Love

Love is not identification; it is not thought about the loved. You do not think about love when it is there; you think about it only when it is absent, when there is distance between you and the object of your love. When there is direct communion, there is no thought, no image, no revival of memory; it is when the communion breaks, at any level, that the process of thought, of imagination, begins.

Love is not to be cultivated. Love cannot be divided into divine and physical; it is only love—not that you love many or the one. That again is an absurd question to ask: "Do you love all?" You know, a flower that has perfume is not concerned who comes to smell it, or who turns his back upon it. So is love. Love is not a memory. Love is not a thing of the mind or the intellect. But it comes into being naturally as compassion, when this whole problem of existence—as fear, greed, envy, despair, hope—has been understood and resolved.

As long as we possess, we shall never love. We know love as sensation, do we not? When we say we love, we know jealousy, we know fear, we know anxiety. When you say you love someone, all that is implied: envy, the desire to possess, the desire to own, to dominate, the fear of loss, and so on. All this we call love, and we do not know love without fear, without envy, without possession; we merely verbalize that state of love which is without fear, we call it impersonal, pure, divine, or God knows what else; but the fact is that we are jealous, we are dominating, possessive.

Love is different from emotion and feeling. Love cannot be brought into the field of thought; whereas feeling and emotion can be brought. Love is a flame without smoke, ever fresh, creative, joyous. Such love is dangerous to society, to relationship.

Love is a state of being, and in that state, the 'me', with its identifications, anxieties, and possessions, is absent. Love cannot be, as long as the activities of the self, of the 'me', whether conscious or unconscious, continue to exist. That is why it is important to understand the process of the self, the center of recognition which is the 'me'.

When there is love, there is no duty. When you love your wife, you share everything with her—your property, your trouble, your anxiety, your joy. You do not dominate. You are not the man and she the woman to be used and thrown aside, a sort of breeding machine to carry on your name. When there is love, the word duty disappears.

Love implies great freedom—not to do what you like. But love comes only when the mind is very quiet, disinterested, not self-centered. These are not ideals. If you have no love, do what you will—go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the poor, the politics, write books, write poems—you are a dead human being. And without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly. And with love, do what you will, there is no risk; there is no conflict. Then love is the essence of virtue. And a mind that is not in a state of love is not a religious mind at all. And it is only the religious mind that is freed from problems, and that knows the beauty of love and truth.

Love cannot be thought about, love cannot be cultivated, love cannot be practised. The practice of love, the practice of brotherhood, is still within the field of the mind, therefore it is not love. When all this has stopped, then love comes into being, then you will know what it is to love. Then love is not quantitative but qualitative.

Love is not of the mind, it is not in the net of thought, it cannot be sought out, cultivated, cherished; it is there when the mind is silent and the heart is empty of the things of the mind.

Indeed such love is a danger to all things of the mind, it's petty jealousises, possessivity, control, ugly domination, seeking, grouping up,etc.

joe wrote:

stumble under a book of K quotes this morning SDS?

I know some prefer not to read long posts, or read K at all.

But this forum is dedicated to the teachings of JK, and thought I wanted to share a few posts/quotes of his that were related to the discussion me and Pearl had on relationships, love, sex, loneliness. It was all related.....

pearl wrote:

sds wrote:

Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Marriage

Have you noticed a man whose heart is empty, how his face becomes ugly and how the children he produces are ugly and immature? And because they have had no affection, they remain immature for the rest of their lives.

Yes, how ugly his face, his words and the life he lives without love, without any real self understanding, and or real communion with himself or another, and he produces ugly, immature children who grow upto be dano's, joes, hassetts of the world.

That is funny, when I read this one, I immediately thought of you. For you have talked about this exact thing before. Funny how even JK talked about physical ugliness and ugly distorted faces. I didnt remember reading this from K before and it was nice to be reminded of this in the quotes....

Eden wrote:

sds wrote:

Now Eden might chime in and say all this relationship stuff we are talking is beginners 101 or however he phrases it, but I really feel it is the beginning, the middle, and the end all of relationships.

To truly be alone but not lonely, to truly be oneself totally, fully, completely, without needing a single thing psychologically from another, and truly meeting them in the present, without the past, and truly respecting them, true respect and care for self and other, in that meeting is relationship. And in that is love....

And this is the most difficult thing for most of us to do. It is so easy to want something from another and not be totally fulfilled on ones own.

It is difficult until it is not difficult anymore, and then it is the easiest and most natural thing.  Beginners 101 indeed....chimey chime chime.

Eden, if you read some of the quotes by JK in this thread, you will see some of your thoughts in there, some of the things you say. JK was way ahead of the time, and was the most advanced expert on relationships, loneliness, sex, and love.... This is not beginners stuff.....