Passages from The Mystique of Enlightenment

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

There are so many people who have said they can help you -- you would do well to go there and try your luck. But I want to add this statutory warning (like the one you have on the cigarette packs): You are not going to get anything from anybody, because there is nothing to get. That is why I say that since there is no such thing as enlightenment, the question whether X or Y is enlightened or not does not at all arise. You are all like-minded people who are after such things, that is all. That is your projection, your ideation about those people, that is all that I am saying. There may not be anything there other than what you have projected on them.

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

Q: Is a person in the natural state compassionate?

UG: That is your projection; they are callous, indifferent, unconcerned. 'Compassion' is one of the gimmicks of the 'holy business', sales talk.

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

I am not interested in changing the society. What I am saying has absolutely no social content at all. What is wrong with this world? Why do you want to change the world? This is an extraordinarily beautiful world! You want to change this world so that you can live in a world of your own ideas. The real problem is that you want to change yourself, and you find it's impossible, and so you want to change the world so that you can fit the world into your own pattern.

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

You don't accept the fact that all that is a contamination there in that consciousness. Whatever you consider sacred, whatever you consider extraordinary -- Buddha Consciousness, Christ Consciousness, Krishna Consciousness -- is a contamination in that consciousness. It has to purify itself: all that, all that dross -- all that is holy, all that is sacred -- must go. When that has gone, you are yourself. Otherwise there is dependence: you experience something extraordinary there and start an organization, Krishna Consciousness or some other. These organizations collect twenty million dollars and publish books so that they can transmit, make others experience, those silly things.