Passages from The Mystique of Enlightenment

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

You have to take my word for it. It never comes into my mind that I am different from you. So when you sit here and ask questions, "Why do they ask me these questions?" There are no answers for these questions at all. Nobody in this world can answer these questions. Whatever answers they give are misleading you -- you will end up misguided, misled, misspent, after forty years, fifty years.... I know many of these people who have followed these great teachers -- many of them, who have been around Krishnamurti for fifty years, sixty years, are coming and asking me "Have I wasted forty years, listening to that man?" Do I have to answer that question? You have to answer; I don't have to answer that question. You have wasted fifty years, and you are going to waste another fifty years. You can come here -- nothing will happen, nothing will evolve -- you will not get anything from me. That is why I am safe -- I live my own life -- if somebody comes, I say "Tell me, what can I do? There's nothing much I can do. Thank you. Good-bye."

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

Q: We want to understand this problem of sorrow.

UG: Look here. Not getting what you want is sorrow -- it doesn't matter what you want -- happiness, good health, enlightenment -- it changes, you know. So, not getting what you want is sorrow.

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

The very nature of mind (if there is a mind) is neurotic, because it wants two things at the same time, so every individual is a neurotic individual. As long as you want two things, you are in a state of neurosis. And when you can't get it, you become psychotic, you become wild. Not that you necessarily go and beat somebody; but you are destroying yourself, because the violence is there inside of you. What makes you unhappy is the search for a thing that does not exist. Happiness does not exist at all. Similarly, there is no such thing as enlightenment. You may say that every teacher and all the saints and saviours of mankind have been asserting for centuries upon centuries that there is enlightenment and that they are enlightened. Throw them all in one bunch into the river! I don't care. To realize that there is no enlightenment at all is enlightenment. (Laughter)

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

Whatever you are doing is a barrier to whatever you want to get, it doesn't matter what you want to get. You see, whatever you are doing is adding fuel, adding momentum to that. So, how is that going to slow down or stop, and when are you going to do that? Tomorrow or the day after? You say "Tomorrow I will understand." There is no tomorrow: this is not going to happen tomorrow; it must happen now or never. So, "I am determined to see what prevents me from understanding what I want to understand." What prevents you from understanding what you want to understand is this very thing which you are using to understand things. This is not my teaching or anybody's teaching, but this is the only thing: You are trying to understand something through an instrument which is not the instrument to understand.