Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti
Q: O.K., then what do you take seriously? Life? Death? Extraterrestrial life?
U.G.: I don't think that this kind of life exists anywhere else, on any other planet. I am not saying that there may not be life in other worlds; only that it is not like our existence here. Your ruminations about other forms of life and other worlds is just a wish for unlimited extension into the future and far-off places. Thought is trying to give itself continuity, and speculations about the future and undiscovered worlds is a convenient way to do it! Your thinking determines what you can become conscious of; period.
Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti
Q: Is there any freedom of thought? ...any freedom for man?
U.G.: No, there is no freedom of action for man. I am not talking of some cataclysmic, deterministic philosophy of resignation. But ...
Q: There is no way out? Not even by contemplating one's navel? Not even by meditation? Not even by the raising of the kundalini? Not even by the conquest of illusion?
U.G.: No. You can try all kinds of things, but it won't help. You will only succeed in creating disturbances within the body, disturbing the harmony that is already there. By bringing about strange hallucinations and unnatural metabolic changes you only harm the body. That's all there is to it. There is nothing you can do to reverse this, to change direction.
Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti
Q: What about love, deep abiding feelings, and profound responses to the beauty of nature?
U.G.: Ha! All that typical romantic stuff. Pure poetry! Not that I have any bone to pick with romanticism or poetry. Not at all. It just doesn't mean anything. You actually have no way of looking at the sunset because you are not separate from the sunset, much less writing poetry about it. The experience you have, the extraordinary experience you have when looking at a sunset you want to share. Using poetry, music, or painting as a medium, you attempt to share your experience with another person. That's all there is to it. The actual sunset is beyond your experiencing structure to capture. The observer is the observed. You cannot separate yourself from what you see. The moment you separate yourself from the sunset, the poet in you comes out. Out of that separation poets and painters have tried to express themselves, to share their experiences with others. All that is culture. Culture induces its own responses. There is nothing more to it.
Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti
Q: So your message is that man cannot be at peace with himself. Is that what you want to say?
U.G.: No. Man is already at peace with himself. The idea that there is peace somewhere else, sometime in the future, is causing the problem. All these religious experiences like compassion, bliss, and love are part of the craving for a nonexistent peace, which is destructive to the natural peace already there in the body.
Q: No peace. No religion. No compassion. No hope. What does that leave us with U.G.?
U.G.: Nothing. I am questioning the whole spiritual experience. That's what I am trying to rip apart.
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