Passages from The Courage to Stand Alone

The Courage to Stand Alone - U.G. Krishnamurti

 

This living organism is not interested in its continuity in terms of years. This is functioning from moment to moment. The sensory perceptions function from moment to moment. There is no continuity in your physical seeing, there is no continuity in your physical hearing, there is no continuity in your smelling, there is no continuity when you eat something, there is no continuity in the sense of touch -- they are all disconnected and disjointed. But thought in its interest to maintain itself and to continue without any interruption, demands these experiences all the time. That is the only way it can maintain its continuity. The body functions in a completely different way; and it is not interested in the activity of thought.

The Courage to Stand Alone - U.G. Krishnamurti

There's no such thing as your mind or my mind. Maybe there is such a thing as the "world mind" where all the cumulative knowledge and the experiences thereof are accumulated and passed on from generation to generation. We have to use that mind to function in this world sanely and intelligently. If we don't use it, as I was saying the other day, we will end up on the funny farm singing loony tunes and merry melodies.

The Courage to Stand Alone - U.G. Krishnamurti

 

The society is interested only in fitting every individual into its framework and maintaining its continuity.

The Courage to Stand Alone - U.G. Krishnamurti

There is one thing that I am emphasizing all the time: it is not because of what you do or what you do not do that this kind of a thing happens. And why it happens to one individual and not another -- there is no answer to that question. I assure you that it is not the man who has prepared himself, or purified himself for whatever reason to be ready to receive that kind of a thing. It is the other way around. It hits. But it hits at random. That is the way nature operates. Lightning hits you somewhere. It is not interested in whether it is hitting a tree that is blooming or if it has fruits and is helping the people by providing shade, etc. It just strikes at random. In exactly the same way it happens to a particular individual, and that happening is acausal. It has no cause.