Passages from The Mystique of Enlightenment

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

Q: Does the questioner exist ? 

UG: He doesn't exist; what exists is only the question. All questions are the same -- they are mechanical repetitions of memorized questions.

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

Q: You say that the question "Who am I?" doesn't remain there when you really scrutinize it ? 

UG: Because you cannot separate the question from the questioner. The question and the questioner are the same. If you accept that fact, it's a very simple thing: when the question disappears, the questioner also disappears with that. But since the questioner does not want to disappear, the question remains. The questioner wants an answer for the question. Since there is no answer to that question, the questioner remains there for ever. The questioners's interest is to continue, not to get the answer.

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

 

There is no such thing as death at all. What do you think will die? What? This body disintegrates into its constituent elements, so nothing is lost. If you burn it, the ashes enrich the soil and aid germination. If you bury it, the worms live on it. If you throw it into the river, it becomes food for the fishes. One form of life lives on another form of life, and so gives continuity to life. So life is immortal. But that is not going to help anybody who is caught up in the fear of death. After all, 'death' is fear, the fear of something coming to an end. The 'you' as you know yourself, the 'you' as you experience yourself -- that 'you' does not want to come to an end. But it also knows that this body is going to drop dead as others do -- you experience the deaths of others -- so that is a frightening situation because you are not sure whether that (`you') will continue if this (body) goes. So then it projects (an afterlife). This becomes the most important thing -- to know whether there is an afterlife or not. Fear creates that, so when the fear is gone, the question of death is also gone.

The Mystique of Enlightenment - U.G. Krishnamurti

You have no way of knowing anything about your death, now or at the end of your so-called life. Unless knowledge, the continuity of knowledge, comes to an end, death cannot take place. You want to know something about death: you want to make that a part of your knowledge. But death is not something mysterious; the ending of that knowledge is death. What do you think will continue after death? What is there while you are living? Where is the entity there? There is nothing there - no soul -- there is only this question about after death. The question has to die now to find the answer -- your answer; not my answer -- because the question is born out of the assumption, the belief, that there is something to continue after death.