Passages from Mind is a Myth

Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti 
 

Q: It is radical, and perhaps a little dangerous, to call the spirit, the soul, and God the shoddy inventions of frightened minds, is it not?

U.G.: I don't care. I am ready to go. I don't see anything other than the physical activity of the body. Spirituality is the invention of the mind, and the MIND IS A MYTH. Your traditions are choking you. But, unfortunately, you don't do anything. You actually love being choked. You love the burden of the cultural garbage-sack, the dead refuse of the past. It has to drop away naturally. It just drops. You don't depend upon knowledge anymore, except as a useful tool to function sanely in this world.

Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti 

Wanting has to go. Wanting to be free from something that is not there is what you call "sorrow". Wanting to be free from sorrow is sorrow. There is no other sorrow. You don't want to be free from sorrow. You just think about sorrow, without acting. Your thinking endlessly about being free from sorrow is only more material for sorrow. It (thinking) does not put an end to sorrow. Sorrow is there for you as long as you think. There is actually no sorrow there to be free from. Thinking about and struggling against "sorrow" is sorrow. Since you can't stop thinking, and thinking is sorrow, you will always suffer. There is no way out, no escape.

Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti 
 

Q: But we all have to have an idea of a better, more spiritual life. 

U.G.: Whatever you want, even the so-called spiritual goals, is materialistic in value. What, if I may ask, is so spiritual about it? If you want to achieve a spiritual goal, the instrument you use will be the same which you use to achieve materialistic goals, namely thought. You don't actually do anything about it; you just think. So you are just thinking that there must be some purpose to life. And because thought is matter, its object--the spiritual or meaningful life-is also matter. Spirituality is materialism. In any event you do not act, you just think, which is to postpone. There is simply nothing else thought can do.

Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti

 

That instrument called thought, which you are employing to achieve your so-called spiritual goals, is the result of the past. Thought is born in time, it functions in time, and any results it seeks are bound to be in and of time also. And time is postponement, the tomorrow. Take, for example, the fact of selfishness. It is condemned, while selflessness, a pure creation of thinking, is to be sought after. Its realization, however, lies always just ahead, tomorrow. You will be selfless tomorrow, or the next day, or, if there is one, in the next life. Why is it not possible for you to be totally free from selfishness now, today? And do you really want to be free from selfishness? You do not, and that is why you have invented what you call selflessness, in the meantime remaining selfish. So, you are not going to be selfless at all, ever, because the instrument which you use to achieve that state of selflessness or peace of mind is materialistic in value. Whatever you do to be free from selfishness will only strengthen and fortify it. I am not saying that you should therefore be selfish, only that thinking about its abstract opposite, which you have called "selflessness," is useless.