Passages from Mind is a Myth

Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti 

 

Society is so organized and complex that you have no other way of surviving except to accept the way of life around you as organized, along with the limitations it places upon all of us. We must all accept the reality of society, whether we like it or not. But this is not what we are talking about. What we are talking about is altogether different. All your relationships, knowledge, and experiences, all your emotions and feelings, all that romantic stuff, belongs entirely to society, not to you. You are not an individual at all; you are secondhand people.

Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti 

 

Only when you are free from what every man and woman has thought and felt before you will you become an individual. Such an individual will not go around attempting to destroy everything that belongs to society. He is not in conflict with society at all. He would never tear down the temples and institutions or burn books that men have made with great care. He would not be a rebel. All the accumulated knowledge, experience, and suffering of mankind is inside of you. You must build a huge bonfire within you. Then you will become an individual. There is no other way. Society is built on a foundation of conflict, and you are society. Therefore you must always be in conflict with society. The real individual, one who is free of the accumulated tradition and knowledge of mankind, is necessarily a threat to that society. Society, of which you are a part, cannot be other than it is. So stop trying to save it or change it. You cannot even change your mother-in-law.

Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti

 

 You want to change yourself into something and at the same time find you cannot change at all. This "change" you talk of is really just more romantic fancy stuff for you. You never change, only think about changing. As long as you want to change, for some reason or the other, so long will you insist upon changing the whole world. You want a different world so that you can be happy in it. That is your only interest. You can talk of mankind, concern for mankind, compassion for mankind, but it is all bullshit, horseshit ... Since you are determined to bring about change -- a notion put into you by your culture -- you remain discontent and want the world to be different. When your inner demand to be something different from what in fact you are comes to an end, then the neurotic demand to change your society ceases. Then you cannot be in conflict with society. You are in perfect harmony with society, including its brutalities and miseries.

Mind is a Myth - U.G. Krishnamurti

 Unless you are at peace with yourself, there cannot be peace around the world. When are you going to be at peace yourself? Next life? No chance. Wait, you will see. Even then there is no guarantee that your society will be peaceful. They will not be at peace. When you are at peace with yourself, that is the end of the story.