Giving marks, grading, comparing, and any form of compulsion, either through kindness or through threats, breeds fear; and it is because we are caught in this fear while we are young that we struggle in fear for the rest of our lives. The older people, by their attitude towards life, create a form of education which is merely a repetition of the old, so there is no new way of living. That is why it is very important to think about all these matters while you are still young. Even if you don’t understand what I am saying, you should ask your teachers about this, if they will permit it, and see if you can really be free from fear. When there is no fear, you study much better. When you feel that you are not being compelled to do anything, you will find out what you are interested in, and then for the rest of your life you will do something you really love to do, which is much more important than becoming a miserable clerk because you must have a job. To do something because your parents say that you must do it, or because society demands it, is all nonsense. Whereas, if you really love doing something with your hands or your mind, you will create a new world through that love.

From Life Ahead

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#day148

Freedom is to be a light to oneself; then it is not an abstraction, a thing conjured by thought. Actual freedom is freedom from dependency, attachment and the craving for experience. Freedom from the very structure of thought is to be a light to oneself. In this light, all action takes place, and thus it is never contradictory. Contradiction only exists when that law, light, is separate from action, when the actor is separate from action. The ideal, the principle, is the barren movement of thought and cannot coexist with this light; one denies the other. This light, this law, is separate from you; where the observer is, this light, this love, is not. The structure of the observer is put together by thought, which is never new, never free. There is no how, no system, no practice. There is only the seeing which is the doing. You have to see, not through the eyes of another. This light, this law, is neither yours nor that of another. There is only light. This is love.

From The Beauty of Life – Krishnamurti’s Journal

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#day145

We have had guidance galore. Every newspaper, every magazine, every preacher, every priest throughout the world is guiding us, telling us what to do, what not to do, think this, don’t think that, surrender yourself, don’t listen to him, he is a reactionary, listen to me... We are being guided, shaped, moulded all the time, consciously or unconsciously. Here, we are not guiding anybody; we are like two friends talking things over together. That is totally different. And guidance prevents understanding, in the deeper sense of the word, because if you are guiding me – do this, don’t do that – I can’t understand myself first; I am not looking at myself, I am listening to what you say. That means you become the authority, and I become your slave, either a psychological slave or some other kind of slave. These gurus’ places, their ashrams, become concentration camps. They tell you what to do, how to salute, all that tommyrot. I am not condemning; it is so. Why can’t we be simple, see things, look at and face things as they actually are, instead of this labyrinth and maze? Why do we have to go through all this?

From Facing a World in Crisis

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#day142

We have had guidance galore. Every newspaper, every magazine, every preacher, every priest throughout the world is guiding us, telling us what to do, what not to do, think this, don’t think that, surrender yourself, don’t listen to him, he is a reactionary, listen to me... We are being guided, shaped, moulded all the time, consciously or unconsciously. Here, we are not guiding anybody; we are like two friends talking things over together. That is totally different. And guidance prevents understanding, in the deeper sense of the word, because if you are guiding me – do this, don’t do that – I can’t understand myself first; I am not looking at myself, I am listening to what you say. That means you become the authority, and I become your slave, either a psychological slave or some other kind of slave. These gurus’ places, their ashrams, become concentration camps. They tell you what to do, how to salute, all that tommyrot. I am not condemning; it is so. Why can’t we be simple, see things, look at and face things as they actually are, instead of this labyrinth and maze? Why do we have to go through all this?

From Facing a World in Crisis

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Is it possible to change through the analytical process, that is, through introspection, through various forms of critical approach? Is it possible for the conditioned mind, through analysis, to change itself and discover a way to bring about a revolution in the psyche? We are asking if the mind can change through analysis. Analysis implies an observer, the analyser and the thing analysed. Please observe it in yourself, which is to share together. We are saying that where there is analysis, there is the observer – the analyser – and the thing to be analysed. In that there is division. Now, wherever there is division, there must be conflict, not only physically but also psychologically. When there is a division between the analyser and the thing analysed, there must be conflict. The analyser, in analysing the thing he has observed in himself, begins to correct it, dominate it, suppress it. But we are used to analysis. All our religious, sociological training and conditioning is to analyse step by step, to progress slowly. That is your upbringing, and that, I assure you, will never bring about a change. Analysis is the postponement of action. So, analysis, which is this dualistic examination by the analyser, will not bring about a deep, fundamental change.

From Inward Revolution

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Any progress within consciousness is self-improvement, and self-improvement is progress in sorrow, not the cessation of sorrow. If the mind is concerned with being free of all sorrow, then what is the mind to do? We suffer, don’t we? We suffer, not only from physical illness, disease, but also from loneliness, from the poverty of our being; we suffer because we are not loved. When we love somebody, and there is no love in return, there is sorrow. In every direction, to think is to be full of sorrow. Therefore, it seems better not to think, so we accept a belief and stagnate in that belief, which we call religion. Now, if the mind sees that there is no ending of sorrow through self-improvement, through progress, what is the mind to do? Can the mind go beyond this consciousness, beyond these various urges and contradictory desires? And is going beyond a matter of time? If it is a matter of time, you are back again in the other thing, which is progress. Within the framework of consciousness, any movement in any direction is self-improvement and therefore the continuance of sorrow. Sorrow may be controlled, disciplined, subjugated, rationalised, super-refined, but the potential quality of sorrow is still there; and to be free from sorrow, there must be freedom from this potentiality, from this seed of the ‘I’, the self, from the whole process of becoming.

From What Are You Doing With Your Life?

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