| The Teachings | |
Krishnamurti’s Teachings reveal a unique understanding and exposition of life and the human condition. His map of the inner life of man is incisively rational and cohesive and has commanded the attention of serious thinkers and intellectuals worldwide. Pointing to the repeated failures of the political, social, and economic reforms to significantly change the lot of the human kind, K talks of the need for a revolution in the psyche of man. The core of the problem, according to him, is that the human brain constantly responds in terms of the memories and knowledge it has accumulated and therefore, is generally incapable of new and creative action. While thought is vital for many areas of human endeavor, he held, it is an obstacle to find a radically different way of functioning especially in the psychological field. Pointing to its failure to address many issues of life - the alienation and trauma of the individual, the ever increasing strife in the world, and the degradation of the earth - K speaks of a dire need for a change in the self -centred and destructive approaches of the human mind and of the possibility of what he calls a ‘new human being’, ‘a new culture’. K’s emphasis that belief is unnecessary to actualize the human potential makes him define religion in very unorthodox terms. He talks of the religious mind and religious living rather than of religion as a matter of faith, a code of conduct to be preached or followed. |
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Can the human mind, which has not outgrown its primitive self-protective and acquisitive instincts assimilate the scientific and technological advances for human growth and well being? What will bring about order in the human mind and society? In a world of increasing fear and confusion what is the way to freedom and right action? Pointing to what he calls a crisis in consciousness; K holds that humanity is at a crucial cross road and needs must discover a wholly different way of functioning. This, in his claim, involves a radical transformation of consciousness. “Then what is religion? It is the investigation with all one’s attention, with the summation of all one’s energy, to find that which is sacred, to come upon that which is holy. That can only take place when there is freedom from the noise of thought- the ending of thought and time, psychologically, inwardly- but not the ending of knowledge in the world where you have to function with knowledge. That which is holy, that which is sacred, which is truth, can only be when there is complete silence, when the brain itself has put thought in its right place. Out of that immense silence there is that which is sacred.” |
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