Miscellaneous selections

Self-consciousness is conflict (J. Krishnamurti)
“Economically, socially, religiously, there is the constant thickening of self-consciousness, which is conflict. After all, you are self-conscious only when there is conflict. Self-consciousness is its very nature the result of conflict.” J. Krisnamurti, Krishnamurti Meditation, Number 13 Part C
“Observe it non-verbally because the verbal division is as important as the emotional division. Observe non-verbally, and there is a possibility of ending violence. Not tomorrow - immediately.” J. Krishnamurti, June 1 1970

We are all responsible for conflict
“We do not want to face these things, we do not want to face the fact that you and I are responsible for wars. You and I may talk about peace, have conferences, sit round a table and discuss, but inwardly, psychologically, we want power, position, we are motivated by greed. We intrigue, we are nationalistic, we are bound by beliefs, by dogmas, for which we are willing to die and destroy each other. Do you think such men, you and I, can have peace in the world? To have peace, we must be peaceful; to live peacefully means not to create antagonism. Peace is not an ideal. To me, an ideal is merely an escape, an avoidance of what is, a contradiction of what is. An ideal prevents direct action upon what is. To have peace, we will have to love, we will have to begin not to live an ideal life but to see things as they are and act upon them, transform them.”
The First and Last Freedom, Question 10: 'On War'

First and Last Freedom, Question 10
“Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action.” (‘On War’) What do you think?
“To put an end to outward war, you must begin to put an end to war in yourself.” (‘On War’) Can you do this? How?
“War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday life.” (‘On War’) What does Krishnamurti mean? What specifically does he suggest is necessary to prevent war?

Give your attention completely
A ‘method.’

What can we do about conflict? Give your attention completely.
“When you give your attention completely, that is, with your mind, with your eyes, with your heart, with your nerves – when you give complete attention, you will find there is no center at all, there is no observer and therefore there is no division between the observed and the observer, and you eradicate conflict totally, this conflict brought about by separation, by division.” The Awakening of Intelligence, 212
“This attention can only come about easily when you know how to look, how to listen – how to look at a tree, or your wife, or your neighbour, or at the stars, or even at your boss, without any image. The image is, after all, the past – the past, which has been accumulated through experience, pleasant or unpleasant; and with that image you look at your wife, your children, your neighbour, the world; you look with that image at nature. So what is in contact is your memory, the image which has been put together by memory. And that image looks and therefore there is no direct contact.” The Awakening of Intelligence, 213

“The past is then destroyed. You know the past is the unconscious. You know what the unconscious is? Don’t go back to Freud, Jung or all the rest of those people, but look at it for yourself and find out, not through empiricism, but actually observe it.”
214

War is merely the catastrophic effect of our daily living
“War is merely the catastrophic effect of our daily living, and so long as we do not change our daily living, no amount of legislation, controls, and sanctions will prevent war. Is peace in the mind and heart, in the way of our life, or is it merely a governmental regulation, something to be decided in the United Nations? I am afraid that for most of us, peace is only a matter of legislation, and we are not concerned with peace in our own minds and hearts; therefore, there can be no peace in the world. You cannot have peace, inward or outward, so long as you are ambitious, competitive, so long as you regard yourself as a German, a Hindu, a Russian, or an Englishman, so long as you are striving to become somebody in this mad world. Peace comes only when you understand all this and are no longer pursuing success in a society which is already corrupt. Only the peaceful mind, the mind that understands itself, can bring peace in the world.” Krishnamurti, Hamburg 1956,Talk 1

Can you sensitively be aware of conflict?
“Can you sensitively be aware of conflict? Not act upon it, because you are part of that conflict. You are conflict. So if you act upon it, you further create more conflict. So look at that conflict – the little one and the whole human conflict, the personal and the global, look at it. Listen to its story, don’t you tell what the story is, let it tell you the story. Like a child sitting on your lap whom you love, who is telling you a story, you don’t interrupt the child, you are not rude to him; you want him to tell you all about it. In the same way, let this conflict tell you all about it, only you have to have ears to listen to it, not only with the hearing of the ear but also hear the nature of it inwardly. Can you so listen to it, giving your whole attention to it, without any effort? When you are with a child telling you a story, you are not making an effort and saying, ‘I must control myself, I must be more patient.’ You are listening because you love that child. Listen in the same way, and then you will see the problem flowers, grows, shows its whole content. And when it has shown all its content, it passes away; it is finished. That is, the flowering and the withering of a problem, which doesn’t involve time. It is only the impatient mind that brings in time, that says, ‘I must solve this.’ But a mind that is listening very carefully, sensitively, alert to all its tiny, very subtle movements, when you listen to the problem, when you give your complete attention to it—and you cannot give complete attention if you have a motive, if you have a direction, if you say, ‘I must do this’—then nothing will happen. But if you give your total attention, the problem shows itself fully and so dissolves. Like a flower, in the morning the bud is there, in the evening it has withered.”
J. Krishnamurti, To Be Human

Peace is not an ideal (The first and last freedom)
“To rely on others is utterly futile; others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation, which will lead to outward action.”

"What causes war—religious, political, or economic? Obviously, belief, either in nationalism, in an ideology, or in a particular dogma. If we had no belief but goodwill, love, and consideration between us, then there would be no wars. But we are fed on beliefs, ideas, and dogmas and therefore we breed discontent. The present crisis is of an exceptional nature and we as human beings must either pursue the path of constant conflict and continuous wars, which are the result of our everyday action, or else see the causes of war and turn our back upon them.
Obviously what causes war is the desire for power, position, prestige, and money; also the disease called nationalism, the worship of a flag; and the disease of organized religion, the worship of a dogma. All these are the causes of war; if you as an individual belong to any of the organized religions, if you are greedy for power, if you are envious, you are bound to produce a society which will result in destruction. So again it depends upon you and not on the leaders—not on so-called politicians and all the rest of them. It depends upon you and me but we do not seem to realize that. If once we really felt the responsibility of our own actions, how quickly we could bring to an end all these wars, this appalling misery! But you see, we are indifferent. We have three meals a day, we have our jobs, we have our bank accounts, big or little, and we say, “For God’s sake, don’t disturb us, leave us alone.” The higher up we are, the more we want security, permanency, tranquility, the more we want to be left alone, to maintain things fixed as they are; but they cannot be maintained as they are, because there is nothing to maintain. Everything is disintegrating. We do not want to face these things, we do not want to face the fact that you and I are responsible for wars.
You and I may talk about peace, have conferences, sit round a table and discuss, but inwardly, psychologically, we want power, position, we are motivated by greed. We intrigue, we are nationalistic, we are bound by beliefs, by dogmas, for which we are willing to die and destroy each other. Do you think such people, you and I, can have peace in the world? To have peace, we must be peaceful; to live peacefully means not to create antagonism. Peace is not an ideal. To me, an ideal is merely an escape, an avoidance of what is, a contradiction of what is. An ideal prevents direct action upon what is. To have peace, we will have to love, we will have to begin not to live an ideal life but to see things as they are and act upon them, transform them. As long as each one of us is seeking psychological security, the physiological security we need—food, clothing, and shelter—is destroyed. We are seeking psychological security, which does not exist; and we seek it, if we can, through power, through position, through titles, names—all of which is destroying physical security. This is an obvious fact, if you look at it.
To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states—greed, envy, ill-will, and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on and on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives. To rely on others is utterly futile; others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation, which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.
To put an end to outward war, you must begin to put an end to war in yourself. Some of you will nod your heads and say, “I agree,” and go outside and do exactly the same as you have been doing for the last ten or twenty years. Your agreement is merely verbal and has no significance, for the world’s miseries and wars are not going to be stopped by your casual assent. They will be stopped only when you realize the danger, when you realize your responsibility, when you do not leave it to somebody else. If you realize the suffering, if you see the urgency of immediate action and do not postpone, then you will transform yourself; peace will come only when you yourself are peaceful, when you yourself are at peace with your neighbor."