Though in the deepest sense the self doesn’t exist, human language isn’t very good at describing reality at the deepest level. So as a practical matter - as a linguistic convention - we have to talk about there being an I and a you and a he and a she. In other words, the self doesn’t exist in an “ultimate” sense, but it exists in a “conventional” sense. (Robert Wright, “Why Buddhism is True”)
In a conversation with Jawaharlal Nehru, Krishnamurti said, ”Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed. Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action.” When Nehru asked, ”How does one start?”, Krishnamurti replied, ”Begin where you are. Read every word, every phrase, every paragraph of the mind, as it operates through thought.” (Jayakar, "Krishnamurti," p 142)
Thank you, anxiety, for helping me stay alert to the multiple emotional, physical, and spiritual threats in the world. You can relax, as I am breathing through the worry. (Pico Iyer, The Little Book of Zen Healing: Japanese Rituals for Beauty, Harmony, and Love by Paula Arai)
I have seen Krishnamurti fearful and I think it’s an important thing to describe the circumstances under which it happened. When he was talking to the psychiatrists and psychoanalysts for the first time in Washington, D.C., he came to me and he was shaking with fear. He said, “I’m scared.” And I tried to reassure him that it would be alright, and then when he went in to the talk, I realized that he was able to drop the fear. He allowed himself to experience the fear fully and then let it go. Most of us don’t do that, we stay with the fears instead of letting it go. This is what he means when he says, I have no fear. I also asked him, “Would you be afraid if you were dying?” and he said, “I don’t know. I would have to see, I would have to be aware to see whether I was afraid.” (Benjamin Weininger, KFA Bulletin 86)
Observed thought behaves differently from unobserved thought. (David Bohm)
Rest in the ____ where thoughts and perceptions appear. (Fellow Inquirer)
When other thoughts arise, one should not pursue them but should diligently inquire: ‘To whom do they occur?’ It does not matter how many thoughts arise. As each thought arises, one should inquire with alertness, “To whom has this thought arisen?” (Ramana Maharshi, “Who am I?”)
It is this knowledge, the description of the state by those people, that has created this state for you. You are kidding yourself. You are a fool. (UG Krishnamurti)
Mind's life is memory. (Ursula Le Guin)
Thought is the thought of thought. (James Joyce, "Ulysses")
A thought comes when 'it' wants to, and not when 'I' want it to; so it is falsifying the fact to say that the subject 'I' is necessary to the verb 'think'. We should not corrupt the actual way our thoughts come to us. (Friedrich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil")
We think we act, we think we think, but it is another or others who think or act in us: that is to say, timeless habits, archetypes, which passed on from one generation to the next, carry an enormous power and control us from 'the well of the past'. (Milan Kundera, Testaments Betrayed)
Passively alert. Alert passivity. (Attributed to Krishnamurti).
It is yourself you wish to protect. (Unnamed)
We don’t see thought as a thought. (Fellow Inquirer)
Much of the delusions can be very subtle and go undetected. (Unnamed)
Dr. R: I should like to ask a personal question which is probably very rude and which you need not answer. Are you without conflict?
K: Yes, I think so.
Dr. R: Without any conflict?
K: It is difficult to say it like that, but I should think so. If I had it I would go after it. I would not leave it alone. I would say, “This is stupid,” and I would not leave it alone until it was dissolved.
(from "KFA Bulletin #86 - Krishnamurti with Psychiatrists")
Thought is, in essence, the active response of memory in every phase of life. We include in thought the intellectual, emotional, sensuous, muscular and physical responses of memory. These are all aspects of one indissoluble process. (David Bohm, "Wholeness and the Implicate Order")
J Krishnamurti would point at the deeper causes of the problem at hand and urge that person to find out for himself or herself what was the right thing to do. (Friedrich Grohe, "The beauty of the mountain")
J Krishnamurti (in a talk): There is silence in that energy.
UG Krishnamurti (to himself on listening to the talk): I recognized this silence. And what I recognized as silence is the comparative mind, because it is comparing this silence with the previous silence.
(from "This Dog Barking: The Strange Story of U.G. Krishnamurti")
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. (Marcel Proust)