This book was a gift from my fiancée, and it shows how much she really loves and understands me. She first introduced me to Jiddu Krishnamurti less than a year ago, so I never knew of him or his thinking before. And yet he almost perfectly reflects my own thinking and understanding. Of course, Jiddu is far more astute in his ability to convey and practice what he understands as the Truth, which he refers to as a living thing the same way I do. He was clearly a brilliant man and teacher, though he himself would probably deny such claims. Fear, he says, is the root of all suffering; and, like me, he sees the current social systems of our world (government, religious, even academic) as corrupted by fear, which they propagate ignorantly in desperate pursuit of illusory power, control, and order that they will never achieve. Also, like me, he sees the possibility for real and meaningful change only when enough people in this world look within for the truth, and stop seeing themselves as separate from what they observe (both inside themselves and outside). And perhaps more importantly, he emphasizes that we must find the "answers" (a.k.a. "salvation") for ourselves, and never under any circumstance let another person or institution tell us what we need to do, think, or believe in order to be happy.
Excerpts:
- "Where there is comparison, there must be fear." (pg.2)
- "To live with a living thing such as fear requires a mind and heart that are extraordinarily subtle, that have no conclusion and can therefore follow every movement of fear." (pg. 11)
- "When you see that you are a part of fear, not separate from it - that you are fear - that you cannot do anything about it; then fear comes totally to an end." (pg. 11)
- "There is no 'individual' mind at all - we are all totally related." (pg. 13)
- "To learn about myself I cannot follow anybody. If I follow anybody, I am not learning [about myself]." (pg. 34)
- "... society and the [elders] think fear is necessary to keep you in right behavior." (pg. 45)
- "Though all religions preach love, though they preach brotherhood, though they talk about the unity of mankind, they all subtly, or very brutally, grossly, maintain this sense of fear." (pg. 45)
- "A [system] based on fear of any kind is a rotten [system]; it should not be." (pg. 45)
- "None of these problems of fear can be resolved through will - saying to oneself, 'I will not be afraid.' Such acts of will have no meaning." (pg. 53)
- "... fear is the other side of the coin that is called pleasure." (pg. 55)
- "The self-interest in our life is the cause of fear." (pg. 86)
- "... in every religion, self-interest is dominant." (pg. 86)
- "Self-understanding is the awakening and ending of fear." (pg. 93)
