11 Krishnamurti Passages That Will Awaken You From Your Slumber

“A theory based on another man’s experience in matters of the psyche or of an inward life has no meaning at all…. We have to let it go completely because we have to stand alone.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

Jiddu Krishnamurti is widely considered one of the wisest teachers ever to grace this planet.

Aldous Huxley, a visionary genius in his own right, said the following of witnessing Krishnamurti in person:

“It was like listening to a discourse of the Buddha—such power, such intrinsic authority.”

I’m less than 5% into Total Freedom by Krishamurti, and no joke, I’ve already come upon a multitude of passages that have dealt me proverbial Enlightening Slaps in the Face.

Honestly, I think there’s more truth and insight contained in the first few pages of this book than is contained in some libraries.

I feel like I’ve been given enough (no-)mind-food to chew on for a lifetime.

Total Freedom is an attempt to compile all of Krishnamurti’s most fundamental and powerful teachings in one book, and so far it is obliterating all expectations.

Without further ado, here are 11 passages from Total Freedom that will shake you to the core:

11 Unbelievable Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes

“The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

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“You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

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“But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

“You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

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“Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

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“You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, “What did that man pick up?” “He picked up a piece of Truth,” said the devil. “That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend. “Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it.”

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystalized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

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“As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him toward freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of the self.

Because I am free, unconditioned, whole—not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal—I desire those, who seek to understand me, to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears—from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want anything from anyone.

You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers—a miracle—transport you to this realm of eternal freedom, which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority.

You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyze what I am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

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“And for the weak people, there can be no organization to help them to find the Truth, because Truth is in everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

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“Before we can understand the richness and the beauty of fulfillment, mind must free itself from the background of tradition, habit, and prejudice. For example, if you belong to a particular political party, you naturally regard all your political considerations from the narrow, limited point of view of that party. If you have been brought up, nursed, conditioned in a certain religion, you look at life through its veil of prejudice and darkness. That background of tradition prevents the complete understanding of life, and so causes confusion and suffering.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

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“There can be fundamental and lasting change in the world, there can be love and intelligent fulfillment, only when you wake up and begin to free yourself from the net of illusions, the many illusions which you have created about yourself through fear. When the mind frees itself from these hindrances, when there is that deep, inward, voluntary change, then only can there be true, lasting, collective action, in which there can be no compulsion.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

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“It would be useless for you and the speaker to listen to a lot of words, but if we could together take a very long journey, not in terms of time, not in terms of belief or conclusions or theories, but in examining very carefully the way of our lives, fear, uncertainty, insecurity and all the inventions that man has made, including the extraordinary computers. If we take a long journey into this, where are we at the end of two million years? Where are we going, not as some theory, not what some wretched book says, however holy it is, but where are we all going? And where have we begun? They’re both related to each other: where we are going, where we begin. The beginning may be the ending. Don’t agree. Find out.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Total Freedom

As a bonus, here’s one final resoundingly beautiful passage, from a talk Krishnamurti gave in Bombay, India in 1948:

“What brings understanding is love. When your heart is full, then you will listen to the teacher, to the beggar, to the laughter of children, to the rainbow, and to the sorrow of man. Under every stone and leaf, that which is eternal exists. But we do not know how to look for it. Our minds and hearts are filled with other things than understanding of “what is”. Love and mercy, kindliness and generosity do not cause enmity. When you love, you are very near truth. For, love makes for sensitivity, for vulnerability. That which is sensitive is capable of renewal. Then truth will come into being. It cannot come if your mind and heart are burdened, heavy with ignorance and animosity.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1948

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If you’re ready to go deep within to discover for yourself what is true, consider taking our self-realization obstacle course.