Krishnamurti
TRUTH IS A PATHLESS LAND

When you speak of a path to truth, it implies that truth, this living reality, is not in the present, but somewhere in the distance, somewhere in the future.
Now to me, truth is fulfillment, and to fulfillment there can be no path.
So it seems, to me at least, that the first illusion in which you are caught
is this desire for assurance,
this desire for certainty, this inquiry after a path, a way,
a mode of living whereby you can attain the desired goal, which is truth.

Your conviction that truth exists only in the distant future implies imitation.
When you inquire what truth is, you are really asking to be told the path which leads to truth.
Then you want to know which system to follow, which mode, which discipline,
to help you on the way to truth.

But to me there is no path to truth;
truth is not to be understood through any system, through any path.
A path implies a goal, a static end, and therefore a conditioning of the mind and the heart
by that end, which necessarily demands discipline, control, acquisitiveness.

This discipline, this control, becomes a burden; it robs you of freedom and conditions your action in daily life.
Inquiry after truth implies a goal, a static end, which you are seeking.
And that you are seeking a goal shows that your mind is searching for assurance, certainty.
To attain this certainty, mind desires a path, a system, a method which it can follow, and this assurance you think to find by conditioning mind and heart through self-discipline, self-control, suppression.

But truth is a reality that cannot be understood by following any path.
Truth is not a conditioning, a shaping of the mind and heart, but a constant fulfillment,
a fulfillment in action.
That you inquire after truth implies that you believe in a path to truth,
and this is the first illusion in which you are caught.
J. Krishnamurti Adyar 5th Public Talk 2nd January, 1934

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You Can Be Light Unto Yourself

To be aware is to watch your bodily activity, the way you walk, the way you
sit, the movements of your hands; it is to hear the words you use, to observe
all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your reactions. It includes awareness
of the unconscious, with its traditions, its instinctual knowledge, and the
immense sorrow it has accumulated—not only personal sorrow, but the sorrow of
man. You have to be aware of all that; and you cannot be aware of it if you are
merely judging, evaluating, saying, "This is good and that is bad, this I will
keep and that I will reject," all of which only makes the mind dull,
insensitive.

From awareness comes attention. Attention flows from awareness when in that
awareness there is no choice, no personal choosing, no experiencing . . . but
merely observing. And, to observe, you must have in the mind a great deal of
space. A mind that is caught in ambition, greed, envy, in the pursuit of
pleasure and self-fulfillment, with its inevitable sorrow, pain, despair, and
anguish—such a mind has no space in which to observe, to attend. It is crowded
with its own desires, going round and round in its own backwaters of reaction.
You cannot attend if your mind is not highly sensitive, sharp, reasonable,
logical, sane, healthy, without the slightest shadow of neuroticism. The mind
has to explore every corner of itself, leaving no spot uncovered, because if
there is a single dark corner of one's mind which one is afraid to explore,
from that springs illusion....

It is only in the state of attention that you can be a light unto yourself, and
then every action of your daily life springs from that light—every
action—whether you are doing your job, cooking, going for a walk, mending
clothes, or what you will. This whole process is meditation....
Text from The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti
Vol. 13