"The teachings are not something out there in a book; what the teachings say is, 'Look at yourself, go into yourself, inquire into what is there, understand it, go beyond it', and so on. The teachings are only a means of pointing, explaining, but you have to understand, not the teachings, but yourself."


JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI was born May 12, 1895, in Madanapalle, south India. From 1929 until his death in 1986 he traveled all over the world speaking spontaneously to large audiences. He engaged in dialogues with religious leaders, scientists, professors, authors, psychologists, computer experts, and people from many different backgrounds deeply questioning their daily life. His talks and dialogues have been compiled and published in more than fifty books and translated into as many different languages. His books include Think on These Things, Education and the Significance of Life, The Awakening of Intelligence, and The First and Last Freedom.

Krishnamurti claimed allegiance to no caste, nationality or religion and was bound by no tradition. He said man has to free himself of all fear, conditioning, authority and dogma through self-knowledge and this will bring about order and psychological mutation. The conflict-ridden violent world, he suggested, cannot be transformed into a life of goodness, love and compassion by any political, social or economic strategies, but only through this mutation in individuals brought about through their own observation, without the mediation of any guru or organized religion.

Krishnamurti`s stature as an original philosopher, attracted non-traditional and traditional thinkers and philosophers alike. Heads of various religious organizations held discussions with him, only to hear him repeat his central theme that authority in whatever form—religious, psychological or political—is a hindrance to seeing the truth; man has to be his own guru to bring about psychological transformation. Attending Krishnamurti`s talks in 1961, Aldous Huxley said, "It was like listening to a discourse of the Buddha-such power, such intrinsic authority...." In 1984 he spoke to nuclear scientists at the National Laboratory Research Center at Los Alamos, New Mexico, U.S.A. David Bohm Ph.D., the quantum physicist and friend of Einstein, recognized in Krishnamurti's teachings parallels with his own revolutionary theories of physics. This led to many years of dialogue between the two men. In 1980 a series of conversations took place between Krishnamurti and Bohm, which began with the question 'Has humanity taken a wrong turn . . .?' These conversations were later compiled into the book, The Ending of Time.

In establishing the many schools he founded in India, England, and the United States, Krishnamurti envisioned that education should emphasize the integral cultivation of the mind and the heart, not mere academic intelligence. Krishnamurti said, "Surely a school is a place where one learns about the totality, the wholeness of life. Academic excellence is absolutely necessary, but a school includes much more than that. It is a place where both the teacher and the taught explore not only the outer world, the world of knowledge, but also their own thinking, their behavior." For decades he engaged in dialogues with teachers and students to emphasize the understanding that it is only in such freedom that true learning can take place.

He established foundations in India, Europe and the United States with the defined role of protecting the teachings from being distorted and of disseminating his work, without the authority to interpret or deify the teachings or the person. There can be no learning where there is authority in any form. He stated tirelessly, "We must be very clear on this matter from the very beginning. There is no belief demanded or asked, there are no followers, there are no cults, there is no persuasion of any kind, in any direction, and therefore only then we can meet on the same platform, on the same ground, at the same level. Then we can together observe the extraordinary phenomena of human existence."



"The Core of Teachings"
Written by Krishnamurti in 1980 for the biography by Mary Lutyens Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfilment. In 1983, he revised the statement to its current form. © KFT.

"The core of Krishnamurti’s teaching is contained in the statement he made in 1929 when he said: ‘Truth is a pathless land’. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security—religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man’s thinking, his relationships, and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man’s pretense that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity.

Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge, which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.
When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind.

Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence."



Selected Bibliography

  Education and the Significance of Life, 1953

  The First and Last Freedom, 1954

  Commentaries on Living, Series I, 1956

  Commentaries on Living, Series II, 1958

  Commentaries on Living, Series III, 1960

  Life Ahead, 1963

  Think on These Things, 1964

  Conversations (booklet), 1970

  The Only Revolution, 1970

  Talks with American Students, 1970

  The Impossible Question1972

  You Are the World, 1972

  The Awakening of Intelligence, 1973

  Beyond violence, 1973

  Beginnings of Learnings, 1975

  Krishnamurti's Notebook, 1976

  Exploration Into Insight, 1979

  The Flight of the Eagle, 1979

  Letters to the Schools, Vol. 1 & 2, 1981

  Krishnamurti's Journal, 1982

  The Network of Thought, 1982

  The Flame of Attention, 1983

  The Ending of Time, 1985

  Letters to the Schools, Vol. 2, 1985

  The Future of Humanity, 1986

  Krishnamurti to Himself: His Last Journal, 1987

  The Future is Now: Last Talks in India, 1989

  The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, Vol. 1-17, 1991-92

  A Flame of Learning: Krishnamurti with Teachers, 1993

  The Book of Life, 1995

  Total Freedom, The Essential Krishnamurti, 1996

  The Limits of Thought, 1999

  To Be Human, 2000

  Can Humanity Change?, 2003

  Facing a World in Crisis, 2005