Food For Your thoughts - -J.Krishnamurti

TO KNOW OURSELVES means to know our relationship with the world - not only with the world of
ideas and people, but also with nature, with the things we possess. That is our life - life being
relationship to the whole. Does the understanding of that relationship demand specialization?

Obviously not. What it demands is awareness to meet life as a whole.

How is one to be capable of meeting life as a whole? - which means not only personal relationship with your neighbour but also with nature, with the things that you possess,with ideas, and with the things that the mind manufactures as illusion, desire and so on. How is one to be aware of this whole process of relationship? Surely that is our life, is it not? There is no life without relationship; and to understand this relationship does not mean isolation. On the contrary, it demands a full recognition or awareness of the total process of relationship.

When you are aware, you see the whole process of your thinking and action; but it can happen
only when there is no condemnation. When I condemn something, I do not understand it, and it is
one way of avoiding any kind of understanding. I think most of us do that purposely; we condemn
immediately and we think we have understood. If we do not condemn but regard it, are aware of
it, then the content, the significance of that action begins to open up. Experiment with this and you
will see for yourself. Just be aware - without any sense of justification - which may appear rather
negative but is not negative. On the contrary, it has the quality of passivity which is direct action;
and you will discover this, if you experiment with it.

This passivity is not a
question of determination, of will, of discipline; to be aware that we are not passive is the beginning.
To be aware that we want a particular answer to a particular problem - surely that is the beginning:
to know ourselves in relationship to the problem and how we deal with the problem. Then as we
begin to know ourselves in relationship to the problem - how we respond, what are our various
prejudices, demands, pursuits, in meeting that problem - this awareness will reveal the process of
our own thinking, of our own inward nature; and in that there is a release.

Life is a matter of relationship; and to understand that relationship, which is not static, there must be
an awareness which is pliable, an awareness which is alertly passive, not aggressively active. As
I said, this passive awareness does not come through any form of discipline, through any practice.
It is to be just aware, from moment to moment, of our thinking and feeling.
                                                                                     Thoughts from J. Krishnamurti