Reflections on J. Krishnamurti.

"Is it possible for the brain to realize that it has no future? We live either in despair or in hope. Hope is part of time. I am unhappy, I am miserable , uncertain, I hope to be happy. Part of time is this destructive nature of hope or the invention of the priests throughout the world -faith. You suffer but have faith in God and everything will be alright. Again that is faith in something involves time. Can you stand- stand in the sense, can you tolerate that there is no tomorrow psychologically? Can you? That is part of the meditation, to find out psychologically there is no tomorrow - hope, faith, movement of the future as tomorrow, is non existent."
I have been grappling with the thoughts of J.Krishnamurti ever since i stumble upon his works while in college almost thirty years ago. I was going to school in Green Bay, Wisconsin and worked as a part time librarian to pay my way, it was while shelving books that I discovered one of K's many books and got hooked to his teachings till today. I think it was, the "First and Last freedom," if I am not mistaken. Ever since I have had become an avert reader and student of the great teacher, philosopher and my life became an experiment in human development according to his thoughts and ideas; my development. Most of his ideas are thought provoking and not everyone can digest much less follow what he had professed throughout his lifelong imparting of knowledge with regard to the nature of the human mind of which I was deeply interested while studying in college. 
Jedu Krishnamurti was thorough to the point of repetitious, tedious and mind boggling detail in his examination of the workings of the human mind especially the nature of thoughts. One can easily fall asleep listening to him talk on You Tube but if you can hold your attention long enough you will become enlightened to what he has to share and become richer for it in how you view life. K does not mince words when it comes to taking on any topic related to the workings of the human mind  especially when it comes to the subject of faith and religion and although he never did claim himself and atheist, not to my knowledge, he has waged a thorough war on religions throughout his teachings,(never liked to be called a Guru or a teacher either and addressed himself as 'The Speaker'). India produced many great minds like those of Tagore, Gandhi, Sri Ramanamaharshi and ParamahamsaYogananda; Krishnamurti towers among them.
I cannot claim to follow the teachings of Krishnamurti one hundred percent, which is next to impossible, which I doubt the Speaker himself could, but I keep referring to his thoughts and ideas whenever I digress in my practice or develop serious doubts about how or who I am and more often than not i would find some guiding light through reading or listening to the man. When you follow someone long enough you begin to hear them in your head even if they are not there and their words comes to you like small miracles answering what you need to be answered at the moment in time. It is as though the mind has made a connection on its own as to where to move the heart to reach out for the answers without you having to look for them too far; they are at your finger tips. Among the great contemporary thinkers that i have followed, Krinamurti, Eckhardt Tolle, The Dalai Lama, Alan Watts, Mooji and a few others i find K to be the most influential in my life and i find that his thoughts has in many ways influenced the others in their teachings.
Hence, "Is it possible for the brain to realize that it has no future?" It is questions like this that sets my mind in motion when i read Krishnamurti. My initial reaction would be, what the hell is the old man talking about now? Then my mind would start to roll  and comes up with replies like, sure it can, otherwise it would not be asking the question, or depends on who is asking and to answer this one has to look far back into what there is to know about the mind and even the very brain cells themselves. To understand the question itself would take some thinking and thoughts as K would insist is very limiting, and so we run round and round in circles util we trip and come up with a simple solution in one form or another. The whole process of reaching this 'insight' this state of arriving at an enlightening answer is enlightenment. 
Zen masters of some schools like the Rinzai Zen would throw a mind provoking question at a student such as"Has dog Buddha Nature?" Either the student answers it immediately or spontaneously or he takes it with him to figure it out until he finds the satisfactory answer and returns to the master and delivers it. It is called in Japanese a Koan and it is meant to jar the student's mind or mental state out of its normal mode of thinking into seeing that there is more ways to see than the 'norm'. This is not what Krishnamurti has in mind when he asks questions like these; he takes one on a journey into discovering the answer through a systematic step by step analysis of the whole implication of the question and arrives at the answer when all is said and done. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a question...yes or no?