Think on These Things

Krishnamurti on Peace

You have to understand the central cause of conflict

Do not think by merely wishing for peace you will have peace, when in your daily life of relationship you are aggressive, acquisitive, seeking psychological security here or in the hereafter. You have to understand the central cause of conflict and sorrow and then dissolve it and not merely look to the outside for peace. But you see, most of us are indolent. We are too lazy to take hold of ourselves and understand ourselves, and being lazy, which is really a form of conceit, we think others will solve this problem for us and give us peace, or that we should destroy the apparently few people that are causing wars. When the individual is in conflict within himself, he must inevitably create conflict without, and only he can bring about peace within himself and so in the world, for he is the world.

J.Krishnamurti, OJAI 7TH PUBLIC TALK 7TH JULY, 1940

Peace is not a thing to be brought from the outside

There cannot be peace or happiness in the world unless we as individuals cultivate that wisdom which brings forth tranquillity. There are many who think that without considering their own inward nature, their own clarity of purpose, their own creative understanding, by somewhat altering the outer conditions they can bring about peace in the world. That is, they hope to have brotherhood in the world though inwardly they are racked with hatred, envy, ambition, and so on. That this peace cannot be unless the individual, who is the world, brings about a radical change within himself is pretty obvious to those who think deeply. We see chaos about us, and extraordinary brutality after centuries of preaching of kindliness, brotherhood, love; we are easily caught up in this whirlpool of hatred and antagonism, and we think that by altering the outward symptoms we shall have human unity. Peace is not a thing to be brought from the outside, it can only come from within; this requires great earnestness and concentration, not on some single purpose, but on the understanding of the complex problem of living.

J.Krishnamurti, OJAI 2ND PUBLIC TALK 2ND JUNE, 1940

You must eradicate in yourself the causes of enmity

You cannot have peace in the world except through peaceful means. You must eradicate in yourself the causes of enmity by right and intelligent means, by right thinking. Self-knowledge cultivates right thinking. But as most of us are ignorant of ourselves and as our thinking-feeling is self-contradictory, our thought is non-existent. So we are led, driven and made to accept. Through constant awareness of every thought-feeling the ways of the self are known, and out of self-knowledge comes right thinking. Right thinking will create the right means for a sane and peaceful world.

J.Krishnamurti, OJAI 9TH PUBLIC TALK 9TH JULY, 1944

Can the mind ever find peace?

Can the mind ever find peace? Is not the mind itself a source of disturbance? The mind can only gather, accumulate, deny, assert, remember and pursue. Is peace - which is so essential because without peace you cannot live, you cannot create - something to be realized through the struggles, through the denials, through the sacrifices of the mind? Do you understand what I am talking about? As we grow older, unless we are very wise and watchful, though we may be discontented while we are young, that discontent will be canalized into some form of peaceful resignation to life. The mind is everlastingly seeking somewhere to create a secluded habit, belief, desire, in which it can live and be peaceful with the world. But the mind cannot find peace, because the mind can only think in terms of time - as the past, the present and the future, what it has been, what it is, and what it will be - condemning, judging, weighing, pursuing its own vanities, habits, beliefs. The mind can never be peaceful though it can delude itself into some kind of peace, but that is not peace. It can mesmerize itself with words by the repetition of phrases by merely following somebody, by knowledge; but such a mind is not a peaceful mind, because the mind is itself the centre of attraction; the mind is by its very nature the essence of time. So, the mind with which you think, with which you calculate, with which you contrive, with which you compare, such a mind is incapable of finding peace.

J.Krishnamurti, RAJGHAT 17TH TALK, 29TH DECEMBER 1952

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