Page 220 - JOURNAL OF THE KRISHNAMURTI SCHOOLS

Examine it, look at it. Goodness is not the pur-
suit of conformity. If you conform to a belief, to
a concept, to an idea, to a principle, that is not
good, because it creates conflict. Goodness can-
not flower through another, through a religious
figure, through dogma, through belief; it can only
flower in the soil of total attention in which there
is no authority. The essence of goodness is a mind
that is not in conflict. And goodness implies great
responsibility. You can’t be good and allow wars to
take place. So a person who is really good is totally
responsible for his whole life.
We are asking if one who has lived in a soci-
ety with the pressures of institutions, of beliefs,
of authoritarian religious people, can be good,
because it is only if you are good, if you, as a human
being, are totally and absolutely good—absolutely,
not partially—that we will create a different soci-
ety. Is it possible, living in this world, being mar-
ried, with children, jobs, to be good? We are using
the word in the sense that implies great respon-
sibility, care, attention, diligence, love. The word
good contains all that. Is that possible for you who
care to listen? …
What prevents every human being from being
utterly good? What is the barrier? What is the
block? Why don’t human beings—you—be utterly,
sanely good? One who observes realizes what the
world is and that he is the world, that the world
is not different from him, that he has created that
world, that he has created society, that he has cre-
ated the religions with their innumerable dogmas,