U. G. Krishnamurti is one of those unique individuals who urges us to see through cultural trances, belief systems and limitations—all the way to who we really are.

You may never have heard of him. But as you read these quotes you will be glad you did.

Each quote is like a seed, it contains tremendous potential, but takes a bit of time to grow. As it grows it reminds us that we are naturally enlightened. Who we are is already perfect, and searching just leads us away from ourselves.

As tempted as I am to comment on these quotes: I won’t. I have found that reading one several times a day broadens and deepens my perspective allowing me to see with new eyes.

Tomorrow read a different one, heck, discuss them with friends and lovers to make them better friends and better lovers.

Problems

“The plain fact is that if you don’t have a problem, you create one. If you don’t have a problem you don’t feel that you are living.”

Solutions

It [thought] is a mechanical thing and can solve only mechanical problems. But you want to use it to understand something living; that is the problem. It is not intended for that. Human problems are something living. You cannot use thinking to solve those problems.

Thinking

“You think when you don’t want to do anything. Thinking is a poor alternative to acting. Your thinking is consuming all your energy. Act, don’t think!

We have become great fans of thinking, perhaps mostly because we think so much, we have identified with our thoughts. But we aren’t our thoughts, and our thoughts are a skinny reflection of life. They offer us a menu of what was being served yesterday or the moment before. They rob you of your naturalness and offer instead an illusion that appears to be of your choosing.”

Needs

“Food, clothing and shelter—these are the basic needs. Beyond that, if you want anything, it is the beginning of self-deception.”

Freedom

“My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody.”

Intelligence

“To be yourself requires extraordinary intelligence. You are blessed with that intelligence; nobody need give it to you; nobody can take it away from you. He who lets that express itself in its own way is a ‘Natural Man.'”

Truth

“There is no such thing as truth. The only thing that is actually there is your ‘logically’ ascertained premise, which you call ‘truth.'”

Personal evolution

“There has been no qualitative change in man’s thinking; we feel about our neighbors just as the frightened caveman felt towards his. The only thing that has changed is our ability to destroy our neighbor and his property.”

Thought

“Thought can never capture the movement of life, it is much too slow.”

Culture

“Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is grotesque.

Society or culture or whatever you might want to call it, has created us all solely and wholly for the purpose of maintaining its continuity and status quo.”

Searching

“It is very difficult to understand that all that you are doing is the impediment, is the one thing that is disturbing the harmony, the peace that is already there.”

Courage to be yourself

“You can have the courage to climb the mountain, swim the lakes, go on a raft to the other side of the Atlantic or Pacific. That any fool can do, but the courage to be on your own, to stand on your two solid feet, is something which cannot be given by somebody.”

Rationality

“I am not anti-rational, just unrational. You may infer a rational meaning in what I say or do, but it is your doing, not mine.”

Reproduction

“Nature is interested in only two things—to survive and to reproduce one like itself. Anything you superimpose on that, all the cultural input, is responsible for the boredom of man.”

Your body

“No talent is required to reproduce. Nature has done a tremendous job in creating this extraordinary piece—the body. The body does not want to learn anything from culture. It doesn’t want to know anything from us. We are always interested in telling this body how to function. All our experiences, spiritual or otherwise, are the basic cause of our suffering. The body is not interested in your bliss or your ecstasies. It is not interested in your pleasure. It is not in interested in anything that you are interested in. And that is the battle that is going on all the time. But there seems to be no way out.”

Seeking

“Seeking strengthens separation.”

Suffering

“Political institutions and ideologies are the warty outgrowth of the religious thinking of the man; in a way responsible for the tragedy of mankind. We are slaves to our ideas and beliefs, and we torture ourselves in the hope of achieving something. All our experience, spiritual or otherwise, is the basic cause of our suffering…”

Separation and connection

“Thought creates frontiers everywhere. That’s all it can do…. It is thought that has created the world; and you draw lines on this planet, ‘This is my country, that is your country.’ So how can there be unity between two countries? The very thing that is creating the frontiers and differences cannot be the means to bridge the different viewpoints. It is an exercise in futility.”

Reality

“You invent your reality.”

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Relephant bonus:

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Author: Jerry Stocking

Editor: Travis May