Our body, our feelings, our thoughts

"To understand ourselves requires objective, kindly, dispassionate study of ourselves, ourselves being the organism as a whole -our body, our feelings, our thoughts. They are not separate, they are interrelated. It is only when we understand the organism as a whole that we can go beyond and discover still further, greater, vaster things. But without this primary understanding, without laying right foundation for right thinking, we cannot proceed to greater heights." - J.K.

A particular corner of the vast field of life

"And what is yourself, the individual you? I think there is a difference between the human being and the individual. The individual is a local entity, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular culture, particular society, particular religion. The human being is not a local entity. He is everywhere. If the individual merely acts in a particular corner of the vast field of life, then his action is totally unrelated to the whole. So one has to bear in mind that we are talking of the whole not the part, because in the greater the lesser is, but in the lesser the greater is not. The individual is the little conditioned, miserable, frustrated entity, satisfied with his little gods and his little traditions, whereas a human being is concerned with the total welfare, the total misery and total confusion of the world." - J.K

A man who says I know is the most destructive human being

"A man who says 'I know' is the most destructive human being because he really does not know. What does he know? So when you are conscious you are transformed, when you are aware that you are transformed, you are not." - J.K

The beauty of listening

"The beauty of listening lies in being highly sensitive to everything about you: to the ugliness, to the dirt, to the squalor, to the poverty about you, and also to the dirt, to the disorder, to the poverty of one's own being. When you are aware of both, then there is no effort, that is, when there is an awareness which is without choice, then there is no effort." - J.K

The very fact of being aware of what is is truth

"It is extremely difficult to b aware of dullness, to be aware of greed, to be aware of ill-will, ambition, and so on. The very fact of being aware of 'what is' is truth. It is truth that liberates, not your striving to be free. Thus, reality is not far, but we place it far away because we try to use it as a means of self-continuity. It is here, now, in the immediate. The eternal or the timeless is now and the now cannot be understood by a man who is caught in the net of time. To free thought from time demands action, but the mind is lazy, it is slothful, and therefore ever creates other hindrances.It is only possible by right meditation, which means complete action not a continuous action, and complete action can only be understood when the mind comprehends the process of continuity, which is memory - not the factual but the psychological memory. As long as memory functions, the mind cannot understand 'what is'. But one's mind, one's whole being, becomes extraordinarily creative, passively alert, when one understands the significance of ending, because in ending there is renewal, while in continuity there is death, there is decay. The very fact of being aware of 'what is' is truth. The timeless is now and the now cannot be understood. The mind cannot understand what is." - J.K

It is only when there is friction that there is noise

"Meditation is to find out whether the brain, with all the activities, all its experiences, can be absolutely quiet. Not forced, because the moment you force, there is duality. The entity that says, 'I would like to have marvelous experiences, therefore I must force my brain to be quiet,' will never do it. But if you begin to inquire, observe, listen to all the movements of thought, its conditioning, its pursuits, its fears, its pleasures, watch how the brain operates, then you will see that the brain becomes extraordinarily quiet; that quietness is not sleep but is tremendously active and therefore quiet. A big dynamo that is working perfectly hardly makes a sound; it is only when there is friction that there is noise." - J.K

Is there thought without the word?

Questioner: Can there be thinking without memory? Krishnamurti: "In other words, is there thought without the word? You know, it is very interesting, if you go into it. Is the speaker using thought? Thought, as the word, is necessary for communication, is it not? The speaker has to use words, English words, to communicate with you who understand English. And the words come out of memory, obviously. But what is the source, what is behind the word? Let me put it differently. There is a drum; it gives out a tone. When the skin is tightly stretched at the right tension, you strike it, and it gives out the right tone, which you may recognize. The drum, which is empty, in right tension, is as your own mind can be. When there is right attention and you ask the right question, then it gives the right answer. The answer may be in terms of the word, the recognizable, but that which comes out of that emptiness is, surely, creation. The thing that is created out of knowledge is mechanical, but the thing which comes out of emptiness, out of the unknown, that is the state of creation." - J. Krishnamurti

If you can really understand this, then the seed of that radical revolution has already been planted

"Change comes into being when there is no fear, when there is neither the experiencer nor the experience; it is only then that there is the revolution which is beyond time. But that cannot be as long as I am trying to change the 'I', as long as I am trying to change what is into something else. I am the result of all the social and the spiritual compulsions, persuasions, and all the conditioning based on acquisitiveness -my thinking is based on that. To be free from that conditioning, from that acquisitiveness, I say to myself, 'I must not be acquisitive; I must practice nonacquisitiveness.' But such action is still within the field of time, it is still the activity of the mind. Just see that. Don't say, 'How am I to get to that state when I am nonacquisitive?' That is not important. It is not important to be nonacquisitive; what is important is to understand that the mind which is trying to get away from one state to another is still functioning within the field of time, and therefore there is no revolution, there is no change. If you can really understand this, then the seed of that radical revolution has already been planted and that will operate: you have not a thing to do." - J. Krishnamurti, Collected Works, Vol. VIII,163,Choiceless Awareness

Why Change?

"Man has lived for two million years or more, but he has not solved the problem of sorrow. He is always sorrow-ridden: he has sorrow as his shadow or as his companion. Sorrow of losing somebody; sorrow in not being able to fulfill his ambitions, his greed, his energy; sorrow of physical pain; sorrow of psychological anxiety; sorrow of guilt; sorrow of hope and despair - that has been the lot of man; that has been the lot of every human being. And he has always tried to solve this problem - to end sorrow within the field of consciousness, by trying to avoid it, by running away from sorrow, by suppressing it, by identifying himself with something greater than himself, by taking to drink, to women, by doing everything in order to avoid this anxiety, this pain, this despair, this immense loneliness and boredom of life - which is always within this field of consciousness, which is the result of time." - J. Krishnamurti, What Are You Doing with Your Life?

Freedom is at the beginning

"I think it is important to understand that freedom is at the beginning and not at the end. We think freedom is something to be achieved, that liberation is an ideal state of mind to be gradually attained through time, through various practices; but to me, this is a totally wrong approach. Freedom is not to be achieved; liberation is not a thing to be gained. Freedom, or liberation, is that state of mind which is essential for the discovery of any truth, any reality, therefore it cannot be an ideal; it must exist right from the beginning. Without freedom at the beginning, there can be no moments of direct understanding, because all thinking is then limited, conditioned. If your mind is tethered to any conclusion, to any experience, to any form of knowledge or belief, it is not free; and such a mind cannot possibly perceive what is truth." - J. Krishnamurti, Bombay 1st Public Talk 4th March 1956

Action Without Idea

"It is only when the mind is free from idea that there can be experiencing. Ideas are not truth; and truth is something that must be experienced directly, from moment to moment. It is not an experience which you want, which is then merely sensation. Only when one can go beyond the bundle of ideas, which is the 'me', which is the mind, which has a partial or complete continuity, only when one can go beyond that, when thought is completely silent, is there a state of experiencing. Then one shall know what truth is." - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

All Becoming Is Disintegration

"The mind has an idea, perhaps pleasurable, and it wants to be like that idea, which is a projection of your desire. You are this, which you do not like, and you want to become that, which you like. The ideal is a self-projection; the opposite is an extension of what is; it is not the opposite at all, but a continuity of what is, perhaps somewhat modified. The projection is self-willed, and conflict is the struggle towards the projection. You are struggling to become something, and that something is part of yourself. The ideal is your own projection. See how the mind has played a trick upon itself. You are struggling after words, pursuing your own projection, your own shadow. You are violent, and you are struggling to become nonviolent, the ideal; but the ideal is a projection of what is, only under a different name.When you are aware of this trick that you have played upon yourself, then the false as the false is seen. The struggle towards an illusion is the disintegrating factor. All conflict, all becoming is disintegration. When there is an awareness of this trick that the mind has played upon itself, then there is only what is. When the mind is stripped of all becoming, of all ideals, of all comparison and condemnation, when its own structure has collapsed, then the what is has undergone complete transformation. As long as there is the naming of what is, there is relationship between the mind and what is; but when this naming process - which is memory, the very structure of the mind -is not, then what is is not. In this transformation alone is there integration." - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Beyond the Noise of Words

"Listening is an art not easily come by, but in it there is beauty and great understanding. We listen with the various depths of our being, but our listening is always with a preconception or from a particular point of view. We do not listen simply; there is always the intervening screen of our own thoughts, conclusions, and prejudices. To listen there must be an inward quietness, a freedom from the strain of acquiring, a relaxed attention. This alert yet passive state is able to hear what is beyond the verbal conclusion. Words confuse; they are only the outward means of communication; but to commune beyond the noise of words, there must be in listening an alert passivity. Those who love may listen; but it is extremely rare to find a listener. Most of us are after results, achieving goals; we are forever overcoming and conquering, and so there is no listening. It is only in listening that one hears the song of the words." - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Die Every Day

"What is age? Is it the number of years you have lived? That is part of age; you were born in such and such a year, and now you are fifteen, forty or sixty years old. Your body grows old and so does your mind when it is burdened with all the experiences, miseries and weariness of life; and such a mind can never discover what is truth. The mind can discover only when it is young, fresh, innocent; but innocence is not a matter of age. It is not only the child that is innocent -he may not be- but the mind that is capable of experiencing without accumulating the residue of experience. The mind must experience, that is inevitable. It must respond to everything -to the river, to the diseased animal, to the dead body being carried away to be burnt, to the poor villagers carrying their burdens along the road, to the tortures and miseries of life- otherwise it is already dead; but it must be capable of responding without being held by the experience. It is tradition, the accumulation of experience, the ashes of memory, that make the mind old. The mind that dies every day to the memories of yesterday, to all the joys and sorrows of the past such a mind is fresh, innocent, it has no age; and without that innocence, whether you are ten or sixty, you will not find God." - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Knowledge Assumes Authority

"There is no movement of learning when there is the acquisition of knowledge; the two are incompatible, they are contradictory. The movement of learning implies a state in which the mind has no previous experience stored up as knowledge. Knowledge is acquired, whereas learning is a constant movement which is not an additive or acquisitive process; therefore, the movement of learning implies a state in which the mind has no authority. All knowledge assumes authority, and a mind that is entrenched in the authority of knowledge cannot possibly learn. The mind can learn only when the additive process has completely ceased.It is rather difficult for most of us to differentiate between learning and acquiring knowledge. Through experience, through reading, through listening, the mind accumulates knowledge; it is an acquisitive process, a process of adding to what is already known, and from this background of knowledge we function. Now, what we generally call learning is this very same process of acquiring new information and adding it to the store of knowledge we already have. But I am talking about something entirely different. By learning I do not mean adding to what you already know. You can learn only when there is no attachment to the past as knowledge, that is, when you see something new and do not translate it in terms of the known.The mind that is learning is an innocent mind, whereas the mind that is merely acquiring knowledge is old, stagnant, corrupted by the past. An innocent mind perceives instantly, it is learning all the time without accumulating, and such a mind alone is mature." - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Thinking Without the Thinker

"The monkey in the tree feels hungry, and then the urge arises to take a fruit or a nut. Action comes first, and then the idea that you had better store it up. To put it in different words, does action come first, or the actor? Is there an actor without action? Do you understand? This is what we are always asking ourselves: Who is it that sees? Who is the watcher? Is the thinker apart from his thoughts, the observer apart from the observed, the experiencer apart from the experience, the actor apart from the action? But if you really examine the process, very carefully, closely and intelligently, you will see that there is always action first, and that action with an end in view creates the actor. Do you follow? If action has an end in view, the gaining of that end brings about the actor. If you think very clearly and without prejudice, without conformity, without trying to convince somebody, without an end in view, in that very thinking there is no thinker, there is only the thinking. It is only when you seek an end in your thinking that you become important, and not thought. Perhaps some of you have observed this. It is really an important thing to find out, because from that we shall know how to act. If the thinker comes first, then the thinker is more important than thought, and all the philosophies, customs and activities of the present civilization are based on this assumption; but if thought comes first then thought is more important than the thinker."

- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

“For the total development of the human being, solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. One has to know what it means to be alone, what it is to meditate, what it is to die; and the implications of solitude, of meditation, of death, can be known only by seeking them out. These implications cannot be taught, they must be learnt. One can indicate, but learning by what is indicated is not the experiencing of solitude or meditation. To experience what is solitude and what is meditation, one must be in in a state of inquiry; only a mind that is in a state of inquiry is capable of learning. But when inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority and experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and imitation causes a human being to repeat what is learnt without experiencing it.”

— Life Ahead, Jiddu Krishnamurti

Nextgen management is the big challenge for IT companies

Managing the next generation of employees is the major challenge that human resources (HR) managers are going to face in the coming years, senior officials of information technology (IT) sector said here Wednesday.

"Pay hikes, bonus and designation do not largely matter but an appreciation in public for the work done carries more weight amongst the new generation. They work on the power of collaboration. Companies have to provide such collaborative tools. In fact performance appraisals have to be redesigned," R. Chandrasekaran, president and managing director of Cognizant Technology Solutions said at the two-day HR Summit 2010 organised by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) here.
According to Krishna Kumar Natarajan, CEO and MD, Mindtree, the 21-year-old fresh graduate looks at the work environment and not the big corporate names. At times, the whole work place has to be recreated, he said.
"If work is fun, people will spend more time at work and the productivity will increase," said Chandrasekaran.
Interestingly speakers at the summit considered the word HR bad and said terming humans as a productive resource or an asset is not right.
"At Mindtree we call it as People Function and not HR," said Natarajan.
Chandrasekaran said the top management should spend more time to build next generation of corporate leaders who will work across continents and manage a global workforce.
"We have failed to spend time with the nextgen. We should ponder whether we are open to imbibe the new technology of communication," remarked Aparup Sengupta, MD and Global CEO, Aegis Ltd.
According to the speakers, the top management has to change its mindset so that changes are there across the organisation.
Looking back at the actions taken by Indian IT companies to manage the recession, John Sullivan, CEO, Dr. John Sullivan & Associates of the US, said business cycles are getting faster and like engineering companies IT company HR managers too should do failure analysis.
He said instead of knee jerk reactions, HR managers should be alive to the precursors to bad times.
Source:- http://news.in.msn.com/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4208185&page=2

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