Self-knowledge is a process

"So, to understand the innumerable problems that each one of us has, is it not essential that there be self-knowledge? And that is one of the most difficult things, self-awareness, which does not mean isolation, a withdrawal. Obviously, to know oneself is essential; but to know oneself does not imply a withdrawal from relationship. And it would be a mistake, surely, to think that one can know oneself significantly, completely, fully, through isolation, through exclusion, or by going to some psychologist, or to some priest; or that one can learn self-knowledge through a book. Self-knowledge is obviously a process, not an end in itself; to know oneself, one must be aware of oneself in action, which is relationship. You discover yourself, not in isolation, not in withdrawal, but in relationship to society, to your wife, your husband, your brother, to man; but to discover how you react, what your responses are, requires an extraordinary alertness of mind, a keenness of perception."

– J. Krishnamurti
London, 1st Public Talk, 2nd October 1949

Dialogue 10
San Diego, California, USA
February 22, 1974

Q: What is seeing? What is listening? What is learning?

Do we see actually or through a screen darkly, through a screen of prejudice, a screen of our experiences, wishes, pleasures, fears, between us and the object of perception? Do we ever see the thing at all?

Does the act of listening bring about complete freedom from all statements? Is the mind completely attentive? Then the mind is extraordinarily free to act. Then the seeing is doing.

I learn in order to gain reward or avoid punishment. I learn a particular job or craft to earn a livelihood. Is learning a process of accumulation? Is there any other kind of learning that is not accumulating, and acting from that?

Have we learned anything from sorrow? What is there to learn?

Public Talk 6
London 1961

Can the mind understand the limitations of imitation and conforming to a pattern?

Attention is not concentration.

In the very act of listening there is a revolution, a fundamental transformation.

A mind that sees the truth of something false or true is perceiving immediately, without any conflict, cause or after-results.

Q: How does one know whether one is seeing the whole volume or only a page?

What is the state of the mind that sees the whole?