To understand ourselves we need a great deal of humility

To understand ourselves we need a great deal of humility. If you start by saying, “I know myself,” you have already stopped learning about yourself; or if you say, “There is nothing much to learn about myself because I am just a bundle of memories, ideas, experiences, and traditions,” then you have also stopped learning about yourself.   

TOTAL FREEDOM: The Essential Krishnamurti

To understand anything you must live with it, you must observe it; you must know all its content, its nature, its structure, its movement. Have you ever tried living with yourself? If so, you will begin to see that yourself is not a static state, it is a fresh living thing. And to live with a living thing your mind must also be alive. And it cannot be alive if it is caught in opinions, judgments, and values.

In order to observe the movement of your own mind and heart, of your whole being, you must have a free mind, not a mind that agrees and disagrees, taking sides in an argument, disputing over mere words but rather, following with an intention to understand—a very difficult thing to do because most of us don’t know how to look at, or listen to, our own being any more than we know how to look at the beauty of a river or listen to the breeze among the trees.

When we condemn or justify we cannot see clearly, nor can we when our minds are endlessly chattering; then we do not observe what is, we look only at the projections we have made of ourselves. Each of us has an image of what we think we are or what we should be, and that image, that picture, entirely prevents us from seeing ourselves as we actually are.

J. Krishnamurti

Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti by Krishnamurti Foundation of America and Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd.