I read the news today

We listen to the news and we are outwardly appalled. We shake our heads in disbelief and wring our hands as if to say what can I, the individual, do about it all.

What is the answer we ask ourselves to the horror we are told about going on all around us most of the time. I, the individual am not powerful or strong enough to do anything alone so we join a group, an organisation, an instiutution that will have a leader, a team dedicated to promoting their ideas. They may be saying "end slavery", "eradicate poverty" and other worthy objectives but do they see that they are perpetuating these global problems with their comfortable life styles, cheap imports of food and goods?

Why do we think the solution to our problems lie elsewhere? Surely our selfishness, greed, escapism, nationalism, desire for security need to be understood before real change can take place. Our need for gratification and complements, our pursuit of recognition from authority, our craving to be liked and loved by people in our 'group' lead us into constant conflict and compromise whilst we still have so little understanding of ourselves.

We have made society the way it is by our activities yet we want it to change to our ways so we cointinue to feel safe and comfortable; a place where we can escape from our fears and insecurities.

Are we capable of seeing the whole picture, of all the human misery created by us, the humans, or can we only try and fix our own tiny self-centered corner of existence disregarding the fundamental personal change required?

Before action can be taken, that understands and is truly intelligent, don't we have to be aware of our background and beliefs and the society which we support for our own reasons of security and comfort?

We want change without moving from our comfort zones so we continue to support the status quo even when we think we are doing something different and continue to shake our heads and wring our hands saying what can I do about all the hatred in the world.

Here  are some reflections from J Krishnamurti’s writings and talks. Many of these can be found on the internet if you want to understand more:

“Ignorance is the lack of self awareness; and knowledge is ignorance when there is no understanding of the ways of the self.”

“What is important is to understand desire and not to overcome one desire with another.”

“It is difficult to recognise an illusion for, having created it, the mind cannot be aware of it.”

“Experience is not an approach to truth; there is no ‘your experience’ or ‘my experience’, but only the intelligent understanding of the problem.”

“The problem is the important thing and not the answer”.

“Thought can never penetrate into the unknown; it must cease for the unknown to be. The action of the unknown is beyond the action of thought.”

“Respectability is a cloak for the hypocrite.”

“Whatever choice you make in the state of confusion can only lead to further confusion.”

“Understanding is of far greater importance than arriving at an end.”