Superficial Existence - J. Krishnamurti

 Everywhere society is conditioning the individual, and this 
conditioning takes the form of self-improvement, which is
really the perpetuation of the 'me', the ego, in different forms.

Self-improvement may be gross, or it may be very, very
refined when it becomes the practice of virtue, goodness,
the so-called love of one's neighbor, but essentially it is the
continuance of the 'me', which is a product of the conditioning
influences of society.

All your endeavor has gone into becoming something [better],
either here, if you can make it, or if not, in another world; but
it is the same urge, the same drive to maintain and continue
 the self.

Being free of society implies not being ambitious, not being
covetous, not being competitive; it implies being nothing in
relation to that society which is striving to be something.

.....

As long as one wants to be part of this society, one must breed
insanity, wars, destruction, and misery; but to free oneself from
this society - the society of violence, of wealth, of position, of
success - requires patience, inquiry, and discovery...

.....

If one is capable of studying, watching oneself, one begins to
discover how cumulative memory is acting on everything
one sees; one is forever evaluating, discarding or accepting, 
condemning or justifying, so one's experience is always
within the field of the known, of the conditioned.

But without cumulative memory as a directive, most of us 
feel lost, we feel frightened, and so we are incapable of
observing ourselves as we are.

When there is the accumulative process, which is the cultivation

of memory, our observation of ourselves becomes very
superficial.  Memory is helpful in directing, improving oneself,
but in self-improvement there can never be a revolution, a 
radical transformation.  It is only when the sense of self -
improvement completely ceases, but not by volition, that there
is a possibility of something transcendental, something totally
new coming into being.

J. Krishnamurti

from talks given:
Aug. 7th - 28th, 1955

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering