Reading the Jiddu Krishnamurti book, “Commentaries on Living” I believe I’m starting to understand his total philosophy. He believes that to become that which is not a product of that which we have lived in / experienced / trusted / learned/taken as fact we need to die to all that we ‘know’. We need to question in-depth and analyze that which we have come to ‘know’ over time during our lives. As we see reason for everything that we know coming back to our desires to be someone important/or to reach some goal or attain some higher knowledge we can drop the ‘known’ and start experiencing from a blank slate (real life) perspective. None of us is truly experiencing reality because we are products of what we have been raised in (society’s beliefs, needs, expectations, goals, morals, etc).
JK doesn’t believe that ‘searching’ for any goal whether it be higher knowledge, attainment of enlightenment, satori, etc is anything but selfish/greedy/desire just like those that are of the material world’s strivings. He believes that once we inquire into the depth of and the meaning of the many constructs/desires/dreams/hopes/etc. that men hold as truth we will begin to drop these ideas as unnecessary and untruth and will gradually achieve a blank slate in which the only knowledge will be knowledge of the present as it is occurring, not after it has occurred, nor in the prediction of occurrences. In this state is the only real living of life. All else is indoctrination of our beings thru society and not our true selves.
He contradicts himself: He says that to strive for any sort of enlightenment is greedy and selfish and of the same sort of goal driven behavior as the wealthy man who strives to achieve more wealth/status. Yet, the implication of his words which point us toward the analyzing and dropping of all learned knowledge so that we can experience life in it’s true fullness and splendidness is of the same sort of behavior. He also says that to use any traditional or disciplined method to achieve such a state is a striving and selfish. Yet, he is persuading thru logical reasoning that his technique is the one to be followed–because he argues against all other known techniques. If JK did not strive to increase his knowledge or to find truth in experience and life then he would have ceased his journey long ago.
Just some thoughts. He is VERY thought provoking.