When I awake,
like a scholar at his first class,
I prepare a blank mind for the day to write upon.
(The Silent
Flute)
Krishnamurti on authority
All
authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding,
is the most destructive, evil thing.
Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders.
You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple.
You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as
necessary.
Most of us want someone to tell us what to do.
We look for a direction in conduct, because our instinct is to be safe, not
to suffer more.
Someone is said to have realized happiness, bliss or what you will and we
hope that he will tell us what to do to arrive there.
That is what we want: we want that same happiness, that same inward
quietness, joy; and in this mad world of confusion we want someone to tell
us what to do.
One
of the results of
fear is the acceptance of authority in human affairs.
Authority is created by our desire to be right, to be secure, to be
comfortable, to have no conscious conflicts or disturbances; but nothing
which results from fear can help us understand our problems, even though
fear may take the form of respect and submission to the so-called wise.
The wise wield no authority, and those in authority are not wise.
Fear in whatever form prevents the understanding of ourselves and of our
relationship to all things.
(Krishnamurti)
Page created 18 January 1999