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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti
1895 - 1986

 
Question: Why is there such fear of death?

Krishnamurti: All we know is the 'me', with its self-centred activities, and that is what we call life. Only that which comes to an end has a beginning; but we never come to an end. We never know a timeless moment, and so we are concerned about death. But timelessness is a state of mind; and as long as we are thinking in terms of time, there is death and the fear of death. 

 
 

 

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Editor’s prefatory comments:

Jiddu Krishnamurti has been an important teacher in my life. I began learning about the “true” and “false” selves about 15 years ago, and his insights served to inaugurate this vital area of enquiry.

He was the one to make clear that “guru” signifies merely “one who points,” not “infallible sage.” Pointing the way is what even the best teachers provide, but no more. One must walk the path of enlightenment alone, no one can do this for us.

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Public Talk 8, Bombay - 28 Mar 1956

excerpts

Question: Why is there such fear of death?

Krishnamurti: Now, what do we mean by living? Living is not merely going to the office, or passing examinations, or having children, or the everlasting struggle for bread and butter … All we know is the 'me', with its self-centred activities, and that is what we call life.

So we do not know what living is. We have divided living from dying, which shows that we have not understood the whole depth and width of life, in which death may be included. I think death is not something apart from life. It is only when we die every day to all the things we have gathered - to our knowledge, our experiences, to all our virtues - that we can live.

We do not live because we are continuing from yesterday, through today, to tomorrow. Surely, only that which comes to an end has a beginning; but we never come to an end. Again, this is not just poetical saying, so don't brush it aside. We have no beginning because we are not dying; we never know a timeless moment, and so we are concerned about death…

You see, sirs, timelessness is a state of mind; and as long as we are thinking in terms of time, there is death and the fear of death.

Timelessness is not to be glibly talked about, but to be directly experienced; and there can be no experiencing of timelessness as long as there is a continuity of [a psychological attachment to] all the things that one has gathered. So the mind must be free from all its accumulations [free from identification with all this], and only then is there the coming into being of the unknown.

What we are afraid of is letting go of the known; but a mind that is not dead to the known, free from the known, can never experience the extraordinary state of timelessness.

 

Editor's last word:

This talk of "beginning" and "end" is very much in line with a discourse in “The Gospel Of Thomas”; moreover, and noteworthy, the discussion there was also prompted by the fear of death.