Truth is a Pathless Land

J. Krishnamurti
406 words, 31K views, 2 comments

Truth is a pathless land.

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality. If an organization be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth.

Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organizations become your chief concern. "How many members are there in it?" That is the first question I am asked by all newspaper reporters. "How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false." I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. As I said, if there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough. [...]

I have now decided to disband [Order of the Star], as I happen to be its head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set man absolutely, unconditionally free.

--J. Krishnamurti

[ share/read comments ]

Add Your Reflection

2 Past Reflections

On Jun 12, 2006 Nipun wrote :

We had a spontaneous guest speaker, a Gandhian named Dr. Prasad: How people react depends on the mindset Basic problem in rural areas -- what do we live for? We're all responsible for each other Life based development, not death based development. If every villager has a cigarette, we can make money but is that progress? Exploitation has taken subtle forms -- advertisment, marketing Greed is the base of the problem -- we are creating more and more loss to society. Instead of creating wealth, our paradigm has come to grabbing maximum wealth. As Gandhi said, there is enough for everyone's need but not greed. Some notes from the roundtable: Are organization are useless? Not always. As organizations get larger, purity is lost. Organization can't lead to freedom ... it's not spirituality. El dorado by Edgar Allan Poe Truth -- there's no one truth; it's all true. But until we experience it, it's just a belief. It's not enough to hear somebody's truth. Words don... [View Full Comment] We had a spontaneous guest speaker, a Gandhian named Dr. Prasad:

How people react depends on the mindset
Basic problem in rural areas -- what do we live for?
We're all responsible for each other
Life based development, not death based development.
If every villager has a cigarette, we can make money but is that progress?
Exploitation has taken subtle forms -- advertisment, marketing
Greed is the base of the problem -- we are creating more and more loss to society.
Instead of creating wealth, our paradigm has come to grabbing maximum wealth. As Gandhi said, there is enough for everyone's need but not greed.

Some notes from the roundtable:

Are organization are useless? Not always.
As organizations get larger, purity is lost.
Organization can't lead to freedom ... it's not spirituality.
El dorado by Edgar Allan Poe
Truth -- there's no one truth; it's all true. But until we experience it, it's just a belief.
It's not enough to hear somebody's truth.
Words don't describe things as well as experiences.
Truth is one thing that manifests in different ways; love's opposite is hate, pleasure is pain, but Truth has no opposite.
To find one's blind beliefs, one should question oneself.
Is killing is a natural part of life or can it be avoided? What's the "truth"?
Krishnamurti's brother's death proved to be a pivotal experience for JK's journey to a "pathless" land.
Truth has to be internal and personal; that can't be organized; but for practical things, people should come together and cooperate
Be quiet for truth to rise; no longer a question of right or wrong
One life is the same as many lives
Don't lie, you gotta go to God, there's no means of transport and you gotta walk your way
Krishnamurti has a point but it's overstated.
Karen Armstrong.
What's the difference between religion and cult? "Religion is to help you discover yourself but a cult is to use your weakness to manipulate you."
Confucious: you can make someone follow your system, but can't make them believe in it
Just because you're an organization, doesn't mean all constituent understand what it stands for.
My grand uncle, Dr. V talks about institutions as temples; ultimately it doesn't belong to one person.
Idea of a belief being a personal thing didn't resonate -- I get comfort when others share same beliefs.
It's not the organization but the people that participate in it.
Being addicted to religion is better than being addicted to crack.
Organization can be very liberating if they're founded on the right principles.
How does an individual stand up for oneself in the face of fundamentalism? Organizations are often too strong.
Really, what's an organization? Three friends sitting and talking is organization?
Ultimately, each one has to walk their own path -- that's the crux of it.
If "truth is a pathless land" and there's no path, then where is it? It should be where you are.

[Hide Full Comment]

Truth is a Pathless Land

Add Your Reflection

2 Past Reflections

On Jun 12, 2006 Nipun wrote :

1 reply: Hareshwar | Post Your Reply