LET UNDERSTANDING BE THE LAW
3. It is said that with your coming, evolution is quickened in all beings and that the number of Initiates in the world will be rapidly increased. But you tell us that these stages on the Path are unessential and that Liberation may be attained at any stage of evolution.
KRISHNAMURTI: I say that liberation can be attained at any stage of evolution by a man who understands and that to worship stages, as you do, is not essential. As you have snobbery in the world, and pay reverence to aristocratic titles, so you have spiritual snobbery; there is not much difference between the two. So you must develop your understanding and your desire to attain and forget all the stages and the people who are at those stages. Of what value are they to you?
Because you lose sight of the goal of life, because you do not desire urgently, vitally and strongly to attain it, these stages, with their labels, catch you up and hold you in their bondage. You hold a toy in front of a child in order to encourage him to walk and the child who is wise does not worship the toy, because his desire is to walk. You are no longer children. And yet you are worshipping a toy. I tell you that life is much too serious to play with, and as I have said, the time has come when we must decide whether we are going to be like children who admire toys or grown-up men and women who will put aside all childish things in order to find the Truth. The finding and establishing of the Truth will depend on yourself and on no one else. If I were to destroy for you all your present crutches, you would invent others to satisfy your craving for support, you would invent other fantastic ideas. You will say that I do not believe in all these things. I neither believe nor disbelieve. To me they have very little value compared to the most precious jewel in the world, which is Life.
You can attain liberation at any stage of evolution if you have a burning desire to attain, if you have a longing to put aside the unessential things and to hold, with the grip of death, to the things that are vital, essential. And to establish that which is essential and vital, you must observe, you must be alive to all that is taking place around you. Life is a web spun out of the common events of the day and if you do not utilize them, you will miss the purpose of the small things, out of which great things are built.
LET UNDERSTANDING BE THE LAW
LET UNDERSTANDING BE THE LAW
Jiddu Krishnamurti, Let Understanding be the Law. The seventh International Camp of the Order of the Star.