“The Book of Life” by Jiddu Krishnamurti has an entry for every day of the year. This blog has each daily entry plus commentary by the writer, Doug Hall.
May 5th ~ One can see that neither emotion nor sentiment has any place at all where love is concerned. Sentimentality and emotion are merely reactions of like or dislike. I like you and I get terribly enthusiastic about you–I like this place, oh, it is lovely and all the rest, which implies that I …
May 6th ~ What do we mean by emotion? Is it a sensation, a reaction, a response of the senses? Hate, devotion, the feeling of love or sympathy for another–they are all emotions. Some, like love and sympathy, we call positive, while others, like hate, we call negative and want to get rid of. Is …
May 7th ~ In the modern world where there are so many problems, one is apt to lose great feeling. I mean by that word feeling, not sentiment, not emotionalism, not mere excitement, but that quality of perception, the quality of hearing, listening, the quality of feeling, a bird singing on a tree, the movement …
May 8th ~ There is no feeling without thought; and behind thought is pleasure; so those things go together; pleasure, the word, the thought, the feeling; they are not separated. Observation without thought, without feeling, without word is energy. Energy is dissipated by word, association, thought, pleasure, and time; therefore, there is no energy to …
May 9th ~ What is feeling? Feeling is like thought. Feeling is a sensation. I see a flower and I respond to that flower; I like it or dislike it. The like or the dislike is dictated by my thought, and the thought is the response of the background of memory. So, I say, “I …
May 10th ~ When you observe a feeling, that feeling comes to an end. But even though the feeling comes to an end, if there is an observer, a spectator, a censor, a thinker who remains apart from the feeling, then there is still a contradiction. So it is very important to understand how we …
May 11th ~ Whether you are guided by your emotions or guided by your intellect, it leads to despair because it leads nowhere. But you realize that love is not pleasure, love is not desire. You know what pleasure is, sir? When you look at something or when you have a feeling, to think about …
May 12th ~ Is it possible to love without thinking? What do you mean by thinking? Thinking is a response to memories of pain or pleasure. There is no thinking without the residue which incomplete experience leaves. Love is different from emotion and feeling. Love cannot be brought into the field of thought; whereas feeling …
May 13th ~ What happens when you do not name? You look at an emotion, at a sensation, more directly and therefore have quite a different relationship to it, just as you have to a flower when you do not name it. You are forced to look at it anew. When you do not name …
May 14th ~ You never remain with any feeling, pure and simple, but always surround it with the paraphernalia of words. The word distorts it; thought, whirling round it, throws it into shadow, overpowers it with mountainous fears and longings. You never remain with a feeling and with nothing else: with hate, or with that …