Does Self-Knowledge Come Through Searching?

Does self-knowledge come through searching? - 16 July 1949
• What is it that most of us are seeking?
• Does clarity come through searching and trying to find out what others say?
• Can incessant search and longing give you the extraordinary sense of reality or creative being that comes when you really understand yourself?
• Without knowing your background and the substance of your thought, where it comes from, surely your search is utterly futile and your action has no meaning.
• The responsibility for any action depends on ourselves, not on others.
• Q: Do I have to be at any special level of consciousness to understand you?
• Q: The movement of life is experienced in relationship to people and to ideas?

J. KRISHNAMURTI (Jiddu Krishnamurti) (May 12, 1895–February 17, 1986) was a world renowned writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: the purpose of meditation, human relationships, the nature of the mind, and how to enact positive change in global society. Krishnamurti was born into a Telugu Brahmin family in what was then colonial India. In early adolescence, he had a chance encounter with prominent occultist and high-ranking theosophist C.W. Leadbeater in the grounds of the Theosophical Society headquarters at Adyar in Madras (now Chennai). He was subsequently raised under the tutelage of Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, leaders of the Society at the time, who believed him to be a "vehicle" for an expected World Teacher. As a young man, he disavowed this idea and dissolved the world-wide organization (the Order of the Star) established to support it. He claimed allegiance to no nationality, caste, religion, or philosophy, and spent the rest of his life traveling the world as an individual speaker, speaking to large and small groups, as well as with interested individuals. He authored a number of books, among them The First and Last Freedom, The Only Revolution, and Krishnamurti's Notebook.

In addition, a large collection of his talks and discussions have been published. At age 90, he addressed the United Nations on the subject of peace and awareness, and was awarded the 1984 UN Peace Medal. His last public talk was in Madras, India, in January 1986, a month before his death at home in Ojai, California. His supporters, working through several non-profit foundations, oversee a number of independent schools centered on his views on education– in India, England and the United States– and continue to transcribe and distribute many of his thousands of talks, group and individual discussions, and other writings, publishing them in a variety of formats including print, audio, video and digital formats as well as online, in many languages.