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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti
1895 - 1986

There is no such thing as a law of cause and effect, no such thing as karma. In the interval between effect and cause there will be time. In that time there has been a tremendous lot of change and therefore the effect is never the same in all cases. And the effect is going to produce another cause which will never be merely the result of the effect. There is no cause, isolated, which produces an effect; they are interrelated. Sow a mango seed and it is bound to produce a mango tree - but the human mind is not like that. The mind is capable of immediate transformation within itself.

 
 

 

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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 7, Madras - 12 Nov 1958

excerpts

When you say you want to be happy, you want Truth, God, to create a different world, it is always in terms of the positive, which is to follow a system that will produce the desired result, and the result is always the known and it becomes again the cause.

no such thing as a law of cause and effect or karma, as the mind is capable of immediate transformation 

Cause and effect are not two different things. The effect of today will be the cause of tomorrow. There is no cause, isolated, which produces an effect; they are interrelated.

There is no such thing as a law of cause and effect, which means that there is really no such thing as what we call karma.

To us, karma means a result with a previous cause, but in the interval between the effect and the cause there has been time.

In that time there has been a tremendous lot of change and therefore the effect is never the same. And the effect is going to produce another cause which will never be merely the result of the effect.

Do not say, `I do not believe in karma', that is not the point at all. Karma means, very simply, action and the result, with its further cause.

Sow a mango seed and it is bound to produce a mango tree - but the human mind is not like that.

The human mind is capable of transformation within itself, immediate comprehension, which is a breaking away from the cause, always.

 

Editor's last word:

Analogies are not proof. Sowing and reaping applies to seeds and harvests, but the mind is not an agricultural field.

Over the years, very often, scattered over many articles, I have stated that real transformative change comes to us in “one moment of cosmic clarity,” not 100,000 reincarnational lives.

In a small way, with creativity’s discontinuous insights, most of us have experienced the mind’s capacity for transformation. But the mind’s greatest achievement will be the instantaneous refashioning of itself.

The mind has the power to transform itself instantly. It can break away from any purported “cause.”

Concerning how this occurs, see a path forward discussed in many of the Krishnmurti lectures.

Also see the article on David Hume’s thoughts on the bogus idea of causation.