The Book of Life

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The story of mankind is in you, the vast experience, the deep-rooted fears, anxieties, sorrow, pleasure and all the beliefs that man has accumulated throughout the millennia. You are that book.

Inspired by Krishnamurti's perception that truth is found through life itself, and not away from it, The Book of Life presents 365 quotations from his talks and writings, one for each day of the year. These timeless daily meditations, developed thematically over seven days, shed brilliant light on the problems of our daily life as well as on the illusions that we get into in the process of either solving them or looking outside of ourselves for a state of happiness and enlightenment.

J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986) is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers and religious teachers of all time. For more than sixty years he travelled the world over, giving talks and holding dialogues, not as a guru but as a friend. His teachings are not based on book knowledge and theories, and therefore they communicate directly to anyone seeking answers to the present world crisis as well as to the eternal problems of human existence.

THIS BOOK WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1995 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc., USA. Some of the quota- tions in the book were taken from the interviews that Krishnamurti had held with various people during the Second World War (1939-1945), and these were referred to, in the source notes, as 'JKI-Krishnamurti Interviews Later, in 2014, these unpublished materials were brought out under the title The World Within: You are the Story of Humanity, and the source notes for these quotes have been changed accordingly, in this second, revised edition of The Book of Life, published by Krishnamurti Foundation India in 2021.

IN 1934 KRISHNAMURTI SAID. 'Why do you want to be students of books instead of students of life? Find out what is true and false in your environment with all its oppressions and its cruelties, and then you will find out what is true. Repeatedly he pointed out that the 'book of life, which is ever changing with a vitality that cannot be held in thought, was the only one worth reading. all others being filled with second-hand information. The story of mankind is in you, the vast experience, the deep-rooted fears, anxieties, sorrow, pleasure, and all the beliefs that man has accumulated throughout the millennia. You are that book.'

The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti is arranged in an order somewhat replicating the way Krishnamurti delivered his talks. He usually began with the importance of listening, and the relationship between the speaker and the audience, and ended with subjects that naturally emerge when life is in order and the greater depth begins to surface into consciousness. Many themes recurred throughout his teachings. His vision was the whole broad observation of the human condition wherein every aspect of life is interconnected. The Book of Life presents passages on a new theme for every week of the year with each topic developed over seven days. These quotations are identified by their sources. Readers who are interested in exploring specific themes in greater depth are invited to go to the full texts of the books from which they are excerpted.

Krishnamurti began speaking publicly in 1929 with a voice that Aldous Huxley described as having 'intrinsic authority'. His powerful exploration of the nature of truth and freedom has resulted in millions of copies of his talks and dialogues being published and translated into more than fifty languages.

Krishnamurti, although shy and retiring, tirelessly gave thousands of talks, delivered without notes or prepa- ration, essentially unfolding one theme-truth can be discovered by anyone, without the help of any authority and, as life is ever-present, in an instant. His talks span the whole range of personal and social conflict and concern. When asked by someone attending one of his talks why he spoke and what he wanted to accomplish, he replied: 'I want to tell you something, perhaps the way to find out what is reality-not the way as a system, but how to set about it. And if you can find this for yourself, there will not be one speaker, there will be all of us talking, all of us expressing that reality in ourselves where we are. Truth cannot be accumulated. What is accumulated is always being destroyed; it withers away. Truth can never wither because it can only be found from moment to moment in every thought, in every relationship, in every word, in every gesture, in a smile, in tears. And if you and I can find that and live it-the very living is the finding of it-then we shall not become propagandists, we shall be creative human beings- not perfect human beings, but creative human beings, which is vastly different. And that, I think, is why I am talking, and perhaps that is why you are here listening.'

Often, when he was asked a question, Krishnamurti responded, 'Let us find out what we mean by.. thus examining the question and opening it up for inquiry rather than immediately giving an answer. For him, probing a question or problem fuelled that inquiry rather than simply following a logical and intellectual search for an answer. The extracts in this book are presented to the reader as questions that might have been posed without a prompt from the reader for an immediate answer.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages