Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Relationship

• Do what you will, withdraw to the mountains, sit in a forest, you cannot live in isolation. You can live only in relationship, and as long as relationship is not understood, there can be no right action. Right action comes in understanding relationship, which reveals the process of oneself. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, it is a field of affection, warmth, and love, therefore a field rich with flowers.
   
• Relationship, surely, is the mirror in which you discover yourself. Without relationship you are not; to be is to be related; to be related is existence. And you exist only in relationship; otherwise, you do not exist, existence has no meaning. It is not because you think you are that you come into existence. You exist because you are related, and it is the lack of understanding of relationship that causes conflict.
   
• Without relationship, there is no existence; to be is to be related. If I merely use relationship without understanding myself, I increase the mess and contribute to further confusion. Most of us do not seem to realize this - that the world is my relationship with others, whether one or many. My problem is that of relationship. What I am, that I project; and obviously, if I do not understand myself, the whole of relationship is one of confusion in ever-widening circles.
   
• We use relationship as a means of self-forgetfulness, and as long as relationship does not show us what we actually are, we are satisfied. That is why we accept the domination of another. When my wife or husband dominates me, it does not reveal what I am but is a source of gratification. If my wife does not dominate me, if she is indifferent and I discover what I really am, it is very disturbing. What am I? I am an empty, dour, sloppy being with certain appetites - and I am afraid to face all that emptiness. Therefore I accept the domination of my wife or husband because it makes me feel very close to him or to her, and I do not want to see myself as I am.
   
• Life is relationship with things, people, and ideas; and if we do not meet these relationships rightly, fully, then conflicts arise from the impact of the challenge.
   
• That capacity to understand life comes into being only when one understands relationship. Relationship is a mirror. It must reflect, not as one wishes oneself to be, ideally or romantically, but what one actually is, and it is very difficult to perceive oneself as one actually is because one is so accustomed to escaping from what is; it is arduous to perceive, to observe silently what is, because one is so used to condemning, justifying, comparing, identifying. And in that process of justification, condemnation, that which is, is not understood. Only in the understanding of what is is there freedom from what is.
   
• So, life has problems and conflicts and miseries only when you use relationship as a means of becoming, that is, when you gratify yourself through relationship. When I use another, or when I use property or an idea as a means of self-expansion, which is the perpetuation of gratification, then life becomes a series of ceaseless conflicts and miseries. It is only when I understand relationship - which is the beginning of self-knowledge - that self-knowledge brings about right thinking with regard to what is; and it is right thinking that dissolves our problems - not the gurus, not the heroes, not the mahatmas, not the literature, but the capacity to see what is and not escape from what is.
   
• Since we surround ourselves with inaction, with escape, with ideals, we are running away from what is, which is relationship; but it is only in that relationship that we see ourselves clearly as we are. The more you go into what is, the more you see the deeper layers of consciousness, that is, life at different levels.
   
• A man who seeks to avoid the world is still related; he is running away from conflict and not understanding it. In relationship, which is activity between you and another, the ways of the self are revealed.
   
• To understand our human problems there must be love. Mere legislation cannot bring about the tender intelligence which brings understanding in relationship.
   
• The relationship of utility is based on violence; the family as a means of mutual inward security makes for conflict and confusion.
   
• Love alone can bring about a radical revolution or transformation in relationship; and love is not a thing of the mind. Thought can plan and formulate magnificent structures of hope, but thought will only lead to further conflict, confusion and misery. Love is when the cunning, self-enclosing mind is not.
   
• Conflict and confusion result from our own wrong relationship with people, things and ideas, and until we understand that relationship and alter it, mere learning, the gathering of facts and the acquiring of various skills, can only lead us to engulfing chaos and destruction.
   
• In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them, we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.
   
• Religious education in the true sense is to encourage the child to understand his own relationship to people, to things and to nature. There is no existence without relationship; and without self-knowledge, all relationship, with the one and with the many, brings conflict and sorrow. Of course, to explain this fully to a child is impossible; but if the educator and the parents deeply grasp the full significance of relationship, then by their attitude, conduct and speech they will surely be able to convey to the child, without too many words and explanations, the meaning of a spiritual life.