Monday, April 6, 2015

If you have lots of time, how would you spend it ?

Student: If you have lots of time, how would you spend it, Sir?

Krishnamurti: I would do what I am doing.
You see, if you love what you are doing, then you have all the leisure that you need in your life.
Do you understand what I have said?

You asked me what I would do if I had leisure.
I said, I would do what I am doing; which is to go around different parts of the world, to talk, to see people and so on.
I do it because I love to do it; not because I talk to a great many people and feel that I am very important.
When you feel very important, you do not love what you are doing; you love yourself and not what you are doing.

So, your concern should be not with what I am doing, but with what you are going to do. Right?
I have told you what I am doing.
Now you tell me what you will do, when you have plenty of leisure.


Student: I would get bored, sir.

Krishnamurti: You would get bored.
Quite right.
That is what most people are.


Student: How do I get rid of this boredom, sir?

Krishnamurti: Wait, listen.
Most people are bored. Why?
You asked how to get rid of boredom.
Now find out.

When you are by yourself for half an hour, you are bored.
So you pick up a book, chatter, look at a magazine, go to a cinema, talk, do something.
You occupy your mind with something.
This is an escape from yourself.

You have asked a question. Now, pay attention to what is being said.
You get bored because you find yourself with yourself; and you have never found yourself with yourself.
Therefore, you get bored.
You say: Is that all I am?
I am so small, I am so worried; I want to escape from all that.
What you are is very boring, so you run away.

But if you say, I am not going to be bored; I am going to find out why I am like this; I want to see what I am like actually then it is like looking at yourself in a mirror.
There, you see very clearly what you are, what your face looks like.
Then you say that you do not like your face; that you must be beautiful, you must look like a cinema actress.
But if you were to look at yourself and say, "Yes, that is what I am; my nose is not very straight, my eyes are rather small, my hair is straight."
You accept it.
When you see what you are, there is no boredom.
Boredom comes in only when you reject what you see and want to be something else.

In the same way, when you can look at yourself inside and see exactly what you are, the seeing of it is not boring.
It is extraordinarily interesting, because the more you see of it, the more there is to see.
You can go deeper and deeper and wider and there is no end to it.
In that, there is no boredom.

If you can do that, then what you do is what you love to do, and when you love to do a thing, time does not exist.
When you love to plant trees, you water them, look after them, protect them; when you know what you really love to do, you will see the days are too short.
So you have to find out for yourself from now on, what you love to do; what you really want to do, not just be concerned with a career. 


~ From Krishnamurti On Education,
Talks to Students,
Chapter 8 - On Image-Making

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