Think on these things...

Krishnamurti on Sorrow

Self-pity is the root of sorrow

Sorrow is rooted in self-pity, and to understand sorrow there must first be a ruthless operation on all self-pity. I do not know if you have observed how sorry for yourself you become, for example, when you say, "I am lonely". The moment there is self-pity you have provided the soil in which sorrow takes root. However much you may justify your self-pity, rationalize it, polish it, cover it up with ideas, it is still there, festering deep within you. So a man who would understand sorrow must begin by being free of this brutal, self-centered, egotistic triviality which is self-pity. You may feel self-pity because you have a disease, or because you have lost someone by death, or because you have not fulfilled yourself and are therefore frustrated, dull; but whatever its cause, self-pity is the root of sorrow. And when once you are free of self-pity, you can look at sorrow without either worshipping it, or escaping from it, or giving it a sublime, spiritual significance, such as saying that you must suffer to find God-which is utter nonsense.

The Collected Works Vol.XIV, p 211

Attachment is one of the causes of sorrow

One of the causes of suffering is attachment. Being attached and finding it is painful, we try to cultivate detachment, which is another horror. Why is the mind attached? An attachment is a form of occupation for the mind. If I am attached to you, I am thinking about you, I am worrying about you. I am concerned about you in my self-centered way because I don't want to lose you, I don't want you to be free, I don't want you to do something which disturbs my attachment. In that attachment I feel somewhat secure. So in attachment there is fear, jealousy, anxiety, suffering. Now, just look at it. Don't say, "What am I to do?" You can't do anything. If you try to do something about your attachment, then you are trying to create another form of attachment. Right? So just observe it. When you are attached to a person or an idea, you dominate that person, you want to control that person, you deny freedom to that person. When you are attached, you are denying freedom altogether. If I am attached to a communist ideal, then I bring destruction to others. If the mind sees that loneliness, attachment, is one of the causes of sorrow, is it possible for the mind to be free of attachment?

Talks in Saanen 1974, pp 49-50

There is sorrow in your own house, if you look deeply.

If you walk down the road, you will see the splendour of nature, the extraordinary beauty of the green fields and the open skies, and you will hear the laughter of children. But in spite of all that, there is a sense of sorrow. There is the anguish of a woman bearing a child; there is sorrow in death; there is sorrow when you are looking forward to something, and it does not happen; there is sorrow when a nation runs down, goes to seed; and there is the sorrow of corruption, not only in the collective but also in the individual. There is sorrow in your own house, if you look deeply-the sorrow of not being able to fulfill, the sorrow of your own pettiness or incapacity, and various unconscious sorrows.

The Collected Works Vol.XI, p 284

A mind that is suffering becomes insensitive.

A mind that is suffering obviously becomes insensitive because suffering is its occupation; the mind uses suffering as a means for its own protection. My son dies, or my husband dies, and I am left alone; I have no companion, and I feel my life has been blotted out. So I keep on suffering, and my mind is not concerned with freedom from suffering, but I make suffering into another means of my existence. The mind uses suffering, as it uses joy, to enrich itself because the mind thinks that without being occupied it is poor, it is empty, dull. This very occupation of the mind creates its own destruction. Sorrow is not a thing to be occupied with, any more than joy. The mind must understand why there is sorrow, and not keep on being occupied with sorrow. The mind wants security, whether it is in suffering or in joy. So sorrow becomes the way of security. This is not a harsh thing I am saying; for, if you think about it, if you look into it, you will see how the mind plays a trick on itself. It is only the unoccupied mind that is intelligent, that is sensitive.

The Collected Works Vol.VIII, pp 104-105

Can you look at your own sorrow with complete silence?

There is the enormous fact of sorrow which man has never been able to go beyond; he may escape from it through drink, through all the various forms of escapes, but that is not going beyond it, that is avoiding it. Now, there is the fact-as the fact of death, as the fact of time-can you look at it with complete silence? Can you look at your own sorrow with complete silence; not that the thing is so great, or such magnitude, of such complexity that it forces you to be quiet, but the other way round; can you look at it, knowing the magnitude, knowing how extraordinarily complex life and living and death are? Can you look at it completely objectively and silently? I think that is the way out. I use the words "I think" hesitatingly, but really that is the only way out.

Talks & Dialogues, Saanen 1968, pp 81-82

Sorrow is something that has to be embraced, lived with, understood.

Sorrow is not to be ended by the action of will. Do please understand this. You cannot "get rid" of it. Sorrow is something that has to be embraced, lived with, understood; one has to become intimate with sorrow. But you are not intimate with sorrow, are you? You may say, "I know sorrow", but do you? Have you lived with it? Or, having felt sorrow, have you run away from it? Actually, you do not know sorrow. The running away is what you know. You know only the escape from sorrow. Just as love is not a thing to be cultivated, to be acquired through discipline, so sorrow is not to be ended through any form of escape, through ceremonies or symbols, through the social work of the "do-gooders", through nationalism, or through any of the ugly things that man has invented. Sorrow has to be understood, and understanding is not of time.

The Collected Works Vol.XI, p 287

Meditation is the ending of sorrow

Meditation is the ending of sorrow, the ending of thought which breeds fear and sorrow-the fear and sorrow in daily life, when you are married, when you go to business. In business you must use your technological knowledge, but when that knowledge is used for psychological purposes-to become more powerful, occupy a position that gives you prestige, honour, fame-it breeds only antagonism, hatred; such a mind can never possibly understand what truth is. Meditation is the understanding of the way of life, it is the understanding of sorrow and fear-and going beyond them.

Talks & Dialogues, Saanen 1968, p 94

A sane, healthy mind must understand suffering, and be utterly free from it.

Suffering perverts and distorts the mind. Suffering is not the way of truth, to reality, to God, or whatever name you like to give it. We have tried to ennoble suffering, saying it is inevitable, it is necessary, it brings understanding, and all the rest of it. But the truth is that the more intensely you suffer, the more eager you are to escape, to create an illusion, to find a way out. So it seems to me that a sane, healthy mind must understand suffering, and be utterly free from it. And it is possible.

The Collected Works Vol.XII, p 176

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