The World Within

"Truth is not something that is mysterious; truth is where you are. From there you can begin. The truth is that I am angry, I am jealous, I am aggressive, I quarrel. That is a fact. So one must begin, if one may most respectfully point out, from where one is. That is why it is important to know yourself, to have complete knowledge of yourself, not from others, not from psychologists, brain specialists and so on, but to know what you are. Because, you are the story of mankind. If you know how to read that book which is yourself, then you know all the activities and brutalities and stupidities of mankind because you are the rest of the world." – J. Krishnamurti Reading the teachings of J. Krishnamurti, one is immediately struck by how personal the words are to one’s own thinking and what a close mirror they are of our human psychological activity. His language is not bound by time, place, or circumstance, and so readers in any era or on any continent can find themselves clearly and compassionately made plain. Krishnamurti’s heuristic approach was typical not only of his dialogues or interviews, but also of his public talks where an attendee in an audience of thousands felt in direct contact with the speaker. His language was simple, without jargon or without any assumptions about the audience by the speaker. Krishnamurti helped the interviewees, without intending to, to see for themselves the intricacies of their thinking and of their problems. During the Second World War (1939-1945) Krishnamurti did not speak publicly in the United States, but lived quietly in Ojai, California. People sought him out and came to dialogue with him on many issues of the times or their own personal dilemmas. Their problems were universal human problems, and each made true his statement that ‘You are the world.’ As Krishnamurti unwound the tight threads of their thinking and feeling, the core or source of a concern was revealed, unadorned and without blame or guilt. After the Second World War years, there was a set of three volumes of interviews with Krishnamurti that appeared worldwide, titled Commentaries on Living. This new book, The World Within, out of the Krishnamurti Archives, is a compendium of additional perennial questions with their timeless answers. The inquiry is still fresh, after seventy years, and readers will find themselves in both the questions and the responses.