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Summary: An inquiry into the nature of true freedom
Review: The book addresses the basic issue of perception with regard to knowledge, which is acquired through culture, religion and society as a whole. Krishnamurti turns to the nature of human fear, which arises from our social perceptions and offers his own insight. This book is an essential part of any Krishnamurti library.
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Summary: Beautiful, Profound... but Flawed
Review: The doctrine of Krishnamurti is filled with wisdom. Any student who seriously takes on the practical application of Krishnamurti's philosophy will change; and this is fundamental. One finds in his words a mixture of the best of Buddhism and the best of Western philosophy; so what could be missing?
Undoubtedly, Krishnamurti has affected millions of people, and inspired them to work on themselves in order to help themselves and society to move away from self-centered behavior and thought, which in turn generate suffering. Yet, for all his wisdom and obvious internal development, Krishnamurti was missing something.
When he was a young boy, he was discovered by a group of Theosophists, who immediately proclaimed that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. This created an enormous division in the Theosophical Society, and it eventually fractured into many groups. Why the division? Why the disagreement? And what effect did this have on the boy? (...)
In the end, Krishnamurti became deeply skeptical because of his experiences with the Theosophists. It required many years before he began his mission of teaching... but it was hampered by the trauma he suffered at the hands of the Theosophists.
The result? Krishnamurti never knew the full depth of the Mysteries. While he taught and explained the method to work with the mind, he did not know or teach the essential wisdom to create the soul. That is why his students continue in the same problems and same conflicts, and why he ended his days so frustrated and disappointed with humanity...
If any student of Krishnamurti were to combine his wisdom with the profound tools of Gnosis, they would quickly discover the practical means to a complete psychological revolution. As it is, students of Krishnamurti work to revolutionize their minds, but are only able to achieve a very shallow change. To truly change the nature of one's own mind, one has to appeal to a force that is beyond the mind...
Truly and sincerely, I hope that all serious students of Krishnamurti will investigate the transformative tools now available to all serious investigators of our inner state, and that they do not fall into fanaticism, believing that he taught them all there is to know.
For more information about Gnosis and the complete esoteric wisdom every practitioner of every religion and tradition requires, read The Perfect Matrimony, The Great Rebellion, and The Aquarian Message, among many others, all authored by Samael Aun Weor.
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Summary: the only essential thing in life
Review: This book and all other Krishnamurti's books are great. The
books cover everything deep down in the human psyche and life.
However, the teachings from Krishnamurti's books are very far away from what one can see actually happening in one's life.
That means Krishnamurti's teachings are extremely serious, so profound that one has to apply all one's energy and life to learn, to investigate, to observe infinitely without even knowing
where one is because the moment one knows one is back to the old.
It is not a book to read and rate but to read and apply to one's own life right to the end if one is really serious to find out if there is anything beyond the deeply sorrowful existence. One can say by reading Krishnamurti that one has got the right tool at hand, and the rest of one's life is to use that tool to find out
for oneself what is the truth in life.
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Summary: Stay with the known if you wish, but there is another place
Review: This book is about how it is possible to stop thinking about your problems, about your worries, about your concerns and about your preoccupations and start living. Therefore it is a totally radical kind of thing. It is something so new, so foreign, so alien to what has been offered to you previously in life that it demenda an entirely different kind of approach. To approach the new with something old is never to come upon the new, so to approach this book with any old preconceptions, any belief, any trace of established authority within oneself is to instantaneously turn away from it. Yes he dismisses the past. Yes he dismisses Plato and Socrates and Christ and even Buddha. Not because of who they were but simply because they are in the past. Our lives are now. And our lives are our own. No-one can tell you who you are and what you are, no-one can describe your own life and explain what its significance is or is not. Not Plato, not Krishnamurti. To be completely alone with that fact is where he starts from and where he ends. But can we start from there also or do we need a friend to come with us?
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Summary: This is the most comprehensive commentary on living.
Review: This book summarizes the teachings of J. Krishnamurti. If any human being could read one book in their lives this should be the one. After reading the book one can get the sense of immense potential in terms of freedom, love, and joy. One can see for oneself the influence of culture and tradition on our thought process at a fundamental level. One can see how this influence conditions our mind and distorts the perception of facts. At the same time the human mind has an inner demand to be free from this influence. Our desire to be free is pacified by organized religions, gurus, psychologists, and propaganda by the politicians. However, it does not die until an answer is found. So, if the desire to be free is present even the minutest of forms then this book can be a true beginning in life of freedom and happiness.
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Summary: Awareness is everything
Review: This book will not only change the way you look at life, but will change every detail about living, without meaning to. If life as the same to offer over and over, "Freedom from the Known" is a must read. It is not a self-help book, but a guide to living if you want to suck the marrow out of life.
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Summary: Interpret with your own intellect
Review: What Krishnamurti does to the reader, through his commentaries and his writings (as is the case with this particular book), is that he completely intends to destroy all notions of all the layered edifices of thoughts and belief systems that man has created by himself. In his words, if one remains completely true to ones current state of existence, that is, to remain completely honest to 'what is' and not what should be or what shouldn't be, is the beginning of self-realization and the understanding of true religion. Krishanamurti, who is, amongst the world's foremost agnostics, preaches the denial of everything, including culture; which as per him is the root of all suffering and pain. However, the rational and the more down to earth aspects of his 'teachings' are quite impracticable, things such as the denial of all culture would make little sense, or little meaning of all good of human endeavour since the days of yore. The theory of evolution is scientific and comes from Darwin, and on similar lines Krishnamurti is very much an analytical scientist, wishing to shred every endeavour, every single notion and cultural insight of the human will from the days of the ancients. Art, if one were to define in a very down to earth, non-pretentious, non-religious sense, would quite ideally be the end of evolution, the very top of the pyramid of the evolutionary juggernaut; where the human form expresses his very best, his most refined, his most intense offering. Howsoever as K would have liked to deny, his writings bring forth a silhouette of a 'perfect human being', free of guile and guilt and harm and 'non-violence'. The very basis and structure of the human animal is not completely 'godly' or 'perfect' as one would like to ordain it to be. As humans, not a single one of us are the perfect products of evolution, each one of us uniquely different, endowed with uniquely different qualities. 'Through negation comes creation', says this modern day seer; and creation if one were to comprehend would be an idea of bliss of complete happiness and a sense of godliness. However, leave humans alone, even nature is unforgiving in many ways than ever. The very force of nature is a mix of creation, destruction and preservation, with a considerable degree of randomness. Hence to comprehend a concept of complete bliss and happiness and call what one may will ( beyond the realm of the known) is utterly irrational. What 'what is' does to one is to make one completely aware of ones strengths, ones weaknesses, ones fears and prejudices; in a very sincere manner making oneself completely exposed without any underpinnings of ego or make-belief. When one reads K, one needs to read every thing with an open-mind; the positive outcomes are many such as the one cited above; but one needs to use one's own mind- there is nothing called absolute bliss or 'beyond the known'- phrases such as this must simply be the fabric of Krishnamurtis own imagination. The best part of K is that he challenges you, makes you ride your very own intense intellectual journey and that's perhaps his single most unique contribution.
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Summary: Innovation guarranted !!
Review: Wow,what a splendid book this is!which i call now the real BIG THING.The reason is that the empowerment of the self,whether you believe K or not but surely this book does make a great impact in human life and one finds constant INNOVATION goin in his life and living as happily as ever without any doubt.TRULY REMARKABLE !!
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