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*Everyone who is intensely curious about the true nature of reality, but who is distrustful of the people who claim to have all the answers - and always seem to charge money to dispense them (funny how that works)!

*Relentless seekers of self-knowledge who want to learn how to stand back from the constant workings of their own mind, and discover things about themselves that they can only find out by watching.

*People with flexible minds capable of holding two or more opposing ideas in their minds without fleeing to the safety of any of them, and who want to maintain and develop this same mental flexibility.

Thinking that you can find one Ultimate Truth that's going to be final and complete for all time is like a musician trying to hold down one note forever and ever; like trying to close your fist around a flickering flame; or like trying to stop a sunset and hold it in place until the end of time.

Trying to pin down the truth of human existence is an impossible task, and trying to fossilize that truth with words is always a mistake. Not only that, but no one can lead you to the truth either. Sure, they can suggest ways of approaching the truth, but they can never simply hand you the real thing.

Jiddu Krishnamurti understood this from a very early age when in 1929 he voluntarily dissolved the religious organization that sought to name him the new World Teacher and get him to take the lead of their new movement.

In a famous speech entitled Truth is a Pathless Land, he stated that it's impossible to follow anyone to truth and that you'll never find out the basic truth about the structure of Reality by listening to some leader or guru.

So naturally, Krishnamurti in this book - which is a collection of his public talks about the nature of truth and the various ways in which the mind distorts and obscures it - never claims to have access to some special truth that you or I don't have.

In my own life, Krishnamurti motivated me to question everything I thought I knew (and was told) about the world and the mystery of existence. He made me aware of the inner workings of my own mind and helped me see how truth arises when effort stops, when the mind is perfectly empty, and when there is only direct experience of the present moment.

All this is to say that this book won't teach you anything that's "true." Likewise, this breakdown can never claim to feature the Ultimate Truth about anything! There is no authority "out there" that can lead you to the truth, no "script" that you can follow that will lead you to the answers to the most important questions of life.

But that's what makes being alive at all so damn exciting!

Dead, lifeless "truths" are just...boring. Life is always moving and changing, and so is the truth of Reality and Existence. The search for what's true is the wildest adventure in the whole damn universe, and we're all living it right now.

#1: Truth Has No Continuity

Krishnamurti sure does make it difficult to talk about anything! To be consistent with his logic, even my interpretation of this quotation could never be "true" - only an interpretation, an attempt to make Reality hold still, which is obviously impossible. As he says, truth is always new, it has no continuity, one can never hold onto it forever, and the analytical mind can never seize it.

I like to think of Ultimate Truth as a body of calm water, free and pure and clear. The moment when you stick your hand in there in order to point to it and say, "Look! This is the truth!" your very action disturbs the calm water of Truth and makes it false again.

Western minds in particular always want to pin the truth down forever and always, to be able to say, "Here's the answer! We've found it, this is true, and it always will be." But Reality doesn't work that way. Certainty is not a natural property of the universe, and the human mind that goes looking for one, perfect, eternal truth never finds it.

The universe is always becoming, and it never arrives at any finished state. In the same way, truth only exists in the present moment, at the particular time and place that you call the here and now. It is always changing and always new because you are always changing and always new.

One of the most fascinating "truths" of the universe is that none of us ever experiences the world exactly as it is; we only experience it as we are. Once you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

To see this, just observe how when you're tired and hungry, and frustrated after a particularly long day, everything seems dark and aggravating, and hostile. But when you wake up after achieving some victory or other in your life everything seems bright and wonderful!

Or right after you finish searching for new cars to buy, you start seeing the same kind of car everywhere. The truth is that they were always there, but you're just noticing them now. Your focus and awareness changed, and that particular type of car entered your new reality. This is just more proof that you can never experience the world as it really is, but as you are.

So, it follows that if you want to change the world, change yourself.

As we'll discuss in the next Key Idea, that's the only way in which it can be done. This is because we exist in relationship with everyone and everything else, and what you are the world will become.

I'm getting dangerously close here to trying to tell you what Truth is, and obviously, that would be a huge mistake. No one can do that, which is why I've always been drawn to Krishnamurti's talks.

Out of all the books of his that I've read and public talks of his I've watched on YouTube, he has never once said that he knew what Ultimate Truth was and that you should listen to him in order to find out.

He always wanted to get people to turn inward and discover what they thought, to examine the questions that they had. And, in the process, to discover that the truth is so much wider, grander, and more magical than our views of it. To discover the truth is, quite literally, to discover the immeasurable.

#2: Only the Individual Can Change

Krishnamurti once said that changing the entire system without changing the actual individual within that system was a dangerous error.

Now, of course, systems do change the people embedded within those systems. To take just one controversial example, there are specific incentives that motivate the actions of people within a capitalist system that do not operate on the members of a communist system, and vice versa. This is clear enough.

So to change the system will almost inevitably change the individual within that system. But not actively working to change the individual at the same time most certainly is a dangerous error, just like Krishnamurti said.

This is true because only the individual can change, and the system has value only to the extent to which the individuals within that system act in accordance with goodness and virtue. Capitalism could probably work. Communism could probably work. But perverse individuals have perverted both systems to the extent that neither can be said to work perfectly.

We exist in relationship only. We live alongside everyone with whom we are networked, which, at this point is virtually every single person on earth. What you become, the world will become. If you want to improve the world, improve yourself. The effects of that conscious improvement will have beneficial ripple effects throughout the entire universe.

The key is to work within your circle of control, your circle of influence. Changing yourself is hard enough! I mean, have you ever tried to change someone else? How did that go for you? And an entire system? What hope do you have of effecting that kind of change on your own? Virtually none.

Even changing yourself isn't guaranteed to work, but you have a much higher likelihood of success if you focus on what you can do, what you can influence, which is your own thoughts, your own actions, your own inputs, and the people and ideas you spend the most time with.

All the external change that occurs in the world becomes meaningless if it doesn't positively contribute to the development of the individual. The world won't change until and unless we change, and we must change, for the problems facing the world are simply too great for us to meet them as we are.

#3: Understanding What Is

Whenever you say that you are trying to become happier or non-violent, you have actually defined yourself as someone who is unhappy, someone who is violent.

You're either happy and peaceful or you're not. There is no in-between. It's a total transformation, and as long as you cling to the memories and mindsets of someone who is hateful and unhappy you will never become peaceful and content. These are just two examples that Krishnamurti often used in his public talks, but the idea is worth examining more deeply.

We're always thinking of what we'll become tomorrow, but we rarely take the time to understand who we are now, to understand what is. We think we'll be happier, less envious, more present, and more serene tomorrow, but barely exist today in the here and now, where we're unhappy, jealous, anxious, and scattered. Not all of us, sure, and not all the time, but most of us could surely benefit from a closer examination of ourselves and who we actually are.

This question of who we are is pretty much the most fascinating question one could ever ask because it's so complex and so...elusive. We can never quite pin down an answer that will completely satisfy or reach the bottom of all that we are or could become. Once you get into it, you really just never fully find out!

It's literally the project of a lifetime to figure out Who You Are, and sadly, most people don't even seem to be all that interested in the question. They're more interested in who they were in the past or who they might be at some distant point in time and space that may never arrive.

#4: The Interconnectedness of All Things

One of my mentors across time and space, Alan Watts, once said that what you are basically, deep deep down, far far in, is absolutely synonymous with the fabric and structure of existence itself.

That is to say, "you" are something that the universe is "doing," in the same way that a wave is something that whole ocean is doing. Your humanity is intimately bound up with everything else that exists in the universe - and everyone else who exists in the universe - and what Krishnamurti is saying is that not understanding that fact is the basis for most of our collective suffering.

Essentially, you can't pull on any single thread anywhere without finding out that it's actually attached to the entire rest of the universe.

Just as you can't have Light with Dark or Shape without Solid, you can't have Self without Other, Truth without Falsehood. Everything exists in relationship to everything else, and where we go wrong is to ignore that basic fact of existence and persist in thinking of ourselves as isolated, angry, hostile "parts" constantly at war with each other over stupid silly shit.

None of this is to say, however, that you can't or shouldn't be your own person. Some have even said that the whole purpose of existence is to find out who you really are! So this journey to self-knowledge isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it's healthy to be proud of your accomplishments and pleased with your success.

The people who can live with both truths, living on both levels simultaneously, are the ones who can be happy for the success and flourishing of others, commit to working hard towards making their own dreams a reality, and basically just be a lot more fun to hang out with!

It's possible to be your own person and still give of yourself unselfishly and liberally to others. You don't have to deny yourself so that others can have more, or put yourself down so that others can rise higher. We can all win this infinite game, and indeed, as George Eliot wrote in her 19th-century classic novel, Middlemarch:

#5: The Fruitless Search for Truth

The moment you try to hold onto any truth you happen to find, it crumbles in your hands and becomes a lie. Trying to pin down the Truth (Reality) forever and ever is like trying to grasp a waterfall or make one single note last forever.

Truth, as Krishnamurti suggested, is always new, always available, and always present; we can move with it but never hold onto it, never possess it forever and for all time. It changes too fast: wait one moment and truth is gone, with another truth having taken its place.

This constant, never-ending change is what makes life exciting and vivid - it's what makes life worth living! When you realize that truth is nowhere to be found, you start seeing it everywhere. The whole of life then becomes wonderful, and magic abounds seemingly everywhere.

You know by now that I can never "tell" you what truth is or how to find it. I don't know. Krishnamurti doesn't know. Your local priest or rabbi or whatever doesn't know. Nobody knows. At least not for long.

Truth, so to speak, is the water we're all swimming in, and we don't need anybody else to show us how to get there because we're already Here and the time is already Now.

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