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God is not something so easily denied

Jiddu Krishnamurti

“GOD IS PRESENCE”

Question: God is not something so easily denied. You are attacking the very concept of God. What then have you to offer to this world? Without belief in God, life is sterile, vicious and can only lead to darkness.

Krishnamurti: Whether you believe or do not believe, whether I brush aside or destroy the concept of God, Reality exists. That Reality cannot be found through any belief, for belief is the outcome of the desire to be secure. The mind that is fearful, anxious, wanting something to depend on, seeing the transiency of the world, creates an idea, but the idea of God is not God. God is not something projected by the mind; so, the mind cannot possibly at any time comprehend God.

Your belief in God surely has separated man, has put man against man; because, to you, God is not important, but belief is. And do you not make the world darker by your belief? Look at the innumerable beliefs that you have! In the name of God you kill, do you not? The man who throws an atomic bomb, he believes in God, destroying thousands in a few seconds. And the man who does not believe in God, the Communist, he also destroys in order to produce a better world. So you are not very much different, are you? Those who believe and those who do not believe both bring destruction and misery to man. The Christian believes and the Hindu believes; they are poles apart, fighting, wrangling, ambitious, destroying, liquidating, believing; and yet, they all profess to believe in God. And is God to be denied? And is God the projection of our minds?

Surely Reality, or whatever name you call it, is something beyond the mind. But you cannot find that Reality if the mind does not understand itself. If the mind is not still, quiet, it cannot know what that Reality, that extraordinary thing, is.

But belief is not what makes the mind quiet. On the contrary, belief cripples the mind, belief conditions the mind, belief shatters the mind. The mind that is fearful, seeking security, something to hold on to - such a mind has no value. Then belief acts as personal security.

Belief becomes then not anonymous, but something upon which you can depend. Belief divides people, it destroys people. And can such a mind ever find Reality? Seeing all this, must not the mind be alert, free itself from all beliefs - which means, be free of fear? Then only the mind becomes very quiet, still, without any projection, without any desire, without any book, without any hope. A mind in despair can never find Reality. When the mind is in despair it seeks hope, and hope then becomes the Reality projected by a despairing mind.

So, seeing all this, the mind is very quiet. It is only then that Reality comes. You cannot invite it. You cannot bribe it. There is no sacrifice that you can make in order to get it. There is no virtue that will reward you with that Reality. It is only when the mind is completely still - not expecting, not hoping - that Reality can come to that mind which is still.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Bombay, March 1, 1953