A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.
Interpretation
Beliefs are personal and should not be structured into rigid systems; otherwise, they lose their essence.
Jiddu Krishnamurti emphasizes that genuine beliefs are deeply personal and unique to the individual. When beliefs are organized into systems or imposed upon others, they lose their vitality and become dogmatic creeds, which can restrict personal freedom and understanding.
In practice
In a discussion about spirituality, this quote can illustrate the importance of personal belief systems.
The following of authority is the denial of intelligence. [It] may help us temporarily to cover up our difficulties and problems; but to avoid a problem is only to intensify it, and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.
If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.
All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.
To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.
There was a Greek philosopher who taught that, of all things, not to have been born is the sweetest state. But I believe sleep is the sweetest state. You're dead, yet alive. There's no sensation so exquisite.
The greater the power, the more need there is for transparency, because if the power is abused, the result can be so enormous. On the other hand, those people who do not have power, we mustn't reduce their power even more by making them yet more transparent.
The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much.
This much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
I feel that my environment reflects my belief in the grace and art and elegance of living simply.
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