Have you ever asked yourselves what you are going to do when you grow up? In all likelihood you will get married, and before you know where you are, you will be mothers and fathers; and you will then be tied to a job, or to the kitchen, in which you will gradually wither away. Is that all that your life is going to be?
Interpretation
The quote prompts reflection on the nature of life choices and the societal roles we adopt.
Jiddu Krishnamurti's quote encourages individuals to critically examine their life paths and the societal expectations surrounding adulthood. He raises concerns about the conventional trajectory of getting married, becoming parents, and getting trapped in the mundane routines of work or household chores, leading to a sense of unfulfilled potential and stagnation. This introspection challenges us to think beyond societal norms and seek a more meaningful existence.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about life choices at a graduation ceremony.
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.
The mistake made by all previous systems of ethics has been the failure to recognize that life as such is the mysterious value with which they have to deal. All spiritual life meets us within natural life. Reverence for life, therefore, is applied to natural life and spiritual life alike. In the parable of Jesus, the shepherd saves not merely the soul of the lost sheep but the whole animal. The stronger the reverence for natural life, the stronger grows also that for spiritual life.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
The longest journeyIs the journey inwards.Of him who has chosen his destiny, Who has started upon his quest For the source of his being.
The old assumption of the approximate impossibility of war really rested on a similar assumption about the impossibility of evil-and especially of evil in high places.
Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.
All human societies go through fads in which they temporarily either adopt practices of little use or else abandon practices of considerable use.
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