To understand the totality of this extraordinary thing called life, one must obviously not be too definite about these things. One cannot be definite with something which is so immense, which is not measurable by words. We cannot understand the immeasurable so long as we approach it through time.
Interpretation
Life is vast and cannot be fully understood through rigid definitions or time constraints.
In this quote, Jiddu Krishnamurti emphasizes the complexity and immeasurable nature of life. He suggests that to grasp its totality, one must avoid being overly definite or constrained by words and concepts, as life transcends such limitations. Understanding life requires an openness to its vastness and a recognition that it cannot be comprehensively understood through time alone.
In practice
During a philosophy class discussion on the nature of existence.
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.
I believe that the real difference in the American church is not between conservatives and liberals, fundamentalists and charismatics, nor between Republicans and Democrats. The real difference is between the aware and the unaware.
Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe; a moment that never was before and never will be again.
We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death.
Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source.
What is this talked-of mystery of birth. But being mounted bareback on the earth?
Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.
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