Thoughts for election day

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind...

Authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the following and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.
Those quotes are by Jiddu Krishnamurti who is seen above. Below is a video of the pianist Maria João Pires talking about Krishnamurti before a 2016 Cadogan Hall concert celebrating the 30th anniversary of the death of the great thinker and teacher. Linked by the theme Silence, Music and the Arts the concert featured Aditi Mangaldas leading Indian classical dance, Nigel North playing Bach’s Suite BWV 995 for lute, and Maria João Pires playing Beethoven’s Op. 111 Sonata. The complete concert can be viewed via this link



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Comments

billoo said…
I'm not sure I agree with this Bob. If you care about the NHS it's important to defeat the Tories. Also, a " total understanding" shouldn't, in my humble opinion, preclude local and partial perspectives. As Simone Weil would say, we all need our " bridges". I prefer the Qur'anic: each people has their own qibla even though, ultimately, God is neither of the West or the East.
2:58 pm
Pliable said…
Fair comment Billoo.

I have much admiration for Krishnamurti's thinking, and always take an opportunity to give him some exposure.

But there was a further motivation for this post: given the current national and international challenges facing the UK I was appalled by the abysmal quality of the debate during the election campaign and was similarly appalled the abysmal performance of our "senior" politicians from all parties. Just as I was appalled by both the Republican and Democrat parties' electioneering and candidates in the US election. I am also appalled by the quality of debate - in fact it is a joke to call it debate - not only from the right-wing UK press but also from the pro-Brexit camp.

The fate of the NHS notwithstanding, for me politics has reached an all time low. Never before have I been so tempted to spoil my ballot paper. That is one of the reasons why Krishnamurti's thinking resonated and why I ran this post.
3:16 pm
Pliable said…
In view of the outcome of the UK election Krishnamurti's observation that "Leaders destroy the following and followers destroy the leaders" seems pretty astute.
8:26 am
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