Quote from "Think on these things" by J Krishnamurti:

Do you think a leaf that falls to the ground is afraid of death? Do you think a bird lives in fear of dying? It meets death when death comes, but it is not concerned about death; it is much too occupied with living, with catching insects, building a nest, singing a song, flying for the very joy of flying. Have you ever watched birds soaring high up in the air without a beat of their wings, being carried along by the wind? How endlessly they seem to enjoy themselves! They are not concerned about death. If death comes, it is all right, they are finished. There is no concern about what is going to happen; they are living from moment to moment, are they not? It is we human beings who are always concerned about death-because we are not living. That is the trouble: we are dying, we are not living."


Isn't that true? To think about it, we can say that we have more intellect than the mere birds and leaves that do not know how to think, which makes man better of the lot. Nevertheless, man has to learn from the nature which maynot be able to think by itself, but can stimulate man to think. And nature does give valuable lessons.

Why are we afraid of death? And if we are, does that mean that we die every moment than live?

I think death haunts man because we don't know whats beyond that. It may be nothing after death. Afterall, it was an accident that human race got created, they say. Man fears the unknown. We generally approach the unknown with caution, when there seems to be a risk of perishing. And whats more riskier than death?

In tamil language , there is a saying, "Kandavar vindilar; Vindavar kandilar". It means that, one who has realized [God], never talks about it and one who proclaims never realized [God].

We might be scared of death. But does that mean that we always think about it? Maybe yes, maybe no.

And does JK mean to live the moment rather than anything else? To think about life than death?

On God

"We have invented God. The thinking created god for itself. That means, due to unhappiness, fear and depression we created something, called God. When you are free of fear, free of suffering, there is no desire for a God"

Education

When you have that seed [education], and it is flowering here, then you will keep it going all your life. But if this doesn't operate, then the world will destroy you. The world makes you what it wants you to be; a cunning animal . . . The world is that way, deceptive, the deceiving politicians, the money-minded . . If you are not properly educated you'll just slip into it. So what do you think is education? It is to help you fit into the mechanism o the present order, or disorder of things? Or do you think it should be something else?

Learning is the very essence of humility, learning from everything and from everybody. There is no hierarchy in learning.

Observer & the Observed

As you watch anything—a tree, your wife, your children, your neighbor, the stars of a night, the light on the water, the bird in the sky, anything—there is always the observer—the censor, the thinker the experiencer, the seeker—and the thing he is observing; the observer and the observed; the thinker and the thought. So, there is always a division. It is this division that is time. That division is the very essence of conflict. And when there is conflict, there is contradiction. There is “the observer and the observed”—that is a contradiction; there is a separation. And hence where there is contradiction, there is conflict. And when there is conflict, there is always the urgency to get beyond it, to conquer it, to overcome it, to escape from it, to do something about it, and all that activity involves time.... As long as there is this division, time will go on, and time is sorrow.

And a man who will understand the end of sorrow must understand this, must find, must go beyond this duality between the thinker and the thought, the experiencer and the experienced. That is, when there is a division between the observer and the observed, there is time, and therefore there is no ending of sorrow. Then, what is one to do? You understand the question? I see, within myself, the observer is always watching, judging, censoring, accepting, rejecting, disciplining, controlling, shaping. That observer, that thinker, is the result of thought, obviously. Thought is first; not the observer, not the thinker. If there was no thinking at all, there would be no observer, no thinker; then there would only be complete, total attention.

- From The Awakening of Intelligence.

"Religion, politics, society are exploiting you, and you are being conditioned by them; you are being forced in a particular direction. You are not human beings; you are mere cogs in a machine. You suffer patiently, submitting to the cruelties of environment, when you, individually, have the possibilities of changing them."

- JK [Public talk in India, 1933]

Truth is a Pathless Land

"I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally.

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. 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."

- J Krishnamurti