Thursday, June 17, 2010

To compare or not to compare; that's the question

We learned to compare and we compare to learn. Therefore we are conditioned to compare. Don't compare yourself to anybody. When you compare you become "dull" (slow in perception or sensibility, lacking in intensity, or sharpness of perception).

"I don't know if you have ever looked into yourself and watched how you compare yourself with another, saying, 'He is so beautiful, so intelligent, so clever, so prominent; and I am nobody, I would like to be like him.' Or, 'She is so beautiful, has a good figure, has a nice mind, intelligent, bright, better.' We think and function in this comparative, measuring world. And if you have ever questioned and observed maybe you have said, 'No more comparison, no more comparison with anybody, not with the most beautiful actress.' You know that beauty is not in the actress, beauty is something total, not in the face, in the figure, in the smile, but where there is a quality of total comprehension, the totality of one's being; when that is what looks, there is beauty. Do watch it in yourself, please, try it, or rather do it - when you use the word 'try,' you know how such a mind is the most deplorable, foolish mind; when it says, 'I am doing my best, I am trying,' this indicates a mind that is essentially bourgeois, capable of measuring, which is doing better every day;
so, find out for yourself whether you can live, not theoretically but actually, without comparison, measure, never using the words 'better' or 'more.' See what happens. It is only such a mature mind that is not wasting energy, only such a mind can live a very simple life, I mean a life of real simplicity, not the so-called simplicity of the man who has one meal, or one loin-cloth - that's exhibitionism - but the mind that has no measure and is therefore not wasting energy."


The Awakening of Intelligence, Krishnamurti

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