Self-Confidence
Jiddu Krishnamurti quote
So, having made life into a technical process, conforming
to a particular pattern of action, which is merely technique, naturally we
have lost confidence in ourselves, and therefore we are increasing our inward
struggle, our inward pain and confusion. Confusion can be dissolved only
through self-confidence, and this confidence cannot be gained through another.
You have to undertake, for yourself and by yourself, the journey of discovery
into the process of yourself, in order to understand it. This does not mean
you are withdrawn, aloof. On the contrary, Sirs, confidence comes the moment
you understand, not what others say, but your own thoughts and feelings,
what is happening in yourself and around you. Without that confidence which
comes from knowing your own thoughts, feelings and experiences – their truth,
their falseness, their significance, their absurdity - , without knowing
that, how can you clear up the whole field of confusion which is yourself?
…
Having lost self confidence, our problem is how to get it back – if we ever
had it at all. Because, obviously, without the element of confidence we shall
be led astray by every person we come across – and that is exactly what is
happening.
…
Therefore, never accept any authority. Sir, after all, acceptance of authority
indicates that the mind wants comfort, security. A mind that seeks security
either with a guru or in a party, political or any other, a mind that is
seeking safety, comfort, can never find truth, even in the smallest things
of our existence. So, a man who wants this creative self-confidence must
obviously be burning with the desire to know the truth of everything, not
about empires or the atomic bomb, which is merely a technical matter, but
in our human relationships, our relationship with others, and our relationship
to property and to ideas. If I want to know the truth, I begin to enquire;
and before I can know the truth of anything, I must have confidence. To have
confidence, - p. 26 – I must enquire into myself and remove those causes
that prevent each experience from giving its full significance.
…
We are not self-confident, there is no confidence in us, that creative thing
which gives sustenance, life, vitality, understanding. We have lost it, or
we have never had it; and, because we do not know how to judge anything,
we have been led here and pushed there, beaten up, driven, politically, religiously
and socially. We don’t know – but it is difficult to say we don’t know.
…
So, that is the first requirement, is it not? To know the truth of anything
psychologically, you cannot seek comfort; because, the moment you want comfort,
security, a haven in which you are protected, you will have what you want,
but what you have will not be the truth. Therefore, you will be persuaded
by another who offers a greater comfort, a greater security, a better refuge;
and so you are driven from port to port, and that is why you have lost confidence.
You have no confidence because you have been driven from one refuge to another
by your own desire to be comfortable, to be secure. So, a man who would seek
the truth in relationship must be free of the destructive and limiting desire
to be comfortable, to be secure. This fear of losing oneself psychologically
must go. Only then can you find the truth of reincarnation or of anything
else, because you are seeking truth and not security. Then truth will reveal
to you what is right, and therefore you will have confidence. Sir, is it
not more important to find out the truth than to believe that there is or
is not continuity?
1948 3rd Public Talk, Bangalore, India
‘The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, Vol. V’