Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

The Kingdom of Happiness

Talks in Eerde Castle, Holland, 1926

THE TEMPLE OF THE HEART

If you went into a Temple and saw the bare walls and the pillars and nothing but the mere outward shell, it would seem cold and lifeless; for even though there is a certain sense of aesthetic beauty and gorgeousness, in a Temple you also need the image of your creation. Each one of us has a temple, but we must create the Image, the Idol, the Beauty around which we can develop our love and devotion; for if we keep the Temple empty, as most of us do, we cannot create.

It is by adoration, by love, by devotion, that we create, that we make the temple living. And that temple to me is the heart. If you place Him who is the Embodiment of Love and Truth in your heart, if you create Him there with your own hands, your own mind, your own emotions, that heart, instead of being cold and abstract and far away, becomes real and living and radiant. Such is the Truth. And we must realize that this temple, without the vitality, without the life, without the energizing influence that this image gives, becomes hard, becomes cold and joyless. Whereas if you have Him there, you become part of Him, you become Himself. You are the outer temple, and burning inside you is the Eternal, this Holy of Holies into which you can go and worship at your ease, away from the world, away from all the turmoils and all the troubles.

But you have to beautify the temple first. You have to make that temple, which is the physical body, perfect, strong, and really beautiful. Every gesture, every movement, every action, whether in time of welfare or in time of sorrow, at every hour, every moment of the day, must be refined and beautiful and must represent the temple in which Eternity abides. Therefore you must have this body absolutely clean, beautiful, radiant, so that He who is in your hearts can show Himself through your physical expressions.

I do not think you sufficiently realize that with culture of mind and of emotion there takes place refinement of the body. Without culture and refinement the body becomes crude, ugly, and does not represent, in outward expression, Him whom you have within. The first thing you must bear in mind is that to possess Him in your Hearts you must have a suitable tabernacle, a suitable abode. And then with that physical beauty, with that emotional and mental nobility, you will attain serious joyousness.

Most of us, if we become serious, lose the sense of joyousness. Seriousness which is without joy, without delight, is artificial in most cases, and so must be avoided. If you cultivate seriousness with joy, which springs up because you have Him in your heart, as a part of yourself, then that seriousness takes on a delight instead of turning to morbidity and clumsy expressions. When you see Him you must see Him out of joy and not out of seriousness. You can only approach Him when you are really happy, when you are really enlightened, when you are really delighted; not through the seriousness of religiosity and a gloomy idea of spirituality. When you are really alive with joy, with happiness, He dwells in the Temple of your heart.

Yesterday I went out for a walk by myself, I wanted to regain my original joyousness, which for a moment I had lost. I struggled to get to a certain height emotionally and mentally, and I could not get there; I could not attain that altitude, that emotional and mental height, by merely struggling.

I longed to reach my Guru, my Lover, my Genius, my source of Happiness; and, as once before in India, I saw Him, not when I was struggling or trying to get near Him, but when I was natural and there was inside me a bubbling spring of happiness. I saw Him fill the sky, the blades of grass, I saw Him in the whole length of the tree, I saw Him in the pebble, I saw Him everywhere, I saw Him in myself. And so my temple was full, my Holy of Holies was complete. I was He, and He was myself, and that was the Truth for me.

The Truth as an abstract thing is of no value until it gives you that intense personal joy and devotion and the desire to create, not only within yourself, but to create around you. As the birds sing of their own accord, at their own ease, of their own full-heartedness, so must Truth come and fill your temple of its own accord; but you must supply the material, you must supply the circumstances, you must supply the marble out of which to carve the image. And that marble must be joy, intense happiness, and serious joyousness. Be serious -not with long faces, not grotesquely but serious with joyousness; have that seriousness which gives you excitement -excitement to play, excitement to be noble, excitement to be happy. And you must create such an image in your hearts. You must make your house His temple.

Every day I have a different Vision of my Truth. When you are on the top of a mountain, there stretches before you a higher range, invisible from the plains. By climbing that range you think you will at last reach the summit whence you will behold all things; but this is not so, for when you have climbed it, there is still another higher range hiding the complete vision. So it is with Truth. There must be constant change, constant alteration of your vision. When you have that desire, that capacity to fill yourself with His genius, with His strength, with His nobility, then you yourself become noble and learn to reflect His divine originality. In Him are all the sources of originality, all the sources of beauty, all the sources of creation; and attempts to be original, beautiful, creative, are of little avail if we have not the understanding and the capacity to touch the source of things. While you have green fields and fair skies and quietness, you should place this graven image in your hearts, which you have created out of your own minds, with your own hands.

I desire to force open the doors of the temple in each one of you and let in the sunshine which will help you to destroy that which is ugly, to create anew, and to rebuild; for that is the only way by which you will attain that Truth, the only way you will keep that Eternity in your temple. And when He comes to each one of you, as He so often does come, He will abide with you only if you have the capacity to enshrine Him in the temple of your heart, if you have the wisdom to live with Him, and not lose the fruit of many sorrows and ecstasies.

How joyous and happy you will be if you have the desire to worship at that shrine, at that altar, and forget everything else!

Yesterday, for a moment, I thought I had lost Him, and I could not breathe, I could not move; all the doors and windows of my temple were shut, and I was in darkness. I had to struggle to open them and search for Him. When I found Him and felt the reality of His Presence, then all was once again peace and light and joy. After cloud and rain and storm, there comes a ray of sunshine, all Nature bursts forth to meet that ray. So did I feel yesterday.

Once you realize this beauty, this nobility, this eternal Happiness which comes when you have felt this Truth in your heart, the whole world becomes for you the Holy of Holies. You live and breathe and look from there, and every little thing, every little action, every little thought, falls into its proper place; and you get the true refinement, the true restraint, the true enlightenment. That is the only way you will acquire the spark of genius, that is the only way you will be happy. If you have this serious joyousness, the sense of well-being, spiritual, moral, and intellectual, then you will see the glory; and every one of you will have that light, that purity, that sense of nobility and greatness which nothing in the world can disturb. Everything breathes His glory, and all that which is ignoble withers away and dies. You can have no conception of your loss if you do not go to the source of things. Only at the source will you know the Beginning and the End. And, what is much more important -you will be there with Him, you will be a part of Him; and thus you yourself will become the source for thousands of others.

So I want you to keep before you this idea of a temple and of the image within. Wherever you are, whether you are in a room or in a street, whether you are playing or at work -you will be unruffled and have that solemn poise, for He is always with you. What does it matter to the God within if there is strife or struggle outside the temple? As long as you are tranquil, as long as you are worshiping and encouraging others to worship, as long as you are making others happy, what does anything else matter? All forms of outward worship, all interpreters of God, cease to affect you. As long as you have that glory you will be happy; when you have drunk at that source you will be a genius, you will create, you will make others happy. And for that we exist.