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Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

The Kingdom of Happiness

Talks in Eerde Castle, Holland, 1926

IN THE COMPANY OF GREAT MEN

I want again to impress upon you that taking interest in the excellence of the Kingdom of Happiness is of the utmost importance. One can see by your words, by the way you talk, whether you are living in that Kingdom or not. I have watched you and myself to see whether we live continuously in that Kingdom. By our attitude, and by the conduct of our life, and by the desires that surge up, we can judge and discover how far away we are from that abode of reality, or how far within it we live.

If you are striving to live in that Kingdom, you conquer with ease your special troubles, you forget your special burdens, your special peculiarities, and you adopt the sorrows and sufferings of the world. When you live in that Kingdom you cannot separate yourself from your daily actions; in your thought, in your work, in everything that you do, you are living in that Kingdom, hence you translate that Kingdom into your own actions.

You can see how different are those people who have caught even a fleeting glimpse of that Kingdom; how happy, how really balanced, neither too emotional nor too intellectual. You can see by their attitude, by their whole atmosphere that they know what it means to live in that Kingdom. It would be a thousand pities if we lived there only at rare moments, only when we are meditating, only when we are alone. You can only live in that Kingdom if your whole being throbs with happiness. You must express this happiness in all your feelings, in all the things that you do daily; not just live in that Kingdom for a few brief moments like a little insect, and then vanish for the rest of the day, to be born again on the morrow. This is what most of you are doing -a word will betray the whole of your mind, the whole trend of your outlook. I feel it is so important that you be really serious and joyous, instead of struggling in vain and making vast useless efforts. You must not have the idea that some privileged people alone are in that Kingdom and the rest are not; as long as there is anyone who is struggling, who has nobility of thought and emotion, be assured that he is living in that Kingdom.

We must transform this center at Eerde, and the world at large, into a veritable Kingdom of Happiness, and you must help because you are living in it, because you are creating it, and you must give your capacities, your sufferings, your happiness and pleasures and joys; you must give the material with which we can build -every one of you must help, not one individual alone. That is why you must be great, that is why you must live and breathe only in that Kingdom of Happiness. Every barrier, all pettiness in our outlook, must be destroyed. You do not know how thrilling it is and how pleasurable and how exciting -it is much more so than any cinema performance, than any game in the world.

Imagine for a moment that we are all gods; then we could all sit around a table with Him. Think what we could do; think what it would mean, if we were like the Buddha and His disciples. He was a super-genius, the greatest of humans, and His disciples were also geniuses, they were the great men of their day. And you can imagine the delicious air, the atmosphere which those men, those gods, must have created. Then go to the other extreme, and think of all the personifications of Evil in the world -think of the time they would have! They would be attempting to annihilate and confuse the work of the gods. Whereas it is those like us who are between the two extremes, who form the major portion of the world. When you have a precious vase or jewel, you must find a safe in which you can guard it. And when He comes, as He does come; when He is with us, as He is with us; we must be the great men, and each one of us must struggle to reach the height of perfection. And then if we are gathered together, you can imagine the intense delight of that association; for we shall be companions with nobility, with great artists, great creators, with the divinity that is well-balanced in perfect physical bodies. There is nothing more wonderful in the world than living with great men, with great ideas, with men who are the principles themselves and not merely the outward shell of some inner reality.

It is the person who has not tasted happiness, who has not suffered, who has not had many experiences that cannot be companion with great men nor even with great sinners. Such an individual can never help, neither can he give nor enjoy that happiness which is lasting. Such an individual can never know the difference between the beautiful, the refined, and the coarse, the vulgar, and where judgment has no value. For he is neither a creator nor a destroyer; he is merely carried along by the whims and fancies of the world of mediocrity.

Because you desire not to belong to this world of mediocrity, you must bear in mind that all that you think and feel matters vitally. For this reason you must develop a fine physical body, with refined emotions and a cultured mind. Because if you have not a perfect body, mind, and emotions, you will disfigure the beauty and disturb the harmony of the whole company of great men; you might be wise in your words, but your outward expression, your personality, betrays your inner development which is not perfect.

You must also have perfect cleanliness, perfect health; and you can see the importance of this, you can see why you must have clean and healthy bodies, why you must take care of them, as you take care of a most precious jewel. It is the same with your emotions and your thoughts. Ugly thoughts and ugly feelings, though you may not expose them outwardly to your friends or your neighbors, yet they will betray themselves in your looks, in your sayings, in your attitude, in your outlook on life. I interest myself very often in looking at people's faces, their gestures, their general deportment; and I can usually distinguish the type to which each one belongs. I know these superficial things may be deceptive, that one cannot always judge truly, but they generally betray the inner character. You must therefore perfect the body, the emotions, and the mind, before you can attain and live eternally in that Kingdom of Happiness.

You must not conform without reason, without understanding, and fit yourself into moulds. Can you imagine the sea, that mass of animation and turmoil, ever fitting into a form? It will break all forms, nothing can hold it, nothing can bind it. We all want to fit into forms because it is so much easier, so much more comfortable, means so much less struggle. To those who are not enslaved by forms, who are living in this Happiness, in this Kingdom that has no boundaries, to them the thing of value, the thing of beauty, is this boundless, limitless expanse. You must realize that if you would really live in the presence of great men, you must develop an outlook which cannot be bound, which cannot be limited. You will realize in what great ecstasy you can live -in what balanced ecstasy- if you constantly imagine that you are always living in that Kingdom and that you are with great men. How many of you are capable of being with a great man, with a great genius, with Him who is the embodiment of this Kingdom of Happiness? Very, very few indeed. And you can see the anguish, the pain it must cause to such a person that there should be only two or three companions, instead of the entire world with Him, working with Him, delighting with Him.

I want also to talk about affection, because I do not think you realize what force, what vitality, true affection, well-balanced affection, gives. I am using the word balanced because you generally find that those who possess tremendous feelings of affection are without strength, without control, without poise. These feelings are like water, which, if poured out too freely, inundates and overflows, and has no lasting effect. That is why you must have balance. If you have well-balanced affection -not sentimentality, not mere gush but that eternal thing which we call love, then you begin to lose the separate self. Each one of you must have felt that affection which bubbles, which expands, which is ever growing; and it becomes wider and wider, so that you feel this love not only for a special few, but for the whole neighborhood. Such an affection makes you forget, annihilate, that self which is the root of all sorrow. That is why a person who has not that immense love becomes personal, talks, interferes, gossips, does all those small things which a great man, a real god, would not dream of doing. The moment you forget yourself, the self which is in each one of you, and identify that with the Great Self of the world, then you are living in that Kingdom, then you want to bring the whole world to live with you.

At present it may be said about each one of you that you are making a feverish attempt, rather than that you have accomplished a deed. You are still struggling and struggling, but you have not attained. You do not risk, you do not dare, and you do not plunge into the ocean; but you are like the child at the sea, who hesitatingly puts a foot into the water and draws it back immediately at the first chilling touch of the cold sea. If you slip, never mind -you will rise up again; if you swim, you will get there. But you must not hesitate all day long as to whether you should attempt to reach the further shore; you must take the plunge because your Voice urges you. And if you do not hear that Voice, you should be metaphorically sore all the day; you should have not a single moment of peace, of tranquillity, of happiness, if that Voice does not urge you onwards. You should go towards the source of things; and when once you reach that source, you become the god, the superman, the master.

The Buddha, the Christ, and other great Teachers of the world, went to the source of life. They became the Master Artists. Once knowing the nature and the supreme greatness of the Source, They became Themselves that Source, the Path, and the Embodiment of Wisdom and Love. This should be our purpose. You cannot all be the Buddha or the Christ, but you can all have the same dreams, the longings, the desires, the aspirations. When once you have realized the glory of Their Kingdom, then you can work out for yourself along what particular line of creation you will express your vision of that eternal glory. Then you will be the greatest of writers, or the greatest of artists, or the greatest of scientists; then you will have the tongue of the learned. There lies the thrill of spirituality, the only ambition in the world that it is worthwhile possessing. You must be independent -not only emotionally and intellectually- but also of all physical entanglements. This is the only way to attain the greatest happiness -by gaining complete liberty in thought, in emotions, and in all things physical. This is the only way to live in the Kingdom of Happiness.