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Krishnamurti: Choiceless Awareness and the Ending of Psychological Conflict

Related to: J. Krishnamurti

How direct perception, freedom from authority, and attention without effort dismantle inner conflict.

Krishnamurti’s core invitation is disarmingly simple: see what is happening in you—without control, choice, or method. He distinguishes attention from effortful concentration. Attention is whole, relaxed, and instantaneous; it does not pursue a result, and in that non-seeking it ends conflict at its root.

1) Seeing Conditioning

Beliefs, ideals, and memories project images that we mistake for reality. When those images are seen as images—without resistance—they lose their compulsion. Insight is not the product of time but of direct perception now.

2) Observer = Observed

The “observer” judging anger is itself a movement of thought. When this is seen, the division collapses and anger is simply seen as sensation, thought, and drive—already changing in awareness.

3) Relationship as Mirror

Ordinary relationship (family, colleagues, strangers) reveals fear, comparison, dependence. Watching it in the instant it moves is the laboratory of self-knowledge.

4) Intelligence of Attention

In choiceless awareness, action is not derived from conclusions but from seeing. This intelligence is not personal achievement; it appears when the mind is quiet without being made quiet.

Practice? Paradox.

Methods strengthen the “me” that practices. Instead of a method, use daily life as the field: notice micro-reactions—tight jaw, a defensive reply forming—and watch without fixing. Often the very seeing dissolves the reaction; if not, seeing reveals its movement without adding conflict.

Critiques & Resonances

Critics call the approach impractical; others find it the most practical precisely because it meets life as it is. Parallels exist with nondual traditions and mindfulness, though Krishnamurti rejects lineages and techniques.