难道我们必须经历嗜酒烂醉，才能懂得戒酒持重吗？难道你必须经历仇恨，才能懂得慈悲吗？难道你必须经历战争，毁掉自己与他人，才能懂得和平吗？当然，这是完全错误的思维方式，对吧？
首先，你想当然地认为，进化、成长、从坏变好都是必经的过程，然后你的思维便陷入了这个模式中。当然，的确存在物质性成长，比如小树苗长成参天大树；的确存在技术性进步，比如经过几百年的发展，车轮进化成飞机。那么，是否存在精神的成长与进化呢？这就是此刻我们探讨的主题——“自我”是否能成长、进化，始于“恶”而止于“善”？恶的核心——“自我”，能不能经过进化，经历时间，变得更高尚、善良？显然不能。一切“恶”，都源于内心的“自我”，而且始终是丑恶的，只是我们不想面对而已。我们认为，经历时间过程，经过成长与变化，“自我”将最终悟归真实。我们的希望与期待是，经过时间的洗礼，“自我”会变得完美。
那么，这个“自我”究竟是什么？所谓“自我”，是名，是相，是一堆记忆、希望、挫折、期待、痛苦、伤悲、瞬息即逝的欢乐。我期待这个“自我”能持续成长，达至完美，所以我们宣称，超越了这个“小我”，就有一个“超我”或“大我”，那是一个灵性体，是超越时间的永恒。但“大我”是我们思量出来的，所以这个“灵性体”仍局限于时间的领域。细想一下就明白，显然“大我”还在推理的范畴。
——克里希那穆提《生命书：365观心日课》（The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti）
Human Evolution
Must we know drunkenness to know sobriety? Must you go through hate in order to know what it is to be compassionate? Must you go through wars, destroying yourself and others, to know what peace is? Surely, this is an utterly false way of thinking, is it not?
First you assume that there is evolution, growth, a moving from bad to good, and then you fit your thinking into that pattern. Obviously, there is physical growth, the little plant becoming the big tree; there is technological progress, the wheel evolving through centuries into the jet plane. But is there psychological progress, evolution? That is what we are discussing—whether there is a growth, an evolution of the “me,” beginning with evil and ending up in good. Through a process of evolution, through time, can the “me,” which is the center of evil, ever become noble, good? Obviously not. That which is evil, the psychological “me,” will always remain evil. But we do not want to face that. We think that through the process of time, through growth and change, the “I” will ultimately become reality. This is our hope, that is our longing—that the “I” will be made perfect through time.
What is this “I,” this “me”? It is a name, a form, a bundle of memories, hopes, frustrations, longings, pains, sorrows, passing joys. We want this “me” to continue and become perfect, and so we say that beyond the “me” there is a “super-me,” a higher self, a spiritual entity which is timeless, but since we have thought of it, that “spiritual” entity is still within the field of time, is it not? If we can think about it, it is obviously within the field of our reasoning.
FEBRUARY 26