learning about yourself

Learning about yourself is always in the present, knowledge is always in the past.

In this quote from Krishnamurti, we can see that he's trying to make a distinction. And the distinction is really between the process of learning – which is ongoing, in the present moment – that process and knowledge. Knowledge is of the past. You see, we might otherwise feel that knowledge is the product of learning, that the purpose of learning is to generate more knowledge. Krishnamurti refutes this.

For sure, our spiritual journey is a journey of learning, of learning about ourself, of looking deeper and deeper into oneself. It's a journey, it's a process. And what we discover, along the way, is really of significance in the moment that we discover it. This learning is like a flower blooming. But the flower's not going to live there forever. It will be pollinated. It will form a seed. The flower will wither and die. Just as life is a process, so is this journey into ourselves, which is the spiritual journey. It's in the present moment.

And it's not really about changing one set of knowledge for another, or building up an ever greater store of knowledge. If anything is quite the opposite. In my experience, the further I go on my journey, the more simple my life becomes, and the less cluttered my head is with knowledge, the less interested I am in knowing things in that way.

And of course, underlying Krishnamurti's observation is an understanding, a deep understanding, that the present moment is where life is lived. All too often we can be dragged into the past, with our stores of knowledge. We'll go off into the future in our mind, with fantasies, hopes and plans for the future. When we are dwelling in the past or the future in these ways, we are missing the present moment.

And this present moment is of tremendous value. It's here in this present moment that I actually feel the breeze on my skin and the warmth of the sun. It's here that I really hear the crows. It's here that I really see the landscape before me. The present moment is where we are alive. And the past – this huge pile of memories and knowledge of the past – is a dead thing in comparison. And this is why Krishnamurti here is leading us, encouraging us, to be present, to be in the present moment. This is where we learn about ourself, about life. And if we, instead of really attending to the present moment, fully like a newborn baby, if instead of that, we try to meet the present moment from our knowledge, we will be meeting the new with this old dead material. And it will merely obstruct us from meeting the new, from meeting this moment, from being a part of this present moment.