Is God an Invention of Thought?
“What is religion? Man has sought something that is not of this world. From the most ancient of people till now man has sought something that time, thought, has nothing to do with that. He has sought it. And in his search, he has been trapped by the priests. Priests of the world who become the interpreters of that – we know, you don’t, we will tell you all about it. And the established religions are just nonsense, as far as – please don’t accept this. For the speaker, they are just entertainment, excitement, the thing to do for a while. If you are young you avoid all that nonsense. As you grow older you get frightened, you become this or that. And all the things that are in the churches, temples, and mosques are put together by thought.
God is an invention of thought. So if we can scrap all that from our brain, from our belief, from our hope, then we are free to enquire what is religion. Etymologically that word has not an exact beginning, it is not ‘to bind’ as was originally thought. So we are enquiring into what is the religious mind. Not the believing mind, that is very simple, very easy to explain. But the religious mind, because the religious mind alone can create a new culture; not the believing mind, not the mind that has faith. So we are going to enquire into it, if you are not tired.
To enquire into it very deeply one must ask what is meditation. Not how to meditate, not what are the systems of meditation, whether Eastern, Far Eastern, Near East, or the present gurus (with their – whether gurus from India or gurus from America, they have got systems, methods, which have all become money-making concern. It has no depth to it.) So if you can abolish all that, put aside all that. That means you are free from all authority to enquire what is meditation. To go into it one must be, as we said, be free from fear, pleasure. The ending of sorrow is the beginning of meditation.”
J. Krishnamurti
Public Talk 2, New York, 1983
Please share your thoughts
The Immeasurable is dedicated to exploring the essential questions of our existence: who we are and where we are going. The intent is to inspire readers to question assumptions of the mind, offering opportunities to ask deep questions into common life themes which are superficially accepted.
We encourage an investigation into the fabric of reality and our physical and cultural conditioning. In this exploration, we might find a new understanding of time and its relation to our thinking processes. A perception of the interconnectedness within the totality of life might arise in us as our perception expands through these explorations.
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
It is an invention. Praying, meditating, singing.. all actions to calm the mind and to relief the stress. But organized religion is polarzing people, it is ‘us’ against ‘them’. If you are born here, u have to believe in this God, and if you are born there, you believe in that God. And everyone is right, so no one is right. Once organized, money is always involved and it becomes a business that has to be profitable.
I believe that humans just wish to have someone or something backing them up. The desire to have warm,fuzzy feelings. The answers are within. The rest is conditioning and habit. Culture.
I’m agree with mr j. krishana murthi to some extent but not fully. If he says that God doesn’t exist at all how can he prove his assessment. There a lot and lot of ascetic devotees and great saints who didn’t only had a glance of God but got numerous people also God’s vision. Thousands of saints in past and present not only got enlightened but also wiped the tears of common and sick masses. But since I’m not saint not enlightened soul so I’m not sure my analysis is right or wrong. But after listening and going through the autobiography of different great souls having different philosophy different doctrine, different ways of finding truth, i have learnt the question is what a specific pera\son want to know what his inner sense want to know he should just focus on it. If he want to what’s the truth this world and his existing that means who he his and where he came and what’s the destination, that’s my target. I only try to sit silent inner and out and waiting for the result .
“I only try to sit silent inner and out and waiting for the result”
If you don’t free yourself first from all the illusions we have created (and “God” is one of those) to feel secure or to give a sense to our empty mind, what you will find will be merely a product of those illusions. If you are expecting results they probably will come but it will not be the truth.
Quietness of mind comes naturally when one has understood oneself and then gone beyond the tricks of thought. Then in that emptyness something sacred which has no name and can’t have one, will be reavealed.
I am agnostic, not atheist. Convinced by William James that religion is a human need. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/621
May be not only human; dogs treat us as gods. Nobody, including C. Darwin, explained mystery of life, and mystery of mind.
The arrogance of Enlightenment period is over. They believed that science will explain everything, yet did not know electromagnetic waves.
Now we have dark age, black holes, black mater and black energy. Physicist believe in laws of physics Buddhists in laws of karma. Spinoza said that only God exists, the Universe is his emanation. Like Krishna to Arjuna, that all Gods are his emanation.
Sokrates said “I know, that i know nothing”
Brilliant, sir. I am in complete agreement.
I did not kmow life until I read Freedom from the known.. This was many years ago.. It changed me in a way that I cannot explain. I woke up..
Some people can relate to my words.
And it is hard for me to grasp that some never will.
I loved this video. RIP Jiddu K.
The inquiry into the timeless is ongoing. There is no arriving as it is constantly changing. We can focus on it by allowing the interval between thoughts to expand. Allowing thought to see itself. Thought is our problem. Our creation of the me is so entrenched. The paradox is we cannot will the though based me away. We can only admire the problem of the me. Even when dissolved it comes back. The other essential aspect is the indescribable warmth, compassion, love, tenderness that links all intelligent life. The approach to “God” is through that door. The price of admission? Death to all our clinging. Our clinging to people, to things, to conclusions, to experiences. We limit our view with wanting. Simply put: Open heart quiet mind.
God is a thought. Yes an image and an illusion a fact. The question is can we see it not as a concept but as an actuality? Do we have a mind that has clarity to observe and see this as a fact. Such a mind needs a quality of stillness ,so what is being heard and seen needs to be understood, as well as personally being aware of our own thoughts around value judgements and criticism . A relationship can only have a perfume through responding ,not reacting. We are our own maker, God, the name, is not the thing .It may be easy to quote these words having read K for many years , the question i ask myself is ,can i live what i understand by the teachings? Every moment is a challenge to be awake, attending , having awareness, staying in the present. For this way of being, do we have the energy? For it takes great energy to stay alive without conflict. We all get addicted to Conflict, it has its own energy which is an illusion, then crisis feels that we are alive which again is an illusion. Our life is a paradox ! We can start investigating our own needs for attachment and dependency, and in so doing, our fear for such, may manifest into pain. We can only stay with the agony of it …. Knowing actually that we are on this path alone and staying with our terror that there is no saviour, ,can we begin to feel our compassion for all this amazing beauty we have the privilege to frequent and not the little illusionary selves we have left behind.
You spoke of pain so I felt I might respond.
“Pain” not named or viewed through thought is not pain. If viewed from the heart it is no longer pain but an intensity. Same is true with fear. I got that listening to K at the Ojai springtime talks throughout the 80’s
The question of God or truth or whatever is moot for me. The question is what intelligence runs through the universe? Runs through us. Most of us may not be able to physically endure that view. My inquiry is what is the relationship of the individual vs that massive intelligence? Does individuality exist with the death of the brain and thought? Or does the drop go back into the ocean? K said the individual may persist for awhile after the death of the body. He also said an individual is not divided. If we have the courage to completely die to time we could perceive the answer. In the meantime rest in the silent mind with an open heart.
Saying this very much with no malice or bad intent, it is unbelievable to me that KFA sends out Krishnamurti’s deep thoughts.. .(and especially in today’s spiritual “world,” so to speak…where very much all religions and spiritual teachers emphasize that stillness speaks, to be still and know god, to be absolutely Present with one’s mind and concentrated on and aware of one’s environment,) with the added music and video pictures…Yikes….K’s words alone, please….not all the embellishment. At least in my case, it is a huge distraction from concentrating on his words. Do we think K would approve?
One must ask if humans must be “properly managed” through the organizing of societies in which they can collectively obey various “social rules,” which require that they be “civil.” Since some of us are “responsible” in the keeping of such rules while others are not, it would seem that there needs to be something , such as “God,” that may have “transcendent power” in which people would believe and obey. The result: a “safe society.” Of course, all this breaks down and all this is subject to the worst corruption and manipulation, but, nevertheless, the notion of “God and religion” does still serve a purpose. Maybe it’s time for humans to recognize all this and actually become responsible socially and culturally, but it is a glue that has held societies and cultures somewhat together, though everything always does seem to be unravelling. Of course, humans “naturally” have found “greater powers” to worship and follow, and there have come along the priests, which have had their necessity in the society and culture, even as their role may be false and manipulative. We may have created God in the knowledge that we need God since we have demonstrated that we do not know ourselves in any greater context and cannot trust each other to do what is best. I think we have had to invent God for ourselves and remain unready and ill-prepared to give up such a useful notion. We have built a world based on our belief in God or in our True Nature and that world has taken on an existence which not goes beyond us; our children are born into it and learn it, thus recreating it as their own future. But it all changes quite subtly; perhaps we even evolve into more integrated beings over time.
Divisions always exist as long as the ‘self’ , the ‘Me’ is operating because, through division the self tries to survive and grow by separating itself from all the rest with its own unique identification. Why this identification is required by the self? It is required because without identification it cannot survive. The physical organism also has an inherent quality or intelligence to survive against any danger, which is quite natural because, such a quality is essential for the organism to survive. But, the mind, the self, seems to have borrowed this quality into the psychological domain, which is not real. By borrowing the qualities of the organism it tries to manipulate the organism itself and that is how it lives a life of delusion. This is the inherent nature of the self, which is conditioned. So, one must become aware of the nature of conditioning and the entire operation of the self and the danger involved there. From that understanding there may be a transformation to the psyche.
It’s all about conditioning
It is obvious to me that many people confuse religious with the existance of God. Religion is merely the earthly organisation of a believe system and has nothing to do with God as the Source of life it self and everything in it. We are connected to this Source wheter we are aware of it or not. As a lving being we are energy. Every living being is somehow aware of the connection to the Source of this energy, but not all on the same level. Knowing that from the core means you don’t need a believe system, simply because being aware and knowing implies that believing is irrelevant. This knowing does not come from the brain but the inner self, your soul.
I enjoyed that podcast with Rupert Spira , He clarified this business of ‘thought being aware of itself ‘
proclaimed by Krishnamurti on may occasions. Personally, I never understood that , it is only awareness
that is aware of thought or anything else for that matter. I would consider that a error in perception.
I feel more clarity n this matter now
Cheers To Insight
To me the question “What is meditation?” is relevant and important. That fear leads one directly into the arms of the guru- and priestbusiness I can understand. Krishnamurti does not only speak of fear, but also of pleasure. Attachment to the pleasures of rituals, ceremonies, yoga, especially mantra’s is also a trap I recently discovered, but not so easy to let go. Is there a book where Krishnamurti elaborates on this matter and what meditation is?
Krishnamurti’s approach to religion is quite nuanced. On the one hand he clearly rejects organised religion, including theory, dogma, ritual and practice (including systems of meditation); but on the other hand he stresses the possibility of a “religious mind” which is capable of coming upon “the nameless”, “the immeasurable”, etc (through meditation). In the remainder of the talk from which the excerpt is taken (NY 1983, Talk 2), Krishnamurti is at pains to point out the importance of attention (without a centre), as the ground for any real meditation: an attention in which there is no time, no becoming, no thought (no belief obviously), and complete silence. Apparently a mind that is in such a state of attention is the true religious mind.
Some from the greatest minds like Plato who I consider the greatest were certain that every one has a soul and that each soul is eternal and indestructible, I am certain that there is a universe and a dimension that is not made out of particles where souls exist, souls have no pain and no fears, many gurus said that the moment of death when the body is left, is the happiest moment, now then in the spiritual universe if there is a leader or somewhat a controller that should be God.
I have counselled at least 200 people with Religious Trauma Syndrome over the past five years. I quite often send them the following:
“Where there is fear, man inevitably seeks something that will protect him, that will hold him in a sense of security. And out of that fear, we invent gods… all the rituals, all the circus that goes on in the name of religion.”
“You worship dead things because they cannot respond, and you can attribute to them what you want. It is a marvelous escape.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti at 52 in Poona, September 5, 1948.
“Being confused, you want to be led out… you are seeking an escape. [D]o you think you will find any truth in the practice of any organized religion? Though you may study the Upanishads, the Gita, the Bible, or any other book, do you think you are capable of reading the truth of it when you yourself are confused? You will translate what you read according to your confusion, your likes and dislikes, your prejudices, your conditioning.
“Belief is a product of authority, and because you want to escape from confusion, you are caught in belief and therefore continue in confusion. You want authority because you are in pain, anxiety [and] loneliness, and you are suffering. You want help from the outside, so you create authority [and] you follow its directions, hoping that the confusion, the anxiety, the pain in your heart will be removed.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti at 52 in Bangalore, July 25, 1948.
“Seeking further security, the thinker takes refuge in an idea which he calls God, religion. But that is not religion; that is merely an extension of his own egotism, a projection of himself. It is a projected righteousness, a projected respectability, and this respectability cannot receive that which is truth.
“The search for ‘the beyond’ is merely an escape from what is, and if you want to escape, then religion or God is as good an escape as drink. Don’t object to this putting drink and God on the same level. All escapes are on the same level…”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti at 53 in Rajamundry, December 4, 1949.
“So let us find for ourselves what is really, truly, a ‘religious’ life. And that can only be found when we understand what religions actually are all about and put aside all that… There is no ‘spiritual authority’ whatsoever; that is one of the crimes we have committed; we have invented a mediator between truth and ourselves.
“We seem to lose all reason, all logic and all sanity when it comes to religious matters. So we have to be logical, rational, doubting, questioning all the things that man has put together — the gods, the saviours, the gurus and their authority. That is not religion, that is merely the assumption of authority by the few. You give them authority. So set all that aside.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti at 89 in Bombay, February 10, 1985.
Krishnamurti made this one powerful statement that seems to go to the core of his teachings and to the Essence of Life: “We are not individuals at all!” (The Flame of Attention)
If this statement gets to be seen not as a concept but as a Reality, it is possible for a deep inner change to take place.
It becomes clear that our sense of individuality makes us feel to be separate entities.
It also becomes clear that as separate, conditioned human beings CONFLICT IS INEVITABLE!
Looking at that statement of not being individuals leads us to realizing that we are much more the latest, most complex development in an evolutionary process of a great mysterious miracle, called LifeI
The human heart pumps 2000 gallons of blood a day through about 60,000 miles of blood vessels. And how consciousness arises from the trillions of physical processes of some 100 billion neurons in our 3-pound brain remains one of the greatest mysteries of the universe.
This whole wondrous, complex biological process of Life takes place in all of mankind regardless of religions, whether there is a god or not, regardless of education, status or color of skin.
We get to see more and more that we are the latest development in a wondrous evolutionary process in the FIRST place, along with the rest of all forms of life and that we are individuals SECOND.
It becomes clear that although we operate as separate, egocentric individuals, in essence, as Krishnamurty says, “OUR CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT PERSONAL, IT IS THE GROUND ON WHICH ALL HUMAN BEINGS STAND.” (The Flame of Attention). We are not individuals at all!!!!!
It also makes clear that to invite a sense of the great, mysterious “immeasurable,” as Krishnamurti puts it, the limited, egocentric mind needs to be still. (Which admittedly is easier said than done). There is no method to it.
In short, God is created by the arrogant human mind which is totally operating in time.
Meditation is again a process, about thought, we return. The human body and intellect rely heavily on the thought that cannot be removed, uprooted easily. Even inquiry, some trigger is required, the chemical reaction for single-celled amoeba needs and electrical shock to stir life into it, and so goes the very life itself! Just observing oneself as a witness, without any thought, is doable, and worth it. It is the Sūnya or Pūrṇa principle, that reveals itself!
The debate about the existence of a God is not new. If we are creatures then there must be a creator who created the creatures, but who created the creator? Is the creator a creature at the same time? if the creator has been created then there must be more than one creator, or if the creator could have come to be without needing a creator why could we not have come to be by the same method?
As for religion, if we assume that there is a God who created all this and he or she is the all-powerful all knowledgable why would he need to receive all these gifts or prayers etc. He or she will not need us at all, therefore all the religions and prayer would be for our own benefit to make us feel in connection with the creator.
If we are going to be judged after death then the creator has to allow us all the freedom to choose and not influence us in any way or it will not be fair to judge us on a choice that God interfered in. If we have such freedom to choose then we are responsible for all that is happening and there is no point from prayers as nothing will change.
Questions Question I think we will have to wait a very long time before we get answers. Maybe we will find the answers when we die.