Simple life does not consist in the mere possession of a few things
but in the freedom from possession and non-possession,
in the indifference to things that comes with deep understanding.
Merely to renounce things in order to reach greater happiness,
greater joy that is promised, is to seek reward which limits thought
and prevents it from flowering and discovering reality.
To control thought-feeling for a greater reward, for a greater result,
is to make it petty, ignorant and sorrowful. Simplicity of life
comes with inner richness, with inward freedom from craving,
with freedom from acquisitiveness, from addiction, from distraction.
From this simple life there comes that necessary one-pointedness
which is not the outcome of self-enclosing concentration
but of extensional awareness and meditative understanding.
Simple life is not the result of outward circumstances;
contentment with little comes with the riches of inward understanding.
If you depend on circumstances to make you satisfied with life
then you will create misery and chaos, for then you are a plaything
of environment, and it is only when circumstances are transcended
through understanding that there is order and clarity.
To be constantly aware of the process of acquisitiveness,
of addiction, of distraction, brings freedom from them
and so there is a true and simple life.
~ J. Krishnamurti
from The Collected Works Volume III Ojai
8th Public Talk 2nd July, 1944
