Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Livelihood

• You must find out for yourself what it is you love to do. Don't think in terms of choosing a vocation in order to fit into society, because in that way you will never discover what you love to do. When you love to do something, there is no problem of choice. When you love, and let love do what it will, there is right action, because love never seeks success, it is never caught up in imitation; but if you give your life to something which you don't love, you will never be free. But merely doing whatever you like is not doing what you love to do. To find out what you really love to do requires a great deal of penetration, insight. Don't begin by thinking in terms of earning a livelihood; but if you discover what it is you love to do, then you will have a means of livelihood.
   
• Sir, when you do not use society or your neighbor as a means of self-extension, you are completely content with the things that society gives you in the way of food, clothing, and shelter. Therefore, you are not greedy, and not being greedy, your relationship with society is entirely different. The moment you do not use society as a means of self-extension, you reject the things of society, and therefore there is a revolution in your relationship. You are not depending on another for your psychological needs - and it is only then that you can have a right means of livelihood.
   
• Before there can be a right livelihood, the obviously false means of earning a livelihood must first be seen - the army, the law, the police, the big business corporations that are sucking people in and exploiting them, whether in the name of the state, of capital, or of religion. When you see the false and eradicate the false, there is transformation, there is revolution; and it is that revolution alone that can create a new society. To seek, as an individual, a right livelihood is good, is excellent, but that does not solve the vast problem. The vast problem is solved only when you and I are not seeking security. There is no such thing as security.
   
• Right livelihood on a vast scale must begin with those who understand what is false. When you are battling against the false, then you are creating the right means of livelihood. When you are battling against the whole structure of dissension, of exploitation, whether by the left or by the right, or the authority of religion and the priests, that is the right profession at the present time because that will create a new society, a new culture. But to battle, you must see very clearly and very definitely that which is false so that the false drops away. To discover what is false, you must be aware of it; you must observe everything that you are doing, thinking, and feeling, and out of that you will not only discover what is false, but out of that there will come a new vitality, a new energy, and that energy will dictate what kind of work to do or not to do.
   
• I never said it's wrong to earn a livelihood; one has to earn a livelihood. I earn my livelihood by talking to people in many places. I have been doing it for fifty years and I am doing what I love to do. What I am doing is really what I think is right, is true; it is the way of living for me - not imposed on me by somebody - and that is my way of earning a livelihood.
   
• Surely education is not merely to give you knowledge, but also to give you the capacity to look at the world objectively, to see what is happening - the wars, the destruction, the violence, the brutality. The function of education is to find out how to live differently, not merely to pass exams, to get a degree, become qualified in certain ways. It is to help you to face the world in a totally different, intelligent way, knowing you have to earn a livelihood, knowing all the responsibilities, the miseries of it all.
   
• So, the question of right livelihood is your problem and mine, is it not? But most of us are not concerned with right livelihood at all; we are glad and thankful simply to have a job, and so we maintain a society, a culture, that renders right livelihood impossible. Sirs, do not treat it theoretically. If you find yourself in a wrong vocation and actually do something about it, do you not see what a revolution it will bring in your life and in the life of those around you? But if you listen casually and carry on as before because you have a good job and for you there is no problem, obviously you will continue to cause misery in the world. For the man with too little money there is a problem; but he, like the rest of us, is only concerned with having more, and when he gets more, the problem continues because he wants still more.
   
• Action can only be when there is complete freedom from the past and the future. And when we use the word 'right' it means precise, accurate, action which is not based on motive, action which is not directed, committed. The understanding of all this - what is right action, right action, right relationship, the understanding of it brings about intelligence. You understand? Not the intelligence of the intellect but that profound intelligence which is not yours or mine, and that intelligence will dictate what you will do to earn a livelihood. Vous avez compris? You have understood? Without that intelligence your livelihood will be dictated by circumstances. When there is that intelligence you may be a gardener, a cook, or something, it doesn't matter. You see now our minds are trained to accept status, position, and when one has understood all that, in the very understanding of all that is intelligence which will show what is a right livelihood.
   
• So, all this has to be transformed to form a right society in which there can be right livelihood. Such a revolution is not an impossible task. You and I have to do it. It can be brought about only when you and I are not envious and seeking power, are not antagonistic and acquisitive. Then we will be able to create a new society; then we will find a right livelihood even in a disintegrating society; then we will be able to create a new society in which man is not held by its static demands, and in which there will be those who will not ask reward for their actions, those who have no authority or power over another. They are inwardly rich, for truth has come to them. It is only the man that seeks reality who can create a new social order. Only love can bring about transformation in the world of corruption.
   
• Taking it factually as things are, you get educated in order to get a job and with that you are satisfied; and that is all you are concerned with - to be able to earn a livelihood by some means. So you go to a college or to a university, you soon marry and you have to earn a livelihood, and before you know where you are, you are a grandfather for the rest of your life. That is what most of us are doing with education; that is the fact. With that, most of us are satisfied.
   
• There may be a few scientists, a few technical experts, a few engineers who really love what they do in the total sense of the word, which I am going to explain presently. But most of us do not love what we are doing and that is why we are occupied with our livelihood. I think there is a difference between the two if you really go into it. How can I love what I am doing if I am all the time driven by ambition, trying through my work to achieve an aim, to become somebody, to have a success? An artist who is concerned with his name, with his greatness, with comparison, with fulfilling his ambition, has ceased to be an artist; he is merely a technician like everybody else. Which means, really, that to love something there must be a total cessation of all ambition, of all desire for the recognition of society, which is rotten anyhow.