"So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it"
About this Quote
Real listening, Krishnamurti insists, is an event, not a technique. The line doesn’t flatter the listener as “empathetic”; it demands a rare kind of attention that strips away the usual egoic interference: the impulse to agree, rebut, diagnose, or translate everything into your own framework. “Completely, attentively” is doing heavy work here. It’s an ethical stance as much as a cognitive one, because it asks you to suspend the small violences of conversation - the way we cherry-pick phrases to confirm what we already think.
The intent is classic Krishnamurti: direct perception as liberation. He’s not advocating better communication skills so relationships run smoother. He’s pointing at a deeper malfunction: we live in fragments. We hear “part of it” because our minds are already busy sorting the speaker into categories (wise/ignorant, ally/threat), or preparing the next sentence. By urging attention to “the feeling of what is being conveyed,” he’s smuggling in his core theme that thought is often noise - memory and conditioning masquerading as understanding.
Context matters: Krishnamurti spent decades rejecting spiritual authority, including the messianic role once projected onto him. His talks repeatedly circle the same provocation: truth isn’t inherited, it’s perceived moment to moment. This quote lands as a quiet rebuke to modern performative listening - the podcast nod, the therapeutic paraphrase, the social-media “I hear you” - where words are consumed while the living human underneath remains unheard. The rhetoric is deliberately plain, almost hypnotically repetitive, as if simplicity itself is the test: can you stay with the whole without turning it into a concept?
The intent is classic Krishnamurti: direct perception as liberation. He’s not advocating better communication skills so relationships run smoother. He’s pointing at a deeper malfunction: we live in fragments. We hear “part of it” because our minds are already busy sorting the speaker into categories (wise/ignorant, ally/threat), or preparing the next sentence. By urging attention to “the feeling of what is being conveyed,” he’s smuggling in his core theme that thought is often noise - memory and conditioning masquerading as understanding.
Context matters: Krishnamurti spent decades rejecting spiritual authority, including the messianic role once projected onto him. His talks repeatedly circle the same provocation: truth isn’t inherited, it’s perceived moment to moment. This quote lands as a quiet rebuke to modern performative listening - the podcast nod, the therapeutic paraphrase, the social-media “I hear you” - where words are consumed while the living human underneath remains unheard. The rhetoric is deliberately plain, almost hypnotically repetitive, as if simplicity itself is the test: can you stay with the whole without turning it into a concept?
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
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