Living with a sustained seriousness. 21 February 1970. Duration: 91 minutes. What does it mean to be serious? Becoming. Why do I compare myself with you or with somebody else? Do I look at people through images? Can the brain operate without recourse to the past? 22 February 1970. Duration: 92 minutes. Is there self-progress? Conflict. Security. Any form of division within oneself is a source of conflict. Can the brain be quiet?

Acknowledged as one of the greatest religious teachers of this or any other age, the late J. Krishnamurti was a visionary whose ideas are still ahead of his time. New Dimensions host Michael Toms was fortunate to capture this philosopher's penetrating wisdom in 1983, just a few years before his death at the age of 90.

J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was a philosopher in the original sense of the word, not an academic or intellectual, but a lover of truth who raised essential questions of living. He spent his adult life speaking to people around the world about eternal questions of life. In this series of eight talks, given in Ojai, California, in 1955, he confronts the confusion, habits, and assumptions of the human mind, and claims these lie at the root of all violence and suffering in the world.

A radical transformation in the psyche itself. 8 November 1968. Duration: 80 minutes. To communicate we must know that the word is not the thing and also be in that state of mind whose quality is attention, care. That can take place only if we are serious. We are the world, and the world is us. To bring about a radical transformation, which is so essential in society, there must be radical transformation in ourselves.

The role of the teacher. 26 March 1971. Duration: 56 minutes. There is much talk of a spiritual revolution among young people. Do you see in this very mixed phenomenon any hope of a new flowering for civilisation or possibility of growth? One can go into oneself at tremendous depths and find out everything. To go into oneself is the problem. Not being able to do it, we ask for help. If there were no books, no gurus, what would you do?

Is thought detrimental? 15 August 1965. Duration: 63 minutes. Why does one seek pleasure? Can the mind face only facts and not thought? Why have I never said, 'Thought is poison' to myself? Meeting something one doesn't know, facing something which has no answer. Acting without knowing. What is a state of mind which is silent? Time is detrimental. Are we twisting everything to our core of pleasure?

Described by the Dalai Lama as “one of the greatest thinkers of the age”, Jiddu Krishnamurti has influenced millions throughout the 20th century, including Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, Henry Miller and Joseph Campbell. Born of middle-class Brahmin parents in 1895, Krishnamurti was recognized at age fourteen by theosophists Annie Besant and C W Leadbetter as an anticipated world teacher and proclaimed to be the vehicle for the reincarnation of Christ in the West and of Buddha in the East.

What is truth, and what is reality? 18 May 1975. Duration: 70 minutes. What is truth, and what is reality? Anything that thought thinks about or reacts upon or projects - that is reality. And that reality has nothing to do with truth. The art of seeing is to place reality where it is and not move that in order to get truth. You can't get truth. How am I to empty that consciousness and yet retain knowledge - otherwise I couldn't function - and reach a state which will comprehend reality?

Complete freedom from thought. 9 September 1972. Duration: 76 minutes. Learning is instant perception and action. What place has thought in learning? To learn about freedom, must thought be completely silent? Does insight into freedom take time? Can thinking, however rational, bring about a psychological revolution in us? Is thought always conditioned? Is freedom the nonexistence of thought?

Can the mind be free? 3 February 1969. Duration: 99 minutes. The society in which we live is the result of our psychological state. Where there is fear there is aggression. For most of us, freedom is something that we don’t want. Inaction is total action. What is the machinery that builds images? Questions from the audience follow the talk.