self image

I have known, traveled with, interviewed and directed a number of documentaries on the life and insights of J. Krishnamurti, and have done so for more than thirty years. What follows is a conversation I had that was included in a feature documentary titled The Challenge of Change. mm

Krishnamurti with Michael Mendizza

M The world crisis is unquestionably growing more and more acute. You have said that the outer crisis, in society and the world, reflects an inner crisis in human consciousness. What do you mean by that?

We have two possibilities, and the full continuum in-between: a brain that is nourished with rich sensory experiences from birth forward, one that integrates and therefore understands, with true intelligence, what it experiences with balance and harmony - and a sensory deprived brain, a brain that is constantly at war with itself.

Beliefs are realities. Beliefs predispose and organize the body and mind in predictable ways.

What we think of as the ego only pops up along with the need to defend or justify. The less security, the louder it screams and the more dominance it asserts in order to protect its image.

Looking at my own family system was where I discovered normal wasn’t healthy. How the socialization process itself here and what I call the excited States of America may be normal but it’s not healthy.

PGA Tour and Hall of Fame - I had tremendous self-esteem because of my father. I had a very secure childhood. I knew he loved me and accepted me. And I know that there's no affirmation stronger than a father's affirmation that you're going to succeed.

What we are finding now is that the physical system (body) is completely changeable – based on the perceptions and the belief of the system.

The human brain is the most complex and most highly organized and most beautifully organized entity in the known universe.

MM: Joe, I have been using the phrase "the intelligence of play for many years. What is the relationship between play and learning?

Through studying child-development, I saw how our cultural world view was formed by our social models; and how this view is locked into the very neural structures of our brains, not as opinion but as our world-forming, perceptual-conceptual process.