The Speaking Tree Website | December 07, 2015

Mr. J. Krishnamurti was a well-known Indian thinker. When he used to go on a public stage, he would fold his hands and say, "Sir, I am a nobody," or, "Sir, I am just a passer-by." Are we all nothing in reality? His answer was, "Yes, when you are as nothing, you are everything." There is an example from Krishnamurti's life, which can be quoted here with great pertinence.

Mr. J. Krishnamurti was fortunate enough to find a large audience at every speech he made. Thousands attended his talks year after year, but he felt unhappy at their failure to move along with him. At the end of his discussions in Madras in February 1984, he asked the audience: "Will you change, sirs?" and declared, "You'll all go back and continue doing what you have been doing." For more than 50 years he travelled round the West and India, but never relaxed his efforts to make people see what he thought ought to be seen.

Once a man in the audience asked him angrily, "Year after year you say that we are not going along with you; then why do you keep talking to us?" Mr. Krishnamurti politely replied, "Sir, have you ever asked a rose why it blooms?"

When you are provoked by a remark of your critic, all you do is react. But when you resist provocation, you are able to give an answer, which will render your critic speechless.