---------------------------------

MG asked:

"'Be selfish and stay selfish' is my message. Wanting enlightenment is selfishness. Charity is
selfishness."
U.G. Krishnamurti.

I have a question on the last part of Krishnamurti's quote and I don't quite understand how charity or
altruism can be a form of selfishness. Can you please help me answer that question for me?

============

I know nothing about Krishnamurti, but I expect he confuses selfishness which is taking more than
you are entitled to, and is morally bad, with self-interest which is taking what you are entitled to, and
is neutral, but can be a good thing to do. If there are two pieces of cake, one for me and one for my
brother, and I take both, I am being selfish. If I take one, I am acting self-interestedly. If I give both to
my brother, I am acting altruistically. It would be bad to grab both pieces; but there is nothing wrong
with taking just my piece of cake. And, I am certainly not obligated to give my brother both pieces and
leave nothing for myself.

The English 18th century philosopher and divine, Joseph Butler, went to great pains to clear up the
confusion between selfishness and self-interest, and went on to argue that much of the trouble in the
world was caused not by people who acted self-interestedly, but rather by people who did not act in
their enlightened own best interests chiefly because they were ignorant of what was in their own
self-interest, since he believed that society would be a better place if everyone knew where his own
interests lay and acted to promoted them. A similar view was held by Adam Smith who believed that
by everyone acting in his own self-interest, the general interests of society would be served.

So, if Krishnamurti changed his advocacy of selfishness to a more sensible advocacy of self-interest,
I could agree with him. Of course, if he did, he would no longer sound paradoxically profound and
probably lose some of his audience who like that sort of thing.

Kenneth Stern

Krishnamurti is distinguishing here between relative and absolute truths, a convention in his Indian
tradition. He is speaking absolutely. Wanting enlightenment and charity and compassion are 'selfish'
because the real meaning of the self here is universal, not relative, not psychological. The absolute
meaning of self is God. The identity between self and God is found in Western tradition in the writing
that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Krishnamurti is trying to awake his hearers to this
truth: the identity between human and divine. Not just Christ, he believes, but each one of us, is God
incarnate, but very few are awake to this 'fact' and able to realise it. In other words, God's selfishness
and charity are the uttermost limits of our own, that is infinite.

Matthew Del Nevo
http://www.sicetnon.com