In this small collection we see the full expression of Krishnamurti’s unique manner of exploring the essential concerns of life. Over his many years of teaching, the inquiry took many forms: public talks to large gatherings; private conversations with troubled individuals; dialogues with scientists, teachers and students, and even with large audiences; and books, especially his notebooks. These thirteen conversations share aspects of each of these. At the same time, they seem to have a sense of intimacy, as though Krishnamurti is speaking privately to the readers about themselves.

The first five conversations usually open with descriptions of nature before going into discussions of meditation, the nature of goodness and innocence, preoccupation with sex, freedom from conflict, and the true meaning of relationship. The following eight conversations, although dictated by Krishnamurti, are given the form of questions put to him to which he responds. The responses give insights into the importance of daily life, and into problems of habits, attachment, loneliness, and dependence. They go into the sense of the futility of life and the destructiveness of living with conflict and how being aware of thought as it arises meets these feelings. In discussing the sacred, Krishnamurti asks if silence is just a doorway or the thing itself.

The pieces are taken from a manuscript that Krishnamurti had dictated in 1969 at Malibu, California. The material was originally intended for a book, but the book was never published in the original format, although many items, not from the present collection, appear in The Urgency of Change. The selections here were privately printed for students at Brock wood Park School in England in two booklets with the titles Five Conversations and Eight Conversations. As we read these, each one becomes a meditation.