What is it that reincarnates? | Krishnamurti

Now with regard to reincarnation, what is it that reincarnates? That is, I am living, I shall die and I hope next life I will have an opportunity to live in a bigger house. Please, no.

Or a better life, more money, this or that or the other. Now, what is it that continues? You understand my question?

Please, this you have to think it out together carefully. I have lived fifty years, thirty years, a hundred years. I have accumulated a great deal of information, knowledge.

I have struggled, I have tried to be virtuous, I have tried to be all that. And there is this accumulated entity. The ‘me’ that has accumulated, struggled, achieved, experienced, been through sorrow, depression, poverty, every kind of penury.

And I die. And I say to myself, ‘Why shouldn’t I go on, so that I will improve myself next life? ’ By good deeds, by.

. . etc.

, I will be better. So what is this centre which has accumulated, remembered, suffered, what is that centre? You understand?

If that centre has a continuity, then there is reincarnation. It will reincarnate next life, the soul – the Christian, the Hindus have a different word for it and so on. But the essence of that is the centre, right?

You can call it by whatever name you like but it is that. Now what is that centre? Is it permanent?

If it is permanent, it can go on modifying itself, changing itself, but the core of it will go on. I wonder if you are following all this? It is fairly simple.

So we have to find out what that centre is. If we say it is the centre of God, then that centre which is creating such mischief, God must also be mischievous. I wonder if you meet all this.

Or that centre is put together by thought. You understand? The name, the form, the family, my previous families, my father, mother and so on, genetically, heredity, the accumulation of all the pain and sorrow of generations, is that centre, put together by thought.

I say I am a Hindu. You say you are a Catholic because you have been from childhood trained to accept Catholicism. And I, born in India, if I am stupid enough, I say, ‘Yes, I am a Hindu’.

So that centre is the result of continuous, modifying movement of thought. I know the people who believe in reincarnation will object to all this because they like to believe that they have a future. It may be illusory, nonsensical, but it gives them comfort.

And we all want comfort, in one way or the other. So, dying means the ending of that also. And when there is an ending of it, the mind is totally different.

I wonder if you see. It is no longer accumulating. It is no longer experiencing.

It isn’t dead, it isn’t static, but so alive there is nothing to collect – you understand?