Hurt and flattery are the same, aren’t they? Both are different forms of hurts. You are flattered, and you like it, and the flatterer becomes your friend. So that also is another form of encouraging the image. The one you want, the other you don’t want. We are now dealing only with what we don’t want, which is not to be hurt; but we want the other, which is pleasurable, which is comforting, pleasing to the images that we have. So both are the same. Now how am I, how is a human being, to be free of hurt? So we have to go into the question of what it is to be attentive.

What does it mean to attend? If you know what it means to attend, it may solve the problem. Have you ever given total attention to anything? Complete attention in which there is no center from which you attend? When there is a center from which you attend then there is a division. Let’s put it differently. You know what it is to be aware. One is aware of the trees under which we are sitting, aware of the branches, the color of the branches and their thickness, of the leaves, the shadows, aware of all the nature, the beauty of it. [The Ojai talks took place in the open in a grove of oaks.] Then you are also aware of sitting on the ground, the color of the carpet, the microphone. And can you be aware of all this, the microphone, the carpet, the earth, the color of the leaves, and so on, the blue shirt, be aware of all that without any choice? To look at it without any choice, judgment, just to look.

Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti