Shadowing Practice: Does God exist? | J. Krishnamurti - Learn English Speaking with Video

Sixth Question: 'Kindly give a straight reply.

Does God exist, or not? Yes, or no?

If yes, how best to realise Him in this life?' It's a lovely question, isn’t it?

'Kindly give a straight reply.

Does God exist, or not? Yes, or no?

If yes, how best to realise Him in this life?' Man throughout history from the ancient Greeks, from the ancient Sumerians, has had this idea of God.

Right? I'm not at all sure whether in the Upanishads they mention God at all.

Or is it a later invention?

You understand?

So, what is God?

We are investigating, I am not attacking God.

I am not denying God, but we are investigating whether there is such a thing as God.

Who invented God?

Did God invent us, did God create us?

God, who is omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, merciful, just, all goodness. Right?

That’s your concept of God.

And if you say, he has created us, then we are part of his image.

We are part of him.

That is, we are omniscient, generous, loving. Right?

And eternal.

Are we? Or we think we are?

You understand my question?

If God created you, he must be an extraordinary entity because he wants you to lead a terrible life.

You understand my question?

If God made you, why are you like this?

You must be extraordinary human beings, mustn’t you?

Beautiful, full of joy, excitement, full of delight, but you are not.

So either you have created God, or God has created you.

But if you examine very closely, you have created God.

In India, there are about – I was told there are about 300,000 gods and more.

Every local person has his own god.

So, sirs, we have created God.

See the irony of it.

Thought has created God and then thought worships the image which thought has created.

Which is, to worship oneself and call it 'God'.

You understand all this?

'The better part of you is God'. Right?

I wonder if you understand this.

First of all, let’s be clear.

Have you created God?

The local gods, round the corner, or the local god in Rome, or in Tirupati, or wherever, you have created them, haven’t you?

You're so very uncertain, aren’t you? So frightened.

If you say, 'We have created', then you are scared stiff because you have created out of your fear, that.

Out of your fear, you want security.

You want safety, you want to feel there is somebody looking after you because you are afraid. You follow?

So you create that, and then worship that.

Just see what you are doing!

Going to Tirupati and putting all your money in the bag.

Do you think gods want your money?

Sir, look at it all.

You have nothing to offer but money, garlands, prostrations, rituals.

Right? You have nothing else to offer.

Have you realised the tragedy of this, sirs?

If you love, not God, that’s very easy to love God because it's an abstraction, it has not much meaning.

But if you loved, that very love is God, that very love is sacred.

You won’t go outside to look for God.

You understand all this, sirs?

And the questioner wants to know if I believe in God.

I don’t. Because 'God' is not something created by man.

There is such a thing as eternity, which is to be outside of time.

Right, sir?

For that you must have a mind, a heart that is completely free from all the burdens of life.

Right? From your vanity, your arrogance, your selfishness.

You follow, sir?

And we say, we are not capable of it, tell us what to do.

You are back in the cycle, somebody to tell you what to do.

Sir, you're in a jungle, you have to walk through it by yourself.

And for that you need vitality and vigour and strength.

Not belief in God, in goodness – belief has no place where truth is concerned.

Q: Then what is atman, sir?

Atman, about which we have been hearing even Annie Besant in the past.

Atman. K: Who is that?

Q: The conscience inside each of us.

K: Who is atman?

Q: The conscience inside each of us.

K: Is conscience atman?

Q: What they call a soul.

K: Soul. Which soul?

The sole of a shoe? Or soul?

I don’t know what you are talking about.

Q: Atman. K: At last, you are all getting excited!

Because your belief is being attacked.

You are not meeting the challenge, but you are resisting it.

You think there is something inside you which is permanent, which is the light of God, which is nameless, etc, etc, call it 'atman', 'soul', 'light', whatever you like to call it.

That there is inside you, in your conscience, in your brain, in your mind, something which is not worldly, which is not of thought.

Right? You believe that, don’t you? Yes, sir?

Q: No, I don’t believe in it.

K: Why? Q: There is no such thing.

K: How do you know?

Q: (Inaudible) K: Childish. Just belief, belief, belief.

What kind of brains have you, sirs?

Don’t you want to find out?

Don’t you want to investigate into the truth of this matter, whether there is soul, atman, whatever you like to call it?

Just believe. If you believe, what value has it?

Suppose I believe I have got atman, or whatever it is, 'super-atman' I would call it.

I believe in that. What value has it?

In my daily life what part does it play?

I am miserable, I am confused, I’m lonely, anxious, in agony, what’s the point of my having a belief in atman?

If I am free from all that, completely, then I shall find out.

100

But to suppose I am, it becomes so childish.

101

For God’s sake.

102

And we are all grown-up people – jobs, children, wives.

103

Q: (Inaudible) K: What, what, what, sir? I don’t understand what you’re saying.

104

Q: So many great people… K: Ramana Maharshi and who?

105

Q: Ramakrishna.

106

K: All right, sir. What about them?

107

Q: They lived a simple life (inaudible) K: Sir, would you forget all these people, including Ramana Maharshi, whatever the other gentleman was?

108

Would you forget them?

109

What value has their life to you?

110

You have your life to live, not their life!

111

God, what kind…?

112

And when the people say they have attained – whatever they have attained – how do you know?

113

Q: You have also said there's some timeless eternity.

114

K: Ah, I have said it, sir. Don’t believe it!

115

Q: That's not fair, sir.

116

K: It is not fair, I know, it is not quite fair.

117

But, sir, just listen.

118

Sir, truth is something you cannot experience.

119

It cannot be told to you, the word is not that.

120

But if you live on words, it is that.

121

You understand?

122

The word is not that, like the word ‘tree’ is not the tree.

123

I can describe eternity, blah, blah, but the word is not that.

124

But we are satisfied with the word.

125

Right, sir?

126

You love with your heart, with your mind, with everything that you have, you love somebody, and you tell me of that love, and I accept the words but I have no...

127

– the flower isn’t there, the perfume isn’t there.

128

You see, sirs, you have leaders: religious leaders and political leaders.

129

I don’t know why, why you have leaders at all.

130

Ramakrishna, whatever gurus that you've had, one after the other.

131

This country is full of them.

132

And why do you follow? You understand?

133

If once you realised that you are responsible entirely for yourself, that you are in a jungle, literally in a jungle, where you have to make your own way out.

134

There is nobody to lead you, then you forget all this: the examples, the books, everything, because you have got vitality, strength to go through.

135

But the moment you depend on leaders, you become weak.

136

If once you realise it, in your heart not just intellectually, then you are a man, a human being, free to walk straight!

137

But we don’t want all that.

138

Sir, it's so simple when you think of it all.

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49 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 138 sentences and 1373 words to shadow. The speech runs for 18:16. The speaker talks slowly, about 75 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
belief noun	/bɪˈliːf/	Mental acceptance of a claim as true.
realise verb		Non-Oxford British standard spelling of realize.
conscience noun	/ˈkɑn.ʃəns/	The ethical or moral sense of right and wrong, chiefly as it affects a person’s own behaviour and forms their attitude to their past actions.
investigate verb	/ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/	To inquire into or study in order to ascertain facts or information.
worship noun	/ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/	The devotion accorded to a deity or to a sacred object.
jungle noun	/ˈd͡ʒʌŋ.ɡ(ə)l/	A large, lush, undeveloped, humid forest, especially in a tropical region, thick with vegetation and wildlife; a tropical rainforest.
eternity noun	/əˈtɜɹnəti/	Existence without end, infinite time.
extraordinary adjective	/ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/	Out of the ordinary; exceptional; unusual.
goodness noun	/ˈɡʊdnəs/	The state or characteristic of being good.
eternal adjective	/ɪˈtɝ.nl̩/	Lasting forever; unending.
childish adjective	/ˈt͡ʃaɪldɪʃ/	Immature in thought or behaviour.
attain verb	/əˈteɪn/	To come to or reach (a place) by motion or progression.
invent verb	/ɪnˈvɛnt/	To design a new process or mechanism.
confused adjective	/kənˈfjuːzd/	unable to think clearly or understand
flower noun	/ˈfloʊɚ/	A reproductive structure in angiosperms (flowering plants), often conspicuously colourful and typically including sepals, petals, and either or both stamens…

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
find out verb	To discover, as by asking or investigating.
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
grow up verb	To mature and become an adult.
walk through verb	To explain (something) to (someone), step by step.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has created · have created · have attained
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was told · is sacred · is concerned
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	eternity, which is · you which is · something which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 23 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, isn't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: conscience /ˈkɑn.ʃəns/, worship /ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/, childish /ˈt͡ʃaɪldɪʃ/, shoe /ˈʃu/, anxious /ˈæŋkʃəs/
Long words — get the stress right: investigate /ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/, eternity /əˈtɜɹnəti/, extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/, entity /ˈɛn.tə.ti/ [-tʰi], miserable /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like belief, realise, conscience.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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