Krishnamurti was asked the following question? "How is one who is superficial to become serious?

Here is how i answered the same question.

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Seriously?  Is that your question?  How can the superficial become serious?  (How can el trumpo become serious?)

Well, let's go to the trusty and see what it has to say about superficialness.  Based upon my review i believe the definition of superficial as you have used the term is the following: "appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely".

Real until examined more closely and found to be otherwise than real.  That is what superficiality means.  So, the obvious answer to your question requires you to quit being superficial if you want to become so-called "serious".  Instead of superficiality, you must become real.  How can you not be real and serious at the same time?

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Krishnamurti blames superficiality on dependence.  As usual, that is not a relationship that i would have made right off the top of my head, but i do agree with the way that Krishnamurti has used the term.  Dependence meaning: "the state of relying on or being controlled by someone or something else.

Just think about that.  It is pretty hard to be real, true, and serious when you are not even in control--isn;t it?  How can you be serious when you are not even in control.

If you let outside events (e.g., an el trumpo statement) affect you, are you in control, or is the outside event in control?  Well, one thing that we know for sure is this--you are not in control under such a situation.  The outside event has thrown you off your game, your goal, your enlightenment.

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So, if that really is the case, which it is, what can you do about it?  Like Krishnamurti says, you must identify what is going on inside your mind and essentially bring it to a stop, to nothingness.  It's almost like the mind needs something to do, so it starts some kind of conflict or disturbance (a regular Krishnamurti term) to give it something to do and to keep it busy.

Stop it!  That's what you have to do if you want to be serious about things!  Just stop it!  If you are jealous, recognize that you are jealous, and simply stop being jealous.  How difficult is that?  It may be more difficult than first imagined, but it is not difficult if you really want to be serious.  How can you stop being jealous if you don't even recognize that you are jealous?   The same thing goes with anger, the type of love you send, etc. etc. etc., 

Think about it.  It's pretty damn hard to fix something if you don't even recognize the problem in the first place.  So, that is the first step in becoming serious--identification of a problem.  It's only after you identify the problem that you can go about solving it.  

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But again, seriously, what are we talking about here?  Superficiality resides in the "universe of all things" and on the right-hand side of the equation.  Superficiality doesn't exist in Reality--on the left-hand side of the equation.  That in itself, makes superficiality, superficial without any further consideration (and that is essentially what Krishnamurti was talking about).  Everything in the "universe of all things" is superficial under Krishnamurti's terms (and i can accept that within my own scheme, too).

Superficiality is a product of the mind and not the soul.  The Soul is clean, aware, truthful, and pretty darn smart.  The mind, not so much sol.  In fact, Krishnamurti essentially calls the mind "stupid". 

In the end one of the best things you can do to reach cosmos consciousness, the Buddha/Jesus/Mohammad mind, enlightenment is to recognize "your mind's stupidity"--the tossing turning, interative, churning, seeking, etc. mind--then stop the mind's activity all together.

And the only way that you can do that is to find another source for understanding than the mind.  Many people find that other source by thinking from the heart (soul) rather than the brain.  The brain, after all, is nothing more than a machine.  The brain does not feel, smell, see, hear--it's you who does those things. 

To become serious, you must shut down the brain's inherently busy-body activity and discover what your heart has to say about things instead.  And that is not done superficially.