Article: 1000 of sgi.talk.ratical
From: (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986)
Summary: Truth is a pathless land
Keywords: choiceless awareness, self-knowledge
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 15:46:19 GMT
Lines: 624
All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and
understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders
destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have
to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question
everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.
-- J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, p. 21
I am becoming increasingly drawn to the words of Krishnamurti both on tape,
and in books. His ability to articulate "a clear contemporary statement of
the fundamental human problem, together with an invitation to solve it in
the only way in which it can be solved--for and by" oneself is, to me,
astonishing. I lived in Ojai from 1970 to 1973 but all during that time,
though I knew he was there too, I never sought him out. I dearly wish now
that I had. Even so, I am finding his clarity of mind shatteringly vivid,
perceptive and compelling.
I wanted the 1000th article of ratical to be something special. There is a
great deal about what this man gave voice and awareness to that cannot
possibly be encapsulated in one post. However, I wanted to send something
out that wud attempt to invoke something fundamental about what he spoke of.
Aldous Huxley and he were close friends. I have included Huxley's Foreward
to Krishnamurti's book The First and Last Freedom, published in 1954.
Following this is a one-page introduction to Krishnamurti's work by the
renowned physicist, David Bohm, who was also a close friend of
Krishnamurti's. Finally I include a one-page statement written by
Krishnamurti in 1980 as a summary of his teachings. I am always open to and
interested in getting together with other people who wud be interested in
discussing the issues raised by all of this.
--ratitor
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a
European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why
it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest
of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality,
by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to
understand violence does not belong to any country, to any
religion, to any political party or partial system; he is
concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
-- J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, pp. 51-52
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FOREWORD
MAN IS AN amphibian who lives simultaneously in two worlds--the
given and the home-made, the world of matter, life and
consciousness and the world of symbols. In our thinking we make
use of a great variety of symbol-systems--linguistic,
mathematical, pictorial, musical, ritualistic. Without such
symbol-systems we should have no art, no science, no law, no
philosophy, not so much as the rudiments of civilization: in other
words, we should be animals.
Symbols, then, are indispensable. But symbols--as the history of
our own and every other age makes so abundantly clear--can also be
fatal. Consider, for example, the domain of science on the one
hand, the domain of politics and religion on the other. Thinking
in terms of, and acting in response to, one set of symbols, we
have come, in some small measure, to understand and control the
elementary forces of nature. Thinking in terms of, and acting in
response to, another set of symbols, we use these forces as
instruments of mass murder and collective suicide. In the first
case the explanatory symbols were well chosen, carefully analysed
and progressively adapted to the emergent facts of physical
existence. In the second case symbols originally ill-chosen were
never subjected to thorough-going analysis and never re-formulated
so as to harmonize with the emergent facts of human existence.
Worse still, these misleading symbols were everywhere treated with
a wholly unwarranted respect, as though, in some mysterious way,
they were more real than the realities to which they referred. In
the contexts of religion and politics, words are not regarded as
standing, rather inadequately, for things and events; on the
contrary, things and events are regarded as particular
illustrations of words.
Up to the present symbols have been used realistically only in
those fields which we do not feel to be supremely important. In
every situation involving our deeper impulses we have insisted on
using symbols, not merely unrealistically, but idolatrously, even
insanely. The result is that we have been able to commit, in cold
blood and over long periods of time, acts of which the brutes are
capable only for brief moments and at the frantic height of rage,
desire or fear. Because they use and worship symbols, men can
become idealists; and, being idealists, they can transform the
animal's intermittent greed into the grandiose imperialisms of a
Rhodes or a J. P. Morgan; the animal's intermittent love of
bullying into Stalinism or the Spanish Inquisition; the animal's
intermittent attachment to its territory into the calculated
frenzies of nationalism. Happily, they can also transform the
animal's intermittent kindliness into the life-long charity of an
Elizabeth Fry or a Vincent de Paul; the animal's intermittent
devotion to its mate and its young into that reasoned and
persistent co-operation which, up to the present, has proved
strong enough to save the world from the consequences of the
other, the disastrous kind of idealism. Will it go on being able
to save the world? The question cannot be answered. All we can say
is that, with the idealists of nationalism holding the A-bomb, the
odds in favour of the idealists of co-operation and charity have
sharply declined.
Even the best cookery book is no substitute for even the worst
dinner. The fact seems sufficiently obvious. And yet, throughout
the ages, the most profound philosophers, the most learned and
acute theologians have constantly fallen into the error of
identifying their purely verbal constructions with facts, or into
the yet more enormous error of imagining that symbols are somehow
more real than what they stand for. Their word-worship did not go
without protest. "Only the spirit," said St. Paul, "gives life;
the letter kills." "And why," asks Eckhart, "why do you prate of
God? Whatever you say of God is untrue." At the other end of the
world the author of one of the Mahayana sutras affirmed that "the
truth was never preached by the Buddha, seeing that you have to
realize it within yourself". Such utterances were felt to be
profoundly subversive, and respectable people ignored them. The
strange idolatrous over-estimation of words and emblems continued
unchecked. Religions declined; but the old habit of formulating
creeds and imposing belief in dogmas persisted even among the
atheists.
In recent years logicians and semanticists have carried out a very
thorough analysis of the symbols, in terms of which men do their
thinking. Linguistics has become a science, and one may even study
a subject to which the late Benjamin Whorf gave the name of meta-
linguistics. All this is greatly to the good; but it is not
enough. Logic and semantics, linguistics and
meta-linguistics--these are purely intellectual disciplines. They
analyse the various ways, correct and incorrect, meaningful and
meaningless, in which words can be related to things, processes
and events. But they offer no guidance, in regard to the much more
fundamental problem of the relationship of man in his
psycho-physical totality, on the one hand, and his two worlds, of
data and of symbols, on the other.
In every region and at every period of history, the problem has
been repeatedly solved by individual men and women. Even when they
spoke or wrote, these individuals created no systems--for they
knew that every system is a standing temptation to take symbols
too seriously, to pay more attention to words than to the
realities for which the words are supposed to stand. Their aim was
never to offer ready-made explanations and panaceas; it was to
induce people to diagnose and cure their own ills, to get them to
go to the place where man's problem and its solution present
themselves directly to experience.
In this volume of selections from the writings and recorded talks
of Krishnamurti, the reader will find a clear contemporary
statement of the fundamental human problem, together with an
invitation to solve it in the only way in which it can be
solved--for and by himself. The collective solutions, to which so
many so desperately pin their faith, are never adequate. "To
understand the misery and confusion that exist within ourselves,
and so in the world, we must first find clarity within ourselves,
and that clarity comes about through right thinking. This clarity
is not to be organized, for it cannot be exchanged with another.
Organized group thought is merely repetitive. Clarity is not the
result of verbal assertion, but of intense self-awareness and
right thinking. Right thinking is not the outcome of or mere
cultivation of the intellect, nor is it conformity to pattern,
however worthy and noble. Right thinking comes with
self-knowledge. Without understanding yourself, you have no basis
for thought; without self- knowledge, what you think is not true."
This fundamental theme is developed by Krishnamurti in passage
after passage. "There is hope in men, not in society, not in
systems, organized religious systems, but in you and in me."
Organized religions, with their mediators, their sacred books,
their dogmas, their hierarchies and rituals, offer only a false
solution to the basic problem. "When you quote the Bhagavad Gita,
or the Bible, or some Chinese Sacred Book, surely you are merely
repeating, are you not? And what you are repeating is not the
truth. It is a lie: for truth cannot be repeated." A lie can be
extended, propounded and repeated, but not truth; and when you
repeat truth, it ceases to be truth, and therefore sacred books
are unimportant. It is through self-knowledge, not through belief
in somebody else's symbols, that a man comes to the eternal
reality, in which his being is grounded. Belief in the complete
adequacy and superlative value of any given symbol-system leads
not to liberation, but to history, to more of the same old
disasters. "Belief inevitably separates. If you have a belief, or
when you seek security in your particular belief, you become
separated from those who seek security in some other form of
belief. All organized beliefs are based on separation, though they
may preach brotherhood." The man who has successfully solved the
problem of his relations with the two worlds of data and symbols,
is a man who has no beliefs. With regard to the problems of
practical life he entertains a series of working hypotheses, which
serve his purposes, but are taken no more seriously than any other
kind of tool or instrument. With regard to his fellow beings and
to the reality in which they are grounded, he has the direct
experiences of love and insight. It is to protect himself from
beliefs that Krishnamurti has "not read any sacred literature,
neither the Bhagavad Gita nor the Upanishads". The rest of us do
not even read sacred literature; we read our favourite newspapers,
magazines and detective stories. This means that we approach the
crisis of our times, not with love and insight, but "with
formulas, with systems"--and pretty poor formulas and systems at
that. But "men of good will should not have formulas"; for
formulas lead, inevitably, only to "blind thinking". Addiction to
formulas is almost universal. Inevitably so; for "our system of
up-bringing is based upon what to think, not on how to think". We
are brought up as believing and practising members of some
organization--the Communist or the Christian, the Moslem, the
Hindu, the Buddhist, the Freudian. Consequently "you respond to
the challenge, which is always new, according to an old pattern;
and therefore your response has no corresponding validity,
newness, freshness. If you respond as a Catholic or a Communist,
you are responding--are you not?--according to a patterned
thought. Therefore your response has no significance. And has not
the Hindu the Mussulman, the Buddhist, the Christian created this
problem? As the new religion is the worship of the State, so the
old religion was the worship of an idea." If you respond to a
challenge according to the old conditioning, your response will
not enable you to understand the new challenge. Therefore what
"one has to do, in order to meet the new challenge, is to strip
oneself completely, denude oneself entirely of the background and
meet the challenge anew". In other words symbols should never be
raised to the rank of dogmas, nor should any system be regarded as
more than a provisional convenience. Belief in formulas and action
in accordance with these beliefs cannot bring us to a solution of
our problem. "It is only through creative understanding of
ourselves that there can be a creative world, a happy world, a
world in which ideas do not exist." A world in which ideas do not
exist would be a happy world, because it would be a world without
the powerful conditioning forces which compel men to undertake
inappropriate action, a world without the hallowed dogmas in terms
of which the worst crimes are justified, the greatest follies
elaborately rationalized.
An education that teaches us not how but what to think is an
education that calls for a governing class of pastors and masters.
But "the very idea of leading somebody is anti-social and
anti-spiritual". To the man who exercises it, leadership brings
gratification of the craving for power; to those who are led, it
brings the gratification of the desire for certainty and security.
The guru provides a kind of dope. But, it may be asked, "What are
you doing? Are you not acting as our guru?" "Surely," Krishnamurti
answers, "I am not acting as your guru, because, first of all, I
am not giving you any gratification. I am not telling you what you
should do from moment to moment, or from day to day, but I am just
pointing out something to you; you can take it or leave it,
depending on you, not on me. I do not demand a thing from you,
neither your worship, nor your flattery, nor your insults, nor
your gods. I say, This is a fact; take it or leave it. And most of
you will leave it, for the obvious reason that you do not find
gratification in it."
What is it precisely that Krishnamurti offers? What is it that we
can take if we wish, but in all probability shall prefer to leave?
It is not, as we have seen, a system of beliefs, a catalogue of
dogmas, a set of ready-made notions and ideals. It is not
leadership, not mediation, not spiritual direction, not even
example. It is not ritual, not a church, not a code, not uplift or
any form of inspirational twaddle.
Is it, perhaps, self-discipline? No; for self-discipline is not,
as a matter of brute fact, the way in which our problem can be
solved. In order to find the solution, the mind must open itself
to reality, must confront the givenness of the outer and inner
worlds without preconceptions or restrictions. (God's service is
perfect freedom. Conversely, perfect freedom is the service of
God.) In becoming disciplined, the mind undergoes no radical
change; it is the old self, but "tethered, held in control".
Self-discipline joins the list of things which Krishnamurti does
not offer. Can it be, then, that what he offers is prayer? Again,
the reply is in the negative. "Prayer may bring you the answer you
seek; but that answer may come from your unconscious, or from the
general reservoir, the store-house of all your demands. The answer
is not the still voice of God." Consider, Krishnamurti goes on,
"what happens when you pray. By constant repetition of certain
phrases, and by controlling your thoughts, the mind becomes quiet,
doesn't it? At least, the conscious mind becomes quiet. You kneel
as the Christians do, or you sit as the Hindus do, and you repeat
and repeat, and through that repetition the mind becomes quiet. In
that quietness there is the intimation of something. That
intimation of something, for which you have prayed, may be from
the unconscious, or it may be the response of your memories. But,
surely, it is not the voice of reality; for the voice of reality
must come to you; it cannot be appealed to, you cannot pray to it.
You cannot entice it into your little cage by doing puja, bhajan
and all the rest of it, by offering it flowers, by placating it,
by suppressing yourself or emulating others. Once you have learned
the trick of quieting the mind, through the repetition of words,
and of receiving hints in that quietness, the danger is--unless
you are fully alert as to whence those hints come--that you will
be caught, and then prayer becomes a substitute for the search for
Truth. That which you ask for you get; but it is not the truth. If
you want, and if you petition, you will receive, but you will pay
for it in the end."
From prayer we pass to yoga, and yoga, we find, is another of the
things which Krishnamurti does not offer. For yoga is
concentration, and concentration is exclusion. "You build a wall
of resistance by concentration on a thought which you have chosen,
and you try to ward off all the others." What is commonly called
meditation is merely "the cultivation of resistance, of exclusive
concentration on an idea of our choice". But what makes you
choose? "What makes you say this is good, true, noble, and the
rest is not? Obviously the choice is based on pleasure, reward or
achievement; or it is merely a reaction of one's conditioning or
tradition. Why do you choose at all? Why not examine every
thought? When you are interested in the many, why choose one? Why
not examine every interest? Instead of creating resistance, why
not go into each interest as it arises, and not merely concentrate
on one idea, one interest? After all, you are made up of many
interests, you have many masks, consciously and unconsciously. Why
choose one and discard all the others, in combating which you
spend all your energies, thereby creating resistance, conflict and
friction. Whereas if you consider every thought as it
arises--every thought, not just a few thoughts--then there is no
exclusion. But it is an arduous thing to examine every thought.
Because, as you are looking at one thought, another slips in. But
if you are aware without domination or justification, you will see
that, by merely looking at that thought, no other thought
intrudes. It is only when you condemn, compare, approximate, that
other thoughts enter in."
"Judge not that ye be not judged." The gospel precept applies to
our dealings with ourselves no less than to our dealings with
others. Where there is judgement, where there is comparison and
condemnation, openness of mind is absent; there can be no freedom
from the tyranny of symbols and systems, no escape from the past
and the environment. Introspection with a predetermined purpose,
self-examination within the framework of some traditional code,
some set of hallowed postulates-- these do not, these cannot help
us. There is a transcendent spontaneity of life, a `creative
Reality', as Krishnamurti calls it, which reveals itself as
immanent only when the perceiver's mind is in a state of `alert
passivity', of `choiceless awareness'. Judgement and comparison
commit us irrevocably to duality. Only choiceless awareness can
lead to non-duality, to the reconciliation of opposites in a total
understanding and a total love. Ama et fac quod vis. If you love,
you may do what you will. But if you start by doing what you will,
or by doing what you don't will in obedience to some traditional
system or notions, ideals and prohibitions, you will never love.
The liberating process must begin with choiceless awareness of
what you will and of your reactions to the symbol-system which
tells you that you ought, or ought not, to will it. Through this
choiceless awareness, as it penetrates the successive layers of
the ego and its associated sub- conscious, will come love and
understanding, but of another order that that with which we are
ordinarily familiar. This choiceless awareness--at every moment
and in all the circumstances of life--is the only effective
meditation. All other forms of yoga lead either to the blind
thinking which results from self-discipline, or to some kind of
self-induced rapture, some form of false samadhi. The true
liberation is "an inner freedom of creative Reality". This "is not
a gift; it is to be discovered and experienced. It is not an
acquisition to be gathered to yourself to glorify yourself. It is
a state of being, as silence, in which there is no becoming, in
which there is completeness. This creativeness may not necessarily
seek expression; it is not a talent that demands outward
manifestation. You need not be a great artist or have an audience;
if you seek these, you will miss the inward Reality. It is neither
a gift, nor is it the outcome of talent; it is to be found, this
imperishable treasure, where thought frees itself from lust,
ill-will and ignorance, where thought frees itself from
worldliness and personal craving to be. It is to be experienced
through right thinking and meditation." Choiceless self-awareness
will bring us to the creative Reality which underlies all our
destructive make-believes, to the tranquil wisdom which is always
there, in spite of ignorance, in spite of the knowledge which is
merely ignorance in another form. Knowledge is an affair of
symbols and is, all too often, a hindrance to wisdom, to the
uncovering of the self from moment to moment. A mind that has come
to the stillness of wisdom "shall know being, shall know what it
is to love. Love is neither personal nor impersonal. Love is love,
not to be defined or described by the mind as exclusive or
inclusive. Love is its own eternity; it is the real, the supreme,
the immeasurable."
ALDOUS HUXLEY
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A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE WORK OF KRISHNAMURTI
BY PROFESSOR DAVID BOHM
My first acquaintance with Krishnamurti's work was in 1959 when I
read his book "First and Last Freedom." What particularly aroused
my interest was his deep insight into the question of the observer
and the observed. This question had long been close to the centre
of my own work, as a theoretical physicist, who was primarily
interested in the meaning of the quantum theory. In this theory,
for the first time in the development of physics, the notion that
these two cannot be separated has been put forth as necessary for
the understanding of the fundamental laws of matter in general.
Because of this, as well as because the book contained many other
deep insights I felt that it was urgent for me to talk with
Krishnamurti directly and personally as soon as possible. And when
I first met him on one of his visits to London, I was struck by
the great ease of communication with him, which was made possible
by the intense energy with which he listened and by the freedom
from self-protective reservations and barriers with which he
responded to what I had to say. As a person who works in science I
felt completely at home with this sort of response, because it was
in essence of the same quality as that which I had met in these
contacts with other scientists with whom there had been a very
close meeting of minds. And here, I think especially of Einstein
who showed a similar intensity and absence of barrier in a number
of discussions that took place between him and me. After this, I
began to meet Krishnamurti regularly and to discuss with him
whenever he came to London.
We began an association which has since then become closer as I
became interested in the schools, which were set up through his
initiative. In these discussions, we went quite deeply into many
questions which concerned me in my scientific work. We probed into
the nature of space and time, and of the universal, both with
regard to external nature and with regard to mind. But then, we
went on to consider the general disorder and confusion that
pervades the consciousness of mankind. It is here that I
encountered what I feel to be Krishnamurti's major discovery. What
he was seriously proposing is that all this disorder, which is the
root cause of such widespread sorrow and misery, and which
prevents human beings from properly working together, has its root
in the fact that we are ignorant of the general nature of our own
processes of thought. Or to put it differently it may be said that
we do not see what is actually happening, when we are engaged in
the activity of thinking. Through close attention to and
observation of this activity of thought, Krishnamurti feels that
he directly perceives that thought is a material process, which is
going on inside of the human being in the brain and nervous system
as a whole.
Ordinarily, we tend to be aware mainly of the content of this
thought rather than of how it actually takes place. One can
illustrate this point by considering what happens when one is
reading a book. Usually, one is attentive almost entirely to the
meaning of what is being read. However, one can also be aware of
the book itself, of its constitution as made up out of pages that
can be turned, of the printed words and of the ink, of the fabric
of the paper, etc. Similarly, we may be aware of the actual
structure and function of the process of thought, and not merely
of its content.
How can such as awareness come about? Krishnamurti proposes that
this requires what he calls meditation. Now the word meditation
has been given a wide range of different and even contradictory
meanings, many of them involving rather superficial kinds of
mysticism. Krishnamurti has in mind a definite and clear notion
when he uses this word. One can obtain a valuable indication of
this meaning by considering the derivation of the word. (The roots
of words, in conjunction with their present generally accepted
meanings often yield surprising insight into their deeper
meanings.) The English word meditation is based on the Latin root
"med" which is, "to measure." The present meaning of this word is
"to reflect," "to ponder" (i.e. to weigh or measure), and "to give
close attention." Similarly the Sanskrit word for meditation,
which is dhyana, is closely related to "dhyati," meaning "to
reflect." So, at this rate, to meditate would be, "to ponder, to
reflect, while giving close attention to what is actually going on
as one does so."
This is perhaps what Krishnamurti means by the beginning of
meditation. That is to say, one gives close attention to all that
is happening in conjunction with the actual activity of thought,
which is the underlying source of the general disorder. One does
this without choice, without criticism, without acceptance or
rejection of what is going on. And all of this takes place along
with reflections on the meaning of what one is learning about the
activity of thought. (It is perhaps rather like reading a book in
which the pages have been scrambled up, and being intensely aware
of this disorder, rather than just "trying to make sense" of the
confused content that arises when one just accepts the pages as
they happen to come.)
Krishnamurti has observed that the very act of meditation will, in
itself, bring order to the activity of thought without the
intervention of will, choice, decision, or any other action of the
"thinker." As such order comes, the noise and chaos which are the
usual background of our consciousness die out, and the mind
becomes generally silent. (Thought arises only when needed for
some genuinely valid purpose, and then stops, until needed again.)
In this silence, Krishnamurti says that something new and creative
happens, something that cannot be conveyed in words, but that is
of extraordinary significance for the whole of life. So he does
not attempt to communicate this verbally, but rather, he asks of
those who are interested that they explore the question of
meditation directly for themselves, through actual attention to
the nature of thought.
Without attempting to probe into this deeper meaning of
meditation, one can however say that meditation, in Krishnamurti's
sense of the word, can bring order to our overall mental activity,
and this may be a key factor in bringing about an end to the
sorrow, the misery, the chaos and confusion, that have, over the
ages, been the lot of mankind, and that are still generally
continuing, without visible prospect of fundamental change, for
the forseeable future.
Krishnamurti's work is permeated by what may be called the essence
of the scientific approach, when this is considered in its very
highest and purest form. Thus, he begins from a fact, this fact
about the nature of our thought processes. This fact is
established through close attention, involving careful listening
to the process of consciousness, and observing it assiduously. In
this, one is constantly learning, and out of this learning comes
insight, into the overall or general nature of the process of
thought. This insight is then tested. First, one sees whether it
holds together in a rational order. And then one sees whether it
leads to order and coherence, on what flows out of it in life as a
whole.
Krishnamurti constantly emphasizes that he is in no sense an
authority. He has made certain discoveries, and he is simply doing
his best to make these discoveries accessible to all those who are
able to listen. His work does not contain a body of doctrine, nor
does he offer techniques or methods, for obtaining a silent mind.
He is not aiming to set up any new system of religious belief.
Rather, it is up to each human being to see if he can discover for
himself that to which Krishnamurti is calling attention, and to go
on from there to make new discoveries on his own.
It is clear then that an introduction, such as this, can at best
show how Krishnamurti's work has been seen by a particular person,
a scientist, such as myself. To see in full what Krishnamurti
means, it is necessary, of course, to go on and to read what he
actually says, with that quality of attention to the totality of
one's responses, inward and outward, which we have been discussing
here.
Copyright © Krishnamurti Foundation of America P.O. Box 1560,
Ojai, CA 93023
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON DAVID BOHM
David Bohm was for over twenty years Professor of Theoretical
Physics at Birkbeck College, University of London. Since receiving
this doctorate at the University of California Berkeley, he has
taught and done research at U.C., Princeton University, University
de Sao Paulo, Haifa and Bristol University.
His publications include: Quantum Theory; Causality and Chance in
Modern Physics; one chapter in Observation and Interpretation;
Special Theory of Realitivity; and Wholeness and the Implicate
Order; Unfolding Meaning; and various papers in Theoretical
Physics, British Journal for Philosophy of Science, and others.
Several of David Bohm's discussions with Krishnamurti appear in
the following books published by Harper and Row: Truth and
Actuality; The Wholeness of Life; The Ending of Time; The Future
of Humanity. In addition there are audio and video tapes of some
discussions.
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The Core of Krishnamurti's Teaching
The core of Krishnamurti's teaching is contained in the statement
he made in 1929 when he said: "Truth is a Pathless land." Man
cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed,
through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic
knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through
the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the
contents of his own mind, through observation and not through
intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built
in himself images as a fence of security--religious, political,
personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of
these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his
daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they
divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the
concepts already established in his mind. The content of his
consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to
all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and
superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment.
The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in
complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is
common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.
Freedom is not a reaction: freedom is not choice. It is man's
pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure
observation without direction, without fear of punishment and
reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of
the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence.
In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom
is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and
activity.
Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which
are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological
enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time,
so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and
so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no
psychological evolution.
When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will
see the division between the thinker and the thought, the observer
and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will
discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there
pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past
or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical
mutation in the mind.
Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is
negation of all those things that thought has brought about
psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and
intelligence.
This statement was originally written by Krishnamurti himself on
October 21, 1980 for "Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfillment" by
Mary Lutyens, the second volume of his biography, published by
Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1983. Copyright © Mary Lutyens. On
re-reading it Krishnamurti added a few sentences.
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JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI is regarded internationally as one of the great
educators and philosophers of our time. For some sixty years he
traveled throughout the world, giving public talks to large
audiences. He published over thirty books and founded schools in
the United States, England and India. Information about his
publications and recordings can be obtained from:
Krishnamurti Foundation of America Post Office Box 1560 Ojai,
California 93023 805/646-2726
--
Having realised that we can depend on no outside authority in
bringing about a total revolution within the structure of our own
psyche, there is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our
own inward authority, the authority of our own particular little
experiences and accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and ideals.
You had an experience yesterday which taught you something and
what it taught you becomes a new authority --and that authority of
yesterday is as destructive as the authority of a thousand years.
To understand ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or
of a thousand years because we are living things, always moving,
flowing never resting. When we look at ourselves with the dead
authority of yesterday we will fail to understand the living
movement and the beauty and quality of that movement.
To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is
to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always
fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. It is
only in that state that one learns and observes. And for this a
great deal of awareness is required, actual awareness of what is
going on inside yourself, without correcting it or telling it what
it should or should not be, because the moment you correct it you
have established another authority, a censor.
-- J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, pp. 19-20