Truth and Freedom

[Mr. Krishnamurti gave brief addresses over the Radio at the invitation. of the Broadcasting Stations in several cities visited by him during his travels in the U.S.Aand in Canada in 1982. The reports of these talks have been grouped together and are printed here.]

Most people are trying to seek physical, mental or emotional comfort. Now I say that wherever there is the pursuit of satisfaction, there is a narrowing down of thought and emotion, which brings about a mediocrity of outlook on life. Our whole structure of thought and civilization has been based on the search for consolation, for satisfaction, whereas from my point of view, the search after comfort cannot bring understanding, and in understanding alone is there the realization of intense living.

In seeking comfort there is continual conformity, and, therefore, dependence on another, on one’s neighbour or friend, so that, as an individual, one becomes incapable of thinking truly. There is a continual imitation, and in this effort to adapt one’s own mind to a particular ideal, there cannot be completeness of thought, because one does not think through, one is all the time being hindered by circumstances, by society, by tradition. Most people thus live in this continual state of fear through conformity.

To me, where there is conformity, there is death; where there is compromise, there is mediocrity, stagnation and slow decay; whereas, if one thinks intensely and completely, irrespective of tradition, or habit, the mind frees itself from this idea of fear, and therefore, there is no longer the search for security, whether physical or mental or emotional, whether for our existence in this world or in another.

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Nowyou are held within the walls of the prison of your own fashioning, and you look to aid from without, but no one can help you, or give you the strength to free yourself from the walls that enclose you, except yourself.

So, being prisoners of want and craving, we are all the time concerned about what is Truth, what is God or Light. We can know this only when we are out of the prison. Yet we do not, in our intensity of suffering, break down the walls, which we have created by ourselves, so what we do is merely to imagine what a spiritual life would be, Thus we merely bring the idea into the prison but we do not break down the walls. It is only by breaking down the illusions created through want, through craving, that we rid the mind of the idea of distinctions, so that there is no longer a struggle. 

I say therefore do not assume anything. Do not struggle to imagine what a perfect Life, or what Truth must be; but become aware of the fact that you are the creator of your own prison, and in facing that fact, in recognizing that through your own cravings, through your desire for accumulation of a multitude of things, or of knowledge, you create the prison that holds you. Where there is craving there must be struggle for achievement, and the achievement, as it were, withers in your hand, because in the very moment of gratification or fulfilment it has already lost its significance and is discarded. And thus continues a ceaseless struggle.

So, in order to understand truly this ceaseless struggle without meaning, and be free of it, become conscious that you are a prisoner, and then you, as an individual, will step out of this prison, which is this so-called Civilization, based on selfishness, this monstrous structure which has been raised through the centuries.

And it is only through becoming aware that you and no one else are the creator of the walls of the prison which holds you, and becoming fully conscious of your actions, which are the result of your thoughts and feelings, that you can destroy the prison. And when the mind is free and no longer bound by a personal idea or the limitation of personal affection, there comes harmony, and the quietude of living intensity. Then alone you will know that which is Eternal. So, do not seek the Eternal, but become aware in the present of the cause of suffering; and in that flame of awareness you will know the freedom of harmony, which is Truth. 

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I am going to try to explain what seems to me the most important and natural attitude of life. One’s thinking and one’s actions are at present conditioned, limited by social, economic and religious ideas, and one has become merely a cog in a vast machine. One is not responsible or certain, and out of that uncertainty and irresponsibility one’s actions are all the time disharmonious and in conflict. And where there is conflict in thinking and feeling, and therefore in action, there follows sorrow, and most people in the world, the thoughtless and the clever alike, are caught up in sorrow.

To be free of that sorrow one must become conscious that one is but imitating, that one’s feelings and thinking are merely the result of continual conformity to established ideals and standards which one follows blindly. And thereby one’s true instinct has been perverted.

Now, we cannot trust our instinct, because throughout these many centuries instinct has been perverted by public opinion, by tradition, by spiritual authority, and so on. Our own instinct which is our true guide, has been thus ruthlessly perverted, and hence we have naturally lost all confidence in it. So, once again to discover pure instinct, we must begin to see how our thoughts and feelings are conditioned through fear, through imitation; and in truly facing those limitations imposed by society and religion, through the many standards and ideals, we shall release the natural intelligence which is intuition, which is true instinct.
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What I am saying is not in any way philosophical, nor is it Western or Oriental thought expressed to suit modern minds, because to me philosophy, that is, a system of thought, merely limits the freedom of feeling and thinking and brings about a conformity, and imitation. I am not in any way offering a remedy or a panacea to the world’s existing ills, nor giving you a system whereby you can find happiness.

Throughout the world, everyone is seeking happiness, the happiness which endures, but such happiness is not to be found through conformity of any kind. Conformity, which is imitation, begins from childhood, through education, through the impact of society, and of external circumstances. Thus we tend to make our thoughts and our feelings correspond to public opinion and subserve religious ideas, or spiritual authority.

If you consider any philosophy or religion, you will find in it a method laid down, whereby one can come to the realization of Truth or God. All that we do is to conform, imitate and force our thinking and our feeling into the particular mould of that system, and thus we merely become cogs in a social or a religious machine. Our whole structure of modern civilization is based entirely on conformity and adjustment to standards which have been laid down by an authority, the authority of public opinion or of a spiritual teacher. And as with church, society, worship and ideals, so it is with education: continual conformity results in the suffocation of individual thinking.

But what happens in actual Life? We have an experience–death, or failure in business or a great disillusionment–and that experience makes us suffer; forces us to think. So, faced by conflict, confusion and misery, we break away from conformity, from imitation, in which there lies insecurity, falseness, and we begin to think for ourselves, thus increasing the conflict. Nowwhen this happens, what do we do? We seek a way to conquer that conflict, that sorrow, not by understanding the cause, but by seeking a means of escape, and we establish an ideal and we hope by means of that ideal to forget the conflict. So, from conformity one awakens to conflict, and from conflict one escapes to a satisfaction, a consolation, which is again a limitation, and thus one is bound to this process of continual escape from the present, in which alone is Immortality. I say that there is understanding of the present, not in conforming to the memory of the past or by pursuit of an ideal in the future, but in the continual awareness which reveals all conflicts; in facing them and not in trying to escape from them. To face them is to become aware that the cause of suffering will exist so long as there is the pursuit of craving, which is different from need. It is in the intensity of living in the present without the hindrance of conformity or escape, that there comes an ecstasy, an everlasting happiness which to me is the blessedness of Truth. 

Question: - What have you to say as regards religion and philosophy as educative factors in the life of an individual? How far, according to you, is religion of any value to the understanding of Truth? Is religious leadership compatible with true spirituality?
What is your conception of God?

Krishnamurti: - To me, religion or philosophy is a system to mould a mind. I say that Truth cannot be found through a system, through a guide. Religion cannot show the path to Truth, because Truth or God or Life, whatever be the name we give this Reality, can only be realized through individual awareness. Religion and philosophy but superimpose the ideas of others on our minds and thereby dull and cripple our thoughts. They set up ideals and standards to which we continually try to conform. Because our thought is conditioned by tradition, by imitation, by fear, our action also must be limited, and therefore out of that action there springs sorrow. It is only through the intense awareness of mind and heart, through the clear perception of thought, that we can come to the freedom from sorrow and to the realization of that which is eternal.

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As I have said, Truth cannot be realized through any organized form of thought. You have perhaps heard the story of how the devil and a friend were walking one day, and they saw a man ahead pick up something, look at it intently, and put it in his pocket. The friend asked the devil, “What was it that he picked up?” and the devil replied, “Oh! he picked up a bit of Truth.”  The friend said, “That’s very bad business for you, then, isn’t it,” and the devil replied, “Oh I no, I shall get him to organize it.”

One cannot organize Truth because realization is purely an individual matter. Where mind and heart are pursuing a system and are not entirely relying on their own strength, on their own integrity, there must then be confusion in one’s life.

And so, an organized system of thought, a spiritual authority, is to me the utter denial of Truth, because Truth, the Godhead of understanding, cannot be realised through a system or through another. No one can eave man except himself and this is the greatness of man, that in himself, in his own fullness of action, lies the realization of Truth.
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If youwere to ask a Hindu, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muhammadan or a Hebrew to describe God, each of them will try to give expression to his particular conception. That is, each one will contrive to give shape to God in accordance with his particular fancy, his particular predilection or prejudice.

Now, God or Life or Truth cannot be conceived and described. If youhad never seen the sea, and some one were to come and describe it to you, you could but imagine it, but your idea cannot convey the reality to you. Likewise, being limited, being finite and conditioned, youtry to imagine the immeasurable, the indescribable. Like a prisoner who craves for liberty, begins to imagine and worship the beauty, the ecstasy, the majesty of freedom, but does not break down the walls that hold him prisoner, so does man toy with the conception of God, of that Reality, through the prison bars of his limitations. Now I say that there is immortality, that there is eternity of which I know, but it cannot be grasped by the mind in limitation. So I say, do not concern yourself about it, but rather concern yourself with the present with which youlive, with the conflict, the cruelty, and the suffering of everyday incidents. Thus when you begin to free the mind and heart from this limitation, from this illusion, from this prison of sorrow of many centuries, you will know for yourself that everlasting eternity called Life or God or Truth. Therefore live with intensity in the present, for in the present alone is eternity. Immortality is not in a distant future, and the concern about your individual destiny is but vain effort. In the present is the Godhead of understanding which is supreme intelligence.

Question: - The whole world is at present passing through a very critical phase. There is acute economic crisis throughout the world, under a darkened political firmament. To what cause or causes would youattribute this state of affairs, and what remedy would yousuggest?

Krishnamurti: - We desire to solve our economic difficulties by a miracle, We have built up a system through centuries, based on competition and selfishness. Now, we must aim not at the substitution of one system for another, but at a complete re-orientation of our minds and hearts. We have set up innumerable authorities, as religions, teachers, gods, for our worship. Individually in the field of thought, therefore, we have become as lambs; but with regard to work for our living, like so many wolves.

It is of the utmost importance that we go to the root of the problem, That is, in the field of thinking and feeling we must not set up another as a guide, but be integrally alone, whereas in work we must plan together collectively for our living, Therein lies the remedy: it is by the expression of individuality in its rightful place that you can find freedom, which is Truth; and in the realization of that Truth you will solve your social and economic problems, By merely trimming the branches of the tree you will not solve your troubles, but if you properly nourish the roots, the branches will be healthy and abundant, So work for the change of heart and mind individually and then these problems will solve themselves.

The present civilization has been based on greed and individual competition and therefore cannot last forever, because it has no intrinsic value. At present the individual who is the outcome of our present civilization, has been caught up in accumulation which is his sole incentive that is the individual has tried to express his ambition and attain his desired social position through the accumulation of wealth and power. He has therefore set up social distinctions, and hence a civilization as it is, which is based on utter ruthless selfishness, must eventually break down, It is merely a matter of time.

As long as we have this conception of individuality, based on selfishness and greed, no civilization, no structure built on it can last long, nor can it free the mind from sorrow.

Up till now spiritually we have been slaves; that is, we have followed, we have imitated, we have set up spiritual authorities, and tradition has bound our minds, No matter to which country we belong, there is, I am afraid, everywhere a constant adjustment towards a tradition. In thought and emotion, as individuals we have merely conformed, while in the world of action we have lived utterly for ourselves, selfishly, in the pursuit of our own security. As I said, I am not giving you a panacea, but from my point of view, only when we understand the right function of individuality, is there a way out of this chaos. To me, individuality can be expressed only in the world of thought, not in the world of existence; that is, we must think intensely for ourselves, untrammelled by tradition, by habit, or by the fear of public opinion. But in order to secure the needs for our existence, we must co-operate, work and plan together; that is, we must get rid of this idea of nationality, flags and frontiers, and thereby we shall come to solve the economic problem through a human point of view–not through national or separative prejudices.

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When society is built on selfishness, on ruthless competition, when one fights another for security for himself, as in the structure of our present civilization, then that social order must eventually collapse. Man, through his possessive craving, has built up what he calls a civilization. To that world he clings, and naturally a structure based on continual want,on continual achievement of successive heights of empty nothingness, must eventually crumble.

Now, what is the remedy?

There is no world panacea. We can individually, and therefore collectively, see the basic cause, and individually and therefore collectively, step out of that system which is its inevitable product.

In the world of action, man, as an individual, has become ruthlessly aggressive in his desire for possessions, in his search for security. He has used his mind for his selfish cravings.

Now, I say that one must think utterly for oneself, and be free of all imitation; that one must maintain one’s individuality in its integrity in thought and feeling; thereby alone can there be the spontaneity of true co-operation in the world of action, in the collective work for the benefit of all.

In seeking that which is eternal, there is true work for all, based on human needs, not on human greed and exploitation. And, when you, as an individual, break down this narrowness of patriotism, nationality, flag-waving and war, when you, as an individual cease to be an exploiter through your strength and through your selfish cleverness, then will come to you the peace, the understanding, for which you now grope in vain.

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When you are no longer a cog in the machine of society where you exploit and are exploited, when you, the individual, do not abandon yourself to authority, when you free yourself from all traditions which cripple your mind and heart, when you cease to look for happiness, for Truth, through another, then you will become utterly responsible in action and thus will create an understanding of life, based on Truth and Freedom.
–Reprinted from Triveni, Jan.–Feb. 1933