excerpts

Is it not a problem with most of us, how to search really very deeply, to go beyond the superficial depths, to be free of all psychologists, of all prophets, teachers, Saviours, Masters, and disciplines, so that we, as individuals, can really find out for ourselves what is true?

And we do not seem to be able to do it; because we are always looking for support, for confirmation from those who we think have already found, or who have been pointed out to us by the various religions.

We have no confidence in our own capacity to find out. If we can have confidence in our own capacity, then perhaps we shall be free to find out for ourselves what is true, - that which is beyond the measure of the mind.

Now, how is one to have this capacity?

Because, if one has it then one is free, one is liberated from all following, from all authority, from this sense of imitation, of conformity to the pattern laid down by any particular religion or philosophy.

If we have this capacity to search really profoundly, to go to the very depths of our being, without distortion, without the fear of not discovering, of not finding a result, then perhaps we can be free of all culture, whether of the East or of the West.

Because culture, it seems to me, does not help us to find reality, - that which is beyond measure, that which is beyond time. Western or Eastern influence has so conditioned us, so shaped our minds, that we think only in the pattern of our own culture.

I do not think culture will ever help us. On the contrary, I think we must be free of all culture, totally, - which means, to be free from the desire to be recognized by society.

The man who is capable of going to the very depth of things, he alone is the true individual.

At present we are the mass, the collective, the result of culture, of tradition. of all the various beliefs and conditioned experiences. Surely it is only when we are free of all that, that we are truly individual; and it is only then that reality can come into being.

So, how is one to have this capacity which will set us free from all authority in spiritual matters, so that we are true individuals, capable of finding out for ourselves, never asking for encouragement, for confirmation, for support?

 

Editor's note: That's pretty bold, isn't it - never asking for encouragement, confirmation, or support.

 

I think that is a fundamental question. We rarely ask fundamental questions; and if we do ask them, we are easily satisfied with superficial answers, with the words of another. So, can you and I have this capacity? - not in the process of time, which is again an evasion; but can you and I have it immediately?

Can one go beyond the superficial level? What is it that prevents me from being so clear that I understand the whole, the totality of my being? In the very process of understanding how my being is the result of tradition, of time, of culture, of fear, of experience, can I not set all that aside, so that the mind is fresh, clear, and able to find out, to perceive directly?

I am sure most of us must have asked this question. Can the mind be free, not depending on another, whoever it be, not depending on any system or any path?

If you pursue a system, a path, then obviously you will have the result of that system, of that path, but [then] you are no longer an individual, a true seeker. A true seeker must obviously be free. So what is it that is preventing this extraordinary capacity to pursue very deeply and not be satisfied with superficial explanations and beliefs?

One of the reasons is, is it not? that we move, that we think, from accumulation to accumulation. Where there is accumulation there must be imitation. Every experience leaves a residue as memory, and from that memory we act, we gather, we strengthen ourselves. There is never a moment when the mind is really free, but always there is the residue of yesterday's experiences.

It is this memory, - the result of years of accumulation, - which prevents the capacity to be clear, direct. So the mind is never free. I do not know if you have noticed how every experience leaves a residue, a result, and round that result all further experience is translated, gathered, accumulated, and held.

So memory, as experience, as tradition, as knowledge, is the burden which prevents us from having this capacity to be free, to be completely individual, to discover for ourselves.

Being born a Hindu, or a Christian, naturally the mind is conditioned in a particular symbology, in various ideas of what reality is, what meditation is, and through that conditioning the mind experiences, and so further strengthens its own conditioning.

The Christian will always hold in spiritual matters to the vision of Christ, or the Virgin Mary, - and the Hindu does the same, in his own way. To be totally free, not superficially but completely, - which means, when there is no form of imitation. when there is no sense of conformity psychologically, inwardly, - only then, surely, one has this capacity to search, to find out.

If you have followed this, the obvious question is. "How am I to free myself from all the accumulation of the past, from all my conditioning?" There is no `how', there is only the discovery of the truth, without asking `how to be free'.

Because if our whole attention is given to the discovery of what is true, then that very perception, that very listening to that which is true, liberates.

So long as we think in terms of belief, of illusion, of things we would wish to be, we are incapable of listening, giving our whole attention.

Our beliefs, our traditions, our symbols, prevent the actual listening to any truth. It seems to me the only important thing is to give attention; complete attention is the complete good. Attention with an object in view is no longer attention, it is exclusion.

Therefore if we can listen, not in order to gain something, - such attention becomes exclusive, narrow, limited, - but listen with our whole being, totally, without any object, then we will see that we will never ask the `how', the method. the system, the philosophy, the discipline. In that state of complete attention there is no contradiction within ourselves, there is no battle between the conscious and the unconscious; it is a total attention.

And so there is no need to go through all the psychoanalytical process, delving into memory after memory, in order to be free.

So can we, you and I who are listening, actually experience, without each experience leaving a residue?

You understand the problem? If I experience something, and it leaves a memory, that memory conditions future experiences; and so that which is measureless can never be experienced.

That which is, is timeless; and memory is of time. Whether it is the superficial memory of a certain incident, or the memory of an experience that one has had on rare occasions when one has perhaps felt, known, something beyond the measurement of the mind, something eternal, - whatever it be, we are forever clinging to that experience, and so it prevents the mind from experiencing further, more profoundly.

So long as experience leaves a mark of memory, which is time, that which is eternal can never be experienced. So the mind must die to itself from moment to moment, of all experience. Surely only in that state is it creative,

And can one have the capacity to penetrate deeply? I think one can, but only when we are not satisfied with explanations, when we are no longer fed with words, when we no longer depend on other people's experiences, when we are not looking to anybody, when we are taking the journey completely alone, having shed all tradition, all culture, all belief, and above all, all knowledge, - because a mind that is cluttered with knowledge can only experience that which it knows.

So can you and I, not theoretically, not just for the moment because you are listening to a talk, but actually, directly, put aside all the inherited racial accumulation, cease to be English or Hindu, cease to have religion in the sense of orthodoxy, dogmas, symbols? If we cling to all these we are no longer seekers; then we are merely pursuing satisfaction, the pleasure of an experience which the conditioned mind demands.

And I think this capacity is not of time. If we look to time, then we shall again be caught in the method. But to see the importance, feel the importance, be aware of the necessity of complete inward freedom, see the truth of it, - then that very perception, that very listening with full attention, brings the capacity.

Question: I want my child to be free. Is true freedom incompatible with loyalty to the English tradition of life and education?

Krishnamurti: This is what they say in India too, - can I be a Hindu, with loyalty to my country, and yet be free to find God? Can I still be a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Christian, and yet be free? Can you? One may have a passport, a piece of paper for travelling; but that need not make one a Hindu. Surely freedom is totally incompatible with any nationality, any tradition. There is the American way of life, the English way of life, the Russian way if life, and the Hindu way of life. Each one says "Our way is the only way", and clings to it; and yet we all talk of freedom, peace.

I think all this has to go if we are to bring about a different world, a world which is ours, a world in which there is no communism or socialism or capitalism or Hinduism or Christianity. The earth is our world in which to live undivided, to live happily, to live freely. But it cannot be our world so long as there are Englishmen, Hindus, Germans, Communists, and so on, - that way it can never be free. This freedom can only come about when we are really religious, when each one of us is really an individual in the true sense.

When we are religiously free, then we can create a world which is ours, and so give a different kind of education, - not merely condition the child to a particular culture, encase him in a particular system, train him to be a communist or atheist or Catholic or Protestant or Hindu; such individuals are not free, therefore they are not really religious, they are merely conditioned; and they create such misery.

So if we are to create a totally different world, there must be a religious revolution, - not going back to some belief, or going forward to some achievement, but freedom from all tradition, all dogma, all symbols, all belief, so that one is truly an individual, free to find, to search out, that which is measureless.