Monday, December 29, 2008

Krishnamurti on "freedom"

For most of us, freedom is an idea and not an actuality. If we are to inquire deeply into what freedom implies, to be inwardly completely and totally free, which then expresses itself outwardly in society, in relationship, then we must ask whether the mind, heavily conditioned as it is, can ever be free at all. Unless the mind is totally free it is not possible to see if there is a reality not invented by fear, not shaped by the society or the culture in which we live.

To explore, there must be freedom, not at the end, but right at the beginning. One cannot learn about oneself unless one is free so that one can observe, not according to any pattern, formula or concept, but actually observe oneself as one is. Put aside all theoretical, ideological, concepts of freedom so that we can inquire whether our minds, yours and mine, can ever be actually free, free from dependence, free from fear.

Unless one is free from this quality of fear one cannot see very clearly, deeply; and obviously, when there is fear there is no love.

—excerpts paraphrased from "Freedom" in The Flight of the Eagle by Krishnamurti

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