17. Freedom from the Known

In May 1967, Krishnamurti asked the author Mary Lutyens to write a book containing the essence of his teachings. Although she had known K since childhood and had kept in touch with him, Lutyens had not read any of his writings since 1928.

She asked Doris Pratt, the secretary of the Krishnamurti Foundation, to recommend the most suitable talks for the book. Pratt selected talks given in India and Europe in 1963 and 1964. Lutyens then decided to extend the scope to include the years 1965–1967. She later commented that reading the talks had transformed her understanding of her friend Krishnamurti.

Lutyens classified around one hundred themes and selected the best passages from each one. She said that she did not change or delete a single word, only grouping the texts for easier reading.

Her favourite theme was love, while she found the idea of the observer being the observed the most challenging.

The book, titled Freedom from the Known, was published in 1969.

Own or Borrowed?

In the first chapter, the question is asked whether there is anything beyond ourselves and the material welfare – something we call truth, God, or reality; a timeless state beyond the reach of human thought
or corruption.

Not finding this nameless thing with a thousand names, we have cultivated faith, which has become our personal truth. This has led to us living on words and becoming second-hand people. We repeat prayers and mantras that we have learnt from others, and there seems to be very little, if anything original about us.

We must take a completely different approach. We have tried to approach our inner flower, that inner beauty, through time and analysis, which had made our mind narrow, petty and shoddy.

We must ask ourselves: is it possible to explode this process from the centre?

The first thing to learn is not to seek. When you seek, you are really merely window shopping. Instead, you must see yourself directly as you truly are and let go of other people's versions of you.

An individual is a local entity, satisfied with his little gods and traditions, whereas a human being is concerned with the total welfare, total misery and total confusion of the world.

Outwardly, we have made huge progress; inwardly, hardly any. Changes in outward forms, from the bullock cart to the jet plane, have not changed the structure of our human relationships.

We are all totally responsible for the whole state of the world, for every war, due to the aggressiveness of our own lives, our nationalism, selfishness, gods, prejudices and ideals, all of which divide us.

When we realise this as clearly as we recognise hunger or pain, then we will act.

We cannot depend on anyone to tell us the truth. There is no path, no teacher, no authority to truth. There is only you, your relationship with others, and with the world. We cannot blame anyone else for our actions.

When you observe the world very closely, you will see that there is only one process: the outer and the inner are one unitary process.

The inner - the mind - expresses itself in the outer world, which then reacts to it. To look at this we don't need a teacher or a philosophy. Nobody can tell us how to look.

While it is rather easy to reject external authority, it is much more difficult to reject internal authority, which is made up of experiences, accumulated opinions, ideas and ideals.

Observing a living, flowing movement does not require knowledge because it lives in a state of intense learning. If we want to understand our psyche, we must forget everything we know or have ever thought about ourselves.

We must start the journey together without a single remembrance of yesterday – and then we perhaps begin to understand ourselves for the first time.

Doubt It!

In the second chapter, K starts from the premise that we should explore ourself through happy, careful, and intelligent enquiry.

We must question everything we have learned, whether from others or from our own experience. Both ways condition the mind.

We cannot focus on just one aspect; we have to be aware of the total field of ourself, which is the consciousness of the individual and of society. We must go beyond that and "become a light that never
goes out".

We can imagine all sorts of things about ourselves. We may have dreams. Some may come true, others may never. Learning about ourself is not like learning a language or a technology, where we gradually learn about ourself. The self is a living thing that is constantly changing. If we try to take a grip on it, it crumbles.

We imagine that we know ourselves when we put labels on ourselves. We define ourselves, but no matter what we say, we only scratch the surface. We look at the images we have created of ourselves.

We need to observe ourself in relationship. We are neither abstract beings nor products of wishful thinking. It is useless to sit in a corner and meditate on ourselves, we must observe ourself amidst life. So forget everything you have ever thought about yourself and start as if you know nothing.

It's difficult to simply observe because our mind is so quick. It doesn't ask for permission; it just goes its own way. This does not always please us. Whether on or off topic, we or someone else disapproves of our actions, positions or appearance.

Do we recognise that we are slaves to our habits of thought? We easily take a stand for or against something, and sometimes get annoyed by those who think differently or spoil our fun.

How can we know that we're not as stupid as the person criticising us? We don't usually notice it ourself.

When faced with life's problems, we look for quick and easy solutions without addressing at the root causes. We do not perceive the dangers created by our mind in the same way that we perceive external threats. For instance, we are more likely to notice a snake in our path than we are to notice the dangers created by our own thoughts.

Some people recognise the danger intellectually, but this does not necessarily lead to action. We are adept at deceiving ourselves because we live in our own imaginations and don't need to base them on anything.

K promises that, once we recognise the dangers of conditioning, they will fall away as naturally as leaves from a tree in autumn, we don't have to do anything.

One and the Same

Chapter three is about consciousness. We like to divide it into active and dormant, the upper and lower levels. Our daily thoughts and feelings, of which we are aware of, are on the surface. Below them is the subconscious, which occasionally expresses itself through intimations, intuitions and dreams, and contains things which we are not familiar.

For K, these two are one total field. If we are superficial, we are satisfied with what we can understand; we are afraid of anything that does not fit into our worldview.

It is important to understand that, alongside what we know, there is much in the world of which we know nothing.

We live in fragments. We are one thing at the office, another at home. We talk about democracy, but in our heart we are autocratic. Can a fragmented brain be aware of the whole?

By being aware of the facts, the mind becomes connected to life as it is. What we see in totality is the truth. This is freedom without boundaries. It is order, where everything is in its right place. Perhaps, through choiceless awareness, the door will open and you will know the dimension in which there is no conflict and no time.

Pleasure Leads to Pain

Chapter four clarifies the difference between joy and pleasure.

We are all engaged in the pursuit of pleasure in some form or another. You may ask: what is wrong with pleasure? The answer is that it brings pain, frustration, sorrow and fear.

"If you want to live that way, live that way. Most of the world does, anyway, but if you want to be free from sorrow, you must understand the whole structure of pleasure."

To understand pleasure, we must neither deny nor condemn it. First, watch how it arises. It comes into being through four stages: perception, sensation, contact, and desire. We see something we like, then touch it or imagine touching it, and finally want it.

"There is nothing wrong with desire. To react is perfectly normal, but then thought steps in and wants to repeat the experience, and creates and sustains pleasure and turns it into a memory."

If you can look at anything without allowing pleasure to creep in, there is tremendous joy. It is the struggle to repeat the experience that turns pleasure into pain. We struggle to achieve the same delight and become hurt and disappointed when it is denied.

We refuse to see the simple process: searching for pleasure causes us pain. Joy is immediate; by thinking about it, we turn it into pleasure.

"Living in the present is the instant perception of beauty and the great delight in it without seeking pleasure from it."

Ambition Is Fear

In chapter five, K discusses self-interest. We are interested in ourselves, but we have been taught that this is wrong. It is not, yet we seldom honestly admit it.

There are many reasons why we consider it wrong. Most of us crave the satisfaction of having a position in society because we are afraid of being nobody. Those who have a position of respect are treated with great courtesy, whereas those who have no position are kicked around.

This craving for position, prestige or power is a wish to dominate others, which is a form of aggression.

Behind ambition there is always fear. The root of psychological fear is that we do not want to face ourselves as we really are. We have developed a network of escapes, different ways of overcoming of fear.

For many people, facing fear is a strange idea. However, it is what K recommends. According to him, all psychological fear is a product of thought and time.

The observer creates fear. He also tries to overcome it by fighting against it.

Once you see that you arethat fear, not separate from it, you see that you can't do anything about it, nor you have to, it comes to an end.

Brutality Is Learned

Chapter six discusses violence. Most of us take pleasure in violence: we dislike certain people and groups, feel antagonistic towards others.

We have tried to solve the complex problem of violence by creating opposites such as peace, balance, and non-violence. However, these have not made violence disappear from the world, and they never will. Creating an opposite creates a contradiction and a new problem.

Violence is not only physical brutality; it is also mental cruelty. It is both internal and external. It arises from the conflicts that we create and perpetuate in our minds. When we call others derogatory names or blame ourselves, we are being psychologically violent.

There is a debate about whether violence is innate or learned. However, when it comes to solving the problem of violence, let alone eliminating it totally from the world, the academically correct answer is irrelevant.

While it is easy to condemn violence, many people practise it in their daily lives, especially when their values are threatened. We want to protect our loved ones and our property by any means necessary, including the use of force.

In the moment of anger, we are unable to consider alternatives. Once the acute situation has passed, we are able to react rationally.

One might ask whether it is possible to eradicate violence within ourselves. If not, humanity will continue as it is. If so, the question is not how to do so, but rather how to free our own minds of violence. We cannot, of course, change the minds of others.

There is no method, no effort, no wish that can free us from anger. Once you recognise the danger, you don't need a reason to react to it.

"When the house is on fire, do you argue about the colour of the hair of the man who brings the water?"

Free Your Mind from Images

Images are the theme of chapter seven. They are concepts that you cannot live by. Yet we try very hard to do so. We create all kinds of fictitious images that we believe to be true. We cling to our beliefs and defend them, but they are not true. We cannot actually live in abstraction or some fictitious theories. That is self-deception.

Our relationships are essentially based on our perceptions, and these images can turn them into battlefields. I create an image of you and live in my own world. You do the same. We both have unmet expectations.

Not one spot in our consciousness is untouched by conflict. All our relationships are dualistic.

We have accepted conflict as an innate part of our daily existence because we have accepted competition, jealousy, greed, and aggression as a natural way of life. If we don't accept these, then we'll be completely free from the psychological structure of society.

"It does not mean that we shall vegetate or stagnate; on the contrary, we shall become dynamic, vital, full of energy."

To achieve this, we need a great deal of passionate and sustained energy. This is not the energy we get from stimulation, motives, church, or drugs. They make us psychologically dependent.

We currently derive energy and vitality from dependence. Seeing the whole structure and nature of stimulation and dependence frees the mind. Simply observing verbally or intellectually is not enough. Finding the source of the energy dissipation ends the conflict between what is and what should be.

"See this as you would see some concrete object – clearly, directly – then you will understand essentially the truth of a life in which there is no conflict at all."

The Burden of Thousand Yesterdays

The next chapter explores freedom. Without complete freedom, the truth will not be revealed. But do we really want to be free? We want to get rid of the inconvenient and unpleasant memories, unhappy experiences, while keeping our pleasurable and satisfying ideologies, formulas, and relationships.

This is impossible. Freedom is not freedom from something – free from pain, anxiety, fear or jealousy – it is a state of mind; it is the freedom to act.

"We carry about with us the burden of what thousands of people have said and the memories of all our misfortunes. To abandon all that totally is to be alone."

"In this solitude, you will begin to understand the necessity of living with yourself as you are, not as you think you should be or have been."

We cannot liberate ourselves gradually. We don't need time to live in direct contact with what we are a part of. A free human being does not think or say he is free; this is a statement based on the image of freedom he has created in his mind. Freedom lies beyond the field of consciousness.

Time Is an Idea

Chapter nine discusses time, sorrow, and death.

"Most of us think in terms of time. Man lives by time. Inventing the future has been a favourite game of escape."

However, time does not bring order or peace. We must stop thinking in terms of gradualness. There is no tomorrow in which we can be peaceful. We must be orderly in the present moment.

When there is real danger, time disappears and immediate action is taken. We fail to see the danger posed by many of our problems, so we invent time as a means of overcoming them. Time is a deceiver because it does not help us bring about a change in ourselves.

If we are lost in a forest, the first thing we do, is to stop and look around. However, when we are lost in life, we rush around, searching, asking, demanding, begging. If we stop, our mind becomes peaceful and clear.

Problems only exist in time; that is, when we meet an issue only partially or try to escape from it. Action is always immediate. An idea or thought is never complete. There is no time in the present moment.

Time is the interval between the observer and the observed. Death can be imagined and feared. However, at the moment of death, there is no fear. Fear is caused by the idea of the end of life. To dampen fear, we want to know what will happen to us after death.

K says that if we die to everything we know, everything we have felt, then death is a purifying, rejuvenating process that brings innocence.

"Death is a renewal, a mutation, in which thought does not function at all. When there is death there is something totally new. Freedom from the known is death, and then you are living."

Love Does Not Obey

Chapter ten delves into the world of love. The object of our love can be people, gods, a country or a book. We also desire to be loved.

To understand what love is, we must free it from the encrustation of centuries and put away all ideals and ideologies of what it should or should not be.

The flame that we call love is not a product of thought. Thought cannot possibly cultivate love. Love does not obey.

Love may be the ultimate solution to all of humanity's difficulties, problems and travails, but how are we going to find out what love is. By defining it?

Love has become overly personal, sensual and limited. It cannot be divided into the sacred and the profane, or the human and the divine. Is love personal or impersonal? Is it moral or immoral? Is love a sentiment, an emotion? Is it pleasure and desire?

When you ask what love is, you may be too frightened to face the answer. It may cause complete upheaval.

Fear is not love, jealousy is not love, self-pity is not love. Love is not the opposite of hate any more than humility is the opposite of vanity.

"In this torn desert world there is no love because pleasure and desire play the greatest roles, yet without love your life has no meaning."

When there is love and beauty, whatever we do is right, is in order. Then there is no room for comparison. There is no 'other'.

The Word Is a Screen

The next chapter explores the nature of beauty.

With our eyes blinded by worry, we cannot see the beauty of a sunset. Most of us have lost touch with nature. We are urban people having very little space to even look at the evening or morning sky.

Instead, we seek excitement through substitutes and develop our intellectual capacities. We read books, we quote other people's ideas; we seek experiences in art, museums, films and nightclubs. When we can't observe a bird on a wing or watch the shadows on the hills, we resort to drugs to stimulate us to feel better.

When we look at an external object, our mind names it and the feeling we experience. This word forms a screen between the object and the viewer, preventing us from seeing it as it truly is.

However, when we observe intensely, we realise that there is no observer at all, there is only observation. In that state of complete attention, there is no space for a conception.

When you look at a tree or the brilliant stars in the sky without a centre, you know what beauty is.

"When there is no centre and no circumference, then there is love. And when you love, you are beauty."

The Observer Is an Image

Chapter twelve focuses on the tension between the observer and the observed.

An observer is made up of thousands of images. It is an image that lives within the field of consciousness, but has separated itself by taking on the roles of both observer and censor. It subjugates other images, wanting to mould them to its will.

The observer is neither a higher self nor a superior entity, but rather an integral part of consciousness. When the observer realises that he is the thing he is observing, not separate from it, conflict ceases.

You cannot suppress or escape it. You cannot accept or reject it either. You are both the object and the spectator. The intense awareness gives rise to a different quality of attention, makes the mind extraordinarily sensitive and highly intelligent.

Thought Breeds Duality

Thinking is a natural theme for the next chapter.

How do thoughts originate, and how do they condition our actions? Is there anything beyond thinking, something that thought has never discovered, or cannot open the door to?

First, it is important to understand how thoughts and feelings intertwine. Feelings quickly die out if thought does not give them continuity. Therefore, the two should not be separated.

We have seen how thought sustains and gives continuity to the pleasure that we had yesterday and how thought also sustains the

reverse of pleasure: fear and pain. Consequently, the experiencer is both pleasure and pain, as well as the entity that nourishes them. It is the thinker who separates pleasure from pain. He doesn't see that by demanding pleasure, he is inviting pain and fear.

Thought distorts everything for its own convenience. In demanding pleasure thought creates its own bondage. Thought is the breeder of duality, contradiction and violence.

We meet every challenge in terms of the past. Our brain is in conflict whatever it does. Thought has set up this pattern of pleasure, pain, fear, and has been functioning inside it for thousands of years, yet it cannot break free.

"Thought is never new and therefore can never answer any tremendous question. The old brain cannot solve the enormous problem of living."

In the state of complete attention, the thinker comes to an end and thought begins to wither away. Then we will "respond to a challenge, not with the old brain, but totally anew."

Facing the Truth, the Brain Will Surrender

Chapter 14 deals with solitude, security, achievement and authentic silence.

It opens with the story of two monks who see a young woman crying on the riverbank. She wants to go to her home on the opposite bank. The other monk carries her across the river. A couple of hours later, the first monk tells the second monk that he has broken his vow never to touch a woman, committing a terrible sin. The first monk replies that he left her behind two hours ago, however, his colleague is still carrying the memory of her.

The moral of the story is that we carry our burdens with us and never leave them behind. In order to flower in goodness, we must have inner freedom and space. No virtue can function or grow without space within ourself.

When the mind is silent, there is a possibility of clarity. The whole purpose of meditation is to control thought, which is the same as constantly repeating a prayer to quieten the mind.

Unless we lay the foundation, which is to be free from fear, sorrow and anxiety, it is not possible for the mind to actually be quiet.

One of the greatest stumbling blocks in life is the constant struggle to reach, to achieve. We demand physical security, yet psychological security is not in the field of achievement.

The desire to be or become something seems to lie at the core of the self. It never seems to be good enough. We seek security because the life of the self is unstable and insecure. While external security is necessary for the brain, the demand for internal security can destroy it because it can lead to irrational behaviour, conformity to irrational norms and submission to the power of others.

Certainty comes when you stop looking for it and immerse yourself in the present moment. Time and the movement of thought cease.

There is a silence in which the brain cells confront the mystery of life that nobody can reveal to you and nothing can destroy. It cannot be brought about by will because it is the workings of consciousness. Meeting the truth, the brain has no choice but to remain silent.

Shrinking Experiences

The penultimate chapter explores our demand for different kinds of experiences; such as the mystical, the religious or the sexual.

Throughout the ages, people have sought to experience something marvellous and have reflected on what they have experienced in their lives. These experiences are sought through religion, status, relationships or churches.

For K, all of this indicates the poverty of the mind. We try to escape our petty, jealous and anxious selves by seeking momentary satisfaction.

Experience requires recognition. In order to experience reality and truth, we must recognise them. However, by that point, we have already projected them, meaning they are not real. Any experience that expands consciousness is still limited because it remains within consciousness.

We depend on experiences and challenges. Why? Why are we not satisfied with what we are? What if our endless pursuit of more is self-created and cannot be removed by acquiring more?

This demand stems from duality. The very demand to be happy creates unhappiness. When we make an effort to be good, evil is present. It is born out of discontent with what is.

To be free of incessant demands, we must stop seeking experiences. This brings us to the question of meditation.

Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind and an understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased. Meditation is not control of thought; when thought is controlled, it breeds conflict in the mind.

"Meditation is to be aware of every thought and every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong but just to watch it and move with it. Out of this awareness comes silence."

Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life and it cannot be learned from anybody. It has no technique and no authority. You are aware of yourself without any choice.

"Meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at your face of your wife or child."

In the understanding of meditation there is love. There is no method to follow; it cannot be cultivated. The meditator is entirely absent.

Why Do We Miss the Most Important?

The final chapter is mind-blowing. It explains why and how the mutation in the psyche occurs. Without this mutation, the brain cannot solve the human problem.

All life, every movement, every feeling and every thought is energy. If this energy is allowed to flow freely, without contradiction, friction, or conflict, then it is boundless, endless.

We need energy to investigate, to look, to act. Now we are wasting it on inward friction and outward conflict.

Time will not help us to free the mind. We can take the whole process of living to a new dimension right now.

Can the mind free itself from its conditioning and solve its problems?

"That is the only question we have to ask ourselves, but we don't ask, we want to be told. Asking would mean facing your life as it is. And that is all that matters."

When we see the whole structure of the mind without trying to embellish it or falling into the trap of ideals, the mind may suddenly come upon something called truth.

It comes uninvited into the mind that sees directly. It is like a cool breeze that comes in when you leave the window open.

You cannot invite the wind. We cannot experience it, nor can we describe it to someone else. Claiming that you are 'open to receive' is one form of deception.

Ask yourself why human beings lack this thing, haven't come upon it. We are capable of reaching the skies, going under the earth and beneath the sea, inventing electronic brains. Why is it that we have not got this one thing that matters?

What would you answer if you put this question to yourself? Your answer would be in accordance with your intensity in asking the question and the urgency of it.

"Through complete negation alone, which is the highest form of passion, that thing which is love, comes into being."