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| Cover Page | ||
| Title Page | ||
| Copyright Page | ||
| About the Author | ||
| Foreword by David Skitt | ||
| I. | Man’s Search—The Tortured Mind—The Traditional Approach—The Trap of Respectability—The Human Being and the Individual—The Battle of Existence—The Basic Nature of Man—Responsibility—Truth—Self-transformation—Dissipation of Energy—Freedom from Authority | |
| II. | Learning About Ourselves—Simplicity and Humility—Conditioning | |
| III. | Consciousness—The Totality of Life—Awareness | |
| IV. | Pursuit of Pleasure—Desire—Perversion by Thought—Memory—Joy | |
| V. | Self-concern—Craving for Position—Fears and Total Fear—Fragmentation of Thought—Ending of Fear | |
| VI. | Violence—Anger—Justification and Condemnation—The Ideal and the Actual | |
| VII. | Relationship — Conflict — Society — Poverty — Drugs — Dependence — Comparison — Desire — Ideals — Hypocrisy | |
| VIII. | Freedom—Revolt—Solitude—Innocence—Living with Ourselves as We Are | |
| IX. | Time—Sorrow—Death | |
| X. | Love | |
| XI. | To Look and to Listen—Art—Beauty—Austerity—Images—Problems—Space | |
| XII. | The Observer and the Observed | |
| XIII. | What is Thinking?—Ideas and Action—Challenge—Matter—The Beginning of Thought | |
| XIV. | The Burdens of Yesterday—The Quiet Mind—Communication—Achievement—Discipline—Silence—Truth and Reality | |
| XV. | Experience—Satisfaction—Duality—Meditation | |
| XVI. | Total Revolution—The Religious Mind—Energy—Passion |
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI was bornon 12 May, 1895 in Madanapalle, India. In early adolescence he came to the attention of the influential theosophists Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, who educated him, believing him to be a future spiritual leader. Krishnamurti later broke away from the Theosophical Society and travelled internationally as an independent speaker and writer on fundamental human issues. George Bernard Shaw declared that he was the most beautiful human being he had ever met and Aldous Huxley became one of his close friends.
He held many dialogues with the eminent physicist David Bohm, and several with Buddhist scholars and Jesuits. Whether discussing politics with Indira Gandhi, debating philosophy with Rupert Sheldrake and Iris Murdoch, or challenging his audience to test the truth of his words, Krishnamurti engaged fully with every aspect of the human condition.
He was regarded by many as a great teacher, an extraordinary individual with revolutionary insights; Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts and Eckhart Tolle have all acknowledged their debt to his writings. In later life Krishnamurti spoke at the United Nations on the subject of peace and awareness, and was awarded the 1984 UN Peace Medal. He died in 1986 at his home in Ojai, California.
MARY LUTYENS (1908–1999) was a British biographer and novelist, who was well versed in Krishnamurti’s teachings. She first met Krishnamurti as a small child in 1911 and remained dedicated to him until his death in 1986, writing a number of books about him and, at his suggestion, editing Freedom from the Known.
DAVID SKITT is a trustee of the Krishnamurti Foundation in Britain and the editor of a number of books of Krishnamurti’s talks and dialogues.
More than seventy books by Krishnamurti have been published and new editions of his works are still appearing a quarter of a century after his death. Freedom from the Known, however, has always stood out as an exception to the others. Firstly, this is because Krishnamurti himself suggested it to Mary Lutyens, a professional author, even giving her the title. But when she asked what kind of a book it should be, he replied, ‘I leave that to you.’ So she decided to begin by listing the main topics covered in his talks in the years 1963 to 1967, and then to select the passages from those talks that she judged were most clearly or beautifully expressed. The resulting book, she felt, would then constitute a ‘Krishnamurti primer’.
One of the intriguing and unusual aspects of Krishnamurti’s oeuvre is that its sheer volume – material equivalent to four hundred average-sized books – makes it very hard for anyone to be an authority on it; a fact that Krishnamurti, with his radical questioning of any kind of religious, political, psychological or philosophical authority, would no doubt have welcomed. It is therefore difficult for a single book to be described as an authoritative or definitive primer (in later years Krishnamurti would go deeply into some other issues), but Mary Lutyens’s compilation is certainly the most readable ‘exploratory primer’ – the finest collection of nuggets, as it were, that we have.
The question the new reader of this book might put is: how much is something that was born of the turbulent, antiestablishment sixties relevant to the world of today? Wasn’t there a rebellious mood of the younger generation at that time which it later abandoned? Is Krishnamurti therefore out of date? One reason to think he is not is that what Krishnamurti said clearly applies to much of human history and not just to our times. But there is also a very strong case for saying that his views are even more relevant now – in the early twenty-first century – than ever before.
What is the evidence for this? It rests basically on the fact that we live in a time of growing human interdependence, whether it be the economy, financial markets, politics, pandemics, or climate change. Any major event in one of these areas has repercussions in all of them and has an impact worldwide. All the problems in these areas are interconnected and demand, as a UK government report has said of climate change, ‘unprecedented international cooperation’. It is increasingly clear that it is impossible for one country to protect its national interests without taking into account the interests of others. Failure to do so in the twenty-first century will inevitably spawn conflict and insecurity.
The world we live in clearly calls for a new kind of planetary mentality if it is to avoid new and worse strife, and this is where Krishnamurti becomes very relevant. Because for him the mind that is capable of producing harmony between nations – groups of human beings – is inseparable from the mind that brings about harmony between two human beings. There is no division between the two activities in a mind that is fully aware. And what Freedom from the Known does is to explore what prevents such a mind from coming about. A major obstacle, he says, is when we misapply thought based on past experience to a completely new challenge that demands to be looked at totally anew. Avoiding action that is wrongly dictated by the past is clearly often a problem for our political leaders. But it is also one for you and me. Our personal relationships easily become blinkered by the images we make of each other that are based, for instance, on past experience that has been pleasing or displeasing – until it is impossible for us to be open to anything new.
So, to put it succinctly, what is on my plate in psychological terms is also what is on the plate of our planet as a whole. The same basic underlying psychological processes, the same flawed perceptions, prevail and drive us all. And it is the amount of human suffering that these processes currently engender that calls, in Krishnamurti’s view, for an urgent ‘revolution in the psyche’. Such a revolution means ending any sense of separation of oneself from the rest of humanity or from another that is due, for example, to religious faith, political ideology, tradition or culture –‘we are human beings, not labels’. Tragically, we seem not to feel deeply the significance of all of us sharing the same consciousness, the same basic challenges, travails and joys. And our failure to be alive to that shared consciousness is what brings about a sense of isolation, fear and potential aggression.
Observing what is, and all that this implies, is vital for this new human mentality. What is important, Krishnamurti maintains, is not philosophy, ideology, or belief, but ‘observing what is actually taking place in our daily life, inwardly and outwardly’. Crucially important too is seeing what in our lives we are really interested in – being totally honest about what we put our energy into and give total attention to.
Expressed in simple words, Freedom from the Known contains in a slender volume many striking statements on the human condition. But as Krishnamurti has always made clear, he has no intention of spoon-feeding or dispensing truth on a silver platter. He invites us to challenge, question, test what he says and to judge for ourselves whether what he says is true – whether, for example, it is deeply relevant to our times or not. But he would see it as a waste of time to understand his words merely verbally, intellectually. When something serious is really understood, he maintained, it naturally translates into action – action that can be liberating and joyful.
To have such understanding, many issues raised in this book, its author says, ‘demand a great deal of meditation, of inquiry … meditation in which the meditator is entirely absent, for the mind has emptied itself of the past’. He adds, ‘If you have read this book for a whole hour attentively, that is meditation.’ Then it is for the reader ‘to find out what happens’.
DAVID SKITT
This book has been written at Krishnamurti’s suggestion and has his approval. The words have been chosen from a number of his recent talks (in English), taped and previously unpublished, to audiences in various parts of the world. Their selection and the order in which they are presented are my responsibility.
M.L.
Man’s Search—The Tortured Mind—the Traditional Approach—The Trap of Respectability—The Human Being and the Individual—The Battle of Existence—The Basic Nature of Man—Responsibility—Truth—Self-transformation—Dissipation of Energy—Freedom from Authority
MAN HAS THROUGHOUT the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare – something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state – something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.
Man has always asked the question: what is it all about? Has life any meaning at all? He sees the enormous confusion of life, the brutalities, the revolts, the wars, the endless divisions of religion, ideology and nationality, and with a sense of deep abiding frustration he asks, what is one to do, what is this thing we call living, is there anything beyond it?
And not finding this nameless thing of a thousand names which he has always sought, he has cultivated faith – faith in a saviour or an ideal – and faith invariably breeds violence.
In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be. We look to someone to tell us what is right or wrong behaviour, what is right or wrong thought, and in following this pattern our conduct and our thinking become mechanical, our responses automatic. We can observe this very easily in ourselves.
For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our saints. We say, ‘Tell me all about it – what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?’ and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear.
Throughout theological history we have been assured by religious leaders that if we perform certain rituals, repeat certain prayers or mantras, conform to certain patterns, suppress our desires, control our thoughts, sublimate our passions, limit our appetites and refrain from sexual indulgence, we shall, after sufficient torture of the mind and body, find something beyond this little life. And that is what millions of so-called religious people have done through the ages, either in isolation, going off into the desert or into the mountains or a cave or wandering from village to village with a begging bowl, or, in a group, joining a monastery, forcing their minds to conform to an established pattern. But a tortured mind, a broken mind, a mind which wants to escape from all turmoil, which has denied the outer world and been made dull through discipline and conformity – such a mind, however long it seeks, will find only according to its own distortion.
So to discover whether there actually is or is not something beyond this anxious, guilty, fearful, competitive existence, it seems to me that one must have a completely different approach altogether. The traditional approach is from the periphery inwards, and through time, practice and renunciation, gradually to come upon that inner flower, that inner beauty and love – in fact to do everything to make oneself narrow, petty and shoddy; peel off little by little; take time; tomorrow will do, next life will do – and when at last one comes to the centre one finds there is nothing there, because one’s mind has been made incapable, dull and insensitive.
Having observed this process, one asks oneself, is there not a different approach altogether – that is, is it not possible to explode from the centre?
The world accepts and follows the traditional approach. The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another; we mechanically follow somebody who will assure us a comfortable spiritual life. It is a most extraordinary thing that although most of us are opposed to political tyranny and dictatorship, we inwardly accept the authority, the tyranny, of another to twist our minds and our way of life. So if we completely reject, not intellectually but actually, all so-called spiritual authority, all ceremonies, rituals and dogmas, it means that we stand alone and are already in conflict with society; we cease to be respectable human beings. A respectable human being cannot possibly come near to that infinite, immeasurable, reality.
You have now started by denying something absolutely false – the traditional approach – but if you deny it as a reaction you will have created another pattern in which you will be trapped; if you tell yourself intellectually that this denial is a very good idea but do nothing about it, you cannot go any further. If you deny it, however, because you understand the stupidity and immaturity of it, if you reject it with tremendous intelligence, because you are free and not frightened, you will create a great disturbance in yourself and around you but you will step out of the trap of respectability. Then you will find that you are no longer seeking. That is the first thing to learn – not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping.
The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.
And what is yourself, the individual you? I think there is a difference between the human being and the individual. The individual is a local entity, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular culture, particular society, particular religion. The human being is not a local entity. He is everywhere. If the individual merely acts in a particular corner of the vast field of life, then his action is totally unrelated to the whole. So one has to bear in mind that we are talking of the whole not the part, because in the greater the lesser is, but in the lesser the greater is not. The individual is the little conditioned, miserable, frustrated entity, satisfied with his little gods and his little traditions, whereas a human being is concerned with the total welfare, the total misery and total confusion of the world.
We human beings are what we have been for millions of years – colossally greedy, envious, aggressive, jealous, anxious and despairing, with occasional flashes of joy and affection. We are a strange mixture of hate, fear and gentleness; we are both violence and peace. There has been outward progress from the bullock cart to the jet plane but psychologically the individual has not changed at all, and the structure of society throughout the world has been created by individuals. The outward social structure is the result of the inward psychological structure of our human relationships, for the individual is the result of the total experience, knowledge and conduct of man. Each one of us is the storehouse of all the past. The individual is the human who is all mankind. The whole history of man is written in ourselves.
Do observe what is actually taking place within yourself and outside yourself in the competitive culture in which you live with its desire for power, position, prestige, name, success and all the rest of it – observe the achievements of which you are so proud, this whole field you call living in which there is conflict in every form of relationship, breeding hatred, antagonism, brutality and endless wars. This field, this life, is all we know, and being unable to understand the enormous battle of existence we are naturally afraid of it and find escape from it in all sorts of subtle ways. And we are frightened also of the unknown – frightened of death, frightened of what lies beyond tomorrow. So we are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is.