# Actual Freedom – Definitions

# Definitions Quotes from Mr. J. Krishnamurti Affective Feelings; After-Death Permanency; Answer to All This Violence; Consciousness Is Its Contents The Core of Krishnamurti’s Teaching; Ending of What is; Discover God or Truth; Listen Totally; Meditation Method Metaphysical ‘Facts’; A Mirror; Pacifist; Perception Without Perceiver; Purusha and Prakriti; Question Everything There is Only That; There is Something Sacred; On Time and Space; That I Would Prostrate To; Truth; What is; What is Sorrow? Affective Feelings: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘Truth, the real God – the real God, not the God that man has made – does not want a mind that has been destroyed, petty, shallow, narrow, limited. It needs a healthy mind to appreciate it; it needs a rich mind – rich, not with knowledge but with innocence – a mind upon which there has never been a scratch of experience, a mind that is free from time. The gods that you have invented for your own comforts accept torture; they accept a mind that is being made dull. But the real thing does not want it; it wants a total, complete human being whose heart is full, rich, clear, capable of intense feeling, capable of seeing the beauty of a tree, the smile of a child, and the agony of a woman who has never had a full meal. You have to have this extraordinary feeling, this sensitivity to everything – to the animal, to the cat that walks across the wall, to the squalor, the dirt, the filth of human beings in poverty, in despair’. [emphasis added]. (May 1; ‘The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti’; Published by HarperSanFrancisco. ©1999 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). The Hoary Spiritualist Goal of an After-Death Permanency: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘You sat there [under the tree] and time passed you by and it would never come back. There was immortality, for death had never been’. (page 67, October 20 1973, ‘Krishnamurti’s Journal’; published 1982 by Harper and Row, San Francisco) The Answer to All this Violence: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘I have found the answer to all this [violence], not in the world but away from it’. (page 94, ‘Krishnamurti – His Life And Death’; Mary Lutyens; Avon Books: New York 1991). What ‘Consciousness Is Its Contents’ Means: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘Consciousness with its content is within the field of matter. The mind cannot possibly go beyond that under any circumstances, do what it will, unless it has complete order within itself and the conflict in relationship has come totally to an end; which means a relationship in which there is no ‘me’. This is not just a verbal explanation. The speaker is telling you what he lives, not what he talks about. If he does not live it, it is hypocrisy, a dirty thing to do. (‘Total Freedom’, Saanen, 18 July I974 ; © Krishnamurti Foundation Trust). • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘... does thought realise of itself that it is limited? I have to find out. I am being challenged. Because I am challenged I have great energy. Put it differently: does consciousness realise its content is itself? Or is it that I have heard another say: ‘Consciousness is its content; its content makes up consciousness’? Therefore I say, ‘Yes, it is so’. Do you see the difference between the two? ... So I am asking myself: has thought realised its own limitations? Or is it pretending to be something extraordinary, noble, divine? Which is nonsense because thought is based on memory. I see that there must be clarity about this point: that there is no outside influence imposing on thought saying it is limited. Then, because there is no imposition there is no conflict; it simply realises it is limited; it realises that whatever it does – its worship of god and so on – is limited, shoddy, petty (...) Verbally we can go only so far: what lies beyond cannot be put into words because the word is not the thing. Up to now we can describe, explain, but no words or explanations can open the door. What will open the door is daily awareness and attention – awareness of how we speak, what we say, how we walk, what we think. It depends on your state of mind. And that state of mind can be understood only by yourself, by watching it and never trying to shape it, never taking sides, never opposing, never agreeing, never justifying, never condemning, never judging – which means watching it without any choice. And out of this choiceless awareness perhaps the door will open and you will know what that dimension is in which there is no conflict and no time’. (‘The Only Revolution’ 1970, pp. 130-131 (from ‘The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader’). • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘If you have followed this inquiry into what is meditation, and have understood the whole process of thinking, you will find that the mind is completely still. In that total stillness of the mind, there is no watcher, no observer, and therefore no experiencer at all; there is no entity who is gathering experience, which is the activity of a self-centred mind. Don’t say, ‘That is Samadhi’ – which is all nonsense, because you have only read of it in some book and have not discovered it for yourself. There is a vast difference between the word and the thing. The word is not the thing; the word door is not the door. So, to meditate is to purge the mind of its self-centred activity. And if you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness. The mind is uncontaminated by society; it is no longer subject to any influence, to the pressure of any desire. It is completely alone, and being alone, untouched, it is innocent. Therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being. This whole process is meditation’. (December 29; ‘The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti Published by HarperSanFrancisco’; © 1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘The self is in constant movement; as it lives, it must be understood. And only through self-knowledge, through understanding the process of my own thinking, obsessed in the mirror of every reaction, do I find out that so long as there is any movement of the ‘me’, of the mind, towards anything – towards God, towards truth, towards peace – then such a mind is not a quiet mind, it is still wanting to achieve, to grasp, to come to some state. If there is any form of authority, any compulsion, any imitation, the mind cannot understand. And to know that the mind imitates, to know that it is crippled by tradition, to be aware that it is pursuing its own experiences, its own projections – that demands a great deal of insight, a great deal of awareness, of self-knowledge. Only then, with the whole content of the mind, the whole consciousness, unravelled and understood, is there a possibility of a state which may be called stillness – in which there is no experiencer, no recognition’. (London; 5th Public Talk; 25th June 1955 J. Krishnamurti). The Core of Krishnamurti’s Teaching [quote]: ‘The core of Krishnamurti’s teaching is contained in the statement he made in 1929 when he said: ‘Truth is a pathless land’. • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘Man cannot come to it through any organisation, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security – religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man’s thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual. Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man’s pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution. When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind. Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence’. (written by J. Krishnamurti, October 21, 1980, for ‘Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfilment’ by Mary Lutyens, the second volume of his biography) . To Discover God or Truth: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘... to discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. (‘The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations With J. Krishnamurti’, December Chapter. Published by Harper, San Francisco ; ©1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). The Ending of ‘What Is’: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘The future is what you are now ... if there is not a fundamental change, then the future is what we are doing every day of our life in the present. Change is rather a difficult word. Change to what? Change to another pattern? To another concept? To another political or religious system? Change from this to that? That is still within the realm, or within the field, of ‘what is’ ... so one must inquire carefully into this word ‘change’ ... perhaps a better phrase is ‘the ending of ‘what is’’. The ending, not the movement of ‘what is’ to ‘what should be’. That is not change’. (emphasis added). (‘Krishnamurti to Himself’; © 1987 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd). Listen Totally (...) with All of Your Being: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘I ask you, what is God? ... God is something unnameable, unknowable, unthinkable by a conditioned mind; it is something which is totally unknown ... There is an art in listening and it is very difficult to listen to something with which you are not familiar ... if you can listen with that attention which is not translating what is being heard, which does not compare, which is really giving the whole of its being to what is being said, in that attention there is listening. I do not know if you have ever tried to listen to somebody with your total being. So if I may, I most respectfully suggest that you listen to see the truth of what is being said. [endquote]. (www.kfa.org/poona58.html; 6 Public Talks at Poona; 7th September 1958 – September 24, 1958; ©1996 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s meditation method: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘First of all sit absolutely still. Sit comfortably, cross your legs, sit absolutely still, close your eyes, and see if you can keep your eyes from moving. You understand? Your eye balls are apt to move, keep them completely quiet, for fun. Then, as you sit very quietly, find out what your thought is doing. Watch it as you watched the lizard. Watch thought, the way it runs, one thought after another. So you begin to learn, to observe. (...) First of all sit completely quiet, comfortably, sit very quietly, relax, I will show you. Now, look at the trees, at the hills, the shape of the hills, look at them, look at the quality of their colour, watch them. Do not listen to me. Watch and see those trees, the yellowing trees, the tamarind, and then look at the bougainvillea. Look not with your mind but with your eyes. After having looked at all the colours, the shape of the land, of the hills, the rocks, the shadow, then go from the outside to the inside and close your eyes, close your eyes completely. You have finished looking at the things outside, and now with your eyes closed you can look at what is happening inside. (...) Watch what is happening inside you, do not think, but just watch, do not move your eye-balls, just keep them very, very quiet, because there is nothing to see now, you have seen all the things around you, now you are seeing what is happening inside your mind, and to see what is happening inside your mind, you have to be very quiet inside. And when you do this, do you know what happens to you? You become very sensitive, you become very alert to things outside and inside. Then you find out that the outside is the inside, then you find out that the observer is the observed. (pages 22, 36; ‘Krishnamurti on Education’; published by Krishnamurti Foundation India, ISBN 81-87326-00-X). On Metaphysical ‘Facts’: A few Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes on metaphysical ‘facts’: • [quote]: ‘... reincarnation is a fact and not a belief’. (‘Early Writings’, Vol. V; p 110; Chetana, Bombay 1969). • [quote]: ‘It [reincarnation] is a fact for me because I know it’. (‘Early Writings’, Vol. IV; p 69; Chetana, Bombay 1969). • [quote]: ‘There’s a sacredness, untouched by any symbol or word. It is not communicable. It is a fact’. (‘Krishnamurti’s Notebook’; by J Krishnamurti; ISBN 0-06064795-7; published by KFI). • [quote]: ‘Truth is a fact, and the fact can be understood only when the various things that have been placed between the mind and the fact are removed’. (August 3: ‘The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti’; Published by HarperSanFrancisco. ©1999 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). • [quote]: ‘Evil is a fact. Leave it alone. Your mind should not play with evil. Thinking about it is to invite it. (...) Deterioration walks one step behind you. No matter who you are’. (‘Krishnamurti – A Biography’; Pupul Jayakar; Harper &Row; San Francisco; 1986). He Was A Mirror: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘The speaker doesn’t have anything he could teach you ... The speaker is only a mirror where you can see yourself. Then, when you recognise yourself clearly, you can put aside the mirror’. (‘Krishnamurti – His Life and Death; ©1991 Mary Lutyens; Avon Books, New York). • [quote]: ‘I am merely a mirror in which you are looking at yourself’. (‘The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti’; ©1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America; Published by HarperSanFrancisco). Ostensibly a Committed Pacifist: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘If you live peacefully you will have no problem at all. You may be imprisoned because you refuse to join the army or shot because you refuse to fight – but that is not a problem; you will be shot. It is extraordinarily important to understand this’. (J. Krishnamurti; ‘Freedom From The Known’ ©1969 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd). Perception without Perceiver: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti talking about perception without a perceiver in meditation: • ‘This perception is entirely different from seeing an object without an observer, because in the perception of meditation *there is no object* and therefore no experience What meaning has such meditation? There is no meaning; there is no utility. But in that meditation there is a movement of great ecstasy. It is the ecstasy which gives to the eye, to the brain, and to the heart the quality of innocency’. [emphasis added]. (pages xii-xiii, ‘Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti’; ©1996 Krishnamurti Foundation of America and Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.) . Purusha and Prakriti: This example is derived, in part, from a more detailed appraisal of ‘Sacred Schizophrenia’ on pages 27-31of a booklet entitled ‘Krishnamurti: Two Birds On One Tree’; ©1995 Ravi Ravindra; published by Quest Books. Question Everything, Including the Speaker: [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘There are two things involved: the speaker is either talking out of the silence of truth, or he is talking out of the noise of an illusion, which he considers to be the truth (...) let us go slowly, for this is interesting. Who is going to judge, who is going to see the truth of the matter? The listener? The reader? You who are familiar with the Indian scriptures, Buddhism, the Upanishads, and know most of the contents of all that, are you capable of judging? (...) How will you find out? How will you approach the problem? (...) What is the criterion, the measure that you apply so that you can say ‘Yes that’s it’? (...) I’ll tell you what I would do. I would put aside his personality, his influence, all that, completely aside. Because I don’t want to be influenced; I am sceptical, doubtful, so I am very careful. I listen to him, and I don’t say ‘I know’ or ‘I don’t know’, but I am sceptical. I want to find out (...) I am sceptical in the sense that I don’t accept everything that is being said (...) I would rather use the word ‘doubt’, in the sense of ‘questioning’ ... I would put everything else aside, all the personal reputation, the charm, looks. I am not going to accept or reject, I am going to listen to find out. (‘The Wholeness Of Life’; March 22 1977; Ojai, California. © 1979 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.). There Is Only That: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti talking about there being ‘only that’ in meditation: • S: Have we shared the sacred? • K: Which really means that all these discussions, dialogues, have been a process of meditation. Not a clever argument, but a real penetrating meditation which brings insight to everything that is being said. (...) Seeing the truth of every statement; or the false of every statement; or seeing in the false the truth; seeing it all we are in a state of meditation. And whatever we say must lead to that ultimate thing. Then you are not sharing. • S: Where are you? • K: There is no sharing. It is only that. • S: The act of meditation is that. • K: *There is only that*. [emphasis added]. (‘The Wholeness of Life’, © 1979 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd; Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco). There is Something Sacred, Untouched by Man: • [K]: ‘There is something sacred, untouched by man (...) and that may be the origin of everything. • [B]: ‘If you say the origin of all matter, all nature ... . • [K]: ‘Everything, all matter, all nature. • [B]: ‘All of mankind. • [K]: ‘Yes. That’s right, sir. (‘The Wholeness Of Life’; pages 135-136; J. Krishnamurti; HarperCollins, New York; 1979). For example: • [K]: ‘Have an insight into sorrow [universal sorrow], which is not the sorrow of thought. Then out of that insight compassion. Now have an insight into compassion. Is compassion the end of all life? End of all death? It seems so because the mind throws out all the burdens which man has imposed upon himself – right? So you have that tremendous feeling, that tremendous thing inside. Now that compassion, delve into it. And there is something sacred, untouched by man – in the sense of being untouched by his mind, by his cravings, by his demands, by his prayers, by his everlasting chicanery. And that may be the origin of everything, which man has misused – you follow? • [B]: ‘If you say it is the origin of all matter, all nature ... . • [K]: ‘Everything, all matter, all nature. • [B]: ‘All of mankind. • [K]: ‘Yes. That’s right, sir’. (pages 135-136, ‘The Wholeness Of Life’; ©HarperCollins, New York; 1979). Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti on Time (and Space): • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘To be completely alone implies that the mind is free of every kind of influence and is therefore uncontaminated by society; and it must be alone to understand what is religion – which is to find out for oneself whether there is something immortal, beyond time’. (The December Chapter; December 2: ‘The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti’; Published by HarperSanFrancisco. ©1999 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). • [quote]: ‘You will find, if you have gone that far, that there is a movement of the unknown which is not recognised, which is not translatable, which cannot be put into words – then you will find that there is a movement which is of the immense. That movement is of the timeless because in that there is no time, nor is there space’. (December 29: ‘The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti’; Published by HarperSanFrancisco. ©1999 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). • [quote]: ‘Thought can never be tranquil; thought, which is the product of time, can never find that which is timeless, can never know that which is beyond time’. (pp. 71-75, ‘The First and Last Freedom’; ©1954 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). • [quote]: ‘Knowledge is destructive to discovery. Knowledge is always in time (...) this emptiness has no measurement; it’s the centre that measures, weighs, calculates. This emptiness is beyond time and space’. (‘Krishnamurti’s Notebook’; by J Krishnamurti; ISBN 0-06064795-7; published by KFI). • K: ‘What we are trying to do is to penetrate into something beyond death’. • B: ‘Beyond death?’ • K: ‘We three are trying to find to find out that which is beyond death’. • S: ‘Right’. • B: ‘There is that which is beyond death?’ • K: ‘Ah, absolutely’. • B: ‘Would you say that is eternal, or ...’ • K: ‘I don’t want to use that word’. • B: ‘I mean is it in some sense beyond time?’ • K: ‘Beyond time’. • B: ‘Therefore eternal is not the best word’. • K: ‘There is something beyond the superficial death, a movement that has no beginning and no ending’. • B: ‘But it is a movement?’ • K: ‘It is a movement. Movement, not in time’. • S: ‘What is the difference between a movement in time and a movement out of time?’ • K: ‘Sir, that which is constantly renewing, constantly – new isn’t the word – constantly fresh, endlessly flowering, that is timeless. But this word ‘flowering’ implies time’. • B: ‘I think we can see the point’. (‘The Wholeness of Life’; J. Krishnamurti; Copyright © 1979 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust; Publishers: HarperCollins, New York). That I Would Prostrate To: [Ms. Pupul Jayakar]: ‘... the feeling of presence was overpowering, and soon my voice stopped. Krishnaji turned to me, ‘Do you feel It? I could prostrate to It?’ His body was trembling as he spoke of the presence that listened. ‘Yes, I can prostrate to this, that is here’. Suddenly he turned and left us, walking alone to his room’. (page 364; Jayakar, Pupul: ‘Krishnamurti – A Biography’; Harper & Row; San Francisco; 1986). The ‘Truth’: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘That state of mind which is no longer capable of striving is the true religious mind, and in that state of mind you may come upon this thing called truth or reality or bliss or God or beauty or love’. (‘Freedom From The Known’, ©1969 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd). ‘What Is’: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘We are always avoiding ‘what is’ ... my loneliness, emptiness, sorrow, pain, suffering, anxiety, fear, that is actually ‘what is’. (Part 3; ‘Truth and Actuality’; J. Krishnamurti, Autumn 1975; Published by KFI; ISBN PBTA78) . [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘We are always avoiding ‘what is’. And the ‘what is’ is created by thought. My loneliness, emptiness, sorrow, pain, suffering, anxiety, fear, that is actually ‘what is’. (Part 3; ‘Truth and Actuality’; J. Krishnamurti, Autumn 1975; Published by KFI; ISBN PBTA78). What is Sorrow? Editorial note: The following quote clearly shows that compassion has its roots in sorrow: • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘What is sorrow? There is this thing called sorrow, which is pain, grief, loneliness, a sense of total isolation, no hope, no sense of relationship or communication, total isolation. Mankind has lived with this great thing and perhaps cultivated it because he does not know how to resolve it. We are going to find out if there is an end to sorrow, because without the ending of sorrow there is no love. (...) What actually takes place when you suffer? Not biologically, physiologically, but psychologically, which is much more penetrating, much deeper, much more excruciating. You may shed tears, escape from it, never look at it, but it is always there. Sorrow is the lot of human beings, everyone knows it. We escape from it, rationalise it, justify it, or say that every human being suffers so I must suffer. Or if you are prejudiced religiously, you say it is the work of God. Now all those are ways and means of escaping from the fact of what is, which is sorrow. Now if you don’t escape, that is if there is no rationalising, no avoiding, no justifying, just remaining with that totality of suffering, without the movement of thought, then you have all the energy to comprehend the thing you call sorrow. If you remain without a single movement of thought, with that which you have called sorrow, there comes a transformation in that which you have called sorrow. That becomes passion. The root meaning of sorrow is passion. When you escape from it, you lose that quality which comes from sorrow, which is complete passion, which is totally different from lust and desire. When you have an insight into sorrow and remain with that thing completely, without a single movement of thought, out of that comes this strange flame of passion. And you must have passion, otherwise you can’t create anything. Out of passion comes compassion. Compassion means passion for all things, for all human beings. So there is an ending to sorrow, and only then you will begin to understand what it means to love’. (‘A Relationship with the World’, Public Talks; Ojai, California; April 11 1976; ©1976/1996 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd.) RETURN TO DEFINITIONS INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity