Total freedom

To me, there is a reality, an immense living truth, and to comprehend that, there must be utter simplicity of thought. There is a great subtlety, an infinite subtlety and delicacy, and if you use words merely as a means of getting to that delicacy, to that simplicity of thought, then I am afraid you will not comprehend what I want to convey. But if you would use the significance of words as a bridge to cross, then words will not become an illusion in which the mind is lost. I say there is this living reality, call it God, truth, or what you like, and it cannot be found or realised through search. Where there is the implication of search there must be contrast and duality, whenever mind is seeking, it must inevitably imply a division, a distinction, a contrast, which does not mean that mind must be contented, mind must be stagnant. There is that delicate poise, which is neither contentment, nor this ceaseless effort born of search, of this desire to attain, to achieve, and in that delicacy of poise lies simplicity, not the simplicity of having but few clothes or few possessions. I am not talking of such simplicity, which is merely a crude form, but of simplicity born of this delicacy of thought, in which there is neither search nor contentment.

As I said, search implies duality, contrast. Now where there is contrast, duality, there must be identification with one of the opposites, and from this there arises compulsion. When we say we search, our mind is rejecting something and seeking a substitute that will satisfy it, and thereby it creates duality, and from this there arises compulsion. That is, the choice of the one is the overcoming of the other, isn't it?

When we say we seek out or cultivate a new value, it is but the overcoming of that in which the mind is already caught up, which is its opposite. This choice is based on attraction to one or fear of the other, and this clinging through attraction, or rejection through fear, creates influence over the mind. Influence then is the negation of understanding and can exist only where there is division, the psychological division from which there arise distinctions such as class, nationality, religious, sex. That is, when the mind is trying to overcome, it must create duality, and that very duality negates understanding and creates the distinctions. That duality influences the mind, and hence a mind influenced by duality cannot understand the significance of environment or the significance of the cause of conflict. These psychological influences are merely reactions to environment from that centre of "I" consciousness, of like and dislike, of antitheses, and naturally where there are antitheses, opposites, there can be no comprehension. From this distinction there arises the classification of influences as beneficial and evil. So as long as mind is influenced - and influence is born of attraction, opposites, antitheses - there must be the domination or compulsion of love, of intellect, of society, and this influence must be a hindrance to that understanding which is beauty, truth, and love itself.

Now, if you can become aware of this influence, then you can discern its cause. Most people seem to be aware superficially, not at the greatest depth. It is only when there is awareness at the greatest depth of consciousness, of thought and emotion, that you can discern the division that is created through influence, which negates understanding.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Creativity

What we call happiness or ecstasy is, to me, creative thinking. And creative thinking is the infinite movement of thought, emotion and action. That is, when thought, which is emotion, which is action itself, is unimpeded in its movement, is not compelled or influenced or bound by an idea, and does not proceed from the background of tradition or habit, then that movement is creative. So long as thought - and I won't repeat each time emotion and action - so long as thought is circumscribed, held by a fixed idea, or merely adjusts itself to a background or condition and, therefore, becomes limited, such though is not creative. So the question which every thoughtful person puts to himself is how can he awaken this creative thinking, because when there is this creative thinking, which is infinite movement, then there can be no idea of a limitation, a conflict. Now this movement of creative thinking does not seek in its expression a result, an achievement, its results and expressions are not its culmination. Is has no culmination or goal, for it is eternally in movement. Most minds are seeking a culmination, a goal, an achievement, and are holding themselves upon the idea of success, and such thought, such thinking is continually limiting itself, whereas if there is no idea of achievement but only the continual movement of thought as understanding, as intelligence, then that movement of thought is creative. That is, creative thinking ceases when mind is crippled by adjustment through influence, or when it functions with the background of a tradition which it has not understood, or from a fixed point, like an animal tied to a post. So long as this limitation, this adjustment, exists, there cannot be creative thinking, intelligence, which alone is freedom. 

This creative movement of thought never seeks a result or comes to a culmination, because result or culmination is always the outcome of alternate cessation and movement, whereas if there is no search for a result, but only continual movement of thought, then that is creative thinking. 

Again, creative thinking is free of division, which creates conflict between thought, emotion, and action. And division exists only when there is the search of a goal, when there is adjustment and the complacency of certainty.

Action is this movement which is itself thought and emotion, as I explained. This action is the relationship between the individual and society. It is conduct, work, cooperation, which we call fulfilment. That is, when mind is functioning without seeking a culmination, a goal, and, therefore, thinking creatively, that thinking is action which is the relationship between the individual and society. Now if this movement of thought is clear, simple, direct, spontaneous, profound, then there is no conflict in the individual against society, for action then is the very expression of this living, creative movement.

So to me there is no art of thinking, there is only creative thinking. There is no technique of thinking, but only spontaneous creative functioning of intelligence, which is the harmony of reason, emotion, and action, not divided or divorced from each other.

Now this thinking and feeling, without a search for a reward, a result, is true experiment, isn't it? In real experiencing, real experimenting, there cannot be the search for result, because this experimenting is the movement of creative thought. To experiment, mind must be continually freeing itself from the environment with which it conflicts in its movement, the environment which we call the past. There can be no creative thinking if mind is hindered by the search for a reward, by the pursuit of a goal.

When the mind and heart are seeking a result or a gain, thereby complacency and stagnation, there must be practice, an overcoming, a discipline, out of which comes conflict. Most people think that by practicing a certain idea they will release creative thinking. Now, practice, if you come to observe it, ponder over it, is nothing but the result of duality. And an action born of this duality must perpetuate that distinction between mind and heart, and such action becomes merely the expression of a calculated, logical, self-protective conclusion. If there is this practice of self-discipline, or this continual domination or influence by circumstances, then practice is merely an alteration, a change toward an end, it is merely action within the confines of the limited thought which you call self - consciousness. So practice does not bring about creative thinking.

To think creatively is to bring about harmony between mind, emotion and action. That is, if you are convinced of an action, without the search of a reward at the end, then that action, being the result of intelligence, releases all hindrances that have been placed on the mind through the lack of understanding.

Where the mind and heart are held by fear, by lack of understanding, by compulsion, such a mind, though it can think within the confines, within the limitations of that fear, is not really thinking, and its action must ever throw up new barriers. Therefore, its capacity to think is ever being limited. But if the mind frees itself through the understanding of circumstances and, therefore, acts, then that very action is creative thinking.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Mind

You see, we have made of truth something permanent. And is truth permanent? If it is, then it is within the field of time. To say that something is permanent implies that it is continuous; and what is continuous is not truth. That is the beauty of truth: it must be discovered from moment to moment, not remembered. A remembered truth is a dead thing. Truth must be discovered from moment to moment because it is living, it is never the same; and yet each time you discover it, it is the same. What is important is not to make a theory of truth, not to say that truth is permanent in us and all the rest of it - that is an invention of the old who are frightened both of death and of life. These marvellous theories - that truth is permanent, that you need not be afraid because you are an immortal soul, and so on - have been invented by frightened people whose minds are decaying and whose philosophies have no validity. The fact is that truth is life, and life has no permanency. Life has to be discovered from moment to moment, from day to day; it has to be discovered, it cannot be taken for granted. If you take it for granted that you know life, you are not living. Three meals a day, clothing, shelter, sex, your job, your amusement and your thinking process - that dull, repetitive process is not life. Life is something to be discovered; and you cannot discover it if you have not lost, if you have not put aside the things that you have found. Do experiment with what I am saying. Put aside your philosophies, your religions, your customs, your racial taboos and all the rest of it, for they are not life. If you are caught in those things you will never discover life; and the function of education, surely, is to help you to discover life all the time. A man who says he knows is already dead. But the man who thinks, "I don't know", who is discovering, finding out, who is not seeking an end, not thinking in terms of arriving or becoming - such a man is living, and that living is truth.

Jiddu Krishnamurti