Journal

Journal
By J. Krishnamurti
E-Text Source: www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net

Index
Foreword - Foreword
Brockwood 1973
    1st Entry 14th September 1973
    2nd Entry 15th September 1973
    3rd Entry 16th September 1973
    4th Entry 17th September 1973
    5th Entry 18th September 1973
    6th Entry 19th September 1973
    7th Entry 20th September 1973
    8th Entry 21st September 1973
    9th Entry 22nd September 1973
    10th Entry 23rd September 1973
    11th Entry 24th September 1973
    12th Entry 25th September 1973
    13th Entry 27th September 1973
    14th Entry 28th September 1973
    15th Entry 29th September 1973
    16th Entry 30th September 1973
    17th Entry 2nd October 1973
    18th Entry 3rd October 1973
    19th Entry 4th October 1973
    20th Entry 6th October 1973
    21st Entry 7th October 1973
    22nd Entry 8th October 1973
    23rd Entry 9th October 1973
    24th Entry 10th October 1973
    25th Entry 12th October 1973
    26th Entry 13th October 1973
Rome 1973
    27th Entry 17th October 1973
    28th Entry 18th October 1973
    29th Entry 19th October 1973
    30th Entry 20th October 1973
    31st Entry 21st October 1973
    32nd Entry 22nd October 1973
    33rd Entry 24th October 1973
    34th Entry 25th October 1973
    35th Entry 29th October 1973
Malibu 1975
    36th Entry 1st April 1975
    37th Entry 2nd April 1975
    38th Entry 3rd April 1975
    39th Entry 4th April 1975
    40th Entry 6th April 1975
Ojai 1975
    41st Entry 8th April 1975
    42nd Entry 10th April 1975
    43rd Entry 14th April 1975
    44th Entry 17th April 1975
Malibu 1975
    45th Entry 23rd April 1975
    46th Entry 24th April 1975

Acknowledgement
The copyright of this book is held by Krishnamurti Foundations. We are providing this e-book solely for non-commercial usage as a noble service. The printed book can be purchased from Krishnamurti Foundations.

Foreword

IN SEPTEMBER 1973 Krishnamurti suddenly started keeping a journal. For nearly six weeks he made daily entries in a notebook. For the first month of that period he was staying at Brockwood Park, Hampshire, and for the rest of the time in Rome. He resumed the journal eighteen months later while in California.

Nearly every entry starts with a description of some natural scene which he knows intimately, yet in only three instances do these descriptions refer to the place in which he was actually staying. Thus, the first page of the first entry describes the grove in the park at Brockwood, but by the second page he is evidently in Switzerland in imagination. It is not until he is staying in California in 1975 that he again gives a description of his actual surroundings. For the rest, he is recalling places he has lived in, with a clarity that shows how vivid is his memory for natural scenery, arising from the acuteness of his observation. This journal also reveals to what an extent his teaching is inspired by his closeness to nature.

Throughout, Krishnamurti refers to himself in the third person as "he", and incidentally he tells us something about himself which he has not done before.

M. L.

Brockwood 1973

1st Entry 14th September 1973

The other day, coming back from a good walk among the fields and trees, we passed through the grove [Many rare trees, including redwoods, grow in the grove at Brockwood.] near the big white house. Coming over the stile into the grove one felt immediately a great sense of peace and stillness. Not a thing was moving. It seemed sacrilegious to walk through it, to tread the ground; it was profane to talk, even to breathe. The great redwood trees were absolutely still; the American Indians call them the silent ones and now they were really silent. Even the dog didn't chase the rabbits. You stood still hardly daring to breathe; you felt you were an intruder, for you had been chatting and laughing, and to enter this grove not knowing what lay there was a surprise and a shock, the shock of an unexpected benediction. The heart was beating less fast, speechless with the wonder of it. It was the centre of this whole place. Every time you enter it now, there's that beauty, that stillness, that strange stillness. Come when you will and it will be there, full, rich and unnameable.

Any form of conscious meditation is not the real thing; it can never be. Deliberate attempt to meditate is not meditation. It must happen; it cannot be invited. Meditation is not the play of the mind nor of desire and pleasure. All attempt to meditate is the very denial of it. Only be aware of what you are thinking and doing and nothing else. The seeing, the hearing, is the doing, without reward and punishment. The skill in doing lies in the skill of seeing, hearing. Every form of meditation leads inevitably to deception, to illusion, for desire blinds. It was a lovely evening and the soft light of spring covered the earth.

2nd Entry 15th September 1973

It is good to be alone. To be far away from the world and yet walk its streets is to be alone. To be alone walking up the path beside the rushing, noisy mountain stream full of spring water and melting snows is to be aware of that solitary tree, alone in its beauty. The loneliness of a man in the street is the pain of life; he's never alone, far away, untouched and vulnerable. To be full of knowledge breeds endless misery. The demand for expression, with its frustrations and pains, is that man who walks the streets; he is never alone. Sorrow is the movement of that loneliness.

That mountain stream was full and high with the melting snows and the rains of early spring. You could hear big boulders being pushed around by the force of on-rushing waters. A tall pine of fifty years or more crashed into the water; the road was being washed away. The stream was muddy, slate coloured. The fields above it were full of wild flowers. The air was pure and there was enchantment. On the high hills there was still snow, and the glaciers and the great peaks still held the recent snows; they will still be white all the summer long.

It was a marvellous morning and you could have walked on endlessly, never feeling the steep hills. There was a perfume in the air, clear and strong. There was no one on that path, coming down or going up. You were alone with those dark pines and the rushing waters. The sky was that astonishing blue that only the mountains have. You looked at it through leaves and the straight pines. There was no one to talk to and there was no chattering of the mind. A magpie, white and black, flew by, disappearing into the woods. The path led away from the noisy stream and the silence was absolute. It wasn't the silence after the noise; it wasn't the silence that comes with the setting of the sun, nor that silence when the mind dies down. It wasn't the silence of museums and churches but something totally unrelated to time and space. It wasn't the silence that mind makes for itself. The sun was hot and the shadows were pleasant.

He only discovered recently that there was not a single thought during these long walks, in the crowded streets or on the solitary paths. Ever since he was a boy it had been like that, no thought entered his mind. He was watching and listening and nothing else. Thought with its associations never arose. There was no image-making. One day he was suddenly aware how extraordinary it was; he attempted often to think but no thought would come. On these walks, with people or without them, any movement of thought was absent. This is to be alone.

Over the snow peaks clouds were forming, heavy and dark; probably it would rain later on but now the shadows were very sharp with the sun bright and clear. There was still that pleasant smell in the air and the rains would bring a different smell. It was a long way down to the chalet.

3rd Entry 16th September 1973

At that time of the morning the streets of the small village were empty but beyond them the country was full with trees, meadows and whispering breezes. The one main street was lighted and everything else was in darkness. The sun would come up in about three hours. It was a clear starlit morning. The snow peaks and the glaciers were still in darkness and almost everyone was sleeping. The narrow mountain roads had so many curves that one couldn't go very fast; the car was new and being run in. It was a beautiful car, powerful with good lines. In that morning air the motor ran most efficiently. On the auto-route it was a thing of beauty and as it climbed it took every corner, steady as a rock. The dawn was there, the shape of the trees and the long line of hills and the vineyards; it was going to be a lovely morning; it was cool and pleasant among the hills. The sun was up and there was dew on the leaves and meadows.

He always liked machinery; he dismantled the motor of a car and when it ran it was as good as new. When you are driving, meditation seems to come so naturally. You are aware of the countryside, the houses, the farmers in the field, the make of the passing car and the blue sky through the leaves. You are not even aware that meditation is going on, this meditation that began ages ago and would go on endlessly. Time isn't a factor in meditation, nor the word which is the meditator. There's no meditator in meditation. If there is, it is not meditation. The meditator is the word, thought and time, and so subject to change, to the coming and going. It's not a flower that blooms and dies. Time is movement. You are sitting on the bank of a river, watching the waters, the current and the things floating by. When you are in the water, there's no watcher. Beauty is not in the mere expression, it's in the abandonment of the word and expression, the canvas and the book.

How peaceful the hills, the meadows and these trees are: the whole country is bathed in the light of a passing morning. Two men were arguing loudly with many gestures, red in the face. The road runs through a long avenue of trees and the tenderness of the morning is fading.

The sea stretched before you and the smell of eucalyptus was in the air. He was a short man, lean and hard of muscle: he had come from a far away country, darkened by the sun. After a few words of greeting, he launched into criticism. How easy it is to criticize without knowing what actually are the facts. He said: "You may be free and live really all that you are talking about, but physically you are in a prison, padded by your friends. You don't know what is happening around you. People have assumed authority, though you yourself are not authoritarian."

I am not sure you are right in this matter. To run a school or any other thing there must be a certain responsibility and it can and does exist without the authoritarian implication. Authority is wholly detrimental to co-operation, to talking things over together. This is what is being done in all the work that we are engaged in. This is an actual fact. If one may point out, no one comes between me and another.

"What you are saying is of the utmost importance. All that you write and say should be printed and circulated by a small group of people who are serious and dedicated. The world is exploding and it is passing you by."

I am afraid again you are not fully aware of what is happening. At one time a small group took the responsibility of circulating what has been said. Now, too, a small group has undertaken the same responsibility. Again, if one may point out, you are not aware of what is going on.

He made various criticisms but they were based on assumptions and passing opinions. Without defending, one pointed out what was actually taking place. But -

How strange human beings are.

The hills were receding and the noise of daily life was around one, the coming and the going, sorrow and pleasure. A single tree on a hillock was the beauty of the land. And deep down in the valley was a stream and beside it ran a railroad. You must leave the world to see the beauty of that stream.

4th Entry 17th September 1973

That evening, walking through the wood there was a feeling of menace. The sun was just setting and the palm trees were solitary against the golden western sky. The monkeys were in the banyan tree, getting ready for the night. Hardly anyone used that path and rarely you met another human being. There were many deer, shy and disappearing into the thick growth. Yet the menace was there, heavy and pervading: it was all around you, you looked over your shoulder. There were no dangerous animals; they had moved away from there; it was too close to the spreading town. One was glad to leave and walk back through the lighted streets. But the next evening the monkeys were still there and so were the deer and the sun was just behind the tallest trees; the menace was gone. On the contrary, the trees, the bushes and the small plants welcomed you. You were among your friends, you felt completely safe and most welcome. The woods accepted you and every evening it was a pleasure to walk there.

Forests are different. There's physical danger there, not only from snakes but from tigers that were known to be there. As one walked there one afternoon there was suddenly an abnormal silence; the birds stopped chattering, the monkeys were absolutely still and everything seemed to be holding its breath. One stood still. And as suddenly, everything came to life; the monkeys were playing and teasing each other, birds began their evening chatter and one was aware the danger had passed.

In the woods and groves where man kills rabbits, pheasants, squirrels, there's quite a different atmosphere. You are entering into a world where man has been, with his gun and peculiar violence. Then the woods lose their tenderness, their welcome, and here some beauty has been lost and that happy whisper has gone.

You have only one head and look after it for it's a marvellous thing. No machinery, no electronic computers can compare with it. It's so vast, so complex, so utterly capable, subtle and productive. It's the storehouse of experience, knowledge, memory. All thought springs from it. What it has put together is quite incredible: the mischief, the confusion, the sorrows, the wars, the corruptions, the illusions, the ideals, the pain and misery, the great cathedrals, the lovely mosques and the sacred temples. It is fantastic what it has done and what it can do. But one thing it apparently cannot do: change completely its behaviour in its relationship to another head, to another man. Neither punishment nor reward seem to change its behaviour; knowledge doesn't seem to transform its conduct. The me and the you remain. It never realizes that the me is the you, that the observer is the observed. Its love is its degeneration; its pleasure is its agony; the gods of its ideals are its destroyers. Its freedom is its own prison; it is educated to live in this prison, only making it more comfortable, more pleasurable. You have only one head, care for it, don't destroy it. It's so easy to poison it.

He always had this strange lack of distance between himself and the trees, rivers and mountains. It wasn't cultivated: you can't cultivate a thing like that. There was never a wall between him and another. What they did to him, what they said to him never seemed to wound him, nor flattery to touch him. Somehow he was altogether untouched. He was not withdrawn, aloof, but like the waters of a river. He had so few thoughts; no thoughts at all when he was alone. His brain was active when talking or writing but otherwise it was quiet and active without movement. Movement is time and activity is not.

This strange activity, without direction, seems to go on, sleeping or waking. He wakes up often with that activity of meditation; something of this nature is going on most of the time. He never rejected it or invited it. The other night he woke up, wide awake. He was aware that something like a ball of fire, light, was being put into his head, into the very centre of it. He watched it objectively for a considerable time, as though it were happening to someone else. It was not an illusion, something conjured up by the mind. Dawn was coming and through the opening of the curtains he could see the trees.

5th Entry 18th September 1973

It is still one of the most beautiful valleys. It is entirely surrounded by hills, filled with orange groves. Many years ago there were very few houses among the trees and orchards but now there are many more; the roads are wider, more traffic, more noise, especially at the west end of the valley. But the hills and high peaks remain the same, untouched by man. There are many trails leading to the high mountains and one walked endlessly along them. One met bears, rattle snakes, deer and once a bob cat (a lynx). The bob cat was there ahead, down the narrow trail, purring and rubbing himself against rocks and the short trunks of trees. The breeze was coming up the canyon and so one could get quite close to him. He was really enjoying himself, delighted with his world. His short tail was up, his pointed ears straight forward, his russet hair bright and clean, totally unaware that someone was just behind him about twenty feet away. We went down the trail for about a mile, neither of us making the least sound. It was really a beautiful animal, spritely and graceful. There was a narrow stream ahead of us and wishing not to frighten him when we came to it, one whispered a gentle greeting. He never looked round, that would have been a waste of time, but streaked off, completely disappearing in a few seconds. We had been friends, though, for a considerable time.

The valley is filled with the smell of orange blossom, almost overpowering, especially in the early mornings and evening. It was in the room, in the valley and in every corner of the earth and the god of flowers blessed the valley. It would be really hot in the summer and that had its own peculiarity. Many years ago, when one went there, there was a marvellous atmosphere; it is still there to a lesser degree. Human beings are spoiling it as they seem to spoil most things. It will be as before. A flower may wither and die but it will come back with its loveliness.

Have you ever wondered why human beings go wrong, become corrupt, indecent in their behaviour aggressive, violent and cunning? It's no good blaming the environment, the culture or the parents. We want to put the responsibility for this degeneration on others or on some happening. Explanations and causes are an easy way out. The ancient Hindus called it Karma, what you sowed you reaped. The psychologists put the problem in the lap of the parents. What the so-called religious people say is based on their dogma and belief. But the question is still there.

Then there are others, born generous, kind, responsible. They are not changed by the environment or any pressure. They remain the same in spite of all the clamour. Why?

Any explanation is of little significance. All explanations are escapes, avoiding the reality of what is. This is the only thing that matters. The what is can be totally transformed with the energy that is wasted in explanations and in searching out the causes. Love is not in time nor in analysis, in regrets and recriminations. It is there when desire for money, position and the cunning deceit of the self are not.

6th Entry 19th September 1973

The monsoon had set in. The sea was almost black under the dark heavy clouds and the wind was tearing at the trees. It would rain for a few days, torrential rains, and it would stop for a day or so, to begin again. Frogs were croaking in every pond and the pleasant smell the rains brought filled the air. The earth was clean again and in a few days it became astonishingly green. Things grew almost under your eyes; the sun would come and all the things of the earth would be sparkling. Early in the morning there would be chanting and the small squirrels were all over the place. There were flowers everywhere, the wild ones and the cultivated, the jasmine, the rose and the marigold.

One day on the road that leads to the sea, walking under the palms and the heavy rain trees, looking at a thousand things, a group of children were singing. They seemed so happy, innocent and utterly unaware of the world. One of them recognised us, came smiling and we walked hand in hand for some time. Neither of us said a word and as we came near her house she saluted and disappeared inside. The world and the family are going to destroy her and she will have children too, cry over them and in the cunning ways of the world they will be destroyed. But that evening she was happy and eager to share it by holding a hand.

When the rains had gone, returning on the same road one evening when the western sky was golden, one passed a young man carrying a fire in an earthenware pot. He was bare except for his clean loin cloth and behind him two men were carrying a dead body. All were Brahmins, freshly washed, clean, holding themselves upright. The young man carrying the fire must have been the son of the dead man: they were all walking quite fast. The body was going to be cremated on some secluded sands. It was all so simple, unlike the elaborate hearse, loaded with flowers, followed by a long line of polished cars or mourners walking behind the coffin: the dark blackness of it all. Or you saw a dead body, decently covered, being carried at the back of a bicycle to the sacred river to be burnt.

Death is everywhere and we never seem to live with it. It is a dark, frightening thing to be avoided, never to be talked of. Keep it away from the closed door. But it is always there. The beauty of love is death and one knows neither. Death is pain and love is pleasure and the two can never meet; they must be kept apart and the division is the pain and agony. This has been from the beginning of time, the division and the endless conflict. There will always be death for those who do not see that the observer is the observed, the experiencer is the experienced. It is like a vast river in which man is caught, with all his worldly goods, his vanities, pains and knowledge. Unless he leaves all the things he has accumulated in the river and swims ashore, death will be always at his door, waiting and watching. When he leaves the river there is no shore, the bank is the word, the observer. He has left everything, the river and the bank. For the river is time and the banks are the thoughts of time: the river is the movement of time and thought is of it. When the observer leaves everything which he is, then the observer is not. This is not death. It is the timeless. You cannot know it, for what is known is of time; you cannot experience it: recognition is made up of time. Freedom from the known is freedom from time. Immortality is not the word, the book, the image, you have put together. The soul, the "me", the atman is the child of thought which is time. When time is not then death is not. Love is.

The western sky had lost its colour and just over the horizon was the new moon, young, shy and tender. On the road everything seemed to be passing, marriage, death, the laughter of children and someone sobbing. Near the moon was a single star.

7th Entry 20th September 1973

The river was particularly beautiful this morning; the sun was just coming over the trees and the village hidden among them. The air was very still and there was not a ripple on the water. It would get quite warm during the day but now it was rather cool and a solitary monkey was sitting in the sun. It was always there by itself, big and heavy. During the day it disappeared and turned up early in the morning on the top of the tamarind tree: when it got warm the tree seemed to swallow it. The golden green flycatchers were sitting on the parapet with the doves, and the vultures were still on the top branches of another tamarind. There was immense quietness and one sat on a bench, lost to the world.

Coming back from the airport on a shaded road with the parrots, green and red, screeching around the trees, one saw across the road what appeared to be a large bundle. As the car came near, the bundle turned out to be a man lying across the road, almost naked. The car stopped and we got out. His body was large and his head very small; he was staring through the leaves at the astonishingly blue sky. We looked up too to see what he was staring at and the sky from the road was really blue and the leaves were really green. He was malformed and they said he was one of the village idiots. He never moved and the car had to be driven round him very carefully. The camels with their load and the shouting children passed him without paying the least attention. A dog passed, making a wide circle. The parrots were busy with their noise. The dry fields, the villagers, the trees, the yellow flowers were occupied with their own existence. That part of the world was underdeveloped and there was no one or organization to look after such people. There were open gutters, filth and crowding humanity and the sacred river went on its way. The sadness of life was everywhere and in the blue sky, high in the air, were the heavy-winged vultures, circling without moving their wings, circling by the hour, waiting and watching. What is sanity and insanity? Who is sane and who is insane? Are the politicians sane? The priests, are they insane? Those who are committed to ideologies, are they sane? We are controlled, shaped, pushed around by them, and are we sane?

What is sanity? To be whole, non-fragmented in action, in life, in every kind of relationship that is the very essence of sanity. Sanity means to be whole, healthy and holy. To be insane, neurotic, psychotic, unbalanced, schizophrenic, whatever name you might give to it, is to be fragmented, broken up in action and in the movement of relationship which is existence. To breed antagonism and division, which is the trade of the politicians who represent you, is to cultivate and sustain insanity, whether they are dictators or those in power in the name of peace or some form of ideology. And the priest: look at the world of priesthood. He stands between you and what he and you consider truth, saviour, god, heaven, hell. He is the interpreter, the representative; he holds the keys to heaven; he has conditioned man through belief, dogma and ritual; he is the real propagandist. He has conditioned you because you want comfort, security, and you dread tomorrow. The artists, the intellectuals, the scientists, admired and flattered so much are they sane? Or do they live in two different worlds - the world of ideas and imagination with its compulsive expression, wholly separate from their daily life of sorrow and pleasure?

The world about you is fragmented and so are you and its expression is conflict, confusion and misery: you are the world and the world is you. Sanity is to live a life of action without conflict. Action and idea are contradictory. Seeing is the doing and not ideation first and action according to the conclusion. This breeds conflict. The analyser himself is the analysed. When the analyser separates himself as something different from the analysed, he begets conflict, and conflict is the area of the unbalanced. The observer is the observed and therein lies sanity, the whole, and with the holy is love.

8th Entry 21st September 1973

It is good to wake up without a single thought, with its problems. Then the mind is rested; it has brought about order within itself and that is why sleep is so important. Either it brings about order in its relationship and action during the waking hours, which gives to the mind complete rest during sleep, or during sleep it will attempt to arrange its affairs to its own satisfaction. During the day there will again be disorder caused by so many factors, and during the hours of sleep the mind will try to extricate itself from this confusion. Mind, brain, can only function efficiently, objectively, where there is order. Conflict in any form is disorder. Consider what the mind goes through every day of its life: the attempt at order in sleep and disorder during waking hours. This is the conflict of life, day in, day out. The brain can only function in security, not in contradiction and confusion. So it tries to find it in some neurotic formula but the conflict becomes worse. Order is the transformation of all this mess. When the observer is the observed there is complete order.

In the little lane that goes by the house, shaded and quiet, a little girl was sobbing her heart out, as only children can do. She must have been five or six, small for her age. She was sitting on the ground, tears pouring down her cheeks. He sat down with her and asked what had happened but she couldn't talk, sobbing took all her breath. She must have been struck or her favourite toy broken or something which she wanted denied by a harsh word. The mother came out, shook the child and carried her in. She barely looked at him for they were strangers. A few days later, walking along the same lane, the child came out of her house, full of smiles, and walked with him a little way. The mother must have given her permission to go with a stranger. He walked often in that shaded lane and the girl with her brother and sister would come out and greet him. Will they ever forget their hurts and their sorrows or will they gradually build for themselves escapes and resistances? To keep these hurts seems to be the nature of human beings and from this their actions become twisted. Can the human mind never be hurt or wounded? Not to be hurt is to be innocent. If you are not hurt you will naturally not hurt another. Is this possible? The culture in which we live does deeply wound the mind and heart. The noise and the pollution, the aggression and competition, the violence and the education all these and more contribute to the agony. Yet we have to live in this world of brutality and resistance: we are the world and the world is us. What is the thing that is hurt? The image that each one has built about himself, that is what is hurt. Strangely these images, all over the world are the same, with some modifications. The essence of the image you have is the same as of the man a thousand miles away. So you are that man or woman. Your hurts are the hurts of thousands: you are the other.

Is it possible never to be hurt? Where there is wound there is no love. Where there is hurt, then love is mere pleasure. When you discover for yourself the beauty of never being hurt, then only do all the past hurts disappear. In the full present the past has lost its burden.

He has never been hurt though many things happened to him, flattery and insult, threat and security. It is not that he was insensitive, unaware: he had no image of himself, no conclusion, no ideology. Image is resistance and when that is not, there is vulnerability but no hurt. You may not seek to be vulnerable, highly sensitive, for that which is sought and found is another form of the same image. Understand this whole movement, not merely verbally, but have an insight into it. Be aware of the whole structure of it without any reservation. Seeing the truth of it is the ending of the image builder. The pond was overflowing and there were a thousand reflections on it. It became dark and the heavens were open.

 
9th Entry 22nd September 1973

A woman was singing next door: she had a marvellous voice and the few who were listening to her were entranced. The sun was setting among the mango trees and palms, rich golden and green. She was singing some devotional songs and the voice was getting richer and mellower. Listening is an art. When you listen to classical western music or to this woman, sitting on the floor, you are either being romantic or there are remembrances of things past or thought with its associations swiftly changing your moods, or there are intimations of the future. Or you listen without any movement of thought. You listen out of complete quietness, out of total silence.

Listening to one's thought or to the blackbird on a branch or to what is being said, without the response of thought, brings about a wholly different significance from that which the movement of thought brings. This is the art of listening, listening with total attention: there is no centre which listens.

The silence of the mountains has a depth which the valleys have not. Each has its own silence; the silence among clouds and among trees is vastly different; the silence between two thoughts is timeless; the silence of pleasure and of fear are tangible. The artificial silence which thought can manufacture is death; the silence between noises is the absence of noise but it is not silence, as the absence of war is not peace. The dark silence of a cathedral, of the temple, is of age and beauty, especially constructed by man; there is the silence of the past and of the future, the silence of the museum and the cemetery. But all this is not silence.

The man had been sitting there on the bank of the beautiful river, motionless; he was there for over an hour. He would come there every morning, freshly bathed, he would chant in Sanskrit for some time and presently he would be lost in his thoughts; he didn't seem to mind the sun, at least the morning sun. One day he came and began to talk about meditation. He did not belong to any school of meditation, he considered them useless, without any real significance. He was alone, unmarried and had put away the ways of the world long ago. He had controlled his desires, shaped his thoughts and lived a solitary life. He was not bitter, vain or indifferent; he had forgotten all these some years ago. Meditation and reality were his life. As he talked and groped for the right word, the sun was setting and deep silence descended upon us. He stopped talking. After a while, when the stars were very close to the earth, he said: "That is the silence I have been looking for everywhere, in the books, among the teachers and in myself. I have found many things but not this. It came unsought, uninvited. Have I wasted my life in things that did not matter? You have no idea what I have been through, the fastings, the self-denials and the practices. I saw their futility long ago but never came upon this silence. What shall I do to remain in it, to maintain it, to hold it in my heart? I suppose you would say do nothing, as one cannot invite it. But shall I go on wandering over this country, with this repetition, this control? Sitting here I am conscious of this sacred silence; through it I look at the stars, those trees, the river. Though I see and feel all this, I am not really there. As you said the other day, the observer is the observed. I see what it means now. The benediction I sought is not to be found in the seeking. It is time for me to go."

The river became dark and the stars were reflected on its waters near the banks. Gradually the noises of the day were coming to an end and the soft noises of the night began. You watched the stars and the dark earth and the world was far away. Beauty, which is love, seemed to descend on the earth and the things of it.

10th Entry 23rd September 1973

He was standing by himself on the low bank of the river; it was not very wide and he could see some people on the other bank. If the talk was loud he could almost hear them. In the rainy season the river met the open waters of the sea. It had been raining for days and the river had broken through the sands to the waiting sea. With the heavy rains it was clean again and one could swim in it safely. The river was wide enough to hold a long narrow island green with bushes, a few short trees and a small palm. When the water was not too deep cattle would wade across to graze on it. It was a pleasant and friendly river and it was particularly so on that morning.

He was standing there with no one around, alone, unattached and far away. He was about fourteen or less. They had found his brother and himself quite recently and all the fuss and sudden importance given to him was around him. [Krishnamurti is writing here about his own boyhood at Adyar, near Madras.] He was the centre of respect and devotion and in the years to come he would be the head of organizations and great properties. All that and the dissolution of them still lay ahead. Standing there alone, lost and strangely aloof, was his first and lasting remembrance of those days and events. He doesn't remember his childhood, the schools and the caning. He was told years later by the very teacher who hurt him that he used to cane him practically every day; he would cry and be put out on the verandah until the school closed and the teacher would come out and ask him to go home, otherwise he would still be on the verandah, lost. He was caned, this man said because he couldn't study or remember anything he had read or been told. Later the teacher couldn't believe that boy was the man who had given the talk he had heard. He was greatly surprised and unnecessarily respectful. All those years passed without leaving scars, memories, on his mind; his friendships, his affections, even those years with those who had ill-treated him somehow none of these events, friendly or brutal, have left marks on him. In recent years a writer asked if he could recall all those rather strange events, how he and his brother were discovered and the other happenings, and when he replied that he could not remember them and could only repeat what others had told him, the man openly, with a sneer, stated that he was putting it on and pretending. He never consciously blocked any happening, pleasant or unpleasant, entering into his mind. They came, leaving no mark and passed away.

Consciousness is its content: the content makes up consciousness. The two are indivisible. There is no you and another, only the content which makes up consciousness as the "me" and the not "me". The contents vary according to the culture, the racial accumulations, the techniques and capacities acquired. These are broken up as the artist, the scientist and so on. Idiosyncrasies are the response of the conditioning and the conditioning is the common factor of man. This conditioning is the content, consciousness. This again is broken up as the conscious and the hidden. The hidden becomes important because we have never looked at it as a whole. This fragmentation takes place when the observer is not the observed, when the experiencer is seen as different from the experience. The hidden is as the open; the observation the hearing of the open is the seeing of the hidden. Seeing is not analysing. In analysing there is the analyser and the analysed, a fragmentation which leads to inaction, a paralysis. In seeing, the observer is not, and so action is immediate; there is no interval between the idea and action. The idea, the conclusion, is the observer the seer separate from the thing seen. Identification is an act of thought and thought is fragmentation.

The island, the river and the sea are still there, the palms and the buildings. The sun was coming out of masses of clouds, serried and soaring to the heavens. In only a loin cloth the fishermen were throwing their nets to catch some measly little fishes. Unwilling poverty is a degradation. Late in the evening it was pleasant among the mangoes and scented flowers. How beautiful is the earth.

11th Entry 24th September 1973

A new consciousness and a totally new morality are necessary to bring about a radical change in the present culture and social structure. This is obvious, yet the left and the right and the revolutionary seem to disregard it. Any dogma, any formula, any ideology, is part of the old consciousness; they are the fabrications of thought whose activity is fragmentation the left, the right, the centre. This activity will inevitably lead to bloodshed of the right or of the left or to totalitarianism. This is what is going on around us. One sees the necessity of social, economic and moral change but the response is from the old consciousness thought being the principle actor. The mess, the confusion and the misery that human beings have got into within the area of the old consciousness, and without changing that profoundly, every human activity, political, economic and religious, will only bring us to the destruction of each other and the earth. This is so obvious to the sane.

One has to be a light to oneself; this light is the law. There is no other law. All the other laws are made by thought and so fragmentary and contradictory. To be a light to oneself is not to follow the light of another, however reasonable, logic, historical, and however convincing. You cannot be a light to yourself if you are in the dark shadows of authority, of dogma, of conclusion. Morality is not put together by thought; it is not the outcome of environmental pressure, it is not of yesterday, of tradition. Morality is the child of love and love is not desire and pleasure. Sexual or sensory enjoyment is not love.

High in the mountains there were hardly any birds, there were some crows, there were deer and an occasional bear. The huge redwoods, the silent ones, were everywhere, dwarfing all the other trees. It was a magnificent country and utterly peaceful, for no hunting was allowed. Every animal, every tree and flower was protected. Sitting under one of those massive redwoods, one was aware of the history of man and the beauty of earth. A fat red squirrel passed by most elegantly, stopping a few feet away, watching and wondering what you were doing there. The earth was dry, though there was a stream nearby. Not a leaf stirred and the beauty of silence was among the trees. Going slowly along the narrow path, round the bend was a bear with four cubs as large as big cats. They rushed off to climb up trees and the mother faced one without a movement, without a sound. About fifty feet separated us; she was enormous, brown, and prepared. One immediately turned one's back on her and left. Each understood that there was no fear and no intention to hurt, but all the same one was glad to be among the protecting trees, squirrels and the scolding jays.

Freedom is to be a light to oneself; then it is not an abstraction, a thing conjured by thought. Actual freedom is freedom from dependency, attachment, from the craving for experience. Freedom from the very structure of thought is to be a light to oneself. In this light all action takes place and thus it is never contradictory. Contradiction exists only when that law, light, is separate from action, when the actor is separate from action. The ideal, the principle, is the barren movement of thought and cannot co-exist with this light; one denies the other. This light, this law, is separate from you; where the observer is, this light, this love, is not. The structure of the observer is put together by thought, which is never new, never free. There is no "how", no system, no practice. There is only the seeing which is the doing. You have to see, not through the eyes of another. This light, this law, is neither yours nor that of another. There is only light. This is love.

12th Entry 25th September 1973

He was looking out of the window on to the green rolling hills and dark woods with the morning sun on them. It was a pleasant and lovely morning, there were magnificent clouds beyond the woods, white with billowing shapes. No wonder the ancients said the gods had their abode among them and the mountains. All around there were these enormous clouds against a blue and dazzling sky. He had not a single thought and was only looking at the beauty of the world. He must have been at that window for some time and something took place, unexpected, uninvited. You cannot invite or desire such things, unknowingly or consciously. Everything seemed to withdraw and be giving space only to that, the unnameable. You won't find it in any temple, mosque or church or on any printed page. You will find it nowhere and whatever you find, it is not that.

With so many others in that vast structure near the Golden Horn (Istanbul) he was sitting next to a beggar with torn rags, head lowered, uttering some prayer. A man began to sing in Arabic. He had a marvellous voice, the entire dome and great edifice was filled with it, it seemed to shake the building. It had a strange effect on all those who were there; they listened to the words and to the voice with great respect and were at the same time enchanted. He was a stranger amongst them; they looked at him and then forgot him. The vast hall was filled and presently there was a silence; they went through their ritual and one by one and then they left. Only the beggar and he remained; then the beggar too left. The great dome was silent and the edifice became empty, the noise of life was far away.

If you ever walk by yourself high in the mountains among the pines and rocks, leaving everything in the valley far below you, when there is not a whisper among the trees and every thought has withered away, then it may come to you, the otherness. If you hold it, it will never come again; what you hold is the memory of it dead and gone. What you hold is not the real; your heart and mind are too small, they can hold only the things of thought and that is barren. Go further away from the valley, far away, leaving everything down there. You can come back and pick them up if you want to but they will have lost their weight. You will never be the same again.

After a long climb of several hours, beyond the tree line, he was there among rocks and the silence mountains have; there were a few misshaped pines. There was no wind and everything was utterly still. Walking back, moving from rock to rock, he suddenly heard a rattler and jumped. A few feet away was the snake, fat and almost black. With the rattle in the middle of the coils, it was ready to strike. The triangled head with its forked tongue flickering in and out, its dark sharp eyes watching, it was ready to strike if he moved nearer. During all that half hour or more it never blinked, it stared at you, it had no eyelids. Uncoiling slowly, keeping its head and tail towards him, it began to move away in a U-shape and when he made a move to get nearer it coiled up instantly ready to strike. We played this game for a little while; it was getting tired and he left it to go its own way. It was a really frightening thing, fat and deadly.

You must be alone with the trees, meadows and streams. You are never alone if you carry the things of thought, its images and problems. The mind must not be filled with the rocks and clouds of the earth. It must be empty as the newly-made vessel. Then you would see something totally, something that has never been. You can't see this if you are there; you must die to see it. You may think you are the important thing in the world but you are not. You may have everything that thought has put together but they are all old, used and begin to crumble.

In the valley it was surprisingly cool and near the huts the squirrels were waiting for their nuts. They had been fed every day in the cabin on the table. They were very friendly and if you weren't there on time they began their scolding and the bluejays waited noisily outside.

13th Entry 27th September 1973

It was a temple in ruins, with its roofless long corridors, gates headless statues and deserted courtyards. It had become a sanctuary for birds and monkeys, parrots and doves. Some of the headless statues were still massive in their beauty; they had a still dignity. The whole place was surprisingly clean and one could sit on the ground to watch the monkeys and chattering birds. Once very long ago, the temple must have been a flourishing place with thousands of worshippers, with garlands, incense and prayer. Their atmosphere was still there, their hopes, fears and their reverence. The holy sanctuary was gone long ago. Now the monkeys disappeared as it was growing hot but the parrots and doves had their nests in the holes and crevices of the high walls. This old ruined temple was too far away for the villagers to further destroy it. Had they come they would have desecrated the emptiness.

Religion has become superstition and image-worship, belief and ritual. It has lost the beauty of truth; incense has taken the place of reality. Instead of direct perception there is in its place the image carved by the hand or the mind. The only concern of religion is the total transformation of man. And all the circus that goes on around it is nonsense. That's why the truth is not to be found in any temple, church or mosque, however beautiful they are. Beauty of truth and the beauty of stone are two different things. One opens the door to the immeasurable and the other to, the imprisonment of man; the one to freedom and the other to the bondage of thought. Romanticism and sentimentality deny the very nature of religion, nor is it a plaything of the intellect. Knowledge in the area of action is necessary to function efficiently and objectively, but knowledge is not the means of the transformation of man; knowledge is the structure of thought and thought is the dull repetition of the known, however modified and enlarged. There is no freedom through the ways of thought, the known. The long snake lay very still along the dry ridge of the rice fields, lusciously green and bright in the morning sun. Probably it was resting or waiting for some careless frog. Frogs were being shipped then to Europe to be eaten as a delicacy. The snake was long and yellowish; and very still; it was almost the colour of the dry earth, hard to see but the light of day was in its dark eyes. The only thing that was moving, in and out, was its black tongue. It could not have been aware of the watcher who was somewhat behind its head. Death was everywhere that morning. You could you could hear it in the village; the great sobs as the body, wrapped in a cloth was being carried out; a kite was streaking down on a bird; some animal was being killed; you heard its agonizing cries. So it went on day after day: death is always everywhere, as sorrow is.

The beauty of truth and its subtleties are not in belief and dogma, they never are where man can find them for there is no path to its beauty; it is not a fixed point, a haven of shelter. It has its own tenderness whose love is not to be measured nor can you hold it, experience it. It has no market value to be used and put aside. It is there when the mind and heart are empty of the things of thought. The monk or the poor man are not near it, nor the rich; neither the intellectual nor the gifted can touch it. The one who says he knows has never come near it. Be far away from the world and yet live it.

The parrots were screeching and fluttering around the Tamarind tree that morning; they begin early their restless activity, with their coming and going. They were bright streaks of green with strong, red, curved beaks. They never seemed to fly straight but always zig-zagging, shrieking as they flew. occasionally they would come to sit on the parapet of the verandah; then you could watch them, but not for long; they would be off again with their crazy and noisy flight. Their only enemy seemed to be man. He puts them in a cage.

 
14th Entry 28th September 1973

The big black dog had just killed a goat; it had been punished severely and tied up and it was now whining and barking. The house had a high wall around it but somehow the goat had wandered in and the dog had chased and killed it. The owner of the house made amends with words and silver. It was a large house with trees around it and the lawn was never completely green however much it was watered. The sun was cruelly strong and all the flowers and bushes had to be watered twice a day; the soil was poor and the heat of the day almost withered the greenery. But the trees had grown large and gave comforting shadows and you could sit there in the early morning when the sun was well behind the trees. It was a good place if you wanted to sit quietly and lose yourself in meditation, but not if you wanted to daydream or lose yourself in some satisfying illusion. It was too severe there in those shadows, too demanding, for the whole place was given over to that kind of quiet contemplation. You could indulge in your friendly fantasies but you would soon find out that the place did not invite the images of thought.

He was sitting with a cloth over his head, weeping; his wife had just died. He did not want to show his tears to his children; they too were crying, not quite understanding what had happened. The mother of many children had been unwell and lately very sick; the father sat at her bedside. He never seemed to go out, and one day, after some ceremonies, the mother was carried out. The house had strangely become empty, without the perfume that the mother had given to it, and it was never the same again for there was sorrow in the house now. The father knew it; the children had lost someone forever but as yet they did not know the meaning of sorrow.

It is always there, you cannot just forget it, you cannot cover it up through some form of entertainment, religious or otherwise. You may run away from it but it will be there to meet you again. You may lose yourself in some worship, prayer or in some comforting belief but it will appear again, unbidden. The flowering of sorrow is bitterness, cynicism or some neurotic behaviour. You may be aggressive, violent and nasty in your conduct but sorrow is where you are. You may have power, position and the pleasures of money but it will be there in your heart, waiting and preparing. Do what you will you cannot escape from it. The love that you have ends in sorrow; sorrow is time, sorrow is thought.

The tree is cut down and you shed a tear; an animal is killed for your taste; the earth is being destroyed for your pleasure; you are being educated to kill, to destroy, man against man. The new technology and machines are taking over the toil of man but you may not end sorrow through the things that thought has put together. Love is not pleasure.

She came desperate in her sorrow; she talked, pouring out all the things she had been through, death, the inanities of her children, their politics, their divorces, their frustrations, bitterness and the utter futility of all life that had no meaning. She was not young any more; in her youth she had just enjoyed herself, had a passing interest in politics, a degree in economics and more or less the kind of life that almost everyone leads. Her husband had died recently and all sorrow seemed to descend upon her. She became quiet as we talked.

Any movement of thought is the deepening of sorrow. Thought with its memories, with its images of pleasure and pain, with its loneliness and tears, with its self-pity and remorse, is the ground of sorrow. Listen to what is being said. Just listen not to the echoes of the past, to the overcoming of sorrow or how to escape from its torture but listen with your heart, with your whole being to what is now being said. Your dependence and attachment have prepared the soil for your sorrow. Your neglect of the study of yourself and the beauty it brings, have given nourishment to your sorrow; all your self-centred activities have led you to this sorrow. lust listen to what is being said: stay with it, don't wander off. Any movement of thought is the strengthening of sorrow. Thought is not love. Love has no sorrow.

15th Entry 29th September 1973

The rains were nearly over and the horizon was flowing with billowing white and golden clouds; they were soaring up to the blue and green heavens. All the leaves of every bush were washed clean and they were sparkling in the early morning sun. It was a morning of delight, the earth was rejoicing and there seemed to be benediction in the air. High up in that room you saw the blue sea, the river running into it, the palms and the mangoes. You held your breath at the wonder of the earth and the immense shape of the clouds. It was early, quiet and the noise of the day had not yet begun; across the bridge there was hardly any traffic, only a long line of bullock carts, laden with hay. Years later buses would come with their pollution and bustle. It was a lovely morning, full of song and bliss.

The two brothers were driven in a car to a village nearby to see their father whom they had not seen for nearly fifteen years or more. They had to walk a little distance on an ill-kept road. They came to a tank, a storage of water; all its sides had stone steps leading down to the clear water. At one end of it there was a small temple with a small square tower, quite narrow at the top; there were many images of stone all round it. On the verandah of the temple, overlooking the big pond, were some people, absolutely still, like those images on the tower, lost in meditation. Beyond the water, just behind some other houses, was the house where the father lived. He came out as the two brothers approached and they greeted him by prostrating fully, touching his feet. They were shy and waited for him to speak, as was the custom. Before he said anything he went inside to wash his feet, as the boys had touched them. He was a very orthodox Brahmanah, no one could touch him except another Brahmanah, and his two sons had been polluted by mixing with others who were not of his class and had eaten food cooked by non-Brahmanahs. So he washed his feet and sat down on the ground, not too close to his polluted sons. They talked for some time and the hour when food is eaten approached. He sent them away for he could not eat with them; they were no longer Brahmanahs. He must have had affection for them, for after all they were his sons whom he had not seen for so many years. If their mother were alive she might have given them food but she would certainly not have eaten with her sons. They must have had a deep affection for their children but orthodoxy and tradition forbade any physical contact with them. Tradition is very strong, stronger than love.

The tradition of war is stronger than love; the tradition of killing for food and killing the so-called enemy denies human tenderness and affection; the tradition of long hours of labour breeds efficient cruelty; the tradition of marriage soon becomes a bondage; the traditions of the rich and the poor keep them apart; each profession has its own tradition, its own elite which breeds envy and enmity. The traditional ceremonies and rituals in the places of worship, the world over, have separated man from man and the words and gestures have no meaning at all. A thousand yesterdays, however rich and beautiful, deny love.

You cross over a rickety bridge to the other side of a narrow, muddy stream which joins the big wide river; you come to a small village of mud and sun-dried bricks. There are quantities of children, screaming and playing; the older people are in the fields or fishing, or working in the nearby town. In a small dark room an opening in the wall is the window; no flies would come into this darkness. It was cool in there. In that small space was a weaver with a large loom; he could not read but was educated in his own way, polite and wholly absorbed in his labours. He turned out exquisite cloth of gold and silver with beautiful patterns. In whatever colour of cloth or silk he could weave into traditional patterns, the finest and the best. He was born to that tradition; he was small, gentle and eager to show his marvellous talent. You watched him, as he produced from silken threads the finest of cloths, with wonder and love in your heart. There was the woven piece of great beauty, born of tradition.

16th Entry 30th September 1973

It was a long yellowish snake crossing the road under a banyan tree. He had been for a long walk and was coming back when he saw the snake. He followed it, quite closely, up a mound; it peered into every hole; it was totally unaware of him, though he was almost on top of it. It was quite fat; there was a large bulge in the middle of its length. The villagers on their way home had stopped talking and watched; one of them told him that it was a cobra and that he had better be careful. The cobra disappeared into a hole and he resumed his walk. Intent on seeing the cobra again at the same spot, he returned the next day. There was no snake there but the villagers had put a shallow pot of milk, some marigolds and a large stone with some ashes on it and some other flowers. That place had become sacred and every day there would be fresh flowers; the villagers all around knew that that place had become sacred. He returned several months later to that place; there was fresh milk, fresh flowers and the stone was newly decorated. And the banyan was a little older.

The temple overlooked the blue Mediterranean; it was in ruins and only the marble columns remained. In a war it was destroyed but it was still a sacred sanctuary. One evening, with the golden sun on the marble, you felt the holy atmosphere; you were alone, with no visitors about and their endless chatter. The columns were becoming pure gold and the sea far below was intensely blue. A statue of the goddess was there, preserved and locked up; you could only see her at certain hours and she was losing the beauty of sacredness. The blue sea remained.

It was a nice cottage in the country with a lawn that had been rolled, mown and weeded for many a year. The whole place was well looked after, prosperous and joyful; behind the house was a small vegetable garden; it was a lovely place with a gentle stream running beside, making hardly a sound. The door opened and it was held back by a statue of the Buddha, kicked into place. The owner was totally unaware of what he was doing; to him it was a door-stop. You wondered if he would do the same with a statue he revered, for he was a Christian. You deny the sacred things of another but you keep your own; the beliefs of another are superstitions but your own are reasonable and real. What is sacred?

He had picked it up, he said, on a beach; it was a piece of sea-washed wood in the shape of a human head. It was made of hard wood, shaped by the waters of the sea, cleansed by many seasons. He had brought it home and put it on the mantelpiece; he looked at it from time to time and admired what he had done. One day, he put some flowers round it and then it happened every day; he felt uncomfortable if there were not fresh flowers every day and gradually that piece of shaped wood became very important in his life. He would allow no one to touch it except himself; they might desecrate it; he washed his hands before he touched it. It had become holy, sacred, and he alone was the high priest of it; he represented it; it told him of things he could never know by himself. His life was filled with it and he was, he said, unspeakably happy.

What is sacred? Not the things made by the mind or hand or by the sea. The symbol is never the real; the word grass is not the grass of the field; the word god is not god. The word never contains the whole, however cunning the description. The word sacred has no meaning by itself; it becomes sacred only in its relationship to something, illusory or real. What is real is not the words of the mind; reality, truth, cannot be touched by thought. Where the perceiver is, truth is not. The thinker and his thought must come to an end for truth to be. Then that which is, is sacred that ancient marble with the golden sun on it, that snake and the villager. Where there's no love there is nothing sacred. Love is whole and in it there's no fragmentation.

17th Entry 2nd October 1973

Consciousness is its content; the content is consciousness. All action is fragmentary when the content of consciousness is broken up. This activity breeds conflict, misery and confusion; then sorrow is inevitable.

From the air at that height you could see the green fields, each separate from the other in shape, size and colour. A stream came down to meet the sea; far beyond it were the mountains, heavy with snow. All over the earth there were large, spreading towns, villages; on the hills there were castles, churches and houses, and beyond them were the vast deserts, brown, golden and white. Then there was the blue sea again and more land with thick forests. The whole earth was rich and beautiful.

He walked there, hoping to meet a tiger, and he did. The villagers had come to tell his host that a tiger had killed a young cow the previous night and would come back that night to the kill. Would they like to see it? A platform on a tree would be built and from there one could see the big killer and also they would tie a goat to the tree to make sure that the tiger would come. He said he wouldn't like to see a goat killed for his pleasure. So the matter was dropped. But late that afternoon, as the sun was behind a rolling hill, his host wished to go for a drive, hoping that they might by chance see the tiger that had killed the cow. They drove for some miles into the forest; it became quite dark and with the headlights on they turned back. They had given up every hope of seeing the tiger as they drove back. But just as they turned a corner, there it was, sitting on its haunches in the middle of the road, huge, striped, its eyes bright in the headlamps. The car stopped and it came towards them growling and the growls shook the car; it was surprisingly large and its long tail with its black tip was moving slowly from side to side. It was annoyed. The window was open and as it passed growling, he put out his hand to stroke this great energy of the forest, but his host hurriedly snatched his arm back, explaining later that it would have torn his arm away. It was a magnificent animal, full of majesty and power.

Down there on that earth, there were tyrants denying freedom to man, ideologists shaping the mind of man, priests with their centuries of tradition and belief enslaving man; the politicians with their endless promises were bringing corruption and division. Down there man is caught in endless conflict and sorrow and in the bright lights of pleasure. It is all so utterly meaningless the pain, the labour and the words of philosophers. Death and unhappiness and toil, man against man.

This complex variety, modified changes in the pattern of pleasure and pain, are the content of man's consciousness, shaped and conditioned by the culture in which it has been nurtured, with its religious and economic pressures. Freedom is not within the boundaries of such a consciousness; what is accepted as freedom is in reality a prison made somewhat livable in through the growth of technology. In this prison there are wars, made more destructive by science and profit. Freedom doesn't lie in the change of prisons, nor in any change of gurus, with their absurd authority. Authority does not bring the sanity of order. On the contrary it breeds disorder and out of this soil grows authority. Freedom is not in fragments. A non-fragmented mind, a mind that is whole is in freedom. It does not know it is free; what is known is within the area of time, the past through the present to the future. All movement is time and time is not a factor of freedom. Freedom of choice denies freedom; choice exists only where there is confusion. Clarity of perception, insight, is the freedom from the pain of choice. Total order is the light of freedom. This order is not the child of thought for all activity of thought is to cultivate fragmentation. Love is not a fragment of thought, of pleasure. The perception of this is intelligence. Love and intelligence are inseparable and from this flows action which does not breed pain. Order is its ground.

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