Freedom from the Known

This was a difficult book to get through for me because of its density. It is only just over one hundred pages long, but Krishnamurti speaks on a lot of different things all under the very large umbrella of conditioning. Most of what Krishnamurti speaks about can be gleaned from chapter one of his sixteen chapter treatise and most of the truths are also found in the book the Celestine Prophecy which I read a few years ago. In fact, I think that book does a better job explaining many of the truths found here. Nevertheless, I will write up my thoughts on this book using some of the quotes from each chapter that I found interesting.

The first thing that I found really interesting was Krishnamurti’s assertion that faith breads violence. This was the first difficult thing to understand, for why would faith bring about violence? But the more I thought about it the more it began to make sense. Faith breads violence because it makes our thinking mechanical. We aren’t critical thinkers any more once we have faith (in the most general since of the word) because we are so concerned with fitting in (being a respectable human being), but this torture of the mind is just that because our natural state (the state of being truly alive) is constantly at odds with what we are conditioned to do or believe or say. This is why our inner nature becomes violent. The inner nature is then reflected upon the outer nature so that our relationships with one another become violent conflicts and competitions. It’s rather ironic that something that is supposed to create a better and more moral human being and therefore society has failed so miserably.

Is it possible to remove this conditioning? Perhaps, but not in the way that we are most accustomed to doing it. We know that this conditioning is bad and so then we try to remove it by sheer willpower, but this only creates more conflict within the self. Becoming aware of this conditioning is the first and only step to freeing oneself from it. I don’t mean this superficial awareness where we are aware and we argue with the result either excusing it or attempting to exorcize it. I mean to be aware of it without passing any judgment on it.

We are always passing judgment on everything whether it be by knowledge (that is a tree) or by emotion (that is bad or that is good) and this constant stream of thoughts prevents us from truly seeing what is there and experiencing it fully. But thought, you see, is always old. It is an artifact that comes from an experience. It creates both pleasure and pain, one which we hope to experience over and over again and one which we work studiously to avoid. And so that is our life. We are either seeking pleasure or avoiding pain, and what sort of life is that? It means we are always running toward something or away, never fully seeing anything.


“Pleasure comes into being through four stages - perception, sensation, contact and desire. " So says Krishnamurti. It is through the experiencing of pleasure and its necessary counterpart pain that thoughts come. The seeking of pleasure says “I must have that experience again” and the avoidance of pain says “I must not”. But it is ludicrous to think in such a dichotomous manner because these thoughts are products of the past that create images within our mind so that we ourselves are an image interacting with other images. Where is the real us then? Where is the real relationship between one another. A scary thought to think about.

So the crux of the matter is this: that we are miserable conditioned human beings present in a beautiful world which we only experience through the screen of our thoughts which are products of our conditioning. Well, that’s just sick isn’t it? What are we going to do about it? Well, I’d prefer to experience the world fully, but truly I don’t know how and Kishy face can’t tell me can he? And its rather rude of him to present all of these issues and no real solution.

At least that’s what I would’ve said before hand, but then I am brought back to one of the first lines of his book: “Man has throughout the ages been seeking” and I find myself falling into the trap again. The seeking trap. And isn’t this how we got into trouble in the first place. We waited for someone else to provide us the answer and they gave us what worked for them, but because we are not them we were naturally in conflict. The truth is: “The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another.” We wait for it, we seek it, but we don’t create it, and so I imagine that our violent nature is equal parts conditioning and frustration.

Krishnamurti asks two important questions within the book, each in chapter five: “what is your fundamental interest?” and “What are you afraid of?” Its interesting to discover that our lasting and fundamental interest lies with ourselves despite how “other-oriented” we make it. We live a lie if we don’t honestly say that feeding the hungry, for example, doesn’t provide us with a sense of pride. We would like to make our interest more community oriented, but that is not our nature, and working contrary to nature produces conflict. For me, my lasting desire has always been the respect and admiration of others. I had to take a good hard look at what my lasting interest was reading this book and you know what? I am ok with it. At least now there doesn’t have to be this façade that I am helping others simply for the sake of it. I am not.

My fears, well I haven’t given them much thought, but I know one is “not being respected or taken seriously”. I haven’t much thought about death, but I imagine that a fear of death will creep up as I get older and the reality of a death is more present. My worst fear is that I will be alone and unloved. But the truth of the matter is that fear is a choice. When I run from my fear I am running away from a thing that has not happened yet. The only truth in this list of fears is that I will die. Even knowing this there is no way to prepare, so why bother with the continual thoughts?
And what of this being alone? Of course I will be alone if I don’t make the effort to seek a companion! And so I will create my own fear by my inaction. How interesting.
In the case of not being taken seriously, that is a fear brought up by past events. It isn’t a reality now. Before I was not taken seriously, but now I am and I fear that sometime in the future I may not be. How foolish is that? How can I be afraid of another person’s thoughts about me? Can they stop me from living? Only if I let them.

My overall impression of this book is that it is very dense and difficult to get through. I imagine that Krishnamurti could’ve said all he wanted in one essay, but since he was writing a book he should’ve expanded a bit more. Much of it I did not understand, but that which I did I wrote here. Sometime in the future I may find myself picking up Krishnamurti again and discovering something new.