Freedom from the Known

by J. Krishnamurti

Any movement on the part of the observer, if he has not realised that the observer is the observed, creates only another series of images and again he is caught in them. But what takes place when the observer is aware that the observer is the observed? Go slowly, go very slowly, because it is a very complex thing we are going into now. What takes place? The observer does not act at all. The observer has always said, ‘I must do something about these images, I must suppress them or give them a different shape’; he is always active in regard to the observed, acting and reacting passionately or casually, and this action of like and dislike on the part of the observer is called positive action – ‘I like, therefore I must hold. I dislike therefore I must get rid of.’ But when the observer realises that the thing about which he is acting is himself, then there is no conflict between himself and the image. He is that. He is not separate from that. When he was separate, he did, or tried to do, something about it, but when the observer realises that he is that, then there is no like or dislike and conflict ceases.