Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti

by J. Krishnamurti

Conflict then can exist only between environment—environment being economic and social conditions, political domination, neighbors—between that environment, and the result of environment, which is the “I.” Conflict can exist only so long as there is reaction to that environment which produces the “I,” the self. The majority of people are unconscious of this conflict—the conflict between one’s self, which is but the result of the environment, and the environment itself; very few are conscious of this continuous battle. One becomes conscious of that conflict, that disharmony, that struggle between the false creation of the environment, which is the “I,” and the environment itself, only through suffering. Isn’t that so? It is only through acuteness of suffering,