Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti

by J. Krishnamurti

You see, when people feel that they want to give up desire then there is a danger of giving up this demand as well. K: How can we put this? Let’s find a good word for it. Would the word passion be suitable? There is passion for this, passion for excellence. Q: Does it imply that this passion has no object? K: You see how you immediately form a conclusion. Burning passion, not for something. The communists are passionate about their ideas. That passion is very, very petty and limited. The Christians have passion for missionary work; that passion is born of the love of Jesus. That again is not passion, it is very narrow. Putting all that aside, I say, “Passion!” Q: As you were just saying, people have had some vision, or a dream of something, and that has developed a great energy. But you are saying it is not a dream, it is not a vision, but it is nevertheless some perception of this excellence. K: All those passions feed the ego, feed the “me,” make “me” important, consciously or unconsciously. We are cutting out all that. There is a young boy who has a passion to grow up into an extraordinary human being, into something original. Q: He sees that it is possible. K: Yes. Q: And, therefore, he has the passion. K: Yes, that’s right. It is possible. Is that what is missing in most human beings? Not passion, but the welling up of … I don’t know how to put it. There is this passion in a human being who demands the supreme excellence, not in what he writes in his books, but the fe...