Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti

by J. Krishnamurti

To perceive what is truth there must be a total freedom from society, which means a complete cessation of acquisitiveness, of ambition, of envy, of this whole process of becoming. After all, our culture is based on becoming somebody, it is built on the hierarchical principle—the one who knows and the one who does not know, the one who has and the one who has not. The one who has not is everlastingly struggling to have, and the one who does not know is forever pushing to acquire more knowledge, whereas the man who does not belong to either, his mind is very quiet, completely still, and it is only such a mind that can perceive what is truth and allow that truth to act in its own way. Such a mind does not act according to a conditioned response; it does not say, “I must reform society.” The truly religious man is not concerned with social reform, he is not concerned with improving the old, rotting society because it is truth and not reform that is going to create the new order. I think if one sees this very simply and very clearly, the revolution itself will take place.