Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti

by J. Krishnamurti

To find that out one must go very deeply into the question of fear, the very complex problem of pleasure, and the question of sorrow and whether sorrow can ever end. Man has lived with sorrow for millennia upon millennia. He hasn’t been able to end it. And one must also go into the question of what is death and love. Because all that is the matrix of the me. So this is a very, very serious affair, it is not just a thing to be played with. One must give one’s whole life to understand this. To live in this world completely, sanely, without the psyche; not escape, not go off into some monastery or commune, but to live here, in this mad, insane, and murderous world where there is so much corruption, where politics are divorced from ethics. To live in this world sanely, without the psyche, the “me,” is a tremendous challenge. That requires a mind that can think meticulously, correctly, objectively, having all the senses fully awakened, not drugged by alcohol, speed, and all the rest of it. You must have a very healthy mind, and when it is drugged or smoking, drinking, you do not have a healthy mind; all that destroys the mind, makes the mind dull.