As One Is: To Free the Mind from All Condition

by J. Krishnamurti

To stand alone is to be uncorrupted, innocent, free of all tradition, of dogma, of opinion, of what another says, and so on. Such a mind does not seek because there is nothing to seek; being free, such a mind is completely still without a want, without movement.

Are you experimenting with my teachings, or are you experimenting with yourself? I hope you see the difference. If you are experimenting with what I am saying, then you must come to, “What now?” because then you are trying to achieve a result which you think I have. You think I have something which you do not have, and that if you experiment with what I am saying, you also will get it—which is what most of us do. We approach these things with a commercial mentality—I will do this in order to get that. I will worship, meditate, sacrifice in order to get something.

Now, you are not practicing my teachings. I have nothing to say. Or rather, all that I am saying is: Observe your own mind, see to what depths the mind can go; therefore you are important, not the teachings. It is important for you to find out your own ways of thinking and what that thinking implies, as I have been trying to point out this morning. And if you are really observing your own thinking, if you are watching, experimenting, discovering, letting go, dying each day to everything that you have gathered, then you will never put that question, “What now?”

“When the mind is free from all conditioning, then you will find that there comes the creativity of reality, of God, or what you will, and it is only such a mind, a mind which is constantly experiencing this creativity, that can bring about a different outlook, different values, a different world.”

Please have the patience to listen without being carried away by words, or objecting to one or two phrases or ideas. One must have immense patience to find out what is true. Most of us are impatient to get on, to find a result, to achieve a success, a goal, a certain state of happiness, or to experience something to which the mind can cling. But what is needed, I think, is a patience and a perseverance to seek without an end.

it is important to understand the operation of one’s own mind, not self-analytically or introspectively, but by being aware of its total process;

If we do not see ourselves as we are, if we do not understand the thinker—the entity that seeks, that is perpetually asking, demanding, questioning, trying to find out, the entity that is creating the problem, the ‘I’, the self, the ego—then our thought, our search, will have no meaning.

So our problem is how to free the mind from all conditioning, not how to condition it better. Do you understand? Most of us are seeking a better conditioning. The communists, the Catholics, the Protestants, and the various other sects throughout the world, including the Hindus and Buddhists, are all seeking to condition the mind according to a nobler, a more virtuous, unselfish, or religious pattern. Everyone throughout the world, surely, is trying to condition the mind in a better way, and there is never a question of freeing the mind from all conditioning. But it seems to me that until the mind is free from all conditioning, that is, as long as it is conditioned as a Christian, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a communist, or whatnot, there must be problems.

So religion is not a matter of going to church, of having certain beliefs and dogmas. Religion may be something entirely different; it may be the total freeing of the mind from all this vast tradition of centuries, for it is only a free mind that can find truth, reality, that which is beyond the projections of the mind.

Do you really listen, or are you interpreting what is being said in terms of your own understanding? Are you capable of listening to anybody? Or is it that in the process of listening, various thoughts, opinions, arise so that your own knowledge and experience intervene between what is being said and your comprehension of it? I think it is important to understand the difference between attention and concentration. Concentration implies choice, does it not? You are trying to concentrate on what I am saying, so your mind is focused, made narrow, and other thoughts intervene; so there is not an actual listening but a battle going on in the mind, a conflict between what you are hearing and your desire to translate it, to apply what I am talking about, and so on. Whereas, attention is something entirely different. In attention there is no focusing, no choice; there is complete awareness without any interpretation. And if we can listen so attentively, completely, to what is being said, then that very attention brings about the miracle of change within the mind itself.

unless there is a fundamental revolution in each one of us, I do not see how we can bring about a vast, radical change in the world.

When the mind is free from all conditioning, then you will find that there comes the creativity of reality, of God, or what you will, and it is only such a mind, a mind which is constantly experiencing this creativity, that can bring about a different outlook, different values, a different world.

it is important to understand oneself, is it not? Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. Self-knowledge is not according to some psychologist, book, or philosopher but it is to know oneself as one is from moment to moment. Do you understand?

To know oneself is to observe what one thinks, how one feels, not just superficially, but to be deeply aware of what is without condemnation, without j...

The mind is not merely the waking consciousness that is occupied with daily activities, but also the deep layers of the unconscious in which there is the whole residue of the past, of tradition, of racial instincts. All that is the mind, and unless that total consciousness is free right through, our search, our inquiry, our discovery, will be limited, narrow, petty.

So the mind is conditioned right through; there is no part of the mind which is not conditioned, and our problem is: Can such a mind free itself? And who is the entity that can free it?

The mind is completely conditioned—which is an obvious fact if you come to think about it. It is not my invention, it is a fact. We belong to a particular society; we were brought up according to a particular ideology with certain dogmas, traditions; and the vast influence of culture, of society, is continually conditioning the mind.

The mind can be free only when it is completely still. Though it has problems, innumerable urges, conflicts, ambitions, if—through self-knowledge, through watching itself without acceptance or condemnation—the mind is choicelessly aware of its own process, then out of that awareness there comes an astonishing silence, a quietness of the mind in which there is no movement of any kind. It is only then that the mind is free because it is no longer desiring anything; it is no longer seeking; it is no longer pursuing a goal, an ideal—which are all the projections of a conditioned mind.

what is the function of asking a question and receiving an answer? Do we solve any problem by asking a question? What is a problem? Please follow this, think with me. What is a problem? A problem comes into being only when the mind is occupied with something, does it not?

If I have a problem, what does it mean? Let’s say that my mind is occupied from morning till night with envy, with jealousy, with sex, or what you will. It is the occupation of the mind with an object that creates the problem.

The envy may be a fact, but it is the occupation of the mind with the fact that creates the problem,...

Please, you watch your own peculiar compulsion of irritability or whatever it be.

Can you look at it without the mind being occupied with it? Occupation implies the effort to resolve that compulsion, does it not?

But can you look at the fact that you have a particular compulsion, an urge, a desire, look at it without comparing, without judging, and hence not set going the whole process of occupation?

Psychologically, it is very interesting to observe this—how the mind is incapable of looking at a fact like envy without bringing in the vast complex of opinions, judgments, evaluations with which the mind is occupied—so we never resolve the fact but multiply the problems. I hope I am making myself clear. And I think it is important for us to understand this process of occupation because there is a much deeper factor behind it, which is the fear of not being occupied.

The man who thinks about God and becomes a hermit may be socially more significant; he may have a greater value to society than the drunkard, but both are occupied, and a mind that is occupied is never free to discover what is truth. Please don’t reject or accept what I am saying; look at it, find out. If each one of us can really attend to this one thing, give our full attention to the whole process of the mind’s occupation with any problem without trying to free the mind from occupation, which is merely another way of being occupied—if we can understand this process completely, totally, then I think the problem itself will become irrelevant. When the mind is free from occupation with the problem, free to observe, to be aware of the whole issue, then the problem itself can be solved comparatively easily.

What is desire? And why do we separate desire from the mind? And who is the entity that says, “Desire creates problems; therefore, I must be free from desire”?

We have to understand what desire is, not ask how to get rid of desire because it creates trouble or whether it is a product of the mind. First we must know what desire is, and then we can go into it more deeply. What is desire? How does desire arise? I shall explain and you will see, but don’t merely listen to my words. Actually experience the thing that we are talking about as we go along, and then it will have significance.

How does desire come into being? Surely, it comes into being through perception or seeing, contact, sensation, and then desire. Isn’t that so? First you see a car, then there is contact, sensation, and finally the desire to own the car, to drive it. Please follow this slowly, patiently. Then, in trying to get that car, which is desire, there is conflict. So in the very fulfillment of desire there is conflict, there is pain, suffering, joy, and you want to hold the pleasure and discard the pain. This is what is actually taking place with each one of us. The entity created by desire, the entity who is identified with pleasure, says, “I must get rid of that which is n...

Desire, which comes into being through perception, contact, and sensation, is identified as the ‘me’ who wants to hold on to the pleasurable and discard that which is painful. But the painful and the pleasurable are equally the outcome of desire, which is part of the mind—it is not outside of the mind—and as long as there is an e...

To fundamental questions, there is no absolute answer of yes or no. What is important is to put a fundamental question, not to find an answer, and if we are capable of looking at that fundamental question without seeking an answer, then that very observation of the fundamental brings about understanding.

What is conflict?

Desire creates contradiction,

and the mind that is at all alert does not like to live in contradiction; therefore, it tries to get rid of desire.

the mind is desire;

The mind that gives soil to problems can never find that which is real. So the issue is not how to resolve desire but to understand it, and one can understand it only when there is no condemnation of it. Only the mind that is not occupied with desire can understand desire.

Can we listen with an attention in which there is no interpretation, no opposition or acceptance, so that we understand totally what is being said?

Surely, there are two ways of listening.

One can superficially follow the words, see their meaning, and merely pursue the outward significance of the description;

or one can listen to the description, to the verbal statement, and pursue it inwardly—that is, be aware of what is being said as a thing that ...

through the description one is able to experience directly the thing t...

there is the constant urge of self-improvement: I must be more noble, more gentle, more considerate, less violent. Society, with the help of religion, has brought about a culture of self-improvement in the widest sense of that word.

The religions that we have do not help us to understand that which is the real because they are essentially based, not on the abandonment of the self, but on the improvement, the refinement of the self, which is the continuity of the self in different forms.

This society conditions the mind to a particular pattern of thought, the pattern of self-improvement, self-adjustment, self-sacrifice, and only those who are capable of breaking away from all conditioning can discover that which is not measurable by the mind.

We are all making effort; our social pattern is based on the effort to acquire, to understand more, to have more knowledge, and from that background of knowledge, to act.

There is always an effort of self-improvement, of self-adjustment, of correction, this drive to fulfill, with its frustrations, fears, and miseries. According to this pattern, which we all know and of which we are a part, it is perfectly justified to be ambitious, to compete, to be envious, to pursue a particular result; and ...

The present social structure is based on envy, on acquisitiveness, in which is implied conformity, acceptance of authority, the perpetual fulfillment of ambition, which is essentially the self, the ‘me’ striving to become something.

Out of this stuff society is made, and its culture—the pleasant and the unpleasant, the beautiful and the ugly, the whole field of social endeavor—conditions the mind. You are the result of society.

Does society or culture exist to help man to discover that which may be called truth or God?

do so-called religions, the following of various teachers, disciplines, belonging to sects, cults, which are all, if you observe, within the field of social respectability—do any of those things help you to find that which is timeless bliss, timeless reality?