Awakening of Intelligence (J. Krishnamurti Book 1)

by J. Krishnamurti

KRISHNAMURTI: No Sir, please Sir, don’t bring in other things. This is very complex Sir. If you go slowly into it, you will understand it. The centre, being the prisoner of its own limitation, wants expansion. It seeks expansion through identification—with God, with an idea, with an ideal, with a formula, with a concept. Please follow this, Sir! And it thinks it can live differently, at a different level, though it is living in a miserable prison. So concepts become extraordinarily important to a prisoner, because he knows he cannot escape. And the centre being thought—we examined that—then thought tries to expand by identification with something—with the nation, with the family, with the group, with culture—you know, expand, expand. But it is still living in prison! As long as there is a centre there is no freedom: right? (Don’t agree Sir. For you all it is just a theory, and one theory is as good as another.) So, see what it does! It invents time as a means of escape. I will gradually escape from this prison. Right? I will practise, I will meditate, I will do this and won’t do that. Gradually, tomorrow, tomorrow, next life, the future. It has not only created space which is limited, but also it has created time! And it has become a slave to a space and a time of its own. Ah! Do you see this, Sirs?