The Flight of the Eagle by Krishnamurti

Author:Krishnamurti
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Krishnamurti Foundations
Published: 2014-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

Questioner: Can one be free instantly and live without conflicts or does it take time?

Krishnamurti: Can one live without the past immediately or does getting rid of the past take time? Does it take time to get rid of the past, and does this prevent one from living immediately? That is the question. The past is like a hidden cave, like a cellar where you keep your wine—if you have wine. Does it take time to be free of it? What is involved in taking time?—which is what we are used to. I say to myself, ‘I’ll take time, virtue is a thing to be acquired, to be practised day after day, I’ll get rid of my hate, my violence, gradually, slowly’; that is what we are used to, that is our conditioning. And so we ask ourselves whether it is possible to throw away all the past gradually—which involves time. That is, being violent, I say, ‘I’ll gradually get rid of this.’ What does that mean—‘gradually’, ‘step by step’? In the meantime I am being violent. The idea of getting rid of violence gradually is a form of hypocrisy. Obviously, if I am violent I can’t get rid of it gradually, I must end it immediately. Can I end psychological things immediately? I cannot, if I accept the idea of gradually freeing myself from the past. But what matters is to see the fact as it is now, without any distortion. If I am jealous and envious, I must see this completely by total, not partial, observation. I look at my jealousy—why am I jealous? Because I am lonely, the person I depended upon left me and I am suddenly faced with my emptiness, with my isolation and I am afraid of that, therefore I depend on you. And if you turn away I am angry, jealous. The fact is I am lonely, I need companionship, I need somebody not only to cook for me, to give me comfort, sexual pleasure and all the rest of it, but because basically I am alone. And that is why I am jealous. Can I understand this loneliness immediately? I can understand it only if I observe it, if I do not run away from it—if I can look at it, observe it critically, with awakened intelligence, not find excuses, try to fill the void or try to find a new companion. To look at this there must be freedom and when there is freedom to look I am free of jealousy. So the perception, the total observation of jealousy and the freedom from it, is not a matter of time, but of giving complete attention, critical awareness, observing choicelessly, instantly, all things as they arise. Then there is freedom—not in the future but now—from that which we call jealousy.

This applies equally to violence, anger or any other habit, whether you smoke, drink or have sexual habits. If we observe them very attentively, completely with our heart and mind, we are intelligently aware of their whole content; then there is freedom.

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