As One Is: To Free the Mind from All Conditioning by Krishnamurti

Author:Krishnamurti
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Krishnamurti Foundations
Published: 2014-09-28T16:00:00+00:00

Questioner: How can one stop habits?

Krishnamurti: If we can understand the whole process of habit, then perhaps we shall be able to stop the formation of habits. Merely to stop a particular habit is comparatively easy, but the problem is not then solved. All of us have various habits of which we are either conscious or unconscious, so we have to find out whether the mind is caught in habit, and why the mind creates habits at all.

Is not most of our thinking habitual? From childhood we have been taught to think along a certain line, whether as a Christian, a communist, or a Hindu, and we dare not deviate from that line because the very deviation is fear. So fundamentally our thinking is habitual, conditioned; our minds function along established grooves, and naturally there are also superficial habits which we try to control.

Now, if the mind ceases altogether to think in habits, then we shall approach the problem of a superficial habit entirely differently. Do you understand? If you are investigating, trying to find out whether your mind thinks in habits, if that is what you are really concerned with, then the habit of smoking, for example, will have quite a different meaning. That is, if you are interested in inquiring into the whole process of habit, which is at a deeper level, you will treat the habit of smoking in a totally different manner. Being inwardly very clear that you really want to stop, not only the habit of smoking, but the whole process of thinking in habits, you do not fight the automatic movement of picking up a cigarette, and all the rest of it, because you see that the more you fight that particular habit, the more life you give to it. But if you are attentive, completely aware of the habit without fighting it, then you will see that that habit ceases in its time; therefore, the mind is not occupied with that habit. I do not know if you are following this.

Inwardly I see very clearly that I want to stop smoking, but the habit has been set going for a number of years. Shall I fight that habit? Surely, by fighting a habit, I am giving life to it. Please understand this. Anything I fight, I am giving life to. If I fight an idea, I am giving life to that idea; if I fight you, I am giving you life to fight me. I must see that very clearly, and I can see it very clearly only if I am looking at the whole problem of habit, not just at one specific habit. Then my approach to habit is at a different level altogether.

So the question now is: Why does the mind think in terms of habit, the habit of relationship, the habit of ideas, the habit of beliefs, and so on? Why? Because essentially it is seeking to be secure, to be safe, to be permanent, is it not? The mind hates to be uncertain, so it must have habits as a means of security.

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