Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man’s pretense that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity.

Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge, which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.

When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind.

Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence.

Written by Krishnamurti on October 21,1980. Also see the Krishnamurti Foundation of America.

“Disasters do happen and our pictures of how our lives should be are blown away. Then we have a choice: do we face the disaster directly and make it our practice or do we run once again, learning nothing and compounding our difficulties? If we want a life that’s peaceful and productive, what do we need? We need the ability (which we learn slowly and unwillingly) to be the experience of our life as it is. Most of the time I don’t want to do that, and I suspect that you don’t either. But that is what we’re here to learn…The more we have experienced life in all its guises as being OK, the less we are motivated to turn away from it in an illusory search for perfection.”

Facing my life and not running from its truth is the most difficult and most important change in perspective I can undertake.