Krishnamurti's Revolution

"But there is a revolution which is entirely different and which must take place if we are to emerge from the endless series of anxieties, conflicts, and frustrations in which we are caught. This revolution has to begin, not with theory and ideation, which eventually prove worthless, but with a radical transformation in the mind itself."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

I love this quote. I read it from time to time and it always makes me scratch my head. Every time I read it, something new floats to the surface. Here's where I am with it at this point in my life:

Krishnamurti spent his life as a teacher, sharing with anyone who would listen a most important message: We cannot accept any idea in this world at face value. Why?

I once believed that facts were true. Then, I got to thinking: Once upon a time, people believed that the World was flat; the sun rises and sets; and the Earth was the center of the Universe. These were all facts. Now, these facts seem old fashioned. Similarly, I expect that, in another thousand years, our facts about the Earth, the Milky Way, and the Universe are going to seem quite quaint, as well.

When we accept ideas, they can easily enslave us. How?

We all want to believe something. And we like to protect our beliefs. Calling a cherished idea a belief is a way of protecting the original idea from being questioned. By labelling an idea a belief, we easily lock it up and deny a chance for it to develop.

It's much easier for me to shut down and not listen to someone  than to challenge my mind to work through very different and foreign ways of looking at life. I know I'm not alone by admitting to being guilty for feeling defensive when attacked by someone with a different belief.

My personality, for example, is nothing more than the sum total of the ideas I use to identify and articulate my experiences. If these ideas I use to define my personality are locked into beliefs and I am enslaved by these beliefs, then how can I be anything other than a slave?

Therefore, freedom is not a reality that exists in the world. It certainly cannot come from the sum total of a sequence of enslaved ideas. It isn't something that can be discovered, negotiated, or defined. Freedom is not even a state of mind.

Krishnamurti says that this transformation will not occur through our acceptance of a theory or through a set of ideas. I read this to mean that freedom cannot be, in his reading, a "thing". Rather, freedom is an agility of mind that has to be cultivated. Freedom is less like the thing we hold in our hand and more like the act of using our fingers to grasp that thing. Freedom, then, is an action, rather than a concept.

Don't think, for a second, that I write this with a smug know-it-all look on my face. I only offer this to you, my esteemed readers, as an artifact of my effort to cultivate the agility which Krishnamurti calls "freedom". I look forward to and invite your discussion!