“THE UNDERSTANDING OF what you are, whatever it be – ugly or beautiful, wicked or mischievous – the understanding of what you are, without distortion, is the beginning of virtue. Virtue is essential, for it gives freedom.
The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end – you don’t com
e to an achievement, you don’t come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.
And it seems to me that without this understanding, without this experience, merely to read books, to attend talks, to do propaganda, is so infantile – just an activity without much meaning.
To bring about a fundamental revolution in oneself, one must understand the whole process of one’s thought
and feeling in relationship to others.
If we can understand ourselves as we are from moment to moment without the process of accumulation of outward things, then we shall see how there comes a tranquillity that is not a product of the mind, a tranquillity that is neither imagined nor cultivated; and only in that state of tranquillity can there be creativeness.
If one is able to understand oneself, and thereby bring about that creative happiness, that experiencing of something that is not of the mind, then perhaps there can be a transformation in the immediate relationships about us, and so in the world in which we live.
In order to transform the world about us, with its misery, wars, unemployment, starvation, class divisions and utter confusion, there must be a transformation in ourselves. The revolution must begin within oneself.”
The First And Last Freedom, J. Krishnamurti, p. 158 – 9.
