Post by Leon on May 23, 2012 0:05:07 GMT
Question: I am a Hindu, and you ask me to be free from Hinduism. Can I be ever free from Hinduism?
Jiddu Krishnamurti: This is a very complex question. We must go into it very carefully to understand it.
Now, you call yourself a Hindu. You have a certain background, there are certain traditions which you follow. You call yourself a Hindu, and therefore you want to follow the traditions of Hinduism. Now if you want to find out the true implications of following, if you want to find out whether following is evil or not, you have to see whether it is really necessary to follow your experience, your traditions and your culture. But in order to see this, you must be absolutely free.
Now, when you say that you are a Hindu, what do you mean by that? Can you say that you are a pure Hindu or a pure Aryan? There is no such person because we are a mixture of others’ culture also. Most of us have the background of Hinduism with some western conditioning. So we are neither this nor that. But the mind wants to have a root in something.
The mind wants to be secure in something and when it feels that it will be secure in Western culture, it gives up the Eastern culture and vice versa. That is exactly what is happening in the case of all of us; really speaking, we are in a state of confusion. It is only when we are totally free from any culture that we shall be able to see clearly. But if we accept one culture, either the Western or the Eastern, then it acts as a poison.
If we want to see clearly and to find out the real truth, then there must be complete clearness of the mind; and that can only come when you do not belong to any society. The truth will act upon you only when your mind is absolutely free, and that freedom can only come when you do not belong to any community. That means, when the mind is fearless, when it has no background, no root anywhere, then only can you see what is the Truth.
Jiddu Krishnamurti: This is a very complex question. We must go into it very carefully to understand it.
Now, you call yourself a Hindu. You have a certain background, there are certain traditions which you follow. You call yourself a Hindu, and therefore you want to follow the traditions of Hinduism. Now if you want to find out the true implications of following, if you want to find out whether following is evil or not, you have to see whether it is really necessary to follow your experience, your traditions and your culture. But in order to see this, you must be absolutely free.
Now, when you say that you are a Hindu, what do you mean by that? Can you say that you are a pure Hindu or a pure Aryan? There is no such person because we are a mixture of others’ culture also. Most of us have the background of Hinduism with some western conditioning. So we are neither this nor that. But the mind wants to have a root in something.
The mind wants to be secure in something and when it feels that it will be secure in Western culture, it gives up the Eastern culture and vice versa. That is exactly what is happening in the case of all of us; really speaking, we are in a state of confusion. It is only when we are totally free from any culture that we shall be able to see clearly. But if we accept one culture, either the Western or the Eastern, then it acts as a poison.
If we want to see clearly and to find out the real truth, then there must be complete clearness of the mind; and that can only come when you do not belong to any society. The truth will act upon you only when your mind is absolutely free, and that freedom can only come when you do not belong to any community. That means, when the mind is fearless, when it has no background, no root anywhere, then only can you see what is the Truth.
