Initially and finally free

Author: (India) Krishnamurti
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: A rare gem of Indian civilization, one of the works of the outstanding spiritual teacher of the 20th century, Krishnamurti. His 40 books are all collections of talks and discourses that flow from emptiness, and have been translated into 47 languages. They have had a broad and profound influence in Europe, America, India, and Australia. This book is a selected compilation of works from Krishnamurti's writings and recorded talks, consisting of 58 pieces. Each piece is an illumination by Krishnamurti on how modern people can understand themselves and discover their true selves. This spiritual teacher, once again, shares with us his profound, rich, and moving teachings on the important life topic of experiencing the freedom of the beginning and the end of life. Man is an amphibian, living simultaneously in two worlds: the existing world and the world he has built—material, life, and consciousness, as well as the world of symbols. In our thinking, we use many symbolic systems—linguistic, mathematical, visual, musical, ritualistic. Without such symbolic systems, we would not have art, science, law, philosophy, or even the basic elements of civilization; in other words, we would be animals. Thus, symbols are indispensable. However, symbols—just as our own history and every other era have so richly and clearly shown—can also be deadly. For example, consider the field of science on one hand and politics and religion on the other. By thinking and acting in a series of symbols, we have come to understand and control the fundamental forces of nature to some extent. By thinking and acting with another series of symbols, we have turned these forces into tools for large-scale slaughter and collective suicide. In the first case, explanatory symbols are carefully selected, meticulously analyzed, and constantly modified to adapt to the facts emerging in the physical world. In the second case, symbols that were originally chosen inappropriately are never thoroughly analyzed and are never reshaped to align with the facts emerging in the human world. Worse still, these misleading symbols are given undue respect everywhere, as if by some mysterious means, they are more real than the realities they involve. In religious and political contexts, language is not sufficiently regarded as representing things and events; rather, things and events are seen as specific diagrams of language.