Original and Final Freedom -- Krishnamurti

Author: () J. Krishnamurti, translated by Yu Ziqiang and Wu Yi, proofread by Shi Fangmei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: Man is a amphibian, living in two worlds simultaneously; 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 kinds of 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 demonstrated—can also be fatal. For example, consider the field of science on one hand and politics and religion on the other. By thinking and acting in accordance with a series of symbols, we have come to understand and control the fundamental forces of nature to some extent. By thinking and acting in accordance with another series of symbols, we have used these forces as tools for large-scale slaughter and collective suicide. In the first case, explanatory symbols are carefully selected, meticulously analyzed, and continuously modified to adapt to the facts that emerge in the physical world. In the second case, symbols that were originally poorly chosen are never subjected to thorough analysis and are never reshaped to align with the facts that arise 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.