Book Review: Freedom from the Known by J. Krishnamurti

The knowledge is based on the cognition of one’s experiences, habits, emotions, and responses. Basically, it is an interaction with the past. Knowing yourself, however, is something of the present. And a mind that is distracted by the past, Krishnamurti implies, is a dead mind.

Conditioning and the burden of the past.

The starting point of self understanding is the realization of the old conditioning- and forgetting of the old conditioning. Conditioning starts immediately when a person is born. Our way of thinking and response is conditioned by family, society, friends, culture, and institutions. Our responses to life are determined by these levels of conditioning. Krishnamurti’s argument is uncompromising :

“Since your conditioning is inadequate, you will always reach inadequately”.

We will never have the true understanding of ourselves so long as our responses are based on conditioned patterns.

Consciousness as an entire movement.

To understand yourself, you have to be conscious. But this consciousness is not fragmentable. Krishnamurti denies the traditional split between conscious and subconscious mind. Fragmentation brings about internal conflict and searching on existence through fragments are a waste. Complete awareness is a requirement. In its absence, self-inquiry is another intellectual act rather than an experience.

Difference between Awareness & Concentration.

One of the most important differences Krishnamurti draws lies in the focus on the concepts of concentration and awareness:

The concentration is exclusionary-it is a way of narrowing the mind by not letting it get distracted.

Awareness, on the other hand, does not omit anything. It is a minute observation of all we see around and in us, judgmentally. It is good in itself to continue to be in this state of self-awareness. It may or may not open the doors to opportunities, but that does not matter. Being aware is not an instrument of attainment; it is a lifestyle.

Pleasure, Pain & Living in the Present.

The constant seeking of pleasure is bound to result in pain. we do not suffer because of pleasure itself, but because of the repetition of it in the human mind.

Krishnamurti indicates that in case one fully attends to pleasure at the moment without attempting to repeat or own it, there is no pain.

Present moment experience of beauty and the immense delight in it without the pursuit of pleasure in this is what constitutes living in the present

Fear, recognition and self.

Krishnamurti argues most important thing in your life is “You”. The pursuit of personal satisfaction is a motivating factor in most of our actions. Most of us want to find a status, position, or identity, but this is the hidden aggression that is based on fear.

So what is fear?

Fear is nothing but a state of unknowing/uncertainty. Something hurtful occurred in the past and we dread the occurrence of the same in the present. But when the past is the source of fear, then it is not fear but memory.

We tend to perceive fear in bits. We are not to consider ourselves to be distinct of fear, but as part of it, Krishnamurti encourages us to look at ourselves. The moment one ceases to run away and perceives fear as a part of himself, fear disintegrates.

Love without seeking.

What is love? Krishnamurti gives a very simple but deep picture of what love is. It is a flower in a garden. It gives fragrance to the passers-by and to the ones who stop to admire it. Love has no expectations.

“A mind that is seeking is not a passionate mind & to come upon love without seeking it is the only way to find it.”

Beauty & the beholder.

We tend to perceive beauty in comparative terms, that is, by attributing beauty to objects. However, Krishnamurti poses an even deeper question: Is there beauty without a beholder?

Beauty does not exist independently, but it is in the observer’s perception.

“The observer is observed”

This is among the most radical insights of Krishnamurti. Each like or dislike you have for anything creates a fragmented image of you. A combination of all such images constitutes a central image of ‘You’. Consider a simple example : If you see someone wearing a red shirt it creates immediate liking or disliking. And this is shaped by your culture, socialisation, association and inherited characteristics. It is from that center you observe and make your opinion.

When the observer realises that the thing on which he is reacting is “himself” (a fragmented image created based on liking or disliking), then there is no conflict between him and the thing he is reacting to. Because when he was separate, he tried to do something about it, but when the observer realises that he is reacting to himself, then there is no conflict.

What Krishnamurti can teach us about mental health beyond self-help.

Mental-health and self-help rhetoric of the present day is focused on self-management – managing anxiety, controlling feelings, restructuring cognitions, enhancing habits, maximizing productivity. Although these methods are useful, Krishnamurti’s work forces an awkward question:

‘Are we healing the mind or merely adjusting it to function better within its existing conditioning?’

Contemporary self-help tends to believe that the self is a stable being, which requires fixing, reinforcement, or refining. Krishnamurti questions the very premise of this assumption. To him, there is no psychological suffering because the self is weak or broken, but the self itself is the result of conditioning, memory and fear.

Awareness vs. coping strategies.

In mental health practice, coping strategies such as grounding techniques, journaling, positive affirmations, and cognitive reframing are central. These can be useful, but Krishnamurti would argue that they operate at the level of concentration and awareness. The coping strategies tend to be directed towards managing or diverting distress. But the consciousness of Krishnamurti challenges us to look at distress without any judgment and without opposition.

When anxiety is simply managed, the structure that generates it-the conditioned mind-is preserved. Krishnamurti’s insistence on ‘choiceless awareness’ suggests that the entire concept of anxiety, without either labelling or evading it, can melt it away more deeply than the techniques applied to subdue or deal with it.

The pressure to “be better”

Self-help culture is based on betterment-be calmer, be happier, be more confident, be more productive. Krishnamurti would view this ruthless pursuit as yet another psychological violence on self.

The need to be better results in not being content with what one is. Such discontentment gives birth to comparison, guilt and anxiety- ironically strengthening the state of mental distress. This is redefined by Krishnamurti when he points out that the observer is the observed. As soon as we attempt to make ourselves better, we make a binary between ourselves and the image we aspire to be. That division is conflict.

In this sense, self-optimization does not contribute to mental well-being, but to the elimination of the inner struggle of ideals.

Love, caring, and mental wellbeing.

The self-compassion is more and more discussed in modern context, and in this case Krishnamurti surprisingly agrees with the current thinking, but in another direction. Love, according to his definition, is not working hard to accept oneself or positive self-conversation. It is non-seeking attention. The space that can be created when the mind ceases to demand results, relief, progress, healing, will allow compassion to emerge naturally.

This puts into question the transactional attitude of most of the self-help literature in which even calmness is a goal to be obtained.

A quiet but radical contribution.

Krishnamurti does not provide methods, step-by-step plans and guarantees. This would appear impractical in an era of fixation on solutions. But this is where he is relevant to mental health.

He reminds us that :

Psychological suffering is a problem that cannot always be solved.

Awareness is not a method.

Freedom is not progressive improvement, but intuition.

In that regard, Freedom from the Known is a silent yet radical alternative to the contemporary culture of self-help, less soothing but, perhaps, less deceptive