The only freedom is the freedom from the known.
Interpretation
True freedom comes from letting go of preconceived notions and familiar beliefs.
Jiddu Krishnamurti's quote suggests that genuine freedom is not merely about external liberties but rather about the liberation of the mind from established beliefs and past experiences. It encourages individuals to question their assumptions and discover new perspectives, thus experiencing life more fully and authentically.
In practice
During a talk about overcoming personal barriers, this quote can illustrate the need to challenge one's understanding.
The following of authority is the denial of intelligence. [It] may help us temporarily to cover up our difficulties and problems; but to avoid a problem is only to intensify it, and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.
If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.
All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.
By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is unconfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers tempramentally do not crave comfort and convenience - if they did they would live elsewhere.
Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.
To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.
Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!
The incarnate Word is with us, is still speaking, is present always, yet leaves no sign but everything that is.
If nations perish, it is not because of their devotion to liberty, but for their disregard of its requirements.
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