And are we individuals -individuals in the sense of being unique? Are we? Or are we merely the result of our conditioning, of innumerable influences, of centuries of tradition? You may like to separate yourself as being of the West, and set yourself still further apart as being German. But are you an individual in the sense of being completely uncorrupted, uninfluenced? Only in that state are you free -not otherwise. Which does not mean anarchy or selfishly individual existence-on the contrary.
But now you are not individuals; you are anything but that. You are German, English, French; you are Catholics, Protestants, communists, something or other. You are stamped, shaped, held within the framework in which you have been brought up, or which you have subsequently chosen. So your life is predetermined.And every Catholic, every churchgoer, every person who belongs to any religious organization -his life is predetermined, fixed; therefore, he is never free. He may talk about freedom, he may talk about love and peace, but he cannot have love and peace, nor can he be free because for him those are mere words.
J. Krishnamurti/Hamburg 1956, Talk 4
Are we individuals?
