One asks why human beings, who have lived on this earth for millions of years, who are technologically intelligent, have not applied their intelligence to be free from this very complex problem of fear, which may be one of the reasons for war, for killing one another. And religions throughout the world have not solved the problem; nor the gurus, nor the saviours, nor ideals. So it is very clear that no outside agency—however elevated, however much made popular by propaganda—no outside agency can ever possibly solve this problem of human fear… And perhaps we have so accepted the pattern of fear that we don’t want even to move away from it. So what is fear? What are the contributory factors that bring about fear? Like many small streams, rivulets that make the tremendous volume of a river, what are the small streams that bring about fear?
J. Krishnamurti/On Fear, p 2
