Helping human consciousness to lessen fear

One has lived a so-called individualistic life, concerned about oneself and one’s problems. Those problems never end, they increase. One has lived that kind of life. One has been brought up, educated, conditioned to that kind of life. You come along as a friend; you say to me: “Look, your consciousness is not yours; you suffer as other people suffer.” I listen to it and I do not reject what you say, for it makes sense, it is sane and I see that in what you have told me there can perhaps be peace in the world. And I say to myself: “Now, can I be free from fear?” I see that I am responsible, totally, for the whole consciousness. I see that when I am investigating fear I am helping the total human consciousness to lessen fear.

J. Krishnamurti/The Network of Thought, pp 70-71

Fear can be ended totally

The speaker is saying that fear can be totally ended. Don’t say, “It is for the illumined one” and all that nonsense. You can end it if you put your brain, your heart into it—completely, not partially. And then you will see for yourself what immense beauty there is in it; a sense of utter freedom—not freedom of a country or of some government, but the sense of the enormity of freedom, the greatness of freedom. Will you do it—today, now? From today, seeing the cause of fear, end it. As long as there is fear—biologically, physically, psychologically—it destroys us. So, if one may ask, after listening to this fact, not theory, what are you going to do? Time is the factor of fear and thought; so if you don’t change now, you won’t ever change. It is constant postponement.
J. Krishnamuri/The Last Talks, pp 42-43

When thought realizes…

When thought realizes that it cannot possibly do anything about fear because it creates fear, then there is silence; then there is complete negation of any movement which breeds fear.
J. Krishnamurti/The Flight of the Eagle, p 71

The flowering of the question

Thought and time are the two factors of fear. You cannot do anything about it. Don’t ask, “How am I to stop thinking?” It is too silly a question. Because you have got to think—to go from here to your house, to drive a car, to speak a language. But time may not be necessary at all psychologically, inwardly. So we are saying fear exists because of the two major factors of time and thought, in which is involved reward and punishment. Now, I have heard this statement made by you. And I have listened to it so immensely because it is a tremendous problem which man has not solved at all and which, therefore, is creating havoc in the world. I have listened to you, listened to the statement. And you have also told me: Don’t do anything about it; just put the question and live with it, as a woman bears the seed in her womb. So you have put the question. Let that question flower. In the flowering of that question, there is also the withering away of that question. It is not the flowering and then the ending—the very flowering is the ending.

J. Krishnamurti/That Benediction is Where You Are, pp 39-40

Like holding a precious jewel

We can observe this fact together, that thought and time are the root of fear. Time and thought are the same, they are not two separate movements. See this fact, this actuality, that time and thought, time-thought, are the root of fear. Just observe it in yourself. Don’t move away from the reality, from the truth that fear is caused by time and thought. Hold it, remain with it, don’t run away from it. It is so. Then it is like holding a precious jewel in your hand. You see all the beauty of that jewel. Then you will see for yourself that fear psychologically completely ends.

J. Krishnamurti/Washington D.C. Talks, pp 29-30

Time and thought make fear

Time and thought make fear—time as yesterday, today and tomorrow; there is the fear that tomorrow something will happen—the loss of a job, death, that my wife or my husband will run away, that the disease and pain that I have had many days ago will come back again. This is where time comes in. Time, involving what my neighbour may say about me tomorrow, or time which up to now has covered up something which I did many years ago. I am afraid of some deep secret desires which might not be fulfilled. So time is involved in fear, fear of death which comes at the end of life, which may be waiting around the corner and I am afraid. So time involves fear and thought. There is no time if there is no thought. Thinking about that which happened yesterday, being afraid that it may happen again tomorrow—this is what brings about time as well as fear.

J. Krishnamurti/The Flight of the Eagle, pp 69-70

Afraid of the past and the future

At the actual moment, as I am sitting here, I am not afraid; I am not afraid in the present, nothing is happening to me, nobody is threatening me or taking anything away from me. But beyond the actual moment there is a deeper layer in the mind that is consciously or unconsciously thinking of what might happen in the future or worrying that something from the past may overtake me. So I am afraid of the past and the future. I have divided time into the past and the future. Thought steps in, says, “Be careful it does not happen again”, or “Be prepared for the future. The future may be dangerous for you. You have got something now but you may lose it. You may die tomorrow, your wife may run away, you may lose your job. You may never become famous. You may be lonely. You want to be quite sure of tomorrow.”

J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, p 42

Thought breeds fear

How do these psychological fears arise? What is their origin? That is the issue. There is the fear of something that happened yesterday; the fear of something that might happen later on today or tomorrow. There is the fear of what we have known, and there is the fear of the unknown, which is tomorrow. One can see for oneself very clearly that fear arises through the structure of thought—through thinking about that which happened yesterday of which one is afraid, or through thinking about the future. Right? Thought breeds fear, doesn’t it? Please let us be quite sure; do not accept what the speaker is saying; be absolutely sure for yourself as to whether thought is the origin of fear.

J. Krishnamurti/The Flight of the Eagle, p 12

The hidden fears

There are not only the conscious fears of which one is aware, but also those that are deep down, undiscovered in the deep recesses of one’s mind. How is one to deal with conscious fears as well as those that are hidden? Surely, fear is in the movement away from ‘what is’; it is the flight, the escape, the avoidance, of actuality that brings about fear. Also, when there is comparison of any kind, there is the breeding of fear—the comparison of what you are with what you think you should be. So fear is the movement away from what is actual, not in the object from which you move away. None of these problems of fear can be resolved through will—saying to oneself, “I will not be afraid.”

J. Krishnamurti/Beyond Violence, p 64

Attention to fear

Questioner: You observe fear and find yourself moving away from it. What are you to do? Krishnamurti: First of all, do not resist moving away. To observe fear you must give attention, and in attention you are not condemning, not judging, not evaluating, but just observing. When you move away, it is because your attention has wandered, you are not attending—there is inattention. Be inattentive, but be aware that you are inattentive—that very awareness of your inattention is attention. If you are aware of your inattention, be aware of it, do not do anything about it, except be aware that you are inattentive; then that very awareness is attention. It is so simple. Once you see this, you will eliminate conflict altogether; you are aware without choice. When you say, “I have been attentive, but now I am not attentive and I must become attentive”, there is choice. To be aware means to be aware without choice.

J. Krishnamurti/Beyond Violence, p 71

The network of escapes

We have so many different fears, and we try to solve these fears in fragments. We don’t seem to be able to go beyond that. If we think we have understood one particular fear, and have resolved it, another fear comes up. When we are aware that we are afraid, we try to run away from it, try to find an answer, try to find out what to do, or try to suppress it. We have, as human beings, cunningly developed a network of escapes: God, amusement, drink, sex, anything. All escapes are the same, whether it is in the name of God or drink!

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works, vol XVI, p 174

How do you deal with fear?

Fear is the urge that seeks a Master, a guru; fear is this coating of respectability, which everyone loves so dearly—to be respectable. Sir, I am not talking of anything which is not a fact. So you can see it in your everyday life. This extraordinary, pervasive nature of fear—how do you deal with it? Do you merely develop the quality of courage in order to meet the demand of fear? You understand, sir? Do you determine to be courageous to face events in life, or merely rationalize fear away, or find explanations that will give satisfaction to the mind that is caught in fear? How do you deal with it? Turn on the radio, read a book, go to a temple, cling to some form of dogma, belief?

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XII, p 58

Fears in relationship

There are fears in relationship, fears of uncertainty, fears of the past and the future, fears of not knowing, fears of death, fears of loneliness, the agonizing sense of solitude. You may be related to others, you may have a great many friends, you may be married, you may have children, but there is this sense of deep isolation, this sense of loneliness. That is one of the factors of fear. There is also the fear of not being able to fulfill. And the desire to fulfill brings with it the sense of frustration, and in that there is fear. There is fear of not being able to be absolutely clear about everything. So there are many, many forms of fear.
J. Krishnamurti/On Fear, p 62

What is the effect of fear?

When one is afraid, not only of physical things, but also of psychological factors, what takes place in that fear? I am afraid, not only of physically falling ill, of dying, of darkness—you know the innumerable fears one has, both biological as well as psychological. What does fear do to the mind, the mind that has created these fears? Do you understand my question? Don’t answer me immediately, look at yourselves. What is the effect of fear on the mind, on one’s whole life? Or are we so used to fear, have we so accustomed ourselves to fear, which has become a habit, that we are unaware of its effect?

J. Krishnamurti/The Impossible Question, p 99

Only when you are free of fear

When you are free of fear there is the strong feeling of being good, of thinking very clearly, of looking at stars, of looking at clouds, of looking at faces with a smile. And when there is no fear, you can go much further. Then you can find out for yourself that for which man has searched generation after generation. In caves in the south of France and in northern Africa there are 25,000-year-old paintings of animals fighting men, of deer, of cattle. They are extraordinary paintings. They show man’s endless search, his battle with life and his search for the extraordinary thing called God. But he never finds that extraordinary thing. You can only come upon it darkly, unknowingly, when there is no fear of any kind.

J. Krishnamurti/Krishnamurti on Education, p 38

The factors of fear

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

Frightened…like the rest of the world

 If one single human being understands radically the problem of fear and resolves it, not tomorrow or some other day but instantly, he affects the whole consciousness of mankind. That is a fact. As we have said, your consciousness is not your private property; it is the result of time, of thousands of incidents, experiences, that are put together by thought. That consciousness is in constant movement. It is like a stream, a vast river of which you are a part. So there is no particularization; and if you go into it very deeply, there is no individuality. You may not like that, but look at it. Individual means an entity who is undivided, indivisible, who is not fragmented, who is not broken up but is a whole being. But most of us, unfortunately, are fragmented, broken up, divided, like the rest of the world—unhappy, concerned, confused, miserable, aching, frightened.

J. Krishnamurti/Total Freedom, p 302

Insecurity and fear

There is fear of insecurity, of not having jobs, or having jobs, being frightened to lose them, of the various forms of strikes that are going on, and so on and so on. So most of us are rather nervous, frightened of not being completely physically secure. Obviously, but why? Is it because we are always isolating ourselves as a nation, as a family, as a group? Is this slow process of isolation—the French isolating themselves, also the Germans, and so on—gradually bringing about insecurity for all of us? Can we observe this, not only outwardly? By observing what is happening outwardly, knowing exactly what is going on, from there we can begin to investigate in ourselves. Otherwise we have no criteria; otherwise we deceive ourselves. So we must begin from the outer and work towards the inner. It is like a tide that is going out and coming in. It is not a fixed tide, it is moving out and in all the time.

J. Krishnamurti/On Fear, p 61

 

Intelligence in which there is complete security

One has come to the absolute fact—not relative fact—the absolute fact that there is no psychological security in anything that man has invented; one sees that all our religions are inventions, put together by thought. When one sees that all our divisive endeavours, which come about when there are beliefs, dogmas, rituals, which are the whole substance of religion, when one sees all that very clearly, not as an idea, but as a fact, then that very fact reveals the extraordinary quality of intelligence in which there is complete, whole security.

J. Krishnamurti/The Wholeness of Life, p 166

Life may not have security, life is meant to be lived

So where is security? There may be no security at all. Just think about it, sir, see the beauty of that—having no desire for security, having no urge, no feeling of any kind in which there is security. In your homes, in your offices, in your factories, in your parliaments and so on, is there security? Life may not have security; life is meant to be lived, not to create problems and then try to solve them. It is meant to be lived and it will die. That’s one of our fears—to die. Right?

J. Krishnamurti/The Last Talks, pp 34-35