J. Krishnamurti

In this Teachers Corner, we share from the teachings of J. Krishnamurti. This excerpt is from: Freedom From the Known, Chapter 5, which includes his inquiry into the ending of fear. Krishnamurti did not often sit down to write books. He traveled most of his adult life and spoke. His books are primarily collections of his speaking to people all over the world, and they are a process of inquiry. If you stay with him and follow along, it can lead you into a process of seeing; seeing how the mind works, the nature of mind, and thus, it allows you to see yourself. It can be an enlightening process.

"The first thing to ask ourselves then is what is fear and how does it arise? What do we mean by the word fear itself? I am asking myself what is fear not what am I afraid of.

I lead a certain kind of life: I think in a certain pattern; I have certain beliefs and dogmas and I don't want those patterns of existence to be disturbed because I have my roots in them. I don't want them to be disturbed because the disturbance produces a state of unknowing and I dislike that. If I am torn away from everything I know and believe, I want to be reasonably certain of the state of things to which I am going. So the brain cells have created a pattern and those brain cells refuse to create another pattern which may be uncertain. The movement from certainty to uncertainty is what I call fear."