From Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
“For most of us, life is based on effort, on various expressions of will. We cannot imagine action without the exercise of will, without effort. Our life is grounded in them. Our social, economic, and so-called spiritual life consists of a series of efforts that always aim at some result. And we assume that effort is essential, necessary.
Does not the very word ‘effort’ imply a struggle to change what is into what is not — into what should be or is supposed to become? In other words, we are constantly struggling to escape from what is, or trying to transform it, to modify it. The truly contented person is the one who understands what is and gives it the significance it deserves. This is true contentment. Such a person is not concerned with possessing much or little, but with fully understanding the meaning of what is.
And this becomes possible only when you accept what is, when you become aware of it, and not when you try to alter or change it.
Why is there this urge to become, to assert oneself? Obviously, the desire to become something arises from the feeling of being nothing. Because I feel I am nothing, empty, inwardly poor, I struggle to become something. Outwardly or inwardly, I struggle to assert myself as a person through a position or an idea. The whole process of our existence is an attempt to fill this inner emptiness. Being conscious of this inner poverty, we try either to accumulate outer things or to cultivate inner riches.
We make effort in order to escape from inner loneliness and emptiness — through activity, through thought, through acquisition, through achievement, power, and so on. This is our everyday life. Effort exists only when we are trying to escape from inner solitude and emptiness. But when we look at it, when we accept what is without escaping, we discover a state in which there is no struggle. That state is one of creative energy, and it has nothing to do with conflict.
When one understands what is — the emptiness, the inner poverty — when one accepts it and understands it fully, then creative essence and creative capacity come into being; and these alone bring happiness.
Therefore, action as we know it is reaction; it is a constant attempt to become something else, a denial and an escape from what is. But when we become aware of the loneliness for which there is no substitute, without condemning it or justifying it, then, with the understanding of what is, true action comes into being — and that action is creative.
You will understand this if you observe yourself in action — not only outwardly, but inwardly as well: the movements of your thoughts and feelings. When you are aware of these movements, you will see that the process of thought — which is also feeling and action — is shaped by the aim to achieve something. That aim arises when there is insecurity, and the sense of insecurity comes from the awareness of inner emptiness. If you are aware of this whole process of thought and feeling, you will see that it is constantly involved in struggle — in efforts to change or modify what is. All such efforts are an escape from what is.
Through self-knowledge and self-awareness you will discover that struggle and conflict, born of the desire to achieve, lead to pain, unhappiness, and ignorance. Only when you are aware of your inner emptiness and live with it without escaping from it — when you accept it completely — will you come upon a remarkable state of stillness: a stillness whose roots lie in the understanding of what is. Only in this state of stillness can there be creativity.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
