Freedom implies dropping the bondage of the past, abandoning authority, exploring relationships in the present. The following quotations from Krishnamurti may be found relevant.

‘.....If I were foolish enough to give you a system and if you were foolish enough to follow it, you would merely be copying, imitation, conforming, accepting, and when you do that you have set up in yourself the authority of another and hence there is conflict between you and that authority. You feel you must do such and such a thing because you have been told to do it and yet you are incapable of doing it. You have your own particular inclinations, tendencies and pressures which conflict with the system you think you ought to follow and therefore there is a contradiction. So you will lead a double life between the ideology of the system and the actuality of your daily existence. In trying to conform to the ideology, you suppress yourself--whereas what is actually true is not the ideology but what you are. If you try to study yourself according to another you will always remain a second-hand human being.

‘A man who says, "I want to change, tell me how to", seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? You may see the truth of this intellectually but can you actually apply it so that your mind no longer projects any authority, the authority of a book, a teacher, a wife or husband, a parent, a friend or of society? Because we have always functioned within the pattern of a formula, the formula becomes the ideology and the authority; but the moment you really see that the question, "How can I change?" sets up a new authority, you have finished with authority for ever.

‘Let us state it again clearly: I see that I must change completely from the roots of my being; I can no longer depend on any tradition because tradition has brought about this colossal laziness, acceptance and obedience; I cannot possibly look to another to help me to change, not to any teacher, any God, any belief, any system, any outside pressure or influence. What then takes place?

Freedom implies dropping the bondage of the past, abandoning authority, exploring relationships in the present. The following quotations from Krishnamurti may be found relevant.

‘.....If I were foolish enough to give you a system and if you were foolish enough to follow it, you would merely be copying, imitation, conforming, accepting, and when you do that you have set up in yourself the authority of another and hence there is conflict between you and that authority. You feel you must do such and such a thing because you have been told to do it and yet you are incapable of doing it. You have your own particular inclinations, tendencies and pressures which conflict with the system you think you ought to follow and therefore there is a contradiction. So you will lead a double life between the ideology of the system and the actuality of your daily existence. In trying to conform to the ideology, you suppress yourself--whereas what is actually true is not the ideology but what you are. If you try to study yourself according to another you will always remain a second-hand human being.

‘A man who says, "I want to change, tell me how to", seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? You may see the truth of this intellectually but can you actually apply it so that your mind no longer projects any authority, the authority of a book, a teacher, a wife or husband, a parent, a friend or of society? Because we have always functioned within the pattern of a formula, the formula becomes the ideology and the authority; but the moment you really see that the question, "How can I change?" sets up a new authority, you have finished with authority for ever.

‘Let us state it again clearly: I see that I must change completely from the roots of my being; I can no longer depend on any tradition because

‘First of all, can you reject all authority? If you can it means that you are no longer afraid. Then what happens? When you reject something false which you have been carrying about with you for generations, when you throw off a burden of any kind, what takes place? You have more energy, haven’t you? You have more capacity, more drive, greater intensity and vitality. If you do not feel this, then you have not thrown off the burden, you have not discarded the dead weight of authority.

‘But when you have thrown it off and have this energy in which there is no fear at all--no fear of making a mistake, no fear of doing right or wrong--then is not that energy itself the mutation? We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution. You do not have to do a thing about it.

‘So you are left with yourself, and that is the actual state for a man to be who is very serious about all this; and as you are no longer looking to anybody or anything for help, you are already free to discover. And when there is freedom, there is energy; and when there is freedom it can never do anything wrong. Freedom is entirely different from revolt. There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom. You are free and from that centre you act. And hence there is no fear, and a mind that has no fear is capable of great love. And when there is love it can do what it will.’