Can humanity free itself from conditioning?

"So what is one to do? You understand? The house is on fire, not only your little house but the house of your neighbour whether he is ten thousand miles away or just beyond the hedge. The world is on fire, and you must do something, not say, 'Well, the Gita says this or the Upanishad says that, or Sankara says this'. That has no meaning anymore - and I doubt if they had any meaning in the past either. So we are confronted, faced with a problem of a man who is completely lost, uncertain. He says, 'Where am I to turn to?' Churches have failed, gurus have failed, education has no meaning, politics are just a filthy affair, so he says, 'What am I to do? Where am I to look?' Are you following all this? Are you following all this?

So, you see, before man has relied on his environment to shape him. The society has shaped him, culture has moulded him, economic pressures, climate, what he eats has conditioned him. You are conditioned as Hindus, believing in something, and you believe in it because you have just been brought up, that is propaganda; been told by your father, by your neighbour, by your aunt, by your society, believe - and from childhood you are brought up that way and you believe. In the Catholic world same thing is happening: propaganda, the repetition has conditioned human beings. You understand? Why do you call yourself a Hindu and somebody else a Muslim or Buddhist? Because they have been told. You are a Hindu, behave like a Hindu - God knows what it means but behave like that, think like that. So you are conditioned and when you are conditioned you are separate from other conditioned entities. You understand? If I call myself a Hindu - which I don't - if I call myself a Hindu, an Indian, patriotic, waving the flag and all that Tommy rot, and you a Muslim, where is our relationship between you and me? We fight each other, we kill each other because I believe in one thing and you believe in another. So any form of conditioning must divide people. You get it? Is this somewhat clear?"

– J. Krishnamurti
Students Talk 1
Rajghat, India - 23 November 1969
 

Dialogue 9
Brockwood Park, England
June 1, 1980

Is the human brain deteriorating?

The human brain is not a particular brain, it doesn’t belong to me or to anyone else, it is the human brain which has evolved for millions of years.

Can the brain not only be aware of its own movement but can the brain itself have enough energy to break all patterns and move out of it?

Is psychological knowledge not in itself a factor of the shrinking of the brain?

The ending of suffering comes about when the self, which is built up through time, is no longer there.

If there is an insight into the nature of time the very brain cells which are part of time break down. The brain cells mutate, bring about a change in themselves.

Meditation is insight.
 

Brockwood Park, England
Public Talk 3
1980

Why is there this inward disorder which naturally must express itself in outward disorder?

Can there be absolute order? 

What is the cause of the division in us as well as in the world? 

Detachment is attachment. If I try to become detached I am attached to that detachment. 

When there is complete attention there is no confusion. 

When there is fear we become violent, we want to destroy in the name of god, in the name of religion, in the name of social revolution.

If you realise that fear is you there is no movement to be made. 

Pleasure, love, suffering, fear are all entangled, all interrelated.

You must have a mind that is capable of receiving the whole universe, and that is possible only when the mind is clear of confusion and fear.