If the brain does not function at its highest capacity, it is not capable of being free. Because a dull, shallow, limited, narrow, petty mind merely reacts to its environment, and through that reaction it becomes a slave to that environment. And from this arises the whole problem of extricating oneself from the environment, and not being a slave to every form of influence, direction, urge. So what is important is the quality of feeling to be utterly free.

There are two kinds of freedom: one is the freedom from something, which is a reaction; and the other is not a reaction, it is 'being free'. The freedom from something is a response, depending on our choice, on our character, on our temperament, on various forms of conditioning. Like a boy who is in revolt against society - he wants to be free. Or like a husband who wants to be free from his wife, or a wife from the husband; or free from anger, jealousy, envy, despair. Those are all reactions, responses to given circumstances, which prevent you from functioning freely, easily.

We want personal liberty. And that liberty is denied in a society where the mores, the customs, the habits, the traditions are tremendously important; then there is a revolt. Or there is a revolt against tyranny. So there are various forms of revolt, responses to immediate demands. Really that is not freedom at all, because every reaction breeds further reactions, which create further environment through which the mind becomes a slave again, so there is a constant repetition of revolt, being caught by circumstances, revolt against those circumstances and so on, endlessly.

We are talking of a freedom which is not a reaction. The mind that is free, is not a slave to anything, to any circumstances, to any particular routine; though it is specialized to do a certain functional job, it is not a slave to that, it is not held in that groove; though it lives in society, it is not of society. And a mind that is emptying itself of all the accumulations, of every day reactions, all the time - it is only such a mind that is free.

J. Krishnamurti

Public Talk 3 Bombay (Mumbai), India - 16 February 1964