"Most of us are very conservative.You know what the word means,you
know what it is to conserve?To hold,to guard.Most of us want to remain
respectable and so we want to do the right thing.we want to follow the
right conduct,which,if you go into it very deeply,you will see is an
indication of fear.Why not make a mistake,why not find out?But the man
who is afraid is always thinking,'I must do the right thing.I must
look respectable,I must not let the public think what I am or
not.'Such a man is really,fundamentally,basically,afraid.A man who is
ambitious is really a frightened person,and a man who is frightened
has no love,has no sympathy.It is like a person enclosed behind a
wall,in a house.It is very important-while we are young-to understand
this thing,to understand fear.It is fear that makes us obey,but if we
can talk it over,reason together,discuss and think together,then I may
understand it and do it;But to compel me,to force me,to do a thing
that I do not understand because I am frightened of you,is wrong
education.Is it not?
So,I feel it is very important in a place like this that both the
educator and the educated should understand this problem.Creativity,to
be creative-you know what it means?To write a poem is partly
creative,to paint a picture,to look at a tree,to love the tree,the
river,the birds,the people,the earth,the feeling that the earth is
ours-that is partly creative.But that feeling is destroyed when you
have fear,when you say 'this is mine,my country,my class,my group,my
philosphy,my religion'.When you have that kind of feeling,you are not
creative,because it is the instinct of fear that is dictating this
feeling of 'mine','my country'.After all,the earth is not yours or
mine;it is ours.And if we can think in those terms,we will create a
different world-not an American world or a Russian world or an Indian
World,but it will be our world,yours and mine,the rich man's and the
poor man's.But the difficulty is:When there is fear,we do not create.A
person who is afraid can never find truth or God.Behind all our
worships,all our images,all our rituals,there is fear and
therefore,your gods are not gods,they are stones..."
-Krishnamurti,from "On Fear"
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