04/02/2026
We have created a society that demands all our time, all our energies, all our life. There is no leisure to learn, and so life becomes mechanical, almost meaningless. —Krishnamurti
Context: Leisure implies that a mind is not occupied. It is only then that there is a state of learning. A school is a place of learning, not merely a place for accumulating knowledge. This is really important to understand. Knowledge is necessary and has its own limited place in life. Unfortunately, this limitation has devoured all our lives, and we have no space for learning. We are so occupied with earning a livelihood that it takes all the energy of the mechanism of thought, so that we are exhausted at the end of the day and need to be stimulated. We recover from this exhaustion through entertainment, religious or otherwise. This is the life of human beings. Human beings have created a society which demands all their time, all their energies, all their life. There is no leisure to learn, and so life becomes mechanical, almost meaningless. So we must be very clear in the understanding of the word ‘leisure’: it is a time, a period when the mind is not occupied with anything whatsoever. It is the time of observation. It is only the unoccupied mind that can observe. Free observation is the movement of learning. This frees the mind from being mechanical.
