06/01/2026
We are brought up on ideals – the greater, the nobler, the better. The ideal has become more important than ‘what is’. ‘What is’ and the ideal are opposed and must breed conflict. Look what you are doing: the ideal is the creation of thought in order to overcome ‘what is’, or to use the future as a lever to change ‘what is’. You are using non-fact to deal with fact. Therefore there is no result; that way there can never be change. It is so simple once you see it. Discard the ideal because it is valueless and observe only the fact. The discarding of the ideal has changed the pattern of the brain cells; the brain has lived in that pattern and now the pattern is broken. One has lived in the hope that one will gradually change; then one sees that gradualness is really the same thing repeated, modified, repeated, modified, repeated – therefore there is no basic change. When you see that, the whole structure of the brain has changed: that is insight.
J. Krishnamurti
Saanen, 4th Question & Answer Meeting - 26th July 1980
