Belief and knowledge are intimately linked to desire and, perhaps, if we can understand these two factors, we can perceive the functioning of desire and understand the complexities.
One of the things - I think - that most of us is ready to accept without question is the question of beliefs. I do not intend to attack the beliefs. What we are trying to do is find out why we accept this or that belief, and if we can understand the motivations, the causes of this understanding, then perhaps we will be able not only to understand why, but also to get rid of. It is easy to see how the political beliefs, religious, nationalistic or otherwise divide people, creating conflict, confusion and antagonism - is an obvious fact, yet we are reluctant to abandon them. There is the Hindu faith, the Christian faith, Muslim, Buddhist, there are countless national and sectarian beliefs, different political ideologies, all competing against each other, each seeking to prevail over the others. Conspicuous for their beliefs that divide people and create intolerance, but it is possible to live without believing in something? You may find yourself only able to study in relation to a belief. Is it really possible to live in this world without believing in something - not to change beliefs, not substitute for a belief to another, but to be, really, entirely free from any belief in order to tap into life like always, at all times, new? After all, this is the truth: have the ability to approach everything as if for the first time, moment by moment, without the constraints of the past, so that there is cumulative that effect acting as a barrier between themselves and what it is.
If you reflect, you realize that one cause of the desire to accept a belief is fear. What would happen if we did not believe in anything? We should not fear what could happen? If we did not model any action based on a belief - in God or communism, or socialism, or in the free market or democracy, or some type of formula religious dogma that affects us, we could not help but feel completely lost, is not it? And the acceptance of a belief is ultimately just that: a way to silence the fear, the fear of not being anything to be empty? After all, however, a cup is useful only when it is empty, and a mind full of beliefs, dogmas, statements, quotations, it is not a creative mind, it is simply repetitive. Escape from that fear - fear of emptiness, the fear of loneliness, fear of stagnation, fear of not coming, not to succeed, not to get something, not to be something, not to get something - it is certainly one of the reasons why we adhere to different beliefs so enthusiastically, eagerly. And through the acceptance of a belief, perhaps better understand ourselves? On the contrary. A belief, religious or political, of course, hinders the understanding of ourselves. It acts as a screen through which we look.
But you can look without this screen? If you remove those beliefs, many beliefs that each of us has, is something to watch? If there's any belief with which the mind is identified, then the mind, without identification, is able to look to itself as it is: and then, of course, there is a first glimmer of self-understanding
Jiddu Krishnamurti
