Examining limits

Pearl of wisdom

'Now each of us has many limitations, limitations of which we are wholly unconscious. The very question, 'Is there perfection?' implies the consciousness of limitation. But you cannot discover these limitations by analysing the past.

The attempt to analyse oneself is destructive, but that is what you are trying to do. You say, 'I know that I have many limitations; so I shall examine.

I shall search and discover what my barriers and limitations are, and then I shall be free'. When you do that you are but creating a new set of barriers, hindrances.

To really discover the false standards and barriers of the past you must act with full awareness in the present, and in that activity you become aware of all the undiscovered hindrances. Experiment, and you will see.

Begin to move with full awareness, with fully awakened consciousness in action, and you will see that you have innumerable barriers, beliefs and limitations that prevent your acting freely.

Therefore I say, self analysis, analysis to discover the cause in the past, is false. You can never find out from that which is dead, but only from that which is living; and what is living is ever in the present and not in the past. What you must do is to meet the present with full awareness."

First Public Talk by J. Krishnamurti at Frognerseteren, Norway, on September 6, 1933.