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THIS MATTER OF CULTURE CHAPTER 26 part2 To break out of the prison of belief requires a mature mind, a thoughtful min

d, a mind that perceives the nature of the prison itself and does not compare on e prison with another. To understand something you cannot compare it with someth ing else. Understanding does not come through comparison, it comes only when you examine the thing itself. If you examine the nature of organized religion you w ill see that all religions are essentially alike, whether Hinduism, Buddhism, Mo hammedanism, Christianity - or communism, which is another form of religion, the very latest. The moment you understand the prison, which is to perceive all the implications of belief, of rituals and priests, you will never again belong to any religion; &cause only the man who is free of belief can discover that which lies beyond all belief, that which is immeasurable. Questioner: What is the real way to build up character? Krishnamurti: To have character means, surely, to be able to withstand the false and hold on to the true; but to build character is difficult, because for most of us what is said by the book, by the teacher, by the parent, by the gover nment is more important than to find out what we ourselves think. To think for o neself, to find out what is true and stand by it, without being influenced, what ever life may bring of misery or happiness - that is what builds character. Say, for instance, you do not believe in war, not because of what some refo rmer or religious teacher has said, but because you have thought it out for your self. You have investigated, gone into the question, meditated upon it, and for you all killing is wrong, whether it is killing to eat, killing out of hatred, o r killing for the so-called love of one's country. Now, if you feel this very st rongly and stick to it in spite of everything, regardless of whether you go to p rison or are shot for it, as you may be in certain countries, then you will have character. Then character has quite a different meaning, it is not the characte r which society cultivates. But, you see, we are not encouraged in this direction; and neither the educ ator nor the student has the vitality, the energy to think out and see what is t rue, and hold to it, letting the false go. But if you can do this then you won't follow any political or religious leader, because you will be a light unto your self; and the discovery and cultivation of that light, not only while you are yo ung but throughout life, is education. Questioner: How does age stand in the way of realizing God? Krishnamurti: What is age? Is it the number of years you have lived? That i s part of age; you were born in such and such a year, and now you are fifteen, f orty or sixty years old. Your body grows old - and so does your mind when it is burdened with all the experiences, miseries and weariness of life; and such a mi nd can never discover what is truth. The mind can discover only when it is young , fresh, innocent; but innocence is not a matter of age. It is not only the chil d that is innocent - he may not be - but the mind that is capable of experiencin g without accumulating the residue of experience. The mind must experience, that is inevitable. It must respond to everything - to the river, to the diseased an imal, to the dead body being carried away to be burnt, to the poor villagers car rying their burdens along the road, to the tortures and miseries of life - other wise it is already dead; but it must be capable of responding without being held by the experience. It is tradition, the accumulation of experience, the ashes o f memory, that make the mind old. The mind that dies every day to the memories o f yesterday, to all the joys and sorrows of the past - such a mind is fresh, inn ocent, it has no age; and without that innocence, whether you are ten or sixty, you will not find God.

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