The First and Last Freedom

Despite being excessively repetitive, this is a great book that challenges your worldview. I’m generally drawn to philosophy, I think, because I want to understand people and their behavior and so in the past few years, I’ve tried reading much about behavioral economics and philosophy. But this book turned out to be slightly different from what I had expected, It exclusively emphasizes self-knowledge, and self-understanding to make sense of everything else that goes around us. And at the same time, it challenges traditional philosophical approaches.

“What you are, the world is” is the overarching idea behind pursuing self-knowledge as prescribed by Krishnamurti’s philosophy. Don’t try to pursue an ideal, don’t buy into the seemingly harmless urge to become humble or virtuous. You must know yourself as you are, not as you wish to be. To put this to practice, I tried writing down my interpretation of who I am, not who I want to be. How I react to situations, not how I would’ve wanted to. Accepting and understanding your shortcomings simply, not with the intention to fix them, but to understand them makes an immense difference. Because if you’re not aware, then there’s no next step.

I did disagree with the author on the concept of self-improvement though. The whole idea of the book is to not pursue an ideal, that improvement will eventually happen implicitly. But to me, having explicit goals is not as bad as is it made out to be. Having a goal in mind, a bigger picture of where you want to be seems to help, It has helped for me at least. So while I realize the importance of self-understanding, it’s not to say that pursuing an ideal would hamper your self-discovery. And this disagreement is perfectly fine, because there’s never a right answer, no rubric that guarantees a particular outcome, always explore and stick to what works for you.

On fear, it’s argued that when we colloquially refer to fear, it’s not the fear of the unknown but of losing the known. For instance, the fear of death is not because of what death will bring but rather losing what we have i.e. friends, family, our character, our possessions, etc. This was surprisingly relatable, Sometimes, I have this nagging feeling of some unforeseen circumstance taking place that I haven’t prepared for. So while in reality, I worry about that unforeseen circumstance, it’s the fear of losing the lifestyle I have built around myself, what I know, and what I have. Another interesting observation centered around the lack of cooperation in us sentient beings. He argues that humans cannot cooperate but can only be urged, compelled, and driven by authority or fear to do something. At first glance, that seems directly at odds with what Yuval Noah Harari claims in Sapiens, primarily that humans are the only living beings that can cooperate in large numbers and takes driving as a great example. But is it really at odds? Are we good at cooperating when we drive, for example? Or is it just the innate fear of not following the rules that are set out? Hard to argue.

“What comes when nationalism goes? Obviously, intelligence.” – J. Krishnamurti

How and why do people seek identity? Primarily to feel secure and have gratification in a world of chaos. Take nationalism or religion for example. You are an individual in a city somewhere but you feel empowered and safe if you identify yourself with something bigger than you, a citizen of a country or a follower or a believer. That allows you to find people of the same tribe and an often false sense of protection if at all your tribe is under attack–not necessarily physically–from another. It’s a way of self-expansion. But these various forms of identities isolate us, they don’t bring us together, from a macroscopic standpoint. And that’s not surprising unfortunately, human life these days is not as important as it used to be. Our systems, ideas, and beliefs have taken over our moral obligations. People are willing to kill for their beliefs without stopping to think, countries are willing to kill in the name of their national agenda, etc. And so it’s natural for people to seek shelter in one of these beliefs. What’s the way out? self-understanding that leads to better relationships, a better society, and eventually a better world. But that’s the dream.

This book, as I stated earlier in the review, is quite different from your usual philosophical reads. It’s probably the only philosophy book, after reading it, I picked up a pen and took action.