The 128 most classic philosophical essays in the world

Chapter 118 Freedom and Love
[India] Krishnamurti

Freedom can only be attained by those who know and are free from inner dependence, and who therefore know what love is.

Know what it means to love someone?Love a tree, or a bird, or a lovely animal, and though they may give you nothing in return, though they may not give you a shade, or follow you, or depend on you, you still love them, So that you watch it, feed it, nurture it.Do you know what that means?

Most of us don't love in this way, and we don't even know what it means to love.Because our love is always bound by anxiety, suspicion, fear - which means that at heart we are dependent and we want to be loved.We are precisely not loving, we are forsaking love, apart from asking for something in return, and it is in this asking that we become dependent.

So freedom goes with love, love is not a reaction, if I love you because you love me, it's just business, something that's bought and sold in the bazaar, it's not love.Love must ask for nothing in return, without even feeling that you are giving something - and only such love can know freedom.

You and I must know the question of freedom.We have to make ourselves clear what it means to love, because if we don't love, we can never be thoughtful, we can never be polite, we can never be considerate of others.Do you know what it means to be considerate of others?
When you see a sharp stone on a path trodden by many bare feet, you take it away, not because someone asked you to do it, but because you feel you should do it for someone else - it doesn't matter who he is , you may never see him.To plant a tree and love it, to observe the beauty of a bird, to be sensitive and open to this extraordinary movement called life—for all this there must be freedom, and to be free you must love.Without love there is no freedom whatsoever, and without love freedom is just a worthless idea.Therefore, only those who know and get rid of inner dependence, and thus know what love is, can have freedom.And, only they will create a new civilization, a different world.

Heart mark notes
To love someone is not to break the person's flying wings, but to let him fly better.

To love someone is not to stop all his trips, but to prepare maps and sufficient equipment for his travels.

To love someone is to give him enough freedom, what love is there without freedom.On the contrary, with freedom, love becomes deeper.

Only know how to love, but don't know how to give love freedom, this kind of love is not real love, but a kind of bondage, a kind of burden.This kind of love is not love, it is precisely the abandonment and forgetting of love.

To give freedom to the one you love is to give freedom and happiness to yourself.

(End of this chapter)