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Jiddu Krishnamurti on Security

Question: Can there be absolute security for man in this life?
Jiddu Krishnamurti - This is a very serious question; we all want security, both physical and principally, psychological. If we were psychologically secure, certain, then we might not be so concerned with physical security. The search for psychological security is preventing physical security.

The questioner asks: Is there absolute security for us human beings? We must have security - like a child clinging to its mother; if the mother and the father do not pay enough attention to the baby, do not give it affection and care, then the brain and nerves of the baby are affected.

The child must have physical security. Now, why do we demand psychological security? There is the psyche, demanding security; but is there psychological security at all? We want security in our relationships - my wife, my children, the family unit. In that attachment we think there is a certain security, but when we find that there is no security there we soon break away and try to find it elsewhere.

We try to find security in a group, in the tribe - that glorified tribe that is the nation. And yet that nation is against another nation. Thinking that security, psychologically, is in a person, in a country, in a belief, in your own experience, is the same as demanding physical security.

In demanding psychological security we have divided ourselves: the Hindu, the Muslim, the Jew, the Arab, the believer in Jesus, the believer in something else - in all of them there is the demand for security.

Psychological security has been sought in these illusions; the various illusions of being secure in Catholicism, in Buddhism, in Hinduism, in Judaism, Islam and so on which have created nothing but illusory securities because they are all fighting each other. The moment you see this you do not belong to anything. When you see the truth that the mind, or thought, has sought security in illusions, that very perception brings intelligence.

One seeks security in one's belief in Hinduism and in being a Hindu, with all the nonsensical superstitions and gods and rituals that are involved. But that opposes another group of people who have different superstitions, different gods, different rituals. These two opposing elements may tolerate each other but they are essentially antagonistic.

There is conflict between the two and one has sought security in the one or the other. And then one realizes that they are both based on illusions. To see that, is intelligence; it is like seeing a danger. A man who is blind to danger is an idiot, there is something wrong with him. But one does not see the danger of these illusions in which one seeks security. The man in whom intelligence is in operation sees the danger.

In that intelligence there is absolute security. Thought has created all the various forms of illusion - nationalities, class, different gods, different beliefs, different dogmas, different rituals and the extraordinary religious superstitions that pervade the world - and in them it has sought security. And one does not see the danger of this security, of this illusion. When one sees the danger - not as an idea but as an actual fact - that seeing is intelligence, the supreme form of absolute security. So there is absolute security: it is to see the truth in the false.