You know, one of the strange things of life is what we call religion. You may have wealth, success; your may be very famous, well-known, or you may have failures, sorrows, a great many frustrations, but at the end of it all, death awaits all of us.
I think it is very important to find out for ourselves what the function of education is. There have been so many statements, so many books, so many philosophies and systems that have been invented or thought of by so many people, as to what the purpose of education is, what we live for.
Question: A gentleman asks how far do you agree with Shankara who says, ‘Eliminate the mind completely’?
Krishnamurti: Not having read Shankara, I cannot answer. But I think it is very important to find out for ourselves and not repeat Shankara or Buddha. The difficulty with most of us is that we have read, we know what other people have said, but we do not know at all what we ourselves think.
It seems to me that without understanding the way our minds work, one cannot understand and resolve the very complex problems of living. This understanding cannot come through book knowledge.