BE REAL, NOT IDEAL
The Krishnamurti Podcast with Sam Yogi - Episode 28 - Be Real, Not Ideal - August 22, 2025
This episode covers the fourth and final part of the first talk given by J. Krishnamurti in Ommen, Holland on July 27, 1933. Episode 29 tomorrow will cover the second talk. This is the first of 12 talks delivered in Ommen by Krishnamurti (K). The last of these talks and the camp fire address concluding the talks were delivered on August 13, 1933.
Summary of K's Talk (as delivered at the beginning of the podcast): The write-up explains that sincerity can be misleading, because it often means being loyal to an idea that might be false, creating contradictions and even hypocrisy. Frankness, on the other hand, is about openly seeing things as they are, which leads to real understanding and depth. In discovering your true desires, you shouldn’t try to control your thoughts and emotions, but allow them to reveal the hidden obstacles and illusions within. By being frank, you can uncover and free yourself from these limitations. Sincerity, tied to ideals, keeps you trapped in illusion—while frankness brings genuine freedom and lasting joy.
J. Krishnamurti (Ommen, Holland, July 27, 2025): To truly find out for yourself what it is that you are seeking, there must be frankness and not sincerity. You can be sincere to an idea but that idea may be an illusion, utterly false. The foolish are sincere to an idea or to something. After all, there is no great difference between the foolish who are sincere to a single idea and those who try to be sincere to many ideas. Sincerity implies duality. It implies the actor, and the thing or person or idea to which he is trying to be sincere. Out of this duality there arises a hypocritical contradiction. Frankness admits no duality, and hence there is not always that striving to be something which again breeds hypocrisy. Sincerity often conceals shallowness, but frankness, that open recognition of what is, uncovers great richness. Now, in your attempt to find out what your true desires are, do not try to control your thought and emotion. Rather, let the mind be so eagerly conscious that all the impediments, the bonds which weigh down your thought, will reveal themselves. In discovering these hindrances, you will understand the pursuit of your hidden desires. The man who is held in bondage can be free only when his bonds are destroyed. So the realization of that which is can come about only when the mind is utterly free from the hindrances that it has and is creating for itself. By being frank you can find out your own limitations, your own complicated illusions. But if you are merely sincere you can never find them out, because you are constantly trying to be true to an ideal which prevents the understanding of the actual. It is only when the mind has disentangled from illusion that there is the ecstasy of enduring life.
Intermittent Summaries of the above talk by Krishnamurti, as provided during the podcast:
1. K says sincerity can be misleading because you might be sincere about something that isn’t true. It creates a divide between you and the idea, which can lead to contradictions or even hypocrisy. Frankness, however, is just being open and honest about things as they are, and that brings real clarity and depth.
2. To discover your true desires, don’t force or control your thoughts and emotions—let them flow so your hidden obstacles and illusions reveal themselves. Only by being frank can you uncover these limitations and free your mind. If you cling to ideals out of sincerity, you stay trapped in illusion. Real freedom and lasting joy come when the mind sees things as they are, without self-created hindrances.
Daily Blog by Sam Yogi covering the podcast| https://samrockcafe.wordpress.com
Post by Sam Yogi on The Illusion of Security| https://samyogi.substack.com
