The Illusion of Security
The Krishnamurti Podcast with Sam Yogi - Episode 27 - The Illusion of Security - August 21, 2025
This episode covers the third part of the first talk given by J. Krishnamurti in Ommen, Holland on July 27, 1933. Episode 28 tomorrow will conclude this 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: True understanding of life requires freedom from the pursuit of security and sensation, since the mind’s effort to safeguard itself through conformity, knowledge, or ideals only creates conflict and reinforces a limited sense of self. Even when one rejects security and power in favor of new ideals like peace, humility, or service, these too become disguised forms of security, merely a change in labels without altering the underlying desire for certainty. This longing for security leads people to even turn teachings into structures that serve their craving, resulting in confusion and distortion. The only way forward is to examine directly what one is truly seeking; if it is security, then by fully exploring it, one eventually realizes its illusory nature. Yet letting go is difficult, for the collapse of security brings with it the fear of emptiness in the mind and heart.
J. Krishnamurti: To free yourself from the pursuit of security and power, you mentally create its opposite. But in doing this you are merely creating another set of securities, only calling it by different names. This opposite is nothing more than another form of security, even though it is called love, humility, service, following truth. To this new opposite, you try to be sincere, glorifying it as peace, humility, service, as opposed to security, power. You abandon a certain set of ideas, a certain group of concepts and create new ones which become your security. And these you safeguard as carefully as the rich man guards his treasure, both by the group as well as by the individual. So you have changed, So you have changed, if this is a change at all, merely from one set of ideas to another with different names, but under the new covering there are the same desires and hopes for security. To me there is no such thing as security; and yet that is what almost everyone is constantly seeking, even though each one may disguise it by a different word. With conscious or unconscious desire for some kind of security, certainty, you come to listen to me; you take my words and build out of them the structure of your longing. Out of this contradiction, there arises confusion and the appearance of the negative quality of what I am saying. For this reason, discover what it is you are seeking. If you find that you really want security, then go into it profoundly, with your whole being, completely. Then you will understand that there is no such thing as security. When you discover that, you may turn to the opposite; you may try deliberately to become insecure, which would only be another form of security. The more you delve into your security, the looser and looser it becomes. It has no substance. It would lose its grip on you, but you are afraid to let it, because you dread the emptiness that may then come upon your mind and heart.
Daily Blog by Sam Yogi covering the podcast| https://samrockcafe.wordpress.comPost by Sam Yogi on The Illusion of Security|https://samyogi.substack.com
