What is Death?

"To find out actually what takes place when you die you must die. This isn't a joke. You must die - not physically but psychologically, inwardly, die to the things you have cherished and to the things you are bitter about. If you have died to one of your pleasures, the smallest or the greatest, naturally, without any enforcement or argument, then you will know what it means to die. To die is to have a mind that is completely empty of itself, empty of its daily longings, pleasures and agonies. Death is a renewal, a mutation, in which thought does not function at all because thought is old. When there is death there is something totally new. Freedom from the known is death, and then you are living."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Reference: Krishnamurti, J. 1969. Freedom from the Known (pp. 77-78). New York: Harper & Row.

Next philosophical quote

Previous philosophical quote

All philosophical quotes

OR Full Menu (all articles and ebooks)