What is Sacred?

All that we have invented – the rituals, the symbols in a church, temple or mosque – are all put there by thought. Thought has invented these things. That is so; you can’t deny that. Is thought sacred or is thought a material process? There is an accident. I learn from that accident. It is recorded in the brain as memory. Memory is the result of experience – knowledge stored up in the brain cells – and from that, thought arises. As knowledge is never complete, so thought is never complete. That is logical, rational. And thought has invented all the things called sacred – the saviour, the temples and the contents of the temples. Thought in itself is not sacred, so when thought invents God, God is not sacred. The question arises then: what is sacred? That can only be understood or lived or happen when there is complete freedom from fear and sorrow, when there is this sense of love and compassion with its own intelligence. Then, when the mind is utterly still, that which is sacred can take place.

J. Krishnamurti From an Interview by Michael Mendizza, Ojai, 20 April 1982