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How do you break free?

“We must respect the potential dangers of the unknown, but we must also persevere and break the chains of common consciousness, allowing us the opportunity to explore unfamiliar territory. Any visionary, whether in science, art, or business, knows this to be true. Bruce Lee, the famous martial artist and movie star, understood this point. His philosophical approach to fighting resonated deeply with the teachings of J. Krishnamurti, the former ‘world teacher’ of the theosophy movement, and he ‘found in the teachings of Krishnamurti the foundation of Jeet Kune Do’.* Both Lee and Krishnamurti recognized that we cannot remain chained in set patterns, be they the kata (forms) of the martial artist or the ideologies and habits of thought of the scholar (or of anybody else).

We must dedicate a tremendous amount of time and energy to repetitive training in order to perform any task well, while being prepared to drop the patterns that we have learned so that we may attain genuine creativity and spontaneity. Lee writes that ‘the secondhand artist blindly following his sensei or sifu accepts his pattern. As a result, his action and, more importantly, his thinking become mechanical. His responses become automatic, according to set patterns, making him narrow and limited…You can see clearly only when style does not interfere’.* We need to learn patterns in order to develop our capacity for spontaneous creative expression, but there is no method for being creative. However, there are methods that can help us break through the internal blocks that stop our natural creativity from flowing more freely.”

The Eternal Law, p. 13

* Blau, E. (1995). Krishnamurti: 100 Years.