“If I draw a conclusion, I act on an idea, on an image, on a symbol, which is the structure of thought, and so I am constantly preventing myself from having insight, from understanding things as they are.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

On Mind and Thought (1993), p. 34
Posthumous publications
Context: It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight. It is only when the mind is not operating mechanically in the structure of thought that you have an insight. Having had an insight, thought draws a conclusion from that insight. And then thought acts and thought is mechanical. So I have to find out whether having an insight into myself, which means into the world, and not drawing a conclusion from it is possible. If I draw a conclusion, I act on an idea, on an image, on a symbol, which is the structure of thought, and so I am constantly preventing myself from having insight, from understanding things as they are.

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Jiddu Krishnamurti 233

Indian spiritual philosopher 1895–1986

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