Questioner: One of our great teachers has said, 'Seek and ye shall find.' Is it not advantageous to seek?

Krishnamurti: By this question we betray ourselves and how little we are aware of the ways of our thought. We are forever thinking of what is advantageous for us and that we desire. Do you think a mind that is seeking profit can find truth? If it is seeking truth as an advantage, then it is no longer seeking truth. Truth is beyond and above all personal advantage and gain. A mind that is seeking gain, achievement, can never find truth. The search for gain is for security, for refuge; and truth is not a security, a refuge. Truth is the liberator, sweeping away all refuge and security.

Besides, why do you seek? Is it not because you are in confusion and pain? Instead of seeking an escape through activity, through psychologists, through priests, through rituals, must you not search out the cause of conflict and sorrow in yourself? The cause is the self, craving. The deliverance from confusion and pain is in yourself, and not another can free you.