“So we are enquiring what is the root of fear, not a particular fear but the root of all fear. The root of fear is time: what I will be, what I have been, what I might not be. Time is the past, the present, and the future. The past modifying itself in the present and continuing in the future.

“Psychologically we have created walls around ourselves, walls of resistance, walls of hope, fear, greed, envy, ambition, desire for position, power, prestige. They are created by the thinker. The thinker has created the space around himself in which he lives, and there he is never free. Beauty is not only the thing that you see; that’s a very small part.

Krishnamurti said that what he was talking about was very simple, and, being simple, the audience would miss it.

I regard this element in the ego series as the core of the discussion. This part is where the ego is delineated and its dynamics are explored.

Krishnamurti stated that we are nothing, that the self is not real, in the sense of it not being a thing. What does brain science have to say about this very radical position?

The ego/self-system is a large, complicated and dynamic system, and examining it requires a series of articles in order to gain a wider understanding of its elements and dynamics.