Beginningless Ignorance

To be able to experience reality, you must be free of all the masks which you have developed in the struggle for acquisition, born of craving. These masks do not conceal reality. We are apt to think that, by getting rid of these masks, we will find reality or that, by uncovering the many layers of want, we will discover that which is hidden; thus, we are assuming that, behind this ignorance, or in the depths of consciousness, or beyond this friction of will, of craving, lies reality. This consciousness of many masks, of many layers, does not conceal within itself reality. But, as we begin to comprehend the process of development of these masks, these layers of consciousness, and as consciousness frees itself from its volitional growth, there is reality. Our conception that man is divine but limited, that beauty is concealed by ugliness, wisdom buried under ignorance, supreme intelligence hiding in darkness, is utterly erroneous. In discerning how, through this beginningless ignorance and its activities, there has arisen the 'I' - process, and in bringing that process to an end, there is enlightenment. It is an experience of that which is immeasurable, which cannot be described but is.

(JKrishnamurti, Collected Works, Vol. III,44)