In this series of eight talks, given in Ojai, California, in 1955, Krishnamurti confronts the confusion, habits, and assumptions of the human mind, and says that these lie at the root of all violence and suffering in the world. While these reflections were offered over fifty years ago, their meaning is fresh and relevant even today. Krishnamurti discusses a world in which booming productivity and scientific advancement promise a happy future, but don't provide it. He points to the ongoing escalation of war, competition, envy and territoriality despite gains in education, religious revivals, and the technologies of self-improvement. Ultimately and throughout, he asks his listeners to consider that all apparent progress of the self is not progress towards freedom, but a treadmill of illusion. Knowing one's mind through diligent self-observation is the only way to freedom, he avers.