J. Krishnamurti Online, December 23, 2014 – http://jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-daily-quote/20141223.php

We act: our action, as it is now, is a reaction, isn’t it? A insults B, B reacts, and that reaction is his action.

If A flatters B, then also B reacts, and his action is a reaction. B is pleased with it; he remembers that he is a good man, he is a friend, and all the rest of it; and from that there is a subsequent action, which is: A influences B, and B reacts to that influence, and from that reaction is further action.

So, that is the process we know, a positive influence, a response which may be the positive continued or the opposite negative action -reaction and action. In that way we function. And when we say, ‘I must be free from something,’ it is still within the field of it; when I say, ‘I must be free from anger, from vanity,’ the desire to be free is a reaction.

Because anger, vanity, might have brought you misery, discomfort, you say, ‘I must not be that.’ So the ‘must not’ is a reaction to ‘what was’ or ‘what is,’ and from that negative there is a series of actions as discipline, control -‘I must not,’ ‘I must.’ From an influence, from a conditioning, there is a reaction, and that reaction creates further action.

Therefore, there is a positive and a negative response, a positive push and a negative push; and from the negative push there is a response, an answer, an action. Now in that state of mind which is reacting, can you observe anything?

Collected Works, Vol. XII,82,Action