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Though I talk and you listen, let us experience and discover together what is meditation. I am not going to teach you how to meditate, but together let us find out what is meditation. So, listen and experience as we go along, for words have meaning only when we move, when we journey together. |
What is -meditation? Meditation is the understanding of the meditator; the meditator is the meditation. Meditation is not exclusion, concentration. What do you mean by concentration? I am going to explain. We are taking a journey together. You are discovering and I am discovering, and the important thing is to discover... |
Now, meditation is not exclusion. We are discovering what meditation is interrogatively; to say what it is, is merely to copy. Only when you say what it is not, you say what it is. So, concentration is not meditation. When a schoolboy is interested in a toy, he has concentration. Surely, that is not meditation. The toy... |
So, we see that concentration is not meditation, that pursuit of virtue is not meditation. Devotion obviously is not meditation, for the object of your devotion is self-projected. Your ideal is the outcome of your own thinking. Obviously, sir, your ideal is self-projected, is it not? You are this, and you want to becom... |
As this is the last talk here I think we ought to consider the question of religion, its relationship to daily life and whether there is something, or not, an unnameable, a timeless state of mind. One can call it enlightenment, a realisation of the absolute truth and so on. And we will this morning, if we may, go into ... |
But the intellect is only part of life, it has its normal place, but apparently human beings right throughout the world have given such extraordinary importance to the intellect - the intellect being the capacity to reason, to logically pursue, establish an activity based on reason and logic. But I am afraid human bein... |
So religion has become something to be avoided, something of superstition, destructive of logic and sanity. But man, if you have observed, and we must have observed, wants to find something that is both rational, and has depth, a full meaning, not invented by the intellect. And he has always from the ancient of days so... |
And in enquiring, if you are at all serious, what is a religious mind, what is its place in the modern world, has it any relationship to daily life, which is so ugly, so empty, so brutal. If you are - and I hope some of you are - really, deeply serious in your enquiry, not through books, not through argument, not throu... |
So a mind that is really serious, with all the intensity of a mind that is eager to find out, must obviously put away all belief, all belief in God, put aside all the myths, the legends, the saviours, the gurus, so that the mind is not dependent, so that it can seek, or find out, be capable to observe without any delus... |
So, what makes for illusion? Why do human beings accept so eagerly every kind of false, stupid - I don't know what word to use - make-belief? You have in this country, I do not know, how many gurus, both the native kind and the foreign kind. (Laughter) They go off to India, shave their head, put on a robe and become a ... |
So deception exists, or the power of being deceived comes into being when you desire to achieve something, when you want something. So that is the first thing to realise, that when you are seeking, enquiring into this mind which is religious, which man has sought from time immemorial, there must be no deception whatsoe... |
And naturally one must be free of all belief and organised structural enquiry, and you have done that. Then what is the mind that is free from all the human endeavour, what is the mind which has really put aside everything that man has created in his search for this thing called a reality? You know this is one of the m... |
Our consciousness is its content, its content is consciousness. The content of your consciousness is what you think daily, how you behave, what you do with regard to your daily labour, and so on. The content of you, your consciousness is consciousness. The content is not separate from consciousness. It is one. And that... |
I hope you don't mind if we become rather serious because you see we are going to talk about meditation, and meditation is not for the immature. The immature can play with it, and they do now, sit cross-legged, breathe in a certain way, stand on your head, you know all the tricks that one plays. Take drugs in order to ... |
And we are going to talk over together, and share perhaps, this enquiry into not only what is the religious mind, but also into what is meditation. Probably most of you have heard that word, or have read something about it, or follow some guru who tells you what to do. And I wish that you had never heard that word. The... |
So we are going to enquire together into this question of meditation. Why should you meditate? The meaning of that word is to ponder, to think over, to look, to perceive, to see clearly. To see clearly, to observe without distortion there must be an awareness of your background, of your conditioning. Just to be aware o... |
Why should one meditate and what is meditation? You know if you saw this morning, out of your window, the extraordinary beauty of the morning light, the distant mountains, and the light on that water, if you observed without the word, without saying to yourself, 'How beautiful that is', if you observed completely, were... |
Now this requires a great enquiry, whether you can observe non-verbally, without distortion, without 'me' as memory interfering. You know that implies thought must not interfere in observation. That is, to observe without the image in your relationship with another, to observe another without the image which you have b... |
And so the question arises: can thought be controlled? You have to control thought so as not to allow it to interfere, but allow thought to function in its proper place. Control implies suppression, direction, following a pattern, imitation, conformity. All that is implied in control. And from childhood you have been t... |
And the word 'discipline' means to learn, discipline means to learn, not as it is accepted now, which becomes mechanical. Again in discipline there is conformity - as it is accepted now. We are talking about a mind that is free from control and is capable of learning. Where there is learning there is no necessity at al... |
So in understanding, in looking at disorder, being aware, attentive, choicelessly of disorder, order comes naturally, easily, without any effort. And order, such order is necessary. |
So meditation is a process of life in which relationship with each other is clear, without any conflict. Meditation is the understanding of fear, of pleasure. Meditation is that thing called love, and the freedom from death, which we talked about yesterday morning; and the freedom to stand completely alone, and that is... |
Then you will see, if you have gone that far, that the mind, not having any illusion, not following anybody, and therefore is free of all sense of authority. It is only such a mind can open the door. It is only such a mind that can see if there is, or if there is not a timeless quality. |
Therefore it is important to understand the question of time. Obviously there is the daily chronological time. We are not talking about that, that is fairly simple and clear. But is there psychological time, the time of tomorrow, that is, I will be something, or I will attain, I will succeed; the idea of time being fro... |
So meditation is the total negation of the 'me', so that the mind is never in conflict. And a mind when it is not in conflict is not in that state of peace which is the interval between two conflicts, but a peace - I don't like to use that word 'peace' - but a quality of mind that is free from total conflict. And that ... |
Enlightenment is not a fixed place; there is no fixed place. All that one has to do is to understand the chaos, the disorder in which we live. In the understanding of that we have order, there comes clarity, there comes certainty. And that certainty is not the invention of thought. That certainty is intelligence. And w... |
Do you want to ask any questions? Or - just a minute, sir, just a minute - or you have listened a great deal, we have talked about so many things, things that concern our daily life, and having listened what have you learned, what are you learning? Or are you so full of questions that you're not learning? And who is th... |
Questioner: Krishnamurti, can we go into the relationship between imagination and the quietness of mind? |
Krishnamurti: Could you go into imagination and to the quietness of mind. What is imagination? Why should you imagine at all? 'Imagine' - build images, that's what that word means. Why should you build images at all? Why should you build an image about another? Why should you build an image about the mountains, about t... |
So, what place has imagination to the quiet mind? None at all. When the mind is absolutely quiet - mind being not only the mind, which is thought, the brain, but the heart and the body, the total harmony - when there is a complete sense of harmony, of which there is no recognition as being harmonious. You can never say... |
Perhaps this evening we could go into the problem of effort. It seems to me that it is very important to understand the approach we make to any conflict, to any problem with which we are faced. We are concerned, are we not, most of us, with the action of will. And to us, effort is most essential in every form; to us, t... |
Why do we make effort? Is it not, put simply, in order to achieve a result, to become something, to reach a goal? And if we do not make an effort, we think we shall stagnate. We have an idea about the goal towards which we are constantly striving, and this striving has become part of our life. If we want to alter ourse... |
And is not all such effort the activity of the self? Is not effort self-centered activity? And, if we make an effort from the center of the self, it must inevitably produce more conflict, more confusion, more misery. Yet we keep on making effort after effort. And very few of us realize that the self-centered activity o... |
That is our problem - is it possible to understand anything without effort? Is it possible to see what is real, what is true, without introducing the action of will? - which is essentially based on the self, the 'me'. And if we do not make an effort, is there not a danger of deterioration, of going to sleep, of stagnat... |
How do we react when a truth is presented? Take, for example, what we were discussing the other day - the problem of fear. We realize that our activity and our being and our whole existence would be fundamentally altered if there were no fear of any kind in us. We may see that; we may see the truth of it, and thereby t... |
If we can understand the process of this creation of idea, then we shall perhaps understand the whole process of effort. Because, when once we have created the idea, then effort comes into being. Then the problem arises, what to do, how to act? That is, we see that psychological dependency on another is a form of self-... |
So, can we not look at the truth without creating ideas? It is almost instinctive with most of us when something true is put before us to create immediately an idea about it. And I think if we can understand why we do this so instinctively, almost unconsciously, then perhaps we shall understand if it is possible to be ... |
So, why do we create ideas about truth? Surely that is important to find out, is it not? Either we see the truth nakedly, as it is, or we do not. But why do we have a picture about it, a symbol, a word, an image? - which necessitates a postponement, the hope of an eventual result. So, can we hesitantly and guardedly go... |
So, our problem is, is it not, why does the mind, instead of seeing the thing immediately and experiencing it directly, indulge in all these ideas? Is this not one of the habits of the mind? Something is presented to us, and immediately there is the old habit of creating an idea, a theory, about it. And the mind likes ... |
That is one aspect. Also, does not the mind seek a result? Because, in the result is permanency. And the mind hates to be uncertain. It is always seeking security in different forms - through beliefs, through knowledge, through experience. And when that is questioned, there is a disturbance, there is anxiety. And so th... |
I hope you are following all this - not merely listening to me, but actually observing your own minds in operation. If you are only listening to me and not really following what I am talking about, then you will not experience, then it will remain on the verbal level. But if you can, if I may suggest it, observe your o... |
So, why does the mind create these ideas instead of directly experiencing? That is what we are trying to find out. Why does the mind intervene? We said, it is habit. Also, the mind wants to achieve a result. We all want to achieve a result. In listening to me, are you looking for a result? You are, are you not? So, the... |
So, can the mind, realizing that it is caught in habit, be free from habit? - not have an idea that it should achieve freedom as an eventual goal, but see the truth that the mind is caught in habit, directly experience it. And similarly, can the mind see that it is pursuing incessantly a permanency for itself, a goal w... |
And I feel that to see what is true, from moment to moment, without any effort, but directly to experience it, is the only creative existence. Because it is only in moments of complete tranquillity that you discover something - not when you are making an effort, whether it is under the microscope or inwardly. It is onl... |
Surely, that is freedom from the self; that is the abnegation of the 'me' - and not the outward symbols, whether you possess this or that virtue or not. But freedom only comes into being when you understand your own processes, conscious as well as unconscious. And it is possible only when we go fully into the different... |
Question: I find a regular group that meets to discuss your teachings tends to become confusing and boring. Is it better to think over these things alone, or with others? |
Krishnamurti: What is important? To find out, is it not, to discover for yourself the things about yourself. If that is your urgent, immediate, instinctive necessity, then you can do it with one or with many, by yourself or with two or three. But when that is lacking, then groups become boring things. Then people who c... |
But if we are really, insistently needing to discover for ourselves what is true, then all relationship becomes important; but such people are rare. Because, we are not really serious, and so we eventually make of groups and organizations something to be avoided. So it surely depends, does it not, on whether you are re... |
Question: What would you say is the most creative way of meeting great grief and loss? |
Krishnamurti: What do we mean by "meeting"? You mean, how to approach it, what we should do about it, how to conquer it, how to be free of it, how to derive benefit from it, how to learn from it so as to avoid more suffering? Surely that is what we mean, do we not, by how to "meet" grief? |
Now, what do we mean by "grief? Is it something apart from you? Is it something outside of you, inwardly or outwardly, which you are observing, which you are experiencing? Are you merely the observer experiencing? Or, is it something different? Surely that is an important point, is it not? When I say, "I suffer," what ... |
There is sorrow - I am not loved, my son dies, what you will. There is one part of me that is demanding why, demanding the explanation, the reasons, the causes. The other part of me is in agony for various reasons. And there is also another part of me which wants to be free from the sorrow, which wants to go beyond it.... |
So, it is very important to find out, is it not, whether I am merely the observer experiencing sorrow. Please follow this question slowly and carefully. If I am merely the observer experiencing sorrow, then there are two states in my being - the one who observes, who thinks, who experiences, and the other who is observ... |
Now, please listen carefully, and you will see that when there is a fact, a truth, there is understanding of it only when I can experience the whole thing without division - and not when there is the separation of the 'me' observing suffering. That is the truth. Now, what is your immediate reaction to that? Is not your... |
So, one has to find out how one looks at sorrow. Not what the books or what anybody else says, not according to any teacher or authority, but how you regard it, how you instinctively approach it. Then you will surely find out, will you not, if there really is this division in your mind. So long as there is that divisio... |
So, what is very important in this question is, is it not, how each one of us responds to psychological pain - when we are bereaved, when we are hurt, and so on. We need not go into the causes of sorrow. But we know them very well - the ache of loneliness, the fear of losing, not being loved, being frustrated, the loss... |
Question: For one who is caught in habit, it seems impossible to see the truth of a thing instantaneously. Surely time is needed - time to break away from one's immediate activity and really seek to go into what has been happening. |
Krishnamurti: Now what do we mean by "time"? Please - again let us experiment. What do we mean by "time"? Obviously not time by the clock. When you say, "I need time," what does it mean? That you need leisure - an hour to yourself, or a few minutes to yourself? Surely, you do not mean that. You mean, "I need time to ac... |
Now, time is obviously the product of the mind; mind is the result of time. What we think, feel, our memories, are basically the result of time. And you say that time is necessary to break away from certain habits. That is, this inward psychological habit is the outcome of desire and fear, is it not? I see the mind is ... |
First, how does habit come into being? Through education, through environmental influences, through our own memories. And also, it is comfortable to have a mechanism that functions habitually so that it is never uncertain, quivering, inquiring, doubtful, anxious. So, the mind creates the pattern which you call the habi... |
But if we can see that the mind creates habits and functions in habit, and that a mind which is enclosed by its own self-created memories, desires, fears, cannot see or experience anything directly - when we can see the truth of that, then there is a possibility of experiencing directly. The perception of the truth is ... |
Question: You have said that neither meditation nor discipline will create a still mind, but only the annihilation of the 'I' consciousness. How can the T annihilate the 'I'? |
Krishnamurti: Surely any movement of the 'I', however lofty, however noble, is still within the field of self-consciousness, is it not? You may divide the 'I' into the higher self and the lower self - the higher dominating, controlling, directing the lower; but it is still within the field of thought, is it not? |
The question is, How can the 'I', the 'me', destroy itself? I am saying that the 'I' is a series of movements, a series of activities, responses, a series of thoughts. And thought may divide itself into the higher and lower, but it is still the process of thinking; it is still within its own field. And, can one part of... |
Please, experiment with what I am talking about. One part of me can say, "I will subjugate anger, jealousy, control my irritability, envy, and so on." One part that controls is desirous of dominating some other part. But it is caught, is it not, within the field of time, and whatever it does is of its own projection. T... |
If you see the truth of that, then the mind is still. Because, it cannot do anything. Any movement, negatively or positively, is its own projection; therefore, there is no freedom from it. Seeing the truth of that brings about a quietness of the mind which obviously cannot come through any form of self-discipline, thro... |
Tranquillity of the mind is not a result; it is not something put together which can be undone again. It is not the result of the mind seeking an escape from ideation. It comes into being only when the mind is no longer manufacturing or projecting. And that can only happen when you understand the process of thinking, y... |
I am afraid this is the last talk. Like two friends sitting in the park on last thousands and thousands of years. We seem to have changed very little a lovely day talking about life, talking about their problems, investigating seriously the very nature of their existence and asking themselves seriously why life has bec... |
At the end of the day we are still where we were for the last thousands and thousands of years. We seem to have changed very little psychologically, inwardly. And our problems increase, and always there is the fear of old age, disease, some accident that will put us out. So this is our existence, from childhood until w... |
And in talking about it, either we intellectually approach it; that is, rationalise it, say it is inevitable, don't be frightened, or escape through some form of belief, the hereafter as the Asiatics believe, reincarnation, or if you are highly intellectual this is the end of all things, end of all our existence, our e... |
So there is thing called living and dying. That is all we know. Everything apart from that becomes a theory, a speculation; or a pursuit of a belief in which one finds some kind of security, hope. But those beliefs are also very shallow, rather meaningless, as all beliefs are. Or you have ideals projected by thought, a... |
So first of all we should look: our brains never act fully, completely, we only use a very small part of our brain. That part is the structure of thought. That part being in itself a part and therefore incomplete, as thought is incomplete, so the brain functions within a very narrow area, depending on our senses, which... |
So can we observe what is living, the actuality, and what does it mean to die - together? Our life, daily life, is a process of remembrances. Our brain, mind is entirely memory. Right? Are we together in it? You see the difficulty is that I am not sure that we are understanding each other. I don't know how much English... |
We are saying we are - we, our ego, our personality, our whole structure - is entirely put together as memory, we are memory. Right? Please this is subject to investigation, don't accept it. Observe it, listen. The speaker is saying, the 'you', the ego, the 'me', is altogether memory. There is no spot or space in which... |
Am I speaking to myself, or are we all together in this? You see the speaker is used to talking in the open, under trees, or in a vast tent without these glaring lights; and one can then have an intimate communication with each other. As a matter of fact there is only you and me talking together, not all this enormous ... |
So the question is: why human beings throughout the world, though they believe, some of them, in the Asiatic world, in the rebirth of themselves in the next life; the next life being much more dignified, more prosperous, better houses, better position. So those who believe in reincarnation, that is, the soul, the ego, ... |
But those who do not accept such theory, though they are trying to compile evidence of reincarnation, which is rather absurd too - you understand all this - because what is it that is going to reincarnate? What is it that has continuity? You understand my question? Are we talking together? What is it that has continuit... |
Now the question is: is it possible while one is living, with all the turmoil, with that energy, capacity, to end, say for example, attachment? Because that is what is going to happen when you die. You may be attached to your wife, to your husband, to your property - not to property, that is dangerous - we are attached... |
Also, as we said yesterday, we should consider together, sitting on the banks of that river on a bench, water flowing, clear, not muddied, polluted water, seeing all the movement of the waves pursuing each other down the river, we also as two friends sitting there, talk together about what is religion. Why has religion... |
That is, if my mind, my brain is conditioned by the Hindu superstition, beliefs, dogmas, idolatry, with all the ancient tradition, my mind then is anchored to that, therefore it cannot move, it is not free. Therefore one must be free completely from all that - being a Hindu. Right? Similarly, one must be free totally f... |
Order is something that is totally disassociated with disorder. We live in disorder, that is, in conflict, contradiction, say one thing, do another, think one thing and act another, that is contradiction. Where there is contradiction which is division, there must be disorder. And a religious mind is completely without ... |
You know it is a most extraordinary thing: many gurus have come to see the speaker, many of them. Because they think I attack the gurus. You understand? They want to persuade me not to attack. They say, what you are saying and what you are living is the absolute truth, but not for us, because we must help those people ... |
So the idea of going somewhere to find enlightenment, changing your name to some Sanskrit name, seems so strangely absurd and romantic without any reality, but thousands are doing it. Probably it is a form of amusement without much meaning. I am - the speaker is not attacking. Please let's understand: we are not attack... |
So a religious mind is a very factual mind, it deals with facts. That is, facts being what is actually happening, with the world outside, and the world inside. The world outside is the expression of the world inside, there is no division between the outer and the inner - that is too long to go into. So a religious life... |
Perhaps that word did not exist about twenty years ago, or thirty years ago in the Western world. The Eastern gurus have brought it over here. There is the Tibetan meditation, Zen meditation, the Hindu meditation, the particular meditation of a particular guru, the meditation of yoga, sitting cross legged, breathing, y... |
So to enquire together, to go into, deeply into, what is meditation and whether there is anything called sacred, holy: not the thing that thought has invented as being holy, that is not holy. What thought creates is not holy, is not sacred because it is based on knowledge, and knowledge being incomplete, and whatever t... |
So together, having established, some partially, others completely, totally, order in their life, in their behaviour, in which there is no contradiction whatsoever, having established that, and rejected, totally rejected, all the various forms of meditation, their systems, their practices because when you practise you ... |
Now we are saying quite the contrary. There is no system, no practice; but the clarity of perception of a mind that is free, which has no direction, no choice, but free to observe. Most meditations have this problem, which is controlling thought. The one who practises is different from that which he is practising. I ho... |
The controller, the thinker, the experiencer, we think is different from the controlled, from the movement of thought, from the experiencer and the experience, we think these two are different movements. But if you observe closely, the thinker is the thought. Thought has made the thinker separate from thought, which th... |
So when one realises that, not verbally, not idealistically, not as a utopian state for which you have to struggle, but to observe it actually in one's life that the controller is the controlled, the thinker is the thought, then the whole pattern of our thinking undergoes a radical change because there is no conflict. ... |
So meditation means the establishment of order in our daily life, in which there is no contradiction. Then rejecting totally all the systems, meditations, all that, because the mind must be completely free, without direction, and also it means a mind that is completely silent. Is that possible? Because we are chatterin... |
To COMMUNICATE with one another, even if we know each other very well, is extremely difficult. I may use words that may have to you a significance different from mine. Understanding comes when we, you and I, meet on the same level at the same time. That happens only when there is real affection between people, between ... |
There is an art of listening. To be able really to listen, one should abandon or put aside all prejudices, pre-formulations and daily activities. When you are in a receptive state of mind, things can be easily understood; you are listening when your real attention is given to something. But unfortunately most of us lis... |
If, during this discourse, anything is said which is opposed to your way of thinking and belief, just listen; do not resist. You may be right, and I may be wrong; but by listening and considering together wc are going to find out what is the truth. Truth cannot be given to you by somebody. You have to discover it; and ... |
Is ic not possible, then, to be aware of everything as it is ? Starting from there, surely, thcrc can be an understanding. To acknowledge, to be aware of, to get at that which is, puts an cnd to struggle. If I know that I am a liar, and it is a fact which I recognize, then thc struggle is over. To acknowledge, to be aw... |
So, we can have understanding of what is when we recognize it without condemnation, without justification, without identification. To know that one is in a certain condition, in a certain state, is already a process of liberation ; but a man who is not aware of his condition, of his struggle, tries to be something othe... |
One is aware, I think, without too much discussion, too much verbal expression, that there is individual as well as collective chaos, confusion and misery. It is not only in India, but right throughout the world; in China, America, England, Germany, all over the world, there is confusion, mounting sorrow. It is not onl... |
There is suffering, political, social, religious; our whole psychological being is confused, and all the leaders, political and religious, have failed us; all the books have lost their significance. You may go to the Bhagavad Gita or the Bible or the latest treatise on politics or psychology, and you will find that the... |
But if you are merely observing, if you are merely spectators, you will lose entirely the significance of this discourse, because this is not a lecture which you are to listen to from force of habit. I am not going to give you information which you can pick up in an encyclopædia. What we are trying to do is to follow e... |
political or psychological. Therefore you do not mind if this chaos continues. Surely, the more trouble there is in the world, the more chaos, the more one seeks security. Haven't you noticed it? When there is confusion in the world, psychologically and in every way, you enclose yourself in some kind of security, eithe... |
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