Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes: November 2009

Monday, November 30, 2009

Meditation and listening - JKOnline Daily Quotes

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We hardly ever listen to the sound of a dog’s bark, or to the cry of a child or the laughter of a man as he passes by. We separate ourselves from everything, and then from this isolation look and listen to all things. It is this separation that is so destructive, for in that lies all conflict and confusion. If you listened to the sound of those bells with complete silence, you would be riding on it-or, rather, the sound would carry you across the valley and over the hill. The beauty of it is felt only when you and the sound are not separate, when you are part of it. Meditation is the ending of the separation not by any action of will or desire.Meditation is not a separate thing from life; it is the very essence of life, the very essence of daily living. To listen to those bells, to hear the laughter of that peasant as he walks by with his wife, to listen to the sound of the bell on the bicycle of the little girl as she passes by: it is the whole of life, and not just a fragment of it, that meditation opens. Meditations, p 20

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Whether the brain can be quiet - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Whether the brain can be quiet

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Meditation is to find out whether the brain, with all its activities, all its experiences, can be absolutely quiet. Not forced, because the moment you force, there is duality. The entity that says, “I would like to have marvellous experiences, therefore I must force my brain to be quiet” will never do it. But if you begin to inquire, observe, listen to all movements of thought, its conditioning, its pursuits, its fears, its pleasures, watch how the brain operates, then you will see that the brain becomes extraordinarily quiet; that quietness is not sleep but it is tremendously active and therefore quiet. A big dynamo that is working perfectly hardly makes a sound; it is only when there is friction that there is noise. Meditations, p 4

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Just listening to the noise of thought - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Just listening to the noise of thought

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Meditation is something quite extraordinary, if it goes on, not at odd moments, but timelessly, if you are aware when you get into the bus, or the car, or when you are talking to someone; aware of what you are doing, feeling, thinking; aware of how thought operates according to pleasure and pain, not condemning any activity of thought but just listening to the noise of thought. Out of that you really have an extraordinary mind that is tremendously alive. Being quiet, being silent, a new thing can take place. The newness is not recognizable. This sublime thing, whatever name you give it doesn’t matter, is not something that is put together by thought, and therefore it is the whole of creation. The Collected Works vol XVI, p 148

Friday, November 27, 2009

Pursuing every thought to the root - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Pursuing every thought to the root

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To end thought I have first to go into the mechanism of thinking. I have to understand thought completely, deep down in me. I have to examine every thought, without letting one thought escape without being fully understood, so that the brain, the mind, the whole being becomes very attentive. The moment I pursue every thought to the root, to the end completely, I will see that thought ends by itself. I do not have to do anything about it because thought is memory. Memory is the mark of experience; and as long as experience is not fully, completely, totally understood, it leaves a mark. The moment I have experienced completely, the experience leaves no mark. So if we go into every thought and see where the mark is and remain with that mark as a fact—then that fact will open and that fact will end that particular process of thinking, so that every thought, every feeling is understood.Krishnamurti on Education, pp 119-120

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Understand the activity of the self - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Understand the activity of the self

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When there is the activity of the self, meditation is not possible. This is very important to understand, not verbally but actually. Meditation is a process of emptying the mind of all the activity of the self, of all the activity of the “me”. If you do not understand the activity of the self, then your meditation only leads to illusion, your meditation then only leads to self-deception, your meditation then will only lead to further distortion. So to understand what meditation is, you must understand the activity of the self.The self has had a thousand worldly, sensuous, or intellectual experiences, but it is bored with them because they have no meaning. The desire to have wider, more expansive, transcendental experiences is part of the “me”.This Light in Oneself, p 72

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Meditation is the ending of sorrow - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Meditation is the ending of sorrow

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Meditation is the ending of sorrow, the ending of thought which breeds fear and sorrow—the fear and sorrow in daily life, when you are married, when you go to business. In business you must use your technological knowledge, but when that knowledge is used for psychological purposes—to become more powerful, occupy a position that gives you prestige, honour, fame—it breeds only antagonism, hatred; such a mind can never possibly understand what truth is. Meditation is the understanding of the way of life, it is the understanding of sorrow and fear—and going beyond them.Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1968, p 94

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

To eliminate all conflict - JKOnline Daily Quotes

To eliminate all conflict

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Part of meditation is to eliminate totally all conflict, inwardly and therefore outwardly. To eliminate conflict one has to understand this basic principle: the observer is not different from the observed, psychologically. When there is anger, there is no “I”, but a second later thought creates the “I” and says: “I have been angry” and brings in the idea that I should not be angry. So there is anger and then the “I” who should not be angry; the division brings conflict. When there is no division between the observer and the observed, and therefore only the thing that is, which is anger, then what takes place? Does anger go on? Or is there a total ending of anger? The Wholeness of Life, p 142

Monday, November 23, 2009

A never-ending struggle - JKOnline Daily Quotes

A never-ending struggle

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Meditation generally as it is accepted now is the practice of a system, breathing properly, sitting in the right position, wanting or craving greater experience, or the ultimate experience. This is what we are doing. And all that is a constant struggle, a never-ending struggle. This is a never-ending struggle, which is hoping to end all struggle! See what we have done. I am struggling, struggling, struggling to end struggling sometime in the future. See what tricks I have played on myself. I am caught in time. I don’t say, “Why should I struggle at all?” If I can end this struggle that is enlightenment. Total Freedom, p 334

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Do not concentrate - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Do not concentrate

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When you want to concentrate on what you think is right, on your particular image, God, or idea, phrase, you focus your mind on that; but the mind wanders off, and you pull it back; again it wanders off, and again you pull it back; you play this game for the rest of your life. And that is what you call meditation, this battle—forcing the mind when it is not interested in something, and trying to control it. And if you saw that, if you understood the truth of this matter or the falseness of this process, then you would never concentrate, whether you are in a school learning a particular subject, or whether you are teaching in a school. Do not concentrate, when you are in your office, or when you are trying to meditate. Do not concentrate; that only excludes, creates a resistance, a focus, giving greater strength to the centre and therefore limiting space.Now, if you understand all this, then out of this understanding comes awareness, which is nothing mysterious. The Collected Works vol XIV, p 301

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Meditation and control - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Meditation and control

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In classical, ordinary meditation, the gurus who propagate it are concerned with the controller and the controlled. They say to control your thoughts because thereby you will end thought, or have only one thought. But we are inquiring into who the controller is. You might say, “It is the higher self”, “It is the witness”, “It is something that is not thought”, but the controller is part of thought. Obviously. So the controller is the controlled. Thought has divided itself as the controller and that which it is going to control, but it is still the activity of thought…So when one understands that the whole movement of the controller is the controlled, then there is no control at all. This is a dangerous thing to say to people who have not understood it. We are not advocating no control. We are saying that where there is the observation that the controller is the controlled, that the thinker is the thought, and if you remain with that whole truth, with that reality, without any further interference of thought, then you have a totally different kind of energy. This Light in Oneself, p 32

Friday, November 20, 2009

Meditation can not be a system - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Meditation can not be a system

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So Meditation is Not conscious Meditation. You understand this? It canNot be conscious Meditation, following a system, a guru - collective Meditation, group Meditation, single Meditation, according to Zen or some other system. It canNot be a system because then you practise, practise, practise, and your brain gets more and more dull, more and more mechanical. So is there a Meditation which has no direction, which is Not conscious, deliberate? find out.Last Talks at Saanen 1985

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Meditation is not different from life - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Meditation is not different from life

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Meditation is not something different from daily life; do not go off into the corner of a room and meditate for ten minutes, then come out of it and be a butcher—both metaphorically and actually. Meditation is one of the most serious things. You can do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody, “I love you”, when you are considering your children. But then you educate them to become soldiers, to kill, to be nationalized, to worship the flag, educating them to enter into this trap of the modern world.Watching all that, realizing your part in it, all that is part of meditation. And when you so meditate you will find in it an extraordinary beauty; you will act rightly at every moment; and if you do not act rightly at a given moment it does not matter, you will pick it up again—you will not waste time in regret. Meditation is part of life, not something different from life.The Flight of the Eagle, p 46

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Mantra has lost its meaning - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Mantra has lost its meaning

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What is meditation? Is it to escape from the noise of the world? To have a silent mind, a quiet mind, a peaceful mind? And you practise systems, methods, to become aware, to keep your thoughts under control. You sit cross-legged and repeat some mantra. I am told that the etymological meaning of that word ‘mantra’ is ‘ponder over not-becoming’. That is one of the meanings. And it also means ‘absolve, put aside all self-centred activity’. That is the real, root meaning of mantra. But we repeat, repeat, repeat, and carry on with our self-interest, our egoistic ways, and so mantra has lost its meaning. So what is meditation?That Benediction is Where You are, p 75

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Siddhis are like candlelight - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Siddhis are like candlelight

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You do all kinds of things to come upon this strange beauty of silence. Do not do it, just observe. Look, sirs, you know in all this are various powers of clairvoyance, reading somebody’s thought. There are various powers, you know what I am talking about, don’t you? You call them siddhis, don’t you? Do you know all these things are like candles—candlelight in the sun? When there is no sun, there is darkness, and then the light of the candle is very important; but when there is the sun, the light, the beauty, the clarity, then all these powers, these siddhis are like candlelight. They have no value at all. And when you have the light, there is nothing else—developing various centres, the chakras, kundalinis, you know all that business. You need a sane, logical, reasoning mind, not a stupid mind. A mind that is dull can sit for centuries breathing, concentrating on its various chakras, and you know all that playing with kundalinis—it can never come upon that which is timeless, that which is real beauty, truth and love. Krishnamurti in India 1970-71, pp 180-181

Monday, November 16, 2009

Not the way of right meditation - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Not the way of right meditation

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And this constant striving to become virtuous, to acquire virtue through discipline, through careful examination of oneself, and so on, is obviously not meditation either. Most of us are caught in these processes, and since they do not give understanding of ourselves, they are not the way of right meditation. After all, without understanding yourself, what basis have you for right thinking? All that you will do without understanding of yourself is to conform to the background, to the response of your conditioning. And such response to the conditioning is not meditation. But to be aware of those responses, that is, to be aware of the movements of thought and feeling without any sense of condemnation so that the movements of the self, the ways of the self, are understood—that way is the way of right meditation. The Collected Works vol V, p 361

Meditation...is the very inquiry into what is meditation

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Meditation is not a process of learning how to meditate; it is the very inquiry into what is meditation. To inquire into what is meditation, the mind must free itself from what it has learnt about meditation, and the freeing of the mind from what it has learnt is the beginning of meditation.The Collected Works vol IX, p 192

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Not prayer, not devotion - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Not prayer, not devotion

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Prayer obviously produces results; otherwise millions wouldn’t pray. And in praying, obviously the mind is made quiet; by constant repetition of certain phrases, the mind does become quiet. And in that quietness there is a certain intimation, certain perceptions, certain responses. But that is still a part of the trick of the mind because, after all, through a form of mesmerism you can make the mind very quiet. And in that quietness there are certain hidden responses arising from the unconscious and from outside the consciousness. But it is still a state in which there is no understanding. And meditation is not devotion—devotion to an idea, to a picture, to a principle—because the things of the mind are still idolatrous. One may not worship a statue, considering it idolatrous and silly, superstitious; but one does worship, as most people do, the things in the mind—and that is also idolatrous. And to be devoted to a picture or an idea, to a Master, is not meditation. Obviously, it’s a form of escape from oneself. It’s a very comforting escape, but it’s still an escape. The Collected Works vol V, p 361

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Not a repetition of words - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Not a repetition of words

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Meditation is the way of live, it is not an escape from life. Obviously meditation is not the experiencing of visions or having strange mystical experiences; as you know, you can take a drug that will expand your mind, it will produce certain reactions chemically, which will make the mind highly sensitive and in that sensitive state you may see things heightened, yet according to your conditioning. And meditation is not a repetition of words. You know, there has been the fashion lately of someone giving you a word, a Sanskrit word, you keep on repeating it and thereby hope to achieve some extraordinary experience—which is all utter nonsense. Of course, if you keep on repeating a lot of words your mind is made dull and thereby quiet; but that is not meditation at all. Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1968, p 94

Friday, November 13, 2009

The foundation of a righteous life - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The foundation of a righteous life

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Meditation is hard work. It demands the highest form of discipline—not conformity, not imitation, not obedience—but a discipline which comes through constant awareness, not only of things about you outwardly, but also inwardly. So meditation is not an activity of isolation but is action in everyday life which demands co-operation, sensitivity and intelligence. Without laying the foundation of a righteous life, meditation becomes an escape and therefore has no value whatsoever. A righteous life is not the following of social morality, but the freedom from envy, greed and the search for power—which all breed enmity. The freedom from these does not come through the activity of will but by being aware of them through self-knowing. Without knowing the activities of self, meditation becomes sensuous excitement and therefore of very little significance.Meditations, p 6

Thursday, November 12, 2009

The explosion of meditation - JKOnline Daily Quotes

The explosion of meditation

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Thought shattering itself against its own nothingness is the explosion of meditation.Krishnamurti's Notebook, p 166

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Meditation…is the very inquiry into what is meditation - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Meditation…is the very inquiry into what is meditation

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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Putting your house in order - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Putting your house in order

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The understanding of relationship, fear, pleasure and sorrow is to bring order in our house. Without order you cannot possibly meditate. Now the speaker puts meditation at the end of the talks because there is no possibility of right meditation if you have not put your house, your psychological house, in order. If the psychological house is in disorder, if what you are is in disorder, what is the point of meditating? It is just an escape. It leads to all kinds of illusions. The Network of Thought, p 96

Monday, November 9, 2009

What prevents insight - JKOnline Daily Quotes

What prevents insight

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It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight. It is only when the mind is not operating mechanically in the structure of thought that you have an insight. Having had an insight, thought draws a conclusion from that insight. And then thought acts and thought is mechanical. So I have to find out whether having an insight into myself, which means into the world, and not drawing a conclusion from it is possible. If I draw a conclusion, I act on an idea, on an image, on a symbol, which is the structure of thought, and so I am constantly preventing myself from having insight, from understanding things as they are.On Mind and Thought, p 34

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Insight that brings about a mutation in the brain cells - JKOnline Daily Quotes

Insight that brings about a mutation in the brain cells

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Insight is not a matter of memory, of knowledge and time, which are all thought. So I would say insight is the total absence of the whole movement of thought as time and remembrance. So there is direct perception. It is as though I have been going North for the last ten thousand years, and my brain is accustomed to going North, and somebody comes along and says, that will lead you nowhere, go East. When I turn round and go East the brain cells have changed. Because I have an insight that the North leads nowhere. I will put it differently. The whole movement of thought, which is limited, is acting throughout the world now. It is the most important action, we are driven by thought. But thought will not solve any of our problems, except the technological ones. If I see that, I have stopped going North. I think that with the ending of a certain direction, the ending of a movement that has been going on for thousands of years, there is at that moment an insight that brings about a change, a mutation, in the brain cell.Questioning Krishnamurti, p 165