Vinstant

Meditation and listening

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.   

J. Krishnamurti/Meditations, p 20

Whether the brain can be quiet

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. 

J. Krishnamurti/Meditations, p 4

Just listening to the noise of thought

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. 

J.Krisnamurtii/The Collected Works vol XVI, p 148

Pursuing every thought to the root

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.

J. Krishnamurti/Krishnamurti on Education, pp 119-120

Understand the activity of the self

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”.

J. Krishnamurti/This Light in Oneself, p 72

Meditation is the ending of sorrow

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.

J. Krishnamurti/Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1968, p 94

To eliminate all conflict

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?

    

J. Krishnamurti/The Wholeness of Life, p 142

A never-ending struggle

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.

                             

J. Krishnamurti/Total Freedom, p 334

Do not concentrate

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.  

J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol XIV, p 301

Meditation and control

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. 

J. Krishnamurti/This Light in Oneself, p 32