Monday, December 24, 2012


J. Krishnamurti's Meditation Quotes and Sayings

  • Wherever there is comparison psychologically, meditation cannot be. Where there is measurement, comparison, there cannot be meditation.
     
  • The mind can only be silent when it understands the nature of its own movement, as thought and feeling. And to understanding that, there can be no condemnation in observing thought and feeling.
     
  • When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy - if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation. So meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child.
     
  • To concentrate is not to meditate, even though that is what most of you do, calling it meditation. And if concentration is not meditation, then what is? Surely, meditation is to understand every thought that comes into being, and not to dwell upon one particular thought; it is to invite all thoughts so that you understand the whole process of thinking.
     
  • Meditation is the understanding of the whole structure of the 'me', the self, the ego, and whether it is possible to be totally free of the self, not seek some super-self. The super-self is still the self. So meditation is something which is not a cultivated, determined, activity.
     
  • Meditation is spontaneous and therefore it requires spontaneity and not a regimented mind. Spontaneity comes into being when there is awareness, awareness in which there is no condemnation, no judgment and no identification. If you go deeper and deeper and let it flow freely it becomes meditation, in which the thinker is the thought and there is no division between the thinker and the thought.
     
  • Meditation is not following a system, it is not repetition, a constant imitation; meditation is something that demands an astonishingly alert mind, great sensitivity in which there is no sense of bringing something about through demand, no illusion. So one has to be free of all demands, therefore of all experience, because the moment you demand, you will experience; and that experience obviously will be according to your conditioning.
     
  • If while sitting quietly without any motive, or walking quietly by yourself or with somebody, you watch the trees, the birds, the rivers and the sunshine on the leaves, in that very watching you are also watching yourself. You are not striving, not making tremendous efforts to achieve something. Those who are committed to a certain kind of meditation find it very hard to throw that off because the mind is already conditioned; they have practised this thing for several years and there they are stuck.
     
  • When the mind is relaxed, no longer making an effort, when it is quiet for just a few seconds, then the problem reveals itself and it is solved. That happens when the mind is still, in the interval between two thoughts, between two responses. In that state of mind understanding comes, but it requires extraordinary watchfulness of every movement of thought. When the mind is aware of its own activity, its own process, then there is quietness.
     
  • Meditation is not something that you practise for an hour or ten minutes and the rest of the day do your mischief. Meditation is the whole of life and that is the beauty of meditation, it is not something set aside, it covers and enters into all our activities and to all our thoughts and feelings. So it is not something that you practise or give attention to once a day or three times a day or ten times a day and the rest of the day live a life that is shoddy, neurotic, mischievous, violent.
     
  • Meditation is a process of understanding. Understanding is not a result and it is not something you gain. It is a process of self-discovery. That means meditation is an awareness of your whole process of living. Meditation is a process of understanding, the process of your whole being, not only a part of it, and that means that you have to be aware of everything that you are doing. it is not concentration. You take a picture and you focus your attention on that.
  • One has to be choicelessly attentive, fully aware; and this state of choiceless attention is meditation.
     
  • Meditation is to be aware of the activities of the mind - the mind as the mediator, how the mind divides itself as the mediator and the meditation, how the mind divides itself as the thinker and the thought, the thinker dominating thought, controlling thought, shaping thought.
     
  • The first thing to realise in meditation is that there is no authority, that the mind must be completely free to examine, to observe, to learn. And so there is no following, no accepting, no obedience.
     
  • All this process of knowing oneself is the beginning of meditation - not putting the mind to sleep, not having visions or transcendental experiences through some footling word - but to uncover the conditioned and the state of mind which is ourselves in its relationship to society, in its relationship to another. To discover oneself and penetrate deep - all that is meditation.
     
  • When you are aware, you see the whole process of your thinking and action; but it can happen only when there is no condemnation. When I condemn something, I do not understand it, and it is one way of avoiding any kind of understanding.
     
  • Awareness is observation without choice, condemnation, or justification. Awareness is silent observation from which there arises understanding without the experiencer and the experienced. In this awareness, which is passive, the problem or the cause is given an opportunity to unfold itself and so give its full significance. In awareness there is no end in view to be gained, and there is no becoming, the 'me' and the 'mine' not being given the continuity.
     
  • When there is the state of innocency, it is also the state of meditation. You cannot come to that state of innocency as long as you are ambitious, as long as your mind is petty, as long as you are caught in the psychological structure of society and are nothing but an embodied technique - which is what most of us are.
     
  • Meditation is not the pursuit of an invisible path leading to some imagined bliss. The meditative mind is seeing - watching, listening, without the word, without comment, without opinion - attentive to the movement of life in all its relationships throughout the day. And at night, when the whole organism is at rest, the meditative mind has no dreams for it has been awake all day. It is only the indolent who have dreams; only the half-asleep who need the intimation of their own states. But as the mind watches, listens to the movement of life, the outer and the inner, to such a mind comes a silence that is not put together by thought.
     
  • All this is implied in meditation - to be aware, to be conscious of your environment, to be aware how you talk, how you walk, how you eat, what you eat; to be aware how you speak to another, how you treat another, as you are sitting there, to be aware of your neighbour, the colour of the coat, the way he looks. Without criticism just be aware. That gives you great sensitivity, empathy, so that your body is subtle, sensitive, aware of everything that is going on around you. To be aware without any choice, see where you are, looking at the speaker, looking all around you without a single choice, just look - to be aware.
     
  • Observing is meditation, it is not that in order to observe you must meditate. To observe is one of the most, difficult things. To observe a tree, for example, is very difficult, and that is because you have ideas, images, about that tree, and these ideas - botanical knowledge - prevent you from looking at that tree.
     
  • The mind is always chattering, always pursuing one thought or another, one set of sensory responses after another set of responses. In order to stop that chattering you try to learn concentration, forcing the mind to stop chattering and so the conflict begins again. This is what you are doing; chattering, chattering, talking endlessly about nothing. Now, if you want to observe something, a tree, a flower, the lines of the mountains, you have to look, you have to be quiet. But you are not interested in the mountains, or the beauty of the hills and the valleys and the waters; you want to get somewhere, achieve something, spiritually

14 comments:

  1. Such simple words..such intense meanings/reprocussions..this man truly has the gift of having his way with words..I want to read more from this guy. Ruhi - if u can research some good books frm this guy I can pick them up in cal this time for the benefit of all of us. :)

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  2. Source: Wikipedia
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    Krishnamurti rarely wrote (or spoke in public) about himself. In the following, he again usually refers to himself in third-person as noted above. However these works, being published diaries, are largely autobiographical.


    1. Krishnamurti's Notebook (1976).[2] Published journal that Krishnamurti kept between June 1961 and March 1962. With the publication of this book, the general public had access to first-hand descriptions of the process, a strange condition that started in the 1920s and intermittently affected Krishnamurti throughout his life. Also contains numerous (explicit and implicit) references to a state of consciousness Krishnamurti often called the otherness, among other designations.[b 9]

    2. Krishnamurti's Journal (1982).[3] A personal journal, that he started in 1973 and kept intermittently until 1975.

    3. Krishnamurti to Himself: His Last Journal (1987).[4] Transcribed from audiotape recordings made at his home in the Ojai Valley between February 1983 and March 1984. Mary Lutyens, editor. M. Lutyens edited several of his books.

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  3. These are compilations of Krishnamurti's works:
    Volume 1 (1933–1934): The Art of Listening (1991).[62]
    Volume 2 (1934–1935): What Is the Right Action? (1991).[63]
    Volume 3 (1936–1944): The Mirror of Relationship (1991).[64]
    Volume 4 (1945–1948): The Observer Is the Observed (1991).[65]
    Volume 5 (1948–1949): Choiceless Awareness (1991).[66]
    Volume 6 (1949–1952): The Origin of Conflict (1991).[67]
    Volume 7 (1952–1953): Tradition and Creativity (1991).[68]
    Volume 8 (1953–1955): What Are You seeking? (1991).[69]
    Volume 9 (1955–1956): The Answer is in the Problem (1991).[70]
    Volume 10 (1956–1957): A Light to Yourself (1991).[71]
    Volume 11 (1958–1960): Crisis in Consciousness (1991).[72]
    Volume 12 (1961): There is No Thinker, Only Thought (1991).[73]
    Volume 13 (1962–1963): A Psychological Revolution (1992).[74]
    Volume 14 (1963–1964): The New Mind (1992).[75]
    Volume 15 (1964–1965): The Dignity of Living (1992).[76]
    Volume 16 (1965–1966): The Beauty of Death (1992).[77]
    Volume 17 (1966–1967): Perennial Questions (1992).[78]

    Further, the following site has his works for free- audio, videos, books, etc.

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  4. Oops.. here goes the link..

    http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/books.php

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  5. This is what i used to do, a long time back.

    Sit down in a quiet room and practice two types of mind excersises:

    1 - Try clearing your mind of all thoughts by concentrating on a vision of light filling the horizon - for me the good color used to be yellow. Try this for 5 / 10 / 15 mins / 30 mins as you like. Feel the waves of concentration and flow of some kind of energy inside you as you practice. Watch the ripples of the mind as a disturbance ( sound, thought, light) attracts the senses. Bring your mind back to the light source as it wonders. Calm the mind as it wonders from thought to thought in between your experiencing the peacefulness of the light source. Imagine that light to be the all pervading Consciousness of our Universe which is calling you.

    2- In other sessions, just sit still and let your mind wonder. Try not to censor your thoughts. Let the mind be free and go where it wants. Let the good, the nasty and the evil thoughts flow through. Do not stifle any thoughts. As you experience, you will begin to have an ability to pick up a thought and ride it into its depths of feelings. Try not to logicalise or intellectualise these experiences. The mind will go deeper and deeper and the senses will become weaker and weaker in their ability to disturb you.

    - Approach all this with great humility and an open mind - as a student watching your own inner stuff

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  6. Good point. What is interesting is how he explains that meditation has to be a way of life, prevailing in every waking moment. One does not have to compartmentalize one's time to "accommodate" meditation. It isn't a planned exercise to be done at a particular time of the day in a certain way. It has to flow from within, it has to be spontaneous, like Krishnamurti says. So meditation, as I understand from his words, is a perpetual awareness to be developed through all times of the day/night, during every action of ours, and whilst we are feel the rush of emotions.

    So the way I see it is : Observe everything, and deny oneself no experience/emotion that comes naturally. Because only through observing oneself in entirety will one ever understand oneself fully.

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    Replies
    1. That is such a wonderful way to do meditation 24*7 !!!!

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    2. @ Ruhi , JK reached that stage after a great length of time - which might have a journey beginning several lives earlier.

      Mortals like me, who are well below his level, have to start at the beginning :) . The ability to introspect in silence is the necessary first step. After much practice, the next steps of introspection and detachment in public begins to happen.

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  7. However all this comes at a "cost" - the person becomes a bit detached, emotions get more under control ( others see it as lack of emotions), events do not effect you as much as a normal person.

    If that is not what a person intends to happen, then no need to go through this route.

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    1. Yes I agree detachment will be an obvious outcome. But that detachment does not mean in-sensitiveness to others. In fact the biggest phenomenon that one wants to experience pursuing this path is of 'oneness' which is at root of this philosophy. And if we ever realise oneness we will become unlimited reservoir of love and compassion to everyone and everything around us.
      That detachment implies recognizing that external things/people/relationships do not define us. Knowing this we can more giving to others allowing them more freedom and become more acceptable to life in all its situations.

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    2. Bingo! That is exactly the way I see it too (till now) :)

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    3. I totally agree with this comment, detachment as I understand is to stop asking "why"..but to enjoy the emotions of selfless joy..which in other words is what gunny is saying. I am surprised how all of us are on the same page.

      I am truly blessed to be in such good company on this voyage!!! Cheers guys!!

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  8. Just to connect the dots with something I read in 'I am That':
    "Just keep in mind the feeling 'I am', merge in it, till your mind and feeling become one. By repeated attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention and affection and your mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling 'I am'. ‘I am’ remains as the ever-present background of the mind"
    I think his "I am" is similar to Krishanmurti saying that one must watch oneself while doing everything.

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  9. The more a person thinks, the more his mind "chatters" with himself, (if not with others also). The more he chatters , the more he moves away from feelings. The more he goes away from feelings, the more deluded he is. This void is filled by logic, which starts him thinking even more. And fuels the endless cycle again.

    think about the ways of breaking this cycle of delusion....

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