When you turn your head from horizon to horizon your eyes see a vast space in which all the things of the earth and of the sky appear. But this space is always limited where the earth meets the sky. The space in the mind is so small. In this little space all our activities seem to take place: the daily living and the hidden struggles with contradictory desires and motives. In this little space the mind seeks freedom, and so it is always a prisoner of itself. Meditation is the ending of this little space. To us, action is bringing about order in this little space of the mind. But there is another action which is not putting order in this little space. Meditation is action which comes when the mind has lost its little space. This vast space which the mind, the I, cannot reach, is silence. The mind can never be silent within itself; it is silent only within the vast space which thought cannot touch. Out of this silence there is action which is not of thought. Meditation is this silence.
J. Krishnamurti/Meditations, 1969
Why are we such tortured human beings?
Meditation is really very simple. We complicate it. We weave a web of ideas round it, what it is and what it is not. But it is none of these things. Because it is so very simple it escapes us, because our minds are so complicated, so time-worn and time-based. And this mind dictates the activity of the heart, and then the trouble begins. But meditation comes naturally, with extraordinary ease, when you walk on the sand or look out of your window or see those marvellous hills burnt by last summer's sun. Why are we such tortured human beings, with tears in our eyes and false laughter on our lips? If you could walk alone among those hills or in the woods or along the long, white, bleached sands, in that solitude you would know what meditation is. The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything. Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there.
J. Krishnamurti/Meditations, 1969
Is there a new experience in meditation?
Is there a new experience in meditation? The desire for experience, the higher experience which is beyond and above the daily or the commonplace, is what keeps the well-spring empty. The craving for more experience, for visions, for higher perception, for some realization or other, makes the mind look outward, which is no different from its dependence on environment and people. The curious part of meditation is that an event is not made into an experience. It is there, like a new star in the heavens, without memory taking it over and holding it, without the habitual process of recognition and response in terms of like and dislike. Our search is always outgoing; the mind seeking any experience is outgoing. Inward-going is not a search at all; it is perceiving. Response is always repetitive, for it comes always from the same bank of memory.
J. Krishnamurti/Meditations, 1969
We do not know what love is
In the space which thought creates around itself there is no love. This space divides man from man, and in it is all the becoming, the battle of life, the agony and fear. Meditation is the ending of this space, the ending of the me. Then relationship has quite a different meaning, for in that space which is not made by thought, the other does not exist, for you do not exist. Meditation then is not the pursuit of some vision, however sanctified by tradition. Rather it is the endless space where thought cannot enter. To us, the little space made by thought around itself, which is the me, is extremely important, for this is all the mind knows, identifying itself with everything that is in that space. And the fear of not being is born in that space. But in meditation, when this is understood, the mind can enter into a dimension of space where action is inaction. We do not know what love is, for in the space made by thought around itself as the me, love is the conflict of the me and the not-me. This conflict, this torture, is not love. Thought is the very denial of love, and it cannot enter into that space where the me is not. In that space is the benediction which man seeks and cannot find. He seeks it within the frontiers of thought, and thought destroys the ecstasy of this benediction.
J. Krishnamurti/Meditations1969
Will security, biological or psychological, give you this sense of flowering?
Krishnamurti: Look, my friend. You can see, as you grow older, that very few people are happy; there is too much pressure, competition, a thousand people after one job, there is overpopulation. Everything in the world is becoming more and more dangerous. You understand? And, when you observe all this, what is your response?
Student: I can see my parents getting older, they are running around without any need to, because there is a fear of looking at all that.
Krishnamurti: So you are saying that most people in the world are seeking physical security and perhaps, psychological security. Will security, biological or psychological, give you this sense of flowering? You understand?
J. Krishnamurti/Inward Flowering,5,"Freedom, Love and Action"
Something happens in the course of our life
I mean by that word flowering that nothing hinders us, nothing blocks or prevents us from actually growing deeply, inwardly. Most of us hardly ever flower, grow, bloom. Something happens in the course of our life which stultifies us, deadens us, so that there is no deep inward nourishment.
J. Krishnamurti/Inward Flowering-Freedom, Love and Action
How can the mind stop working against itself?
Questioner: You were saying there is conflict, which is all the actions of the mind, and this conflict destroys the sensitivity and the energy and the passion of the mind itself. So the mind dulls itself by conflict, by working against itself.
Krishnamurti: So your question becomes: how can the mind stop working against itself?
Questioner: Yes.
Krishnamurti: Is this question one more condemnation, justification, escape, one more of these interfering activities of the mind which makes it work against itself? If it is, then it breeds conflict. Is this question trying to get rid of conflict? If it is, it is more conflict, and you are forever in this vicious circle. So the right question is not how to end conflict but to see the truth that where passion and sensitivity are, conflict is absent. Do you see this?
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations, 23
Conflict in any form distorts the mind
Conflict in any form distorts the mind. This is a fact, not some opinion or judgment given thoughtlessly. Any conflict between two people prevents their understanding each other. Conflict prevents perception. The understanding of what is, is the only important thing, not the formulating of what should be. This division between what is and what should be is the origin of conflict. And the interval between idea and action also breeds conflict. The fact and the image are two different things: the pursuit of the image leads to every form of conflict, illusion and hypocrisy whereas the understanding of what is, which is the only thing we really have, leads to quite a different state of mind.
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations, 21
Not the action of the observer
Questioner: What then, where then, is that thing on which the cloth of thought exists?
Krishnamurti: It is that which is not the action of the observer. The realizing of this is great love. This realization is possible only when you understand that the observer himself is the observed: and that is meditation.
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations, 20
All conflict is this battle between the observer and the observed
The division in our lives is the structure of thought, which is the action of the observer who thinks himself separate. He further thinks of himself as the thinker, as something different from his thought. But there can be no thought without the thinker and no thinker without the thought. So the two are really one. He is also the experiencer and, again, he separates himself from the thing he experiences. The observer, the thinker, the experiencer, are not different from the observed, the thought, the experienced. This is not a verbal conclusion. If it is a conclusion then it is another thought which again makes the division between the conclusion and the action which is supposed to follow that conclusion. When the mind sees the reality of this, the division can no longer exist. This is the whole point of what we are saying. All conflict is this battle between the observer and the observed. This is the greatest thing to understand.
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations, 20
The observer himself is the action which divides life
The observer is the living entity who is always moving, acting, who is aware of things, and aware of his own existence. This existence he is aware of is his relationship to things, to people and to ideas. This observer is the whole machinery of thought, he is also observation, he is also a nervous system and sensory perception. The observer is his name, his conditioning, and the relationship between that conditioning and life. All this is the observer.
J. Krishnaurti/Eight Conversations, 20
What is this observer?
To answer all the questions we have put, we must put yet a further question: what is the thinker? Is the thinker separate from thought? Is the experiencer different from the thing he experiences? Is the observer different from the thing he observes? If the observer is different from the thing he observes, then there will always be division, separation, and therefore conflict. To go beyond this cleavage we must understand what the observer is. Obviously he makes this division. You who are observing make this division, whether it be between you and your wife, or the tree, or anything else. Now what is this observer, or thinker, or experiencer?
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations,19
What is thought made of?
Is thought the cause of all division, of all fragmentation in life? What is thought made of? What is the substance of those pieces of thread woven into that complex cloth we call the mind? Thought is matter, probably measurable. And it comes from the accumulated memory, which is matter, stored in the brain. Thought has its origin in the past, recent or remote. Can one be aware of thought as it arises out of the past- the recollections of the past, the action of the past?
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations, 19
Is there an observation of silence by silence in silence?
Krishnamurti: Is there an observation of silence by silence in silence?
Questioner: That's a new question.
Krishnamurti: It is not a new question if you have been following. The whole brain, the mind, the feelings, the body, everything is quiet. Can this quietness, stillness, look at itself, not as an observer who is still? Can the totality of this silence watch its own totality?
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations, 12
Silence which has not been invited, induced, sought after
There is no other fact but silence which has not been invited, induced, sought after, but which is the natural outcome of observation and of understanding oneself and the world about one. In this there has been no motive which has brought silence. If there is any shadow or suspicion of a motive, then that silence is directed and deliberate, so it is not silence at all. If you can honestly say that that silence is free, then what actually takes place in that silence is our only concern. What is the quality and the texture of that silence? Is it superficial, passing, measurable? Are you aware of it after it is over, or during the silence? If you are aware that you have been silent, then it is only a memory, and therefore dead. If you are aware of the silence while it is happening, then is it silence?
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations, 11
If stillness to you is only a door
What lies beyond can be found only if the mind is still. There may be something or there may be nothing at all. So the only thing that is important is for the mind to be still. Again, if you are concerned with what lies beyond, then you are not looking at what the state of actual stillness is. If stillness to you is only a door to that which lies beyond, then you are not concerned with that door, whereas what is important is the very door itself, the very stillness itself. Therefore you cannot ask what lies beyond. The only thing that is important is for the mind to be still. Then what takes place? That is all we are concerned with, not with what lies beyond silence.
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations, 11
To negate everything that man has invented
Questioner: I still don't know what you mean by enlightenment?
Krishnamurti: A state of negation. Negation is the most positive action, not positive assertion. This is a very important thing to understand. Most of us so easily accept positive dogma, a positive creed, because we want to be secure, to belong, to be attached, to depend. The positive attitude divides and brings about duality. The conflict then begins between this attitude and others. But the negation of all values, of all morality, of all beliefs, having no frontiers, cannot be in opposition to anything. A positive statement in its very definition separates, and separation is resistance. To this we are accustomed, this is our conditioning. To deny all this is not immoral; on the contrary to deny all division and resistance is the highest morality. To negate everything that man has invented, to negate all his values, ethics and gods, is to be in a state of mind in which there is no duality, therefore no resistance or conflict between opposites. In this state there are no opposites, and this state is not the opposite of something else.
J. Krishnamurti/Eight Conversations, 7
To come upon love without seeking it
A mind that is seeking is not a passionate mind and to come upon love without seeking it, is the only way to find it- to come upon it unknowingly and not as a result of any effort or experience.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 86
Passion without motive
It seems to me that one thing is absolutely necessary and that is passion without motive- passion that is not the result of some commitment or attachment, passion that is not lust. A man who does know what passion is will never know love because love can come into being only when there is total self-abandonment.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 86
Will any authority, any method, any system, tell you how to love?
If anyone tells you, it is not love. Can you say, 'I wil practice love. I will sit down day after day and think about it. I will practice being kind and gentle and force myself to pay attention to others? Do you mean to say that you can discipline yourself to love, exercise the will to love? When you exercise discipline and will to love, love goes out of the window.
J. Krishnamurti/Freedom from the Known, 85