thoughts..

Silence

2006-08-09T03:40:00.000-04:00

As when from the depth of music,

A note vibrates grows and wanes

Until in another music blends

In this way, pours from silence

Another silence, a steeple, a sword

That soars and grows and lifts us

And while it soars, it lets go

Of memories, and hopes,

Of lies big and small

And we want to cry and in our throat

Dies the scream:

And we disembogue in the silent

That all silences mute.

~ Octavio Paz

Distant Time

2006-06-03T18:23:00.000-04:00

I know not from what distant time

thou art ever coming nearer to meet me.

Thy sun and stars can never keep thee hidden from me for aye.

In many a morning and eve thy footsteps have been heard

and thy messenger has come within my heart and called me in secret.

I know not only why today my life is all astir,

and a feeling of tremulous joy is passing through my heart.

It is as if the time were come to wind up my work,

and I feel in the air a faint smell of thy sweet presence.

- Tagore

Disorderly

2006-05-22T04:24:00.000-04:00

"An advantage of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries."

Creativity

2006-05-04T20:44:00.000-04:00

Creativity simply means you are in a total relaxation. It does not mean inaction, it means relaxation, because out of relaxation much action will be born. But that will not be your doing, you will be just a vehicle. A song will start coming through you - you are not the creator of it, it comes from the beyond. It always comes from the beyond. When you create it, it is just ordinary, mundane. When it comes through you it has superb beauty, it brings something of the unknown in it.
...
When you become creative, when you allow creativity to happen through you, when you start singing a song that is not your own - that you cannot sign and you cannot say, "It is my own," on which you cannot put your signature - then life take wings, it upsurges.
In creativity is the surpassing. Otherwise, at the most we can go on perpetuating ourselves. You create a child - it is not creativity. You will die and the child will be here to perpetuate life. But to perpetuate is not enough unless you start surpassing yourself. And surpassing happens only when something of the beyond comes in contact with you.
That is the point of transcendence - surpassing. And in surpassing, the miracle happens: you are not, and yet for the first time you are.
The essence of wisdom is to act in harmony with nature. That is the message of all the great mystics - Lao Tzu, Buddha, Bahauddin, Sosan, Sanai - to act in harmony with nature. Animals act unconsciously in harmony with nature. Rocks and plants and stars act unconsciously in harmony with nature. Man has to act consciously in harmony with nature, because man has consciousness. Man can choose not to act in harmony, hence the great responsibility
...
to be in harmony with nature, with the natural rhythm of the universe. And whenever you are in harmony with the natural rhythm of the universe you are a poet, you are a painter, you ar a musician. you are a dancer.
Try it. Some time sitting by the side of a tree, fall in tune consciously. Become one with nature; let boundaries dissolve. Become the tree, become the grass, become the wind - and suddenly you will see, something that has never happened to you before is happening. Your eyes are becoming psychedelic: trees are greener than they have ever been, and roses are rosier, and everything seems to be luminous. And suddenly you want to sing a song, not knowing from where it comes. Your feet are ready to dance; you can feel the dance murmuring inside your veins, you can hear the sound of music within and without.
This is the state of creativity. This can be called the basic quality: being in harmony with nature, being in tune with life, with the universe.
Lao Tzu has given it a beautiful name, wei-wu-wei: action through inaction. You can call it "creative quietude" - a process that combines within a single individual two seeming incompatibles: supreme activity and supreme relaxation.
That's the paradox of creativity. If you see a painter painting, certainly he is active, utterly active, madly active - he is all action. Or if you see a dancer dancing, he is all action. But still, deep down there is no actor, no doer; there is only silence. Hence I call creativity the state of paradox. All beautiful states are paradoxical. The higher you go, the deeper you go into the paradox of reality.
Supreme action with supreme relaxation: on the surface great action is happening, in the depth nothing is happening, or only nothing is happening. Creative quietude is the supreme action - the precious suppleness, simplicity, spontaneity and freedom that flows from us, or rather through us, when our private egos and conscious efforts yield to a power not their own.
Yielding to a power not of your own, surrendering to a power that is beyond you, is creativity. Meditation is creativity. And when the ego disappears, the wound in you disappears; you are healed, you are whole. The ego is your dis-ease. And when the ego disappears you are no more dormant, you start flowing. You start flowing with the immense flow of existence.
Norbert Weiner has said, "We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves; whirlpools of water in an ever-flowing river."
Then you are not an ego but an event or a process of events. Then you are a process, not a thing. Consciousness is not a thing, it is a process; and we have made it a thing. The moment you call it "I" it becomes a thing - defined, bounded, dormant, stagnant. And you start dying.
The ego is your death. And the death of the ego is the beginning of your real life. And real life is creativity.
You need not go to any school to learn creativity. All that you need is to go withinwards and help the ego dissolve. Don't support it, don't go on strengthening and nourishing it. And whenever the ego is not, all is truth, all is beautiful. And then whatsoever happens is good.
And I am not saying that you all will become Picassos or Shakespeares, I am not saying that. A few of you will become painters, a few of you will become singers, a few of you will become musicians, a few of you dancers - but that is not the point. Each of you will become creative in his own way. You may be a cook, but then there will be creativity. Or you may be just a cleaner, but then there will be creativity. There will be no boredom.
You will become inventive in small things. Even in cleaning there will be a kind of worship, a prayer. So whatsoever you do then will have the taste of creativity. And we don't need many painters - if all turn out to be painters, life will become very difficult. We don't need many poets; we need gardeners too, we need farmers too, and we need all kinds of people. But each person can be creative. If he is meditative and egoless then God starts flowing through him. According to his capacities, according to his potential, God starts taking forms.
And then all is good. You need not become famous. A really creative person does not care a bit about becoming famous; there is no need. He is so tremendously fulfilled in whatsoever he is doing, he is so content with whatsoever he is and wherever he is, that there is no question of desire. When you are creative, desires disappear. When you are creative, ambitions disappear. When you are creative, you are already that which you always wanted to be.

Osho - Unio Mystica, volume 1

Creativity - part 3
Download link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/69cbql

5.6 MB, 14 minutes

Meditation

2006-05-03T20:48:00.000-04:00

Man, in order to escape his conflicts, has invented many forms of
meditation. These have been based on desire, will and the urge for
achievement and imply conflict and a struggle to arrive.This
conscious,deliberate striving is always within the limits of a
conditioned mind and in this there is no freedom. All effort to
meditate is the denial of meditation.

Meditation is the ending of thought. It is only then that there is a
different dimension which is beyond time.

J.Krishnamurti
March, 1979

A Light into Oneself

2006-04-28T00:22:00.000-04:00

j. Krishnamurti copyright 1999

A New Consciousness

A new consciousness and a totally new morality are necessary to bring about a radical change in the present culture and social structure. This is obvious, yet the Left and the Right and the revolution seem to disregard it. Any dogma, any formula, any ideology is part of the old consciousness; they are the fabrications of thought whose activity is fragmentation-the Left, the Right, the Center. This activity will inevitably lead to bloodshed of the Right or of the left or to totalitarianism. This is what is going on around us. One sees the necessity of social, economic, and moral change but the response is from the old consciousness, thought being the principle actor. The mess, the confusion, the misery that human beings have got into are within the area of the old consciousness, and without changing that profoundly, every human activity-political, economic, religious-will only bring us to the destruction of each other and of the earth. This is obvious to the sane.

One has to be a light to oneself; this light is the law. There is no other law. All the other laws are made by thought and so are fragmentary and contradictory. To be a light to oneself is not to follow the light of another, however reasonably, logical, historical, and however convincing. You cannot be a light to yourself if you are in the dark shadows of authority, of dogma, of conclusion. Morality is the child of love and love is not desire and pleasure. Sexual or sensory enjoyment is not love.

Freedom is to be a light to oneself; then it is not an abstraction, a thing conjured up by thought. Actual freedom is freedom from dependency, attachment, from the craving for experience. Freedom from the very structure of thought is to be a light unto oneself. In this light all action takes place and thus it is never contradictory. Contradiction exists only when that light is separate from action. The ideal, the principle, is the barren movement of thought and it cannot coexist with this light; one denies the other. Where the observer is, this light, this love is not. The structure of the observer is put together by thought, which is never new, never free. There is no "how," no system, no practice. There is only the seeing that is the doing. You have to see, not through the eyes of another. This light, this law, is neither yours nor that of another. There is only light. This is love.

The Time has come

2006-04-21T18:43:00.000-04:00

the time has come
to break all my promises
tear apart all chains
and cast away all advice

disassemble the heavens
link by link
and break at once
all lovers' ties
with the sword of death

put cotton inside
both my ears
and close them to
all words of wisdom

crash the door and
enter the chamber
where all sweet
things are hidden

how long can i
beg and bargain
for the things of this world
while love is waiting

how long before
i can rise beyond
how i am and
what i am

The Art of Dying

2006-04-20T20:41:00.000-04:00

So the first thing, or the most fundamental thing is: how to live.
Let me tell you a few things. First: your life is your life, it is nobody else's. So don't allow yourself to be dominated by others, don't allow yourself to be dictated to by others, that is a betrayal of life. If you allow yourself to be dictated to by others - maybe your parents, your society, your education system - your politicians, your priests, whosoever they are - if you allow yourself to be dominated by others you will miss your life. Because the domination comes from outside and life is within you. They never meet.
I am not saying that you should become a no-sayer to each and everything. That too is not of much help. There are two types of people. One is an obedient type, ready to surrender to any and everybody. They don't have any independent soul in them; they are immature, childish, always searching for a father-figure, for somebody to tell them what to do and what not to do. They are not able to trust their own being. These people are the greater part of the world, the masses.
Then there are, against these people, a small minority who reject society, who reject the values of the society. They think they are rebellious. They are not, they are only reactionaries. Because whether you listen to society or you reject society, if society remains in either way the determining factor, then you are dominated by the society.

Let me tell you an anecdote.
Once Mulla Nasrudin had been away for a while and arrived back in town wearing a long beard. His friends naturally kidded him about the beard and asked him how he happened to acquire the fur-piece. The Mulla with the beard began to complain and curse the thing in no uncertain terms. His friends were amazed at the way he talked and asked him why he continued to wear the beard if he did not like it. 'I hate the blasted thing!' the Mulla told them. 'If you hate it then why don't you shave it off and get rid of it?' one of his friends asked. A devilish gleam shone in the eyes of the Mulla as he answered, 'Because my wife hates it too!'

But that does not make you free. The hippies, the yippies and others, they are not really rebellious people, they are reactionaries. They have reacted against the society. A few are obedient, a few are disobedient, but the centre of domination is the same. A few obey, a few disobey, but nobody looks at his own soul.
A really rebellious person is one who is neither for society nor against society, who simply lives his life according to his own understanding. Whether it goes against society or it goes with society is not a consideration, it is irrelevant. Sometimes it may go with the society, sometimes it may not go with the society, but that is not the point to be considered. He lives according to his understanding, according to his small light. And I am not saying that he becomes very egoistic about it. No, he is very humble. He knows that his light is very small, but that is all the light that there is. He is not adamant, he's very humble. He says, 'I may be wrong, but please allow me to be wrong according to myself.'
That is the only way to learn. To commit mistakes is the only way to learn. To move according to one's own understanding is the only way to grow and become mature. If you are always looking at somebody to dictate to you, whether you obey or disobey makes no difference. If you are looking at somebody else to dictate to you, to decide for or against, you will never be able to know what your life is. It has to be lived, and you have to follow your own small light.
It is not always certain what to do. You are very confused. Let it be so. But find a way out of your confusion. It is very cheap and easy to listen to others because they can hand over dead dogmas to you, they can give you commandments - do this, don't do that. And they are very certain about their commandments. Certainty should not be sought; understanding should be sought. If you are seeking certainty you will become a victim of some trap or other. Don't seek certainty, seek understanding. Certainty can be given to you cheap, anybody can give it to you. But in the final analysis you will be a loser. You lost your life just to remain secure and certain, and life is not certain, life is not secure.
Life is insecurity. Each moment is a move into more and more insecurity. It is a gamble. One never knows what is going to happen. And it is beautiful that one never knows. If it was predictable, life would not be worth living. If everything was as you would like it to be, and everything was certain, you would not be a man at all, you would be a machine. Only for machines is everything secure and certain.
Man lives in freedom. Freedom needs insecurity and uncertainty. A real man of intelligence is always hesitant because he has no dogma to rely upon, to lean upon. He has to look and respond. Lao Tzu says, 'I am hesitant, and I move alertly in life because I don't know what is going to happen. And I don't have any principle to follow. I have to decide every moment. I never decide beforehand. I have to decide when the moment comes!'
Then one has to be very responsive. That's what responsibility is. Responsibility is not an obligation, responsibility is not a duty - it is a capacity to respond. A man who wants to know what life is has to be responsive. That is missing. Centuries of conditioning have made you more like machines. You have lost your manhood, you have bargained for security. You are secure and comfortable and everything has been planned by others. And they have put everything on the map, they have measured everything. This is all absolutely foolish because life cannot be measured, it is immeasurable. And no map is possible because life is in constant flux. Everything goes on changing. Nothing is permanent except change. Says Heraclitus, 'You cannot step in the same river twice.'
And the ways of life are very zig-zag. The ways of life are not like the tracks of a railway train. No, it does not run on tracks. And that's the beauty of it, the glory of it,.the poetry of it, the music of it - that it is always a surprise.
If you are seeking for security, certainty, your eyes will become closed. And you will be less and less surprised and you will lose the capacity to wonder. Once you lose the capacity to wonder, you have lost religion. Religion is the opening of your wondering heart. Religion is a receptivity for the mysterious that surrounds us.
...
So the first thing is: don't ask anybody how you should live your life. Life is so precious. Live it. I am not saying that you will not make mistakes, you will. Remember only one thing - don't make the same mistake again and again. That's enough. If you can find a new mistake every day, make it. But don't repeat mistakes, that is foolish. A man who can find new mistakes to make will be growing continuously - that is the only way to learn, that is the only way to come to your own inner light.

I have heard.
One night the poet, Awhadi of Kerman (a very great Muslim poet) was sitting on his porch bent over a vessel. Shams-e-Tabrizi, a great Sufi mystic, happened to pass by.
Shams-e-Tabrizi looked at the poet, at what he was doing. He asked the poet, 'What are you doing?'
The poet said, 'Contemplating the moon in a bowl of water.'
Shams-e-Tabrizi started laughing, with an uproarious laughter, a mad laughter. The poet started feeling uncomfortable; a crowd gathered. And the poet said, 'What is the matter? Why are you laughing so much? Why are you ridiculing me?'
Shams-e-Tabrizi said, 'Unless you have broken your neck, why don't you look directly at the moon in the sky?'

The moon is there, the full moon is there, and this poet was sitting with a bowl of water and looking into the bowl of water at the reflection of the moon.
Seeking truth in scriptures, seeking truth in philosophies, is looking at the reflection. If you ask somebody else how you should live your life, you are asking for misguidance, because that man can only talk about his own life. And never, never, are two lives the same. Whatsoever he can say or impart to you will be about his own life - and that too only if he has lived. He may have asked somebody else, he may have followed somebody else, he may have been an imitator himself. Then it is a reflection of a reflection. And centuries pass and people go on reflecting the reflection of the reflection of the reflection - and the real moon is always there in the sky waiting for you. It is your moon, it is your sky, look directly. Be immediate about it. Why borrow my eyes or anybody else's eyes? You have been given eyes, beautiful eyes, to see, and to see directly. Why borrow understanding from anybody? Remember, it may be understanding to me. but the moment you borrow it, it becomes knowledge to you - it is no more understanding,
Understanding is only that which has been experienced by the person himself. It may be understanding for me, if I have looked at the moon, but the moment I say it to you it becomes knowledge, it is no longer understanding. Then it is just verbal, then it is just linguistic. And language is a lie.

Let me tell you an anecdote.
A chicken farmer, dissatisfied with the productivity of his flock, decided to use a bit of psychology on his hens. Accordingly he purchased a gay-coloured, talking parrot and placed him in the barnyard. Sure enough, the hens took to the handsome stranger immediately, pointed out the best tidbits for him to eat with joyous clucks, and generally followed him around like a bevy of teen-age girls following a new singing star sensation. To the delight of the farmer even their egg-laying capacities improved.
The barnyard rooster, naturally jealous of being ignored by his harem, set upon the attractive interloper, assailed him with beak and claws, pulling out one green or red feather after the other. Whereupon the intimidated parrot cried out in trepidation, 'Desist sir! I beg of you, desist! After all, I am only here in the capacity of a language professor!'

Many people live their life as language professors. That is the falsest kind of life. Reality needs no language, it is available to you on a non-verbal level. The moon is there; it needs no bowl and no water, it needs no other medium. You have just to look at it; it is a non-verbal communication. The whole of life is available - you just have to learn how to communicate with it non-verbally. That's what meditation is all about - to be in a space where language does not interfere, where learned concepts don't come in between you and the real.
When you love a woman don't be bothered about what others have said about love, because that is going to be an interference. You love a woman, the love is there, forget all that you have learned about love. Forget all Kinseys, forget all Masters and Johnsons, forget all Freuds and Jungs. Please don't become a language professor. Just love the woman and let love be there, and let love lead you and guide you into its innermost secrets, into its mysteries. Then you will be able to know what love is.
And what others say about meditation is meaningless. Once I came upon a book written by a Jaina saint about meditation. It was really beautiful but there were just a few places by which I could see that the man had never meditated himself - otherwise those places could not be there. But they were very few and far between. The book on the whole, almost ninety-nine per cent, was perfect. I loved the book.
Then I forgot about it. For ten years I was wandering around the country. Once in a village of Rajasthan, that saint came to meet me. His name sounded familiar, and suddenly I remembered the book. And I asked the saint why he had come to me. He said, 'I have come to you to know what meditation is.' I said, 'I remember your book. I remember it very well, because it really impressed me. Except for a few defects which showed that you have never meditated, the book was perfectly right - ninety-nine per cent right. And now you come here to learn about meditation. Have you never meditated?'
He looked a little embarrassed because his disciples were also there. I said, 'Be frank. Because if you say you know meditation, then I am not going to talk about it. Then finished! You know. There is no need. If you say to me frankly - at least be true once - if you say you have never meditated, only then can I help you towards meditation.' It was a bargain, so he had to confess. He said, 'Yes, I have never said it to anybody. I have read many books about meditation, all the old scriptures. And I have been teaching people, that's why I feel embarrassed before my disciples. I have been teaching meditation to thousands, and I have written books about it, but I have never meditated.'
You can write books about meditation and never come across the space that meditation is. You can become very efficient in verbalising, you can become very clever in abstraction, in intellectual argumentativeness, and you can forget completely that all the time that you have been involved in these intellectual activities has been a sheer wastage.
I asked the old man, 'How long have you been interested in meditation?' He said, 'My whole life.' He was almost seventy. He said, 'When I was twenty I took sannyas, I became a Jaina monk, and those fifty years since then I have been reading and reading and thinking about meditation.' Fifty years of thinking and reading and writing about meditation, even guiding people into meditation, and he has not even tasted once what meditation is!
But this is the case with millions of people. They talk about love, they know all the poetries about love, but they have never loved. Or even if they thought they were in love, they were never in love. That too was a 'heady' thing, it was not of the heart. People live and go on missing life. It needs courage. It needs courage to be realistic, it needs courage to move with life wherever it leads, because the paths are uncharted, there exists no map. One has to go into the unknown.
Life can be understood only if you are ready to go into the unknown. If you cling to the known, you cling to the mind, and the mind is not life. Life is non-mental, non-intellectual, because life is total. Your totality has to be involved in it, you cannot just think about it. Thinking about life is not life. Beware of this 'about-ism'. One goes on thinking about and about: there are people who think about God, there are people who think about life, there are people who think about love. There are people who think about this and that.

Mulla Nasrudin became very old and he went to his doctor. He was looking very weak so the doctor said, 'I can say only one thing. You will have to cut your love-life to half.'
The Mulla said, 'Okay. Which half? Talking about it or thinking about it?'

That's all. Don't become a language professor, don't become a parrot. Parrots are language professors. They live in words, concepts, theories, theologies, and life goes on passing, slipping out of their hands. Then one day suddenly they become afraid of death. When a person is afraid of death, know well that that person has missed life. If he has not missed life there cannot be any fear of death. If a person has lived life, he will be ready to live death also.

The Art of Dying, chapter 1 - October 1976 in Buddha Hall

The Art of Dying - part 2

The Peanut Butter Jar

2006-04-19T17:33:00.000-04:00

Cleaning out the peanut butter jar is a solitary pleasure. I liken it to
a sort of zazen where you sit in silence and savor the flavor and then
ker-plunk...into the trash goes the empty jar.

For some reason, cleaning out the jar with a teaspoon is a favorite
memory of mine. No matter how old you get or how many steaks you may
have eaten, the last couple of tablespoons of peanut butter in the jar
are magical. They must be garnered from each side, the bottom and around
the rim. They taste slightly grainy and always like...more. But alas,
the jar will yield up no more and it is thrown away with a sigh.
Meditation is like that.

Sitting with the basic staple of one’s ego is at last delicious when all
hope of enlightenment has been given up. You realize that when you first
took the top off of the jar, the peanut butter had a glaze and a sheen
that beckoned. “Look everyone, it’s me. Aren’t I swell?” But then many
spoons dipped into the jar and before you know it, the jar was almost
empty. Everyone had left and you sat alone with your essential self
intact. Just you and the lowly spoon.

When all is said and done, cleaning out the peanut butter jar should
never be done by experts or those who would give it a media spin. No,
let us do it alone and in silence, as if God Himself were waiting for
the next bite, or lick. In that moment of supreme ecstacy, would He
reveal Himself to you or would He just gently say, “No thanks, you
finish it.”

--Vicki Woodyard
http://www.bobwoodyard.com

ML & JK

2006-04-16T05:42:00.000-04:00

Mary Zimbalist: Do you ever feel used, feel something coming into  you?

K: I wouldn't say that. It comes into the room when we are talking  seriously.

ML: How is it related to the pain?

K: Pain comes when I am quiet, not talking. It comes slowly until the  body
says, 'That is enough'. After reaching a crisis the body faints; the pain
peters out or there is some interruption and it goes.

ML: Can we rule out something from outside?

K: I don't. But what is the truth? There is an element in all this  which is
not man-made, thought-made, not self-induced. I am not like that. Is  this
something which we cannot discover, mustn't touch, is not penetrable? I am
wondering. I have often felt it is not my business, that we will never find out.
When we say it comes into being because the mind is vacant, I don't think it is
 that either. We have come to impasse. I have talked to you, to her [MZ], to
Subba Rao [who had known him since the early days]. He said, 'You have been
as  you since the beginning'. I ask myself, 'Is this true?' If it is, there is
no  hope for others. Is it all something which we cannot touch? We are trying
with  our minds to touch that. Try to find out what that is when your mind is
completely quiet. To find out the truth of the matter you have to have your
mind  empty. Not my mind which is in emptiness. But there is a factor we are
missing.  We have come to a point where our brains, our instruments of
investigation, have  no meaning.

ML: Might someone else be able to find out? And would it be right to  enquire?

K: You might be able to because you are writing about it. I cannot. If  you
and Maria [MZ] sat down and said, 'Let us enquire, I'm pretty sure you could
find out. Or do it alone. I see something: what I said is trueâ€”I can never
find
 out. Water can never find out what water is. That is quite right. If you
find  out I'll corroborate it.

ML: You would know if it were right?

K: Can you feel it in the room? It is getting stronger and stronger. My  head
is starting. If you asked the question and said, 'I don't know', you might
find it. If I was writing it I would state all this. I would begin with the boy
 completely vacant.

ML: Do you mind it said that you want it explained?

K: I don't care. Say what you like. I'm sure if others put their minds  to
this they can do it. I am absolutely sure of this. Absolutely, absolutely.  Also
I am sure I can't find it.

ML: What if one could understand it but not be able to put it into  words?

K: You could. You would find a way. The moment you discover something  you
have words for it. Like a poem. If you are open to enquire, put your brain  in
condition, someone could find out. But the moment you find it, it will be
right. No mystery.

ML: Will the mystery mind being found?

K: No, the mystery will be gone.

Mary Zimbalist: But the mystery is something sacred.

K: The sacredness will remain.

ML: Your teaching is complicated.

K: Very complicated.

ML: If you read it would you understand it?

K: Oh, yes, yes.

ML: Who made the teachings? You? The mystery?

K: A good question, Who made the teachings?

ML: Knowing you as K, the man, it is hard for me to think of you making  the
teachings.

K: You mean without study, did you or some other person make  them?

ML: Something manifests in you which does not seem to be part of your  own
brain.

Discover your Soul

2006-04-09T04:10:00.000-04:00

Imagine yourself marooned on a vast deserted island. You have been there for years, struggling just to survive, gathering food, using only your hands and makeshift tools to scratch out an existence.

Most of your days are fully taken up with satisfying the basic needs of life. Having proved to yourself that you can survive with just the bare essentials you resign yourself to the fact that you will never be rescued.

Anger turns to quiet desperation, then to acceptance as you carry on with your life. Several years have passed and you have become accustomed to your lifestyle and feel comfortable enough to start exploring your island.

You have settled in and your attention lately has been directed towards the mountains and what is beyond. As you begin to move further inland and away from your comfort zone, you develop a sense of strength for having survived the years on your own.

Along the way you are making many discoveries that will enhance your life. You are gathering an abundance of knowledge about the environment that you live in.

By this time you have convinced yourself that there is nothing you cannot do, and that there is nothing you really have to do to survive. Everything has been provided for you. You simply reach out and take it as you need it.

After 40 years of wandering the island, you finally reach the top of the mountain and turn away from the direction in which you came.

In the distance and time that separates you, you discover a huge modern city with all the amenities that such a place could hold. You discover that your island was not an island and that the city has always been there.

As your mind races over the circumstances of the last 40 years, you fall to your knees weeping. The discovery of your soul is very much the same overwhelming experience. It’s not a religious experience unless you want it to be.

It's natural and simply a discovery of another part of you, that was there all along, that you didn't know. Think of the possibilities. Where there was one, now there are many.

And there is always that one question, "Why?" How could I have not known? How would my life have been different? The human species is a three part being — mind, body and spirit.

The mind is what drives us, the spirit is our personality or ego, and the body is the vehicle that is used to experience the physical world. To experience physicality, one needs to be physical, it's natural then to be focused on the body and its needs.

Most all of our waking hours are centred on what the body wants to experience. There is nothing wrong with this arrangement, and it works flawlessly and on auto-pilot throughout our lifetimes with or without our awareness of what makes it tick.

So why am I bringing this up? If the system works perfectly, then leave it alone. Don't try to fix that which doesn't need fixing. Is ignorance not bliss? These notions of being alone and powerless, limit our experience of the physical world and our own personal growth.

With a certain amount of awareness, our lives can be enhanced a thousand fold and more, with the discovery of our souls. Denial of the soul has far reaching ramifications. Awareness of it, augments the quality of our lives.

It's like discovering that city that was always there, and you are given the key to access any part of it. I am not talking about some hypothetical element of our person, rather of something that actually exists.

This soul that we are all part of, is only available to you on a conscious level when you recognise that it is there, when you discover it. Acceptance of the knowledge of your soul brings with it all the benefits, amenities and power that is rightfully yours.

The soul is self discovery. You do not have to pay penance or get down on your knees to another to bring it into your awakened life. There is no prayer or affirmation that will bring it to you. Your soul is yours...it always was.

The only thing that will deny you access to your soul is your own thoughts. You can walk on water, turn water into wine, perform all kinds of miracles if you desire. Your thoughts are the key to the soul.

As you think, so shall your reap. That which you would call "God," or anything else, is who you are. You are an individualised piece of that power. You have the power of the whole at your disposal in any given second through your thoughts.

Discover your soul and you discover another natural piece of who you are. You are never lost, you just are not there yet. Open the door to discovery and double or more what you think you are.

Courtesy: Times of India

What is pleasure?

2006-03-29T18:33:00.000-05:00

What is pleasure? To possess a beautiful car! Or have lovely 12th century furniture; to polish it, to look at it, to evaluate. There is a
furniture in England, in a particular room, it's about l6th, l5th century. And one
has paid a great deal of money for it. And it gives you, watching it, great pleasure. Then you identify yourself with that furniture. Then you
become the furniture, because whatever you identify yourself with, you are that. It
may be an image, it may be a piece of furniture, it may be a man, woman, or it may be some idea, some conclusion, some ideology. And all the
identification with something greater or something which is convenient, satisfying, doesn't give you too much discomfort, that brings us a
great deal of pleasure.

And pleasure goes with fear. I don't know if you have watched it. It's the other side of the coin. But we don't want to look at the other side.
But we say to ourselves, pleasure is the most important thing, either through drugs, which is now becoming more and more in this country - opium,
cocaine, alcohol. You know all that, what is happening in the world, especially in
this country, which breeds certain irresponsibility, gives you for the moment certain elan, energy, quietens the brain probably and dulls the
brain, and ultimately destroys human beings. You have seen all this on television. If you haven't seen all this, you know of somebody and so
on. We start with pleasure, and end up in ruination. And pleasure of possessing
something, the woman or the man; pleasure of power - you understand - over somebody, maybe over your servants , if you have domestic help, over
that person, or your wife or husband or something or other, we want power. Right?
Let's be quite honest about all this. We admire power, we extol power, we idolize power. Right? Whether it is spiritual power of the religious
hierarchy, or the power of a politician, power of money. To the speaker power is evil. That's why followers are those who want power through
knowledge, through enlightenment, you know all that rot they talk about. Not that there is not enlightenment, but not the stupid nonsense that they
talk about.

J. Krishnamurti
Ojai 3rd Public Talk 18th May 1985

On Meditation

2006-03-28T20:39:00.000-05:00

Meditation is not an escape from the world; it is not an isolating self-enclosing activity, but rather the comprehension of the world and its ways. The world has little to offer apart from food and clothes and shelter, and pleasure with its great sorrows. Meditation is a wandering away from this world; one has to be a total outsider. Then the world has a meaning, and the beauty of the heavens and the earth is constant. Then love is not pleasure. From this all action begins that is not the outcome of tension, contradiction, the search for self-fulfilment or the conceit of power. What is important in meditation is the quality of the mind and the heart. It is not what you achieve, or what you say you attain, but rather the quality of the mind that is innocent and vulnerable. Through negation there is the positive state. Merely to gather, or to live in experience, denies the purity of meditation. Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end. The mind can never be made innocent through experience. It is the negation of experience that brings about the positive state of innocency which cannot be cultivated by thought. Thought is never innocent. Meditation is the ending of thought, not by the meditator, for the meditator is the meditation. If there is no meditation then you are like the blind man in a world of great beauty, light and colour. Wander by the sea-shore and let this meditative quality come upon you. If it does, don´t pursue it. What you pursue will be the memory of what it was – and what was is the death of what is. Or when you wander among the hills, let everything tell you the beauty and the pain of life, so that you awaken to your own sorrow and the ending of it. Meditation is the root, the plant, the flower and the fruit. It is words that divide the fruit, the flower, the plant and the root.In this separation action does not bring about goodness; virtue is the total perception. Meditation is not the repetition of the word, nor the experiencing of a vision, nor the cultivating of silence. The beads and the word do quieten the chattering mind, but this is a form of self-hypnosis. You might as well take a pill. Meditation is not wrapping yourself in a pattern of thought, in the enchantment of pleasure. Meditation has no beginning and therefore has no end. 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. As the mind watches, listens to the movements of life, the outer and the inner, to such a mind comes a silence that is not put together by thought. It is not a silence that the observer can experience. If he does experience it and recognise it, it is no longer silence. The silence of the meditative mind is not within the borders of recognition, for this silence has no frontier. There is only silence – in which the space of division ceases. Meditation is the unfolding of the new. The new is beyond and above the repetitious past – and meditation is the ending of this repetition. The death that meditation brings about is the immortality of the new. The new is not within the area of thought, and meditation is the silence of thought. Meditation is not an achievement, nor is it the capture of a vision, nor the excitement of sensation. It is like the river, not to be tamed, swiftly running and overflowing its banks. It is the music without sound; it cannot be domesticated and made use of. It is the silence in which the observer has ceased from the very beginning. The mind freeing itself from the known is meditation. Meditation is the total denial of everything that the mind has accumulated. The known is the observer, and the observer sees only through the known. The image is of the past, and meditation is the ending of the past. It is only when the mind transcends time that truth ceases to be an abstraction. Then bliss is not an idea derived from pleasure but an actuality that is not verbal. Thought cannot conceive or formulate to itself the nature of space. Whatever it formulates has within it the limitation of its own boundaries. This is not the space which meditation comes upon. Thought has always a horizon. The meditative mind has no horizon. The mind cannot go from the limited to the immense, nor cannot it transform the limited into the limitless. The one has to cease for the other to be. Meditation is opening the door into spaciousness which cannot be imagined or speculated upon. Thought is the centre around which there is the space of an idea and this space can be expanded by further ideas. But such expansion by stimulation of any form is not the spaciousness in which there is no centre. Meditation is the understanding of this centre and so going beyond it. Silence and spaciousness go together. The immensity of silence is the immensity of the mind in which a centre does not exist. The perception of this space and the silence is not of thought. Thought can perceive only its own projection, and the recognition of it is its own frontier. 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 the things about you outwardly, but also inwardly. So meditation is not an activity of isolation but action in everyday life which demands cooperation, 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 activityof will but through being aware of them through self-knowing. Without knowing the activities of the self, meditation becomes sensuous excitement and therefore of very little significance. Meditation is the emptying of experience and is going on all the time, consciously or unconsciously, so it is not an action limited to a certain period during the day. It is a continuous action from morning till night – the watching without the watcher. Therefore there is no division between the daily life and meditation, the religious life and the secular life. The division comes only when the watcher is tied to time. In this division there is disarray, misery and confusion, which is the state of society. So meditation is not individualistic, nor is it social; it transcends both and so includes both. This is love; the flowering of love is meditation. Meditation is a movement in stillness. Silence of the mind is the way of action. Action born of thought is inaction, which breeds disorder. The silence is not the product of thought, nor is it the ending of the chattering of the mind. A still mind is possible only when the brain itself is quiet. The brain cells – which have been conditioned for so long to react, to project, to defend, to assert – become quiet only through the seeing of what actually is. From this silence, action which does not bring about disorder is possible only when the observer, the centre, the experiencer has come to an end – for then the seeing is the doing. Seeing is possible only out of a silence in which all evaluation and moral values have come to an end. Intelligence is not discernment and judgement, or critical evaluation. Intelligence is the seeing of what is. The ¨what is¨is continually changing, and when the seeing is anchored in the past, the intelligence of seeing ceases. Then the dead weight of memory dictates the action and not the intelligence of perception. Meditation is the seeing of all this at a glance. And to see, there must be silence, and from this silence there is action which is entirely different from the activities of thought. Meditation is not a separate thing from life; it is the very essence of life. JK

Dealing with Fear

2006-03-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

"One is afraid of public opinion, afraid of not achieving, not fulfilling, afraid of not having the opportunity; and through it all there is this extraordinary sense of guilt—one has done a thing that one should not have done; the sense of guilt in the very act of doing; one is healthy and others are poor and unhealthy; one has food and others have no food. The more the mind is inquiring, penetrating, asking, the greater the sense of guilt, anxiety. ...Fear is the urge that seeks a Master, a guru; fear is this coating of respectability, which every one loves so dearly—to be respectable. Do you determine to be courageous to face events in life, or merely rationalize fear away, or find explanations that will give satisfaction to the mind that is caught in fear? How do you deal with it? Turn on the radio, read a book, go to a temple, cling to some form of dogma, belief?

Fear is the destructive energy in man. It withers the mind, it distorts thought, it leads to all kinds of extraordinarily clever and subtle theories, absurd superstitions, dogmas, and beliefs. If you see that fear is destructive, then how do you proceed to wipe the mind clean? You say that by probing into the cause of fear you would be free of fear. Is that so? Trying to uncover the cause and knowing the cause of fear does not eliminate fear."

Dealing with Fear - Book of Life

Him

2006-03-23T21:28:00.000-05:00

"If he is on God's side he is one of us, and it does not matter in the least whether he calls himself a Hindu or a Buddhist, a Christian or a Mohammedan, whether he is an Indian or an Englishman, a Chinaman or a Russian. Those who are on His side know why they are here and what they should do, and they are trying to do it; all the others do not yet know what they should do, and so they often act foolishly, and then try to invent ways for themselves which they think will be pleasant for themselves, not understanding that all are one, and that therefore only what the One wills can ever be really pleasant for any one. They are following the unreal instead of the real. Until they learn to distinguish between these two, they have not ranged themselves on God's side, and so this discrimination is the first step." J.K.

thought

2006-03-19T20:33:00.000-05:00

"... When there is not the directly new and alive spiritual presence or meaning, thought puts together the image, the picture, the idol, from the past, the old, which is dead. But these maneuvers of thought--like savages making straw models of airplanes--do not give fresh life or the experiencing that is Truth. The direct answer one needs, which is fresh perception of the problem, cannot come as long as one is seeking to apply a theory, a dogma, an external authority, an answer or solution from outside ..."

state of unity

2006-03-17T21:00:00.000-05:00

Rom Landau: "How did you come to that state of unity with everything?" J. Krishnamurti: "People have asked me about that before, and I always feel that they expect to hear the dramatic account of some sudden miracle through which I suddenly became one with the universe. Of course nothing of the sort happened. My inner awareness was always there; though it took me time to feel it more and more clearly; and equally it took time to find words that would at all describe it. It was not a sudden flash, but a slow yet constant clarification of something that was always there. It did not grow, as people often think. Nothing can grow in us that is of spiritual importance. It has to be there in all its fullness, and then the only thing that happens is that we become more and more aware of it. It is our intellectul reaction and nothing else that needs time to become more articulate, more definite." Bob M.

poem by an African kid

2006-03-17T20:48:00.000-05:00

This poem was nominated poem of 2005 for the best poem , written by an African kid.........amazing thought!!!

When I born, I Black,
When I grow up, I Black,
When I go in Sun, I Black,
When I scared, I Black,
When I sick, I Black,
And when I die, I still black..
And you White fella,
When you born, you Pink,
When you grow up, you White,
When you go in Sun, you Red,
When you cold, you Blue,
When you scared, you Yellow,
When you sick, you Green,
And when you die, you Gray..
And you calling me Colored ??

Sensitivity

2006-03-15T15:05:00.000-05:00

November 14th 1961 - Bombay & Rishi Valley

...

Sensitivity and sensation are two different things. Sensations, emotions, feelings always leave a residue, whose accumulation dulls and distorts. Sensations are always contradictory and so conflicting; conflict always dulls the mind, perverts perception. The appreciation of beauty in terms of sensation, of like and dislike, is not to perceive beauty; sensation can only divide as beauty and ugliness but division is not beauty. Because sensations, feeings, breed conflict, to avoid conflict, discipline, control, suppression, have been advocated but this only builds resistance and so increases conflict and brings about greater dullness and insensitivity. The saintly control and suppression is the saintly insensitivity and brutal dullness which is so highly regarded. To make the mind more stupid and dull, ideals and conclusions are invented and spread around. All forms of sensations, however refined or gross, cultivate resistance and a withering away. Sensitivity is the dying to every residue of sensation; to be sensitive, utterly and intensely, to a flower, to a person, to a smile, is to have no scar of memory, for every scar destroys sensitivity. To be aware of every sensation, feeling, thought as it arises, from moment to moment, choicelessly, is to be free from scars, never allowing a scar to be formed. Sensations, feelings, thoughts are always partial, fragmentary and destructive.

Sensitivity is a total of body, mind and heart.

Sensitivity

2006-03-13T19:36:00.000-05:00

November 29th 1961, Madras

Without sensitivity there can be no affection; personal reaction does not indicate sensitivity; you may be sensitive about your family, about your achievement, about your status and capacity. This kind of sensitivity is a reaction, limited, narrow, and is deteriorating. Sensitivity is not good taste for good taste is personal and the freedom from personal reaction is the awareness of beauty. Without the appreciation of beauty and without the sensitive awareness of it, there is no love. This sensitive awareness of nature, of the river, of the sky, of the people, of the filthy road, is affection. The essence of affection is sensitivity. But most people are afraid of being sensitive; to them to be sensitive is to get hurt and so they harden themselves and so preserve their sorrow. Or they escape into every form of entertainment, the church, the temple, gossip and cinema and social reform. But being sensitive is not personal and when it is, it leads to misery. To break through this personal reaction is to love, and love is for the one and the many; it is not restricted to the one or to the many. To be sensitive, all the senses must be fully alive, active, and fear of being a slave to the senses is merely the avoidance of a natural fact. The awareness of the fact does not lead to slavery; it is the fear of the fact that leads to bondage. Thought is of the senses and thought makes for limitation but yet you are not afraid of thought. On the contrary, it is ennobled with respectability and enshrined with conceit. To be sensitively aware of thought, of feeling, of the world about you, of your office and of nature, is to explode from moment to moment in affection. Without affection, every action becomes burdensome and mechanical and leads to decay.

................

To the so-called religious to be sensitive is to sin, an evil reserved for the worldly; to the religious the beautiful is temptation, to be resisted; it's an evil distraction to be denied. Good works are not a substitute for love, and without love all activity leads to sorrow, noble or ignoble. The essence of affection is sensitivity and without it all worship is an escape from reality. To the monk, to the sannyasi, the senses are the way of pain, save thought which must be dedicated to the god of their conditioning. But thought is of the senses. It is thought that puts together time and it is thought that makes sensitivity sinful. To go beyond thought is virtue and that virtue is heightened sensitivity which is love.

Love and there is no sin; love and do what you will and then there is no sorrow.

~ Krihnamurti's Notebook

Sensitivity

2006-03-12T23:25:00.000-05:00

Sensitivity means being sensitive to everything around one -- to the plants, the animals, the trees, the skies, the waters of the river, the bird on the wing; and also the moods of the people around one, and to the stranger who passes by. This sensitivity brings about the quality of uncalculated, unselfish, response, which is true morality and conduct.

Life Ahead, Krishnamurti

Buddhist tradition has identified this virtue as compassion, the origin of which is in mindfulness. Krishnamurti points to it as a methodology for dispelling the arbitrariness of culture and authority. Other traditions will root this virtue in metaphysics or define it as the essence of morality. But from the point of view of Krishnamurti's philosophy and psychology -- not Western but not merely Eastern, either -- mindfulness or sensitivity is a prerequisite to knowledge of self.

(from an article in Hermitary)

To be alone

2006-03-12T18:39:00.000-05:00

"To be alone, which is not a philosophy of loneliness, is obviously to be in a state of revolution against the whole setup of society, not only this society, but the communist society, the fascist, every form of society as organized brutality, organized power. And that means an extraordinary perception of the effects of power. Sir, have you noticed those soldiers rehearsing? They are not human beings any more, they are machines, they are your sons and my sons, standing there in the sun. This is happening here, in America, in Russia, and everywhere, not only at the governmental level, but also at the monastic level, belonging to monasteries, to orders, to groups who employ astonishing power. And it is only the mind which does not belong that can be alone. And aloneness is not something to be cultivated. You see this? When you see all this, you are out, and no governor or president is going to invite you to dinner. Out of that aloneness there is humility. It is this aloneness that knows love, not power. The ambitious man, religious or ordinary, will never know what love is. So, if one sees all this, then one has this quality of total living and therefore total action. This comes through self-knowledge."

JK

"To Be Alone" - The Book of Life

Sensitivity

2006-03-12T17:17:00.000-05:00

"But even when we are sharpened and quickened intellectually by argument, by discussion, by reading, this does not actually bring about that quality of sensitivity. And you know all those people who are erudite, who read, who theorize, who can discuss brilliantly, are extraordinarily dull people. So I think sensitivity, which destroys mediocrity, is very important to understand. Because most of us are becoming, I am afraid, more mediocre. We are not using that word in any derogative sense at all, but merely observing the fact of mediocrity in the sense of being average, fairly well educated, earning a livelihood and perhaps capable of clever discussion; but this leaves us still bourgeois, mediocre, not only in our attitudes but in our activities."

MINDSET: IN A DREAM World

2006-02-26T04:49:00.000-05:00

Oscar Wilde once remarked, "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

As he so wryly observed, the vast majority of us are not who we've been pretending to be, and the lives we've been living until now are moulded according to rules and values that are not our own. Most of humanity is stuck in someone else's discarded chewing gum and is yet to break free.

Unless you have been brave enough to forsake this trap, here is your likely portrait: your religious convictions are those of your parents or community and your political allegiances conform to the party system that society offers.

These are desirable choices that hold societies together. They make you who you are, you might argue. True, but only if you are content with admiring the wrapping and never looking inside the box.

If you dared to look, you'd discover how these basic thoughts originate in a fundamental belief formed during the first years of your life.

Children typically bend their perceptions and interpretations of reality to match those who care for them. They find ways to please in order to receive attention.

As they grow up, the issues may change, but the initial patterns of conformity remain ingrained in them. The price for surrendering to consensus is steep.

It is nothing less than the loss of individuality. You disengage from the grandness of the creation and implode into the holographic illusion humans have come to call reality.

You become one of Oscar Wilde's other people, thinking someone else's opinions and assuming they are your own.

We are trapped in the daily drama the culture and the media feed us. A thirty-second news bite can push our buttons.

We get hooked, liberally lacing our collective guts with corrosive biochemicals unleashed by our righteous indignation.

This condition is virtually universal. It is also the underlying cause of the world as we know it.

People cling so tightly to their personal and social identities that they are blinded to anything that does not validate them. The way out is easier than anyone might imagine.

However, very few summon the courage, for it requires them to leave the comfort of their known world and walk alone, unaided by the crutch of dogma.

Most people would rather get caught up in the business of earning a living, raising a family, or helping their community than deal with the unsettling immensity of all that is.

Yet it seems that all humans are meant to take this epic journey of discovery at some point in their series of lives on this planet.

If you choose to walk this path, you will find yourself gaining a new perspective — that of consciousness, where the mind, with its judgments and emotions, ceases to dominate and the heart is your only reliable guide.

The great issues of your daily life that once commanded your attention now seem wondrously arbitrary and irrelevant — simply interesting.

You now see the illusion for what it is: a game-board projection designed so aspects of the Oneness can experience duality, fear, and separation. It is no more real than a programmed matrix in a computer game.

You and I are merely units of awareness projected into the matrix, defining ourselves by the points through which we view and believing what we see to be reality.

Who did the projecting? You. Who is the projection? You. There is only you. How do you get to this liberating place from which you can see the larger picture?

The cosmic formula of creation is gloriously simple: Attention + Intention = Manifestation. Nothing in the universe evades this law.

The reality you perceive is entirely a function of the only two forces at your command: your attention and your intention.

Bring conscious awareness to this equation — consciously monitor your attention and intention and what you are manifesting and everything changes.

Through this process of self-observation it will become increasingly clear that the part of you that is projected into the illusion is in trouble.

This realisation marks the beginning of your journey out of the illusion. Once you begin to couple the law with the concept of Oneness, you begin to see a completely different picture. You are all that is. There is nothing to attain and no lessons to learn.

Courtesy: TOI

The "I"

2006-02-25T01:46:00.000-05:00

"MEDITATION IS OF the greatest importance to me; I have been meditating very regularly twice a day for more than twenty-five years. At the beginning it was all very difficult, I had no control over my thoughts and there were far too many distractions; but I gradually cut them out pretty thoroughly. More and more I gave my time and energy to the final end. I have been to various teachers and have followed several different systems of meditation, but somehow I was never satisfied with any of them - perhaps `satisfaction' is not the right word. They all led to a certain point, depending on the particular system, and I found myself becoming a mere result of the system, which was not the final end. But from all these experimentations I have learned to master my thoughts completely, and my emotions also are entirely under control. I have practiced deep breathing to quiet the body and the mind. I have repeated the sacred word and fasted for long periods; morally I have been upright, and worldly things have no attraction for me. But after all these years of struggle and effort, of discipline and denial, there is not the peace, the bliss of which the Great Ones speak. On rare occasions there have been enlightening moments of deep ecstasy, the intuitive promise of greater things; but I seem unable to pierce the illusion of my own mind, and I am endlessly caught in it. A cloud of confusing despair is descending upon me and there is increasing sorrow."

We were sitting on the bank of a wide river, close to the water. The town was up the river, some distance away. A boy was singing on the other bank. The sun was setting behind us and there were heavy shadows on the water. It was a beautiful still evening with masses of clouds towards the east, and the deep river seemed hardly to be flowing. To all this expanding beauty he was completely oblivious; he was wholly absorbed in his problem. We were silent, and he had closed his eyes; his stern face was calm, but inwardly there was an intense struggle going on. A flock of birds settled down at the water's edge; their cries must have carried across the river, for presently another flock came from the other shore and joined them. There was a timeless silence covering the earth.

During all these years, have you ever stopped striving after the final end? Do not will and effort make up the `I', and can the process of time lead to the eternal?

"I have never consciously stopped striving after that for which my heart, my whole being longs. I dare not stop; if I did, I would fall back, I would deteriorate. It is the very nature of all things to struggle ever upwards, and without will and effort there would be stagnation; without this purposive striving, I could never go beyond and above myself."

Can the `I' ever free itself from its own bondage and illusions? Must not the `I' cease for the nameless to be? And does not this constant striving after the final end only strengthen the self, however concentrated its desire may be? You struggle after the final end, and another pursues worldly things; your effort may be more ennobling, but it is still the desire to gain, is it not?

"I have overcome all passion, all desire, except this one, which is more than desire; it is the only thing for which I live."

Then you must die to this too, as you are dead to other longings and desires. Through all these years of struggle and constant limitation, you have strengthened yourself in this one purpose, but it is still within the field of the `I'. And you want to experience the unnameable - that is your longing, is it not?

"Of course. Beyond a shadow of doubt I want to know the final end, I want to experience God."

The experiencer is ever being conditioned by his experience. If the experiencer is aware that he is experiencing, then the experience is the outcome of his self-projected desires. If you know you are experiencing God, then that God is the projection of your hopes and illusions. There is no freedom for the experiencer, he is forever caught in his own experiences; he is the maker of time and he can never experience the eternal.

"Do you mean to say that that which I have diligently built up, with considerable effort and through wise choice, must be destroyed? And must I be the instrument of its destruction?"

Can the `I' positively set about abnegating itself? If it does, its motive, its intention is to gain that which is not to be possessed. Whatever its activity, however noble its aim, any effort on the part of the `I' is still within the field of its own memories, idiosyncrasies and projections, whether conscious or unconscious. The `I' may divide itself into the organic `I', and the `non-I' or transcendental self; but this dualistic separation is an illusion in which the mind is caught. Whatever may be the movement of the mind, of the `I', it can never free itself; it may go from level to level, from stupid to more intelligent choice, but its movement will always be within the sphere of its own making.

"You seem to cut off all hope. What is one to do?"

You must be completely denuded, without the weight of the past or the enticement of a hopeful future - which does not mean despair. If you are in despair, there is no emptiness, no nakedness. You cannot `do' anything. You can and must be still, without any hope, longing, or desire; but you cannot determine to be still, suppressing all noise, for in that very effort there is noise. Silence is not the opposite of noise.

"But in my present state, what is to be done?"

If it may be pointed out, you are so eager to get on, so impatient to have some positive direction, that you are not really listening.
The evening star was reflected in the peaceful river.

* * *

Early next morning he came back. The sun was just showing itself above the treetops, and there was a mist over the river. A boat with wide sails, heavily laden with firewood, was lazily floating down the river; except for the one at the rudder, the men were all asleep on different parts of the boat. It was very still, and the daily human activities along the river had not yet begun.

"In spite of my outward impatience and anxiety, inwardly I must have been alert to what you were saying yesterday, for when I woke up this morning there was a certain sense of freedom and a clarity that comes with understanding. I did my usual morning meditation for an hour before sunrise, and I am not at all sure that my mind isn't caught in a number of widening illusions. May we proceed from where we left off?"

We cannot begin exactly where we left off, but we can look at our problem afresh. The outward and inward mind is ceaselessly active receiving impressions; caught in its memories and reactions; it is an aggregate of many desires and conflicts. It functions only within the field of time, and in that field there is contradiction, the opposition of will or desire, which is effort. This psychological activity of the `I', of the `me' and the `mine',must cease, for such activity causes problems and brings about various forms of agitation and disorder. But any effort to stop this activity only makes for greater activity and agitation.

"That is true, I have noticed it. The more one tries to make the mind still, the more resistance there is, and one's effort is spent in overcoming this resistance; so it becomes a vicious and unbreakable circle."

If you are aware of the viciousness of this circle and realize that you cannot break it, then with this realization the censor, the observer, ceases to be.

"That seems to be the most difficult thing to do: to suppress the observer. I have tried, but so far I have never been able to succeed. How is one to do it?"

Are you not still thinking in terms of the `I' and the `non-I'? Are you not maintaining this dualism within the mind by word, by the constant repetition of experience and habit? After all, the thinker and his thought are not two different processes, but we make them so in order to attain a desired end. The censor comes into being with desire. Our problem is not how to suppress the censor, but to understand desire.

"There must be an entity which is capable of understanding, a state which is apart from ignorance."

The entity which says, `I understand' is still within the field of the mind; it is still the observer, the censor, is it not?

"Of course it is; but I do not see how this observer can be eradicated. And can it be?"

Let us see. We were saying that it is essential to understand desire. Desire can and does divide itself into pleasure and pain, wisdom and ignorance; one desire opposes another, the more profitable conflicts with the less profitable, and so on. Though for various reasons it may separate itself, desire is in fact an invisible process, is it not?

"This is a difficult thing to grasp. I am so used to opposing one desire by another, to suppressing and transforming desire, that I cannot as yet be fully aware of desire as a single, unitary process; but now that you have pointed it out, I am beginning to feel that it is so."

Desire may break itself up into many opposing and conflicting urges, but it is still desire. These many urges go to make up the`I', with its memories, anxieties, fears, and so on, and the entire activity of this `I' is within the field of desire; it has no other field of activity. That is so, is it not?

"Please go on. I am listening with my whole being, trying to go beyond the words, deeply and without effort."

Our problem, then, is this: is it possible for the activity of desire to come to an end voluntarily, freely, without any form of compulsion? It is only when this happens that the mind can be still. If you are aware of this as a fact, does not the activity of desire come to an end?

"Only for a very brief period; then once again the habitual activity begins. How can this be stopped?.. But as I ask, I see the absurdity of asking!"

You see how greedy we are; we want ever more and more. The demand for the cessation of the `I' becomes the new activity of the `I; but it is not new, it is merely another form of desire. Only when the mind is spontaneously still can the other, that which is not of the mind, come into being.

JK

No Buddha

2006-02-06T02:43:00.000-05:00

No Buddha

Every prayer is a key in your lock.

Words mean what they say

when you breathe Buddha into them.

Then they have space and meaning.

There is no Buddha without you.

You are the joy of the universe.
Form seeded upon abstraction.
The pattern of variance
and the dance of diversity.
Infinite _expression and idiom of delight.

Where you are-
The rapturous flare of existence
becomes the Word.

A Buddha and a no Buddha

speak to each other

and smile.

~~~~~~~~~

Eric Ashford 2006

revolution...

2006-01-31T04:17:00.000-05:00

....revolution....new revolution....RESISTANCE.....opposition...

revolt against the established norms...condemn the rules....look down up the orderly world...look down upon YOURSELF......

the mind is slowly sinking in quagmire...sudden realization has dawned....only when the mind is dissatisfied is there alertness....when the mind is not conditioned...when the mind has not accepted the rules established by the society blindly

Settling down? Ha Ha Ha....!!

Settling down is the worst thing that can happen to a person....it is the perfect ingredient to make a person conditioned...dull..a person caught up the worldly life.....who has foresaken all his zeal for maintaining his ideals....he is busy tending his wife...raising his kids....his once bright face now wrought with tedium and lines of worry.....his shiny wavy hair now thinning...a process accelerated by the conditioning to follow the rules laid by the losers in the society....and his once agile athletic body now slowed down by the 'settled feeling' and blubber...

It is better to live a short exciting life...rather a life of constant torture of conditioning ....

Yes! QUESTION REVOLT CRITICIZE CONDEMN.....yourself and the moribund society....

only THEN my dear ....you will be FREE....FREE

Jain E-books

2006-01-22T05:28:00.000-05:00

http://jainfriends.tripod.com/onlinebooks.html

Beggarly Heart

2006-01-21T10:02:00.000-05:00

When the heart is hard and parched up,

come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life,

come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from

beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner,

break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one,

thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.

- Rabindranath Tagore (Gitanjali)

the Void

2006-01-21T05:24:00.000-05:00

It cannot be called

void or not-void

or both or neither.

But, in order to point it out,

it is called...

the Void

--Nagarjuna

Intuition Chakra Meditation

2006-01-19T21:23:00.000-05:00

Chakras are energy stations in a line along the front of the body and
head. The sixth chakra is located in the center of the brow, above both
eyes, just above the bridge of the nose. In metaphysics, it is referred
to as the "third eye."

To increase levels of intuition and pure knowing, the following
exercises will help open, activate and strengthen this chakra.

1. Imagine you have a third eye situated at the point mentioned
above. Place your middle finger on the bridge of your nose and push up
a couple of inches, breathing deeply, imagining you are opening the
eyelid, repeat the process 4 times. (To learn more about the human
energy system called "Chakras" I highly recommend you study the only
20-hour Home Study Course available on DVD and Audio CD: Becoming a
Vibrant Human Being: Living, Loving, and Creating from Your Chakras.
Just click on this link then scroll to the bottom.)

2. Gently tap on this same point above the bridge of your nose
while repeating, "I am knowing what is best for me, I honor that
knowing, and I act on that knowing."

3. Stop justifying, defending and explaining yourself in your
day-to-day conversations. Every time you do, you discount what you
"know" to be true and right for you.

4. Stop using the phrase "I don't know." Every time you express
that you shut down your intuition. Start using the phrase "I know what
is right for me, inspiration flows to me easily and clearly." Say the
positive statement even before you do know what is right. As you speak
it and believe it, the knowing will form and manifest for you.

Intuition is common for all of us. Accessing and developing intuition
is a natural gift we can all develop more fully. With the natural gifts
of nurturing comes the sixth sense, or "gut" feeling, which comes
easily to many men and women.

What I have noticed as a result of helping thousands of men and women
in my work is that both men and women have intuition; they just have
trouble trusting what they know, and all too often look outside
themselves for permission or validation.

When a client asks for my opinion on something they feel is right, I
will ask them first, "What do you know to be right?" or will say, "You
already know; you are just asking me to validate that you can know!"
They always respond, "I know!"

Trust your intuition more and more. All your answers are inside you
waiting to be awakened and shared. Both men and women, who are willing
to use their intuition, play a great role in the time in which we live:
to be the spiritual nurturers, and guides to whom so many are drawn.
Trust your inner knowing, and you will not only bless your life, but
many others as well.

http://www.mercola.com/2006/jan/19/developing_a_more_powerful_intuition.htm

to be unconditioned...

2006-01-10T14:02:00.000-05:00

"Don't be encumbered by history." - Bob Noyes, co-founder of Intel, and man labelled the 'Father of Silicon Valley'

Beyond the Noise of Words

2006-01-10T00:27:00.000-05:00

"Listening is an art not easily come by, but in it there is beauty and great understanding. We listen with the various depths of our being, but our listening is always with a preconception or from a particular point of view. We do not listen simply; there is always the intervening screen of our own thoughts, conclusions, and prejudices... To listen there must be an inward quietness, a freedom from the strain of acquiring, a relaxed attention. This alert yet passive state is able to hear what is beyond the verbal conclusion. Words confuse; they are only the outward means of communication; but to commune beyond the noise of words, there must be in listening an alert passivity. Those who love may listen; but it is extremely rare to find a listener. Most of us are after results, achieving goals; we are forever overcoming and conquering, and so there is no listening. It is only in listening that one hears the song of the words."

JK

"Beyond the Noise of Words" - The Book of Life (January 3)

Message from Zaratushtra

2006-01-08T20:34:00.000-05:00

You should learn to estimate the acts, the ideas and to be released
from all that vain and human, that prevents your advancement on the
Way
Beloved Zaratushtra, January 2, 2006

I AM Zaratushtra, again come to you through this messenger. Distance
in time which separates us from the previous meeting, not so
considerable, however the distance which you have overcome in the
consciousness, especially those who on a regular basis read dictations
given by us through this messenger, so significant. To compare it is
possible only with flash of a super new star, the star of reason and
Divine consciousness which has lit up your minds and hearts since time
of our last meeting.

I look after your condition of consciousness. I have such opportunity.
And I see you who have risen on a new level of consciousness with the
help of reading of these dictations, like flashes of new stars in
darkness which continues to shroud the Earth.

Each of you lights up small space around, shining to those people
which are met in a daily life. However, the more similar stars and
asterisks will flash on the Earth, the more joyful and bright will be
the general atmosphere reigning on a planet.

Behind daily fuss you do not take notice of those changes which occur
in your consciousness; therefore believe me. And, if we will manage to
keep in the near future the same rates of your consciousness growth,
already at a life of nowadays living generation you'll feel favorable
shifts on a planet. Shifts directed not aside technical progress to
which the planet followed all this time, but the shifts directed to
the side of spiritual progress, to the side of soul growth. And as you
will get the increasing and greater accord with the Supreme Worlds,
penetration of these worlds into your world will become more and more
appreciable. And it is what we obtain, and it is for what we call you.

When you are plunged constantly in an atmosphere of non-belief in
which negative energies and qualities are reigning, it is difficult
for you to feel our vibrations, and it is difficult for you to feel
connection with the Divine world. However, the increasing numbers of
you, yet being in the big cities, are capable even if for a short time
so ennoble the consciousness that receive an opportunity to touch the
thin worlds. And, the more number of you will be able to consciousness
eminence and to the thin worlds travels, the especially faster rates
of changes to the side of the Divine Way development will be on a
planet. You are now located in the lowest point of materiality. And
consequently influence of dark energies on you is so great, that you
are literally shrouded in these energies. They have swaddled you, and
you cannot find sufficient freedom for moving in space and time. And
it is difficult for you to imagine those opportunities and those
horizons which can open at any moment in your human consciousness; it
is enough to you to show qualities of tendency and belief only.

Therefore, in what condition there would be your souls and how you'd
have been burdened with your current affairs and human problems,
always remember that all this temporarily. And as soon as you will
manage to make first, not yet confident step to comprehension of the
Divine reality and to make a call for help as all Ascended Assemblies
and angels will rush like mad to you to the aid. Let you do not be
confused, that the help will not be rendered to you instantly. We need
time to combine external circumstances and shovel away the karmic
blockages. But, as a rule, what you ask us about in the prays and in
the letters, is carried out to some extent. It is necessary to you to
make only small everyday efforts. Your prays sometimes are not
important in themselves because you yet have no that reading of prays
momentum which is necessary to have real effect. But your daily
efforts will be remunerated by all means. Because we understand and we
appreciate, as at times it is embarrassing to you to give even some
minutes for a pray. Because it seems that everything what surrounds
you, opposes to you as soon as you seriously start to be engaged in
performance of your duties which you have taken up in your letters to
Karmic Board or have simply shown tendency of heart and have decided
to devote to sacred work some time disinterestedly.

Do not beware of any obstacles which rise before you in your world.
Because obstacles speak only that it is necessary to overcome them. If
you overcome obstacles every day, and every day will carry out the
duties which you for this time assigned, the momentum tendency which
is turned out by you , in due course will help you with your prays.
Because your prays will find in due course the increasing and big force.

You pray at all words, you pray by the hearts, by an impulse of your
hearts. And we always see you when you sincerely create your pray.
During this moment you blaze similarly to huge flash of light, and
this flash serves as a signal for us and angels, and we direct to you
to the aid.

You know, that those prays operate in the best way which you say in
the heart sincerely and disinterestedly.

Therefore, when Jesus spoke that you should seclude yourself and close
a door in a room where you create prays it is completely correct
advice. Because any public pray bears on itself a seal of hypocrisy.

And many of those who daily attend churches or prayful houses make it
more of sanctimony and hypocrisy, than from a point of true belief and
fidelity.

Be able to distinguish this condition inside yourself. Do not be
cunning and not play the hypocrite before you. There isn't in your
world another judge, except for you. And you should learn to estimate
the deeds, the ideas and to be released from all that fussy and human,
that prevents your movement on the Way.

And in the final score you needn't any external person in charge
because your main judge always is inside you. This your Supreme I,
your moral code, yours I of the Christ.

Therefore useful to you will be to analyze all your deeds which you
have made for a day. Take as a rule literally some minutes before
dream to dedicate the analysis of last day and your deeds which you
have made for a day. Do not judge yourself sternly for your mistakes
which you have admitted. Also do not allow your carnal mind to involve
you again and again in those inappropriate situations in which you got
within day. Simply assess a situation, and firm in the heart make the
decision never to not be involved into this negative condition or
unseemly action any more. Ask your Supreme I about the help that it
would prompt you at the moment when you will stand next time on a
threshold of a similar situation, and would help you to make a correct
choice.

Never allow longer, than one minute to be concentrated on any negative
events of day. It is enough for you to assess event simply. Because,
when you think too much and analyze for a long time a negative
situation you feed its energy. And in a result create a clot of
negative energy which will wander on space and to be drawn to those
people, whose vibrations coincide with vibrations of this negative
energies clot. Thus you will create literally reasons of your future
problems and your future situations.

Your consciousness should keep constantly the cleanliness which is
inherent in small children. Cut from yourself any poor-quality
negative conditions.

Imagine, that you take a knife and cut from yourself those ideas and
persuasive conditions of which cannot get rid. Try to replace these
negative conditions in the positive images and feelings. Contemplate
before the internal look beautiful flowers, pictures of the nature,
listen to quiet soft music. It will be very useful to immerse before
dream in meditation of stars and galaxies pictures. Listen and try to
hear a voice of silence which comes to you from depths of cosmos and
space.

I have given you provisions for meditation. And I leave you today in
hope that you will take advantage of my advices and recollect them
when they will be necessary for you.

I AM Zaratushtra and I stand in a flame of Divine harmony.

© Messenger Tatyana Mickushina
Translator Mihael Slobodin

http://www.sirius-eng.net/dictations/s2/january_2006/Zaratushtra_2.html

Religion

2006-01-04T04:07:00.000-05:00

An organized religion can produce mere social reform and superficial changes. A Church exists only within the framework of a Society. And I am talking of a religious revolution which will take us beyond the psychological structure of society, of any society. A truly religious man is free of all fear, for he is free of the patterns created by the many civilizations over thousands of years. He is also free from the past, personal and collective, and his future is not distorted by the pressure of his own actions. He is free, vital and totally silent. Silence is important, which is a measureless state, knowable as beyond experience, beyond words, beyond thought, an uncreated energy. Without this creative silence there can be no brotherhood and peace and no true religion ...

Freedom is the very heart of true religion. Religious organizations deny man this essential freedom, in spite of their assertions to the contrary. Self-knowledge is not prayer, it is the door to meditation. Freedom is not based on a set of psychological theories nor is it a state of surrender in the expectation of grace. It destroys the constraints imposed by religion or society. It is a state of total attention, and not of concentration on the particular.

inertia..?

2005-12-19T01:44:00.000-05:00

inertia which carries me like this ? ...or the old habits which have programmed the body, the subconscious mind to avoid ?....telling myself that this is correct...
the body and mind become dull when pressure decreases..or when the mind perceives that pressure is not there...lack of tension breeds in inaction...old habits..habits which caused the storm which came and went (did it?)....come back to haunt...have the potential to bring about another storm if not recognized and curbed....

silent...

2005-12-10T03:48:00.000-05:00

Message from Bodhidarma 11-13-05

2005-12-08T20:53:00.000-05:00

Gerald Brown
November 13, 2005

I am Bodhidharma, a Zen Buddhist monk. My origin is from central Asia.
I am with you today because of my affiliation with Plato. During my
many years of meditation I spent much of this experience with him.
This is why I've come to you at this time to help explain the
processes that you're using to help interact and to give you a line of
alliances to follow. Every time humanity reaches a point of clarity
our job is to introduce them to clarity with the process they are
using, at this time in the physical ramification that fits this
coordinated process. In other words, different cultures at different
times are involved technology-wise in different ways. With all of
these differences we have to become aware of where they are in a
technological process and introduce the new energetic field of knowing
in a way that they can understand, with whatever technology they have
at the time.

OK, now we will start. The pleation magnetic abstracting process that
you have been given by your English friends was introduced into their
elevated environment of awareness sometime in the past by us. These
boys have an important part to contribute to the process all of you
are embarking on at this time. It also has a lot to do with the
transference of platonic environment that was ingested by your friend
from Belgium. In fact, his background is from a very well-known and
respected group of Pleations that have been working with him for many
years while building the platonic shapes. At this time, he is guided
from two different realms of conscious beings from universal
awareness. They have many more plans for his talents in the future.
Once he establishes his direct line of trust, his pure form will be
allowed to gather data from the source.

You all can have the mental capability of creating whatever you want,
but without a direct line of trust you stay pretty much anchored in a
fear based belief system. Many of you are now learning to release the
mental toxins of a stagnated environment that plug you up. What
you're learning to do now is trust the information you're getting from
all over the world. You're starting to draw in each other, because
energy follows energy. It isn't as if it happened on its own.
Everything has to be a continuation from the original thought. The
great intent that is being put out by all the individuals that are
coming together is allowing the combined energy to work together.
This is also the reason you keep needing feedback on the information
that comes in, because energy follows energy. Without feedback,
information dries up. If you didn't have an original source for water,
like some sort of reservoir, the river would dry up. Energy is
similar. Information can only continue when the group effort responds.
Each single being has a tremendous role in re-educating the planet as
a whole. The more energetic fields received from individuals, the more
complete the process of understanding becomes. This is why I have
been drawn in at this time. It got to a point where enough people
wanted answers. This created a compacted charge that allowed my
expertise to become part of your interaction.

The next step is explaining to you the complete and full consciousness
of animal, plant and mineral life forms, combined with human
extraction. What has been lost is the full connection of all these
life forms, which tie together each others' missing links. Notice how
some people just love animals and others just love plants and still
others love nature. These are all pieces of you that are trying to
reconnect. You do not feel whole without this connection. I understand
it seems like it's overdone sometimes. There is the tremendous feeling
that is put out where you want to realign with these other life forms
and become one. This is why we are showing you different methods of
drawing out information from the plant and mineral kingdom that will
enhance your performance in the human connection.

The "We" energy is not just connecting with only humans, but also
with all other matters of life that you share with this dimension.
This is why abstracting knowledge from crystals is a very reliable and
complete way for information to become part of your mental inventory.
You have been shown by Kris how to use magnetic energy to draw this
energy from a crystal into water where it can be ingested. At this
point you create a wonderful communication line with this crystal life
form. It has many millenniums of information that can be part of your
understanding and used to enhance and broaden your horizon of
knowledge and understanding. Each crystal has a full and complete
encyclopedia of knowledge that it has recorded throughout all times in
existence. Learning to establish a communication line between all
forms of life in your region allows for a complete cycle of
understanding between animal, mineral and plant; all three major life
forms working together. This is why we have you changing the
frequency in the plants that you're working with in your greenhouse.
As you notice, your second-generation has a much more vibrant and
stronger energy than its original parents. This whole system is going
to show you that you are a tremendous part of this increase of the
plant kingdom.

You're basically doing the same thing with the plants that you are
doing with the water. You're raising the consciousness level so that
when any of you interact with the plant or water energies, the
combination opens up doors of knowledge that have been suppressed for
millenniums. This is what you're being shown when changing the
elements of frequencies in the plant kingdom. You can see the
tremendous change in just the second generation that you're
experiencing at this time. You will also notice when you ingest the
product of these plants, it will help you shift your dimensional
consciousness just as the water is doing at this time. What my
colleagues and I are experiencing as we observe this tremendous shift
of consciousness within the plant kingdom, is how the upgrade in
electrons are quickly moving the energetic field around the area that
you preside in. This energetic field works similar to the way you're
transforming one charged bottle of water into another just by placing
them in proximity of each other. The same process will start an
interaction of the electrons produced by these new energetic plants
with the different trees and shrubs in the vicinity. They will pick up
this frequency and duplicate it in its own element of being. I know
this seems quite fantastic! It is!

There are approximately 19 stages of this process going on in a
collective controlled environment throughout the planet. Some are
aware of this process, as you are and some are being directed without
realizing that they are introducing a new species into the dimensional
change. It is interesting that some of them being brought in are in
the vicinity of synagogues and churches because of the very high
vibration produced by the music. Water transcended and transformed
much earlier, as it has in Lourdes, France. There are many ways this
new field is being transformed into a process of function, so that it
can become a particle force in an exchange into a frequency that
balances with a much truer match than it has until now.

Most of you that are working on this project will experience a shift
on how you feel physically. Your body is starting to emulate this new
vibratory collage of new overlapped processes and it will become what
it is exposed to. This will give you much more insight on the creative
power points you have to work with in the new place you're starting to
preside in. Remember, this can only take place if the intention is
there. Explaining how this whole new way of experiencing life is not
an easy task because of the lack of reference points that are
available. It's like saying that you will feel much better! Better
than what? What kind of better? There really isn't a good verbal
explanation that defines the difference that you will be experiencing.
The best way I can explain it is you will feel much lighter and that
you also will realize that being concerned about anything does not
have any merit in everyday life. This alone should take away much of
the discomfort from how you feel throughout your life, because when
you're balanced and stay that way, you just automatically deal with
everything that approaches you without any fear. Anytime you live in
this atmosphere, drawing discomfort or misery to you is impossible.

Now back to how these electrons you're using to change the formulated
process in different plant life and the life in water, interact in a
different way than you are familiar with. The food value in anything
that has the same match will have tremendous input on how your body
operates. If you notice the greenhouses that you attracted to you
have a tremendous energy field that attracts certain energies from the
sun that are not available in the normal scheme of things. These
plants are being retrained to grow to a level that allows the body to
follow a creative process that has not been obtained, until this form
had been introduced into the third dimensional consciousness and put
to work raising this dimension to the new formulation of awareness.
This is why, until now, this process has been waiting to come in and
enhance the value of the foods frequency. It wasn't able to come in
until the universal process was very close to switching over. You will
notice how much faster everything is coming together with all the new
knowledge and concepts that are being introduced now. The fact that
you're able to comprehend all this new information is quite
phenomenal. Even our group over here is impressed with the progress
many of you are achieving.

The next step is learning to operate with the new vibrational
frequency that the planet is changing into. In order to survive in
this environment understanding and living by universal law is what
allows this change to take place. So, basically as more people become
aware of the true meaning of life, this is what assists the transition
into the next step of consciousness. The ones that cannot make this
step will physically shut down and repolarize into another physical
reality were they can continue their life experience in the third
dimension.

The water that you have been introduced to has a pulsating factor that
resonates with a much more complete awareness of understanding and
this is why some of you can feel some discomfort as you are adjusting
to this new field. It is not the fault of the water it is the
intention that is put out. When the intention is put out with a
higher frequency than the physical body is emitting it takes awhile
for the two of them to combine to a vibrational match and this is what
some of you are experiencing now.

Also there are a number of you and some of you don't even realize it
is that your original origin is not of the earth's plane. The energy
shift is affecting you in a constellated way which causes you much
confusion on your directional accuracy. I suggest when this is taking
place to be aware what is going on because you tend to blame others
for your mental discomfort. It usually is the strongest interaction
between male and female because of the tremendous emotional difference
between the two. The most successful way to deal with any of this is
to align your intents with you goals. I know this sound's like a
contradiction but it takes some sort of intent to reach a goal. Your
intent at this time is to switch over and match the new energies of
the realm of consciousness that you preside in. One of the best ways
to interact with the new vibratory exchange is when you have any
mental or physical discomfort, offer this discomfort up to the all and
this allows an even distribution of this experience to the ones that
are in the process of the new conscious creation patterns.

The Lemurian water that has been introduced to you has a powerful
transformation value which is able to penetrate the cells of your
physical structure and intercede with a conscious growth that has not
been obtained since the ancients constructed the process of evolution.
If you notice the interest which is drawn from others is becoming more
prominent, this is an energetic field that many of you have created in
the surrounding azonic elements that interact with the vibrational
frequency and allow it to start stepping up to more elevated points of
recognition where you're able to understand concepts that were not
available prior to this discovery. Now you have been introduced to an
energy crystal called a Moldavite which was found in Czechoslovakia
and was thought it was from a meteorite impact. The reason they think
it was a meteorite is, because it did not match the surrounding area
and actually it was place there by a group of extraterrestrial beings
so it could be distributed around the planet so it could bring in new
knowledge that was not available until now. There's two of these
crystalline life forms which are being introduced to certain ones that
come in to help the process of dimensional exclusion and realignment.

This exquisite Crystal holds much knowledge from many different
pulses of time space continuum. Introducing this Moldavite
consciousness with all its elevated properties of knowledge will give
you a tremendous boost in understanding the universal dialogue of
criteria which keeps the solar system in a vibrational pattern so it
cannot be interrupted with by any discordant patterns of energy.

By applying the same process you did with the Lumerion Crystal with
the magnets and laser you will be able to draw this information from
this ancient collective awareness of knowledge that never was
available until now. Pay close attention to your guidance system on
how to apply this process so you can release information from this
beautiful Crystal. A lot of it cannot be transmitted verbally it will
be introduced into a form that you feel from within your energetic
power points of your body. The reason you are having such a difficult
time receiving this information is because you're past the point of
having a verbal way of explaining this process. By using the Moldavite
Crystal, it will teach you a communication line of endless
possibilities that you never experienced in the physical construct
before. This is enough information for now it has been a very welcome
pleasure to interact with beings that have intention of extending
themselves into a clarity that hasn't been part of your curricula for
a long time.

Thank you, this is from Bodhidarma.

Nepal boy believed to be Buddha

2005-11-24T02:47:00.000-05:00

Kathmandu, Nov. 23: A teenage boy has been locked in meditation — allegedly without food or water — in a Nepalese jungle for six months, and thousands have flocked to see him with some believing he is the Buddha reincarnated, the police and media said on Wednesday.

Ram Bahadur Banjan, 15, sits cross-legged and motionless with eyes closed in a niche among the roots of a tree in the jungle of Bara, about 160 km south of the capital, Kathmandu. He’s allegedly been that way since May 17, but followers have been keeping him from public view at night.

A reporter for the Kantipur newspaper, Sujit Mahat, said he spent two days at the site, and that about 10,000 people are believed to visit every day. Soldiers have been posted in the area for crowd control, officials said. A makeshift parking lot and cluster of food stalls have sprung up near Banjan’s retreat, an area not previously frequented by visitors.

Many visitors believe Banjan is a reincarnation of Gautama Siddhartha, who was born not far away in south-western Nepal around 500 BC and later became revered as the Buddha, which means enlightened one. But others aren’t so sure. Police inspector Chitra Bahadur Gurung said officers have interviewed the boy’s associates about the claim that Banjan has gone six months without food or drink. Officers have not directly questioned the boy, who appears deep in meditation and doesn’t speak. “We have a team... Investigating the claim on how anyone can survive for so long without food and water,” inspector Gurung said.

Local officials have also asked the Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology in Kathmandu to send scientists to examine Banjan. Mahat, the journalist, said visitors can catch a glimpse of Banjan from a roped-off area about 25 metres away from him between dawn and dusk. Followers then place a screen in front of him, blocking the view and making it impossible to know what’s happening with him at night, Mahat said.

“We could not say what happens after dark,” Mahat said. “People only saw what went on in the day, and many believed he was some kind of god.” Buddhism teaches that right thinking and self-control can enable people to achieve nirvana, a divine state of peace and release from desire. Buddhism has about 325 million followers, mostly in Asia.

Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle

Give me the strength

2005-11-14T20:48:00.000-05:00

This is my prayer to thee, my lord---strike,

strike at the root of penury in my heart.

Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor

or bend my knees before insolent might.

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.

- Gitanjali (Rabindranath Tagore)

Walk with your eyes turned skyward...

2005-11-14T20:25:00.000-05:00

Once having tasted flight
you will walk this earth with
your eyes turned skyward.
For there you have been
and there you long to return.

(Leonardo da Vinci)

Although the world is very full of suffering,
it is also full of the overcoming of it.

(Helen Keller)

Buddha's Last Instruction

2005-11-10T14:20:00.000-05:00

“Make of yourself a light,”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal – a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire –
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(House of Light)

I don't believe in anything

2005-11-03T22:09:00.000-05:00

Interview With Krishnamurti
BY CATHERINE INGRAM AND LEONARD JACOBS - East West Journal, July 1983.

KRISHNAMURTI.
The name has a certain magic about it. Some people have even
suggested that it is from the name itself that the man achieves his
power and mastery. Yet for me, this magic implied a type of mysticism
and had kept me from getting interested in the man. Since first
hearing his name and the many adulatory comments about his teaching,
I had gained a definite skepticism about Krishnamurti and his message.

He had seemed to be yet another Indian "guru" who had the usual
criticisms of Westerners. .. which was of little interest to me. So,
in spite of the many encouragements to see Krishnamurti and to read
his books, I had escaped the enchantment. I had maintained my
distance.

Nevertheless, when the second volume of his biography arrived in our
office, I thought that it was time to finally discover something
about this quiet and reclusive man who for over seventy years had
influenced so many thousands of people. And after reading this book,
Krishnamurti: The Years Of Fulfillment by Mary Lutyens (Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, New York). I realized that this man was not the
usual spiritual teacher from the East; he is hardly the guru which
his name seems to imply.
In fact Krishnamurti is a very simple and humble man who has a
brilliance and perceptiveness shared by few others.

My next step in discovering more about Krishnamurti came when staff
member Catherine Ingram contacted his secretary in anticipation of
his upcoming talk in New York City. Not knowing that he rarely grants
personal interviews nor cares much for the media, she asked for an
interview with him for East West Journal. He agreed to meet with
Cathy and me at his note, room in New York, and my curiosity became
even more intense. In preparation for the meeting, I read through a
number of Krishnamurti's writings and discovered a most unusual
teacher. He deals with the common aspects of human problems. The
themes of his talks, many of which have been transcribed and
published in book form, are: the limitations of the human experience,
the constant chattering of our mind, the ongoing experience of fear,
and the rarity of true love. These could be the topics of a
clergyman, philosopher, or sage—they are also very real concerns for
all sensitive human beings.

His most consistent message has been that there is no path to
truth: "Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any
organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest, or
ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological
technique." And his approach to discovering truth is through the
dissolution of concepts and images putting no thought between the
observer and the observed. But even this technique is not his
technique. Krishnamurti really has no technique.
If anything, what Krishnamurti has is a concern for the psychological
or spiritual evolution of humanity. He feels that regardless of the
apparent developments of the material aspects of modern society, we
humans are practically the same in relationship to our psychological
development as we have been for the past thirty or forty thousand
years. We still experience conflicts, jealousy, suffering,
loneliness, fear, and confusion; humanity's evolution of
consciousness is still in its infancy. Only through individual
transformation of consciousness will we effect any substantive change
in the world.
These concerns are also those of many of our readers and staff. So,
with notebook in hand and questions in my mind, plus a continuing
degree of skepticism, I went to his public lecture in Madison Square
Garden in New York City.
On Sunday April 10, in the midst of a torrential downpour, over three
thousand people turned out to hear this very simple man, seated in a
plain straight-backed chair, talk about love, fear, and freedom.
Without theatrics or drama, Krishnamurti managed to captivate his
audience with his brilliance and peacefulness. But this was still a
general and somewhat impersonal talk, apparently similar to other
talks he has been giving for the past fifty years.
Two days later, Cathy and I went to Krishnamurti's room in the Hotel
Dorset for the interview. Having been warned that "he is an extremely
difficult man to interview and does not tolerate small talk," we
wondered how we would manage. Yet we met a polite and shy man who
seemed to have infinite patience, yet at the same time exhibited a
fierceness and sense of mission. Dressed in a plain brown knit shirt
and pants, this man could have been anyone's grandfather or uncle.
But his clarity and insightful comments put us on the spot many
times, leaving us with the feeling that here was a truly free man
who, without trying, had achieved what I feel is a type of spiritual
anarchy—a deeply moral and sacred outlook completely independent of
orthodox ideologies or religions.
—Leonard Jacobs

EWJ: Even though one is still suffering, is it possible to help
others who are suffering?

K: Why not? Though I may be suffering and you may be suffering, why
not? That's one part of it. The other part is, is suffering to be
ended through a long process of time? To be completely free does it
take time, does it take evolution, is it a matter of progressive
achievement? Is there such a thing as psychological evolution at all?
We have evolved through millenia and we think we have reached a
certain stage psychologically, and also physiologically. We have
created this world, this society, with all its monstrosity and
ugliness—the destruction of the environment, killing each other,
perpetual wars for the last six or seven thousand years. And during
this long period of time we haven't changed, we haven't stopped wars.
So will further evolution of forty or fifty thousand years change us,
when the forty thousand years before haven't?

EWJ: But now that we have massive worldwide communications, unique in
history, do you think that a transformation of consciousness will
emerge?

K: Through communications? Do you really think so?

EWJ: I mean, specifically, using the media as a tool to raise
consciousness. For instance, this film "Gandhi" that has just won the
Academy Award is basically about peace and about Gandhi's main
message of non-violence.

K: That's rubbish. Unless you go to the root of the matter you're
merely scratching the surface.

EWJ: But perhaps people could be inspired by scratching the surface
to then try to go to the root.

K: Inspiration only lasts for a very short while. Very few people
ever affect the psyche. Very few. Gandhi is totally forgotten in
India.

EWJ: There was an article that said that the Indians were very
impressed by the movie, but were somewhat bemused by the non-violent
aspect of it.

K: That's right. He was a very violent man. They're trying to make a
saint out of him as the only man who was helping India to be free,
which isn't true. There were hundreds. Annie Besant was one. She
worked for forty years helping the country to be free. She is never
mentioned. It's all so lopsided. ... So what is the question?

EWJ: The question is, if only a few people throughout history. ...

K: Can they affect the consciousness of man?

EWJ: ... because as you say there are many terrible wars, many
terrible injustices throughout the world now; how can we change them?

K: That's a good question. ... Do you really want us to discuss all
this?

EWJ: If you have time.

K: I have time, but one has to be very serious to go into all this.

EWJ: That's our personal work, as well as our professional concern—to
influence society in any way we can.

K: I don't believe in influence.

EWJ: What is your motivation then? What motivates you?

K: Nothing.

EWJ: But you 've been carrying on all these years.

K: It's a long story. Suppose that you are enlightened and you're
asking how will you affect the rest of humanity. There have been
people like the Buddha who have not affected human consciousness. The
Buddha never mentioned God, but people have created him into one and
worshipped him. Has any person, however illumined affected mankind?
It's very doubtful. I'm not being pessimistic - I'm just looking at
facts. When you look at facts you can't be optimistic or pessimistic,
right?
Put the question the other way — is human consciousness all one, or
separate? Do you understand? Is it individual consciousness, or
consciousness of the entire humanity? My consciousness, or X
consciousness, what is that? Or, what is the content of that
consciousness — belief, faith? Ideologies? Conclusions? Concepts?
Fear? Suffering, loneliness, anxiety? And constant struggle from
morning to night till he dies, right? That's a fact. But the rest of
humanity's consciousness whether they live in a small village or in
one of these tall buildings, is similar to everybody else's. We all
share the same consciousness—it can never be individual. The brain is
not my brain. It has evolved through several millenia, but we have
said, "this is my particular brain, my particular consciousness, ny
country, my god," and so on. So if one person stepped out of this way
of thinking has it any value to the others, to the rest of mankind?

EWJ: It appears the Buddha did. He left a technique to practice
awareness, and his influence has been very great.

K: He couldn't have left a technique. After his death his disciples
probably gathered together and put up a scheme. Buddha couldn't
possibly have said "Seek refuge in me." The systems came after he
died. We think because he had attained some illumination, had
suffered and gone through starvation, that we must also go through
that in order to achieve what he achieved. And he might say, "Well,
that's all childish stuff. It has nothing to do with enlightenment."
Can one person who is illumined— to put it in modern terms, free from
all conditioning—affect the consciousness of all the rest of mankind?
What do you think, impersonally, objectively, as you look at the
world? Two thousand years of Christian propaganda, "Jesus is the
saviour," and the churches have burned people, tortured people, had
hundreds of years of war in Europe. Christians have been one of the
greatest killers in the world. I'm not against nor for—I'm just
pointing out that this is the result of two thousand years of "peace
on earth." It has no meaning, whether Jesus existed or not. So has
all this propaganda, this programming of the brain, after two
thousand years of repetition of the Mass day after day, affected man
at all? Christ said, "Don't hate your enemy, love your enemy." And
everything we do is contrary to that. We don't care. So, what will
affect man? What will change man who has been programmed, literally
programmed like a computer, to worship Jesus, to worship the Buddha,
to worship other gods?
Can the mind free itself from all programs? Is it possible to be
totally free of taking in information—what the newspapers say, what
the magazines say, what the priests, psychologists, and professors
say? Education, propaganda on the television, the evangelists in
America—that peculiar breed—are all telling me what to think and,
increasingly, what to do. If I have a little quarrel with my wife I
go to the specialists—the psychologists, psychotherapists. Dr. Spock
or some professor tells me how to raise my children. I'm becoming a
slave to these specialists, my mind is conditioned and I'm limited —
conditioning implies limitation—I'm in battle with everybody else for
the rest of my days. And there's the future of man.

EWJ: Then what's the point of it all?

K: Nothing! It has no meaning! What is the point of the Pope going to
Poland, or all over South America? Is it a vast entertainment?
Sustaining the faith? He says you must sustain faith, which means
believe in Christ—which means do what we tell you. It's all so
absurd! So what will you do, with the world pressing you all the time—
they won't let you alone. I say, sorry, I won't accept any of it.
Whether it's the Buddha, Christ, the Pope, Mr. Reagan telling me what
to do.. .sorry, I won't. This means we have to be extraordinarily
capable of standing alone. And nobody wants to do that.

EWJ: Do you think there is a truth?

K: Yes, but there is not my truth, your truth. And it has no path.
There's no Christian path, Hindu path, Buddhist path, your path, my
path. One must be free of all paths to find it. The Hindus have been
very clever at this. They said there is the path of knowledge, the
path of action, the path through devotion—this suits everybody.

EWJ: So you say to stand alone we find our truth.

K: No. The word alone means all one. But people say, "I can't do it
alone, so please help me to put my house in order," and invent the
guru—not a particular guru but the whole idea of gurus. The world of
so-called religion, whether it is the religion of Hindus, Buddhists,
Jews, Catholics, the whole structure of religious ceremonies, is put
together by thought, is it not? The Mass was invented by man. They
may say it came directly from heaven but that seems rather absurd—
it's been invented by man. The ancient Egyptians had their ceremonies
to shape man. It isn't something new, the worship of symbols and
figures. The guru, the mantra, various forms of yoga which have been
brought over to this unfortunate country, are all authorities leading
you to meditate and all. We have done it—we have tried Jesus, we have
tried every form of person and idea, theory, system. They have not
worked. So it's up to me to put my house in order—I cannot depend on
anyone else. If you reject the church, the whole religious structure
of the world, any kind of spiritual authority, you are free of it.

EWJ: Haven't these people and systems been inspiration to some?

K: What is inspiration? To do something better—you answer it
yourself.

EWJ: Isn't it to add to the potential of each human being?

K: Yes, but if I am asleep...

EWJ: Then it is to wake up.

K: Yes. And all the time I want entertainment to keep me awake. Man
wants to be entertained, he wants to escape from himself at any
price.This is a fact The church has done it, and now sports—football,
cricket, and so on—is a vast entertainment. I'm bored, I'm harassed,
I'm weary, so I come to you and say, "inspire me." For the moment
you stimulate me. You act as a drug for the moment so I depend on
you.

EWJ: You speak of freedom from something—from religion, from
politics...

K: Freedom is in itself without any motive, not from or for, just
freedom. For instance, I am not a Hindu - I am free from it. But
that's not freedom; I am free from a particular form of prison but
we create other prisons as we go along.The point is, suppose you have
understood and have rejected, negated, all this and you want to help
me. There is something unethical, if I may use the word, in trying to
help me, right? Do you understand?

EWJ: I don't understand why.

K: You are trying to help me; that's your path. But why do I want to
be helped?

EWJ: Because you might be suffering.

K: Suppose I've lost my son, my wife has left me, I can't get the job
I want. How are you going to help me? Why do I seek help? Why do I
have this craving to go to somebody to ask help?

EWJ: Sometimes it is helpful to meet someone who has gone through
experiences of suffering. They are an example.

K: We are doing that now—and how far will you go with it?

EWJ: Perhaps not the whole way, but it can be a comfort.

K: Then what's the point of it? You have gone so far and stopped.
What's the point? So, then I become an example— that's the worst
thing! There have been many examples of all kinds of idiocies: so-
called "heroes" who have killed a thousand people in war, and saints
who are half demented. Why then do you want help, to follow somebody,
look up to somebody, why? When there is some kind of disease in me I
go to the doctor; if I don't know the direction I seek help from a
police officer; the postman is helping when he brings a letter. In
the physiological world help is necessary; otherwise we couldn't
exist, right? But I'm asking myself, psychologically, inwardly, will
anybody help me? Man has suffered through time beyond measure, for
millenia. What will help him to end that suffering? He goes on
killing, he goes on murdering, he has ambition in everything—which is
another form of killing—and what will stop him? Not Gandhi—his
nonviolence is really a form of violence. Non-violence is an idea,
right? When man is violent and you give him a fact, then fact is
violence and non-fact is non-violence. And you are dealing only with
non-fact all the time. Why don't we deal with the fact, which is
violence? Why do you put that picture of non-violence in front of me?
I say deal with what is here.
I've had discussions with Gandhi's disciples, with his followers,
endlessly about this matter. I said to them often, "We have had this
war between India and Pakistan and you talked about non-violence.
Were any of you conscientious objectors? Did any of you go to prison
for peace?" Not one of them. It meant absolutely nothing. So what's
the point of nonviolence? It's a jargon—an escape. I know, if I am
violent, how to deal with this. But you are all the time dangling in
front of me this nonviolence, which is not real.

EWJ: Do you think we will just keep going on like - warring among
ourselves for all of history?

K: You're asking the same question in different words—what's the
future of man. Unless we radically change, the future is what we are
now. It's a serious'fact. And nobody wants to change radically. They
change a little bit here, a little there. If you want peace, you live
peacefully. But nobody wants to live peacefully—neither the Pope, nor
the prime minister, nor anybody. So they're keeping up the wars. I've
talked to a great many politicians in my life, a great many spiritual
leaders, to gurus who come to see me—I don't know why—they never
talked about ending conflict, which means finding out the cause of
conflict. Never.
Let's say nationalism is one of the causes. They never talked about
it. If the Pope said tonight that the church will excommunicate
anybody who joins the army to do organized killing then tomorrow he
wouldn't exist. They would throw him out. So he won't say, "Let's
talk about peace."
I'm not cynical, I'm just looking at facts. So, what will change man?
Apparently nothing from outside—no church, no threats, no wars,
nothing from outside. Change implies a great deal of inquiry, a
great deal of search. Someone hasn't the time so he says, "Tell me
all about it quickly." But one must give one's life to this, not just
play around with it. The monks think they have given their life but
they have given their life to an idea, to a symbol, to somebody
called Christ. The Hindus have their sannyasins, the Buddhists their
bhikkus—it's the same phenomena.

EWJ: It appears that we are at a unique time in history.

K: Yes, but the crisis is not in the world out there. Rather, it is
inside us, in our consciousness. Which means that man has to change.

EWJ: Has your teaching and your writing made a change?

K: With some, perhaps. I'm not looking to see if somebody's changed
or not. It's like this: you give food to me and if I'm hungry I'll
take it. And if I'm not, I look at it, smell it, say "it's very
nice," and then wander off. Very few people are hungry for this kind
of stuff. Buddha is supposed to have talked for forty years, and
there were only two disciples who understood—Mogallana and Sariputtra—
and they died before he did. There is the whole tragedy of existence.

EWJ: Do you feel that your teaching has made a deep impression?

K: Some have given up their jobs, have said, "We'll come to your
schools." They are doing it because they are schools—not monasteries,
not ashrams, but schools—where you get a degree course.

EWJ: So you feel that education is a place to really effect a change?

K: If teachers were concerned, if education all over the world was
concerned, to bring about a new generation they could do it. But they
are not concerned. They want to stop the children with mathematics,
biology, chemistry, to make them become good engineers. Society wants
good engineers—there's money in it.
Educators have enormous responsibility because they hold the future.
More than the parents. Educators must be concerned with the holistic
view of life. I've talked about it so much. We've got a school in
California, a school in England, and five schools in India, and I've
spent a great deal of time in all of them. But the parents want their
children to be like themselves—have a good job, get married, settle
down. Society around them wants that. So it's a tremendous battle
with the parents, with the teachers, with the society. It's a sick
world.

EWJ: It seems as though there's as much physical sickness, like
cancer, as there is mental sickness.

K: They're related to each other.

EWJ: When you meet someone who is sick physically what is your
approach ? Do you heal?

K: Yes, but please, I want to make this quite clear. Healing is not
my profession, not my work.
Let me rather say, if someone cannot be cured he's going to die. And
death apparently is a horror to everybody. Whether diseased or
healthy, death is something to be abominated. But death and life go
together. You can't say, "I'll keep death out there and life here."
What matters is how you live before death, not after. Living is more
important than dying. Living is . . .ah, it's too complex...

EWJ: Do you believe in rebirth?

K: First of all, I don't believe in anything. Secondly, what is it
that is going to be reborn? Say I have been suffering for ten years
and I die. Now will I in my next life go on from where I left off? Is
there individuality at all? Is there the ego—my ego, your ego, a
spiritual essence, the atman? The highest principle?

EWJ: Perhaps it's just a process.

K: What is that? It's a process of thought. There is nothing sacred
about thought, nor about the things that thought has created in the
churches of the world. They worship it but it's not sacred. There is
something absolutely sacred but you can't pick it up casually, you
can't just believe. Do you understand? Men have searched for this in
different ways and never found it, they have given their lives to it.
It can't be found in an afternoon conversation or reading a book, or
going to some fanciful meditation. If you don't find it what's the
point of all this? One has to work on this for years to find out. It
isn't just a game that you play. But people haven't the time so they
worship the one who has something. Or they kill him. Both are the
same— whether they worship or kill, both are exactly the same.

EWJ: Isn 't there some possibility of transmission between
individuals?

K: Now you are with somebody who is a little peaceful and who doesn't
want a thing from you, and you feel quiet. But you have what? You
have taken a drug for the time being and the moment you leave here it
will all go. It's so obvious.

EWJ: But if we are climbing some mountain and we've come to see you
because it seems that you are a few steps ahead..

K: I don't believe in climbing. There is no climbing, no "I am this,
I have become that." There is only this. Change this, that's all.

EWJ: Why do you teach?

K: Why does a flower bloom?

What we are on this earth for ?

2005-10-16T23:57:00.000-04:00

Questioner: What are we on this earth for?

Krishnamurti: You are on this earth to live fully, happily with your whole being, free of ambition, greed and fear. If you are greedy or ambitious, you cannot live fully, because greed and ambition dissipate your energy. To live fully is to live without fear, without sorrow, without asking a thing of the gods, because you would be a light onto yourself. When you live fully - a light onto yourself - you will not follow anybody, you will have no nationality, or belong to any religious or political group. As you would be a free human being it would, therefore, be possible to live in this world richly, whether you have little or much and, in that very active living you would beautify the earth.

Look at all the horrors that are going on everywhere! It is because you do not know how to live that you give an artificial significance to life. If you asked ten different people what the purpose of life was, they would give you ten different answers; and then what could you do but choose an answer from among those ten and try to live according to it? You have to find out for yourself what it means to live fully. Obviously you cannot live fully if you are afraid of death, or a public opinion, or of making a mistake.
If you are ambitious, seeking power, or clinging to a position, which in one form or another is what most people are doing, you cannot live fully, because you would be everlastingly in conflict, both with others and with yourself.

It is most difficult to live without ambition in a world which is corrupt, a world where there are so many vested interests, so many gods who are always threatening, or offering rewards. It requires astonishing intelligence to live in such a world. And you can have intelligence only by seeing everything, and by listening to everything. Then your eyes will become alive and your ears sharp. From seeing and listening there comes self-knowledge and, in knowing yourself you will have astounding vision. What better reason do you want for being on this earth than that.

Emptiness

2005-09-25T15:42:00.000-04:00

Emptiness is a name for nothingness,

A name for ungraspibility,

A name for mountains, rivers, the whole earth.

It is also called the real form.

In the green of the pines,

The twist of the brambles,

There is no going and coming;

In the red of the flowers

And the white of the snow,

There is no birth and no death.

Is is also called the real formless

Beyond form and formless

Beyond death and birth

Beyond no death and no birth

When you cry for yourself, is it Love ?

2005-09-22T23:46:00.000-04:00

When you cry for yourself, is it love - crying because you are lonely, because you have been left, because you are no longer powerful - complaining of your lot, your environment - always you in tears? If you understand this, which means to come in contact with it as directly as you would touch a tree or a pillar or a hand, then you will see that sorrow is self-created, sorrow is created by thought, sorrow is the outcome of time. I had my brother three years ago, now he is dead, now I am lonely, aching, there is no one to whom I can look for comfort or companionship, and it brings tears to my eyes. You can see all this happening inside yourself if you watch it. You can see it fully, completely, in one glance, not take analytical time over it. You can see in a moment the whole structure and nature of this shoddy little thing called `me', my tears, my family, my nation, my belief, my religion - all that ugliness, it is all inside you. When you see it with your heart, not with your mind, when you see it from the very bottom of your heart, then you have the key that will end sorrow. Sorrow and love cannot go together, but in the Christian world they have idealized suffering, put it on a cross and worshipped it, implying that you can never escape from suffering except through that one particular door, and this is the whole structure of an exploiting religious society.

So when you ask what love is, you may be too frightened to see the answer. It may mean complete upheaval; it may break up the family; you may discover that you do not love your wife or husband or children - do you? - you may have to shatter the house you have built, you may never go back to the temple.

- JK

The Unguarded Intellect

2005-09-17T15:06:00.000-04:00

" You can know yourself only when you are unaware, when you are not calculating, not protecting, not constantly watching to guide, to transform, to subdue, to control; when you see yourself unexpectedly, that is, when the mind has no preconceptions with regard to itself, when the mind is open, unprepared to meet the unknown.
If your mind is prepared, surely you cannot know the unknown, for you are the unknown. If you say to yourself, "I am God," or "I am nothing but a mass of social influences or a bundle of qualities"—if you have any preconception of yourself, you cannot comprehend the unknown, that which is spontaneous.
So spontaneity can come only when the intellect is unguarded, when it is not protecting itself, when it is no longer afraid for itself; and this can happen only from within. That is, the spontaneous must be the new, the unknown, the incalculable, the creative, that which must be expressed, loved, in which the will as the process of intellect, controlling, directing, has no part. Observe your own emotional states and you will see that the moments of great joy, great ecstasy, are unpremeditated; they happen, mysteriously, darkly, unknowingly."

"The Unguarded Intellect" - Book of Life

Shoulders

2005-09-13T22:16:00.000-04:00

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~

(Red Suitcase)

For a list of charities and relief organizations:

http://www.katrinahope.org

Mind...

2005-09-13T00:41:00.000-04:00

Wonderful it is to train the mind
so swiftly moving, seizing whatever it wants.
Good is it to have a well-trained mind,
for a well-trained mind brings happiness.

Dhammapada 35

Why ?

2005-09-10T00:04:00.000-04:00

Why does Sai Baba manifest those cheap watches and not Rolexes?

......and why is he so attracted to little boys?

Why did Ramana say that there was reincarnation..........and then say there wasn't?

Why did he tell us that his pet cow was enlightened?

Why is Ramesh still compelled to touch the femaleness around him?

Why did Nisargadatta piddle all over himself when a relative of Ramana came to his house?

Why did Mother Teresa lie about that orphanage of 5000?

and:

Why do you continue to believe that they all have something.........that you do not?

Love

2005-08-31T12:15:00.000-04:00

To love is the greatest thing in life; it is very important to talk about love, to feel it, to nourish it, to treasure it, otherwise it will soon be dissipated, for the world is very brutal. If while you are young you don't feel love, if you don't look with love at people, at animals, at flowers, when you grow up you find that your life is empty; you will be very lonely, and the dark shadows of fear will follow you always. But the moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

JK

Self - Awareness

2005-08-29T14:54:00.000-04:00

Question: Does not this process of constant self-awareness lead to self-centeredness?

Krishnamurti: "It does, does it not? The more you are concerned about yourself, watching, improving, thinking about yourself, the more self-centered you are, are you not? That is an obvious fact. If I am concerned with changing myself, then I must observe, I must build a technique which will help me to break up that centre. There is self-centeredness as long as I am consciously or unconsciously concerned with a result, with success, as long as I am gaining and putting aside - which is what most of us are doing. The incentive is the goal I am pursuing; because I want to gain that end, I watch myself. I am unhappy, I am miserable, frustrated, and I feel there is a state in which I can be happy, fulfilled, complete; so I become aware in order to gain that state. I use awareness to get what I want; so I am self-centered. Through awareness, through self-analysis, through reading, studying, I hope to dissolve the "me",and then I shall be happy, enlightened, liberated, I shall be one of the elite - and that is what I want. So, the more I am concerned with gaining an end, the greater is the self-centeredness of thought. But thought is ever self enclosing anyhow, is it not?

So, what? To break down the self-centeredness, I must understand why the mind seeks an end, a goal, a particular result. Why does my mind go after a reward? Why? Can it function in any other way? Is not the movement of the mind from memory to memory, from result to result? I have acquired this, I don't like it, and I am going to get some thing else. I don't like this thought, but that thought will be better, nobler, more comforting, more satisfying. As long as I am thinking, I can think in no other terms; for the mind moves from knowledge to knowledge, from memory to memory. Is not thinking self-centered in its very nature? I know there are exceptions, but we are not discussing the exceptions. In our everyday life, are we not consciously or unconsciously pursuing an end, gaining and avoiding, seeking to continue, putting aside anything that is disturbing, that is insecure, uncertain? In seeking its own certainty, the mind creates self-centeredness; and is not that self-centeredness the "me", which then watches over and analyzes itself? So, as long as we seek a result, self-centeredness must exist, whether in an individual, in a group, in a nation or a race. But if we can understand why the mind seeks a result, a satisfying end, why it wants to be certain - if we understand that, then there is a possibility of breaking down the walls that enclose thought as the "me". But that requires an astonishing awareness of the total process, not only of the conscious, but also of the unconscious levels, an awareness from moment to moment in which there is no gathering, no accumulation, no saying, "Yes, I have understood this, and I am going to use it for tomorrow", a spontaneity which is not of the mind. Only then is there a possibility of going beyond the self-enclosing activities of thought."

Collected Works
Ojai, 23rd August 1952
7th public talk

Past and Future

2005-08-24T11:03:00.000-04:00

Words of the Buddha

The past should not be followed after
and the future not desired;
what is past is dead and gone
and the future is yet to come.

Majjhima Nikaya III, 131

passivity...

2005-08-22T15:10:00.000-04:00

...thoughtless..emotionless...undaunted...non-resistance....seems to help tide any situation..however difficult it might seem...

a flexible weed which bends with the flow during a strong wind has better chances of surviving the nature's vagary than a strong tree resisting and trying to hold still...

let anything happen...don't care...let the flow of the tide take you where you're destined to...let go..just let go..and relax

Buddha is Reality

2005-08-15T01:00:00.000-04:00

Subhuti asked: "What does buddha mean?"

The Buddha answered: "Buddha is reality. One who thoroughly comprehends all the factors of existence is a buddha."

-Prajnaparamita

From "Buddha Speaks," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.

inner..outer

2005-08-10T01:26:00.000-04:00

"There is only one real movement in life which is both the outer and the inner. With the understanding of the outer situation or condition, the inner movement of truth, of choiceless awareness begins, which is not in opposition to the outer or contradiction within the inner. For both outer opposition and inner contradiction are false division of the outer and the inner. As these conflicts are eliminated, the brain, though highly sensitive and alert, becomes quiet. Then the inner movement is valid and significant." JK

Truth

2005-08-08T02:28:00.000-04:00

"...The truth indeed has never been preached by the
Buddha, seeing that one has to realize it within
himself." --Lamkara Sutra

Real Buddha

2005-08-06T15:57:00.000-04:00

A gold Buddha can't get through a furnace, a wood Buddha can't get through a fire, and a clay Buddha can't get through water. The real Buddha sits within: enlightenment, nirvana, suchness, and Buddha-nature are all clothes sticking to the body.

-Chao-chou From "The Pocket Zen Reader," edited by Thomas Cleary, 1999. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications

Transformation or Rebirth...

2005-08-02T19:09:00.000-04:00

...is simply to recapture and redevelop the inherently sound or pure mind along with its manifest behaviors.("Something that was always there.")

Rom Landau: "How did you come to that state of unity with everything?"

J. Krishnamurti: "People have asked me about that before, and I always feel that they expect to hear the dramatic account of some sudden miracle through which I suddenly became one with the universe. Of course nothing of the sort happened. My inner awareness was always there; though it took me time to feel it more and more clearly; and equally it took time to find words that would at all describe it. It was not a sudden flash, but a slow yet constant clarification of something that was always there. It did not grow, as people often think. Nothing can grow in us that is of spiritual importance. It has to be there in all its fullness, and then the only thing that happens is that we become more and more aware of it. It is our intellectul
reaction and nothing else that needs time to become more articulate, more definite."

The State of Peace

2005-08-02T01:07:00.000-04:00

A questioner asked the Buddha: "I would like to know about the state of peace, the state of solitude and of quiet detachment. How does a person become calm, independent, and not wanting to grasp at anything?"

"A person does this," replied the Buddha, "by eradicating the delusion of 'I am.' By being alert and attentive, he begins to let go of cravings as they arise. But whatever he begins to accomplish, he should beware of inner pride. He must avoid thinking of himself as better than another, or worse or equal, for that is all comparison and emphasizes the self.

"The person should look for peace within and not depend on it in any other place. For when a person is quiet within, the self cannot be found. There are no waves in the depths of the ocean, it is still and unbroken. It is the same with the peaceful person. He is still, without any longing to grasp. He has let go the foundations of self and no longer builds up pride and desire."

-Sutta Nipata
From "Buddha Speaks," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000

Beauty

2005-08-01T02:05:00.000-04:00

There is the beauty of love, beauty of compassion. And also there is the beauty of a clean street, of good architectural form of a building; there is beauty of a tree, a lovely leaf, the great big branches. To see all that is beauty; not merely to go to museums and talk everlastingly about beauty. The silence of a quiet mind is the
essence of that beauty. Because it is silent and because it is not the plaything of thought, then in that silence there comes that which is indestructible, which is sacred. In the coming of that which is sacred then life becomes sacred, your life becomes sacred, our relationship becomes sacred, everything becomes sacred because
you have touched that thing that is sacred.

JK

keeping on...

2005-07-31T17:17:00.000-04:00

...thinking..about the aim probably gets us somewhere..and helps us achieve the desirable....but it is the art of maintaining the flow which has to be cultivated.
Distractions...the thoughts which keep invading the mind..come in ..and the silly mind flows away with them ending up completely forgetting the aim...and finally when it realizes and wants to come back..it is fatigued, uninterested..and needs further energy and has to start all over again.
From the miniscule experiences...it seems that success lies in continuity of work towards the goal...continuity of thought..even if it is as rough as a cascade in the beginning, it should still flow without getting diverted or drying up...until it becomes a mighty, confident yet placid river...well on it's way to it's destination.

similarities!

2005-07-24T03:13:00.000-04:00

http://rajeshkuc.blogspot.com/2005/07/am-i-satisfied.html

JK on children

2005-07-24T02:37:00.000-04:00

"You are obliged in some matters to be imitative; as in the clothes you put on, in the books you read, in the language you speak. These are all forms of imitation. But it is necessary to go beyond this level and feel free to think things out for yourself so that you do not thoughtlessly accept what somebody else says, it does not matter who it is - a teacher in the school, a parent, or one of the great religious teachers. To think out things for yourself, and not follow, is very important; because following indicates fear, does it not? The moment somebody offers you something you want - paradise, heaven, or a better job - there is fear of not getting it; therefore you begin to accept, to follow. So long as you want something, there is bound to be fear; and fear cripples the mind so that you cannot be free".

. . . . .

"Is this all too difficult? I don't think it is as difficult as your geography or mathematics. It is much easier, only you have never thought about it. You spend perhaps ten or fifteen years of your life in school acquiring information, yet you never take time - not a week, not even a day - to think fully, completely about any of these things. That is why it all seems so difficult; but it is not really difficult at all. On the contrary, if you give time to it you can see for yourself how your mind works, how it operates, responds. And it is very important to begin to understand your own mind while you are young, otherwise you will grow up following some tradition which has very little meaning. you will imitate, which is to keep on cultivating fear, and so you will never be free".

. . . . .

"So, while you are young you should awaken within yourself the flame of discontent; you should be in a state of revolution. This is the time to inquire, to discover, to grow; therefore insist that your parents and your teachers educate you properly. Do not be satisfied merely to sit in a classroom and absorb information about this king or that war. Be discontented, go to your teachers and inquire, find out. If they are not intelligent, by inquiring you will help them to be intelligent; and when you leave the school you will be growing into maturity, into real freedom. Then you will continue to learn right through life till you die, and you will be a happy, intelligent human being".

- JK

Where are they?

2005-07-24T02:36:00.000-04:00

"And somewhere there are engineers
Helping others fly faster than sound.
But, where are the engineers
Helping those who must live on the ground?"

-- Young Oxfam Poster

sleep...

2005-07-04T07:03:00.000-04:00

....is a way to escape

Telugu....is an excuse..and an addictive way to escape

Reading latest news....by convincing the mind of doing something purposeful ...is a way to escape

Blogging (might include the one im typing now).....is another way to escape

Internet itself is sometimes a bane and provides a outlet for escape...to a entrapped , confused , soul...

go on....

2005-07-03T03:20:00.000-04:00

...with the flow....its tight...time is precious...but still the old remnants..of the habits...of the tendency to escape still linger...probably i am typing this right now....

go on...lets see what happens...just go on and on....

a surge...

2005-06-25T04:46:00.000-04:00

...of energy when the thoughts seem 'right'...when i feel that THIS is the correct path..correct mode of behavior....the behavior is characterized by sublimity...by less self-consciousness and by letting things flow. Freeing the mind from the pre-defined notions of correct behavior is the first step to achieving this. Letting go the thoughts, breaking the shackles of society-imposed 'cultural' regulations we are tied up by, being ourselves.
The ease of coding a computer program could act as a parameter for judging the freeness of the mind. It is easier when we don't 'hold' and let the thoughts flow.
Keep going...push push....achieve what is to be.....

coming...

2005-06-23T23:51:00.000-04:00

...to some good state..then falling back into greater depth...should not think about coming...as time gets compressed...and every moment becomes precious..a state called 'do or die'..
One among many of my myriad experiences? Waiting to see what is in store?
Calmness is the key to facing any situation...probably should tell that more to myself..and really practise it.

fearlessness....

2005-06-19T21:47:00.000-04:00

... is the basis for proper human existence. Clinging, attachment to results, attachment with social recognition, the fear of losing one's pride, of losing one's respect among peers....feelings driven by ego...ego arising out of fear, insecurity...always trying to conform, to comfort oneself by imagination, fancy delusions....creates a false sheath of self-security on the outer plane of thoughts, while the mind insides struggles, convinces itself, tries to keep itself from drifting away from it's supposed 'correct path for being stress-free and happy'.
Escapism comes out in the form of obsessive compulsive behaviors, and blogging is one of them.

Meditation

2005-05-31T20:16:00.000-04:00

"The deep inward simplicity of austerity makes for a life that has no
duality. The mind must take this journey of beauty without the word,
the answer, the predetermined course of achievement.
This journey is meditation."

- JK

2005-05-30T20:18:00.000-04:00

photo by Helga Piatscheck

greatest treasures

2005-05-22T18:21:00.000-04:00

I have just three things to teach:
Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
You return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
You accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
You reconcile all beings in the world.

- Lao Tzu

inward simplicity

2005-05-22T18:20:00.000-04:00

A religious man is not really one who puts on a robe or a loincloth, or has taken innumerable vows to be this and not be that, but is he who is inwardly simple, who is not becoming anything. Such a mind is capable of extraordinary receptivity, because there is no barrier, there is no fear, there is no going towards something; therefore it is capable of receiving grace, God, Truth or what you will.

- JK

Psychological Time

2005-05-17T23:12:00.000-04:00

"Do not ask me what psychological time is. Ask that question of yourself. Perhaps the speaker may prompt you, put it into words, but it is your own question. One has had a son, a brother, a wife, father. They are gone. They can never return. They are wiped away from the face of the earth. Of course, one can invent a belief that they are living on other planes. But one has lost them; there is a photograph on the piano or the mantelpiece. One's remembrance of them is in psychological time. How one had lived, how they loved me; what help they were; they helped to cover up one's loneliness. The remembrance of them is a movement in time. They were there yesterday and gone today. That is, a record has been formed in the brain. That remembrance is a recording on the tape of the brain; and that tape is playing all the time. How one walked with them in the woods, one's sexual remembrances, their companionship, the comfort one derived from them. All that is gone, and the tape is playing on. This tape is memory and memory is time. If you are interested, go into it very deeply."

JK

strange....

2005-05-16T21:38:00.000-04:00

.....feelings....got so used to 'unnatural' situations.....still not totally focussing on what is important...mind reacting to 'work'...important work....diversion...internal justification for that diversion....sticking to some theories...but unable to yet implement them religiously....need a break...but that break will come from me...only me...and only i am responsible and will have to control...no not control...but observe.... my fickle mind....

JK on Self

2005-05-15T13:56:00.000-04:00

K: "Now the question is: can the mind be free of this egocentric activity? Right? That is really the question. Not whether it is so or not. Which means can the mind stand alone, uninfluenced? Alone, being alone does not mean isolation. Sir, look: when one rejects completely all the absurdities of nationality, the absurdities of propaganda, of religious propaganda, rejects conclusions of any kind, actually, not theoretically, completely put aside, has understood very deeply the question of pleasure and fear, and division--the `me' and the `not me'- -is there any form of the self at all?"

awareness

2005-05-12T02:34:00.000-04:00

"Man has become addicted to the drug named "intellect" and under its influence compulsively analyzes everything, cogitating, speculating and making all simple things complicated. This addiction can only be gotten rid of by unconditional surrender to the process of pure receptivity." Balsekar

Nothing

2005-05-09T01:55:00.000-04:00

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or
nesting?

There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no
ford!

And there is no body, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the
soul less thirsty?

In that great absence you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a sold place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this:
Just throw away all thoughts of
imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.

Kabir

consciousness....

2005-05-06T02:12:00.000-04:00

...about self....or trying to be conscious? Mind does not stick to one topic..jumps about, wavering, can be called lack of concentration...a potentially dangerous habit.....habit which can make things worse.....but still...mind doesnt act with a sense of rationality..acts on impulse...impulses of thoughts, cerebral current.....trying to be self-conscious...is that good or not? Lets see where i am progressing.....

Resistance

2005-05-04T13:34:00.000-04:00

Resistance to the truth of what is happening breeds fear and anxiety as well as conformity and acceptance. The brain must be washed clean of all these cunning devices.

JK

unawakened mind...

2005-05-01T19:25:00.000-04:00

The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are.

- Jack Kornfield

there is only perception

2005-04-29T20:05:00.000-04:00

Look, sirs: most of us are petty people, with very shallow minds;and the thinking of a narrow, shallow mind can only lead to further misery. A shallow mind cannot make itself deep; it will always be shallow, petty, envious. What it can do is to realize the fact that it is shallow, and not make an effort to alter it. The mind sees that it is conditioned, and has no urge to change that conditioning, because it understands that any compulsion to change is the result of knowledge, which is partial; therefore it is in a state of perception. It is perceiving what is. But generally what happens? Being envious, the mind exercises thought to get rid of envy, thereby creating the opposite as non-envy; but it is still within the field of thought. Now, if the mind perceives the state of envy without condemning or accepting it, and without introducing the desire to change, then it is in a state of perception; and that very perception brings about a new movement, a new element, a totally different quality of being. You see, sirs, words, explanations and symbols are one thing, and being is something entirely different. Here we are not concerned with words, we are concerned with being - being what we actually are, not dreaming of ourselves as spiritual entities, the Atman and all that nonsense, which is still within the field of thought, and therefore partial. What matters is being what you are - envious - and perceiving that totally; and you can perceive it totally only when there is no movement of thought at all. The mind is the movement of thought - and it is also the state in which there is complete perception, without the movement of thought. Only that state of perception can bring about a radical change in the ways of our thinking; and then thinking will not be mechanistic. JK

Ideology and Meaning

2005-04-27T14:35:00.000-04:00

"As soon as you look at the world through an ideology
you are finished. No reality fits ideology. Life is
beyond that.

That is why people are always searching for a meaning
to life.

But life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning
because meaning is a formula; meaning is something
that makes sense to the mind.

Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump
into something that destroys the sense you made.

Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning.
Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery
and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind".

Anthony de Mello, SJ

revolving in circles...

2005-04-27T14:25:00.000-04:00

Ordinary people have been revolving in circles since time immemorial,
being born and dying. Because of clinging fixedly to self-images,
false ideas, and misperceptions, the habits of illusion eventually
become second nature to them. Even if they suddenly awaken in this
life and realize that their essential nature is fundamentally empty
and silent, no different from the Buddhas, nevertheless past habits
are difficult to remove all at once.

- Master Chinul (1158-1210)

Brain and Mind

2005-04-24T03:35:00.000-04:00

"This brain, which is conditioned by knowledge, by experience, by tradition, cannot have any communication with the mind which is totally outside the activity of the brain. That mind can communicate with the brain, but the brain cannot communicate with it because the brain can imagine infinitely; the brain can imagine the nameless; the brain can do anything. The mind is too immense because it doesn't belong to you; it's not your mind." JK

Mind and Brain

2005-04-22T18:25:00.000-04:00

"We are saying, and the speaker may be wrong, and he has discussed
this matter with some of the so-called scientists, and even then the
speaker may be wrong, don't please accept what he says; doubt what he
says, question, enquire. He says, the brain is the whole limited
consciousness, with all its content, pleasant, unpleasant, ugly,
beautiful, struggle, all that is your content. And the mind is
something totally separate from the brain. The mind is outside the
brain - the speaker is saying, the scientists are not saying that.
The speaker says the brain is one thing, and mind is something
entirely different"

JK

to die without arguement

2005-04-17T13:47:00.000-04:00

Do you know what it means to come into contact with death, to die without argument? Because death, when it comes, does not argue with you. To meet it, you have to die every day to everything: to your agony, to your loneliness, to the relationship you cling to; you have to die to your thought, to die to your habit, to die to your wife so that you can look at your wife anew; you have to die to your society so that you, as a human being, are new, fresh, young, and you can look at it. But you cannot meet death, if you don't die every day. It is only when you die, that there is love. A mind that is frightened has no love-it has habits, it has sympathy, it can force itself to be kind and superficially considerate. But fear breeds sorrow, and sorrow is time as thought.

So to end sorrow is to come into contact with death while living, by dying to your name, to your house, to your property, to your cause, so that you are fresh, young, clear, and you can see things as they are without any distortion. That is what is going to take place when you die. But we have a limited death to the physical. We know very well logically, sanely, that the organism is going to come to an end. So we invent a life which we have lived of daily agony, daily insensitivity, the increase of problems, and its stupidity; that life we want to carry over, which we call the "soul"-which we say is the most sacred thing, a part of the divine; but it is still part of your thought and therefore it has nothing to do with divinity. It is your life!

JK

Milarepa

2005-04-13T23:38:00.000-04:00

In the beginning, nothing comes;
In the middle, nothing stays;
At the end, nothing goes.
Of the mind there is no arising and extinction!
Thus, one remains in the Equality of past, present, and future....

KEN

THE SONG OF LIFE by JK

2005-04-12T19:52:00.000-04:00

THE SONG OF LIFE by: J. Krishnamurti

Love not the shapely branch,

Nor place its image alone in thy heart.

It dieth away.

Love the whole tree.

Then thou shalt love the shapely branch,

The tender and the withered leaf,

The shy bud and the full-blown flower,

The falling petal and the dancing height,

The splendid shadow of full love.

Ah, love Life in its fullness.

It knoweth no decay.

Sensivity and Suffering

2005-04-12T19:02:00.000-04:00

"In the life of man all this appears with greatest distinctness,
illumined by the clearest knowledge. As the manifestation of the will
rises higher, the suffering becomes more apparent. In the plant there
is no sensibility and therefore no pain. In the lowest forms of
animal life, a small degree of suffering may be experienced. As the
level rises, sensitivity becomes wider and deeper. It appears in a
high degree with the complete nervous system of backboned animals.
Thus, as knowledge increases, as consciousness attains to greater
distinctness, pain also increases, and reaches its highest degree in
man. And the more intelligent and finely formed a man is, the more
pain he is open to." Schopenhauer

"Only the sensitive can face the actual, without escaping into all
kinds of conclusions, opinions, and evaluations. Only the sensitive
can be alone and this aloneness is destructive. This sensitivity is
stripped of all pleasure and so it has the austerity, not of desire
and will but of seeing and understanding." J.K.

The Three Legs of Krishnamurti's Teaching

2005-04-12T00:26:00.000-04:00

"The unknown is not something to be experienced by the mind; silence
alone can be experienced, nothing but silence."

"You must be a light to yourself."

"Truth is a pathless land."

feeling...

2005-04-07T18:10:00.000-04:00

...down'ly'....a new person comes...and brings in (or out) a flood of thoughts from deep within my heart....thoughts which tell me that I am not what I was supposed to be....my heart tells me, repeats before me...my true talents...god-given gifts....all of them seem to be lying wasted due to other god-given 'qualities'...built up since childhood....reached a peak at this stage....will I come back? Will I be what I am supposed to be? Solitude,quietitude,silent observance..looking deep within....understanding my thoughts....and not affected by external influences....smiling at the 'foes', forgiveness, gratitude and silently bearing all that God has given and has in store for me further.......is what I can think of at this moment.

inertia...

2005-04-05T21:31:00.000-04:00

...of escape from work..continueing in the form of repeated checking of news items and emails and encouraged by self-deception, and convincing oneself about the relevance of doing these repetitive tasks.

glimpses....

2005-03-28T06:28:00.000-05:00

...of 'possible' higher states in the early hours of the dawn. Glimpses or just imagination and self-deception? A gale, a hurricane recently passed by, to be replaced with strong wind, a wind blowing on since ages, bringing in the most unexpected experiences which could never have been imagined. Certainly the winds have not yet broken the young tree, they have only made it stronger, more resistant to withstand the storms which might lie ahead in it's future. In the process they sap out other essential ingredients needed for the growth and sustenance of the tree, creating a strange paradox which asks us the question whether these turbulent times are really beneficial ? It is upto the tree now to use it's experience and self-control in making proper use of these essential resources in ensuring its survival in this growingly aggresive and competitive world. Oh my dear living entity! You already have everything you desire for....put an end to your imagination about reaching that perfect utopian state and look at what you have. Self-confidence and concentration are what will make you ...what you wish for.

wind...

2005-03-20T16:30:00.000-05:00

...strong wind...bringing up hidden thoughts..making them fly around like fallen autumn leaves...only to make me realize how thin that self-made protected coating of favorable thoughts really was...breaking it...shaking me up...but in the process..removing the unwanted impurities..purifying the mind...instilling confidence arising from a greater sense of maturity, an understanding of the 'practical' aspect of life...the wind which does more than shake the branches and trees...it shakes the very roots of society and culture-imposed thought pattern in my mind created through the years....the roots are deep...but they will be uprooted eventually and replaced with a strong sapling...which on maturing will not be ever affected by the fiercest gale.

daze...

2005-03-18T02:06:00.000-05:00

...in a slight daze...not totally with myself...automated thoughts, involuntary actions ,habits ....driving me to do things...which might not be the best to do at the moment. Postponing, escaping , false assurance...though there was a brief period of rediscovery of the inner self which can concentrate....but again the habits over the months, possibly even years come back...making it difficult to break free...got to pull the energies together and finish this within the next few hours...

Being still...

2005-03-16T17:34:00.000-05:00

....is what i'm trying to be...digressing thoughts shoot around...impulses use the precious mental energy to run around, distract.....a slight feeling of fatigue...of body and mind.....trying as usual...probably on a slightly subtler note.....but still the same, struggling, self-conscious self....any improvement?

exploring....

2005-03-15T04:38:00.000-05:00

and trying....
exploring new methods..avenues....trying to sustain..infact create interest...and channel that enthusiasm into the completion of more immediate and important tasks. Should not have the crave for self-recognition because that is what pollutes the mind...and sincerity of action. This holds even as i type this...and subtle thoughts shoot out through the neurons.....the situation is more understandable now...but it is strange....very strange.

sanity ....

2005-03-05T06:33:00.000-05:00

... is something which needs to be retained at this moment. Losing this is not tough if the unwanted things possible in the future do take place. Life is going through upheavals never seen before....on second thought...these turbulent times do seem to be bringing about a positive change...maybe back to the correct path...But sometimes the storm is a little too threatening...something which can bend a tender , inexperienced stem to its maximum limit.....oh stem....you will grow into a strong trunk...the future depends on you....do hold on....do not break !