We are holding mind as the trouble-maker. But, thought appears to be a servant to the body. When one is not indulging in an action associated with a feeling for a long time, it is more or less forgotten, has lost its hold on the body. When one feels that it has gone forever as one is not getting even a single thought associated with it, a minor brush with that again once is enough to bring back the thoughts associated with that again repeatedly. Typical example is smoking, drinking, sex, etc., This clearly shows that the body is the master. (If we see that body is the master, is that not liberation?; as the struggle all along is because of our acceptance that thought is the master) So, if the physical intelligence is allowed to function, thought is not an issue as it gets out of the way. Driving and batting in cricket are other examples. We can't think and do these; it is the body's intelligence at play. Hours and hours of practice tunes the body with this intelligence, as it is used to a particular thinking way.

So, what the body does appears to be the deciding factor. Body is functioning in a certain way all along. It is kind of trained to function only that way. It is trained to ‘think to act’. It is trained in abstract doing and abstract living. Even bodily functions like seeing and hearing has become mind functions. We are trained to do that. Or are we educated also to do that?

Body is supposed to see, hear, smell, touch, walk and breath, but those have become mind functions. Can we let the body do its natural functions? How does the body unlearn the abstract doing and stay with its natural functions? Does it train to do natural functions? Or is it a wrong question?

Can the body also listen? We never considered that at all. Can the body, not the mind, also look at, be aware of the anger, lust, thinking, and the resultant separation and all other feelings? Can the body live, work or whatever, instead of the mind? Can body itself be aware of division, separation, exploitation, pain, sorrow?

The same question can be put differently. Can the body be intelligent? Is it intelligent? It is. Our internal body functions happen because of this intelligence. Driving is an outwardly example of this intelligence.When we say the body, we mean the whole being, including thought and mind. Otherwise, thought will separate itself. 

“Can the physical body be aware of itself? We live by our senses. One of them is usually dominant; the listening, the seeing, the tasting seem to be separate from each other, but is this a fact? Or is it that we have given to one or other a greater importance - or rather that thought has given the greater importance? One may hear great music and delight in it, and yet be insensitive to other things. One may have a sensitive taste and be wholly insensitive to delicate colour. This is fragmentation. When each fragment is aware only of itself then fragmentation is maintained. In this way energy is broken up. If this is so, as it appears to be, is there a non-fragmentary awareness by all the senses? And thought is part of the senses. This implies - can the body be aware of itself? Not you being aware of your own body, but the body itself being aware. This is very important to find out. It cannot be taught by another: then it is second-hand information which thought is imposing upon itself. You must discover for yourself whether the whole organism, the physical entity, can be aware of itself. You may be aware of the movement of an arm, a leg or the head, and through that movement sense that you are becoming aware of the whole, but what we are asking is: can the body be aware of itself without any movement? This is essential to find out because thought has imposed its pattern on the body, what it thinks is right exercise, right food and so on. So there is the domination of thought over the organism; there is consciously or unconsciously a struggle between thought and the organism. In this way thought is destroying the natural intelligence of the body itself. Does the body, the physical organism, have its own intelligence? It has when all the senses are acting together in harmony so that there is no straining, no emotional or sensory demands of desire. When one is hungry one eats but usually taste, formed by habit, dictates what one eats. So fragmentation takes place. A healthy body can be brought about only through the harmony of all the senses which is the intelligence of the body itself. What we are asking is: does not disharmony bring about the wastage of energy? Can the organism's own intelligence, which has been suppressed or destroyed by thought, be awakened?

Remembrance plays havoc with the body. The remembrance of yesterday's pleasure makes thought master of the body. The body then becomes a slave to the master, and intelligence is denied. So there is conflict. This struggle may express itself as laziness, fatigue, indifference or in neurotic responses. When the body has its own intelligence freed from thought, though thought is part of it, this intelligence will guard its own well-being.

Pleasure dominates our life in its crudest or most educated forms. And pleasure essentially is a remembrance - that which has been or that which is anticipated. Pleasure is never at the moment. When pleasure is denied, suppressed or blocked, out of this frustration neurotic acts, such as violence and hatred, take place. Then pleasure seeks other forms and outlets; satisfaction and dissatisfaction arise. To be aware of all these activities, both physical and psychological, requires an observation of the whole movement of one's life.

When the body is aware of itself, then we can ask a further and perhaps more difficult question: can thought, which has put together this whole consciousness, be aware of itself? Most of the time thought dominates the body and so the body loses its vitality, intelligence, its own intrinsic energy, and hence has neurotic reactions. Is the intelligence of the body different from total intelligence which can come about only when thought, realizing its own limitation, finds its right place?

As we said at the beginning of this letter, the flowering of goodness can take place only when there is the release of total energy. In this release there is no friction. It is only in this supreme undivided intelligence that there is this flowering. This intelligence is not the child of reason. The totality of this intelligence is compassion.

Mankind has tried to release this immense energy through various forms of control, through exhausting discipline, through fasting, through sacrificial denials offered to some supreme principle or god, or through manipulating this energy through various states. All this implies the manipulation of thought towards a desired end. But what we are saying is quite contrary to all this.” - K

"Is it intelligence to allow the body to deteriorate through custom, through indulgence, through the cultivation of taste, pleasure and so on?" - K

"The native intelligence of the body is being destroyed, as you destroy the organism through the pleasure of a taste - smoking, drinking, drugs, eating a lot of meat, you know all the rest of it that goes on. You are trained, you are educated along these lines, therefore that is always destroying the deep organic intelligence. So when there is no fear inwardly the organism operates with its own intelligence, and therefore it is quite a different operation - you understand? Nothing is dictated to it." - K

Commentaries on Living Series 'The "I"':

"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 sing- ing 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.

Dance of alternating universal intelligence and consciousness, the individual intelligence

When we say 'I', the reference is not only to the body and also to the ever present being inside which is feeling, watching, waiting, thinking and carrying all the experiences. Physical body, which is personal, is flooded with consciousness and naturally this consciousness also is taken as personal. The ‘survival instinct’ of the physical body gets extended to the inner ‘I’ also. Our life is an extension of this survival trait and all our activities, seeking money, fame, power and pleasure, are part of this.

When we face problems, pain and sorrow, either personally or outside, we start looking for an answer.  We experience the mind’s potential for mischief-making. We have also heard from our religious leaders that mind needs to be put to rest. So, our arduous journey of silencing the mind starts. As mind and the inner ‘I’ are not different, here comes its survival trait. In some subtlest form, the ‘I’ is present in this journey of silencing the mind, the ‘I’.  Monkey chasing its own tail!                               

Great Teachers like Krishnamurti and Ramana said that seeing this fact and not the cunning explanation, puts an end to deterioration. As they said “look”, we look but the looking is the ‘I’ now. In its subtlest form, I is present in whatever we do. Anything we do with the conscious mind, the 'I' is there. What is left to do?

This is the most vital and important thing in this journey: thinking is the only tool known to us and word usage sucks us involuntarily in to the trap of abstract domain all the time. So, in this contemplation also, we need to be aware of flowing with the energy represented by the word and not caught in abstract trap. It is so with any spoken word, including the words of great souls.

The vast physical material body of universe of galaxies, stars, natural forces, air, light, water, earth, space, forests, billions of trees, plants, flowers, animals, birds, insects, and all other beings and the energy encompassing, permeating all these is the whole energy; any point in this whole is a centre for the whole; a contemplating person’s mind/brain imbibed with this energy is also a center of the whole; the whole, the source, present/felt in the mind/brain-in-silence is the universal intelligence; expression of the energy in the mind/brain is in thought, the individual intelligence; when it is expressed from the source, it is innocent; but the innocent thought is abstract; as the abstracts gets added, these abstract becomes the ‘I’, as abstracts (in brain/mind) imbibed with energy could have separated itself as consciousness.  Conscious look carries the I, consciousness itself carries the I. Presence and operation of both intelligence and consciousness: when the consciousness is predominant, intelligence is subordinate, present and watching, ready to act; both consciousness and intelligence are ready to act all the time and by force of habit, consciousness gets in to play most of the time as it is the habit for years and years, every moment of the day; as it is an abstract, a matter, its survival mechanism is in force always.  Comments are made all the time; certain comments are pursued with thinking and most of the comments are left as such; the comments are made looking to locate the threat; it is nothing but the survival mechanism of the abstract; it is indulging all the time in survival mode only; that appears to be its only function.

Why is this abstract journey? That too, when we are at the origin always- as long as the consciousness is in play, the abstract will continue the journey, meaning all conscious activities have to come to an end. Otherwise, consciousness will continue its destruction. Consciousness is so entrenched, only the care and love can stop this conscious activity, as conscious activity is enacting the dance of destruction represented by that ‘Child & Eagle’, ‘Child eating dry bread pieces’ and all other destruction happening anywhere at any point of time like the person from the lorry full of blood-soaked people calling you to join them, leaving the women behind, to take revenge. Looking at the immense sorrow brought about by the conscious activity, the resulting care and love only can end this. Any conscious activity keeps adding, abetting the sorrow and never allows it to die. As long as consciousness is active, the sorrow is alive. Whenever one sees that consciousness is the sorrow, the care and love can end it.

Quotes:

Effort is non-awareness

Does not effort mean a struggle to change what is into what it is not, or what it should be, or what it should become? We are constantly escaping from what is to transform or modify it. Only when there is no awareness of exactly what is, then effort to transform takes place. So effort is non-awareness. Awareness reveals the significance of what is, and the complete acceptance of the significance brings freedom. So awareness is non-effort; awareness is the perception of what is without distortion. Distortion exists whenever there is effort. -K. The Collected Works, Vol. IV,117,Choiceless Awareness.

Duality exists because we don't know what to do with 'what is'; approach 'what is' with care, with affection, therefore where there is affection there is no judgement. When I know what to do with it, duality is non-existent. Awareness implies observing the fact, not the idea of the fact, but the fact of 'what is'. And in that awareness there is infinite care, watching, affection. -K


Truth is not something far away - JK Online Daily Quotes

We do not have to seek truth. Truth is not something far away. It is the truth of the mind, truth of its activities from moment to moment. If we are aware of this moment-to-moment truth, of this whole process of time, this awareness releases consciousness or that energy to be. As long as the mind uses consciousness as the self-activity, time comes into being with all its miseries, with all its conflicts, with all its mischiefs, its purposive deceptions; and it is only when the mind, understanding this total process, ceases, that love will be. You may call it love or give it some other names; what name you give is of no consequence. - The Collected Works, Vol. VI",323,Choiceless Awareness



What is important is the state of full attention in which there is no border, no frontier, no limit. When there is that attention which is not induced in any way, then you will see that it is the limitless. But it cannot be captured by the mind, nor can the path of time lead you to it. Seeing all this - and there is much more to it- seeing this whole extraordinary process of the mind, then all that the mind can do is, to be wholly attentive and verbally, intellectually, in thought, completely silent. It is in that state of attention that there is no question; therefore, that which has no time is. That is why I feel so strongly that a revolution in the quality of the mind is necessary - not merely a change of ideas, thoughts, and beliefs, but a revolution in the quality of the mind itself. This quality of the mind cannot be learned, cannot be cultivated, can be seen only on the instant and forgotten on the instant, cannot be accumulated. But, once the mind sees this quality, this revolution in itself, then it will never lose it. That is why it is very important not to be merely respectable, not to be petty, but to cease all this activity, to break away from this terrific weight of respectability, which does not mean to become disreputable. To break through everything, on the instant, so that the mind lives all the time in a state of noncontinuity, that is full attention. - Collected Works Vol. XI,83

Truth is not come at by the process of authority. It must be discovered from moment to moment. It is not a thing that is permanent, enduring, continuous. You must as an individual experience it, or rather, allow that thing to come to you. You cannot possibly go to it. Please let us be clear on this point, that you cannot by any process, through any discipline, through any form of meditation, go to truth. So you cannot by any devious method, by any sacrifice, any discipline or through any guru go to it. You must await, it will come to you, you cannot go to it. All that the mind can do is to be quiet, - but not with the intention of receiving it. You think there is Truth, God, a state which is permanent and you want it, so you practise, discipline, do various forms of exercise, but it cannot be bought. Any amount of devotion, sacrifice, knowledge, virtue cannot call it into being. The mind must be free, it must have no borders, no frontier, no limitation, no conditioning. The whole sense of acquisitiveness must come to an end but not in order to receive. If one really understood that, one would see what an extraordinary thing this creativity of the mind is. Then you would really understand how to free the mind so that it is in a state of alert watchfulness, never asking, never seeking, never demanding. So the mind must come to the state when it is free from all effort. So, as I have said, that reality of which the mind cannot possibly conceive, which it cannot possibly speculate upon or reduce to words, that truth must come to you, the individual; you cannot go to it. Do what you will, Reality cannot be invited; it must come to you. - Collected Works.

"What is called the world is only thought. When the world disappears, i.e. when there is no thought, the mind experiences happiness; and when the world appears, it goes through misery.” - Ramana Maharishi

Life is Action:

“Life is existence, is a movement, and this movement is action. Life, the totality of life, not parts of it, the whole state of existence, is action. But when we merely exist, as most of us do, then the problem of action becomes complex. Existence has no division. It is not a fragmentary state of mind or being; in that [state] a totality of action is possible. But when we divide existence into different segments, fragments, then action becomes contradictory." - J Krishnamurti. Collected Works, Vol. XV, Action

A meditative mind is silent. It is not the silence which thought can conceive of; it is not the silence of a still evening; it is the silence when thought, with all its images, its words and perceptions, has entirely ceased. This meditative mind is the religious mind, the religion that is not touched by the church, the temples or by chants. The religious mind is the explosion of love. It is this love that knows no separation. To it, far is near. It is not the one or the many, but rather that state of love in which all division ceases. Like beauty, it is not of the measure of words. From this silence alone the meditative mind acts. - J Krishnamurti. The Only Revolution, 115, Meditations

Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life, perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody. That is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy, if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation. So meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child. - J Krishnamurti. Freedom from the Known, 116

It's curious how all-important meditation becomes; there's no end to it nor is there a beginning to it. It's like a raindrop: in that drop are all the streams, the great rivers, the seas and the waterfalls; that drop nourishes the earth and man; without it, the earth would be a desert. Without meditation the heart becomes a desert, a wasteland. - Krishnamurti Notebook, 91

To awaken this energy, the mind must have no resistance:

Now, how do we awaken in ourselves an energy that has its own momentum, that is its own cause and effect, an energy that has no resistance and does not deteriorate? How does one come by it? The organized religions have advocated various methods, and by practicing a particular method one is supposed to get this energy. But methods do not give this energy. The practice of a method implies conformity, resistance, denial, acceptance, adjustment, so that whatever energy one has is merely wearing itself out. If you see the truth of this, you will never practice any method. That is one thing. Secondly, if energy has a motive, an end towards which it is going, that energy is self-destructive. And for most of us, energy does have a motive, does it not? We are moved by a desire to achieve, to become this or that, and therefore our energy defeats itself. Thirdly, energy is made feeble, petty, when it is conforming to the past -and this is perhaps our greatest difficulty. The past is not only the many yesterdays but also every minute that is being accumulated, the memory of the thing that was over a second before. This accumulation in the mind is also destructive of energy. So, to awaken this energy, the mind must have no resistance, no motive, no end in view, and it must not be caught in time as yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Then energy is constantly renewing itself and therefore not degenerating. Such a mind is not committed, it is completely free, and it is only such a mind that can find the unnameable, that extraordinary something which is beyond words. The mind must free itself from the known to enter into the unknown. - J Krishnamurti. Collected Works, Vol. XIII, 337, Choiceless Awareness

Can the mind be aware of that emptiness without naming it?

I think most of us are aware, perhaps only rarely since most of us are so terribly occupied and active, but I think we are aware, sometimes, that the mind is empty. And, being aware, we are afraid of that emptiness. We have never inquired into that state of emptiness, we have never gone into it deeply, profoundly; we are afraid, and so we wander away from it. We have given it a name, we say it is 'empty,' it is 'terrible,' it is 'painful'; and that very giving it a name has already created a reaction in the mind, a fear, an avoidance, a running away. Now, can the mind stop running away, and not give it a name, not give it the significance of a word such as empty about which we have memories of pleasure and pain? Can we look at it, can the mind be aware of that emptiness without naming it, without running away from it, without judging it, but just be with it? Because, then, that is the mind. Then there is not an observer looking at it; there is no censor who condemns it; there is only that state of emptiness with which we are all really quite familiar but which we are all avoiding, trying to fill it with activity, with worship, with prayer, with knowledge, with every form of illusion and excitement. But when all the excitement, illusion, fear, running away stops, and you are no longer giving it a name and thereby condemning it, is the observer different then from the thing which is observed? Surely, by giving it a name, by condemning it, the mind has created a censor, an observer, outside of itself. But when the mind does not give it a term, a name, condemn it, judge it, then there is no observer, only a state of that thing we have called emptiness. - J Krishnamurti. Collected Works, Vol. IX,23, Choiceless Awareness

Beyond all explanations which a good brain can give, why do we choose the worse and not the better, why hate rather than love, why greed and not generosity, why self-centred activity and not open total action? Why be mean when there are soaring mountains and flashing streams? Why jealousy and not love? Why? Seeing the fact leads to one thing, and opinions, explanations, to another. Seeing the fact that we decline, deteriorate is all important and not the why and wherefore of it. Explanation has very little significance in face of a fact, but to be satisfied with explanations, with words is one of the major factors of deterioration. Why war and not peace? The fact is we are violent; conflict, inside and outside the skin, is part of our daily life - ambition and success. Seeing this fact and not the cunning explanation and the subtle word, puts an end to deterioration. Choice, one of the major causes of decline, must wholly cease if it's to come to an end. - J Krishnamurti

The "what is'' can only be observed when there is no me. Can one observe the colours and forms around one? How does one observe them? One observes through the eye. Observe without moving the eye; because if one moves the eye the whole operation of the thinking brain comes into being. The moment the brain is in operation there is distortion. Look at something without moving one's eyes; how still the brain becomes. Observe not only with one's eyes but with all one's care, with affection. There is then an observation of the fact, not the idea, but the fact, with care and with affection. One approaches "what is'' with care, with affection; therefore there is no judgement, no condemnation; therefore one is free of the opposite. – J Krishnamurti

We hardly ever listen to the sound of a dog's bark or to the cry of a child or the laughter of a man as he passes by. We separate ourselves from everything, and then from this isolation look and listen to all things. It is this separation that is so destructive, for in that lies all conflict and confusion. If you listened to the sound of bells with complete silence you would be riding on it -or, rather, the sound would carry you across the valley and over the hill. The beauty of it is felt only when you and the sound are not separate, when you are part of it. Meditation is the ending of the separation, but not by any action of will or desire.Meditation is not a separate thing from life; it is the very essence of life, the very essence of daily living. To listen to the bells, to hear the laughter of a peasant as he walks by with his wife, to listen to the sound of the bell on the bicycle of a little girl as she passes by: it is the whole of life, and not just a fragment of it, that meditation opens. - J Krishnamurti, The Only Revolution, 163, Meditations

Perception without the word, that is without thought, is one of the strangest phenomena. Then the perception is much more acute, not only with the brain, but with all the senses. Such perception is not the fragmentary perception of the intellect nor the affair of the emotions. It can be called a total perception, and it is part of meditation. Perception without the perceiver in meditation is to commune with the height and depth of the immense. This perception is entirely different from seeing an object without an observer, because in the perception of meditation there is no object and therefore no experience. Meditation can take place when the eyes are open and one is surrounded by objects of every kind, but then these objects have no importance at all. One sees them but there is no process of recognition, which means there is no experiencing.What meaning has such meditation? There is no meaning; there is no utility. But in that meditation there is a movement of great ecstasy, which is not to be confounded with pleasure. It is the ecstasy, which gives to the eye, to the brain, and to the heart the quality of innocence. Without seeing life as something totally new, it is a routine, boredom, and a meaningless affair. So meditation is of the greatest importance. It opens the door to the incalculable, the measureless. - Meditations 1969, 3, Meditations

Every decision to control only breeds resistance, even the determination to be aware. Meditation is the understanding of the division brought about by decision. Freedom is not the act of decision but the act of perception. The seeing is the doing. It is not a determination to see and then to act. Meditation really is complete emptying of mind. Then there is only functioning of body; there is only activity of the organism and nothing else; then thought functions without identification as me and non-me.

Thought is mechanical, as is the organism. What creates conflict is thought identifying itself with one of its parts which becomes me, the self and various divisions in that self. There is no need for self at any time. There is nothing but body, and freedom of mind can only happen when thought is not breeding me. There is no self to understand, but only the thought which creates the self.When there is only organism without self, perception, both visual and non-visual can never be distorted. There is only seeing ‘what is’ and that very perception goes beyond what is. Emptying of mind is not an activity of thought or an intellectual process.Continuous seeing of what is without any kind of distortion naturally empties the mind of all thought, and yet that very mind can use thought when it is necessary. Thought is mechanical and meditation is not. - Krishnamurti

When you were talking to me — I was noticing it — I was not listening to your words so much. I was listening to you. I was open to you, not your words, as you explained and so on. I said to myself, all right, leave all that, I am listening to you, not to the words which you use, but to the meaning, the inward quality of your feeling that you want to communicate to me. - Krishnamurti in conversation with Dr Bhom

Can the mind be free of time? That is the real problem. Because, all creation takes place outside the field of time; all profound thinking, all deep feeling, is always timeless. When you love somebody, when there is love, that love is not bound by time. - Krishnamurti

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

Video link: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Good morning. How are you? It's been great, hasn't it? I've been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I'm leaving. (Laughter) There have been three themes, haven't there, running through the conference, which are relevant to what I want to talk about. One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity in all of the presentations that we've had and in all of the people here. Just the variety of it and the range of it. The second is that it's put us in a place where we have no idea what's going to happen, in terms of the future. No idea how this may play out.

I have an interest in education -- actually, what I find is everybody has an interest in education. Don't you? I find this very interesting. If you're at a dinner party, and you say you work in education -- actually, you're not often at dinner parties, frankly, if you work in education. (Laughter) You're not asked. And you're never asked back, curiously. That's strange to me. But if you are, and you say to somebody, you know, they say, "What do you do?" and you say you work in education, you can see the blood run from their face. They're like, "Oh my God," you know, "Why me? My one night out all week." (Laughter) But if you ask about their education, they pin you to the wall. Because it's one of those things that goes deep with people, am I right? Like religion, and money and other things. I have a big interest in education, and I think we all do. We have a huge vested interest in it, partly because it's education that's meant to take us into this future that we can't grasp. If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue -- despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days -- what the world will look like in five years' time. And yet we're meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.

And the third part of this is that we've all agreed, nonetheless, on the really extraordinary capacities that children have -- their capacities for innovation. I mean, Sirena last night was a marvel, wasn't she? Just seeing what she could do. And she's exceptional, but I think she's not, so to speak, exceptional in the whole of childhood. What you have there is a person of extraordinary dedication who found a talent. And my contention is, all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly. So I want to talk about education and I want to talk about creativity. My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status. (Applause) Thank you. That was it, by the way. Thank you very much. (Laughter) So, 15 minutes left. Well, I was born ... no. (Laughter)

I heard a great story recently -- I love telling it -- of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson. She was six and she was at the back, drawing, and the teacher said this little girl hardly ever paid attention, and in this drawing lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated and she went over to her and she said, "What are you drawing?" And the girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." And the teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." And the girl said, "They will in a minute." (Laughter)

When my son was four in England -- actually he was four everywhere, to be honest. (Laughter) If we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was four that year. He was in the Nativity play. Do you remember the story? No, it was big. It was a big story. Mel Gibson did the sequel. You may have seen it: "Nativity II." But James got the part of Joseph, which we were thrilled about. We considered this to be one of the lead parts. We had the place crammed full of agents in T-shirts: "James Robinson IS Joseph!" (Laughter) He didn't have to speak, but you know the bit where the three kings come in. They come in bearing gifts, and they bring gold, frankincense and myrhh. This really happened. We were sitting there and I think they just went out of sequence, because we talked to the little boy afterward and we said, "You OK with that?" And he said, "Yeah, why? Was that wrong?" They just switched, that was it. Anyway, the three boys came in -- four-year-olds with tea towels on their heads -- and they put these boxes down, and the first boy said, "I bring you gold." And the second boy said, "I bring you myrhh." And the third boy said, "Frank sent this." (Laughter)

What these things have in common is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong. Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original -- if you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way. We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this -- he said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. So why is this?

I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago. In fact, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles. So you can imagine what a seamless transition that was. (Laughter) Actually, we lived in a place called Snitterfield, just outside Stratford, which is where Shakespeare's father was born. Are you struck by a new thought? I was. You don't think of Shakespeare having a father, do you? Do you? Because you don't think of Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being seven? I never thought of it. I mean, he was seven at some point. He was in somebody's English class, wasn't he? How annoying would that be? (Laughter) "Must try harder." Being sent to bed by his dad, you know, to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now," to William Shakespeare, "and put the pencil down. And stop speaking like that. It's confusing everybody." (Laughter)

Anyway, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles, and I just want to say a word about the transition, actually. My son didn't want to come. I've got two kids. He's 21 now; my daughter's 16. He didn't want to come to Los Angeles. He loved it, but he had a girlfriend in England. This was the love of his life, Sarah. He'd known her for a month. Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary, because it's a long time when you're 16. Anyway, he was really upset on the plane, and he said, "I'll never find another girl like Sarah." And we were rather pleased about that, frankly, because she was the main reason we were leaving the country. (Laughter)

But something strikes you when you move to America and when you travel around the world: Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting? (Laughter) Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.

If you were to visit education, as an alien, and say "What's it for, public education?" I think you'd have to conclude -- if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything that they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners -- I think you'd have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn't it? They're the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there. (Laughter) And I like university professors, but you know, we shouldn't hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. They're just a form of life, another form of life. But they're rather curious, and I say this out of affection for them. There's something curious about professors in my experience -- not all of them, but typically -- they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads, don't they? (Laughter) It's a way of getting their head to meetings. If you want real evidence of out-of-body experiences, by the way, get yourself along to a residential conference of senior academics, and pop into the discotheque on the final night. (Laughter) And there you will see it -- grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the beat, waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it.

Now our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason. The whole system was invented -- around the world, there were no public systems of education, really, before the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism. So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas. Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top. So you were probably steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid, things you liked, on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that. Is that right? Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician; don't do art, you won't be an artist. Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken. The whole world is engulfed in a revolution. And the second is academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence, because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't afford to go on that way.

In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO, more people worldwide will be graduating through education than since the beginning of history. More people, and it's the combination of all the things we've talked about -- technology and its transformation effect on work, and demography and the huge explosion in population. Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything. Isn't that true? When I was a student, if you had a degree, you had a job. If you didn't have a job it's because you didn't want one. And I didn't want one, frankly. (Laughter) But now kids with degrees are often heading home to carry on playing video games, because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA, and now you need a PhD for the other. It's a process of academic inflation. And it indicates the whole structure of education is shifting beneath our feet. We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.

We know three things about intelligence. One, it's diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, creativity -- which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value -- more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

The brain is intentionally -- by the way, there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain called the corpus callosum. It's thicker in women. Following off from Helen yesterday, I think this is probably why women are better at multi-tasking. Because you are, aren't you? There's a raft of research, but I know it from my personal life. If my wife is cooking a meal at home -- which is not often, thankfully. (Laughter) But you know, she's doing -- no, she's good at some things -- but if she's cooking, you know, she's dealing with people on the phone, she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling, she's doing open-heart surgery over here. If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out, the phone's on the hook, if she comes in I get annoyed. I say, "Terry, please, I'm trying to fry an egg in here. Give me a break." (Laughter) Actually, you know that old philosophical thing, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, did it happen? Remember that old chestnut? I saw a great t-shirt really recently which said, "If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?" (Laughter)

And the third thing about intelligence is, it's distinct. I'm doing a new book at the moment called "Epiphany," which is based on a series of interviews with people about how they discovered their talent. I'm fascinated by how people got to be there. It's really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman who maybe most people have never heard of; she's called Gillian Lynne -- have you heard of her? Some have. She's a choreographer and everybody knows her work. She did "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera." She's wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet in England, as you can see. Anyway, Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said, "Gillian, how'd you get to be a dancer?" And she said it was interesting; when she was at school, she was really hopeless. And the school, in the '30s, wrote to her parents and said, "We think Gillian has a learning disorder." She couldn't concentrate; she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say she had ADHD. Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point. It wasn't an available condition. (Laughter) People weren't aware they could have that.

Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled room, and she was there with her mother, and she was led and sat on this chair at the end, and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while this man talked to her mother about all the problems Gillian was having at school. And at the end of it -- because she was disturbing people; her homework was always late; and so on, little kid of eight -- in the end, the doctor went and sat next to Gillian and said, "Gillian, I've listened to all these things that your mother's told me, and I need to speak to her privately." He said, "Wait here. We'll be back; we won't be very long," and they went and left her. But as they went out the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk. And when they got out the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her." And the minute they left the room, she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music. And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, "Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."

I said, "What happened?" She said, "She did. I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think." Who had to move to think. They did ballet; they did tap; they did jazz; they did modern; they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School; she became a soloist; she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School and founded her own company -- the Gillian Lynne Dance Company -- met Andrew Lloyd Weber. She's been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history; she's given pleasure to millions; and she's a multi-millionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

Now, I think ... (Applause) What I think it comes to is this: Al Gore spoke the other night about ecology and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson. I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children. There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, "If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish." And he's right.

What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely and that we avert some of the scenarios that we've talked about. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way -- we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it. Thank you very much.

Life is action from the beginning to the end

I do not know if you have noticed in the morning, high up in the sky, the big vultures, the big birds, flying without a movement of their wings, flying by the current of the air, silently moving. That is action. And also the worm under the earth, eating - that too is activity, that is also action. So also is it action when a politician gets up on the platform and says nothing, or when a person writes, reads, or makes a statue out of marble. That is also action when a man, who has a family, goes to the office for the next forty years, day after day, doing drudgery work without much meaning, wasting his life endlessly about nothing! All that a scientist, an artist, a musician, a speaker does, that too is action. Life is action from the beginning to the end; the whole movement is action. - Krishnaji

To live with effort is evil

As I was saying, if we do not understand the nature of effort, all action is limiting. Effort creates its own frontiers, its own objectives, its own limitations. Effort has the time-binding quality. You say, 'I must meditate, I must make an effort to control my mind'. That very effort to control puts a limit on your mind. Do watch this, do think it out with me. To live with effort is evil; to me it is an abomination, if I may use a strong word. And if you observe, you will realize that from childhood on we are conditioned to make an effort. In our so-called education, in all the work we do, we struggle to improve ourselves, to become something. Everything we undertake is based on effort; and the more effort we make, the duller the mind becomes.Where there is effort, there is an objective; where there is effort, there is a limitation on attention and on action. To do good in the wrong direction is to do evil. Do you understand? For centuries we have done 'good' in the wrong direction by assuming that we must be this, we must not be that, and so on, which only creates further conflict. - Collected Works, Vol. XI,229,Action

Whether 'what happens' happens irrespective of thinking, or the thinking also is part of this. This was the question raised and the flow of discussion went like this.  It was pointed out that even thinking appears to be part of this inevitability. If that is so, what do I do?....... What could we do? ..............What is there to do?........ Does it mean that what happens is not individual-specific? Does it happen only to meet the requirement of the total energy? Does it happen due to the nature of the total energy? It appears that you and me, who come into being with thinking, also give life to individual experiences such as sorrow, pleasure, and the rest. That is, total energy in action, presenting in various forms, appears as individual suffering, pleasure and other experiences, when 'we' come into being with thinking.

If the suffering, pleasure, sorrow, salvation, achievement, enjoyment belongs to the total consciousness (present in some forms and qualified like these by 'us'), who suffers and who gets salvation, then there is no individual suffering or individual salvation. 

There appears to be  two movements, one which keeps adding to the sorrow and suffering and the other which keeps ending this constantly. One is because of the ownership of action and the other is because there is nobody to claim ownership.

Even though it is thinking which gives life to sorrow and suffering, the pain is real for billions of people and it is a stream flowing for thousands of years. All that suffering and pain from wars, cruelties, exploitation, poverty, selfishness and ego is real. And this enormous stream of sorrow is fueled by thinking. As the world and its components, including the pain of sorrow and suffering, come into being with thinking, it doesn't mean that the pain is an abstract. Starvation or any other pain is as real as our body. One understands that the stream of sorrow is given life whenever 'we' come in to being with thinking and the stream is not there whenever 'we' are not there. 

 Quotes:

"What is called the world is only thought. When the world disappears, i.e. when there is no thought, the mind experiences happiness; and when the world appears, it goes through misery.” - Ramana Maharishi

"Life is Action:

Life is existence, is a movement, and this movement is action. Life, the totality of life, not parts of it, the whole state of existence,is action. But when we merely exist, as most of us do, then the problem of action becomes complex. Existence has no division. It is not a fragmentary state of mind or being; in that [state] a totality of action is possible. But when we divide existence into different segments, fragments, then action becomes contradictory." - J Krishnamurti. Collected Works, Vol. XV, Action

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

But the real is near, you do not have to seek it; and a man who seeks truth will never find it. Truth is in what is - and that is the beauty of it. - K