Category: J. Krishnamurti

The Emptying of Consciousness – J. Krishnamurti

What is our consciousness? Are there different levels of consciousness? Is there a consciousness beyond the one of which we are normally aware? Is it possible to empty the content of consciousness?

One may use words and give descriptions, but what is named and described is not the fact; so do not be caught in the description.

What is our consciousness? It is to be conscious of, to be aware of, what is going on, not only outside but inside; it is the same movement. Our consciousness is the product of our education, our culture, racial inheritance and the result of our own striving. All our beliefs, our dogmas, rituals, concepts, jealousies, anxieties, pleasures, our so-called love – all that is our consciousness. It is the structure which has evolved through millennia after millennia – through wars, tears, sorrow, depression and elation: all that makes up our consciousness. Some people say you cannot change consciousness. You can modify it, you can polish it, but you have to accept it, make the best of it; it is there. Without the content, consciousness, as we know it, does not exist.

The questioner asks: Is it possible to empty consciousness of all content – the sorrow, the strife, the struggle, the terrible human relationships, the quarrels, anxieties, jealousies, the affection, the sensuality? Can that content be emptied? If it is emptied, is there a different kind of consciousness? Has consciousness different layers, different levels?

In India the Ancient people divided consciousness into lower, higher and yet higher. And these divisions are measured, for the moment there is division there must be measurement, and where there is measurement there must be effort. Whatever level consciousness may have, it is still within consciousness. The division of consciousness is measurement, therefore it is thought. Whatever thought has put together is part of consciousness, however you choose to divide it.

It is possible to empty the content of consciousness completely? The essence of this content is thought, which has put together the ‘me’ – the ‘me’ who is ambitious, greedy, aggressive. That ‘me’ is the essence of the content of consciousness. Can that ‘me’ with all this structure of selfishness be totally ended? The speaker can say, “Yes, it can be ended, completely”. It means that there is no centre from which you are acting, no centre from which you are thinking. The centre is the essence of measurement, which is the effort of becoming. Can that becoming end? You may say: “Probably it can, but what is at the end of it, if one ends this becoming?”

First of all find out for yourself if this becoming can end. Can you drop, end, something which you like, that gives you some deep pleasure, without a motive, without saying, “I can do it if there is something at the end of it”? Can you immediately end something that gives you great pleasure? You see how difficult this is. It is like a man who smokes, his body has been poisoned by nicotine and when he stops smoking the body craves for it and so he takes something else to satisfy the body. So can you end something, rationally, clearly, without any motive of reward or punishment?

Selfishness hides in many ways, in seeking truth, in social service, in selling oneself to a person, to an idea, to a concept. One must be astonishingly aware of all this, and that requires energy, all the energy that is now being wasted in conflict, in fear, in sorrow, in all the travails of life. That energy is also being wasted in so-called meditation.

It requires enormous energy, not physical energy, but the energy that has never been wasted. Then consciousness can be emptied and when it is emptied one may or may not find there is something more, it is up to oneself. One may like something more to be guaranteed but there is no guarantee.

-J. Krishnamurti

From a talk on Consciousness

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Explosion – Vimala Thakar

EXPLOSION

On the 14th August I had another interview with Krishnamurti. While I was waiting for him his hostess was kind enough to come and have a word with me.

‘Do you understand what Krishnaji says?’ She asked.

I said: ‘I feel I do – If I may say so. But everyone can understand if one wants to, can’t one? There is nothing difficult what he says is so simple.’

Krishnaji came out in a little while and led me to a room where we settled down for a serious talk. Here are the notes of our conversation.

Vimala Thakar: I am sharing with you my experience. I have decided after great hesitation to tell you about the present state of my mind because it concerns you in a way…

Krishnamurti: You need not hesitate at all. You can say anything to me – for or against. Do you understand?

V. I have told you about the invasion of a new awareness, irresistible and uncontrollable.

I have told you how it has swept away everything. Now – this has something to do with that healing. If it had come independently I would not have felt as I feel today. If the mind had come by it, say, while listening to you, I would not have felt what I feel today.

Today I feel that the two are related. And I feel deeply indebted to you for both.

That feeling of indebtedness makes the mind heavy and uncomfortable. Your talks have helped me and I am deeply thankful to you for the talks.

But my love for you was never burdened with a sense of indebtedness before. Today it is.

K. Wait a bit. Who told you that the two are related?

V. No one. I feel it.

K. Your feeling may be wrong. Perhaps you are confusing the two. You don’t owe me a damn thing in the world. Do you understand it? The healing has happened. It has taken two persons – you and me – for it to happen. Why not let it remain at that? It is very simple.

V. Are you sure that the two are not related?

K. Yes. Quite sure. You have been listening to the talks. You have a serious mind. The talks were sinking deep into your being. They are operating all the time. One day you realized the truth.

What have I done to it? Look here- you were walking in a forest. You came across another person.

He said: ‘If you walk this way you might arrive earlier.’ You walked. You arrived. You thanked the person. It is as simple as that.

Why should you feel you owe something to me? Why make an issue of it?

V. I can’t tell you why. But I do feel obliged to you.

K. All right why do you feel disturbed over it?

V. Because my affection feels hurt by that. Obligation and indebtedness seem to have polluted love and friendship. Our very relationship seems to be changing.

K. Goodness me. Our relationship need not and should not change. It should be as free as it was before. I wonder if you are frightened…

V. Yes – Krishnaji. I feel a kind of awe, a kind of fear…

K. That’s the crux. There is nothing to feel afraid of. I have not done anything to you. I don’t know how the healing takes place. I know as much as you do. Do you understand? Shake this off. I shall be sorry if our relationship is affected by this. Vimalaji, the earth was ready to receive the rains. She has received with full abandon. No wonder there is new life.

V. So be it Krishnaji. Let me only confess that this sudden invasion does baffle me. It is not due to anything that I have done. As if it is not related to me as an effect is related to its cause. It has descended with an irresistible force. The intensity and the depth of the force know neither increase nor decrease.

K. It happens. Why not watch it?

I prepared to leave. Krishnamurti knew that I was leaving Gstaad for Zurich the same evening. So he said:

‘I hope to find you in excellent health when we meet in India. Have a pleasant journey.’

While I was walking back to the hotel I met Mr. B. who was practicing as a psychiatrist in New York. He had come all the way to attend the talks. He was putting up in the same hotel and we had met several times during the fortnight.

B. Vimala, I have been shaken all over by Krishnamurti’s talks. We had learnt that the unconscious is indestructible. Krishnamurti says: ‘It can drop away.’ I had learned that it has taken a million years for the human mind and the brain to develop to its present state. Krishnamurti says: ‘You can jump out of this mind and brain.’ It is fantastic and incredible.

V. It is neither incredible nor fantastic. He is not presenting a theory or an idea which you could accept or reject. He communicates his experience. He is a challenge to your science of psychology.

Why should not a group of you take it up for scientific investigation? Why not make a research into whether the conscious and the unconscious can be done away with?

Krishnamurti is no fool. He knows what he says and he says what he means.

B. Do you agree with Krishnamurti, that the unconscious can be destroyed completely?

V. I am not a student of psychology. And there is nothing to agree with. I see that what he says is true.

B. Excuse me for being personal. Have you destroyed it?

V. You can’t destroy it, my dear. It gets destroyed. One sees that it has dropped. That is all.

I left Gastaad in the evening and by midnight I was in Zurich. Next day I wrote two letters, one to my father and one to Krishnamurti.

To my father I wrote:

‘Everything has dropped away. A tremendous tempest has swept away everything with one stroke. It is not ‘The cosmic evolution become conscious of itself.’ It is life anew. A journey wither I know not! Why, I know not! No excitement! No enthusiasm. But an intense flame of passion is consuming the whole being. I wish I could describe the strength of integrity which makes me walk now fearlessly. I wish I could describe how I witnessed the ego being torn to pieces and being thrown to the winds. I wish I could communicate what this denudation is! Or may one call it ex-centration? The center of thinking getting dissolved into nothingness.

The words might sound familiar. Perhaps you would say Krishnamurti – type terms and phrases. But you are well aware that borrowed phrases cannot transmit life. Nor can they enable one to see the reality. They cannot give you the moral courage to knock down and pull down your house in which you have lived until now.

Only truth liberates. Only truth transmits fresh life. Truth breathes innocence into you.

Destruction and creation mingle in that breath.’

To Krishanmurti I wrote:

‘I am not making ‘an issue’ of the event. I am trying to understand it in relation to total life. You may tell me, ‘ It is simple.’ My mind looks upon it as something strange. Is it simple to see the total mind being born anew? If one who has suddenly witnessed it happening, feels overwhelmed, would you call it an emotional disturbance?

Let me assure you that it is not the personal aspect (It’s happening in my life) that overwhelms me. Life is neither yours nor mine. Life is life. This phenomenon comes as a challenge to the medical science and to psychology. Does it not?

It is true that I have been listening to your talks for five years. I knew that they were sinking deep into the very being. But surely, that could not cause this sudden explosion. Understanding does not explode; nor does love explode. Or do they? Not that I am sorry for it. Not that I am excited about it? Far from it. I am watching everything with a passionate interest.

I do not think I shall attend anymore talks. I would love, however, to come and see you when you are in India. I would love to sit quietly with you, provided you do not mind sparing some time for a person who wants to see you without any purpose whatsoever.

Thank you very deeply indeed for everything I have received through you.’

After spending three weeks in Zurich I left for India by plane. I was in good cheer. I was relaxed and happy. There was intense alertness to understand every movement of life. Life had fanned a glowing flame of passionate interest.

One could call that state of deep attention an absolutely new experience of meditation. I am sorry it is not quite correct to call it an experience or a state. Both have a beginning and an end. In my case, however, I did not know how it came about; nor had I any idea whether it would continue forever whether it would discontinue the next moment.

-Vimala Thakar

From On an Eternal Voyage, p. 31-34

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A Bird Calling out of Emptiness – J. Krishnamurti

Dawn was slow in coming; the stars were still brilliant and the trees were still withdrawn; no bird was calling, not even the small owls that rattled through the night from tree to tree. It was strangely quiet except for the roar of the sea. There was that smell of many flowers, rotting leaves and damp ground; earth was waiting for the dawn and the coming day; there was expectation, patience and a strange stillness. Meditation went on with that stillness and that stillness was love; it was not the love of something or of someone, the image and the symbol, the word and the pictures. It was simply love, without sentiment, without feeling. It was something complete in itself, naked, intense, without root and direction. The sound of that faraway bird was that love; it was the direction and distance; it was there without time and word. It wasn’t an emotion that fades and is cruel; the symbol, the word can be substituted but not the thing. Being naked, it was utterly vulnerable and so indestructible. It had the unapproachable strength of that otherness, the unknowable, which was coming through the trees and beyond the sea. Meditation was the sound of that bird calling out of the emptiness and the roar of the sea, thundering against the beach. Love can only be in utter emptiness. The graying dawn was there far away on the horizon and the dark trees were even more dark and intense. In meditation there is no repetition, a continuity of habit; there is death of everything known and the flowering of the unknown. The stars had faded and the clouds were awake with the coming sun.

– J. Krishnamurti

From Krishnamurti’s Notebook, page 222

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Growing Into Silence – Vimala Thakar

Growing into Silence

The voluntary cessation, non-action of movement, can become possible if the brain, the cerebral organ, is not a restless, disorderly, chaotic brain.

Orderliness

One doesn’t have to begin to learn how to be silent, but one has to begin with learning to function in an orderly, clear, unconfused way.  Every cerebral movement has to be clear, precise and accurate.

Accuracy, precision, is the breath of orderliness.

So I learn to be precise and accurate.

And in learning to be precise and accurate I learn to be totally present with everything that I do.

Eliminating Reactions

One will have to learn to reduce the area and the duration of reactions seeing the futility and seeing the harmfulness of this constant game of reacting, evaluating, comparing and judging.

You reduce your rapport and contact with the past:  the memory, the knowing, the conditioning, the motivations, the defences.

If one would be with nature, even half the time that one is with human beings, machines and gadgets, there would be an opportunity to enter into a non-reactional observation, a non-reactional attention.

Then the brain would get some rest.  When you are with nature:  the birds, the lakes, the sunsets, the beautiful moonlight, when you are with the aloneness of the woods – then the comparative evaluating process has no scope.

The motivations and defence-mechanisms become absolutely irrelevant and meaningless when you are with nature.

The reactional pattern has no function, and yet there is observation.  So the cerebral organ grows into a new faculty of non-reactional sensitivity.

Act On Your Understanding

Never argue with one’s own understanding.

The whisper of intelligence is always there, whatever you do.

If you create a time lag between the whisper of intelligence and understanding in you and your action, then you are preventing the cerebral organ from growing into a new dimension.  When you argue with intelligence, when you postpone acting according to understanding then there is confusion, the brain gets confused.

The voice of understanding, the voice of intelligence has an insecurity about it.  How do you know that it is the right thing?

So we tend to ignore it.  Instead we accept authority.  We conform.

But the brain cannot be orderly, competent, accurate and precise if you do not listen to it, if you have no respect.  We are so busy with the outside world, and its compulsions, that the world that is inside us does not command that respect and reverence, that care and concern from us.

So one has to be a disciple of one’s own understanding, look upon that understanding as the master.

Sometimes one may commit a mistake, it might be the whim of the ego and we might mistake the whim, the wish of the ego for the voice of silence and intelligence, but that we have to discover.    Unless you commit mistakes, how do you learn to discriminate between the false and the true?  In learning there is bound to be a little insecurity, a possibility of committing mistakes.  Why should one be terribly afraid of committing mistakes?

So instead of accepting the authority of habits and conditionings, while one is moving one watches, and when there is a suggestion, a whisper from within, from one’s own intelligence, one does not neglect, ignore, or insult that.

To eliminate the time lag between understanding and action is the way to grow into spontaneity.

Keeping the Body and Brain Sensitive, Alert and Sharp

It is necessary to keep the body sensitive, alert and sharp, to feed it and to clothe it correctly, properly; to give it a chance to go through exercises which will mobilize not only the muscles, but also the nerves and be careful that the body does not become sluggish; to feed it correctly – not over- nor under-feeding it; to allow it to have sleep, necessary for its health – not to over- nor under-sleep; not to expose it to too much brooding, worrying, anxiety, which are impotent ways of wasting energy; not entering into excesses of indulgence and not denying and suppressing in the name of austerity, religion or discipline;  because the cerebral organ, the brain is woven into this biological structure.

It is very important, because in a sluggish body, in a lazy body, you can’t have a sharp, sensitive, alert brain, which would voluntarily go into non-action.

Self-education is vitally necessary in order to enable the cerebral organ to function in an orderly, quiet way.  When there is order, there is a quietness; an orderly person hardly gets excited.  It is disorder that leads to excitement, enthusiasm, depression which is the other side of excitement, passivity which is the obverse of enthusiasm.

When one has arrived at that orderliness in daily living, in whatever one does, then only one can talk about the brain voluntarily, relinquishing the outgoing and the ingoing movement, relinquishing voluntarily the hold upon the known and the unknown, the visible and the invisible, so that the infinite could be.

Summary: Four Approaches to Growing into Silence

  • Be precise, accurate and totally present with everything that one does.
  • Expose oneself as much as one can to nature, to the universe, all that is not man-made.
  • Be a disciple of one’s own understanding.
  • Keep the body and brain sensitive, alert and sharp.

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Notes from Yoga Beyond Meditation – Vimala Thakar

Pratyahara, dharana, dhyanam, and samadhi

Pratyahara is the state of the individualised mind where the movement of memory and the movement of the senses has discontinued.  So the mind is inwardly and outwardly surrounded by space.

Pratyahara equips the mind with the capacity to bring in dharana.  It enables the mind to be in the state of dharana.

The individualised mind is held by the inner and outer space:  that is dharana.

The individualised mind in its purified form, in its purified condition is there but now all its energy is focused on the inner and outer space.  Its attentivity is related to the inner and the outer space.  It is as if enveloped in space, in emptiness, in silence.  It has not yet assimilated the state of emptiness and peace as its experience, but it is held there.

If that state of the mind is sustained, then the individualised mind converts that state of being embraced, enveloped, wrapped in peace and emptiness into an experience and that experiencing of emptiness and peace is called dhyanam.

So there is only the experiencing of space, emptiness, silence.

In this state of the experience of silence, but still in its very subtle form, in a very purified state, the individualised mind is still there.  The subtle consciousness of “I am” or “I am experiencing space”, “I am experiencing peace or silence”, “I am in the state of dhyanam meditation” is still there.

When that consciousness disappears, there is the state of samadhi.

Though it is a very subtle, harmless centre, because it is not running in the past, with the past or running outside your body it is harmless but yet it is the individualised mind, it is not yet that universal mind stuff – the drashta, the authentic seer.  There are still the thoughts “I am”, “I am experiencing meditation”, “I am in the state of meditation”.  But when that disappears, when that gets dissolved, there is the state of samadhi.

Beyond meditation, beyond dhyanam, is the dissolution of the individualised mind.

So samadhi is now a new dimension:  in that state of meditation the sense of “I am” totally gets wiped out – the sense of “I am experiencing meditation” – that last segment gets wiped out.

Now the silence and the space have penetrated the sense of “I am” and dissolved it – that is samadhi.

-Vimala Thakar

From Yoga Beyond Meditation

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Mutation of Mind – Vimala Thakar

The conscious mind, realizing its own limitations, becoming aware that it hasn’t got any other channel or groove to function in, can become spontaneously quiet.

When all this investigation creates a humility in the conscious mind, and an awareness of its own limitations, awareness of the fortress in which it is imprisoned and which it cannot transcend, then that humility does create a silence in the mind.  This is not the silence of suppression or repression, compulsion or paralysis.  It is not an induced silence, whether that inducement comes through ideas, ideals, emotions or chemicals.

The immensity of the contents of the unconscious brings about a sense of humility in the conscious mind.  And a silence of the conscious mind flows out of that humility.  The next step is not going to be taken by the conscious mind at all.

We are saying that the very awareness of its own limitations can bring about a state of silence.

Then a direct communion with reality becomes possible.  In fact, that state defies verbalization.  The realm of the unknown defies verbalization.  Self-knowing is the essence.  Self-knowing is the maturity which one has to attain.  So we have been struggling with the limitations of the mind, but for the struggle we employ the mind.  Struggling against the limitations of the mind by employing the mind and exercising the will is not the right way perhaps.

When you realize that the mind is not equal to the task of communing with reality, the mind relaxes in silence.

It needs alertness; it needs intensity, which we lack.  Our energy is so much scattered, that this inquiry of truth becomes one of the many desires.  When one starts living every moment in the light of that inquiry, then the illumination dawns upon the heart. This creative understanding dawns upon the human heart, when the inquiry of truth becomes the top priority; when it becomes the all-consuming flame, in the light of which one lives.  It is not a pastime, a hobby, an amusement.  (The challenge needs to be formulated, then realised, then begun.)

The problem is how to break away completely from the conditioning in which the mind has been cultivated.

Truth (requires) the right approach, start, foundation.  We must become free from the urge for security; acquisition, accumulation, preservation is a hindrance to this transformation.  Emotions, feelings, thoughts and memories are mechanical actions, inevitable reflex actions according to conditioning.  The mind names, identifies, compares, judges on the basis of memory.

Mind becomes silent, temporarily, only when it is confronted with something which it cannot interpret, something unprecedented.  Realizing its own limitations, understanding that truth and reality are something very vast, immeasurable by the human mind and that the mystery of life cannot be discovered by ideas and concepts, the mind becomes silent.

The mind could understand its own nature, find out the conflicts between the conscious and the unconscious; find out the impossibility of a total action on the mental plane; realize the limitations and become quiet.

Whether you try to influence the mind through ideas and concepts, or through discipline and vows, or through drugs, you are trying to stimulate artificially a state of silence.  Perhaps if we are friendly with the mind, if we watch the mind, if we understand the mind, if we let it wander, let it roam about wherever it wants, let it exhaust its momentum by wandering, without scolding, without praising, without condemning it might exhaust its momentum and arrive at the simple innocent silence.

The subconscious and the unconscious contain the known.  The implication of the words total silence is silence of the subconscious and the unconscious and the conscious.  We will have to allot some time in the beginning to sit by ourselves and find out if the mind can be silent.

All our emotions and thoughts are conditioned reflexes, reactions.

This non-identification with ones reactions … brings about a sudden change in the level of consciousness.  This non-identification with the subconscious world, non-identification with the momentum of the whole subconscious and unconscious results in creative silence.  The creative alternative is to refuse to identify oneself with the mind.  This cannot blossom in a day, if we do not know what mind is.

One has to begin with being introduced to one’s own mind.  To watch how the mind works, to watch how we live second-hand through emotions, feelings and sentiments.  How we call them our own and identify ourselves with them. To watch all this, will be the beginning of meditation.

-Vimala Thakar

From Mutation of Mind

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To Stand Alone is to be Uncorrupted – J. Krishnamurti

To stand alone is to be uncorrupted, innocent, free of all tradition, of dogma, of opinion, of what another says, and so on. Such a mind does not seek because there is nothing to seek; being free, such a mind is completely still without a want, without movement. But this state is not to be achieved; it isn’t a thing that you buy through discipline; it doesn’t come into being by giving up sex, or practicing a certain yoga. It comes into being only when there is understanding of the ways of the self, the ‘me’, which shows itself through the conscious mind in everyday activity, and also in the unconscious. What matters is to understand for oneself, not through the direction of others, the total content of consciousness, which is conditioned, which is the result of society, of religion, of various impacts, impressions, memories—to understand all that conditioning and be free of it. But there is no ‘how’ to be free. If you ask how to be free, you are not listening.

– J. Krishnamurti, Second Talk in the Oak Grove, 1955

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Without Self-Knowledge There is No Meditation – J. Krishnamurti

WHEN the superficial, conscious mind is thus fully aware of all its activities, through that understanding it becomes spontaneously quiet, not drugged by compulsion or regimented by desire; then it is in a position to receive the intimation, the hints of the unconscious, of the many, many hidden layers of the mind — the racial instincts, the buried memories, the concealed pursuits, the deep wounds that are still unhealed. It is only when all these have projected themselves and are understood, when the whole consciousness is unburdened, unfettered by any wound, by any memory whatsoever, that it is in a position to receive the eternal.

Meditation is self-knowledge and without self-knowledge there is no meditation. If you are not aware of all your responses all the time, if you are not fully conscious, fully cognizant of your daily activities, merely to lock yourself in a room and sit down in front of a picture of your guru, of your Master, to meditate, is an escape, because without self-knowledge there is no right thinking and, without right thinking, what you do has no meaning, however noble your intentions are.

Thus prayer has no significance without self-knowledge but when there is self-knowledge there is right thinking and hence right action. When there is right action, there is no confusion and therefore there is no supplication to someone else to lead you out of it. A man who is fully aware is meditating; he does not pray, because he does not want anything. Through prayer, through regimentation, through repetition and all the rest of it, you can bring about a certain stillness, but that is mere dullness, reducing the mind and the heart to a state of weariness. it is drugging the mind; and exclusion, which you call concentration, does not lead to reality — no exclusion ever can.

What brings about understanding is self-knowledge, and it is not very difficult to be aware if there is right intention. If you are interested to discover the whole process of yourself — not merely the superficial part but the total process of your whole being — then it is comparatively easy. If you really want to know yourself, you will search out your heart and your mind to know their full content and when there is the intention to know, you will know. Then you can follow, without condemnation or justification, every movement of thought and feeling; by following every thought and every feeling as it arises you bring about tranquility which is not compelled, not regimented, but which is the outcome of having no problem, no contradiction. It is like the pool that becomes peaceful, quiet, any evening when there is no wind; when the mind is still, then that which is immeasurable comes into being.

– J. Krishnamurti

unknown source

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The Vast Space Which Thought Cannot Touch – J. Krishnamurti

When you turn your head from horizon to horizon your eyes see a vast space in which all the things of the earth and of the sky appear. But this space is always limited where the earth meets the sky. The space in the mind is so small. In this little space all our activities seem to take place: the daily living and the hidden struggles with contradictory desires and motives. In this little space the mind seeks freedom, and so it is always a prisoner of itself.

Meditation is the ending of this little space. To us, action is bringing about order in this little space of the mind. But there is another action which is not putting order in this little space. Meditation is action which comes when the mind has lost its little space. This vast space which the mind, the I, cannot reach, is silence. The mind can never be silent within itself; it is silent only within the vast space which thought cannot touch. Out of this silence there is action which is not of thought. Meditation is this silence.

-J. Krishnamurti

From Meditations 1969, Part 3

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There is no Savior but Yourself – J. Krishnamurti

Questioner:  In my view, the guru is one who awakens me to the truth, to reality. What is wrong with my talking to such a guru?

J. Krishnamurti: This question arises because I have said that gurus are an impediment to truth. Don’t say you are wrong and I am right, or I am wrong and you are right, but let us examine the problem and find out. Let us inquire like mature, thoughtful people, without denying and without justifying.

Which is more important, the guru or you? And why do you go to a guru? You say, ”To be awakened to truth.” Are you really going to a guru to be awakened to the truth? Let us think this out very clearly. Surely, when you go to a guru you are actually seeking gratification. That is, you have a problem and your life is a mess; it is in confusion, and because you want to escape from it, you go to somebody whom you call a guru to find consolation verbally or to escape an ideation. That is the actual process, and that process you call seeking truth.

That is, you want comfort, you want gratification, you want your confusion cleared away by somebody, and the person who helps you to find escapes you call a guru. Actually, not theoretically, you look to a guru who will assure you of what you want. You go guru-hunting as you go window-shopping: You see what suits you best and then buy it. In India, that is the position: You go around hunting for gurus, and when you find one you hold on to his feet or neck or hand until he gratifies you. To touch a man’s feet – that is one of the most extraordinary things. You touch the guru’s feet and kick your servants, and thereby you destroy human beings, you lose human significance.

So, you go to a guru to find gratification, not truth. The idea may be that he should awaken you to truth, but the actual fact is that you find comfort. Why? Because you say, ”I can’t solve my problem, somebody must help me.” Can anybody help you solve the confusion which you have created? What is confusion? Confusion with regard to what? Suffering with regard to what? Confusion and suffering exist in your relationship with things, people, and ideas; and if you cannot understand that confusion which you have created, how can another help you? He can tell you what to do, but you have to do it yourself, it is your own responsibility; and because you are unwilling to take that responsibility, you sneak off to the guru – that is the right expression to use, ”sneak off” – and you think you have solved the problem.

On the contrary, you have not solved it at all; you have escaped, but the problem is still there. And, strangely, you always choose a guru who will assure you of what you want; therefore, you are not seeking truth, and therefore the guru is not important. You are actually seeking someone who will satisfy you in your desires; that is why you create a leader, religious or political, and give yourself over to him, and that is why you accept his authority. Authority is evil, whether religious or political, because it is the leader and his position that are all-important, and you are unimportant. You are a human being with sorrow, pain, suffering, joy, and when you deny yourself and give yourself over to somebody, you are denying reality because it is only through yourself that you can find reality, not through somebody else.

Now, you say that you accept a guru as one who awakens you to reality. Let us find out if it is possible for another to awaken you to reality. I hope you are following all this because it is your problem, not mine. Let us find out the truth about whether another can awaken you to reality. Can I, who have been talking for an hour and a half, awaken you to reality, to that which is real? The term guru implies, does it not, a man who leads you to truth, to happiness, to bliss eternal. Is truth a static thing that someone can lead you to? Someone can direct you to the station.

Is truth like that – static, something permanent to which you can be led? It is static only when you create it out of your desire for comfort. But truth is not static; nobody can lead you to truth. Beware of the person who says he can lead you to truth because it is not true. Truth is something unknown from moment to moment; it cannot be captured by the mind, it cannot be formulated, it has no resting place.

Therefore, no one can lead you to truth. You may ask me, ”Why are you talking here?” All that I am doing is pointing out to you what is and how to understand what is as it is, not as it should be. I am not talking about the ideal but about a thing that is actually right in front of you, and it is for you to look and see it. Therefore, you are more important than I, more important than any teacher, any savior, any slogan, any belief, because you can find truth only through yourself, not through another. When you repeat the truth of another, it is a lie.

Truth cannot be repeated. All that you can do is to see the problem as it is and not escape. When you see the thing as it actually is, then you begin to awaken, but not when you are compelled by another. There is no savior but yourself. When you have the intention and the attention to look directly at what is, then your very attention awakens you because in attention everything is implied. To give attention, you must be devoted to what is, and to understand what is, you must have knowledge of it. Therefore, you must look, observe, give it your undivided attention, for all things are contained in that full attention you give to what is.

So, the guru cannot awaken you; all that he can do is to point out what is. Truth is not a thing that can be caught by the mind. The guru can give you words; he can give you an explanation, the symbols of the mind, but the symbol is not the real, and if you are caught in the symbol, you will never find the way. Therefore, that which is important is not the teacher, it is not the symbol, it is not the explanation, but it is you who are seeking truth.

To seek rightly is to give attention, not to God, not to truth, because you don’t know it, but attention to the problem of your relationship with your wife, your children, your neighbor. When you establish right relationship then you love truth, for truth is not a thing that can be bought, truth does not come into being through self-immolation or through the repetition of mantras. Truth comes into being only when there is self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge brings understanding, and when there is understanding, there are no problems. When there are no problems, then the mind is quiet, it is no longer caught up in its own creations. When the mind is not creating problems, when it understands each problem immediately as it arises, then it is utterly still, not made still. This total process is awareness, and it brings about a state of undisturbed tranquility which is not the outcome of any discipline, of any practice or control, but is the natural outcome of understanding every problem as it arises.

Problems arise only in relationship, and when there is understanding of one’s relationship with things, with people, and with ideas, then there is no disturbance of any kind in the mind, and the thought process is silent. In that state there is neither the thinker nor the thought, the observer nor the observed.

Therefore, the thinker ceases, and then the mind is no longer caught in time, and when there is no time, the timeless comes into being. But the timeless cannot be thought of. The mind, which is the product of time, cannot think of that which is timeless. Thought cannot conceive or formulate that which is beyond thought. When it does, its formulation is still part of thought.

Therefore, eternity is not a thing of the mind; eternity comes into being only when there is love, for love in itself is eternal. Love is not something abstract to be thought about; love is to be found only in relationship with your wife, your children, your neighbor. When you know that love which is unconditional, which is not the product of the mind, then reality comes into being, and that state is utter bliss.

-J. Krishnamurti

December 19, 1948, Third Talk in New Delhi

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