Category: Jean Klein

In this Openness All is Open – Jean Klein

It is important that you become more and more aware of your body, aware of what you are not. So you must explore what you are not. In the exploring situation you are detached from what you explore, there is space between the exploration and what is explored.

You will come to the absolutely relaxed body. This is not a passive body, but is an energetic, dynamic, elastic body. This exploration can take place in all your daily activities, so that you don’t go back in the old pattern of defense, tension.

When you have this relationship with your sensitive body you will have this relationship with other levels of your body. You will find yourself out of the process, autonomous, free from your body-image. The moment you look at the body, you are free from it. But you must first learn how to look without any end-gaining.

There are many opportunities in the day to bring back the perception to the perceiving where there’s not a perception and not a perceiver. It is the inner, deep stillness where nobody is still and nothing is still. There’s only stillness. There are moments when it comes to you because it looks for you. Or in other words, it looks for itself because there are not two. It solicits itself by itself.

You will also become more and more free from the self-image once you have seen that it has no existence, that it is completely built of memory. You will use it less and less and, and in the end it has no more role to play, it will disappear. Then you will live really in openness. In this openness all is open, nothing is closed. Every object comes to the openness, appears and disappears in openness, refers to the openness. Then there’s spontaneous action free from reactions.

So you must be open to all the levels of your body and mind, your muscular tension, emotivity and defense. Only in this openness is transmutation possible.

-Jean Klein

From Living Truth, page 223-224 

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Beware of the Blank State – Jean Klein

You said the other day that first one knows the objectified silence and later one comes to real silence which is not within the subject-object relationship. How does one go beyond objectified silence?

By objectified silence you mean an absence of thought, what we call the “blank state”? Yes, an absence of thought is still an object, but you, as the ultimate subject, are the knower of the absence of thought. So you ask how to go beyond any subject-object relationship, how to come to the absence of the absence.

Let us say you are aware of a particular body sensation. You feel your body is warm or cold, or you feel a certain emotional state. The moment you are conscious of a perception, you are automatically outside it, meaning there is no longer any involvement or identification with the perceived. In this sense of non-involvement or “letting-be,” you may become aware of silence. But this blank state, this absence of thought, is still an object of which you are aware.

So the question may arise, “To whom does this blank state belong?” When this question comes up, there is a stop. And there comes a spontaneous switch-over from accenting the blank state, the object, to accenting the perceiver, the subject. And as the perceiver is without an image, as the perceiver can never be perceived, you find nothing to refer to. You are totally open, open for a response. You are now at the threshold of being.

The accent is on awareness itself and the object, the blank state dissolves into awareness. There is no longer a subject, an observer, and an object, the state observed.

For this to happen there must be unqualified observation, an observation free from all reaction. Up to now you know only observation of something. But you may come to really live an observation without anything observed. Then what we call the observer loses its attribute as observer, and is pure being.

We are very accustomed to maintain this relationship of subject-object; observer and things observed. But we must accept the possibility that there can be observation without any observed object, that there is an alert stillness without any perception. You may first come to this in meditation.

In meditation you are first aware of something, of your thoughts, your emotions, or of your body. You may notice you are not really in touch with your body, that, instead, you are contacting a projection, a schema inscribed in your mind. And you also note that you are the producer of this schema. With this insight, production stops.

We can speak of meditation as a moment of non-interference wherein we see how attached we are to producing sensations just to give the “I” a foothold. In granting the perception full expression, the body takes itself in charge. It reveals the conditioning, it tells you its real nature. In other words, you give it the opportunity to be a body because previously it was a defense, a habit. And you’ll observe a new body sensation you have never known before, the original perception of your body.

The body, like every object, is an expression of awareness in space-time. So in the moment free from interference, all energy previously localized in a body sensation returns to its origin, dissolves back into awareness, and there is only stillness.

-Jean Klein

From The Ease of Being, pages 64-65 

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Instruments of Consciousness – Jean Klein

When we speak of silent observation we refer to a way of listening, a way of seeing, which allows the observed its full, unqualified expression. In the process of listening, you may discover that the observer is forever judging, criticizing, comparing and evaluating. This insight alone takes you to a position where you are uninvolved in the perceived. Then a feeling of space opens out between your observing and the observed, eliciting the understanding that the perceived arises in you but you are not limited to anything perceivable. Silence is our real nature.

Then is thought itself the root of the problem?

Generally we only know ourselves in perceptions, in states. We only know consciousness of something, listening to something, and so on. We don’t know pure consciousness without an object.

Thoughts, feelings and sensations are objects of consciousness, and have no existence without the observing subject. Since the perceiver can never be perceived, the moment a thought or perception points back to the perceiver it brings you to silence, to pure being, to consciousness without an object.

Then what is the perceiver?

The perceiver is a faculty, a qualification, which exists the moment there’s a perception in space-time. Without the perception, there is no perceiver either. Both are movements of energy in space-time, and both arise out of and dissolve back into consciousness, which alone is timeless.

The perceiver and the perceived are more or less tools, instruments of consciousness. All that appears is an expression of consciousness.

-Jean Klein

From The Ease of Being, page 61

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Happiness is Causeless – Jean Klein

What motivates us to even begin to look at percepts and concepts as objects?

We are in a constant search for freedom, for some way to transcend insecurity. This feeling of insecurity or fear is itself the motive to go beyond it, a process demanding investigation and inquiry. Take note that in obtaining a desired object there may be momentary freedom from fear, but the desired object is not really the cause of this. The security experienced at such times has no place for an image of an object or of someone who obtains it. There is only happiness. After you leave this happiness the ego wants to attribute to some cause so it says, “I was happy because I met such and such a person . . . I was happy because I heard some beautiful music . . . “and so on.

When you follow this investigation to the end you discover you are this happiness. You see that in reality we can’t speak in terms of cause and effect, for happiness is causeless. From this moment you spontaneously drop volition and effort. You remain constantly open. There is no longer a sense of separation and consequently no insecurity or fear.

-Jean Klein

From The Ease of Being, page 54

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The Original Body Sensation – Jean Klein

To come to the insight that you are not the body you first need to find out what the body really is. The body must become an object of perception rather than just an idea. In most cases when you refer to your body, you are referring to an image constructed at some time in your life, a pattern you’re accustomed to assuming is your body. But when you stop projecting this pattern and allow the real body to speak, you feel all its tension and heaviness. In the very act of clearly seeing the habitual ideas you have taken to be real, you stand removed from them, and cease to be an accomplice with the old patterns. You come to the original body sensation: an emptiness without border or circumference. You feel the body to be completely extended in space.

But the body itself isn’t a problem. Feeling the real body, the body as it is, helps you discover a way of looking without projecting. It takes you beyond the body and a moment comes when localization ends and the energy previously fixed as “body” dissolves into listening itself. In other words, because there is no longer a fixed listener or something heard, the subject-object relationship drops away. There is only oneness.

-Jean Klein

From The Ease of Being, pages 49-50

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Death Has No Reality – Jean Klein

How should I think of death, and how can I cope with the experience of death?

Thought appears in silence and vanishes in silence. Something which appears in something and vanishes in something is nothing other than this something.

Likewise, what you believe yourself to be also appears and vanishes in silence. What you understand by death is really nothing other than a pointer to silence, to life itself. Death has no reality. But if you don’t see it in this way, it remains a stagnant idea in which you are trapped. As long as you take yourself for an independent entity you are submitted to karma. Let us put it another way: before speaking of death, ask yourself what is life. All perception is, only because you are eternal present beingness. This is the background of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. In living knowledge, in this presentness, the problem of death has no meaning.

-Jean Klein

From The Ease of Being, pages 32-33 

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Your Global Presence – Jean Klein

I’ve come to hear you for the first time so would you tell me about your philosophy of life?

Let’s begin by first looking at why you have come here today. As you search for the reason, you may discover a feeling of inner deficiency in yourself, a kind of hunger which you have come here to satisfy. So before going on let’s understand that there is really nothing to attain. The moment you are completely convinced of this, there is a halt.  All energy previously expended towards some end returns to its origin, and you are brought back to your presence. At first this may be a presence to something, because it is in the nature of the eyes to see and the ears to hear. But when seeing and hearing become free from motive, end and intention, they no longer belong only to the eyes and ears. Unqualified attention is multi-dimensional: the whole body hears, and you may feel, although not in a sensorial way, that hearing and seeing appear in you, in your global presence. In the end even hearing and seeing dissolve into this presence and you are one with it. Ultimately there is no longer a subject who sees nor an object which is seen. There is only oneness.

This is what I come here to communicate. Identity with this presence, this wholeness, this fullness is meditation, but there is no meditator nor object upon which to meditate. This, then, does not belong to a philosophy—it is your real nature.

-Jean Klein

From The Ease of Being, page 1

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A Special Perfume – Jean Klein

Find yourself in a state of non-conclusion, free from assertion, because all that is concluded is an object. What you are fundamentally is not an object, can never be perceived. When you look for it you can only find something perceived, an object. Realizing this brings you back to looking without looking for anything. Then you are in astonishment. In astonishment you are where there is no object, very near your real nature.

In daily life transpose this understanding. Do not be driven to conclusions. It is the I-concept that makes conclusions. In the absence of an I-image you are completely free from the need to conclude. Then, free from intention, you discover your spontaneous being. In living open to your surroundings without concluding or interpreting, there comes a moment when you are open to the openness. It is a feeling that you are the vastness. Understanding must absolutely dissolve this feeling of being understanding. This understanding is a silent feeling, an absence of all representation. At first when you say “I have understood,” there is a representation, but this representation dissolves in knowing. The representation belongs to knowledge and knowledge dissolves in knowing. When knowledge dissolves in knowing, there is really being the knowing. You are the knowing.

Generally, you never give enough time so that knowledge dissolves in knowing. First see how the knowledge acts on you. The understanding must be really clear, because only clear understanding can dissolve in knowing. When this clear understanding appears, live with it, free from manipulation of the already known. The knowledge unfolds and becomes clear understanding before dissolving. This unfolding in silence has a special taste, a special perfume. You may have this perfume now or later. It is this taste which is important to remember. All other things exist, but this perfume is.

-Jean Klein

From Living Truth, page 259-260

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Present in your Absence – Jean Klein

What we call mind does not exist. The mind is a number of functions, a number of qualities. When these functions come to a stop, because there are moments in life when we do not use the mind, then there is an absence of functions. But this absence of function is not the silence we mean here. The mind may be silent from time to time, but the nature of our mind is function. To concentrate on the stillness of the mind may give you a certain relaxation, but this in itself is a state, a blank state. We are not speaking of this emptiness. We are speaking of an emptiness without duration, without time.

It is very difficult for us to represent space without a center and without a periphery. When you look out of the window here, you first see trees, bushes, meadows, stars, the moon. You look at objects in relation to other objects. Your looking is a kind of comparison. You know yourself only in objects because you relate with your personality which is an object too. So what is important for you is to experience the absence of all objects, including your center, your personality. Your presence is in the absence of all objects. In other words, you are really present only in your absence. Do you see what I mean?

It is important that the mind sees this kind of geometrical representation. Your absence can never be represented. You cannot think it or feel it. That is why, in reality, metaphysically speaking, we can never name it, we can only express it negatively. We can only express our reality negatively, never positively. What we are fundamentally is our absence. And when you ask how can you experience your absence, you cannot experience it, because it is in the absence of the experiencer. Your absence is your wholeness. When obliged to give a description, one could say, “It is a feeling without feeling it.”

-Jean Klein

From Living Truth, page 48-49

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Being the Understanding – Jean Klein

We have come together to find out what we mean by truth, or our real nature, globality. This inquiry calls for a certain quality of attention, an attention free from any expectation. It is really a state of not-knowing, where we are simply open. It should also be clear that what we are looking for, we already are. It is completely objectless. Truth cannot be known by the mind and requires a different kind of perceiving than the mind uses. It is not a functional perceiving which is in duality—“I perceive this”—but a being the perceiving, where there is only perceiving without any perceiver or thing perceived. In other words, where we are the perceiving.

All that can be obtained, perceived, thought, is an object, but we are the subject of all objects. So if we remain in a state of trying to achieve understanding, we will only find an object and not the objectless truth. This object may be a subtle state, but what we are fundamentally is not a state. In trying to obtain ourselves, we go away from ourselves. When this is understood, our mind is automatically brought to a stop where all the energy used in projecting and attaining is no longer directed, and we find ourselves in non-directionless openness, waiting without waiting. This is really the most profoundly relaxed state of the body and the mind. We are simply open, open to the all-possible, open to the unknown. We can never go to it, because there is no one to go and nowhere to go. We can never take it. We can only be taken by it. So we must allow it.

We are accustomed to using the mind to understand, so we must go until the end of the mind, until it comes to the point of being completely exhausted. In other words, the mind must know its limits. This brings an absolutely relaxed state. The mind functions in space and time, but what we are, profoundly, is out of time. So time, the mind, can never understand what is beyond time. When the mind is exhausted, we are at the threshold of our real being. This threshold is a global feeling, free from any conceptualization. What is important is that when we say, “I have understood,” we feel how the understanding has acted on us. Intellectual understanding dissolves in silence, and this silence is our real being. We may have a clear geometrical understanding in our mind, but this understanding is still objective; the geometrical understanding must dissolve in being understanding, which is a global feeling. It is really this global feeling that is meant when we speak of being the understanding.

– Jean Klein

From Open to the Unknown: dialogues in Delphi, Chapter One, pp.1-2

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