Do Not Concentrate?

When you want to concentrate on what you think is right, on your particular image, God, or idea, phrase, you focus your mind on that; but the mind wanders off, and you pull it back; again it wanders off, and again you pull it back; you play this game for the rest of your life. And that is what you call meditation, this battle—forcing the mind when it is not interested in something, and trying to control it. And if you saw that, if you understood the truth of this matter or the falseness of this process, then you would never concentrate, whether you are in a school learning a particular subject, or whether you are teaching in a school. Do not concentrate, when you are in your office, or when you are trying to meditate. Do not concentrate; that only excludes, creates a resistance, a focus, giving greater strength to the centre and therefore limiting space.Now, if you understand all this, then out of this understanding comes awareness, which is nothing mysterious. The Collected Works vol XIV, p 301

*Here I take issue with Krishnamurti and define the limit regarding my openness to the teachings. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I think for him to make this point about concentration as unnecessary to meditation and spiritual experience has some validity, but to say that one should not concentrate in school or at the office sounds like sheer madness. What good is having an open spacious awareness when there is work to be done... so often in the workaday world we have to narrow the focus to just one thing if we seek results of practical or productive nature. It is here that I feel that the teachings lack a practical down to earth understanding and I fail to see the usefulness...

JDZ

The Foundation of a Righteous Life

Meditation is hard work. It demands the highest form of discipline—not conformity, not imitation, not obedience—but a discipline which comes through constant awareness, not only of things about you outwardly, but also inwardly. So meditation is not an activity of isolation but is action in everyday life which demands co-operation, sensitivity and intelligence. Without laying the foundation of a righteous life, meditation becomes an escape and therefore has no value whatsoever. A righteous life is not the following of social morality, but the freedom from envy, greed and the search for power—which all breed enmity. The freedom from these does not come through the activity of will but by being aware of them through self-knowing. Without knowing the activities of self, meditation becomes sensuous excitement and therefore of very little significance. J.K. Meditations, p 6

Power Animals: The Crow

I am now willing to forgive myself... for allowing the shadows of my past to eat away at me.

Native American folklore teaches that the crow is a bird with visionary power whose curiosity sometimes gets the best of her. According to lore, when the crow saw its shadow, it began to stare with amazement. The crow pecked at the shadow. It even left food for the the shadow. One day, in response to the crow's fascination, the shadow came to life and ate the crow.

The story of the crow teaches us about the danger of being fascinated with things that are behind us. We are mesmerized by the shadows of our past. We examine them often. We feed our shadows with mental and emotional energy. We can never seem to move beyond the images, memories, and fears caused by the shadows of the past. We give the shadows of yesterday the power to swallow our today.

When she does not succumb to her fascination with the past, the crow, unlike us, has the ability to see beyond the shadow. The crow is an omen of change, with no sense of time. It does not matter to the crow what has happened, she looks beyond the shadow to create what will happen. She determines the path of her flight based on what she can see now. When the crow's feathers are ruffled, she smooths them out. If her wings being to droop in flight, the crow rests. Unlike humans, the crow has learned how to use her past to determine which way she will go.

Until today, you may not have used the sacred crow energy of vision. Just for today, use the shadows of the past as a mirror. Look for the talents, skills or abilities that you can use to chart your flight forward. Use what you see in the shadows of our life as your encouragement to move beyond an old way of being into a new vision of yourself.

Today I am devoted to viewing all the shadows of my past through forgiving eyes!


(Iyanla Vanzant, "Until Today" - June 14)

The First Step is the Last Step

The first step is the last step. The first step is to perceive, perceive what you are thinking, perceive your ambition, perceive your anxiety, your loneliness, your despair, this extraordinary sense of sorrow, perceive it, without any condemnation, justification, without wishing it to be different. Just to perceive it, as it is. When you perceive it as it is, then there is a totally different kind of action taking place, and that action is the final action. Right? That is, when you perceive something as being false or as being true, that perception is the final action, which is the final step. Now listen to it. I perceive the falseness of following somebody else, somebody else’s instruction—Krishna, Buddha, Christ, it does not matter who it is. I see, there is the perception of the truth that following somebody is utterly false. Because your reason, your logic and everything points out how absurd it is to follow somebody. Now that perception is the final step, and when you have perceived, you leave it, forget it, because the next minute you have to perceive anew, which is again the final step. Krishnamurti in India 1970-71, p 50

Attention vs Concentration

There is a difference between concentration and attention. Concentration is to bring all your energy to focus on a particular point. In attention there is no point of focus. We are very familiar with one and not with the other. When you pay attention to your body, the body becomes quiet, which has its own discipline; it is relaxed but not slack and it has the energy of harmony. When there is attention, there is no contradiction and therefore no conflict. When you read this pay attention to the way you are sitting, the way you are listening, how you are receiving what the letter is saying to you, how you are reacting to what is being said and why you are finding it difficult to attend. You are not learning how to attend. If you are learning the how of attending, then it becomes a system, which is what the brain is accustomed to, and so you make attention something mechanical and repetitive, whereas attention is not mechanical or repetitive. It is the way of looking at your whole life without the centre of self-interest.Difference between concentration and attention

Attention is not concentration. When you concentrate, as most people try to do—what takes place when you are concentrating? You are cutting yourself off, resisting, pushing away every thought except that one particular thought, that one particular action. So your concentration breeds resistance, and therefore concentration does not bring freedom. Please, this is very simple if you observe it yourself. But whereas if you are attentive, attentive to everything that is going on about you, attentive to the dirt, the filth of the street, attentive to the bus which is so dirty, attentive of your words, your gestures, the way you talk to your boss, the way you talk to your servant, to the superior, to the inferior, the respect, the callousness to those below you, the words, the ideas—if you are attentive to all that, not correcting, then out of that attention you can know a different kind of concentration. You are then aware of the setting, the noise of the people, people talking over there on the roof, your hushing them up, asking them not to talk, turning your head; you are aware of the various colours, the costumes, and yet concentration is going on. Such concentration is not exclusive, in that there is no effort. Whereas mere concentration demands effort.

JK The Collected Works vol XV, p 321

You know what concentration is—from childhood, we are trained to concentrate. Concentration is the narrowing down all our energy to a particular point, and holding to that point. A boy in school looks out of the window at the birds and the trees, at the movement of the leaves, or at the squirrel climbing the tree. And the teacher says: “You are not paying attention, concentrate on the book”, or “Listen to what I am saying.”This is to give far more importance to concentration than to attention. If I were the teacher I would help him to watch; I would help him to watch that squirrel completely; watch the movement of the tail, how its claws act, everything. Then if he learns to watch that attentively, he will pay attention to the book.

JK Questions and Answers, p 43