Wednesday, November 25, 2009

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

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