To Be means to let go and turn onto being/feeling fully alive and awake. Being Here means *filling the space* with your total presence and giving full attention to all matters closest to home. Mindfulness or sensitivity/awareness is key. Being Here Now means openness to thr momentum and flow of light/energy, tapping into *pure creative potential*... "What can I potentially do and accomplish with my free time today?".
True contentment is recognizing that the greatest opportunity for life, love and happiness is right here, right now, rooted in the depths of your being, embodied in/as the immediate present moment...
JDZ
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
In Death Is Immortality
Surely, in ending there is renewal, is there not? It's only in death that a new thing comes into being. I am not giving you comfort. This is not something to be believed or thought about or intellectually examined and accepted, for then you will make it into another comfort, as you now believe in reincarnation or continuity in the hereafter, and so on. But the actual fact is that that which continues has no rebirth, no renewal. Therefore, in dying every day there is renewal, there is a rebirth. That is immortality.
In death there is immortality, not the death of which you are afraid, but the death of previous conclusions, memories, experiences, with which you are identified as the 'me'. In the dying of the 'me' every minute there is eternity, there is immortality, there is a thing to be experienced -not to be speculated upon or lectured about, as you do about reincarnation and all that kind of stuff. When you are no longer afraid, because every minute there is an ending and therefore a renewal, then you are open to the unknown. Reality is the unknown. Death is also the unknown. But to call death beautiful, to say how marvelous it is because we shall continue in the hereafter and all that nonsense, has no reality.
What has reality is seeing death as it is, an ending; an ending in which there is renewal, a rebirth, not a continuity. For that which continues decays; and that which has the power to renew itself is eternal.
- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life
In death there is immortality, not the death of which you are afraid, but the death of previous conclusions, memories, experiences, with which you are identified as the 'me'. In the dying of the 'me' every minute there is eternity, there is immortality, there is a thing to be experienced -not to be speculated upon or lectured about, as you do about reincarnation and all that kind of stuff. When you are no longer afraid, because every minute there is an ending and therefore a renewal, then you are open to the unknown. Reality is the unknown. Death is also the unknown. But to call death beautiful, to say how marvelous it is because we shall continue in the hereafter and all that nonsense, has no reality.
What has reality is seeing death as it is, an ending; an ending in which there is renewal, a rebirth, not a continuity. For that which continues decays; and that which has the power to renew itself is eternal.
- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Life in Freedom
The desire for freedom, the desire to escape from all things, or rather to transcend all things, is necessary for the attainment of perfection. You can only free yourself if your mind and heart have determined their purpose in life and are continually struggling towards it, never yielding to those things which create barriers between yourself and your goal.
To attain perfection, to walk towards the goal of Truth which is eternal happiness for all, at whatever stage of evolution you may be, it is necessary to be rid of the binding narrow traditions that are born out of blind belief and have no touch with life.
As, when the rains come, only those who have prepared their fields and removed the weeds will have the full produce of their labor, the full benefit of the rain, so, if you would have the Beloved always with you, you must remove from your mind and heart the complicated ideas, traditions, and narrow points of view, which are as weeds that kill true understanding. For without understanding there can be no cooperation with life.
UNDERSTANDING
FOR the well-being of the mind and heart, understanding is as essential as a warm fire on a cold night.
People imagine that they can attain by some miraculous process, that they can find Truth by the mere outward form of worship, that they can discover their goal by the continual repetition of prayers and chants, or by the performance of yoga, puja and other rites. You can only discover that which you desire, that for which your heart longs, and for which your mind craves, by yourself, through the purification of the heart and mind.
If you would understand Truth you must remove from your heart those stones and weeds which strangle its full growth.
Where there is narrowness of mind and limitation of heart, Truth cannot enter. If you would climb to that height where there are eternal snows, you must leave behind you the accumulation of your possessions, you must be hardened and well trained; and your heart must be filled with the desire of attainment.
For those who have no fixed purpose there is renunciation and self-sacrifice; there is sorrow, grief and pain, endless struggle and violent dissatisfaction. But for those who have the fixed purpose to attain the Truth which is the unfoldment of life -though they may dwell in the valley of the shadows- there is no sacrifice, there is no struggle.
Because you have no fixed purpose all the shadows of the valley entice you, wrap you in their soft fogs, so that you lose the ecstasy of life. But if you have established your goal, which is the goal of the world -the attainment of the Kingdom of Happiness through freedom from all experience- then you can control the future, then you are the creator of that which you desire. If you can pass through the valley of the shadows with eyes eternally fixed upon the mountain-top, then you can have all experiences without creating barriers between yourself and the goal. This is the understanding of life which will bring order out of chaos and it is for that purpose that the Beloved has come. As the true artist, who by his imagination creates beauty out of the chaos around him, out of the confusion which exists in the world, so the Beloved, Truth, creates order in the mind and heart of those who understand. When you understand, you will have solved the problem of your daily life. If there is no struggle within to free yourself from the cage of sorrow and pain, from the limitations which cause confusion, then, however much I may knock at the door of your heart, there will be no response. But the moment you yourself are dissatisfied, the moment you yourself desire to escape and to attain liberation, then you yourself seek the source of Truth.
Those who seek for an understanding of life must fix their inward perception on eternal Truth which is the unfolding of life.
To those who live and have their being in the valley, the mountains are mysterious, hard, cruel, eternally aloof. The mountains never change; they are ever constant, never yielding. So it is with Truth. To those who live in the valley of shadows, of transient things, Truth seems terrible, hard and cruel.
Everywhere, among all people, there is a search for something hidden, for some realization which will give wisdom, greater knowledge, greater vision, greater understanding; this the people call Truth.
They think that Truth lies hidden in some distant place, away from life, away from joy, away from sorrow. But Truth is life, and with an understanding of life there is born an understanding of Truth. When you are fulfilling life with understanding you are the master of Truth.
Though there is at the present time a revolt against tradition and the established order of things, against morality in the narrow sense, yet the majority of people still judge and try to understand life from the prejudiced point of view of a limited and settled mind. A Hindu will only recognize Truth when it is presented to him through the medium of Hinduism, and so it is with the Christian and the Buddhist. But Truth is never contained in a particular form or medium. Truth can only be understood with an unbiased mind, capable of detachment and pure judgment.
As every human being is divine, so every individual in the world should be his own master, his own absolute ruler and guide. But if he would guide himself intelligently, he must be able to judge all things with an open mind and not reject what he does not understand because he is prejudiced.
Truth is the power within each one of you which urges you on to attainment. It is the consummation of all intelligence. It is Absolute. There is no god except the man who has purified himself and so has attained to Truth.
When you bind life to beliefs and traditions, to codes of morality, you kill life. In order to keep alive, vital, ever changing, ever growing, as the tree that is ever putting out new leaves, you must give to life the opportunities, the nourishment which will strengthen it and make it grow. When life desires to find its freedom the only way by which it can attain is through experience.
There can be no understanding of life, which is Truth, when there is not the thrill, the agony, the suffering, the continual upheaval, discouragement and encouragement of life.
In the olden days, especially in India, those who desired to find Truth imagined that they could discover the way by withdrawing from the aching world, from the transient things, from the shadow of the real, by the destruction of the physical. But now you have to face life as it is, for you can only conquer life when you have a complete and not a partial
understanding of it.
Once there was a man who kept all the windows of his house well closed except one, hoping that through that window alone the sunlight would come, but it never came. That is what those people are doing who are bound by tradition, by narrow sectarian beliefs, and who think that Truth is contained in any of those beliefs. You cannot bind life, which is the Truth, by anything, for life must be free and untrammeled. If you do not understand that the purpose of life is freedom, then you are only gilding the bars of your cage by the invention of theories, of creeds, of philosophies and religions.
The basis of all these innumerable beliefs is fear. You are afraid for your salvation, you are afraid to test your own knowledge, and hence you rely on the assertions, on the authority of another.
In order to be happy need we have religions? In order to love need we build temples? In order to fulfill the self need we worship a personal god?
You must give to the suffering world, not beliefs, creeds, dogmas, but new understanding which comes from intelligent cooperation with Nature, through observation of all the events of daily life.
Those who would understand Truth, who would give of their heart and their mind to that Truth, must first have grown in experience. Then experience will guide them, for experience gives intelligence, and intelligence is the accumulation of all experience. The web of life is spun out of common things and the common things are experience.
Learn from every event, from every activity in daily life, and assimilate the experience every moment of the day. You go to temples or to churches or to other places of worship and there you imagine that you are purified. But does that purification stand the test of daily life?
Your theories, your superficial knowledge of life, do not help you at moments of crisis. When death comes and takes away your friend, your beliefs and theories do not help you to overcome your loneliness and the sense of separation. You will only overcome it if the poison of separation has been destroyed, and you can only destroy that sense of separation by observing others in sorrow, in pain and in pleasure like yourself, and finding that in suffering as well as in pleasure there is unity.
No one can develop that power which dwells within you but yourself, for that power grows by experience. But experience alone, undirected by the goal you would attain, produces chaos, the chaos which prevails in the world at present. Without the understanding of the purpose of life there is bound to be chaos.
The first demand upon those who would seek the understanding of true happiness, is that they should have the burning longing to be free from all things, to gain that freedom which comes when you are beyond the need for further experience because you have passed through all experience.
If you would understand what I mean by the freedom of life, you must establish for yourself the goal which is liberation even from life itself.
For the understanding of life you must have revolt, dissatisfaction and great discontentment. Many people in the world imagine that they have found Truth by adopting some theory or other, and hence that they have solved the whole problem of life.
Contentment without understanding is like a pool covered with green scum, which does not reflect the bare eye of heaven. It is very easy to be ignorantly discontented, but to be discontented and to revolt intelligently is a divine gift. Revolt with intelligence, with understanding, is as a great river that is full of power.
Revolt is essential in order to escape from the narrowness of tradition, from the binding influences of belief, of theories. If you would understand the Truth, you must be in revolt so that you may escape from all these -from books, from theories, from gods, from superstitions- from everything which is not of your own.
If you would understand the meaning of my words, then throw aside all your mental conceptions of life and begin again from the very beginning. Then you will see for yourself how life works, how life which is the accumulation of all experience speaks through that voice which we call intuition, which guides you and helps you on the onward path.
I would urge you to be free -free from the very gods whom you worship, from the very beings whom you hold dear, because freedom is necessary for the growth of the soul and without freedom there is decay.
Because you do not wish to be free, you seek comfort, and comfort is like the shadow of a tree, it varies according to the sun from moment to moment, and those who seek comfort must move from one abode to another. Comfort cannot dwell with understanding.
The man who seeks comfort, who searches for the satisfaction of the moment, will never find real and lasting joy, for the momentary comfort is as transitory as the flower that is born of a morning and withers at the ending of the day.
When a pond is not touched with the breath of air, the waters become stagnant, and no animal comes to it to slake its thirst. But when the fresh winds come and breathe on its face, then animals and human beings alike can quench their thirst.
So if there is not in you the fresh wind of desire for freedom
from all things, you will not find the Truth which alone can remove the thirst of the world.
When you are free, as the bird in the skies, your life becomes simple. Life is complicated only when there is limitation. Then you need traditions and beliefs to uphold you.
But when you desire to be free from all things, then you break away from the old order and enter upon that new life which will lead you towards perfection which is liberation and happiness.
When you are able to become a flame of revolt, then the means to reach the Kingdom will be found. We have to create a miracle of order in this century of chaos and superstition. But first we have to create order in ourselves, a lasting order which is not based on fear or on authority.
I have found and established for myself that which is eternal, and it is my work to create order in your mind, so that you will no longer depend on outward authority, no longer be the slave of superstition or of those trivialities which hold life in bondage, and divide you from your goal.
Because you have no true purpose in life there is chaos within you; there is misery without understanding, strife without purpose, struggle in ignorance. But when you have established the goal of the Beloved in your heart and mind there is understanding in your life. There may still be struggle but it will be with understanding, and there will be greater love and greater happiness. Establish, therefore, within you that which is eternal, and the present shadows will pass away.
When you have established the Beloved in your heart, the source and the end are united and time no longer exists, for you hold eternity within you.
When you have established the Beloved in your heart, you are ready to face the open seas, where there are great storms, and the strong breezes which quicken life.
Because you have the Beloved in your heart, you must be a lighthouse on a dark shore, to guide those who are still enshrouded in their own darkness.
Of what value is your understanding, of what value are your high and noble thoughts, your pure life, if you do not help those who are in constant pain, who are in darkness, and in confusion? Of what value is the Truth you have seen if you are not able to give of that Truth to those who are hungering and thirsting after the eternal?
Because you have understood, be courageous with that understanding, and give of your life to those who are in darkness.
"If you find truth you must put aside all those things upon which you have leaned for support and look within for that everlasting spring. It cannot be brought to you through any outward channel."
"Invite doubt, for doubt is as a precious oinment: though it burns, it shall heal greatly -by inviting doubt, by putting aside those things which you have understood, by transcending your acquirements, your understanding, you will find the Truth."
-J. KRISHNAMURTI, Life in Freedom
To attain perfection, to walk towards the goal of Truth which is eternal happiness for all, at whatever stage of evolution you may be, it is necessary to be rid of the binding narrow traditions that are born out of blind belief and have no touch with life.
As, when the rains come, only those who have prepared their fields and removed the weeds will have the full produce of their labor, the full benefit of the rain, so, if you would have the Beloved always with you, you must remove from your mind and heart the complicated ideas, traditions, and narrow points of view, which are as weeds that kill true understanding. For without understanding there can be no cooperation with life.
UNDERSTANDING
FOR the well-being of the mind and heart, understanding is as essential as a warm fire on a cold night.
People imagine that they can attain by some miraculous process, that they can find Truth by the mere outward form of worship, that they can discover their goal by the continual repetition of prayers and chants, or by the performance of yoga, puja and other rites. You can only discover that which you desire, that for which your heart longs, and for which your mind craves, by yourself, through the purification of the heart and mind.
If you would understand Truth you must remove from your heart those stones and weeds which strangle its full growth.
Where there is narrowness of mind and limitation of heart, Truth cannot enter. If you would climb to that height where there are eternal snows, you must leave behind you the accumulation of your possessions, you must be hardened and well trained; and your heart must be filled with the desire of attainment.
For those who have no fixed purpose there is renunciation and self-sacrifice; there is sorrow, grief and pain, endless struggle and violent dissatisfaction. But for those who have the fixed purpose to attain the Truth which is the unfoldment of life -though they may dwell in the valley of the shadows- there is no sacrifice, there is no struggle.
Because you have no fixed purpose all the shadows of the valley entice you, wrap you in their soft fogs, so that you lose the ecstasy of life. But if you have established your goal, which is the goal of the world -the attainment of the Kingdom of Happiness through freedom from all experience- then you can control the future, then you are the creator of that which you desire. If you can pass through the valley of the shadows with eyes eternally fixed upon the mountain-top, then you can have all experiences without creating barriers between yourself and the goal. This is the understanding of life which will bring order out of chaos and it is for that purpose that the Beloved has come. As the true artist, who by his imagination creates beauty out of the chaos around him, out of the confusion which exists in the world, so the Beloved, Truth, creates order in the mind and heart of those who understand. When you understand, you will have solved the problem of your daily life. If there is no struggle within to free yourself from the cage of sorrow and pain, from the limitations which cause confusion, then, however much I may knock at the door of your heart, there will be no response. But the moment you yourself are dissatisfied, the moment you yourself desire to escape and to attain liberation, then you yourself seek the source of Truth.
Those who seek for an understanding of life must fix their inward perception on eternal Truth which is the unfolding of life.
To those who live and have their being in the valley, the mountains are mysterious, hard, cruel, eternally aloof. The mountains never change; they are ever constant, never yielding. So it is with Truth. To those who live in the valley of shadows, of transient things, Truth seems terrible, hard and cruel.
Everywhere, among all people, there is a search for something hidden, for some realization which will give wisdom, greater knowledge, greater vision, greater understanding; this the people call Truth.
They think that Truth lies hidden in some distant place, away from life, away from joy, away from sorrow. But Truth is life, and with an understanding of life there is born an understanding of Truth. When you are fulfilling life with understanding you are the master of Truth.
Though there is at the present time a revolt against tradition and the established order of things, against morality in the narrow sense, yet the majority of people still judge and try to understand life from the prejudiced point of view of a limited and settled mind. A Hindu will only recognize Truth when it is presented to him through the medium of Hinduism, and so it is with the Christian and the Buddhist. But Truth is never contained in a particular form or medium. Truth can only be understood with an unbiased mind, capable of detachment and pure judgment.
As every human being is divine, so every individual in the world should be his own master, his own absolute ruler and guide. But if he would guide himself intelligently, he must be able to judge all things with an open mind and not reject what he does not understand because he is prejudiced.
Truth is the power within each one of you which urges you on to attainment. It is the consummation of all intelligence. It is Absolute. There is no god except the man who has purified himself and so has attained to Truth.
When you bind life to beliefs and traditions, to codes of morality, you kill life. In order to keep alive, vital, ever changing, ever growing, as the tree that is ever putting out new leaves, you must give to life the opportunities, the nourishment which will strengthen it and make it grow. When life desires to find its freedom the only way by which it can attain is through experience.
There can be no understanding of life, which is Truth, when there is not the thrill, the agony, the suffering, the continual upheaval, discouragement and encouragement of life.
In the olden days, especially in India, those who desired to find Truth imagined that they could discover the way by withdrawing from the aching world, from the transient things, from the shadow of the real, by the destruction of the physical. But now you have to face life as it is, for you can only conquer life when you have a complete and not a partial
understanding of it.
Once there was a man who kept all the windows of his house well closed except one, hoping that through that window alone the sunlight would come, but it never came. That is what those people are doing who are bound by tradition, by narrow sectarian beliefs, and who think that Truth is contained in any of those beliefs. You cannot bind life, which is the Truth, by anything, for life must be free and untrammeled. If you do not understand that the purpose of life is freedom, then you are only gilding the bars of your cage by the invention of theories, of creeds, of philosophies and religions.
The basis of all these innumerable beliefs is fear. You are afraid for your salvation, you are afraid to test your own knowledge, and hence you rely on the assertions, on the authority of another.
In order to be happy need we have religions? In order to love need we build temples? In order to fulfill the self need we worship a personal god?
You must give to the suffering world, not beliefs, creeds, dogmas, but new understanding which comes from intelligent cooperation with Nature, through observation of all the events of daily life.
Those who would understand Truth, who would give of their heart and their mind to that Truth, must first have grown in experience. Then experience will guide them, for experience gives intelligence, and intelligence is the accumulation of all experience. The web of life is spun out of common things and the common things are experience.
Learn from every event, from every activity in daily life, and assimilate the experience every moment of the day. You go to temples or to churches or to other places of worship and there you imagine that you are purified. But does that purification stand the test of daily life?
Your theories, your superficial knowledge of life, do not help you at moments of crisis. When death comes and takes away your friend, your beliefs and theories do not help you to overcome your loneliness and the sense of separation. You will only overcome it if the poison of separation has been destroyed, and you can only destroy that sense of separation by observing others in sorrow, in pain and in pleasure like yourself, and finding that in suffering as well as in pleasure there is unity.
No one can develop that power which dwells within you but yourself, for that power grows by experience. But experience alone, undirected by the goal you would attain, produces chaos, the chaos which prevails in the world at present. Without the understanding of the purpose of life there is bound to be chaos.
The first demand upon those who would seek the understanding of true happiness, is that they should have the burning longing to be free from all things, to gain that freedom which comes when you are beyond the need for further experience because you have passed through all experience.
If you would understand what I mean by the freedom of life, you must establish for yourself the goal which is liberation even from life itself.
For the understanding of life you must have revolt, dissatisfaction and great discontentment. Many people in the world imagine that they have found Truth by adopting some theory or other, and hence that they have solved the whole problem of life.
Contentment without understanding is like a pool covered with green scum, which does not reflect the bare eye of heaven. It is very easy to be ignorantly discontented, but to be discontented and to revolt intelligently is a divine gift. Revolt with intelligence, with understanding, is as a great river that is full of power.
Revolt is essential in order to escape from the narrowness of tradition, from the binding influences of belief, of theories. If you would understand the Truth, you must be in revolt so that you may escape from all these -from books, from theories, from gods, from superstitions- from everything which is not of your own.
If you would understand the meaning of my words, then throw aside all your mental conceptions of life and begin again from the very beginning. Then you will see for yourself how life works, how life which is the accumulation of all experience speaks through that voice which we call intuition, which guides you and helps you on the onward path.
I would urge you to be free -free from the very gods whom you worship, from the very beings whom you hold dear, because freedom is necessary for the growth of the soul and without freedom there is decay.
Because you do not wish to be free, you seek comfort, and comfort is like the shadow of a tree, it varies according to the sun from moment to moment, and those who seek comfort must move from one abode to another. Comfort cannot dwell with understanding.
The man who seeks comfort, who searches for the satisfaction of the moment, will never find real and lasting joy, for the momentary comfort is as transitory as the flower that is born of a morning and withers at the ending of the day.
When a pond is not touched with the breath of air, the waters become stagnant, and no animal comes to it to slake its thirst. But when the fresh winds come and breathe on its face, then animals and human beings alike can quench their thirst.
So if there is not in you the fresh wind of desire for freedom
from all things, you will not find the Truth which alone can remove the thirst of the world.
When you are free, as the bird in the skies, your life becomes simple. Life is complicated only when there is limitation. Then you need traditions and beliefs to uphold you.
But when you desire to be free from all things, then you break away from the old order and enter upon that new life which will lead you towards perfection which is liberation and happiness.
When you are able to become a flame of revolt, then the means to reach the Kingdom will be found. We have to create a miracle of order in this century of chaos and superstition. But first we have to create order in ourselves, a lasting order which is not based on fear or on authority.
I have found and established for myself that which is eternal, and it is my work to create order in your mind, so that you will no longer depend on outward authority, no longer be the slave of superstition or of those trivialities which hold life in bondage, and divide you from your goal.
Because you have no true purpose in life there is chaos within you; there is misery without understanding, strife without purpose, struggle in ignorance. But when you have established the goal of the Beloved in your heart and mind there is understanding in your life. There may still be struggle but it will be with understanding, and there will be greater love and greater happiness. Establish, therefore, within you that which is eternal, and the present shadows will pass away.
When you have established the Beloved in your heart, the source and the end are united and time no longer exists, for you hold eternity within you.
When you have established the Beloved in your heart, you are ready to face the open seas, where there are great storms, and the strong breezes which quicken life.
Because you have the Beloved in your heart, you must be a lighthouse on a dark shore, to guide those who are still enshrouded in their own darkness.
Of what value is your understanding, of what value are your high and noble thoughts, your pure life, if you do not help those who are in constant pain, who are in darkness, and in confusion? Of what value is the Truth you have seen if you are not able to give of that Truth to those who are hungering and thirsting after the eternal?
Because you have understood, be courageous with that understanding, and give of your life to those who are in darkness.
"If you find truth you must put aside all those things upon which you have leaned for support and look within for that everlasting spring. It cannot be brought to you through any outward channel."
"Invite doubt, for doubt is as a precious oinment: though it burns, it shall heal greatly -by inviting doubt, by putting aside those things which you have understood, by transcending your acquirements, your understanding, you will find the Truth."
-J. KRISHNAMURTI, Life in Freedom
Friday, November 11, 2011
Revelations - Awakening As One - 11-11-11
"An evolution that awaits those who are willing to humble themselves, and let go of what they know. For it is only in letting go that one may become open like a child and recieve the grace of world altering revelations".
This is the real deal, speaking the golden Truth and exposing the new age teachings as only bringing into the world more emphasis on ego, separation and dualistic notions of good and evil; thus undermining the inherent unity of All, and unconsciously invoking the opposite polarity of evil all the more by trying to be "too good"... though such teachers may all be well intentioned, often "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
More Quotations from the Video
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Purpose of Life
AS THE SHADOWS were awakening and a scent of the morn was carried on the breeze, I saw an eagle descending from the mountain-tops. It came down without a flutter of the wings into the valley, and there disappeared among the shadows of the black mountains. At the end of the day I saw it return again to its abode among the mountain peaks, far away from the strife, the struggle and the jostle of the world.
So is the man who has seen the vision of the Truth, who has, during his strife in the world, established for himself the eternal goal. Though he may wander among the transient things, and lose himself among the shadows, yet all his life will be guided by that goal. As the eagle soars to its abode, so will he soar beyond all sorrows, beyond all fleeting pleasures and passing joys.
The establishment of that eternal goal is of primary importance for one who desires to disentangle himself from all the complications of life -not the goal of another, nor the vision of another, but the goal that is born of his own experience, his own sorrow, suffering, and understanding. Such a goal, when once it is established, will throw light on the confusion of all thought, and thereby make clear the purpose of life.
As a ship that is lost at sea without a compass, so the man without the perception of the goal which is constant and eternal is lost in this world of confusion. As the captain of a ship establishes the destination of his vessel and by the compass is able to guide his course through stormy nights and dark waters, so the man who has knowledge of his goal can guide his life by that compass of understanding.
Because the individual does not know his purpose, he is in a state of uncertainty and chaos. Because the individual has not solved his own problem, the problem of the world has not been solved. The individual problem is the world problem. If an individual is unhappy, discontented, dissatisfied, then the world around him is in sorrow, discontent and ignorance. If the individual has not found his goal, the world will not find its goal. You cannot separate the individual from the world. The world and the individual are one. If the individual problem can be solved by understanding, so can the problem of the world be solved. Before you can give understanding to others you have first to understand for yourself. When you establish the Truth in your heart and mind, there it will abide eternally.
One day in Benares I was going in a boat down the sacred Ganges, watching the people on the river banks worshiping God in search of happiness, in search of their goal and the way of its attainment. I saw one man in deep meditation, forgetting everything around him, holding but the one thought in his mind -to find and to attain the goal. I saw another performing rites required by his system of yoga. I saw another repeating chants, lost to the world and to himself. They were all seeking what you are seeking, what everyone in the world is seeking in moments of deep thought, and of great desire.
As the boat is carried down the stream by the current, so is every one carried away by his desires, by his passions and longings, because not one has found or established his purpose. Because the goal has not been established, because the path that leads to that goal has not been found, there is confusion and chaos, there is questioning and doubt in the mind. As long as there is doubt in the mind there is no peace, nor certainty and ecstasy of purpose.
This condition exists throughout the world, but everywhere there is a heart beating and a mind capable of thought. Man everywhere is unconsciously seeking a way to free himself from his narrowness, his pettiness. The end of this search is freedom and eternal happiness. He experiments along many paths, and every path leads to complications. From life to life he wanders, from shrine to shrine, from one creed to another -gathering experience, accepting, rejecting, and again accepting- thus he goes forward towards that goal which awaits him as it awaits all men.
In the process of accumulation and rejection, he does not know which way to turn for comfort, and when he seeks comfort through any particular channel he is enmeshed and entangled. Because there are many interpreters of the Truth, because there are many conflicting paths, beliefs and religions, man is lost in their complexities. As a butterfly that knocks against the windowpane, struggling to escape into the fresh air and the open sky, so do men struggle when they have not caught a glimpse of the goal -but it is not hard to establish. It is because they are in darkness that the goal seems far away. As the potter molds the clay to the delight of his imagination, so can man mold his life through the desire of his heart. As the earthen vessels are fashioned into beautiful or ugly forms, so life can be made beautiful or ugly according to the purpose which you have established for yourself. I would help you to that goal which you are seeking, which you desire to attain -the goal which awaits all the peoples of the world, whatever their experiences, thoughts or feelings. Then you will be able to guide yourself through the darkness of the world as a man guides himself of a dark night by the stars.If you once establish such a goal -which is happiness and hence freedom- life becomes simple. There is no longer confusion, and time, and the complications of time, disappear. It is because you have not established your goal that the present is as the mountain when the sun has set -the light fails and the darkness of the mountain overshadows the valley. Time is only a binder of life and the moment you are free you are beyond time.Then you can guide yourself without depending upon any authority. Then you will no longer have fear. Then for you there will be no conflict of good and evil. When you have set life free you will find happiness, which is the only goal, the only absolute Truth.
BECAUSE man has forgotten that the true purpose of his being is to cultivate happiness within himself and in those around him, there is confusion and chaos, and his actions but add to that chaos. What is it for which everyone in the world is craving and longing? To find happiness. True happiness is neither selfish, nor negative. It is intelligence, the accumulation of all experience; it is Truth which is eternal. No cloud can hide it nor can any sorrow lessen it. It is such happiness that every one desires. It is such happiness that I have always desired. I have seen people weighed down with labor, performing great works, accumulating knowledge, struggling to be spiritual and yet they had forgotten the one thing -happiness- which alone gives life to the mind and nourishment to the heart. There can be no health except in happiness. He who has not found it will never find Truth, will never bring life to its fulfillment, will never have tranquillity in this world of travail.
If you desire to establish that happiness within yourself, you must make it your goal and then your life will be as the flame which soars heavenwards.
J. Krishnamurti ~ Life in Freedom
So is the man who has seen the vision of the Truth, who has, during his strife in the world, established for himself the eternal goal. Though he may wander among the transient things, and lose himself among the shadows, yet all his life will be guided by that goal. As the eagle soars to its abode, so will he soar beyond all sorrows, beyond all fleeting pleasures and passing joys.
The establishment of that eternal goal is of primary importance for one who desires to disentangle himself from all the complications of life -not the goal of another, nor the vision of another, but the goal that is born of his own experience, his own sorrow, suffering, and understanding. Such a goal, when once it is established, will throw light on the confusion of all thought, and thereby make clear the purpose of life.
As a ship that is lost at sea without a compass, so the man without the perception of the goal which is constant and eternal is lost in this world of confusion. As the captain of a ship establishes the destination of his vessel and by the compass is able to guide his course through stormy nights and dark waters, so the man who has knowledge of his goal can guide his life by that compass of understanding.
Because the individual does not know his purpose, he is in a state of uncertainty and chaos. Because the individual has not solved his own problem, the problem of the world has not been solved. The individual problem is the world problem. If an individual is unhappy, discontented, dissatisfied, then the world around him is in sorrow, discontent and ignorance. If the individual has not found his goal, the world will not find its goal. You cannot separate the individual from the world. The world and the individual are one. If the individual problem can be solved by understanding, so can the problem of the world be solved. Before you can give understanding to others you have first to understand for yourself. When you establish the Truth in your heart and mind, there it will abide eternally.
One day in Benares I was going in a boat down the sacred Ganges, watching the people on the river banks worshiping God in search of happiness, in search of their goal and the way of its attainment. I saw one man in deep meditation, forgetting everything around him, holding but the one thought in his mind -to find and to attain the goal. I saw another performing rites required by his system of yoga. I saw another repeating chants, lost to the world and to himself. They were all seeking what you are seeking, what everyone in the world is seeking in moments of deep thought, and of great desire.
As the boat is carried down the stream by the current, so is every one carried away by his desires, by his passions and longings, because not one has found or established his purpose. Because the goal has not been established, because the path that leads to that goal has not been found, there is confusion and chaos, there is questioning and doubt in the mind. As long as there is doubt in the mind there is no peace, nor certainty and ecstasy of purpose.
This condition exists throughout the world, but everywhere there is a heart beating and a mind capable of thought. Man everywhere is unconsciously seeking a way to free himself from his narrowness, his pettiness. The end of this search is freedom and eternal happiness. He experiments along many paths, and every path leads to complications. From life to life he wanders, from shrine to shrine, from one creed to another -gathering experience, accepting, rejecting, and again accepting- thus he goes forward towards that goal which awaits him as it awaits all men.
In the process of accumulation and rejection, he does not know which way to turn for comfort, and when he seeks comfort through any particular channel he is enmeshed and entangled. Because there are many interpreters of the Truth, because there are many conflicting paths, beliefs and religions, man is lost in their complexities. As a butterfly that knocks against the windowpane, struggling to escape into the fresh air and the open sky, so do men struggle when they have not caught a glimpse of the goal -but it is not hard to establish. It is because they are in darkness that the goal seems far away. As the potter molds the clay to the delight of his imagination, so can man mold his life through the desire of his heart. As the earthen vessels are fashioned into beautiful or ugly forms, so life can be made beautiful or ugly according to the purpose which you have established for yourself. I would help you to that goal which you are seeking, which you desire to attain -the goal which awaits all the peoples of the world, whatever their experiences, thoughts or feelings. Then you will be able to guide yourself through the darkness of the world as a man guides himself of a dark night by the stars.If you once establish such a goal -which is happiness and hence freedom- life becomes simple. There is no longer confusion, and time, and the complications of time, disappear. It is because you have not established your goal that the present is as the mountain when the sun has set -the light fails and the darkness of the mountain overshadows the valley. Time is only a binder of life and the moment you are free you are beyond time.Then you can guide yourself without depending upon any authority. Then you will no longer have fear. Then for you there will be no conflict of good and evil. When you have set life free you will find happiness, which is the only goal, the only absolute Truth.
BECAUSE man has forgotten that the true purpose of his being is to cultivate happiness within himself and in those around him, there is confusion and chaos, and his actions but add to that chaos. What is it for which everyone in the world is craving and longing? To find happiness. True happiness is neither selfish, nor negative. It is intelligence, the accumulation of all experience; it is Truth which is eternal. No cloud can hide it nor can any sorrow lessen it. It is such happiness that every one desires. It is such happiness that I have always desired. I have seen people weighed down with labor, performing great works, accumulating knowledge, struggling to be spiritual and yet they had forgotten the one thing -happiness- which alone gives life to the mind and nourishment to the heart. There can be no health except in happiness. He who has not found it will never find Truth, will never bring life to its fulfillment, will never have tranquillity in this world of travail.
If you desire to establish that happiness within yourself, you must make it your goal and then your life will be as the flame which soars heavenwards.
J. Krishnamurti ~ Life in Freedom
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
The Sacred Individual
At one extreme, then, we have the sacred individual—the unique personal ego, separate from both nature and God—defined as such by a society which, almost in the same breath, commands him to be free and commands him to conform. At the other extreme is the coolie, the cog in the industrial-collectivist machine, or the mere "hand" (as the factory worker is often called). If one believes that the personal ego is a natural endowment of all men, as distinct from a social convention, then the lot of the coolie is bleak indeed—for one sees him as a repressed and frustrated person, though his own society may never have defined him as such.
However, there is a third possibility. The individual may be understood neither as an isolated person nor as an expendable, humanoid working-machine. He may be seen, instead, as one particular focal point at which the whole universe expresses itself—as an incarnation of the Self, of the Godhead, or whatever one may choose to call IT. This view retains and, indeed, amplifies our apprehension that the individual is in some way sacred. At the same time it dissolves the paradox of the personal ego, which is to have attained the "precious state" of being a unique person at the price of perpetual anxiety for one's survival. The hallucination of separateness prevents one from seeing that to cherish the ego is to cherish misery. We do not realize that our so-called love and concern for the individual is simply the other face of our own fear of death or rejection. In his exaggerated valuation of
separate identity, the personal ego is sawing off the branch on which he is sitting, and then getting more and more anxious about the coming crash!
Let it be clear, furthermore, that the ego-fiction is in no way essential to the individual, to the total human organism, in fulfilling and expressing his individuality. For every individual is a unique manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching of the tree. To manifest individuality, every branch must have a sensitive connection with the tree, just as our independently moving and differentiated fingers must have a sensitive connection with the whole
body. The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected—and by physical relations of fascinating complexity. The death of the individual is not disconnection but simply
withdrawal. The corpse is like a footprint or an echo—the dissolving trace of something which the Self has ceased to do.
If, then, the differentiation of individuals is of great value, on the principle that variety is the spice of life, this value is not going to be enhanced by a self-contradictory definition of individuality. Our society—that is, we ourselves, all of us—is defining the individual with a double-bind, commanding him to be free and separate from the world, which he is not, for otherwise the command would not work. Under the circumstances, it works only in the sense of implanting an illusion of separateness, just as the commands of a hypnotist can create illusions. Thus bamboozled, the individual—instead of fulfilling his unique function in the world—is exhausted and frustrated in efforts to accomplish, self-contradictory goals. Because he is now so largely defined as a separate person caught up in a mindless and alien universe, his principal task is to get one-up on the universe and to conquer nature.
This is palpably absurd, and since the task is never achieved, the individual is taught to live and work for some future in which the impossible will at last happen, if not for him, then at least for his children. We are thus breeding a type of human being incapable of living in the present—that is, of really living.
For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond. You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, "Now, I've arrived!" Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now. In other words, you have been hypnotized or conditioned by an educational processing-system arranged in grades or steps, supposedly leading to some ultimate Success. First nursery school or kindergarten, then the grades or forms of elementary school, preparing you for the great moment of secondary school! But then more steps, up and up to the coveted goal of the university. Here, if you are clever, you can stay on indefinitely by getting into graduate school and becoming a permanent student. Otherwise, you are headed step by step for the great Outside World of family-raising, business, and profession. Yet graduation day is a very temporary fulfillment, for with your first sales- promotion meeting you are back in the same old system, being urged to make that quota (and if you do, they'll give you a higher quota) and so progress up the ladder to sales manager, vice-president, and, at last,
president of your own show (about forty to forty-five years old). In the meantime, the insurance and investment people have been interesting you in plans for Retirement—that really ultimate goal of being able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of all your labors. But when that day comes, your anxieties and exertions will have left you with a weak heart, false teeth, prostate trouble, sexual impotence, fuzzy eyesight, and a vile digestion.
All this might have been wonderful if, at every stage, you had been able to play it as a game, finding your work as fascinating as poker, chess, or fishing. But for most of us the day is divided into work-time and play-time, the work consisting largely of tasks which others pay us to do because they are abysmally uninteresting. We therefore work, not for the work's sake, but for money—and money is supposed to get us what we really want in our hours of leisure and play. In the United States even poor people have lots of money compared with the wretched and skinny millions of India, Africa, and China, while our middle and upper classes (or should we say "income groups") are as prosperous as princes. Yet, by and large, they have but slight taste for pleasure. Money alone cannot buy pleasure, though it can help. For enjoyment is an art and a skill for which we have little talent or energy.
Alan Watts ~ The Book on the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are (pp.59-62)
However, there is a third possibility. The individual may be understood neither as an isolated person nor as an expendable, humanoid working-machine. He may be seen, instead, as one particular focal point at which the whole universe expresses itself—as an incarnation of the Self, of the Godhead, or whatever one may choose to call IT. This view retains and, indeed, amplifies our apprehension that the individual is in some way sacred. At the same time it dissolves the paradox of the personal ego, which is to have attained the "precious state" of being a unique person at the price of perpetual anxiety for one's survival. The hallucination of separateness prevents one from seeing that to cherish the ego is to cherish misery. We do not realize that our so-called love and concern for the individual is simply the other face of our own fear of death or rejection. In his exaggerated valuation of
separate identity, the personal ego is sawing off the branch on which he is sitting, and then getting more and more anxious about the coming crash!
Let it be clear, furthermore, that the ego-fiction is in no way essential to the individual, to the total human organism, in fulfilling and expressing his individuality. For every individual is a unique manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching of the tree. To manifest individuality, every branch must have a sensitive connection with the tree, just as our independently moving and differentiated fingers must have a sensitive connection with the whole
body. The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected—and by physical relations of fascinating complexity. The death of the individual is not disconnection but simply
withdrawal. The corpse is like a footprint or an echo—the dissolving trace of something which the Self has ceased to do.
If, then, the differentiation of individuals is of great value, on the principle that variety is the spice of life, this value is not going to be enhanced by a self-contradictory definition of individuality. Our society—that is, we ourselves, all of us—is defining the individual with a double-bind, commanding him to be free and separate from the world, which he is not, for otherwise the command would not work. Under the circumstances, it works only in the sense of implanting an illusion of separateness, just as the commands of a hypnotist can create illusions. Thus bamboozled, the individual—instead of fulfilling his unique function in the world—is exhausted and frustrated in efforts to accomplish, self-contradictory goals. Because he is now so largely defined as a separate person caught up in a mindless and alien universe, his principal task is to get one-up on the universe and to conquer nature.
This is palpably absurd, and since the task is never achieved, the individual is taught to live and work for some future in which the impossible will at last happen, if not for him, then at least for his children. We are thus breeding a type of human being incapable of living in the present—that is, of really living.
For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond. You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, "Now, I've arrived!" Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now. In other words, you have been hypnotized or conditioned by an educational processing-system arranged in grades or steps, supposedly leading to some ultimate Success. First nursery school or kindergarten, then the grades or forms of elementary school, preparing you for the great moment of secondary school! But then more steps, up and up to the coveted goal of the university. Here, if you are clever, you can stay on indefinitely by getting into graduate school and becoming a permanent student. Otherwise, you are headed step by step for the great Outside World of family-raising, business, and profession. Yet graduation day is a very temporary fulfillment, for with your first sales- promotion meeting you are back in the same old system, being urged to make that quota (and if you do, they'll give you a higher quota) and so progress up the ladder to sales manager, vice-president, and, at last,
president of your own show (about forty to forty-five years old). In the meantime, the insurance and investment people have been interesting you in plans for Retirement—that really ultimate goal of being able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of all your labors. But when that day comes, your anxieties and exertions will have left you with a weak heart, false teeth, prostate trouble, sexual impotence, fuzzy eyesight, and a vile digestion.
All this might have been wonderful if, at every stage, you had been able to play it as a game, finding your work as fascinating as poker, chess, or fishing. But for most of us the day is divided into work-time and play-time, the work consisting largely of tasks which others pay us to do because they are abysmally uninteresting. We therefore work, not for the work's sake, but for money—and money is supposed to get us what we really want in our hours of leisure and play. In the United States even poor people have lots of money compared with the wretched and skinny millions of India, Africa, and China, while our middle and upper classes (or should we say "income groups") are as prosperous as princes. Yet, by and large, they have but slight taste for pleasure. Money alone cannot buy pleasure, though it can help. For enjoyment is an art and a skill for which we have little talent or energy.
Alan Watts ~ The Book on the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are (pp.59-62)
Friday, September 2, 2011
Ending Idealism, Restoring Sanity
When this life is perceived to be okay *as it is* then all the abstraction of discontented idealism is revealed as false and discarded. One might say that idealistic philosophies rightly pertain not to the spiritual or inner personal realms but exclusively to the desire for social change and revolution. There is conflict inherent in every moment where the real is rejected in favor of some alternative ideal. The word 'ideal' itself implies a discontentment with the actual, the here and the now. What I project as a future possibility is unreachable unless there be a corresponding experience of wealth or perfection this moment... an inwardly abundant and joyful essence that exists whether anything outwardly manifests or not.
Pleasurable escapes, everything from food binging and television to alcoholism and drug addiction or socialized entertainments, are the response of wanting to be elsewhere and away from reality as it is happening normally. It is a natural response while at the same time a tragic indication of an unenlightened modern workaday industrial age. Technology and the internet, while having their many benefits for humankind and society at large, contribute even further to the escapist tendencies of a consumer society. To seek and find temporary contentment online, at the local bar, a movie or other entertainments available, while okay in itself becomes a primary frustrating factor where contentment with self and reality is concerned.
Religious groups and organizations often have this counter-productive influence as well, however enlightening the company of believers, as this becomes another escape from experiencing directly one's own truth and all that personally stands in the way of it. To identify too much with spiritual groups and their causes is to alienate from all who are not of the same affiliation, and there's a tendency to believe and value the experiences and ideas of others over those of oneself. While many of us rightly desire peace, love, kindness and heaven on earth, the tendency to be displeased with things as they are again becomes a problem in response. The general effect is a split and thus conflict between the conventional religious believer and the rest of humanity, between the constructed artificial socio-religious ideal and actuality. Real life includes all of us universally as beings, not all of us as Buddhists, Jews or Christians... and not as mere recipients of kindness or charity from a given religious affiliation.
The urgent need is to confront the mundane on a very personal individual level, whether one is interested in society and it's manifold creations or not. The joy is in the doing itself, in the very working process that gives meaning to the life of the individual. When ordinary awareness and attention is applied to the everyday, what we call mundane reality and responsibility, it becomes less necessary to focus on the outward problems of the world whose origin is within. If you are doing all you can as an individual, this is enough struggle and the rest of one's energy and ingenuity is then focused on "outside the box" solutions, or just being.
The ground of being becomes the central focus of mindful attention, without attachment to all the externals that come and go. The affirmation: "I AM living this life to the fullest" and not "I will someday".
Keep it Real...
JDZ
Pleasurable escapes, everything from food binging and television to alcoholism and drug addiction or socialized entertainments, are the response of wanting to be elsewhere and away from reality as it is happening normally. It is a natural response while at the same time a tragic indication of an unenlightened modern workaday industrial age. Technology and the internet, while having their many benefits for humankind and society at large, contribute even further to the escapist tendencies of a consumer society. To seek and find temporary contentment online, at the local bar, a movie or other entertainments available, while okay in itself becomes a primary frustrating factor where contentment with self and reality is concerned.
Religious groups and organizations often have this counter-productive influence as well, however enlightening the company of believers, as this becomes another escape from experiencing directly one's own truth and all that personally stands in the way of it. To identify too much with spiritual groups and their causes is to alienate from all who are not of the same affiliation, and there's a tendency to believe and value the experiences and ideas of others over those of oneself. While many of us rightly desire peace, love, kindness and heaven on earth, the tendency to be displeased with things as they are again becomes a problem in response. The general effect is a split and thus conflict between the conventional religious believer and the rest of humanity, between the constructed artificial socio-religious ideal and actuality. Real life includes all of us universally as beings, not all of us as Buddhists, Jews or Christians... and not as mere recipients of kindness or charity from a given religious affiliation.
The urgent need is to confront the mundane on a very personal individual level, whether one is interested in society and it's manifold creations or not. The joy is in the doing itself, in the very working process that gives meaning to the life of the individual. When ordinary awareness and attention is applied to the everyday, what we call mundane reality and responsibility, it becomes less necessary to focus on the outward problems of the world whose origin is within. If you are doing all you can as an individual, this is enough struggle and the rest of one's energy and ingenuity is then focused on "outside the box" solutions, or just being.
The ground of being becomes the central focus of mindful attention, without attachment to all the externals that come and go. The affirmation: "I AM living this life to the fullest" and not "I will someday".
Keep it Real...
JDZ
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