After all, to find out anything you must have energy, and you need a great deal of energy to inquire into something totally new. And to have that energy, you must have listened to the old pattern of life, neither condemning nor approving. You must have listened to it totally - which means you have understood it, you have understood the futility of living that way. When you have listened to the futility of it, you are already out of it. Then you have - not intellectually but deeply - felt the uselessness of living that way and have listened to it completely, totally; then you have the energy to inquire. If you have not the energy, you cannot inquire. That is, when you deny that which has brought about this misery, this conflict - which we have gone into - that denial, that very negation of it is positive action. - Talks by Krishnamurti In India 1966 (Authentic Report) Madras-Bombay-New Delhi
Thought must always be limited by the thinker who is conditioned. The thinker is always conditioned and is never free. If thought occurs, immediately idea follows. Idea in order to act is bound to create more confusion. Knowing all this, is it possible to act without idea? Yes. It is the way of love. Love is not an idea; it is not a sensation; it is not a memory; it is not a feeling of postponement, a self protective device. We can only be aware of the way of love when we understand the whole process of idea. Now, is it possible to abandon the other ways and know the way of love, which is the only redemption? No other way, political or religious, will solve the problem. This is not a theory which you will have to think over and adopt in your life; it must be actual... ...When you love, is there idea? Do not accept it; just look at it, examine it, go into it profoundly because every other way we have tried, and there is no answer to misery. Politicians may promise it. The so called religious organizations may promise future happiness, but we have not got it now and the future is relatively unimportant when I am hungry. We have tried every other way; and we can only know the way of love if we know the way of idea and abandon idea, which is to act.
- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Be As You Are
Sri Ramana Maharshi taught that every conscious activity of the mind or body, for example ‘I think’, ‘I remember’, 'I feel' ‘I am acting’, etc., revolves around the tacit assumption that there is an individual ‘I’ who is doing something, a common factor and mental fiction termed the ‘I’-thought (a translation of Aham-Vritti, which literally means ‘mental modification of ‘I’). He equated individuality with the mind and the mind with the ‘I’-thought which is dependent on identification with an object, and said that after Self-realisation there is no thinker of thoughts, no performer of actions and no awareness of individual existence. When the thoughts arise, he said, the ‘I’-thought claims ownership of them- ‘I think’, ‘I believe’, ‘I want’, ‘I am acting’, but there really is no separate ‘I’ that exists independently of the objects that it is identifying with, only an incessant flow of misidentifications, based on an initial assumption that the ‘I’ is individual and associated with the bodily form. He considered this ‘I am the body’ idea as the primary source of all subsequent wrong identifications and its dissolution as the principal aim of self-enquiry.
Sri Ramana taught that since the individual ‘I’-thought cannot exist without an object, if attention is focused on the subjective feeling of ‘I’ or ‘I am’ with such intensity that the thoughts ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ do not arise, then the individual ‘I’ will be unable to connect with objects. If this awareness of ‘I’ is sustained, the individual ‘I’ (the ‘I’-thought) will disappear and in its place there will be a direct experience of the Self. This constant attention to the inner awareness of ‘I’ or ‘I am’ was called self-enquiry (atma vichara) by Sri Ramana Maharshi and he constantly recommended it as the most efficient and direct way of discovering the unreality of the ‘I’-thought. He taught that the ‘I’-thought only finally disappears when the perception of all objects, both physical and mental, ceases and only Self Awareness exists. This is not brought about by being aware of an ‘I’, but only by BEING the ‘I’. This stage of experiencing the subject rather than being aware of an object is the culminating phase of self-enquiry.
This important distinction distinguishes self-enquiry from most other spiritual practices and it explains why Sri Ramana consistently maintained that most other practices were ineffective. He often pointed out that traditional meditations and yoga practices were predicated on the existence of a subject who meditates on an object and he would usually add that such a relationship sustained the ‘I’-thought instead of eliminating it. In his view such practices may effectively quieten the mind, and they may even produce blissful experiences, but they will never culminate in Self-realisation because the ‘I’-thought is not being isolated and seen to have no real existence. [1]
When one turns within and searches
Whence this `I' thought arises,
The shamed `I' vanishes
And wisdom's quest begins.
Upadesha Saram, v 19, Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi
[edit] From Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Arranging thoughts in the order of value, the `I' thought is the all-important thought. Personality-idea or thought is also the root or the stem of all other thoughts, since each idea or thought arises only as someone's thought and is not known to exist independently of the ego. The ego therefore exhibits thought-activity. The second and the third persons do not appear except to the first person. Therefore they arise only after the first person appears, so all the three persons seem to rise and sink together. Trace, then, the ultimate cause of `I' or personality. The `I' idea arises to an embodied ego and should be related to a body or organism. Has it a location in the body or a special relation to any particular spot, as speech which has its centre in the brain or amativeness in the brain? Similarly, has `I' got any centre in the brain, blood, or viscera? Thought-life is seen to centre round the brain and the spinal-cord which in turn are fed by the blood circulating in them, carrying food and air duly mixed up which are transformed into nerve matter. Thus, vegetative life - including circulation, respiration, alimentation, etc. - or vital force, is said to be (or reside in) the core or essence of the organism. Thus the mind may be regarded as the manifestation of vital force which again may be conceived as residing in the Heart. [2]
[edit] From The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One, by Sri Sadhu Om
Sri Ramana Maharshi named Self-enquiry as ‘Who Am I?’, thus drawing our attention directly to the first person. In this question, 'Who Am I?', 'I am' denotes Self and 'who' stands for the enquiry. It does not mean enquiring into a second or third person object. Also, Self (atman) does not exist as an object to be known by us who seek to know it!
Self-enquiry is unnecessary for the Self, and Self-knowledge is impossible for the ego. The enquiry 'Who Am I?' taught by Sri Ramana should be taken to mean Self-attention (that is, attention merely to the first person, the feeling 'I').
While practising Self-enquiry, instead of taking any one of the five sheaths as the object of our attention, we should fix our attention only on the 'I'-consciousness, which exists and shines as oneself, as the singular, and as a witness to and aloof from these five sheaths.
Sri Ramana has advised that Self-enquiry can either be done in the form 'Who am I?' or in the form 'Whence am I?'. 'Who is this I?' may rather be called 'I-attention', 'Self-attention' or 'Self-abidance'. Enquiring 'Whence am I?' is enquiring 'Whence is the ego?', meaning ‘From what?’. When taken in this sense, instead of a place or time coming forth as a reply, Self-existence, 'we', the Thing (vastu), alone is experienced as the reply.
When sought within 'What is the place from which it rises as 'I'?, 'I' (the ego) will die! This is Self-enquiry (jnana-vichara)
– Ramana Maharshi, Upadesha Undiyar, verse 19
He who seeks 'Whence am I?' is following the ego, the form of which is 'I am so-and-so', and while doing so, the adjunct so-and-so, having no real existence, dies on the way, and thus he remains established in the Self, the surviving 'I am'.[3]
On the other hand, he who seeks 'Who am I?' drowns effortlessly in his real natural 'being' (Self), which ever shines as 'I am that I am'. Therefore, what is absolutely necessary is that Self-attention should be pursued till the very end.
Sri Ramana taught that since the individual ‘I’-thought cannot exist without an object, if attention is focused on the subjective feeling of ‘I’ or ‘I am’ with such intensity that the thoughts ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ do not arise, then the individual ‘I’ will be unable to connect with objects. If this awareness of ‘I’ is sustained, the individual ‘I’ (the ‘I’-thought) will disappear and in its place there will be a direct experience of the Self. This constant attention to the inner awareness of ‘I’ or ‘I am’ was called self-enquiry (atma vichara) by Sri Ramana Maharshi and he constantly recommended it as the most efficient and direct way of discovering the unreality of the ‘I’-thought. He taught that the ‘I’-thought only finally disappears when the perception of all objects, both physical and mental, ceases and only Self Awareness exists. This is not brought about by being aware of an ‘I’, but only by BEING the ‘I’. This stage of experiencing the subject rather than being aware of an object is the culminating phase of self-enquiry.
This important distinction distinguishes self-enquiry from most other spiritual practices and it explains why Sri Ramana consistently maintained that most other practices were ineffective. He often pointed out that traditional meditations and yoga practices were predicated on the existence of a subject who meditates on an object and he would usually add that such a relationship sustained the ‘I’-thought instead of eliminating it. In his view such practices may effectively quieten the mind, and they may even produce blissful experiences, but they will never culminate in Self-realisation because the ‘I’-thought is not being isolated and seen to have no real existence. [1]
When one turns within and searches
Whence this `I' thought arises,
The shamed `I' vanishes
And wisdom's quest begins.
Upadesha Saram, v 19, Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi
[edit] From Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Arranging thoughts in the order of value, the `I' thought is the all-important thought. Personality-idea or thought is also the root or the stem of all other thoughts, since each idea or thought arises only as someone's thought and is not known to exist independently of the ego. The ego therefore exhibits thought-activity. The second and the third persons do not appear except to the first person. Therefore they arise only after the first person appears, so all the three persons seem to rise and sink together. Trace, then, the ultimate cause of `I' or personality. The `I' idea arises to an embodied ego and should be related to a body or organism. Has it a location in the body or a special relation to any particular spot, as speech which has its centre in the brain or amativeness in the brain? Similarly, has `I' got any centre in the brain, blood, or viscera? Thought-life is seen to centre round the brain and the spinal-cord which in turn are fed by the blood circulating in them, carrying food and air duly mixed up which are transformed into nerve matter. Thus, vegetative life - including circulation, respiration, alimentation, etc. - or vital force, is said to be (or reside in) the core or essence of the organism. Thus the mind may be regarded as the manifestation of vital force which again may be conceived as residing in the Heart. [2]
[edit] From The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One, by Sri Sadhu Om
Sri Ramana Maharshi named Self-enquiry as ‘Who Am I?’, thus drawing our attention directly to the first person. In this question, 'Who Am I?', 'I am' denotes Self and 'who' stands for the enquiry. It does not mean enquiring into a second or third person object. Also, Self (atman) does not exist as an object to be known by us who seek to know it!
Self-enquiry is unnecessary for the Self, and Self-knowledge is impossible for the ego. The enquiry 'Who Am I?' taught by Sri Ramana should be taken to mean Self-attention (that is, attention merely to the first person, the feeling 'I').
While practising Self-enquiry, instead of taking any one of the five sheaths as the object of our attention, we should fix our attention only on the 'I'-consciousness, which exists and shines as oneself, as the singular, and as a witness to and aloof from these five sheaths.
Sri Ramana has advised that Self-enquiry can either be done in the form 'Who am I?' or in the form 'Whence am I?'. 'Who is this I?' may rather be called 'I-attention', 'Self-attention' or 'Self-abidance'. Enquiring 'Whence am I?' is enquiring 'Whence is the ego?', meaning ‘From what?’. When taken in this sense, instead of a place or time coming forth as a reply, Self-existence, 'we', the Thing (vastu), alone is experienced as the reply.
When sought within 'What is the place from which it rises as 'I'?, 'I' (the ego) will die! This is Self-enquiry (jnana-vichara)
– Ramana Maharshi, Upadesha Undiyar, verse 19
He who seeks 'Whence am I?' is following the ego, the form of which is 'I am so-and-so', and while doing so, the adjunct so-and-so, having no real existence, dies on the way, and thus he remains established in the Self, the surviving 'I am'.[3]
On the other hand, he who seeks 'Who am I?' drowns effortlessly in his real natural 'being' (Self), which ever shines as 'I am that I am'. Therefore, what is absolutely necessary is that Self-attention should be pursued till the very end.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Thinking only when necessary
Thought must exist, for our lives to function. But inwardly, psychologically as thought breeds pain, sorrow and this constant drive for pleasure - bringing its own frustrations, disappointments, anger, jealousy and envy - thought has no place at all in that dimension, at that level. If one could actually do this: only exercise thought when it is absolutely necessary, and the rest of the time, observe, look. So that thought which is always old, which now prevents the actual experience of looking, could drop away and it would be possible to live totally in that moment, which is always the 'now'. - Talks with American Students
Monday, February 7, 2011
At the Root of Conflict
You are multiplying the conflict...
Please observe your own state. Now, how do you observe yourself? Do you observe as a watcher looking at something apart from himself, which means that there is a division, a contradiction between the observer and the observed? Or do you observe without the observer? Please follow this, it is important. When we are looking into the enormously complex process of our own consciousness, whose very essence is conflict, we must understand what we mean by looking, observing. I am sure most of us observe as someone from the outside looking inward. You are aware of your conflicts, and you are watching them as a censor, as a judge, as an observer apart from the observed. That is what most of us do, and that prevents us from understanding this very complex thing called conflict - the enormous weight, the content, the varieties of it. When you observe as an outsider looking in, you actually create conflict, do you not? You are not understanding conflict but only increasing it. Being aware of conflict within himself, the observer says, ''I must change that; I do not like conflict, I like pleasure.'' So the observer always has this attitude of judging, censoring, and when you so observe, you are not understanding conflict; on the contrary, you are multiplying it. Have I made myself clear on that point? - Talks by Krishnamurti in Saanen, 1963
The conflict of the opposites
Being caught in the process of becoming, of acquisition, and realizing its strife and pain, the desire to get out of it gives birth to the conflict of duality. Gain always engenders fear, and fear gives birth to the conflict of opposites - the overcoming of what is and transforming it into that which is desired. Does not an opposite contain the germ of its own opposite? Is virtue the opposite of vice? If it is, then it ceases to be virtue. If virtue is the opposite of vice, then virtue is the outcome of vice. Beauty is not the denial of the ugly. Virtue has no opposite. Greed can never become nongreed, any more than ignorance can become enlightenment. If enlightenment is the opposite of ignorance, then it is no longer enlightenment. Greed is still greed when it tries to become nongreed, for the becoming itself is greed. The conflict of the opposites is not the conflict of dissimilars, but of changing and opposing desires. Conflict exists only when what is is not understood. If we can understand what is, then there is no conflict of its opposite. What is can be understood only through choiceless awareness in which there is neither condemnation, justification, nor identification. - Eighth Talk in Madras, 1947
Please observe your own state. Now, how do you observe yourself? Do you observe as a watcher looking at something apart from himself, which means that there is a division, a contradiction between the observer and the observed? Or do you observe without the observer? Please follow this, it is important. When we are looking into the enormously complex process of our own consciousness, whose very essence is conflict, we must understand what we mean by looking, observing. I am sure most of us observe as someone from the outside looking inward. You are aware of your conflicts, and you are watching them as a censor, as a judge, as an observer apart from the observed. That is what most of us do, and that prevents us from understanding this very complex thing called conflict - the enormous weight, the content, the varieties of it. When you observe as an outsider looking in, you actually create conflict, do you not? You are not understanding conflict but only increasing it. Being aware of conflict within himself, the observer says, ''I must change that; I do not like conflict, I like pleasure.'' So the observer always has this attitude of judging, censoring, and when you so observe, you are not understanding conflict; on the contrary, you are multiplying it. Have I made myself clear on that point? - Talks by Krishnamurti in Saanen, 1963
The conflict of the opposites
Being caught in the process of becoming, of acquisition, and realizing its strife and pain, the desire to get out of it gives birth to the conflict of duality. Gain always engenders fear, and fear gives birth to the conflict of opposites - the overcoming of what is and transforming it into that which is desired. Does not an opposite contain the germ of its own opposite? Is virtue the opposite of vice? If it is, then it ceases to be virtue. If virtue is the opposite of vice, then virtue is the outcome of vice. Beauty is not the denial of the ugly. Virtue has no opposite. Greed can never become nongreed, any more than ignorance can become enlightenment. If enlightenment is the opposite of ignorance, then it is no longer enlightenment. Greed is still greed when it tries to become nongreed, for the becoming itself is greed. The conflict of the opposites is not the conflict of dissimilars, but of changing and opposing desires. Conflict exists only when what is is not understood. If we can understand what is, then there is no conflict of its opposite. What is can be understood only through choiceless awareness in which there is neither condemnation, justification, nor identification. - Eighth Talk in Madras, 1947
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