Jiddu
Krishnamurti on "Stillness
of the Mind"
Question:
Why do you speak of the stillness of the mind, and what is
this stillness?
Jiddu krishnamurti :
Is it not necessary, if we would understand
anything, that the mind should be still? If we have a
problem, we worry over it, don't we? We go into it, we
analyse it, we tear it to pieces, in the hope of
understanding it. Now, do we understand through effort,
through analysis, through comparison, through any form of
mental struggle? Surely, understanding comes only when the
mind is very quiet. We say that the more we struggle with
the question of starvation, of war, or any other human
problem, the more we come into conflict with it, the better
we shall understand it.
Now, is that true? Wars have been going on for centuries, the conflict
between individuals, between societies; war, inward and
outward, is constantly there. Do we resolve that war, that
conflict, by further conflict, by further struggle, by
cunning endeavour? Or do we understand the problem only when
we are directly in front of it, when we are faced with the
fact? We can face the fact only when there is no interfering
agitation between the mind and the fact, so is it not
important, if we are to understand, that the mind be quiet?
Jiddu Krishnamurti
You will
inevitably ask, "How can the mind be made still?" That is
the immediate response, is it not? You say, "My mind is
agitated and how can I keep it quiet?" Can any system make
the mind quiet? Can a formula, a discipline, make the mind
still? It can; but when the mind is made still, is that
quietness, is that stillness? Or is the mind only enclosed
within an idea, within a formula, within a phrase? Such a
mind is a dead mind, is it not? That is why most people who
try to be spiritual, so-called spiritual, are dead - because
they have trained their minds to be quiet, they have
enclosed themselves within a formula for being quiet.
Obviously, such a mind is never quiet; it is only
suppressed, held down.
The mind is quiet when it sees the truth that
understanding comes only when it is quiet; that if I would
understand you, I must be quiet, I cannot have reactions
against you, I must not be prejudiced, I must put away all
my conclusions, my experiences and meet you face to face.
Only then, when the mind is free from my conditioning, do I
understand. When I see the truth of that, then the mind is
quiet - and then there is no question of how to make the
mind quiet.
Only the truth can liberate the mind from its own ideation;
to see the truth, the mind must realize the fact that so
long as it is agitated it can have no understanding.
Quietness of mind, tranquillity of mind, is not a thing to
be produced by will-power, by any action of desire; if it
is, then such a mind is enclosed, isolated, it is a dead
mind and therefore incapable of adaptability, of pliability,
of swiftness. Such a mind is not creative.
Our question, then, is not how to make the mind still
but to see the truth of every problem as it presents itself
to us. It is like the pool that becomes quiet when the wind
stops. Our mind is agitated because we have problems; and to
avoid the problems, we make the mind still. Now the mind has
projected these problems and there are no problems apart
from the mind; and so long as the mind projects any
conception of sensitivity, practises any form of stillness,
it can never be still. When the mind realizes that only by
being still is there understanding - then it becomes very
quiet. That quietness is not imposed, not disciplined, it is
a quietness that cannot be understood by an agitated mind.
Many who seek quietness of mind withdraw from active
life to a village, to a monastery, to the mountains, or they
withdraw into ideas, enclose themselves in a belief or avoid
people who give them trouble. Such isolation is not
stillness of mind. The enclosure of the mind in an idea or
the avoidance of people who make life complicated does not
bring about stillness of mind. Stillness of mind comes only
when here is no process of isolation through accumulation
but complete understanding of the whole process of
relationship.
Accumulation makes the mind old; only when the mind is new,
when the mind is fresh, without the process of accumulation
- only then is there a possibility of having tranquillity of
mind. Such a mind is not dead, it is most active. The still
mind is the most active mind but if you will experiment with
it, go into it deeply, you will see that in stillness there
is no projection of thought. Thought, at all levels, is
obviously the reaction of memory and thought can never be in
a state of creation.
It may express creativeness but thought in itself can never
be creative. When there is silence, that tranquillity of
mind which is not a result, then we shall see that in that
quietness there is extraordinary activity, an extraordinary
action which a mind agitated by thought can never know.
In that stillness, there is no formulation, there is no
idea, there is no memory; that stillness is a state of
creation that can be experienced only when there is complete
understanding of the whole process of the `me'. Otherwise,
stillness has no meaning. Only in that stillness, which is
not a result, is the eternal discovered, which is beyond
time.