Jiddu Krishnamurti on Right Meditation
Jiddu krishnamurti :
He had Practised number of years what he called meditation; he had
followed certain disciplines after reading many books on the subject,
and had been to a monastery of some kind where they meditated several
hours a day. He was not sentimental about it, nor was he blurred by the
tears of self-sacrifice. He said that, though after these many years his
mind was under control, it still sometimes got out of control; that
there was no joy in his meditation; and that the self-imposed
disciplines were making him rather hard and arid.
Somehow he was very dissatisfied with the whole thing. He had belonged
to several so-called religious societies, but now he had finished with
them all and was seeking independently the God they all promised. He was
getting on in years and was beginning to feel rather weary.
Jiddu
Krishnamurti
Right meditation is essential for the purgation of the mind,
for without the emptying of the mind there can be no renewal. Mere
continuity is decay. The mind withers away by constant repetition, by
the friction of wrong usage, by sensations which make it dull and weary.
The control of the mind is not important; what is important is to find
out the interests of the mind.
The mind is a bundle of conflicting interests, and merely to strengthen
one interest against another is what we call concentration, the process
of discipline. Discipline is the cultivation of resistance, and where
there is resistance there is no understanding. A well-disciplined mind
is not a free mind, and it is only in freedom that any discovery can be
made. There must be spontaneity to uncover the movements of the self, at
whatever level it may be placed.
Though there may be unpleasant discoveries, the movements of the self
must be exposed and understood; but disciplines destroy the spontaneity
in which discoveries are made. Disciplines, however exacting, fix the
mind in a pattern. The mind will adjust itself to that for which it has
been trained; but that to which it adjusts itself is not the real.
Disciplines are mere impositions and so can never be the means of
denudation.
Through self-discipline the mind can strengthen itself in its purpose;
but this purpose is self-projected and so it is not the real. The mind
creates reality in its own image, and disciplines merely give vitality
to that image.
Only in discovery can there be joy - the discovery from moment to
moment of the ways of the self. The self, at whatever level it is
placed, is still of the mind. Whatever the mind can think about is of
the mind.
The mind cannot think about something which is not of itself; it cannot
think of the unknown. The self at any level is the known; and though
there may be layers of the self of which the superficial mind is not
aware, they are revealed in the action of relationship; and when
relationship is not confined within a pattern, it gives an opportunity
for self-revelation. Relationship is the action of the self, and to
understand this action there must be awareness without choice; for to
choose is to emphasize one interest against another.
This awareness is the experiencing of the action of the self, and in
this experiencing there is neither the experiencer nor the experienced.
Thus the mind is emptied of its accumulations; there is no longer the
"me," the gatherer. The accumulations, the stored-up memories are the
"me; the "me" is not an entity apart from the accumulations. The "me"
separates itself from its characteristics as the observer, the watcher,
the controller, in order to safe- guard itself, to give itself
continuity amidst impermanency.
The experiencing of the integral, unitary process frees the mind from
its dualism. Thus the total process of the mind, the open as well as the
hidden, is experienced and understood - not piece by piece, activity by
activity, but in its entirety. Then dreams and everyday activities are
ever an emptying process. The mind must be utterly empty to receive; but
the craving to be empty in order to receive is a deep-seated impediment,
and this also must be understood completely, not at any particular
level. The craving to experience must wholly cease, which happens only
when the experiencer is not nourishing himself on experiences and their
memories.
The purgation of the mind must take place not only on its upper
levels, but also in its hidden depths; and this can happen only when the
naming or terming process comes to an end. Naming only strengthens and
gives continuity to the experiencer, to the desire for permanency, to
the characteristic of particularizing memory. There must be silent
awareness of naming, and so the understanding of it. We name not only to
communicate, but also to give continuity and substance to an experience,
to revive it and to repeat its sensations.
This naming process must cease, not only on the superficial levels of
the mind, but throughout its entire structure. This is an arduous task,
not to be easily understood or lightly experienced; for our whole
consciousness is a process of naming or terming experience, and then
storing or recording it. It is this process that gives nourishment and
strength to the illusory entity, the experiencer as distinct and
separate from the experience. Without thoughts there is no thinker.
Thoughts create the thinker, who isolates himself to give himself
permanency; for thoughts are always impermanent.
There is freedom when the entire being, the superficial as well as
the hidden, is purged of the past. Will is desire; and if there is any
action of the will, any effort to be free, to denude oneself, then there
can never be freedom, the total purgation of the whole being. When all
the many layers of consciousness are quiet, utterly still, only then is
there the immeasurable, the bliss that is not of time, the renewal of
creation.