영어원문 "In The Light Of Silence, All Problems are Dissolved"

[보따리]

"In the light of silence, all problems are dissolved"

(Excerpts from J. Krishnamurti's talks and writings)




Contents

I In the light of silence, all problem are dissolved 2

II The very noise of the self prevents its own dissolution 10

III Self-knowledge comes with the slowing down of the mind 15

IV That silence has its own... operation on society 19

V Is it possible to function in this world, with this cnormous sense of silence? 23

VI Can you look at your own sorrow with complete silence? 29

VII You will know love when the mind is very still 37

VIII Silence, the movement of silence is the only field in which there is a change 41

IX Don't practice silence 46

X You must come to that state of silence, otherwise you are really not a religious person 51

XI To find out what meditation is... one has to have a very guiet mind 55

XII Don't make stillness another problem 59

XIII We know stillness only as a reation within the activity of the "me" 63

XIV Silence that has continuity is not silence 67











page 2 start



I


In
the light of silence,
all problems
are dissolved








page 3 start


Thought cannot solve any human problem, for thought itself is the problem.
(Commentaries on Living)


In the light of silence, all problems are dissolved. This light is not born of the
ancient movment of thought. it is not born, either, out of self-revealing
knowledge. It is not lit by time nor by any action of will. It comes about in
meditation. Meditation is not a private affair; it is not a personal search for
pleasure; pleasure is always separative and dividing. In meditation the diviing
line between you and me disappears; in it light of silence destroys the
knowledge of the "me". The "me" can be studied indefinitely, for it varies from
day to day, but its reach limited, however extensive it is thought to be.
Silence is freedom, and freedom comes with the finality of complete order.
(The Only Revolution)





page 4 start


How anxious we are to find an answer to our problems! We are so eager to find
an answer that we cannot study the problem. it prevents our silent observation
of the problem. The problem is the important thing. and not the answer. If we
look for an answer, we will find it; but the problem will persist, for the answer is
irrelevant to the problem. Our search is for an escape from the problem, and the
solution is a superficial remedy, so there is no understanding of the problem. All
our problems arise from one source. and without understanding the source, any
attempt to solve the problems will only lead to further confusion and misery. One
must first be very clear that one's intention to understand the problem is serious,
that one sees the necessity of being free of all problems; for only then can the
maker of problems be approached. Without freedom from problem, there can be
no tranquillity; and tranquillity is essential for happniness, which is not an end in
itself. As the pool is still when the breezes stop, so the mind still with the
cessation of problems. But the mind cantnot be made still; if it is, it is dead, it is a
stagnant pool. When this is clear, then the maker of problems can be observed.
The observation must be silent and not according to any predetermined plan based
on pleasure and pain.

"But you are asking the impossible! Our education trains the mind to
distinguish, to compare, to judge, to choose, and it is very difficult not to
condemn or justify what is observed. How can one be free of this conditioning and
observe silently?"

If you see that silent observation, passive awareness is essntial for
understanding, then the truth of your perception liberates you from the
background. It is only when you do not see the immediate necessity of passive
and yet alert awareness that the "how", the search for a means to dissolve the
background, arises. It is truth that liberates, not the means or the system. The
truth that silent observation alone brings understanding. must be seen; then only
are you free from condemnation and justificstion. When you see danger, you do
not ask how you are to keep away from it. It is because you do not see the
necessity of being passively aware that you ask "how". Why do you not see the
necessity of it?

"I want to, but I have never thought along these lines before. All I can say is
that I want to get rid of my problems, because they are a real torture to me. I want
to be happy, like any other person."

Consciously or unconsciously we refuse to see the essentiality of being passively
aware because we do not really want to let go of our problems; for what would we
be without them? We would rather cling to something we know, however painful,
than risk the pursuit of something that may lead who knows where. With the



page 5 start


problems, at least, we are familiar, but the thought of pursuing the maker of
them, not knowing where it may lead, creates in us fear and dullness. The mind
would be iost without the worry of problems; it feeds on problems, whether they
are world or kitchen problems, political or personal, religious or ideological; so
our problems make us petty and narrow. A mind that is consumed with world
problems is as petty as the mind that worries about the spiritual progress it is
making. Problems burden the mind with fear, for problems give strength to the
self, to the "me" and the "mine". Without problems, without achievements and
failures, the self is not.
(Commentaries on living)



All our culture, all our training, tells us that the mind must be occupied; and
yet it seems to me the very occupation creates the problem. Not that there are
no problems-there are problems; but I think it is the occupation with the problem
which prevents the understaind of it. It is really very interesting to watch the
mind, to watch one's own mind, and discover how incessantiy it is occupied with
somthing or other-there is never a moment when it is quiet, unoccupied, empty,
never a space which has no limit.

Being so occupied, our problems ever increase; and the more solution of one
particular problem, without understanding the whole process of the occupation
of the mind, merely creates other problems. So can we not understand this
peculiar insistence of the mind, on its part, to be occupied-whether with ideas,
with speculations, with knowledge, with delusions, with study, or with its own
virtue and its own fears? To be free of all that, to have an unoccupied mimd, is
quite arduous, because it means, really, the cessation of all this reaction of
memory, which is called thinking.
(London: 1955)


That is, if I have a particular compulsion, can I look at that compulsion without
being occupied with it? Please, you watch your own peculiar compulsion of
irritabiity, or whatever it be. Can you look at it without the mind being occupied
with it? Occupation implies the effort to resolve that compulsion, does it not?





page 6 start



You are condemning it, comparing it with something else, trying to alter it,
overcome it. In other words, trying to do something about your compulsion, is
occupation, is it not? But can you look at the fact that you have a particular
compulsion, an urge, a desire, look at it without comparing, without judging,
and hence not set going the whole process of occupation?


Psychologically it is very interesting to observe this, how the mind is incapable
of looking at a fact like envy without bringing in the vast complex of opinions,
judgements, eval‎uations with which the mind is occupied; so we never resolve the
fact, but multiply the problems. I hope I am making myself clear. And I think it is
important for us to understand this process of occupation, because there is a
much deeper factor behind it, which is the fear of not being occupied.Whether a
mind is occupied with God, with truth, with sex, or with drink, its quality is
essentially the same. The man who thinks about God and becomes a hermit may
be socially more significant, he may have a greater value to society than the
discover what is truth.

If each one of us can really attend to one thing, give our full attention to
the whole process of the mind's occupation with any problem withouttrying to
free the mind from occupation, which is merely another way ccupied-if
we can understand this process completely, totally, then I think the problem itself
will become irrelevant. When the mind is free from occupation with the problem,
free to observe, to be aware of the whole issue, then the problem itself can be
solved comparatively easily.
(Ojai: 1955)


I don't know if you have ever noticed what sometimes happens when you have a
problem, either mathematical or psychological. You think about it a great deal,
you worry over it like a dog chewing on a bone, but you can't find an answer.
Then you let it alone, you go away from it, you take a walk; and suddenly, out of
that emptiness, comes the answer. This must have happened to many of us. Now,
how does this take place? Your mind has been very active within its own
limitations about that problem, but you have not found the answer, so you have
put the problem aside. Then your mind becomes somewhat quiet,somewhat still,
empty: and in that stillness, that emptiness, the problem is resolved.
(Saanen:1965)




page 7 start



Because the answer is in the problem, not away from the problem. I go through
the searching, analysing, dissecting process, in order to escape from the
problem. But, if I do not escape from the the problem and try to look at the problem
without any fear or anxiety, if I merely look at the problem, mathematical,
political, religious, or any other, and not look to an answer, then the problem will
begin to tell me. Surely, this is what happens. We go through this process, and
eventually throw it aside because there is no way out of it. So, why can't we start
right from the beginning, that is, not seek an answer to a problem?-which is
extremely arduous, isn't it? Because, the more I understand the problem, the
more significance there is in it. To understand it, I must approach it quietly, not
impose on the problem my ideas, my feelings of like and dislike. Then the problem
will reveal its significance.


Why is it not possible to have tranquillty of the mind right from the beginning?
And there will be tranquillity only when I am not seeking an answer, when I am
not afraid of the problem.
(Ojai:1949)


You can understand a problem only when you don't condemn it, when you don't
justify it, when you are capable of looking at it silently, and that is not possible
when you are seeking a result. A problem exists only in the search for a result;
and the problem ceases if there is no search for a result.
(Bombay: 1948)


The function of the mind is to probe and to comprehend. Without this probing
into ourselves. without this deep awareness, there can be no understanding.
We often indulge in the stupidity of criticizing others but few are capable of
probing deeply into themselves. The function of the mind is not only to probe, to
delve, but also to be silent. In silence there is comprehension. We are ever probing,
but we are rarely silent; in us rarely are there alert, passive intervals of
tranquillity; we probe and are soon weary of it without the creative silence.




page 8 start



But self-probing is as essential for the clarity of understanding as is stillness. As
the earth is allowed to lie fallow during the winter so must thought be still after
deep searching. this very fallowness is its renewal. If we delve deeply into
ourselves and are still, then in this stillness, in this openness, there is
understanding.



Questioner: This complexity is so deep that one does not seem to have an
opportunity for quietioness.


Krishnamuri: Must there be an opportunity to be still, to be quiet? Must you
create the occasion, the right environment to peaceful? Is it then peace? With
right probing there comes right stillness. When do you look into yourself? when
the problem demands it, when it is urgent, surely. But if you are seeking an
opportunity to be silent, then you are not aware. Self-probing comes with conflict
and sorrow, and there must be passive receptivity to understand. Surely
self-probing, stillness and understanding are, in awareness, a single process and
not three separate states.



Questioner : Would you enlarge that point?

Krishnamurti : Let us take envy. Any resolution not to be envious is neither
simple nor effective, it is even stupid. To determine not to envious is to build
walls of conclusions around oneself and these walls prevent understanding. But
if you are aware, you will discover the ways of envy; if there is interested alertness
you will find its ramifications at different levels of the self. Each probing brings
with it silence and understanding. as one cannot continuously probe deeply,
which would only result in exhaustion, there must be spaces of alert inactivity.
This watchful stillness is not the outcome of weariness; with self-probing there
comes easily and naturally moments of passive alertness. The more complex the
problem the more intense is the probing and the silence. There need be no
specially created occasion or opportunity for silence; the very perceptoin of the
complexity of a problem brings with it, deep silence.
(Ojai: 1946)





The mind will always create problems. But what is essential is that, when we
make mistakes, when we are in pain, to meet these mistakes, these pains,
without judgement, to look at them without condemnation, to live with them and



page 9 start



to let them go by. And that can only happen when mind is in the state of
non-condemnation, without any formula; which means, when the mind is
essentially quiet, when the mind is fundamentally still; then only is there the
comprehension of the problem.
(Bombay: 1953)


To learn is to approach any problem quietly, silently. It is only a silent mind, a
quiet mind, the mind that is moving with the fact, that learns.


I can look at a flower, a cloud or a bird on the wing, without a centre, without a
word, the word which creates thought. Can I look without the word at every
problem-the problem of fear, the problem of pleasure? Because the word creates,
breeds thought; and thought is memory, experience, pleasure, and therefore a
distorting factor.


This is really quite astonishingly simple. Because it is simple, we mistrust it. We
want everything to be very complicated, very cunning; and all cunning is covered
with a perfume of words. If I can look at a flower non-verbally-and I can; anyone
can do it, if one gives sufficient attention-can't I look with that same objective,
non-verbal attention at the problems which I have? Can't I look out of silence,
which is non-verbal, without the thinking machinery of pleasure and time in
operation? Can't I just look? I think that's the crux of the whole matter, not to
approach from the periphery, which only complicates life tremendously, but to
look at life, with all its complex problems of livelihood, sex, death, misery, sorrow,
the agony of being tremendously alone-to look at all that without association,
out of silence.
(London: Discussions 1965)




















page 10 star



II


The very noise

of the self

prevents

its own dissolution




page 11 start



You are merely a thought, are you not? You are the thought of a name, the
thought of a position, the thought of money; you are merely an idea. Remove
the idea, remove the thought, and where are you? So. you are embodiment of
thought as the "me".
(Bangalore: 1948)




And I also see that the "me" must entirely cease if there is to be peace in the world
and in myself. The "me" as a person, as an entity, as a psychological process
of accumulation, the "me" that is always struggling to become something, the
"me" that is assertive, dogmatic, aggressive, the "me" that is kind, loving-that is
the centre from which arise all conflicts, all compulsion, all conformity, all desire
for success, and it is only in bringing it to an end that there is a possibility of
peace within myself and outwardly. When I realize this, what am I to do? How am
I to put an end to "me"?


Now, if this is a serious problem to each one of us, what is our response to it?
We can see that any movement of the self in order to become better, nobler, any
movement of suppression, any desire for success, must come to an end. That is,
the mind, which is the centre of the "me" has to become very quiet, has it not?




Sir, the "me" cannot give itself up. All that it can do is to be quiet; and it cannot
be quiet without understanding the whole structure and the meaning of the
"me". Either that structure and the meaning can be understood totally.
immediately, or not at all; and that's the only way; there is no other way. If you
say, "I will practise; I will gradually work at it till the 'me' dies", then you have
fallen into a different kind of trap, which is same "me".
(Ojai: 1966)





page 12 start



The very noise of the self prevents its own dissolution. We consuit, analyse,
pray, exchange exchange explantions; this incessant activity and noise of the self
hinders the bliss of the Real. Noise can produce only more noise and in it there is
no understanding.
(Ojai: 1945)




Questioner: You say the mind must be quiet; but it is always busy, night and
day. How can I change it?


Krishnamurti: I wonder if we are actually aware that our minds are busy night
and day? Or is this merely a verbal statement? Are you fully conscious that your
mind is ceaselessly active, or are you merely repeating a statement you have
heard? And even if you know it directly for yourself, why do you wish to change
it? Is it because someone has said you must have a quiet mind? If you want a quiet
mind in order to achieve something more, or to get somewhere else, then the
acquisition of a quiet mind is just another from of self-centred action. So, does
one see, without any motivation, that it is essential to have a quiet mind? If so,
then the problem is, can thought come to an end?



We know that when we are awake during the day, the mind is active with
superficial things-with the job, the family, catching a train, and all the rest of it.
And at night, in sleep, it is also active in dreams. So the process of thinking is
going on ceaselessly. Now, can thought come to an end voluntarily, naturally,
without being compelled through discipline? For only then can the mind be
completely still. A mind that is made still, that is forced, disciplined to be still, is
not a still mind; it is a dead mind.


So, can thought, which is incessantly active, come to an end? And if thouht
does come an end, will this not be a complete death to the mind? Are we not
therefore afraid of thought coming to an end? If thought should come to an end,
what would happen? The whole structure which we have built up of "myself"
being important, my family, my country, my position, power, prestige-the whole
of that would cease, obviously. So, do we really want to have quiet mind?...
(Hamburg: 1956)




page 13 start


A mind which has many hidden drawers, hidden cupboards with innumerable
skeletons held down by will. by denial, by suppression, how can such a mind
be still? It can be driven,willed to be still; but is that stillness? A man who is
hanging on to passion, who is lustful and has suppressed it, held it down, how
can such a man have a calm, still, rich, mind? A man who is tortured by ambition
and therefore frustrated, and who tries to fly from that frustration through every
means of escape, how can such a man have a still mind? It is only when ambition
is understood, when the problems of ambition, with its frustrations, with its.
conflicts, with its ruthlessness, have been understood, that the mind becomes
quiet. By looking into oneself deeply, opening all the cupboards, all the drawers.
unearthing all the skeletons and understanding them, the mind becomes quiet.
You cannot have stillness of mind with locked doors.


So what is important is to understand why the mind is disturbed. What is this
disturbance? Basically, fundamentally, does it not come about when there is
this constant urge to be something, the desire for a result, the desire for
self-improvement, the desire to achieve a certain noble action? As long as one is
competitive, ambitious, there must be disturbance, there must be conflict. Without
beginning near, we want to go far, but we can go far only when we begin very
near. And beginning near is freedom from ambition, from wanting to be
something, from the desire to be successful, to be recognized, to be famous-a dozen
things which are all indications of the self, the "me", the ego.


As long as the ego exists, there must be disturbance; and if the ego seeks peace,
its peace is the result, the opposite of a disturbance, therefore it is not peace at all.
If one realize this, if one does not merely hear it but actually experiences it, then
peace will come. But that requirse a great deal of awareness, an awareness in
which there is no choice; because if you choose, then you are back again in the
process of acquiring, attaining.


What is important, surely, is not to search for peace, not to pursue swamis,
yogis, teachers in Oriental from, but to find out for ourselves how our minds are
working, how ambitious we are. You may not be personally ambitious, but you
may be ambitious for a group, for the nation, for the party you belong to, or for
an idea; or you may worship God, as you call it. Having failed in this world, you
want to succeed in another world. So, as long as any movement of the self exists,
there must be disturbance, there can be peace.
(New York City: 1954)





page 14 start




You know by formulation what peace should be, and you have laid down a path
which you follow towards it. Surely, that peace is a projection of your own
desire, is it not? Therefore it no longer peace. It is what you want, a thing
opposite to that which you are. I am in a state of conflict, of misery, of
contradiction, I am unhappy, violent; and I want a refuge, a state in which I shall
not be disturbed. So I go to various teachers, guides, I read books, practise
disciplines which promise what I want; I suppress, control, conform in order to
gain peace. And is that peace? Surely, peace is not a thing to be sought after; it
comes. It is a by-product, not an in itself.
(Ojai: 1952)



This silence demands a great understanding of life, not your escaping from
life. It demands a tremendous sensitivity of your whole being, of your heart,
your mind, your body. Therefore the way you live matters immensely-what you
eat, everything becomes immensely important. As long as one is a slave to society,
as long as one is greedy, envious, ambitious, pursuing pleasure, prestige, seeking
status through function-as long as one is not free of all that, there can be no
renewal, no freshness, no rejuvenation, no silence, no freedom.
(Saanen: 1965)



















page 15 start




III


Self-knowledge

comes

with the slowing down

of the mind




page 16 start



The moment you want to be free from the ego, that very desire is also part of
the ego; so you have a constant battle in the ego over two desirable things,
between the part that wants and the part that does not.


As one becomes aware at the conscious level, one also begins to discover the
envy, the struggles, the desires, the motives, the anxietes that lie at the deeper
levels of consciousness. When the mind is intent on discovering the whole process
of itself, then every incident, every reaction becomes a means of discovery, of
knowing oneself. That requires patient watchfulness-which is not the
watchfulness of a mind that is constantly struggling, that is learning how to the
watchful. Then you will see that the sleeping hours are as important as the
waking hours, because life then is a total process. As long as you do not know
yourself, fear will continue and all the illusions that self creates will flourish.


Self-knowledge, then, is not a process to be read about or speculated upon; it
must be discovered by each one from moment to moment, so that mind
becomes extraordinarily alert. In that alertness there is certain quiescence.
(Ojai: 1953)



The mind is like a machine that is working night and day, chattering,
everlastingly busy whether asleep or awake. It is speedy and as restless as the
sea. Another part of this intricate and complex mechanism tries to control the
whole movement, and so begins the conflict between opposing desires, urges.One
may be called the higher self and the other the lower self, but both are within the
area of the mind. The action and reaction of the mind, of thought, are almost
simultaneous and almost automatic. This whole conscious and unconscious
process of accepting and denying, conforming and striving to be free, is
extremely rapid. So the question is not how to control this complex mechanism,
for. control brings friction and only dissipates energy, but can this very swift
mind slow down?


"But how?"

If it may be pointed out, sir, the issue is not the "how". The "how" merely
produces a result, an end without much significance; and after it is gained,
another search for another desirable end will begin, with its misery and conflict.




page 17 start




"Then what is one to do?"

You are not asking the right questoin, are you? You are not dicovering for
yourself the truth or falseness of the slowing down of the mind, but you are
concerned with getting a result. Getting a result is comparatively easy, isn't it? Is
it possible for the mind to slow down without putting on brakes?


"What do you mean by slowing down?"
속도가 떨어진다는 것이 무슨 뜻인가요?

"When you are going very fast in a car, the nearby landscape is a blur; it is only
at a walking speed that you can observe in detail the tree, the birds and the
flowers. Self-knowledge comes with the slowing down of the mind, but that
doesn't mean forcing the mind to be slow.
(Commentaries on Living: Second Series)

당신이 차로 빠르게 지나갈 때 바로 가까이 풍경들은 흐려요; 오직 걷는 속도로만 당신은 나무, 새들, 꽃들을 자세히 알아챌 수 있어요. 마음의 속도가 떨어질 때 스스로 앎이 찾아 와요, 그러나 억지로 마음을 늦추는 것을 의미하는 게 아니예요.
(삶의 주석: 두번째 이야기)


When a machine is revolving very fast, as a fan with several blades, the separate
parts are not visible but appear as one. So the self, the "me". seems to be a
unified entity but if its activities can be slowed down then we shall perceive that it
is not a unified entity but made up many separate and contending desires and
pursuits. These separate wants and hopes, fears and joys make up the self. The
self is a term to cover craving in its different forms. To understand the self there
must be an awareness of craving in its multiple aspects. The passive awareness,
the choiceless discernment reveals the ways of the self, bringing freedom from
bondage. Thus, when the mind is tranquil and free of its own activity and chatter,
there is supreme wisdom.
(Ojai: 1946)



To understand, mind must delve deeply and yet it must know when to be alertly
passive. It would be foolish and unbalanced to keep on digging without the
recuperative and healing power of passivity. We search, analyse, look into
ourselves, but it is a process of conflict and pain; there is no joy in it for we are
judging, or justifying, or comparing. There are no moments of silent awareness,


page 18 start


of choiceless passivity. It is choiceless awareness, this creative passivity that
is even more essential than self-observation and investigation. As the fields are
cultivated. sown, harvested and allowed to lie fallow, so must we live the four
seasons in a day. If you cultivate, sow and harvest without giving rest to the soil
it would soon become unproductive. The period of fallowness is as essential as
tilling; when the earth lies fallow, the winds, the rains, the sunshine bring to it
creative productivity and it renews itself. So must the mind-heart be silent, alerly
passive after travail, to renew itself.
(Ojai: 1945)



You know, the word "understanding" is so misused. We say we understand
intellectually-which is sheer nonsense. You don't understand anything
intellectually. What you mean when you say "I understand intellectually" is "I
understand the words that you are using and I understand the meaning of those
words, but not the content of the whole thing". You can only understand
something totally when you are listening to it silently and completely. You
understand? This happens to all of us. You understand something completely
when you are quiet. Out of silence there is understanding, not out of your
chattering.
(New Delhi: 1966)
당신이 알고 있는 '이해한다'는 말은 아주 잘못 쓰였어요.우리가 말하는 지적인 이해는 완전히 무의미한 것이예요. 당신은 그 어떤것도 지적으로 이해할 수 없어요.
당신이 말하는 "나는 지적으로 이해했다"는 것은 "나는 그말이 다른말들의 의미로 당신이 사용했다는 것을 이해하지만 모든것의 내용을 이해한 것은 아니다" 예요.
당신은 오직 고요히, 완전히 들을 수 있을때 어떤 모든 것을 이해할 수 있어요.
이해하시겠어요? 이것은 우리 모두에게 일어나요. 당신이 평온할 때 어떤 것을 이해할 수 있어요.
고요의 밖에 이해가 있어요. 당신의 특권 밖이 아니예요.




page 19 start




IV



That silence has

its own... operation

on society






page 20 start




Therefore, the understanding of thought. and how to bring thought to an end,
is important. This ending of thought is not a process of living in an
ivory-tower of abstraction; on the contrary, the ending of thought is the highest
form of understanding.
(Paris : 1950)




The world is splintered into many fragments, each in contention with the other;
it is torn apart by antagonism, greed and passion; it is broken up by
warring ideologies, beliefs and fears; neither organised religion nor politics can
bring peace to man. Man is against man and the many explanations of his sorrow
do not take away his pain. We have tried to escape from ourselves in many
cunning ways but an escape only dulls and hardens the mind and heart. The outer
world is but an expression‎ of our own inner state; as we inwardly broken up
and torn by burning desires, so is the world about us; as there is incessant turmoil
within us so is there endless conflict in the world; as there is no inward
traquillity the world has become a battlefield. What we are. the world is.
(Ojai: 1945)




We want to create a world of peace with all the elements that are destructive.
Therefore you never have peace. It is only the mind that has understood
itself, which is quiet, which does not demand, which is not seeking success, which
is not trying to become or to be somebody-it is only such a mind that can create a
world in which there is peace.
(Amsterdam: 1955)





page 21 start





So thought can never produce a happy world. Thought can produce more
confusion, more misery, because our thought is always conditioned...


So our problem is not how to re-distribute land or to sacrifice or to give up
something, but how to think, how to bring about the silence of the mind so that a
new state can come into being. This revolution is possible only when thought has
come to an end.
(Bombay: 1953)



That silence has its own activity, its own operation on society, and will
produce an ation irrespective of the particular social pattern. But the mind
that is merely caught up in social reform, in bringing about equality through
legislation, and all the rest of it, will never know this other action which operates
on the totality. That is why it is very imporant to understand yourself. Out of
that understanding, which is total self-knowledge, there is real abandonment,
and only then is there this extraordinary sense of silence.
(Bombay: 1957)




One must see the importance of quieting the brain, which implies being free of
the psychological structure of society. The psychological structure of society
is still animalistic; it makes the brain ambitious, greedy, envious, jealous,
attached, and such a brain does not know love. You may hug a man or a woman,
you may marry, you may hold the hand of a friend, or do what you will, but there
is no love as long as the brain is still part of the animalistic past, which is the
psychological structure of society.
(Saanen: 1962)




page 22 start



Surely, the only true revolution is the freeing of the mind from its own
conditioning and therefore from society-not the mere reformation of society.
The man who reforms society is still caught in society; but the man who is free of
society, being free from conditionning he will act in his own way which will act
again upon society. So our problem is not reformation. how to improve society,
how to have a better Welfare State, whether communist or socialist or what you
will. It is not an ecconomic or political revolution, or peace throught terror. For a
serious man these are not problems. His real problom is to find out whather the
mind can be totally free from all conditioning, and thereby perhaps discover in
that extraordinary silence. that which is beyond all measurement.
(London: 1955)
















page 23 start



V


Is it possible

to function

in this world,

with

this enormous sense

of silence?








page 24 start




To discover anything you must look; and to look, your look must be silent. Sir,
if you look at your husband, your wife, or child, if you have any ideas about
that child, or about the image of your wife or your husband, than you are not
silently looking; your mind is cluttered up with all these things, and therefore
you cannot look. So, to look, your mind must be silent, and the very urgency of
looking makes the mind silent. Not that you first have a silent mind and then
look; but rather the very necessity of looking at the world's problem and therefore
at your problem, that very urgency of looking makes the quiet, silent.
(New Delhi: 1966)






I wonder if you have ever walked along a crowded street, or a lonely road, and
just looked at things without thought? There is a state of observation without
the interference of thought. Though you are aware of everything about you, and
you may recognize the person, the mountain, the tree, or the oncoming car, yet
the mind is not functioning in the usual pettern of thought. I don't know if this
has ever happened to you. Do try it sometime when you are driving or
walking.
Just look without thought; observe without the reaction which breeds thought.
Thought you recognize colour and from, thought you see the stream, the car, the
goat, the bus, there is no reaction, but merely negative observaton; and that very
state of so-called negative observation is action. Such a mind can utilize
knowledge in carrying out what it has to do, but it is free of thought in the sense
that it is not functioning in terms of reation. With such a mind-a mind that is
attentive without reation-you can go to the office, and the rest of it.


Most of us are evelastingly thinking about ourselves from morning till night,
and we functon within the pattern of that self-centred activity. All such activity,
which is a reacion, is bound to lead to various forms of conflict and deterioration.
And is it possible not to function within that patten, and yet to live in this world?
I don't mean living off by yourself in some mountain cave, and all that kind of
thing; but is it possible to live in this world and to function as a total human being
from a state of emptiness-if you will not misunderstand my use of that word?
Whether you paint, or write poems, or go to an office, or talk, can you always
have inwardly an empty space, and throught that empty space, work?






page 25 start



And in the light of that silence all action can take place, the daily living...
(Amsterdam: 1968)



But there is no experiencing in silence, and one asks how is it possible to act in
this world if the mind is really quiet, silent? You understand? Is it possible to
function, in this world, with this enormous sense of silence? One has a certain
function, one has to do a certain thing, as a librarian, as a cook, as a technician
sit in an office and so on, which all demands accumulated information as
Knowledge, experience; and one asks, can my mind which has understood and is
living in that state of silence function in these circumstances? When one puts that
question, one separates silence from the action; it is therefore the wrong question.
But when there is the silence one will function in the office. you know, it is like a
drum that is highly tuned and you strike on it gives you the right note, but
it is always empty, silent. It doesn't say-"I am silent"-"How am I to function in
the office?"
(Talks and Dialogues)



Why are you struggling against what is? The house in which I live may be
noisy, dirty, the furniture may be hideous, and there may be an utter lack of
beauty about the whole thing; but for various reasons I may have there, I
cannot go away to another house. It is then not a question of acceptance, but of
seeing the obvious fact. If I do not see what is, I shall worry myself sick about that
vase, about that chair or that picture; they will become my obsessions, and there
will be resentment against people, against my work, and so on. If I could leave the
whole thing and start over again, it would be a different matter; but I cannot. It is
no good my rebelling against what is, the actual. The recognition of what is does
not lead to smug contentment and ease. When I yield to what is, there is not only
the understanding of it, but there comes a certain quietness to the surface mind.
If the surface mind is not quiet, it indulges in obsessions, actual or imaginary; it
gets caught up in some social reform or religious conclusion; the Master, the
saviour, the ritual, and so on. It is only when the surface mind is quiet that the
hidden can reveal itself.
(Commentaries on Living)



page 26 start



How can you and I-beacaues we, the parents, the society, are the
educators-how can you and I help to bring about clarity in ourselves-so
that the child may also be able to think freely, in the sense of having a still mind,
a quiet mind, through which new things can be perceived and come into being?

This is a really a very fundamental question. Why is it that we are being educated
at all? Just for a job? Just to accept Catholicism, or Protestanism, or Communism,
or Hinduism? Just to conform to a certain tradition, to fit into a certain jod? Or, is
education something entirely different?-not the cultvation of memory, but the
process of understanding. Understaning does not come through analysis;
understanding comes only when the mind is very quiet, unburdened, no longer
seeking success and therefore being thwarted, afraid of failure. Only when the
mind is still, only then is there a possibility of understanding, and having
intelligence. Such education is right kind of education from which obviously
other things follow.
(Amsterdam: 1955)




Have you looked at anything out of silence? You are looking at this speaker;
can you look at him without any image, just look, not abstractly, dreamily,
sentimentally. but only look; to look means attention, care, affection-and
therefore to look means silence. Apparrently, most of us have not done this at all
in our life. If you are not silent how can you commune-commune with this
contradiction? I can look at this contradiction in my life and say "How terrible, I
must get over it, I must find some way of unifying all this mess, all this
fragmention". That is, I am looking at this fragmentation with a lot of chartter,
with a lot of saying, "This must be", "This must not be", "This I shall keep", and so
on. Can I look without a word? Word being thought, thought being the form, the
content. Can I look without this content, this world, the "me"? Plaese, it is very
important to understand this before we proceed any further, because we can
communicate verbally, explanin in detail over and over again, point out
intellectually, but that doesn't solve any problem, that doesn't solve my
contradiction or your contradiction. So can we step out of that habit, that
tradition, and say "Can I look at this whole existence as a human being, just look
at it, out of complete silence?"






page 27 start



Questioner: How can we do it?


Krishnamuri: How can I look at this problem silently-how? Which means:
tell me the method, tell me a way, show a process-right? Step by step. isn't that
what is implied when you say "how"? First of all, is there a "how"? We have
accepted that there is a "how", that there is a way, that there is a method, and you
say "Please tell me". That is the habitual, traditional way of saying, "Tell me what
to do step by step, and I'll follow you and do it". And I say there is no "how", there
is no method, there is no system, because practising the method, the saystem, will
not give you silence-right? You make your mind more soild, heavier, more
habitual in a different direation, therefore it is not silent. So what will you do with
this problem? There is no "how". You must see that.

Questioner: It happens occasionally.


Krishnamuri: Does it ever happen at all-to look at something silently, to be
in communion with the thing you are looking at? Can I Look at wife or
husband silently, without the image with I have built about her, or about him?...


I realize my way of living is contradictory, double, divided, and I know I have
lived that way, with all the pain and misery of it, and I say to myself: what am I to
do? How am I to get out of it? And you tell me, don't look at the observer
watching this contradiction, because the observer himself is part of that
contradition. So there is a different way of approaching the problem. That is,
look at it-if you can-silently, ike two very intimate friends; they can be very
quiet, they have their own problem and in their quietness, in their silence, some
other activity takes place which may solve this problem.


Questioner : What do you mean by silence?

Krishnamurti : Don't you know what it means without my telling you what I
mean by silence?


Questioner: Full attention.


Krishnamuri: Don't put it into words yet. In this valley, when you wake up in
the middle of the night don't you know what silence is? Except for the nosise of the
stream there is silence, but that noise is within the silence of this whole
valley-haven't you felt it?




page 28 start




Questioner: There is a physical silence.


Krishnamuriti: You know what physical silence is. You don't say: "What is
your silence, what do you mean by physically silent, tell me about it?" You know
it-right? You walk in the woods and everything in the evening is very still; you
know the physical silence with all the beauty in it, the richness, the quietness, the
immeasurable magnificence, the dignity of it-you know it. And apparently you
don't know what psychological, inward silence is. So you say, "Please tell me
about it, put it into words". Why should I? Why don't you find out for yourself if
there is such a silence? I may be telling a lie, it may not exist, but you accept it.
But if you say; I want to find out-not what silence is-how to look at this
contradiction and the structure of it, because I have always looked with an
observer, with the examiner, with the analyser, and I suddenly realize that the
analyser himself is the analysed. So I say, "that is something which I have
discovered", therefore I won't look that way any more; I am looking for andther
way of doing it. There is a way-which is to look completely quietly.


Can I look at my pain. the toothache, without rushing immediately to the
doctor, or talking a pill, going through all that excitment and fear-can I look at
that pain quietly, silently? Not say, "It's my pain, what am I to do?". Haven't you
ever done all this? No?


Questioner : There is just the pain.


Krishnamuri: I don't know what there is. You mean to say, sirs, that you
have never looked at a flower silently? How sad that is! That you never look at
anything out of a full heart.


Questioner: What happens?


Krishnamurti: I don't know what happens, sir. You see, you are always
theorizing. You always give it a clenched fist, don't you?
(talks & dialogues/Saanen: 1968)













pare 29 start



VI


Can you look

at your own sorrow

With complete silence?




page 30 start





The mind uses suffering, as it uses joy, to enrich itself, because the mind thinks
that without being occupied it is poor, it is empty, dull. This very occupation
of the mind creates its own destruction. Sorrow is not a thing to be occupied with,
any more than joy. The mind must understand why there is sorrow, and not keep
on being occpied with sorrow. The mind wants security, whether it is in
suffering or in joy. So, soorrow becomes the way of securtity. This is not a harsh
thing I am saying; for, if you think about it, if you look into it, you will see how
the mind plays a trick on itself. It is only the unoccupied mind that is intelligent,
that is sensitive.


It is no use asking how the mind can be unoccupied. In the very "how" the mind
is playing a trick on itself.
(Benares : 1954)


Questioner: We have to think; it is inevitable.


Krishnamurti: Yes, I understand, sir. Are you suggesting that we should not
think at all? To do job you have to think, to go to your house you have to think;
there is the verbal communication, which is the result of thought. So what place
has thought in life? Thought must operate when you are doing something. Please
follow this. To do any technological job, to function as the computer does-even if
not as efficiently-thought is needed. To think clearly, objectly,
non-emotionally, without projudice, withoout opinion; thought is necessary in
order to act clearly. But we also know that thought breeds fear, and that very fear
will prevent us from acting efficiently. So can one act without fear when thought
is demanded, and be quiet when it is not? Do you understand? Can one have a
mind and heart that understands this whole process of fear, pleasure, thought
and the quietness of the mind?
(The Flight of the Eagle)




From childhood we have been brought up to think in terms of fear; all our defences,
psychological as well as physical, are based on fear; and how can a mind which
is so educated, so conditioned, free from fear? Can the mind free itself from
fear? Can any activity of the mind bring freedom to the mind? Is not the mind, is
not thought itself, the very process of fear? And can thought ever negate fear?




page 31 start




Please, this is a problem not easily to be answered; but what one can do is to be
aware of fear without fighting it, without analysing it and thereby throwing up
other defences; and when the mind is really very quiet, passively aware of all the
various there is a possibillity of the resolution of fear, which is the only real,
fundamental revolution.
(Ojai: 1953)


So long as you desire to bring about a particular change in habit, in thought,
to alter a paricular relationship, to free yourself from fear,so long as you
deliberately set about consciously to change fear, you will never succeed. But, if
you can be aware of the total process of fear and leave it alone, then you will find
that there is an unconsciously to fear and leave it alone, then you will find
that there is an unconscious transformation, a fundamental change in which
there is no longer any fear.


But the diffculty with most of us is that we want to act, we want to alter,
whereas the mind cannot bring about a radical change. The mind can modify; but
it cannot bring about fundamental freedom from fear, because the mind itself is
made up of fear. So, if you can understand this total process, if as you listen to
this you understand it, then you will see that in spite of your conscious efforts
there is a transformation going on which will free the conscious mind from fear.

The conscious mind cannot free itself from anything. It can modify, it can alter;
but in the background of it there is still fear. To be radically free from fear is to be
aware of fear and to leave it alone, without any judgement, without trying to do
anything about it. Just to know that there is fear, and to be quiet, brings about a
fundamental revolution in which fear has no longer any place.
(London: 1953)




Can I look at a fear without the word that causes that fear? Can I look without
the word which arouses fear, like the word "death"? The word itself brings a
tremor, an anxiety, just as the word "love" has its own tremor, its own image. Can
I look at the fear without the word, without any reaction, justification, or
acceptance, or denial; can I just look at it? I can only look when the mind is




page 32 start




very quiet, just as I can only listen to what you are saying when my mind is not
chattering to itself, carrying on a dialogue with itself-only then can I listen to
what you are saying completely. If I am carrying on my own conversation, with
my own problem, my own anxieties, I am incapable of listening to you. In the
same way can I look at a fear, or a problem that I have, can I just look at it, without
trying to solve it, without trying to build courage and all the rest, can I merely
observe it? One can observe a cloud, a tree or a movement of the river with a fairly
quiet mind, because it is something that is not very important to each one of us,
but when there is fear, despair, when one is directly in contact with loneliness,
with jealousy, with an ugly state of that kind, then can one just look at it so
completely, one's mind so quiet, that one can really see?
(Talks and Dialogues)



Thought must create fear because thought cannot ever find security in the
future. Thought has security in time; tomorrow has no time. Tomorrow exists
in the mind as time, but tomorrow may not exist at all, psychologically. And
because of that uncertainty, thought projects what it wants for tomorrow: safety,
what I have acquired, what I have achieved, what I possess, all that, And that too
is completely uncertain, So can thought be quiet about the future? That's my
point. Can thought be quiet, which means: function where it is necessary for
physical protection; and therefore no divisions into nationalities, no separate
Gods, no war-mongers. Let thought be quiet so that time, as tomorrow, does not
exist.


Theerefore I have to understand what it is to live now. I don't understand what it
is to live now, nor have I understood what it is live in the past, therefore I want
to live in the future, which I don't know, as I don't know what the present is. So I
am asking, can I live completely, wholly, today? I can only do that when I have
understood the whole machinery and the functioning of thought, and in the very
understanding of the reality of thought there is silence. And where the mind is
quiet there is no future, no time.
(The Awakening of Intelligence)





page 33 start




There is this enormous fact of sorrow which man has has never been able to go
beyond; he may escape from it thought drink, through all the various forms
of escapes, but that is not going beyond, that is avoiding it. Now, there is the
fact-as the fact of death, as the fact of time-can you look at it with complete
silence? Can you look at your own sorrow with complete silence; not that the thing
is so great, or such magnitude, of such complexity that it forces you to be quiet,
but the other way round. Can you look at it, knowing the magnitude, knowing
how extraordinarily complex life, and living and death are? Can you look at it
completely objectiely and silently? I think that is the way out. I use the words "I
think" hesitatingly, but really that is the only way out.


If the mind is not silent, quiet, how can understand anything, how can it
grasp, look at, be completely intimate and familiar with death, with time or with
sorrow? And, what is that which says, "I am in sorrow", "I am miserable", "I have
spent days in conflict, in misery, in hopeless despair"? What is that thing which
keeps on repeating, "I can't sleep, I've not been well", "I am this, I am that", "I am
unhappy", "you have not looked at me", "you have not loved me"-what is that
thing that keeps on talking to itself? Surely, it is thought. We come back to that
primary thing, thought, which has sought pleasure and been thwarted, which
complains "I have lost somebody whom I loved, and I'm lonely, I'm miserable, full
of sorrow" which is self-pity, pitying oneself. Again it is thought, as the memory
of companionship, the memory of pleasant days which have gone, which had
hidden the loneliness, the emptiness within oneself; and thought begins to
complain "I am unhappy"-which is the very nature of self-pity.

만약 마음이 평온하고 고요하지 않다면 어떻게 그 어떤것을 이해할 수 있겠어요,어떻게 거머쥘 수 있겠어요,보세요,죽음과 함께 또는 시간이나 슬픔과 함께 터놓고 완전히 친교할 수 있겠어요?
그리고 "나는 슬픔속에 있다" "나는 몹시 비참하다" "나는 다툼속에서, 비참속에서, 희망없는 절망속에서 며칠을 보냈다"라는 말들은 무엇일까요? "나는 잠을 못자겠다, 나는 지금 좋지 않다", "나는 이것이다, 나는 저것이다", "나는 행복하지 않다", "당신은 나를 바라보지 않았다", "당신은 나를 사랑하지 않았다" 라고 계속 반복되는 이것들은 무엇일까요- 자신에게 계속 말하고 있는 것은 무엇일까요?
물론, 이것은 생각입니다. 우리는 근원적인 것, 생각, 쾌락을 얻을려고 했던 것과 훼방놓을려고 했던 것,"나는 내가 사랑했던 어떤 사람을 잃어 버렸어, 그리고 나는 혼자야, 나는 몹시 비참하고 슬픔으로 가득해"하는 불평들, 자기 연민, 스스로의 연민으로 돌아 와요.
다시 이것들을 생각해요, 교제의 기억, 지나간 즐거운 날들의 기억, 비밀로 했던 것, 마음속의 빔; 그리고 불평의 생각을 시작해요 "나는 행복하지 않다"- 매우 자연스런 자기연민이죠.


So can you look at yourself--yourself being the whole of that complex entity,
thought with its self-pity, with its pain, with its anxieties, fears, aggressions,
brutality, sexual demands, urges--can you look at yourself completely, silently?
And when you have so looked at yourself, then you can perhaps ask, what is
death?

그렇게 당신 자신을 봐요-본질의 복잡성, 이 자기 연민의 생각, 이 고통, 이 열망들,걱정 거리들, 공격성들, 잔인성들, 성적 요구들, 몰아대는 힘들- 고요히 완전히 당신 자신을 바라 볼 수 있겠어요?
그리고 나서 당신 자신을 볼 때 당신은 아마 무를 거예요, 죽음이 무엇입니까?


(Sound of aircraft overhead) Did you listen to the marvellous sound of that
plane, the roar of it? Can one listen with that same beatitude of silence to the whole noise of life?...
(머리 위 항공기의 소리) 비행기의 놀라운 소리를 들으시겠어요, 소리지르는 이것요? 삶의 모든 소음을 위한 고요,무상의 행복 하나를 들으시겠어요?

Living is to die, to die every day to every thing that you have fought with and
gathered, the self-importance, the self-pity, the sorrow, the pleasure and the
agony of this thing called living. That is all we know and to see it all, the mind
must be extraordinarily quiet.
(Talks and Dialogues/Saanen: 1968)
살아 있음은 죽기 위한 것, 죽기 위해 매일 당신이 싸웠던 것과 모았던 것 모두, 자기 중요성, 자기 연민, 슬픔, 살아있는것이라 불렸던 이것의 고통과 즐거움. 마음이 엄청나게 평온해야만 우리는 이 모든 것을 볼 수 있고 알게 되요.
(말씀과 대화/Saanen: 1968)




page 34 start



Krishnamurti: So, first, when you are confused, stop. Stop! Don't act, don't
say "this is right", "this is wrong", "this I must do", "this I must not do". Stop!
Right, sir?


Participant : Not stop, look at. Stopping is an sction too.

K : Looking is an action too.

P : Yes. Is it possible to stop?

K : Therefore you will stop if the confusion is strong. When you are lost in a
wood, what do you do, sir? You stop, you don't go round chasing. You stop and
look. As one is confused, it is no good asking somebody else, out of confusion, for
clarity.

P : Can we go into suffering?

K : I am doing it. I am confused and there is nobody to tell me which direction
to go-- no priest, no father, no society, Nobody! Because they have led me to this
confusion. The society, the parents, the church, the literature--everything has
brought me to this. So there is nobody I can trust anymore. I am confused.
Therefore I say, "by Jove, all that I can do, First, is stop". Right? Stop moving in
any direction. Right sir? Can you do it?

P : To a certain extent.

K : Ah, no. You don't go around the woods and say, "I am stopping to a certain
extent", You stop! I am confused, and whatever I do is still confusion. Right? So,
first, I must learn to stop.


P : When you are in the woods, you don't learn to stop. You just stop.

K : Stop. All right. Stop. Do it!

P : The confusion is in my mind. I want to stop, but I can't tell if, when I am
stopping, I am going into isolation.


K : Sir, don't you know what it means to stop all actions so as to find out what
is right, what is false? I am confused. Therefore I won't listen to anybody, because
out of my confustion I can't understand anything. Out of do my confusion I can
never find out what is right or wrong action. I can only do that when I completely
stop acting, stop thinking even. So can you, for the time being, stop looking,




page 35 start




asking, questioning, knowing that in whatever direction, at whatever
level or to
whatever person you look to, you are looking with the eyes, with the mind, with
the heart that is confused?


P : Socity forces us to act.

K : So they put you in prison.

K : Let them put me in prison. You people are all so scared. You want to do something.

P : Any doing would not be the right way. So I know nothing more. So I stop actully.

K : Stop, sir, stop! Which means, my mind is capable of being quiet. Right, sir?

Is it quiet? Not chasing its own tail? Be quiet, sir, for two minutes,
or a minute. Be quiet to look? So when the mind is quiet you are no longer
confused. From confusion when the mind is quiet-- because it has stopped,
because it wants to understand confusion-- the moment it is quiet, it is no longer
confused. Right, sir? You meditate about it, you will see what you come to.



P : Out of this quiet comes love.

K : How do you know?

P : I know it at the monent; nobody had told me.

K : Sir, your mind isn't quiet first.

P : Mind is some sort of an action...

K : You see, you made a statement that a mind must be in action, it can never be quiet.

P : Mind is action

K : Mind is cation and therefore it can never be quiet. That is a conclusion, isn't it?

P : Yes.




page 36 start




K : Therefore by concluding and sticking to your conclusion, you will never
find out.

P : But you are concluding too, sir. You said that the mind has to be stll.

K : I did not conclude. I said: when you are lost in a wood, you stop, don't you?

P : Probably, but no has ever stopped...

K : I am talking about getting lost in a wood. I have been several times. And I
stop and I look. I don't get frightened. I look. And look at the various directions
quietly and then take a direction. It may be wrong; if it is wring, I come back.
Now, in the same way I am confused. Therefore, the first thing is -- after not
listening to anybody, etc. etc.-- I must stop. Stopping means a quiet mind, not a
chasing mind. To be quiet physically, to sit quietly. And from that guietness I
look. Then I see, by Jove, there is no confusion as my mind is quiet.


P : But, sir, you are lost; and whether you stop or not, you are lost. If you are
not lost, then you know where you are, and then you aren't lost.


K : Therefore I am lost in the wood, which means I am confused. I am confused,
and there is nobody to tell me the direction. So first I must stop asking,
questioning, demanding. And being quiet I find, by Jove, that very quietness is a
state of mind in which there is no confusion. From that I act...


This is really important, sirs, what we are discussing. Don't let us make it all
into a terrific problem. Life is an appalling problem and my life is an appalling
problem. And I have to understand it. I can only understand it when I don't chase
around. I must be quiet, look.
(Discussion with teachers/ Saanen: 1967)


























page 37 start




VII




You will know love

when

the mind

is very still







page 38 start




You see, the mind is so restless, it is afraid to be still, it is afraid not to know all
the latest things, it is afraid not to be at all, to be simply nothing; but it is only
out of nothingness that wisdom comes, not out of much learning. Wisdom comes
only to the mind that is silent. A mind that is full of its own conflicts and own
workable knowledge can only produce its own misery.
(Bombay : 1954-55)



Wisdom is spontaneity, and there can be no spontaneity or freedom as long as
there is accumulation as knowledge, memory. So, a man of experience can
never be a wise man, nor a simple man; but the man who is free from the process
of accumulation is wise, he knows what silence is; and whatever comes from that
silence is true. That silence is not a thing to be cultivated; it has no means, there
is no path to it, there is no "how". To ask "how" means cultivating, it is merely a
reation, a response of the desire to accumulate silence. But when you understand
the whole process of accumulating, which is the process of thinking, then you
will know that silence from which springs action which is not reaction; and one
can live in that silence all the time, it is not a gift. a capacity -- it has nothing to do
with capacity. It comes into being only when you closely observe every reation,
every thought, every feeling, when you are aware of the fact without explantion,
without resistance, without acceptance or justification; and when you see the fact
very clearly without intervening blocks and screens, then the very perception of
the fact dissolves the fact, and the mind is quiet. It is only when the mind is very
quiet, not making an effort to be quiet, that it is free. Sir, it is only the free mind
that is wise, and to be free the mind must be silent.
(Bombay: 1950)



Do you think self-improvement-- that is, the "me" becoming better, gaining
more knowledge, more information; the self improving and becoming more
virtuous -- do you think that process will bring about the tranquillity of the mind?
In that process there is not the abnegation of the self, but on the contrary, the
self, the "me" is becoming something better, and therefore it is always struggling,
there is a battle going on both within and outside of itself. And do you think that
will bring tranquillity to the mind?
(New York City: 1954)




page 39 start





Conflict exists as long as there is the outward movement of desire, which meets
with frustration and then recoils. This movement, with its frustration and
recoil, sets going the conflict between good and bad, and as long as there is this
movement, there can be no goodness. Goodness can come into being only when
the mind is really very still.
(Bombay: 1954-55)



It is very important to look, to see without the image, and must be silent to
look at your husband or your wife without the image; you are longer silent,
however, if you carry with you the image of your husband or your wife. It is only
in silence that you learn, and love is completely silent.
(Talks with American Students)




You will know love when the mind is very still and free from its search for
gratification and escapes. First, the mind must come entirely to an end. Mind
is the result of thought, and thonght is merely a passage, a mean to an end.
When life is merely a passage to something, how can there be love? Love comes
into being when the mind is naturally quiet, not made quiet, when it sees the false
as false and the true as true. When the mind is quiet, then whatever happens is
the action of love, it is not the action of knowledge.
(Madras: 1949 - 50)




And aesthetics is the capacity of perception, capacity to perceive, which means
one must be extraodinarily sensitive. And sensitivity is not shouting,
yelling. But sensitivity comes from the depth of silence. It's no good going to
colleges and universities to learn how to be sensitive, or go to somebody to teach






page 40 start






you how to be sensitive. As we said, aestheticism is the capacity to percevive; and
you cannot perceive if there is not a certain depth of silence. If you look at these
trees in silence, there is a communication which is not merely verbal but a
communication, a communion with the nature. Most of us have lost our relationship
with nature; with the trees, with the mountains, with all the living things of the earth.



To be sensitive in our relationship, to be aware of each other, is that at all
possible? That's the art of living: to find out a relationship that is not conflict, that
is a flow of a melodious manner of living together; without all the rows, quarrels,
possessiveness and being possessed, fear of loneliness, the whole cycle of human struggle.



The art of living is far more important the art of great painters. It may
be that we are escaping through music from ourselves. Going into all the
museums of the world and talking about them endlessly, reading about books on
art; all that may be an escape from our own troubles, anxietes, depressions. So
can we live an aesthetic life of deep perception? Be aware of our words, be awar
of the noise of this country, the vulgarity of human beings? Because one learn
far more in silence than in noise.
(Ojai/ Questions & Answers: 1983)








And then, when the mind is totally still in this compassion -- your mind cannot
be still without compassion, do understand this -- then out of that comes
something mysterious which is the most sacred.
(Saanen: 1975)































page 41 start



VIII


Silence,

the movement of silence

is the only field

in which

there is a change







page 42 start





The movement of becoming, of the man who wants to become the Buddha or the
manager, is the activity of the shallow. The shallow are ever afraid of what
they are; but what they are is the truth. Truth is in silent observation of what
is, and it is truth that transforms what is.
(Commentaries on Living)




What prevents this quietness of mind is obviously conflict. Most of us are in
such turmoil, worried about so many tings, anxious about life, death,
security, and our relationships. There is constant agitation; and it is extremely
difficult, naturally, for a mind that is so agitated to understand the
ever-increasing social as well as psychological problems. And it is essential, is it
not? that to understand a problem completely, there should be a silent mind, a
mind that to not biased, a mind that is capable of being free, still, and allowing the
problem to reveal itself, unfold itself. And such a quiet mind is not possible when
there is conflict.



Now, what makes for conflict? Why are we in such conflict, each one of us, and
so society, and so the State and whole world? From what does conflict
arise? When conflict ceases, obviously there can be a peaceful mind; but a mind
that is caught in conflict cannot be tranquil. And, desiring tranquillity, a certain
sense of peace, we try to escape from conflict through every kind of means--social
service, losing ourselves in some ritual, or in some kind of activity, mental and
otherwise. But, obviously, escapes lead to illusion, and to further conflict. Escapes
only lead to isolation, and therefore to greater resistance. And, if one did not
escape, or if one were aware of the escapes, and therefore were capable of
understanding directly the process of conflict, then perhaps there would be a
quietness of the mind.



And I think it is essential to see that a tranquil mind is necessary-- but not a
tranquillity that is forced, that remains in isolation, enclosed; not a tranquillty
that is attached to one particular idea, and therefore is enclosed, held in that idea,
or in a belief. Such tranquillity is not reality; it is death, because they there is no
creative process in its self-enclosed isolation.


So, if we would understand the process of conflict, and how it arises, then
perhaps there would be a possibility of the mind being free, quiet. But, the
difficulty in understanding conflict is that most of us are so eager to get away





page 43 start





from it, to go beyond conflict, to find a way out of it, to find cause of it; and I
do not think that merely looking for the cause, or discovering the cause of
conflict, is going to resolve conflict. But, if one can understand the total process
of conflict, see conflict from every point of view, psychological as well as
physiological; if one can have patience to investigate silently, without any
condemnation or justification -- then perhaps it will be possible to understand
conflict.



After all, conflict arises, does it not? through the desire to be something, to do
other than what is. This constant desire to be something other than what is, is
one of the ways of conflict: which does not mean that we should be content with
what is--one never is. But to understand what is, we must understand this desire
to be something other than what is. I am something--ugly, greedy, envious--and
I want to be something else, the opposite to what is. Surely, that is one of the
causes of conflict, these opposing and contradictory desires, of which we are
made up.


I thought that merely looking at conflict, being aware of its process, is in itself
freeing. That is, if we are aware, without any friction, without any choice, merely
aware of what is; and if we are also aware of the desire to run away from what is,
into the self-projected ideal(and all ideals are home-made, and therefore fictitious,
unreal); if we are merely aware of all that, then that very awareness will bring
about a tranquillity of the mind.
(London: 1949)


Silence, the movement of silence is the only field in which there is a change;
that is the only contant state from which change can take place.
(Bombay: 1958)



The mind itself is the product of environment. So as long as the mind is battling
against the environment, trying to shake it, trying to break away from it,
that very breaking away is a contradiction, and therefore there is a struggle. But
if the mind is observant, is aware that it is itself the product of environment, then
the mind become quiet, then the mind no longer struggles against itself. And
being quiet, still, then it will be free from environment.





page 44 start





See the truth of being said; and you cannot understand the truth of what is
something if you are battling against it or defending it. Can we not see that the
very nature of the mind is to contradict, to be a slave to environment?--because it
is the product of time, of centuries of tradition, of fear, of hope, of inspiration, of
stress and strain. Such a mind is conditioned, totally. And, when such a mind
rejects or accepts, that very acceptance or rejection is the further continuance of
conditioning. Whereas, when the mind is aware that it is totally conditioned,
consciously as well as unconsciously, then it is still, and in that stillness there is
freedom from conditioning.
(Amasterdam: 1955)

무엇을 말하기 시작하는지의 진실을 보세요; 그리고 만약 당신이 그것을 거슬러 투쟁하거나 또는 그것을 신뢰한다면 당신은 어떤 것의 진실을 이해할 수 없어요. 우리가 마음의 아주 자연스러움을 보지 않는 것은 단호히 부정하기 위해서, 노예가 되기 위해서, 포위당하기 위해서 하는 것인가요?--이것은 시간의, 나라의, 관습의, 두려움의, 희망의, 영감의, 강조와 압력의 소산이기 때문이예요. 마음은 상태, 그와 같은 것이예요,전부! 그리고, 거부한 것들 또는 받아들인 것들과 같은 마음일 때, 아주 받아 들이거나 아주 거부하는 것은 더 먼 연속의 조절이예요. 그런데, 알아채고 있는 마음일 때 이것은 전부 상태예요, 의식적일 때 뿐만 아니라 의식하지 않을 때도 마찬가지로, 이것은 여전해요, 그리고 이 여전함에 조절로 부터의 자유가 있어요.


Questioner : Can't we just let "what is" be and watch it?

우리는 단지"what is"라고 하지 않죠 그리고 이것은 무얼 가르키죠?

Krishnamuri : Watch "what is". Why don't you?

"what is"를 가르키죠. 왜 모르세요?

Questioner : That's what I am saying.

그것이 내 말이예요.

Krishnamuri : Why don't you? Are you doing it? Do you know what silence is?
When you look at anything, at a tree, at a child, your wife, or your friend, or see
anything, do you look at it through silence, or through noise? When you look at
your husband, do you look at him or her through an image you have, or do you
look without any movement of thought?

왜 모르세요? 당신이 이것을 하고 있나요? 고요가 무엇인지 알아요? 당신이 다른 것을 볼때, 나무를 볼때, 아이를 볼때, 당신의 아내 또는 당신의 친구, 또는 아무거나 볼 때, 당신은 고요를 통해서 이것을 보나요, 혹은 소음을 통해서? 당신이 당신의 남편을 볼 때, 당신은 당신이 가지고 있는 이미지를 통해 그 혹은 그녀를 보나요, 그렇지 않으면 생각의 어떤 움직임 없이 보나요?


You know what is means to be absolutely quiet, not cultivate quietness, but
being quiet? A mind that is really quiet can observe "what is" and go beyond it.
But the mind is not quiet when it is chattering that it must be changed. That is,
trying to suppress it, trying to understand it, trying to find out the cause of it
as so on.
(Brockwood : 1970)

당신은 완전하게 평온해지는 의미를 알아요, 기르는 평온이 아니라, 그러나 평온해져요? 정말 평온한 마음은 "what is" 를 알아챌 수 있고 이것의 너머로 가요. 그러나 이것이 바꿔야만 하는 특권일 때 마음은 평온하지 않아요. 그것은, 이것을 억누르기 위한 시도, 이것을 이해하기 위한 시도, 기타 등등 이것의 원인을 알아내기 위한 시도예요.
(브락우드 : 1970)



We have the tremendous and extraordinary energy required to go to the moon
but not enough, apparently, to change ourselves. And yet I assure you that
it is one of the easiest to do, and that it becomes easy when you change it,

우리는 달에 가는 데 필요로 하는 무시무시하고 엄청난 에너지를 가지고 있어요, 그러나 충분하지는 않은, 외관상, 우리스스로를 바꾸기 위한. 그리고 아직 나는 당신을 단언할 수 없어요, 이것이 하기 가장 쉬운 것의 하나인지, 그리고 당신이 이것을 바꿀 때가 쉽게 올지,

page 45 start


suppress it, go beyond it or escape from it, then you will see that "what is"
undergoes a tremendous change. That is, when the mind is completely silent in
observation, then there is radical change.
(You are the World)
이것을 억누를지, 이것을 너머 갈지 혹은 이것으로 부터 도망칠지, 그때에 당신은 무시무시한 변화를 겪는 "what is"를 볼 거예요. 그것은, 관찰안에서 미음이 완전히 고요할때, 그때에 거기에는 근원적인 변화가 있어요.
(당신은 세계다)



Only complete silence can bring about a total revolution in the psyche--not
effort, not control, not experience or authority. That silence is tremendously
active; it is not just static silence. To come upon that silence, you have to go
through all this. Either you do it instantly, or you take time and analysis; and
when you take time through analysis, you have already lost silence. Analysis,
which is psychoanalysis, analysing yourself, does not bring freedom; nor does
the analysis which takes time, from today to tomorrow, and so on, gradually.
(New york: 1966)


A mind that is not silent and a heart that is not quiet are always in conflict and
misery. Do what one well, it will always bring upen oneself and upon
others. If one has listened easily, quietly, not being mesmerized by the speaker,
then one comes upon it darkly, unknowingly and there it is. It may last a single
second, a minute; a day or a century; that doesn't matter
(Saanen : 1966)


So the ground in which silence can come about is not through practice, not through determination, not through will or desire; but it comes naturally
when there is freedom, freedom from conflict. So you have to understand conflict,
not say "I must have silence"--which is nonsense. So the ground on which
natural, clear, beautiful silence, the immense depth of silence comes is when there
is complete freedom. So one should ask not how the quality of silence comes about,
but can one be free? Free from conflict, free from being hurt, free from fear,
anxiety, loneliness, sorrow, all that. Then the house of silence is immense.
(Question and Answers/Saanen : 1984)

그러나 하나로 자유로워 지겠어요? 충돌로 부터의 자유, 해하는 것으로 부터의 자유, 두려움으로 부터의 자유, 열망, 외로움, 슬픔, 모든 것.
그때에 고요의 집은 거대해요.




































page 46 start





IX



Don't practise silence








page 47 start




To understand this vast stream of life which is myself, with my various
centres--business, spiritual, family--is the act of silence itself.


What is this silence? You are not going to cultivate to it by listening to me; getting
a pattern of silence, or of what silence is not, and then working up in it and
capturing the silence--you never can do that, obviously. What is this silence? Can
it be described? If it is described, either positively or negatively, there is still an
observer, there is still a centre which looks at it as silence; that centre creates
contradiction by saying, "How am I to cultivate that silence?"
(Discussions/Saanen : 1965)



And silence is not an end, the result of a particular practice or a wish or the
demand of a particular desire. It comes about naturally, and therefore
effortlessly. Don't practise silence, because in that silence, there is to practise.
(Bomsay: 1965)




And for the brain to be tremendously active but totally quiet involves no
effort.


For most of us, effort seems to be part of our existence; apparently we cannot
live without it; the effort to get up in the morning, the effort to go to school, the
effort to go to the office, the effort to sustain a continued activity, the effort to
love somebody. Our whole life, from the moment we are born to the moment we
enter the grave, is a series of effort. Effort means conflict; and there is no effort
at all if you observe things as they are, the fact as it is. But we have never observed
ourselves as we are, consciously or unconsciously. We always change, substitute,
transform, suppress what we see in ourselves. All that implies conflict; and a
mind, a brain that is in conflict is never quiet. And to think profoundly, to go
very deeply, we need, not a dull brain, not a brain that goes to sleep, not a brain
drugged by belief, by defences, but a brain that is intensely active yet quiet.
(Saanen : 1961)




page 48 start



And as the pool is tranquil, so the mind is quiet when the whole process of
effort is understood.
(London : 1949)



Just as we make effort to surivive physically, so also we make effort to continue
as the "me". As long as I want to survive spiritually, I must make an effort
towards the attainment of that which I call really. Now, what is the "me" which
is making this effort? What are you? Surely, you are a name attached to a bundle
of menories, experiences; you are an accumulation of hidden motives and
outward pursuits, of various qualites, passions, fears, virtues. All that is the
"you". is it not? And that "you", you want to continue in a directon which will
lead to reality; so you make an effort, you meditate, you practise some form of
discipline. Surly, only when the mind ceases to make this effort and is
completely still without being induced or compelled to be still; only when it does
not want anything, and is therefore not seeking any experince--only then is
there a possibility of the coming into being of the unknown.
(Bombay : 1956)




Questioner : We all recognize that inward peace and tranquillity of the mind
are essential. What is the method or the "how" which you suggest?



Krishnamurti : You say tranquillity of the mind and a peaceful heart are
essential. Is that so? Or is that merely a theory, merely a desire? Because we are
so disturbed, distracted, we want that quietness, that tranquillity--which then is
merely an escape. It is not a necessity; it is an escape. When we see the necessity
of it, when we are convinced it is the only thing that matters, the only thing that
is essential--then, do we ask the method for it? Is a method necessary when you
see something is essential?



Method involves time, does it not? If not now, then eventually--tomorrow, in a
couple of yours--I shall be tranquil. Which means, you do not see the necessity of



page 49 start



being tranquil. And so, the "how" becomes a distraction: the method becomes a
way of postponing the essentiality of traquility. And that is why you have all
these of postoning the essentiality of tranquillity. And that is why you have all
these meditation, these phoney, false controls, to get eventual tranquillity of the
mind, and various methods of how to discipline in order to acquire that
tranquility. Which means, you do not see the necessity, the immediate necessity,

of having a still mind. Then you see the necessity of it, then there is no inquiry
into the method at all. Then you see the importance of having a quiet mind, and
you have a quiet mind.
(London : 1952)



To come into contact with something actually, immediately, there must be
complete quietness of the conscious mind. Right? Obviously! And then. when
the conscious mind is completely still, is there the unconscious?


Questioner : How is this achieved? How? The world "how" is the most important part of my question.


Krishnamuri : First see, sir, what has taken place, if you have followed. The
moment the conscious mind is completely quiet, without any movement of
pleasure, experience, knowledge, all the rest of it, then there is no unconscious.
Now, the questioner says, how is this to be achieved? The "how" is the most
mischievous question: because in asking how, you want a method, a system. And
the moment you follow a system, method, and therefore you never discover. You're caught.
But if you see the thing actually, if you see that only the completely quiet mind
can odserve, if you understand that, if you see the truth of that immediately, then
the unconscious is not.
(Ojai : 1966)




page 50 start



But dying to yesterday is not an activity of the mind. Mind cannot die by a
determination, by evolution, by an act of will. If the mind sees the truth of the
statement--compulsion, the mind cannot bring about a change, and that what is
then brought about is only a continuity, only a modiflied result, but not a radical
revolution--and if the mind is silent only for a few seconds to hear the truth of
that statement, then you will find an extraordinaty thing happening in spite of
yourself, in spite of the mind.
(Bombay : 1954)



























page 51 start






X




You must come to


that state of silence,


otherwise


you are really not


a religious person










page 52 start





Since ancient times they have said there is a God and there is man--this
everlasting division. Later on they said God is not over there, he's here, in
you; and again there was this division between you and the God within you. The
God who previously was in a stone, in a tree, in a statue, who was venerated as
the Savior as the Master, was now in you; you are the God. Then the God within
you says do this, don't do that, be harmonious, be kind, love your neighbour, but
you can't because there is a division between you and the God within you.


So thought is the entity that divides and through thought, that is through
analysis, you hope to come upon that state in which there is no division at all; you
can't do it, it can only come about when the mind itself sees and understands this
whole process, and is then completely quiet.
(Talks with American Students)





But that silence is not Christian silence, or Hindu silence, or Buddhist silence.
That silence is silence, not named. Therefore, if you follow the path of
Christian silence, or Hindu or Buddhist,you will never be silent. Therefore, a
man who would find reality must abandon his conditon completely--whether
Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or of any other group. Merely to strengthen the
background, through meditation, through conformity, brings about stagnation
of the mind, dullness of the mind; and I'm not at all sure that's not what most of
us want--because it's so much easier to create a pattern and follow it. But to be
free of the background demands constant watchfulness in relationship.


And, when once that once that silence is, then is an extraordinary, creative
state--not that you must write poems, paint pictures; you may or you may not.
But that silence is not to be pursued, copied, imitaed--then it ceases to be silence.
(London : 1949)



Religion is a state of mind, a free mind, an innocent mind, and therefore a
completely silent mind.
(You are the World)






page 53 start






Questioner : There is a famous saying, "Be still and know God".


Krishnamurti: You see, that is one of the extraodinary thing in life; you
have read so much that you are full of other people's knowledge. Someone has
said, "Be still and konw God", old then the problem arises, how am I be still? So
you are back again in the old game. Be still, full stop. And you can be really still,
not verbally but totally, completely, only when you understand this whole process
of becoming, when you see as illusion that which now is a really to you because
you have been brought up on it, you have accepted it, and all your endeavour goes
towards it. When you see this process of becoming as illusion, the other is, but
not as the opposite. It is something entirely different.
(Sydeny: 1955)




The mind that is seeking God is not a simple mind, for its God is its own
projection. The simple man is he who sees exactly "what is" and understands
it--he does not demand anything more. Such a mind is content, it understands
"what is"--which does not mean accepting society as it is, whith its exploitation,
classes, wars and so on. But a mind that sees and understands "what is", and
therefore acts, such a mind has few needs, it is very simple, quiet; and it is only
when the mind is quiet that it can recevie the eternal.




But this absolute quietness of the brain is not a state to be achieved. It comes
about naturally, easily, when you have laid the foundation, when there is no
longer a division as the thinker and the thought.



All this is part of meditstion; meditation is not just at the end of it. Laying the
foundation is being free of fear, sorrow, effort, envy, greed, ambition--free of the
whole psycholgical structure of society. When through self-knowledge the brain
is no longer an accumulative machine, then it is quiet, still, silent. You must come
to that state of silence; otherwise you are really not a religious person; you are
merely playing with things that have no meaning at all.
(London: 1962)






page 54 start





Surely, truth is not something distant, truth is in the little things of everyday
life, in every word, in every smile, in every relationship, only we do not know
how to see it; and the man who tries, who struggles valiantly, who disciplines
himself, controls himself--will he see truth? The mind that is disciplined, controlled,
narrowed down through effort--shall it see truth? Obviously not. It is only the
silent mind that shall see the truth, not the mind that makes an effort to see.
(Bombay : 1950)





You see, we are afraid to go wrong, because we want to success. Fear is at
the bottom of the desire to be disciplined; but the unknown cannot be caught
in the net of discipline. On the contrary, the unknown must have freedom and not
the patten of your mind. That is why the tranquillity of the mind is essential.
When the mind is conscious that it is tranquil, it is no longer tranquil; when the
mind is conscious that it is non-greedy, free from greed, it recognizes itself in the
new robe of non-greed, but that is not tranquillity.
(Ojai : 1949)



Reilgion then has a totally different meaning, whereas before it was a matter
of thought. Thought made the various religions and therefore each religion is
fragmented, and in each fragment there are multiple sub-divisions. All that is
called religion, including the beliefs, the hopes, the fears and the desire to be
secure in another world and so on, is the resulf of thought. It is not religion, it is
merely the movement of thought, in fear, in hope, in trying to find security--a
material process.



Then what is religion? It is investigation, with all one's attention, with the
summation of all one's energy, to find that which is sacred, to come upon that
which is holy. That can only take place when there is freedom from the noise of
thought--the ending of thought and time, psychologically, inwardly--but not
the ending of knowledge in the world where you have to function with
knowledge. That which is holy, that which is sacred, which is truth, can only be
when there is complete silence, when the brain itself has put thought in its right
place. Out of that immense silence there is that which is sacred.
(The Wholeness of Life)





























page 55 start





XI




To find out

what meditation is...

one has to have

a very quiet mind









page 56 start





And in that silence the entity who experiences has completely ceased. But what
most of us want is to experience, to gather more. It is the desire for the more
that makes us meditate, that makes us do spiritual exercises, and so on. But when
all that is understood, when all that has dropped away, then there is a silence,
then there is a tranquillity of the mind, in which the experiencer, the interpreter
is absent. Then only is there a possibility for that which is not nameable to come
into being. It is not a reward for good deeds. Do what you will, be as selfless as
you like, force yourself to do the good things, the noble things, to be virtuous--all
those are self-centred activies; and such a mind is only a stagnant mind. It can
meditate; but it will not know that state of silence, quietness, in which the real
can be.
(London : 1952)



Thought shattering itself itself against own nothingness is the explosion of
meditaion.
(Krishnamuri's Notebook)



Concentration is an exclusion. when you want to concentrate on something,
you are excluding, you are resisting, you are putting away things which you
don't want. whereas if you are attentive, then you can look at every thought,
every movement; then there is no such thing as distraction, and then you can
meditate. Then such meditation is a marvellous thing, because it brings clarity.
Meditation is clarity. Meditation then is silence, and that very silence, and that very silence is the
disciplining process of life; not your disciplining yourself in order to achieve
silence. But when you are attentive to every word, to every gesture,
to all the
things you are saying, feeling, to your motives, not correcting them, then out of
that comes silence, and from that silence there is discipline.
(New Delhi : 1966)







page 57 start





And this silence of the mind is necessary; untrained silence, because trained,
silence is nose. It is meaningless. Therefore meditation is not a controlled,
directed activity, but it is an activity of "no thought".
(Brockwood : 1974)



Meditation is to be aware of thought, of feeling, never to correct it, never to
say it is right or wrong, never to justify it, but just to watch it and move
with it. In that watching and moving with that thought, with that feeling, you
begin to understand and to be aware of the whole nature of thohght and feeling.
Out of this awareness comes silence, not simulated, not controlled, not put
together by thought, for silence put together by thought is stagnant, is dead.
Silence comes when thought has understood its own beginning, the nature of
itself, how all thought is never free but always old. To see all this, to see the
movement of every thought, to understand it, to be aware of it, is to come to that
silence which is meditation, in which the "observer" never is.
(Talks and Dialogues)




What is called meditation is generally a traditional thing. You sit or stand in a
corner, or sit under a tree; you close your eyes, control your thoughts, or
repeat some mantram and get some excitement out of it. That's what is generally
called meditation, but that is self-hypnosis. Now, to find out what meditation is,
first of all one has to have a very quiet mind. That means that the body has to
have its own intellgence. Generally what we do is to dictate to the body what we
think is pleasurable or painful. We tell it what to do--that it must get up at a
certain time, that it must sit this way or walk that way--the mind tells the body.
So the mind is always controlling the body and therefore depriving it of its
intelligence; for the body has its own intelligence. So part of medition is to allow
the intelligence of the body to function. Which means that the body will become
quiet when necessary, and active when that is demanded. I won't go into it
further, it is very complicated. So one has to cultivate the intelligence of the body,
which means non-interference of the mind with the body, and that demands a








page 58 start



tremendous attention. So before you try something, sit absolutely quiet,
absolutely quiet without opening your eyes, without moving your eye-balls or
your eye-lids, your fingers, or your feet--there should be no movenmet of any
kind--not because you think "I must sit quiet", but because it is nice to sit quiet.



In the evening when the sun is setting it is extraordinarily quiet, isn't it? It has
withdrawn for the night. In the same way sit very quiety, close your eyes, don't
see who is sitting next to you; then see what happens. Then you will find, if you
sit fairly quietly for a little while, that your mind wanders. That is, you say to
yourself "I ought to have done this, or I ought to have done that, or I must do this
or that"--the mind wanders. Then watch the mind. Don't control it, don't say it
mustn't wander. Just watch it and find out why it wanders. Then out of this
sitting very quietly--without forcing the body--seeing the mind and its
operations, without telling it what it should think or what it should not think,
out of this extraodinary complex observation comes quiet a different kind of
meditation.
(Rishi Valley : 1967)




The brain is active from the moment you wake up untill you go to sleep; and
even then the activity of the brain is still going on. That activity in the form of
dreams is the same movement of the day carried on during sleep. The brain has
never a moment's rest, never does it say, "I have finished". It has carried over the
problems which it accumulated during the day into sleep; when you wake up
those problems still go on--it is a vicious circle. A brain that is to be quiet must
have no dreams at all; when the brain is quiet during sleep there is a totally
different quality entering into the mind. How does it happen that the brain which
is so tremendously, enthusiastically active, can naturally, easily, be quiet without
any effort or suppression? I will show it to you.




As we said, during the day it is endlessly active. You wake up, you look out of
the window--you and say to yourself, "Oh, awful rain", or "It is a marvellous day, but
too hot"--you have started! So at that monent, when you look out of the window,
don't say a word; not suppressing words but simply realizing that by saying,
"What a lovely morning", or "A horrible day", the brain has started. But it you
watch, looking out of the window and not saying a word to yourself--which does
not mean you suppress the word--just observing without the activity of the brain
rushing in, there you have the clue, there you have the key.
(The Impossible Question)






























page 60 start





XII






Don't make stillness


another problem












So zen, all these forms of meditation, mantra yoga, you know, the repetition of
words--all those are means of knowing for yourself that your mind is quiet.
Can you know your mind is quiet? If you know your mind is quiet,then there is
no quietness because you are observing the mind that you think is quiet. So you
cannot experience a mind that is quiet--see the beauty of it--any more than you
can experience happiness, any more than you can experience joy. The moment
you say "I am joyous" it's gone. Or, the monent you say "How happy I am", it's no
longer happiness. So the mind, when it is quiet, has no observer. Are you learning
all this? Because you can learn when you are happy, not when you make a
problem of it. And the problems exist only when you want to have a quiet mind,
But when you are happy and want to learn what it means to have a quiet mind,
learn, then you find out that a quiet mind comes into being when there is no
observer, when there is no experiencer, thinker. But you say "How am I to stop
the thinker from acting?" You can't stop it, but you can learn the whole nature
and the workings and the movement of thought, learn about it. And when you
learn, the other comes into being.
(Saanen : 1972)



If there is a "you", with its complex thoughts and anxieties, that is observing
the tree, then there is no communion with the tree. To be in communion with
someone or something, demands space, silence; your body, your nerves, your
mind, your heart, your whole being must be quiet, completely still. Don't say,
"How am I to be still?" Don't make stillness another problem. Just see that there is
no communion if the mechanism of thought is in operation--which doesn't mean
you go to sleep!
(Saanen : 1964)





We always are becoming, we never "are"; the moment is never full, it is always
tomorrow that is full; and so we miss the movement of life. If you observe
your own mind, you will see that we never are still for a minute, but we are always
trying to be still. The trying is what we know, the becoming is what we know.




page 61 start




We know the ideal of silence, our mind is constantly pursuing that ideal,
strugging, disciling, controlling, shaping in order to have that silence in
which the real can take place; and the real can never take place in that silence
because that silence is a becoming.
(Bombay : 1954)




You may wish to do away with fear, but then the "how", the method, becomes
important, and you have a new problem as well as the old one. So we move
from problem to problem to and are never free of them. But we are now talking of
somthing wholly different, are we not? We are not concerned with the
substitution of one problem for another.


"Then I suppose the real problem is to have a quiet mind."


Surely, that is the only issue: a still mind.


"How can I have a still mind?"


See what you are saying. You want to possess a still mind, as you would possess
a dress or a house. Having a new objective, the stillness of the mind, you begin to
inquire into the ways and means of getting it, so you have another problem on
your hands. Just be aware of the utter necessity and importance of a still mind.
Don't struggle after stillness, don't torture yourself with discipline in order to
acquire it, don't cultivate or pradtise it. All these efforts produce a result, and that
which is a result is not stillness. What is put together can be undone. Do not seek
continuity of stillness, Stillness is to be experienced from moment to moment; it
cannot be gathered.
(Commentaries on Living: Seond Series)




To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extroardinarily quiet, still;
but if I think I am going to achieve stillness at some future date, I have
destroyed the possibility of stillness. It is now or never. That is a very difficult
thing to understand, because we are all thinking of heaven in terms of time.
(Hamburg : 1956)









page 62 start





Nothing is essential for stillness but stillness itself; It is own beginning and
its own end. No essentials bring it about, for it is. No means can ever lead to
stillness. It is only when stillness is something to be gained, achieved, that the
means become essential. If stillness is to be bought, then the coin becomees
important; but the coin, and that which it purchases, are not stillness. Means are
noisy, violent, or subtly acquisitive, and the end is of like nature, for the end is in
the means. If the beginning is silence, the end is also silence. There are no means
to silence; silence is when noise is not. Noise does not come to an end through the
further noise of effort, of discipline, of austerities, of will. See the truth of this,
and there is silence.
(Commentaries on Living)








































page 63 start










XIII





We know stillness


only as a reation


within the activity


of the "me"










page 64 start






Now, in that quietness is there an observer who says, "I am quiet?" You
understand my question? When you are happy, walking along a street, or in
the woods, or sitting in the sun, quietly, happy, when you say, "Am I happy?"
then that happiness has gone. Right? have you not noticed; it is a very simple
fact. The moment you are conscious of something which gives you happiness,
that happiness disappears. So when you say. "Am I silent, is my mind silent?", it
is no longer, right?



There are different kinds of silence: the silence between two words, the silence
between two notes of the piano, the silence between two noises, the silence between
two thoughts, an interval between two thoughts, the silence after a long battle
with oneself--the weariness--the silence between two wars which you call peace.
So all those are silences which are the product of noise--between two noises,
between two thoughts, between two notes, between two wranglings. That is not
silence. There is silence which is not produced or cultivated, so that there is no
"me" to observe that silence.
(Brockwood : 1976)




I see that my thoughts are transient, that everything arond me is
impermanent, that there is death, decay; everything is in movement, in a state
of flux. So I say there must be something in me which is permanent, and I want
that permanency; therefore I create the entity, the thinker, the judge who is apart
from me. That is, thought speparate and establishes part of itself as a permanent
entity who is watching, guiding, shaping; and then the problem arises of how
this entity, the thinker, is to bridge the gap and integrate himself with his
thoughts. Till I really understand and solve this problem, it is not possible to have
a still mind, or to find out if the mind can ever be still.



So, please just listen to what I am saying, and try to find out if is possible for
the observer and the observed to be one, for the thinker and his thought to be
integrated. As long as they are separete, the mind cannot be still. As long as I am
apart from my thought, as long as I am away from the experience and observing
it, as long as I am conscious that I am still, there cannot be peace, there cannot be
stillness. Untill I understand and resolve this fundamental problem, to search for
peace, or to ask whether the mind should or should not be still, has very little
meaning.





page 65 start




So, I am broken up into various fragmentary states; and how is all that to
become one? Can I do anything about it? That is, the thinker, the actor, the maker
of patterns of action--can he do anything about it? And if he does, is there not
then another fragment to be brought into focus and absorbed? As long as there is
the maker of patterns, the thinker, can he bring about integration? Surely, it is
impossible, is it not? So, I have to find out how this separate entity as the thinker
comes into being. I have to see how it accumulates memory, wealth, knowledge,
property, flattery, insult--I have to be aware of the whole thing. It is when I am
more and more awere of its reactions, its implications, that I begin to find out
whether it is possible for this extraodinary integration to take place, this
stillness which is not of the mind, which is not the product of discipline, of
control, of conformity to a particular pattern of thought or action. What is that
state? When the mind is no longer separating itself as the thinker and the
thought, can it be called "still"? Is there not then a different kind of movement
which is not of time, a different kind of becoming which is not of the "me"; but is
there not a stillness which is not of the "me"? But that state cannot possibly be
concevied as long as there is a division between the thinker and the thought, as
long as the thinker is trying to experience stillness. It comes only when the
thinker is the thought.
(Ojai : 1952)




At all the different levels of our being, waking or sleeping, we are constanitly
seeking a state which nothing can disturb, a continuity of thought as the
"me"--the "me" with experiences, the "me" that has suffered, the "me" that has
gathered so much information, knowledge. Not having found outward security,
the "me" proceeds to find that state at other levels, beyond the superfical. So we
meditate in order to achieve peace, to have a quiet mind. We think that a still mind
will give us the state of permanency which we have not found in any other
direction, and then the question arises, "How am I to be still?" So a whole new
problem begins, and in that we get caught.



Surely, the thought that wants to be still can never free itself from conflict,
because it is the very centre of the "me".
(Ojai: 1953)




page 66 start



This psychological activity of the "I", of "me", and the "mine", must cease,
for such active causes rpoblem and brings about various forms of agitation
and disorder. But any effort to stop this activity only makes for greater activity
and agitation.


"This is true, I have noticed it. The more one tries to make the mid still, the
more resistance there is, and one's effort is spent in overcoming this resistance;
so it becomes a vicious and undreakable circle."


If you are aware of the viciousness of the circle and realize that you cannot
break it, then with this realization the censr, the observer, ceasea to be.


"That seems to be the most difficult thing to do: to suppress the observer. I have
tried, but so far I have never been able to succeed. How is one to do it?"


Are you not still thinking in terms of the "I" and the "non-I"? Are you not
maintaining this dualism within the mind by word, by the constant repetition of
experience and habit? After all, the thinker and his thought are not two different
processes, but we make them so in order to attain a desired end.
(Commentaries on Living : Second Series)





Thought dividing itselt as the high and the low, the permanent and the
impermanent, is still the outcome of the past, of tradition, of time. In this
division lies its own security. Thought or desire now seeks safety in silence, and
so it asks for a method or a system which offers what it wants. In pleace of worldly
things it now craves the pleasure of silence, so it breeds conflict between what is
and what should be. There is no silence where there is conflict, repression,
resistance.


"Should not one seek silence?"


There can be no silence as long as there is a seeker. There is the silence of a still
mind only when there is no seeker, when there is no desire. Without replying,
put this question to yourself: Can the whole of your being be silent? Can the
totality of the mind, the conscious as well as the unconscious, be still?
(Commentaries on Living: Second Series)







page 67 start






XIV





Silence


that has continuity


is not silence









page 68 start




Have you watched your thinking? I watched that car go by, it was a blue car.
Can I watch my thought in the same way, as it moves from one thing to
anther? And if it does, find out if it can end; instead of it being a long thread,
break it, see what happens. Can you break a thought and say, "Well, that's
enough, enough is enough" and just end that thought and see what happens
before the next thought is waiting. Before it springa on you, watch it. In that
space, in that interval, what happens?
(Discussion with staff and students/Brockwood: 1975)



Thought itself must deny itself. Thought itself sees what it is doing and
therefore thought itself realizes that it has to come of itself to an end. There is
any movement that it makes, is disorder(we are taking that as an example) then
there is silence.
(You are the World)




How does one deny? Does one deny the known. not in great dramatic incidents
but in little incidents? Do I deny when I am shavine and I remember the
lovely time I had in Switzerland? Does one deny the remembrance of a pleasant
time? Does one grow aware of it and deny it? That is not dramatic; it is not
spectacular, nobody knows about it. Still this constant denial of little things, the
little wipings, the little rubbings off, not just one great big wiping away, is
essential. It is essential to deny thought as remembrance, pleasant or unpleasant,
every minute of the day as it arises. One is doing it not for any motive, not in
order to enter into the extraordinary state of the unknown. You live in Rishi
Valley and think of Bombay or Rome. This creates a conflict, makes the mind
dull, a divided thing. Can you see this and wipe it away? Can you keep on wiping
away not because you want to enter into the unknown? You can never know what
the unknown is because the moment you recognize it as the unknown you are
back in the known.







page 69 start






The process of recognition is a process of the continued known. As I do not
know what the unknown is, I can only do this one thing--keep on wiping thought
away as it arises.



You see that flower, feel it, see the beauty, the intensity, the extraodinary
brilliance of it. Then you go to the room in which you live, which is not well
proportioned, which is ugly. You live in the room but you have a certain sense of
beauty and you begin to think of the flower, and you pick up the thought as it
arises and you wipe it away. Now, from what depth do you wipe, from what depth
do you deny the flower, your wife, your gods, your economic life? You have to live
with your wife, your children, with this ugly, monstrous society. You cannot
withdraw from life. But when you deny totally thought, sorrow, pleasure, your
relationship is different and so there must be a total denial, not a partial denial,
not a keeping of the things which you like and a denying of the things which you
do not like.
(Krishnamurti on Education)



If am jealous, envious. I must be free from it immediately. The immediacy is
important, is essential. And if I realize that the immediacy of freedom from
that particular quality is essential, then there is freedom. But we do not realize
the urgency of it. And that is where our difficulty lies. We want to
indulge in it. And so
gradually we build the idea that we must eventually be free from it. And so, there
is never a complete freedom from a particular reaction. And only when the mind
is free, is there the possibility of tranquillity.
(London : 1952)



One sees very clearly that silence is completely necessary, not only at the
superficial level, but at the most deep level; at the very root of our being there
must be complete silence. How is this to happen? It cannot possibly happen if
there is any form of control, because then there is conflict, because then is




page 70 start



the man who says "I must control", and there is the thing to be controlled. In that
there is division, in that division there is conflict. Therefore, is it possible for the
mind to be completely empty and quiet, not continuously but each second? That is
the first perception, that the mind must be completely quiet; the perception, the
truth of it and the seeing of the truth of it is the first and last step, and then that
perception must be ended; otherwise you carry it over. Therefore the mind must
observe, must be aware choicessly of every perception, and there must be the
ending of that perception instantly--seeing and ending.
(Krishnamurti in India : 1970-71)



So, there are no steps to a still mind. Moreover, you really don't know what
stillness of the mind is. All that you are concerned with is to experience that
state and hold it; therefore you say it doesn't last more than thirty seconds. why
should it last? You see, what is important to you is not the thing itself, but what it
gives you. Therefore you want to know how to come to it and whether it is
enduring, so you bring in the element of time: it must have continuity, it must
last more than thirty seconds. Silence that has continuity is not silence.
(London: 1962)





Questioner: When one has reached the stage of a quiet mind, and has no
immediate problem, what proceeds from that stillness?


Krishnamurti: Quite an extraordinary question, is it not? You have taken it
for granted that you have reached that still mind, and you want to know what
happens after it. But to have a still mind is one of the most difficult things.
Theoretically, it is the easiest; but factually, it is one of the most extraordinary
states, which cannot be described. What happens you will discover when you
come to it. But that coming to it the problem, not what happens after.


You cannot come to that state. It is not a process. It is not something which you
are going to achieve through a practice. It cannot be bought through time,
through knowledge, through discipline, but only by understanding knowledge,





page 71 start





by understanding the whole process of discipline, by understanding the total
process of one's own thinking, and not trying to achieve a result. Then, perhaps
that quietness may come into being. What happens afterwards is indescribable, it
has no word and it has no "meaning".



You see, every experience, so long as there is an experiencer, leaves a memory,
a scar. And to that memory the mind clings. and it wants more, and so breeds
time. But the state of stilness is timeless, therefore there is no experiencer to
experience that stillness.



Please, this is really--if you wish to understand it--very important. So long as
there is an experiencer who says "I must experience stillness", and knows the
experience, then it is not stillness; it is a trick of the mind. When one says "I have
experienced stillness", it is just an avoidance of confusion, of conflict--that is all.
The stillness of which we are talking is something totally different. That is why it
is very important to understand the thinker, the experiencer, the self that
demands a state which it calls stillness. You may have a moment of stillness, but
when you do, the mind clings to it. and lives in that stillness in memory. That is
not stillness, that is merely a reaction. What we are talking of is something
entirely different. It is state in which there is no experiencer; and therefore shch
silence, quietness, is not an experience. If there is an entity who remembers that
state, then there is an experiencer, therefore it is no longer that state.




This means, really, to die to every experience. with never a moment of
gathering, accumulating. After all, it is this accumulation that brings about
conflict, the desire to have more. A mind that is accumulating, greedy, can never
die to everything it has accumulated. It is only the mind that has died to
everything it has accumulated, even to its highest experience--only such a mind
can know what that silence is. But that state cannot come about through
discipline, because discipline implies the continuation of the experiencer, the
strengthening of a particular intention towards a particular object, thereby
giving the experencer continuity.




If we see this thing very simply, very clearly, then we will find that silence of
the mind of which we are talking. What happens after that is something that
cannot be told, that cannot be described, because it has no "meaning"--except in
books and philosophy.
(London: 1955)



page 72 start




Silence is difficult and arduous, it is not to be played with. It isn't something
that you can experience by reading a book, or by listening to a talk, or by
sitting together, or by retiring into a wood or a monastery. I am afraid none of
these things will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense
psychological work. You have to be burningly aware--aware of your speech,
aware of your snobbishness, aware of your fears, your anxieties, your sense of
guilt. And when you die to all that, then out of that dying comes the beauty of
silence.
(London: 1962)




It is through negation that we will find the other thing, not through direct
approach; and I can negate only when I begin to understand the ways of my
own mind and see that I seek refuge, that I am acquisitive, that there is not a
single moment when the mind is really quiet. The incessant chattering, the
images, the things that I have acquired and hold on to, the words, the names, the
memories, the escapes--of all that I have to be aware, have I not? Because, with
that burden, which is of time, how can I experience something which is timeless?
So I must purge myself completely of all that alonenss in which I see all the
processes, the eddies of the mind. Then, as I observe, as I become more and more
aware and begin to put aside without effort the things of the mind, I find that the
mind becomes quiet; it is no longer curious, searching, groping, struggling,
creating and pursuing images. All those things have dropped away, and the mind
becomes very quiet, it is as nothing.



This is the thing that cannot be taught. By listening a hundred times to this
statement, you are not going to get it; if you do, then you are mesmerized by
words. It is a thing that must be experienced, that must be directly tasted; but it's
no good hovering at the edge of it.
(Ojai: 1952)





- end -




Coverstory



Compiled
for distribution at
the Annual Gathering 1992
of the
Krishnamurti Foundation India
64 Greenways Road
Madras 28



@ Krishnamurti Foundation Trust
Krishnamurti Foundation America




3.50 파운드






올린이의 말

이 책을 타이핑해 올리는 시간 중에 사소한 기적을 경험했다

하지만 우리가 말하는 기적이라는 것은 실체가 아주 짧다

사소하나 사소하지 않은 무지개처럼

만약 누군가가 이 글의 번역을 시도한다면 이해 할 수 있으리라

이 책의 마지막 말처럼 언어들의 최면술에 걸려 가장 자리만을 배회하는

슬픔이 그대에게는 제발 없기를.