DISTRACTION

 “Mama”, screamed my seven year old daughter. She had this extremely irritated expression as she looked at me. We were playing badminton in front of our house. The reason for her irritation you ask? Well, it was me not giving her my attention completely. While playing badminton with her, I was also talking to a friend nearby, about something not trivial, but neither extremely important. This happened for the third time in a game of thirty minutes. The first time, a friend called to ask for a recipe which she needed because she was making dinner for guests. The second time, was because I was instructing the gardener about watering the plants and transplanting. By the third time, she really got upset and had to express her frustration as my distraction.

Later on in bed, when I asked her about it, she said “I really wanted to play badminton with you, because you like it. I was enjoying playing with you but you were not playing properly when you were talking to other people.” It hit me hard. Her profound wisdom!

Here was a seven year old, telling a thirty seven year old about how to manage time, about distraction, about relationship. This understanding is based on Nir Eyal’s book- Indistractable. I will explain below.

Time – We always feel there is so much to do, and there really is. But the problem doesn’t lie in the number of activities vs time available. It problem, is that while doing each activity, we are unable to immerse ourselves in it, or get in the flow of each, hence the dissatisfaction about incomplete work remains in the mind. This dissatisfaction makes us feel there is not much time but loads to do. Giving something complete attention gives greater sense of accomplishment rather than completing the task.

Distraction – Nir Eyal’s – suggests time blocked scheduled week which should include everything, even relaxation in it, in order to handle distractions. In this case, my distractions were talking to the different people in between a game of thirty minutes. This is exactly how the rest of my day goes. Everything I do is either interrupted by myself when I see some other task which needs attending to, or I get calls or people come over to talk. All this while I have two little children at home, which means, they could interrupt me anytime.

But it has rarely happened that I allow my children interrupt my tasks or my conversation. I have always asked them to wait while I finish what I am doing. So when I am doing something with my children, WHY CANT I ASK OTHERS TO WAIT? My daughter told me the solution to this, “tell them to go away, kindly but strictly.” Her vocabulary is limited, but what she meant was, tell others to not interrupt my time with my children. I think that is a very good solution. But not something very easy to do.

How can you tell your family and friends that you cannot listen to them because you are playing a game of badminton with your child? We all still have it deeply ingrained in our minds that adults and their problems and their conversations are more important than the children. We could use whatever words we want – we earn the bread, we have more responsibility, we have more tasks, we in reality help more people, etc...But none of them is completely true. Yes we have more things to do than children, but none of them is probably more important than spending than thirty minutes with the child. Equally important yes, but more important – NO. So why is it that I let everything interrupt my time with my child.

It is not fair also, because when I demand their attention, I do not allow them to be distracted at all. They have to pay completely attention to me when I am talking or teaching them something. Look at my double standards!

I have a friend, a working mother of two, who says she misses her children and rushes back to spend time with them. I am a stay at home mom, but I still don’t get much time completely with my children. I always wondered why. But now I have understood why. It is not just about priority – my children are my priority. But only in my mind. In actions, I am getting distracted always. So Nir Eyal’s suggestion – to timebox schedule my time, and not let distractions during each activity should be helpful. This would require good self discipline and some difficult conversations with friends and family, but really required.

Relationship - I have been encouraging and teaching my daughter to play badminton since a year and half. She didn’t show much interest earlier, because maybe she was too small to have the right grip or have the required coordination. But I never stopped suggesting that game. Maybe that is why, she thinks I like the game. And despite a lot of other children playing different fun games around, she wanted to play badminton with me. Because she thinks I like it. Because she loves me. But if you ask me how many activities I do with her, because she likes it, there wouldn’t be many. It is the same with my younger daughter. Yes, I would give them chocolates, and ice creams, and they get their TV times, and play times and play dates. I teach them to cycle, swim, do their homework, etc. But you see how these are different from actually doing the things they want to do, with them. The way my daughter wanted to spend thirty minutes with me on a game of badminton (which she was also enjoying) – it has a different quality of time spent in the relationship than me teaching them how to cycle or swim. Nothing is being achieved, no milestones are being met or learning happening. It is just time spent purely with each other. That is so much required in our relationships, and my 7 year old daughter is teaching me that. I have so much to learn from these kids.

An expert on parenting taught me about “special time” in her Parenting group. This is the best solution to address the above issues of time, distraction and relationship with my children. If you are a parent like me, maybe its time you do this too. Every day.  It goes this way - 

Special time, means that I decide on 30 mins or 1 hr of time everyday, which I should spend with each of my children separately. In this time, the child decides how to spend the time, and I just take her lead. I do not try to teach or make her learn, or change what she wants to do. I go with her completely, as she wants. If she wants to watch TV in her special time, then I sit and watch with her. Even if in the whole day, I am busy, this small special time of 30 minutes will create the connect with the child which will make her feel cared and loved and that she matters.

9. TRUTH

Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

What are we seeking in life? Is our search based on our inclinations, our tendencies or circumstances? So which of them is our guide, or what shapes our urges, longings? All of us are seeking something – greater satisfaction, more and wider experience, and greater pleasure. Seeking more satisfaction and pleasures bring with its own shares of pains and fears. It is the same with allowing tendencies and inclinations to shape our search, it brings with it more bondage, pain and sorrows.

And there are some who are more serious and say they are seeking the truth. Truth is a dangerous word. Because search for truth cannot be achieved by a casual and intermittent drive. It requires a sustained and continuous looking, not in any particular direction but a total comprehension of life.

But if we are serious about life, then maybe we can start on the path to finding the truth. We must be serious about life – in everything we do – cooking or our relationship with another person, or in our search for the truth. We must be extraordinarily and vitally serious about everything in life, because each one of us is responsible for all the misery, all the wars, all the pain and all the drudgery there is in life.

Because each one of us is responsible for all the misery in life in the world, there is a need for a radical revolution within each one of us. Because each one of us is the individual and the society, both violence and peace, both love and hate and fear, and sometimes there is a great imbalance in us. We are not only responsible for the world, we are responsible for ourselves, in what we do, what we think, how we act and how we feel. Only if we are able to understand this mixture, this contradiction in us, only then would we be able to understand the path towards truth. Unless there is a radical transition in us, seeking anything is of little meaning.

Man has always been in search of the truth, since history can tell. He has been searching for an otherness, which we call God, which we call the timeless state, a thing which is not measurable, which is not nameable. Man has always sought that because his life is very dull, there is always death, old age, there is so much pain, contradiction, conflict and a meaningless-ness to life. We are caught in that and to escape from it, we want to find something more, something that won’t be destroyed by time, by thought, by any human corruption. Man has always sought it, and not finding it he has cultivated faith – faith in God, a savior, faith in an idea. But faith invariable breeds violence. When I have faith in an idea, a concept, I want to protect that idea, that ideology is a projection of myself, I identify with it and I want to protect it at any price. When I defend something, I must be violent. Over a period of time, nobody believes in anything anymore. Either one becomes cynical and bitter, or one invents a philosophy which will be satisfactory intellectually- but the main problem is not solved.

The main problem is – how to bring about a revolution in this world – not only outside but inside each one of us – a world of contradiction, a world of such anxiety. Only when such a radical change happens can we go further and seek the truth and the questions of if there is God, whether there is a timeless dimension, etc. When that transformation takes place inside us, we will be able to answer this question of truth and this seeking ourselves, within us. And this transformation needs to take place in each one of us.

So what can we do to change ourselves? Not the world, but first ourselves? Others have always told us how to over the centuries – kings, priests, thinkers, etc. But we haven’t come far based on that. We cannot depend on anybody, there is no guide, there is no teacher, there is no authority there is only oneself and one’s relationship with another and the world, there is nothing else. When one realizes that, he faces that, then

·       either it brings great despair from which comes cynicism, bitterness and all

·       or in facing this fact, he realises that one is totally responsible for oneself and for the world, nobody else.

When he faces that, all self – pity goes. Most of us thrive on self pity, blaming others, and this occupation does not give clarity.

So what can we do to live in this world, logically, rationally, sanely with a balance inside us, to live without any conflict, hate or violence? To find the answer we need to pay a great deal of attention. It is different from concentration. Concentration is an exclusive process, focussed on one thing blotting out the rest. Attention is not, it means to give complete attention, not a fragmentary or partial attention, that is, listen to the aeroplane going by, listen to the talk, see, hear and feel everything completely without any boundary/frontier (like concentration which puts up a wall).

So the first thing we need to do is to know ourselves completely – no hidden corners, or secret un- trodden recesses of the mind.

·       Either we do this carefully, step by step, through analysis through examination, through opening every layer of one’s consciousness – it means we will take time. To realise that I am angry, jealous, and to understand why, the motive of it, to uncover to unroll the vast and complex me – it will take time. It could take days, months, years and in this process there is always distortion going on because of other influences, pressures and strains.

·       Or I identify myself with something greater, with the nation or the state or the family or the idea of savior, of Buddha. I identify myself with that, a projection of myself, a conformity to pattern and this leads to more struggle.

So man has done this throughout ages – either gone inwards through introspection and analysis or he has identified himself with something or he has lived in a state of total negation, hoping something will happen.

These methods have not helped us know ourselves well. So there is this complex entity called “me” with all its contradictions and mixtures of things – Can I look at this “me” so completely and instantly that I understand the whole thing? We can only see the truth when the mind is not fragmented, when we see with totality. When you see yourselves totally, not just the fragments here and there, but the totality of your being, - that is the truth. So can we look at oneself so completely, so attentively that the whole of oneself is revealed in an instant? Most of us cannot do this because we have never approached the problem so seriously, we have never looked at ourselves. We blame others, we explain things away, we are frightened to look at ourselves and so on. You can only look when you give your whole attention. And in such an attention there is no fear. When you are giving your mind, your body, your nerves, your eyes, your ears, everything to look, there is no room for fear, there is no room for contradiction or conflict. There is no comparing or measuring happening then. I then understand that comparison invariable leads to illusion, of measuring oneself against the other, and trying to be like the other person, and hence creating an illusion by denying oneself as he is. Similarly when I identify myself with something greater like a state or ideology, then I understand that all such comparative thinking leads to greater conformity and hence greater conflict.

So I put all this measuring and comparing away, and pay complete attention to look at myself. Then my mind is no longer seeking, asking, questioning or waiting. It doesn’t mean that my mind is satisfied with things as they are – it means my mind has no more illusion or imagination. It moves to a different dimension, in which we find that the pain, pleasure, fear of everyday life and the limited nature of the mind is all completely gone. Then there is enjoyment, real joy, feeling of great bliss which is not thought.

What will open this door is daily awareness and attention. Awareness, without any choice, of what is going on within, as you speak, what you say, how you walk, what you think. It is like cleaning a room to keep it in order but just because you keep the room clean and in order doesn’t mean the window will open. All you desire or interest will not open the window. You cannot invite it to open. All that you can do is keep the room in order. By being virtuous (not according to the different faiths), by being sane, rational, orderly. Then perhaps, if you are lucky, the window will open and the breezes will come in – or maybe they will not. It depends on the state of your mind, and that state of mind can only be understood by yourself, watching it yet never trying to shape it, which means watching it without any choice. Out of this choice-less awareness perhaps the door will open and you will know what that dimension is in which there is no conflict, no time, something you cannot explain through words.

ART

 Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

What place has art for such a mind? Why do we depend so much on music, poetry, etc? Is it a form of escape, a stimulation? What is a painting? You paint something, some like it, some criticize it and if it becomes famous, it fetches a great price. But if you are directly in contact with the sky, the trees, the mountains and the birds, then you don’t need art. If you watch and are with the movement of a bird on the wing, the beauty of every movement of the sky, in the hills, in the shadows or the beauty in the face of another, would you go to a museum to look at art? Maybe you do not know how to look at all the things about you. That is why you go to the museum to look! But if we knew how to look at the face of a passer – by, at a flower by the roadside, a cloud of an evening, to look with complete attention and therefore with complete joy and love, then all these other things would have very little meaning.

MEDITATION

Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

Meditation is a loaded word, and there are several schools of meditation, different methods, various systems which will produce attention. They say “watch the movement of your hand” or “pay attention to it, work and watch it, watch it” and so on. Meditation as control, following an idea, looking on an image, taking a phrase and going into it, listening to the word Om or Amen, listening to the sound of it, following it, etc. There is implied an activity of thought, an activity of imitation, a movement of conformity to an established order. According to JD those are not meditation at all. 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 to just watch it and move with it. In that watching and moving with that thought, with that feeling, you beginning to understand and to be aware of the whole nature of thought 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.

8. MIND AND THE ORIGIN OF THOUGHT

Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

What is the mind? Is it conscious? It thinks, it has the whole background of time, it reacts according to its conditioning, it is the store house of memory. This is what has been told to us. But to really find out what is mind, we need to be in a state of meditation – not meditation according to some system or method. But the meditation of a mind that is free to look, to observe, a mind that is extraordinarily quiet.

When you observe your own mind – is there an observer which can examine? If I were to examine a microphone, to see how it works, I must take it to pieces and see what is inside it. But looking at this whole field of consciousness – which is the mind (brain, nerves, whole store of memories, etc), is there in fact an entity which can look at it, examine it? Is there an entity separate from the thought it examines? And if there is a separate entity, then is that not invented by thought, and therefore part of the mind and not separate at all, hence not able to find out what the mind is? How then is one to find out what the mind is, without that separate entity, the observer?

If I want to know what my mind is, all its reactions, thoughts, motives, pursuits, ideas and dogmas – which are all part of me. When I say to myself, “I must look, find out the origin of thought, the beginning”, then is that “I” separate from the thing it is going to look at, examine, observe, therefore capable of looking objectively. If not, then this “I” who observes this totality of consciousness which we call the mind, is not separate then how is it to find out, or be aware of, this total state which is called the mind.

What is it to be aware? When we are aware of the wind, the sun, the room, the door, is there in that awareness a separate entity which says, “I am aware of these things”? Is all consciousness limited? Is it possible to experience that which is beyond the limitations of the consciousness, and then who is the entity which will experience this?

Is there an observer, who says “I love”? And does that mean love? And when we say love, is there a complete absence of the observer? If the observer is not absent, then that love becomes hate, jealousy, pain anxiety, guilt- all which is not love. It all becomes desire and pleasure.

Coming back to being aware – it is very important to find out what we mean by being attentive. When you look at the blue sky in the morning, seeing the whole depth and height of the sky, when you are aware of all that, do you say – “I am aware” or is there only an awareness of all that, without the observer, though you see it with your eyes. That very seeing, without creating the observer, is to be totally aware.

When you look at your husband or wife, are you aware of the image which you have created about the wife or the husband? Or are you directly aware of her actually, without the observer? This is much more difficult than looking at the sky, river or the tree. Because they do not intimately touch my feelings, my reactions, but when I have lived with somebody for a number of years, I have created an image about that person, and that person has an image about me. Here, when we say there is a center which observes, there is a division and hence a conflict. Where there is conflict, there is no awareness at all. To be free of conflict, one has to become aware and do so without creating another center which is aware of the image that I have created about myself or about another.

So we see that thought has its origin, its beginning, in consciousness in which there is the division between the observer and the observed. How will you find out for yourself, how any thought begins? In order to find out anything, you mind must be quiet! It should be free of all the prejudices, chatters, dialogues, images etc. And then because there is freedom and quiet, in that state there can be observation - the observation of the beginning of thought. If there is awareness of the beginning of thought, then there is no need to control thought.

One can see the beginning of thought, only when there is silence in the mind, not through control, discipline or various forms of meditation but naturally. It is only in silence, that I can discover anything. But this silence cannot be cultivated, it cannot be put together by thought. Because if it is put together by thought, then it is dead, it is stagnation. When thought puts anything together there is always conflict. To understand all this, the mind needs to be extraordinarily alive and alert, it no longer stores up every discovery, and is a light to itself without any experience. It is only when the mind goes beyond this individual and social consciousness that there is a possibility of being a light to oneself which never goes out.

Most of us crave experience, whether going to the moon or drugs, mystical experience, religious experience, sexual experience and the experience of having a great deal of money, power, position, domination etc. We do this because our life is so shallow, so empty, so insufficient. We think that without experiences the mind becomes dull, stupid, heavy. That is why we read books, go to museums, concerts, rituals, churches, entertainment – every form of experience. But we never ask what is involved in this experiencing. Every experience demands recognition, else it is not experience. But to recognize it as an experience, I must have already known. Which means it is not new at all.

So the fundamental truth is that mind is always seeking, craving, searching for wider, deeper experience, but such a mind is shallow because it lives always with its memories, with its recognitions, but what is remembered, recognized is not the new. We all crave experience because the challenge makes us feel alive. If we didn’t have any experiences, we would be asleep. We depend on experiences to keep us awake. But this dependence, like every other dependence, makes our mind dull. Is it possible to be totally and completely awake (not just peripherally at a few points of my being) without these challenges and experiences? There is nothing new in these experiences.  But there is no experiencing in silence and one may wonder how is it possible to act in this world if the mind is really quiet, silent? Is it possible to function in this world with this sense of silence?

We all have certain functions – jobs which demands accumulated information as knowledge. But if my mind is living in this state of silence, can it function in these circumstances. When we ask this question, we are separating silence from action – it is a wrong question. When there is silence in the mind, we can function in our jobs and everything else. It will be like the drum which is highly tuned, and when you strike it, it gives the right note, but it is always empty, silent. It doesn’t say, “I am silent” or “How am I to function in the office”

The same goes for love. When we say “I love you, this, that”, what does it mean? Religious people around the world have divided love into the profane and the sacred and so on. Is love desire? – for most of us love is desire and pleasure – of the experience, of possession, attachment, fulfilment through people and other things like nation, God, religion etc. We call that love and for that love we kill others in jealousy, hatred etc. But is that love? Is possession, domination, dependence, seeking of satisfaction, pleasure, comfort, companionship – all escapes from myself – are these love?

Or does love lie beyond this turmoil of thought. If we say that, then we are worried about our family, our nation- what will happen to them – we must have security. If we ask this question, then we are never outside the consciousness, outside our mind. Only when we are out of our consciousness, our mind is silent and observing, can it understand what love is. Love is when there is no thought, no tomorrow and therefore no time. It easy to listen to this, but to actually go beyond thought, beyond time (time is thought and thought is sorrow) – to go beyond is to be aware that there is a different dimension called love. From there one can act, one can be.

Then one asks, what is beauty? Is the object beautiful or does it lie in the eye of the beholder? Or is beauty when there is no object or observer, but when the observer and the observed have been totally abandoned? This can only be in total austerity, but not the austerity of the priest with its harshness, with its sanctions, rules and obedience. But Austerity means simplicity, not in ideas, clothes or behaviour but being totally simple, which is complete humility. Therefore there is never a climbing – therefore there is never an achievement – therefore there is no ladder to climb. There is only the first step and it is an everlasting step.

7. THOUGHT - THE TIME BETWEEN IDEA AND ACTION

Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

When we talk about being serious, we mean serious about everything, from the most trivial things you do to the most profound questions of life. One cannot be casual about anything, because a casual mind is just a frivolous mind flitting from one thing to another, is quick in offering opinions, a mind that flits about from one idea to another, or from one experience to another. Such a mind is not very serious. Such a mind will not only have more and more problems, but also it cannot possible understand the very complex problem of life.

We, each one of us is responsible tremendously for the world all around us - our society, our country, our religion, everything. And what have we built? We have created war, and a society where the most important thing is success, big business and religion where there is no meaning or essence. What are the young to do? Join the army and kill or be killed or train in schools and then spend the next 40 years in wretched little offices? Or join the religions or take up drugs? The education which we received, we are trained to fit into certain grooves, become a cog in this society, do mechanical things. And for all this chaos and misery we are responsible. This confusion and misery, this personal achievement of which we are so very proud is what we call living. This culture we live in where the desire for power, position, prestige, name, success and intermingled with it this peculiar idea of spirituality of find God through mind expanding drugs and so on. This field where there is turmoil, conflict in every form of relationship, hatred, antagonism, and wars – we call living. This is all we know.

We have cultivated escapes from this life though alcohol, religion, literature, music and art. Being incapable of solving this enormous battle of existence, we are naturally frightened of life, and we seek every form of escape. We don’t understand the known like our everyday existence; we do anything to get away from this life of being frightened of living. We are frightened of the unknown too like death, and what lies beyond tomorrow. So we are afraid of the known and the unknown – and this is our daily life.

If we are at all serious we have to face this, not allow ourselves for a single minute to escape from this, from this actual fact of what actually is. To face it one must be extraordinarily fearless because the facing of it involves not only how to observe it but to also look at the question of time.

To understand this misery of life, one has to understand the question of time. By understanding we mean not the intellectual understanding of a concept but an understanding that comes when you give your whole attention to something. I can only give my attention completely when I really care to understand this problem, which means when I really love to understand it and am not frightened. Previous experience, knowledge prevents you from looking and listening and paying attention. If you hurt me, then if I look at you with that memory, then I don’t see you. I look at you from the image I built about you when you hurt me. This image, which is memory, idea, is looking at you; therefore I am not looking or listening to what you are saying at all. I am listening to my own whispers of my image about you, so one can look only when there is freshness, an innocence, and freedom to look. Once this is understood, we can look at time.

By time we do not mean the time of the watch. We mean the time in which there is the interval between idea and action. We have ideas like being communists or capitalists or religious. The “idea” is to protect ourselves; it is the idea of being secure. But action is always immediate, it is not in the past or in future – action means to act, is must be always in the present. And action is so dangerous, so uncertain that we make it conform to an idea which will give us a certain satisfaction, pleasure, safety – and this leads to conflict. It is like this – I have an idea of what is right or what is wrong, or an ideological concept about myself or about society and according to that idea I act. Therefore the action is in conformity with the idea, hence there is conflict. There is the idea, then the interval and the action, and that interval is time.

We need to ask if time can come to an end – which means can conflict come to an end, not gradually but immediately. If conflict ends gradually, then it is the idea of conflict coming to an end, not the real conflict. Again there is an interval between the idea of ending conflict and the action. This time which is the interval between idea and action is thought. When you think you will be happy tomorrow, then you have an image of yourself achieving a result of being happy tomorrow. It is thought, through desire and the continuity of that desire, as pleasure, sustained by thought, which says “tomorrow you will be happy”. So thought creates that interval of time.

How can we put a stop to time? Time is sorrow, because thought thinks over and over again about desires and pleasure; it creates further desire for pleasure and breeds not only sorrow, but also gives continuity as time. As long as there is this interval of time bred by thought, there must be sorrow, there must be continuity of fear. You understand that if we try to answer this question of when will it end, we have created an idea of ending time or thought and therefore we again have that idea, and the interval and we are caught again.

It is really extraordinary to watch the operation of one’s own thinking, just to observe that reaction which one calls thinking. It springs from memory. But is there a beginning to thought? To us thought is very important, the more clever, cunning, subtle, the more you can express it – the ideas, intellectual or otherwise which fills books, which we worship. So we are looking at - can the mind be made fresh, new and innocent, so that it can look at this existence and bring about a different world altogether?

We have separated action from idea, and to us ideas are far more important than action. But ideas are always of the past, and action is always of the present. We are frightened of that living present, so that past as ideas becomes very important. Just like death.

We are frightened of death, ill health, old age, disease and pain. So you see how thought creates fear? We are frightened of life and we are frightened of death, the known and the unknown, and that fear is bred by thought. So we think about death, we think about it and by thinking about it we are creating that interval between living and that which we call death. By thinking about our possessions and everything which matters to us, we are creating an interval between what we think as an idea, and the actual fact. Even when you say “I won’t think about it”, you have already thought it.

So thought breeds, through time - not only the fear of living but the fear of death and because death is something you don’t know, thought says “let’s postpone it, avoid it, keep it as far away as possible”. You have thought out how to avoid it and use many escapes – churches, gods, saviours, and the idea that there is a permanent, eternal self in yourself which is endless. But because thought thinks about it, it is not real. Thought has created the idea of an eternal self – Soul, Atman - in order to find safety, hope.

So the problem arises of how to go beyond this so called living and the thing called death, is there an actual separation between the two? To live intensely is to die to everything of yesterday – all the pleasure, the judgements, opinions, knowledge, achievements etc. To die to that brings an intensity, brings about a state of mind in which the past has ceased and the future, as death, has come to an end. So the living – you cannot live if you do not die. But most of us are frightened because we want surety, because we want to continue the misery which we have known, the disease, the pain, the pleasure, the anxiety. Because we avoid, push away death (thought pushes away death) there is fear of the known and the fear of the unknown. When there is no interval between death and the living, then you know what it means to die, to die everyday to everything that one has. Then the mind becomes extraordinarily fresh, eager, attentive and innocent. When one dies to thousand yesterdays, then living is dying.

It is only in that state of time comes to an end and thought functions only where it is needed and not at any other level or at any other demand.

6. LEARNING

 Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

What is learning and how do we learn? Do we learn from experience? Do we learn from accumulation of knowledge? Look at the number of wars there has been in the history since being recorded. Have we learned from these experiences that war is not good and it should stop? Or is learning a matter of time? But in all these thousands of years, we have not learnt that war – the organized killing of another is appalling! So time and accumulation of knowledge has definitely not taught us. Then what will teach us?

What is learning and how do we learn? We need to understand humility when we talk about learning. If I want to learn something, then my mind must not have reached any conclusion about it, it must not have any opinion or previous knowledge. It is an the innocent mind that can enquire into the question of humility. By innocence we mean ‘not knowing’ and such a mind is capable of a great deal of freedom. So it is obvious that learning has nothing to do with accumulation of knowledge or experience or tradition and it only a mind that is free that can be in a state of humility – only such a mind can learn. So when we begin to understand what humility is – where the mind is not cluttered up with opinion, judgements, knowledge, then there is a state in which we are capable of learning. And such a mind can begin to approach the complex problem of fear.

So is learning a matter of time? Can humility be acquired gradually? Can it be cultivated? Humility is freedom. The moment humility is cultivated or gathered it ceases to be humility. It is a matter of instant perception. But when you make humility an idea – it stops that instant perception.

What is idea? You hear that it is only a clear, innocent mind that can learn, and you want to learn about fear. It has already become an idea – you want to be free from fear, and you hear that you must learn about it and one can only learn if your mind is very clear, simple – this structure has already become an organized thought – an idea. From that idea you hope to learn, but you are not learning at all, you are merely carrying an idea into action. And between idea and action there is conflict. You do not instantly see the truth of learning, the truth of humility. Seeing instantly is the action. Let us look at this in different ways.

Why do we have ideas and opinions at all? By ideas – we mean psychological ideas, not technical ones! Why do we form an image (an image being an idea)? Why does thought function through ideas – ideas of nationality, ideas of right and wrong, ideas of killing and of God, family, non family, etc. We have ideas – why? Are ideas a means of self protection, a resistance to any form of change, to any form of movement, to life? Do ideas bring about clarity of action? OR are these ideas always the past – is not past always acting in the present and continuing in the future? I learn a trade, then I proceed to apply what I have learnt. And then that which I have learnt and according to which I act, becomes mechanical, repeated over and over again. That gives me a sense of security, in which there is no disturbance. I can add more to it, but it will always be mechanical.

Do we learn ideas, conclusions and having learnt them, apply them in action? And is there idea separate from action at the moment when you are acting? All ideas are always in the past, therefore, when I am functioning according to ideas, I am living in the past, therefore I am dead (discussed in earlier post – past is dead).

Learning requires sensitivity, and there is no sensitivity if there is an idea, which is of the past, dominating the present. Only a sensitive mind can learn, and sensitivity is denied when there is domination of an idea. Because the ideas, the mind is not quick, not pliable, not alert – hence learning cannot happen. So learning implies not only humility and sensitivity, but also a state of mind which is not achieving. The moment you achieve you cease to have that quality of innocence and humility. There can be such a mind which is sensitive – both physically and psychologically, sensitive to all the implications of life.

Let us go back to understand fear. Learning about fear is also to learn about sorrow and pleasure. To understand sorrow, we need to understand passion. Most of us are consciously or otherwise in sorrow of some kind or another. We are sorrowful human beings who have not a moment of bliss uncontaminated by thought, not a moment of real deep enjoyment untouched by any thought or memory. We are a battlefield from the moment we are born until we die. There is never order, never peace, never a sense of tranquillity and bliss. All this is sorrow and conflict.

Let us understand passion, to help us understand sorrow. Love is not desire or pleasure. Because from previous discussions we see that desire – becomes pleasure through thinking about something which has given you pleasure, enjoyment and you think about it more and more – that thought is not love. Thinking about you, whom I love is not love – it is pleasure that I have derived from you being sustained by thought. I think about you, and the moment thought enters, love goes away. What we know about love, as desire, pleasure and passion has nothing to do with the passion which we are talking about – a passion which is not the product of thought.

An example of a passion which is product of thought – If I become passionate about you or an idea, it has stimulation in it, it has motive in it, the motive being “I am going to derive pleasure”, or it might lead us to sorrow. But real passion implies that - thought and idea - have been totally abandoned. And when there is that passion, that intensity, that drive – which is always in the present, not tomorrow or yesterday – then we can come upon this question of sorrow and see whether it can ever end.

Is it possible to completely end sorrow? The sorrow of loneliness, of death, of not having love or being loved, not being able to fulfil, not being a great man, all the quantities of sorrows we accumulate through life. Is it possible to be free of the sorrows that we accumulate through life? It is possible only when there is that passion to find out about myself. Not according to someone else, like Freud, Jung, psychologists and all. I must have that passion to find out about myself without any moment of accumulation from which I learn. Myself is a constant movement, of yesterday through to today and tomorrow, a single movement, endless. If my mind is free from all previous conclusions, then I can learn about myself like that. To see that on the instant, to see this whole movement, we need passion. When you listen to the thunder without any idea or thought, then there is not space between that thunder and you. See the complete, total movement of life as yourself, on the instant – and for that you must have passion. There is no passion when there is fear, you do not have passion when there is love (desire or pleasure).

On a different note :- Comparison - when you compare what takes place? You have an idea that you are dull, and you have an idea that somebody else is very intelligent. The two images, the one about yourself and the image about another are in competition. Can you observe yourself as being dull without comparison? Or do you know only through comparison? Do you know that you are hungry, because you were hungry yesterday or because you are actually hungry? You know through comparison and you don’t really know or do you know because it is so? This is a very important question because throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another – but when I do that I am destroying myself. When in school one boy is compared with another, what is happening? You are destroying that child. Can we live without comparison with anybody this means there is no inferior or superior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, to look at yourself and to see actually what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end. I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to become – but when I don’t compare, I am beginning to understand what I am. Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating , far more interesting, it goes beyond all this stupid comparison.

5. OBSERVER AND THE OBSERVED

Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

We are serious about things which give us pleasure and satisfaction. But very few are serious in seeing the whole problem of existence, conflicts and suffering. To be serious about these issues means continual attention to these matters, not just sporadic interest, according to our requirement or convenience. If we are not serious about these issues, then we fritter away our life discussing endlessly things that really don’t matter, which is a waste of energy. The more one is serious inwardly, the more they are mature. Maturity is not a matter of age, or great experiences, or knowledge. This maturity comes only when there is wider and deeper knowing of oneself.

As discussed in the previous posts, in order to resolve fear, we have to look at fear completely, without any fragmentation. We are so afraid of so many things, and we may wish that we could solve each fear by itself, one by one. But that is immature, because there is only fear. But can we look at fear? Most of us run away from it or suppress it or control it or look at other forms of escape. We do not know how to live with the fear. Can we look at it without looking for escape, justification or suppression?

So what does this looking mean? I can only look at fear without doing anything to that fear, when I have a quite mind, when my mind is not chattering to itself, carrying a dialogue with itself. Only then can we look at fear completely. One can observe a tree or cloud with a fairly quite mind because it is something not very important to us. But when we have to look at fear, despair, when we are directly in contact with loneliness, with jealousy, with such ugly state of mind, can we still do it?

It is only with a quite mind, we can look at fear completely, observe it, know and understand it, its movement, everything. This is what JD means by living with fear. Have we every tried living with something or someone like that? Observing everything. It is possible only when our mind is free from all opinions, judgements and values, conclusions or formula. For that the mind needs to be so alive and subtle.

So once we observe fear and live with it, we will ask – who is that entity who is living with the fear. Who is observing? Is it a dead entity ? (a static being who has accumulated a lot of knowledge and information about himself, but all this experience and knowledge is the past, and the past is a dead thing) Is the observer a static dead past or a living thing? Are we a dead thing watching a living thing (fear) or a living thing watching a living thing? In the observer the two states exists – when we observe a tree closely, everything about the tree, how it lives, moves, feels – it is a living thing. But when we look at it with accumulated knowledge about that tree, and the knowledge is a dead thing. But when we look at it without any accumulated knowledge, then we (a living thing) is looking at a living thing (the tree).

Another example – When I look at my friend, am I observing with the memories of yesterday? Are you aware that yesterday is contaminating the present? OR are you observing as though there was no yesterday at all? The past is always overshadowing the present. The pleasures, flatteries, insults, memories of yesterday touches the present and give it a twist. The observer is both the past and the present. Anything of past is already dead. So the observer is both alive and dead and this is how he looks.

When the observer can go beyond, so that he is neither the past nor the present. Then the observer is the observed which is a living thing. This is real meditation. It is because the observer lives in the past and the present which is touched by the past, that there is division between the observer and the observed.

Observer being the observed doesn’t mean identification with the observed. For example, a painter could sit in front of a tree for days, months or years, until he was the tree. He did not actually become the tree, or identified with it, but he was the tree. There was no space between the painter and the tree, no space between the observer and observed. He was totally the tree, and only in that state could he paint. If we can understand this, we would forever be free from fear and only then we will know what love is.

We must understand the observer and not the observed, because it is of little value. Fear itself is of little value. What is of value is how we look at it, what we do or do not do with fear. As we watch the observer, which is ourself, we see that we are made of the past. Memories, hopes, guilt, knowledge are all of the past. When we say ‘we know’ it means what we knew yesterday, not right now. We are the past, living in the present which is overshadowed by the past.

When the state of mind is such, the observer has no space between himself and the thing observed, in which the past is no longer interfering at any time, only then the observer is the observed, and only then that fear comes totally to an end.

As long as there is fear, there is no love. What is love? Sex, belonging to somebody, being nourished? But in these there is always anxiety, fear, jealousy, guilt. There is so much conflict, there cannot be love. Love has nothing to do with pleasure or desire. Pleasure goes with fear, and a mind which lives in fear seeks pleasure. Pleasure increases fear, so one is caught in a vicious circle. By being aware of the circle, by watching it, living with it, never trying to find a way out of it (the cycle is broken not because you are doing something about it), you will break that cycle.

4. FREEDOM & FEAR

Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

We need to understand freedom. Do we really want to be free? Maybe we do not want to be free of every burden; we want to keep some of our pleasures and satisfying complex ideologies and get rid of only those which cause us pain. So is it really freedom, if we want to be free from pain, from anxiety from anger. Freedom from something is just a reaction, and hence not freedom at all.

Freedom is entirely different from any reaction, inclination or desire. One can be free from a dogma, easily, by kicking it out. The motive for that could be that dogma was no longer convenient, fashionable, reasonable, popular, etc. These are mere reactions. Like the hippies. Their revolt to the society led to conformity in another thing – the hippies. It is not real freedom.  Real freedom means, that the mind is free from every dependence, slavery, acceptance, conformity. Do we want such a freedom? Such freedom means solitude, a mind which is completely alive without any dependence on stimulation, experience and ideas. Freedom of this kind means aloneness, solitude. It is only in this solitude that one can be in a real relationship with another – without any dominance, no friction and dependence. Is this what every individual demands and insists upon – a freedom in which there is no leadership, no tradition, no authority?

Similarly when we say we want to be free from fear, it is just a reaction. Not real freedom. We just want to be free from pain, not the pleasure. But pain is the shadow of pleasure. Both are not separable.

One of the main features of fear is the non acceptance of what one is and the inability to face oneself. We as human beings are products of time, culture, experience, knowledge of a thousand years. Can a mind which is brought up in this culture ever have this kind of freedom? We are never in solitude as we mentioned above. We are not alone. We are a bundle of memories, handed down through centuries. In understanding solitude one will begin to understand the necessity of living with oneself as one actually is . Not as one thinks how one ought to be or as one has been. Look at oneself without any false modesty, without any fear, any condemnation or justification – just live with what one actually is.

Living with oneself doesn’t mean get used to or to accept oneself. In observing myself I find that I am jealous, anxious or violent, and I live with it, I observe, because only then can I understand it. But it is not like how we get used to the sound of river or wind – we don’t realise it after a couple of days. I cannot accept my violence or get used to it. I have to take care of it like a newly planted tree – protect it from sun and wind. In the same way I have to care for my violence or anxiety, and love it and observe it. Not love being anxious, but rather watch it closely and then I see my relationship with anxiety or violence and then there is not conflict.

This is not easy, to live with oneself, and observe oneself always without becoming morbid, depressed or elated. This is one of the major reasons for fear – we don’t want to live with what we are.

Should fear be divided into the conscious and unconscious fears? Or is there just fear, which we translate into different forms. Like Desire is always the same – only objects of desire change. Similarly maybe be fear is same, but it translates into different fears. How can one look at fear which is indivisible and not fragmentary, without the fragmentation which the mind has cultivated. How to look at fear as a whole with a fragmented mind? Thought – the whole process of machinery of thinking- is fragmentation, it breaks up everything. Thought also, is always old and never free. Thought is the reaction of memory and memory is old. Hence when our mind uses thought to look at fear as a whole, it cant. Thought reduces fear into fragments.

Mind can only look at total fear when there is no movement of thought.

3. PLEASURE

Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

We are all pursuing pleasures of our own, not only through our relationships, achievements and entertainments – but also, seeking greater experience, greater knowledge, greater understanding of life are also pursuits of pleasure in different forms. Even this search for faith, and belief in God – is that too not a pursuit which is tinged with pleasure?

Let us look at pleasure without justifying it or condemning it or ignoring it. Pleasure is a basic demand of our life – finding it, continuing that pleasure, nourishing it, sustaining it, and when there is no pleasure, life becomes dull, stupid and meaningless. Tiresome too.

But why does the mind seek pleasure always? Of course pleasure is sensory reactions – to a beautiful face or the clear blue sky or the flow of a river. But then there comes the memory. And we want yesterday’s pleasure repeated in the form a sensory reaction because we remember how it was. So the mind basically demands further experience of that sensory reaction. So thought plays a big role in pleasure.

It is like this. I see a beautiful sunset. It is captured in my memory. Thought comes in and begins to think about it and says ‘how beautiful it was when for a moment ‘I was absent, along with all my problems, tortures etc. And that remains, as thought is sustained by thought. So desire is sustained and nourished by thought. And when we are denied what the thought wants, there is pain, conflict and fear.

Fear and pleasure are two sides of the same coin. We want pleasure. And when we don’t get that pleasure we get pain. And this pain brings with it - fear. Fear of the pain of not getting what we want. This fear is not only the fear of death, of not being at all, of isolation, but also fear about what others think of you, and the fear of not living up to the images one has created for himself. Fear of not just the unknown but also of the known. Simple example is - if I want to be famous and I don’t get to be – what happens to me? A more complex example would be if I believed in an ideology for years, and then that ideology is shaken, torn away from me by logic or life – then I feel alone, empty handed, stranded and then fear begins. Till I find another belief, another pleasure.

How does one resolve this fear? By suppressing it? By denying it? There is only one way to resolve fear – that is to know oneself. Only self knowledge can provide freedom from pleasure and fear.

To know oneself is a complex, continuous moving thing. To know yourself you must have a mind in which there is no sense of comparision or judgement or justifying or condemning. A mind that has understood the nature of pleasure and fear can live at peace with itself and the world.

2. CONFLICT

Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

We are always in conflict. With our most intimate ones, with our neighbours, with the society. There seems to be a deep rooted conflict within us, which expresses in the form of antagonism, hate, desire to dominate, possess, guide another’s life. We have found ways to trim off some branches of this conflict, but is it possible that there is no conflict within us, so that there is no conflict outside too?

There are several organizations which try to bring peace to mankind. Communists, materialists, socialists, religion, etc. They believe that bringing about order outside, through rules, regulations, sanctions etc, there can be freedom from aggression and hence from conflict. But does it work?

There are also people who say that bringing order inside – though believing in some idealogy or principle and living according to those inward established laws will lead to removal of conflict.

But can conflict be resolved through conformity? Whether we do it willingly or forced. We seemed to have tried everything – obedience, revolt, conformity and everything in order to live in peace. But it doesn’t seem to work. Would it not be worthwhile to find out if man can live in peace inwardly, without any form of compulsion, suppression etc. A state of tranquillity which knows no disturbance at any moment. Is this possible?

On a different note :- We all think that inward order can only come about through time, that tranquillity can be built little by little everyday. But time does not bring about inward peace. We have had centuries on this earth but still the peaceful mind is elusive. It is very important to put a stop to time, so as not to think in terms of gradualness. It means there is no tomorrow for you to be peaceful. You have to do it right now, this moment, no other moment.

Why do we have this inner conflict? Why do we have to live with it everyday? It leads to the nature of desire. Desire is a contradiction – It basically means we want something which we do not have. If we observe desire without condemning or justifying it, we can see that desire is the cause of all contradiction in us – we want pleasure and we want to avoid pain.

We want this, must avoid that, want pleasure, achievements, pleasure of dominating etc. When we do not get these, there is the pain of not achieving – which is a contradiction. This contradiction cannot end if we do not understand desire. There are many who are interested in understanding desire. Mostly religious people. They have understood that desire is the root of issues, so they say desire must be suppressed, destroyed, controlled. Did it work? Suppression, distortion and conformity did not lead to the truth.

Why shouldn’t there be desire? What is wrong with it? We see a beautiful cloud, a beautiful house or face and we have an immense pleasure looking at it. What is wrong with it? The process of desire is simple. It starts with seeing, contact, then there is sensation and then thought interferes with it, and desire arises. We see a beautiful light on the cloud, and it would be absurd not to enjoy it. But thought dwells upon it and makes it into a pleasurable memory, and it wants that pleasure to be repeated.

Thought interferes with sensation and makes it into memory, and the desire for the pleasure of that memory is given continuity and sustained by thought, nourished by thought.

So lets look at it this way. I am dull and stupid. The response to that would be that I want to be more clever, intelligent and brighter. I am something and I want the opposite – hence there is a contradiction already – a conflict which wastes energy. But could I live with that stupidity, that dullness, without wanting the opposite, without the contradiction? Then it would not be dull at all. It doesn’t mean that I am satisfied with myself. Can I just look at my dullness without introducing any factor? Can I look at the beautiful house, pretty bird or tree without any contradiction? Desire, which is created by thought, is all about bringing this division, this contradiction.

So to have inward peace and a mind not at conflict at any time, we have to understand the whole nature of thought and desire, and that understanding can only come when thought doesn’t breed further conflict.

On a different note :- We never ask ourselves why we dream. So our mind is never at rest, whether awake or asleep. If we are able to rest our minds, without any dreams or conflicts or problems, then the mind can renew itself, become fresh, young and innocent. Anyways, why do we dream? It is because during the day our mind is occupied with so many things – work, children, entertainment, duties, trees, rivers etc. There is no hint of the unconscious. When the surface mind is very occupied, the unconscious underneath has no relationship with it.  So when you sleep and the surface mind is somewhat quite, thats when the deeper layers intimate their own demands, their own conflicts and agonies. But it is a waste of energy – this whole process. IF we are AWAKE during the day, watching every thought, every feeling, every movement of the mind, our emotions, our insecurities, watching our reactions when flattered or insulted or neglected, watching the trees, water and everything around, outside and inside, then the whole of the consciousness – inner and outer is opened up. IF we do this, watch our mind in operation, our feelings, our heart, our reactions, if we see ourselves and our relationships with outside world and inward too, then the mind becomes extraordinary – always renewing itself, because there is no conflict at it, it is always fresh. Such a mind is by nature, very quite, tranquil, silent. It is only such a life that can see the beauty of life and is beyond time.