By: Pamela Leavey On: February 10, 2012 at 10:50 am
A deep contemplation today from J. Krishnamurti…
Awareness of outward things
If you are aware of outward things—the curve of a road, the shape of a tree, the colour of another’s dress, the outline of the mountains against a blue sky, the delicacy of a flower, the pain on the face of a passerby, the ignorance, the envy, the jealousy of others, the beauty of the earth—then, seeing all these outward things without condemnation, without choice, you can ride on the tide of inner awareness. Then you will become aware of your own reactions, of your own pettiness, of your own jealousies. From the outward awareness, you come to the inward; but if you are not aware of the outer, you cannot possibly come to the inner… When there is inward awareness of every activity of your mind and your body; when you are aware of your thoughts, of your feelings, both secret and open, conscious and unconscious, then out of this awareness there comes a clarity that is not induced, not put together by the mind. ~~ J. Krishnamurti: The Collected Works vol XV p 243
What do you see when you look around you… And how do you feel when you see it… I believe that “ride on the tide of inner awareness” we must see everything with an open heart that radiates love.
(Photo: Young Mute Swans at the Artichoke River Reservior ~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2012)
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By: Pamela Leavey On: February 5, 2012 at 7:36 am
I was first introduced to the teaching of J. Krishnamurti while studying A Course In Miracles, with Tara Singh while living in Los Angeles. Since then I have found great comfort and wisdom from the teaching of J. Krishnamurti…
The center of suffering
When you see a most lovely thing, a beautiful mountain, a beautiful sunset, a ravishing smile, a ravishing face, that fact stuns you, and you are silent; hasn’t it ever happened to you? Then you hug the world in your arms. But that is something from outside which comes to your mind, but I am talking of the mind which is not stunned but which wants to look, to observe. Now, can you observe without all this upsurging of conditioning? To a person in sorrow, I explain in words; sorrow is inevitable, sorrow is the result of fulfillment. When all explanations have completely stopped, then only can you look -which means you are not looking from the center. When you look from a center, your faculties of observation are limited. If I hold to a post and want to be there, there is a strain, there is pain. When I look from the center into suffering, there is suffering. It is the incapacity to observe that creates pain. I cannot observe if I think, function, see from a center- as when I say, ‘I must have no pain, I must find out why I suffer, I must escape.’ When I observe from a center, whether the center is a conclusion, an idea, hope, despair, or anything else, that observation is very restricted, very narrow, very small, and that engenders sorrow. ~~ J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life
Let go of the suffering, I believe Krishnamurti is saying here. Release it. Sorrow is inevitable, we all go through it. We can’t get past it if we hold it at our center. It’s a hard lesson, but in time we must release the sorrow and suffering and move through it.
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By: Pamela Leavey On: February 2, 2012 at 10:38 am
When we have problems, issues in our lives, we must choose to solve those problems by facing them head on and making the effort to understand the problem…
“The mere desire to resolve a problem is an escape from the problem, is it not? I haven’t gone into the problem, I haven’t studied it, explored it, understood it. I don’t know the beauty or the ugliness or the depth of the problem; my only concern is to resolve it, put it away. This urge to resolve a problem without having understood it is an escape from the problem – and therefore it becomes another problem. Every escape breeds further problems.” ~~ Talks by Krishnamurti in Saanen, 1964
We can not escape our problems, as J. Krishnamurti points out above, because in attempting to escape our problems we simply create more problems. And then our problems compound on top of each other and we create a proverbial mountain from a mole hill.
When there is conflict in our lives, J. Krishnamurti asserts that “conflict becomes more and more complex and insoluble because we do not face what is.” As Krishnamurti goes on to say, “There is no complexity in what is, but only in the many escapes that we seek.”
It’s one thing to take time to reflect on our problems and go deep inside our hearts and minds to question and find solution, but we cannot and we must not use escapism as route to “solve” our problems.
Communication with one’s self and others involved in problems that arise in our lives, is the key to solving our problems. We must shut out the ego that gives us false fear driven solutions and listen deeply to the open heart.
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By: Pamela Leavey On: January 25, 2012 at 8:23 am
Via J. Krishnamurti…
I do not know if you have noticed that there is understanding when the mind is very quiet, even for a second; there is the flash of understanding when the verbalization of thought is not. Just experiment with it and you will see for yourself that you have the flash of understanding, that extraordinary rapidity of insight, when the mind is very still, when thought is absent, when the mind is not burdened with its own noise. So, the understanding of anything -of a modern picture, of a child, of your wife, of your neighbor, or the understanding of truth, which is in all things- can only come when the mind is very still. But such stillness cannot be cultivated because if you cultivate a still mind, it is not a still mind, it is a dead mind. The more you are interested in something, the more your intention to understand, the more simple, clear, free the mind is. Then verbalization ceases.
After all, thought is word, and it is the word that interferes. It is the screen of words, which is memory, that intervenes between the challenge and the response. It is the word that is responding to the challenge, which we call intellection. So, the mind that is chattering, that is verbalizing, cannot understand truth -truth in relationship, not an abstract truth. There is no abstract truth. But truth is very subtle. Like a thief in the night, it comes darkly, not when you are prepared to receive it.
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By: Pamela Leavey On: January 23, 2012 at 8:10 am
More from J. Krishnamurti again today, because his wisdom and teachings speak the truth…
Surely, only in relationship the process of what I am unfolds, does it not? Relationship is a mirror in which I see myself as I am; but as most of us do not like what we are, we begin to discipline, either positively or negatively, what we perceive in the mirror of relationship. That is, I discover something in relationship, in the action of relationship, and I do not like it. So, I begin to modify what I do not like, what I perceive as being unpleasant. I want to change it; which means I already have a pattern of what I should be. The moment there is a pattern of what I should be, there is no comprehension of what I am. The moment I have a picture of what I want to be, or what I should be, or what I ought not to be, a standard according to which I want to change myself; then, surely, there is no comprehension of what I am at the moment of relationship. I think it is really important to understand this, for I think this is where most of us go astray. We do not want to know what we actually are at a given moment in relationship. If we are concerned merely with self-improvement, there is no comprehension of ourselves, of what is.
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By: Pamela Leavey On: January 22, 2012 at 8:04 am
It’s time for some Food For Thought once again… from the great master J. Krishnamurti:
So what are you? Apart from a name, a form, perhaps if you are lucky a bank account, perhaps a skill, apart from all that what are you? Are we not suffering? Or suffering doesn’t exist in your life. Is there fear? Is there anxiety? Greed? Envy? Worshipping some image which thought has created? Frightened of death? Clinging to some concept? A contradiction, saying one thing and doing another. So we are all that. Our habits, our inanities, the endless chatter that goes on in the mind, all that is what we are. And the content of consciousness makes consciousness, and that consciousness has been evolving through time, through tremendous experiences, pains, sorrow, anxiety, all that. Now we are asking: can one be free of all that? Free from all sense of fear. Because where there is fear there is no love.
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