Tag:  Meditation

• we never see the world as a whole because we are so fragmented, we are so terribly limited, so petty August 22, 2009

  You see we never see the world as a whole because we are so fragmented, we are so terribly limited, so petty. And we never have this feeling of wholeness, you follow, where the things of the sea, t...

• We are watching, not waiting, not expecting anything to happen but watching without end. September 01, 2009

  Sitting on the shore watching the birds, the sky and hearing the distant sound of passing cars, it was a most beautiful morning. You went out with the ebb and came in with the tide. You went out fa...

• Demand is born out of duality. 'I am un- happy and I must be happy.' September 04, 2009

  To be free of demand and satisfaction necessitates investigation into oneself; it necessitates understanding the whole nature of demand. Demand is born out of duality. 'I am un- happy and I must b...

• Meditation is like the breeze that comes in when you leave the window open; October 03, 2009

  If you set out to meditate it will not be meditation. If you set out to be good, goodness will never flower. If you cultivate humility, it ceases to be. Meditation is like the breeze that comes in ...

• Only in total freedom does bliss exist. October 06, 2009

  Happiness and pleasure you can buy in any market at a price. But bliss you cannot buy for yourself or for another. Happiness and pleasure are time-binding. Only in total freedom does bliss exist. P...

• Thought shattering itself against its own nothingness is the explosion of meditation. October 13, 2009

  Thought shattering itself against its own nothingness is the explosion of meditation. This meditation has its own movement, directionless and so is causeless. And in that room, in that peculiar sil...

• When you realize the truth that it is only the quiet mind that sees, then the mind becomes extraordinarily quiet. October 14, 2009

  When you realize that there is no method, no system, that no mantram, no teacher, nothing in the world that is going to help you to be quiet, when you realize the truth that it is only the quiet mi...

• Meditation is really very simple. We complicate it. We weave a web of ideas around it, what it is and what it is not. October 17, 2009

  THAT MORNING THE SEA was like a lake or an enormous river, without a ripple and so calm that you could see the reflections of the stars so early in the morning. The dawn had not yet come, and so th...

• If one does not know what meditation is, true meditation, I think one misses everything in life. October 28, 2009

  May I suggest that we talk this evening about the mind in meditation, which is a most complex and subtle problem. If one does not know what meditation is, true meditation, I think one misses everyt...

• What is meditation? Why should one meditate? To find that out, stop meditating. November 04, 2009

  What is meditation? Why should one meditate? To find that out, stop meditating. To find out what is real meditation, not yours or mine, your type and my type, or X's type, but what is meditation, t...

• What is the relationship of attention to inattention, and to awareness? November 12, 2009

  K: ...we are asking now, what is the relationship of attention to inattention, and to awareness? Right? They are all related. Why is the mind inattentive - not, can the mind be continuously attenti...

• The craving for experience is the beginning of illusion. November 16, 2009

  The craving for experience is the beginning of illusion. As you now realize, your visions were but the projections of your background, of your conditioning, and it is these projections that you ha...

• The earth and everything upon it became holy. November 17, 2009

  The earth and everything upon it became holy. It was not that the mind was aware of this peace as something outside of itself, something to be remembered and communicated, but there was a total ab...

• Meditation is seeing the constant touching the ever-changing movement of life. November 29, 2009

  Meditation is seeing the constant touching the ever-changing movement of life. The man who has progressed through being a sinner to being a saint has progressed from one illusion to another. This ...

• Thought is the very denial of love, and it cannot enter into that space where the me is not. December 04, 2009

  In the space which thought creates around itself there is no love.This space divides man from man, and in it is all the becoming, the battle of life, the agony and fear. Meditation is the ending of...

• There was complete emptiness of the brain, and the mind was free of all experience, the knowing of yesterday, though a thousand yesterdays have been. December 16, 2009

  And walking on that road, there was complete emptiness of the brain, and the mind was free of all experience, the knowing of yesterday, though a thousand yesterdays have been. Time, the thing of th...

• Meditation, along that quiet and deserted road came like a soft rain over the hills; it came as easily and naturally as the coming night. December 22, 2009

  Meditation, along that quiet and deserted road came like a soft rain over the hills; it came as easily and naturally as the coming night. There was no effort of any kind and no control with its con...

• Meditation as a means to arrive, to gain, to discover, only gives strength to the meditator. December 28, 2009

  The end of meditation is meditation itself. The search for something through and beyond meditation is end-gaining; and that which is gained is again lost. Seeking a result is the continuation of se...

• Meditation implies a mind that is so astonishingly clear that every form of self-deception comes to an end. January 20, 2010

  Meditation implies a mind that is so astonishingly clear that every form of self-deception comes to an end. One can deceive oneself infinitely; and generally meditation, so-called, is a form of sel...

• To pursue the known in different forms is a game of self-deception, and then the meditator is the master, there is not the simple act of meditation. March 01, 2010

  Meditation is a very important action in life; perhaps it is the action that has the greatest and deepest significance. It is a perfume that cannot easily be caught; it is not to be bought through ...

• We all need a quiet mind, a peaceful mind, an absolutely silent mind without a murmur of thought. Is that possible? Possible means we don't know. March 07, 2010

  We said meditation is a state of mind in which all the things that thought has invented - the illusions, the beliefs, the dogmas, the rituals, the habits, the sexual demands - all that is no longer...

• I hesitate to say this because it sounds extravagant and rather childish: that the source of all energy had been reached. March 14, 2010

  Krishnamurti: And one morning, one night in Rishi Valley I woke up - a series of incidents had taken place, meditation for some days - I woke up one night, in the middle of the night, it was really...

• You can't empty the mind, do what you will you can't empty it, because the desire to empty it is part of the activity of the self. March 19, 2010

  Q: Why is it so difficult to empty one's mind? Krishnamurti : Now just listen to that question. Why is it so difficult to empty the mind? Listen to this. The speaker stated: meditation is the em...

• It is only when the mind is silent that we can understand anything April 05, 2010

  The whole of the Orient is mesmerized by the word meditation, and in the Occident, the word prayer is of tremendous importance. It is essential to find out whether the mind - which is so very compl...

• Meditation is not the pursuit of pleasure and the search for happiness. Meditation, on the contrary, is a state of mind in which there is no concept or formula, and therefore total freedom. April 21, 2010

  Happiness and pleasure you can buy in any market at a price. But bliss you cannot buy for yourself or for another. Happiness and pleasure are time-binding. Only in total freedom does bliss exist. P...

• Meditation is not an escape from the world; it is not an isolating self-enclosing activity, but rather the comprehension of the world and its ways. May 05, 2010

  Meditation is not an escape from the world; it is not an isolating self-enclosing activity, but rather the comprehension of the world and its ways. The world has little to offer apart from food, cl...

• For the total development of the human being, solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. May 10, 2010

  For the total development of the human being, solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. One has to know what it is to be alone, what it is to meditate, what it is to die; ...

• Meditation is the silence of the mind, but in that silence, in that intensity, in that total alertness, the mind is no longer the seat of thought, because thought is time, thought is memory, thought is knowledge. July 26, 2010

  The word `meditation' is very common in the East and throughout the whole of Asia; they practise what they call meditation. One sees poor men, ill-clad and ill-fed, sitting under a tree meditating,...

• Surely meditation is understanding - meditation of the heart is understanding. August 16, 2010

  So what is meditation? Surely meditation is understanding - meditation of the heart is understanding. How can there be understanding if there is exclusion? How can there be understanding when there...

• Your task is much greater than the speaker's; it is not the other way round - which most of us are used to; the speaker does all the work and you just listen, agree or disagree, and go away elated, amused, intellectually alerted; November 14, 2010

  So you have a double job - hearing the words and listening. Naturally, when you hear the word , the word has a meaning, and that meaning evokes certain responses, certain memories, certain reaction...

• You are forcing your mind to fix itself on an idea which is not born of innate and vital interest, because if it were, there would be no conflict, you would concentrate spontaneously and without effort. January 08, 2011

  Question: Will you please tell us your ideas about meditation? Krishnamurti: What do you mean by meditation and why do you meditate? If you mean by it concentration, it is quite different from m...

• Why do you feel that you must meditate? February 10, 2011

  Why do you feel that you must meditate? Do you mean by meditation, concentration? If you are really interested, then you do not struggle, force yourself to concentrate. Only when you are not intere...

• You may strive for [that] spiritual height; but I assure you that, though you may appear to attain it, you will still experience the feeling of emptiness. February 14, 2011

  You ask me: "Have you a new way of meditation to offer us?" Now you meditate in order to achieve a result. You meditate with the idea of gain, just as you live with the idea of reaching a spiritual...

• To live a natural life, full, spontaneous life, creative, intelligent life, you can only do that when you understand the false standards and the true standards of society, and have broken away from it because you understand their significance; June 02, 2011

  Question: Virtue does not appear to be a very prominent feature in your teachings. Why is this? Has the virtuous life so small a part to play in the realization of truth? Krishnamurti: What do ...

• I wonder what people generally mean by meditation. June 19, 2011

  Question: In order to discover lasting values, is meditation necessary, and, if so, what is the correct method of meditation? Krishnamurti: I wonder what people generally mean by meditation. As ...

• The intelligent man is the summation of intelligence; his is an absolute, direct perception without twists and perversions which result when memory functions. October 04, 2011

  Intelligence imparts no values, which are but the measures, standards or calculations, born out of self-protectiveness. So how is there to be this intelligence, this mirror of truth, in which there...

• True meditation is the discernment of one's own unique process of creating and being caught in ignorance, and being aware of this process. July 18, 2012

  Meditation is constant awareness and pliability, not an adjustment to any standard or mode of conduct. Try to be aware of your own idiosyncrasies, fancies, reactions and wants in your daily life, a...

• Meditation is the constant discernment of what is true in the actions, reactions and provocations of life. September 07, 2012

  Question: What is your idea of meditation? Krishnamurti: What is called meditation, as practised by most people, is concentration on an idea and self-control. This concentration helps to develop...

• I am afraid that many of you who hear me often but do not experiment with what I say, will merely acquire a new terminology, without that fundamental change of will which alone can free the mind-heart from conflict and sorrow. October 15, 2012

  I am afraid that many of you who hear me often but do not experiment with what I say, will merely acquire a new terminology, without that fundamental change of will which alone can free the mind-he...

• When there is a natural concentration of interest, not mere control, you begin to discover that thought is in a process of constant imitation and that it is ever wandering through its many layers of memories, precepts, examples; April 18, 2013

  Questioner: Do you advise meditation? Krishnamurti: It all depends on what you call meditation. There is a great deal involved in this question. Have you ever done any so-called meditation? Perh...

• Creative stillness of the mind is necessary for the understanding of reality. April 20, 2013

  When there is awareness we observe that thought is ever approximating itself to a pattern, to a memory, to a past experience; it is measuring itself against an opinion or a standard. Though mind ma...

• Awareness is not mere analysis or self-examination. April 30, 2013

  Awareness is not mere analysis or self-examination. Meditation is interested concentration, the awareness in which the conflict of opposites ceases.

• Control of thought does not bring about right thinking; May 30, 2013

  Control of thought does not bring about right thinking; mere control of thought is not right meditation. Surely we must first find out why the mind wanders at all. It wanders or is repetitive eithe...

• You can create noble fixations and wholly be absorbed in them but this does not bring about understanding. May 31, 2013

  True concentration comes with self-knowledge. You can create noble fixations and wholly be absorbed in them but this does not bring about understanding. This does not lead to the discovery of the r...

• Is it not possible for the mind-heart to stop formulating, to be utterly still and not forced into stillness by an act of will? September 07, 2013

  Questioner: You say that life and death are one and the same thing. Please elaborate this startling statement. Krishnamurti: We know birth and death, existence and non-existence; we are aware of...

• There is a vast difference between becoming still and being still. September 18, 2013

  There is a vast difference between becoming still and being still. We must die each day to all experiences and accumulations, fears and hopes, and we can only do this by actively being aware of our...

• Many use various techniques to go beyond the reach of the means, but the means shape the mind-heart, and so in the end they become slaves to the means. October 10, 2013

  For those who practice meditation, it is a process of becoming, of building up, of denying or of imitating, of concentration, of narrowing down thought-feeling. They either cultivate virtue as a me...

• Without self-knowledge there is no foundation for right thinking; without right thinking thought-feeling cannot transcend itself. October 11, 2013

  If the meditator does not know himself his meditation is of little value and becomes even a hindrance to comprehension. Without self-knowledge meditation is not possible, and without meditative awa...

• Instead of trying to control these wandering thoughts become aware of them, think-out, feel-out every thought, comprehend its significance, however pleasant or unpleasant; October 12, 2013

  Those who would understand the deep significance of meditation must begin first with themselves, for self-knowledge is the foundation of right thinking. Without right thinking how can thought go fa...

• I wonder how many of you have really practised meditation? If you have, you will have noticed how difficult it is to be extensively aware without the narrowing down of thought-feeling. October 14, 2013

  Meditation becomes significant when the mind-heart is aware, thinking-out, feeling-out every thought-feeling that arises without comparison or identification. For identification and comparison main...

• The accumulation of memory is called knowledge; with this burden, with the scars of experience, thought is ever interpreting the present and so giving continuity to its own scars and conditioning. October 18, 2013

  Questioner: Will you please explain the idea that one must die each day, or that one must live the four seasons in a day? Krishnamurti: Is it not essential that there should be a constant renewa...

• The purpose of meditation is to be aware of the total process of the self. November 13, 2013

  The purpose of meditation is to be aware of the total process of the self. The self is the result of the past and does not exist in isolation; it is made up. The many causes that have brought it in...

• ... through self-knowledge thought-feeling frees itself from its own self-created impediments of ill will and ignorance, worldliness and craving November 14, 2013

  Since we are self-enclosed, in conflict and pain, it is essential to be keenly aware for through self-knowledge thought-feeling frees itself from its own self-created impediments of ill will and ig...

• Meditation is not for a set period only but is to be continued during the waking hours and hours of sleep as well. November 15, 2013

  The more we are meditatively aware during the so-called waking hours the less there are dreams, and less is the anxious fear of their interpretation; for if there is self-awareness during waking ho...

• Meditation is not a practice; it is not the cultivation of habit; meditation is heightened awareness. November 16, 2013

  Meditation is not a practice; it is not the cultivation of habit; meditation is heightened awareness. Mere practice dulls the mind. heart for habit denotes thoughtlessness and causes insensitivity....

• Without understanding oneself meditation becomes a process of self-hypnosis inducing experiences according to one's conditioning, one's belief. December 04, 2013

  As meditation is of the highest importance we ought to approach it rightly from the very beginning. Right means create right ends; the end is in the means. Wrong means produce wrong ends and at no ...

• True meditation is not self-expansion in any form. December 14, 2013

  Questioner: Shall we not know the true answer when the desire for it is greater than for any other thing? Questioner: Is the ego always harmful? Is selfishness ever beneficial? Krishnamurti: ...

• You may succeed in forcibly stilling the mind, but what is the outcome of such effort? Death, is it not? January 12, 2014

  Questioner: Can open, still receptivity of the mind come with the action of will or desire? Krishnamurti: You may succeed in forcibly stilling the mind, but what is the outcome of such effort? D...

• If you have the capacity to allow thought to unroll itself fully then you will perceive that one thought contains, or is related to, all thought. February 09, 2014

  This morning we shall consider meditation. In understanding it we can perhaps comprehend the full and deep significance of passive awareness. Awareness is right meditation and without meditation th...

• Meditation as it is generally understood and practiced is a process of the expansion of the self; often meditation is a form of self-hypnosis. February 19, 2014

  Meditation as it is generally understood and practiced is a process of the expansion of the self; often meditation is a form of self-hypnosis. In so-called meditation effort very often is directed ...

• Awareness flows into meditation; in meditation, Being, the Eternal, is experienced. February 20, 2014

  Awareness flows into meditation; in meditation, Being, the Eternal, is experienced. Becoming can never transform itself into Being. Becoming, the expansive and enclosing activity of the self, must ...

• A man who prays can never understand what is meditation, because he is concerned with gain. March 25, 2014

  A man who prays can never understand what is meditation, because he is concerned with gain. Meditation is a process of understanding. Understanding is not a result and it is not something you gain....

• What do we do when we sit down and meditate? April 23, 2014

  ... what do we do when we sit down and meditate? First of all, whenever we give importance to a belief we erect a barrier. You do it because you have been told to do it. Secondly, if you sit down a...

• If the means is the known the end is the known. April 26, 2014

  So, the problem then is not how to meditate, which is really a wrong question. 'How' implies method. Method is the known and the known can only lead you to the known. The means creates the end. If ...

• The means creates the end and if the means is the known then the end also is the known and therefore it is not the unknowable, the timeless. April 28, 2014

  The question 'How to meditate' is a wrong question because it merely asks for a method, the known, a technique which is the known to find the unknowable. See how ridiculous it is. The means creates...

• Meditation is thought freeing itself from continuity and then there is renewal, creation and reality June 10, 2014

  Meditation is thought freeing itself from continuity and then there is renewal, creation and reality. Our whole structure of thinking is based on the desire for continuity. In understanding continu...

• Meditation is thought freeing itself from continuity and then there is renewal, creation and reality; June 11, 2014

  Meditation is thought freeing itself from continuity and then there is renewal, creation and reality. Our whole structure of thinking is based on the desire for continuity. In understanding contin...

• As practiced by most of us, meditation is an effort to do something of which you have already an outline, thus forcing the mind along a pre-determined channel. July 28, 2014

  It is necessary to understand the true nature of meditation. As practiced by most of us, meditation is an effort to do something of which you have already an outline, thus forcing the mind along a ...

• Meditation is really the thinking out of each thought fully and completely so that you see the truth of that thought. July 29, 2014

  Authority can be imposed either from outside like the Police, the Government, etc; or from inside as in the case of our beliefs or our learning through study, or our past experience. In order to fi...

• The purpose of meditation is to discover reality, not to hypnotize yourself about the reality. November 17, 2014

  What do we do when we sit down and meditate? First of all, whenever we give importance to a belief we erect a barrier. You do it because you have been told to do it. Secondly, if you sit down and m...

• Concentration is not meditation, because where there is interest it is comparatively easy to concentrate on something. May 24, 2015

  So, what is meditation? Concentration is not meditation, because where there is interest it is comparatively easy to concentrate on something. A general who is planning war, butchery, is very conce...

• What is meditation? May 25, 2015

  So, what is meditation? Obviously, it is not fixing your mind on an object, on a word, on an idea, on a phrase, an image, or a speculative hope. Surely, that is merely concentration on what you wan...

• Surely, meditation is understanding - meditation of the heart is understanding. May 26, 2015

  So, what is meditation? Surely, meditation is understanding - meditation of the heart is understanding. How can there be understanding if there is exclusion? How can there be understanding when the...

• To know the deeply concealed activities, the hidden motives, responses, thoughts and feelings, there must be tranquillity in the conscious mind; that is, the conscious mind must be still in order to receive the projection of the unconscious. May 28, 2015

  ... the beginning of meditation is self-knowledge, which means being aware of every movement of thought and feeling, knowing all the layers of my consciousness - not only the superficial layers, bu...

• Without self-knowledge there is no right thinking, and without right thinking, what you do has no meaning, however noble your intentions are. May 29, 2015

  So, meditation is self-knowledge, and without self-knowledge there is no meditation. If you are not aware of all your responses all the time, if you are not fully conscious, fully cognizant of your...

• Understanding the thought process is the beginning of meditation, which is self-knowledge. July 06, 2015

  Aren't you under the belief that your thoughts are separate from yourself? This very question implies that, doesn't it? - that there is the controller and the controlled, the observer and the obser...

• Stillness comes to the mind only through self-knowledge - not through denial of the self or acceptance of the self, but through understanding every movement, every thought, every feeling of the self, both the high and the low. August 13, 2015

  Question: Is not stilling the mind a prerequisite for the solution of a problem, and is not the dissolution of a problem a condition of mental stillness? Krishnamurti: There are two questions in...

• Happiness comes not in evaluating, but when the mind is not occupied with itself, when the mind is silent, then happiness comes into being; August 17, 2015

  ... the mind, which is the intellect, with its will and its capacity for evaluation, must be understood; because, as long as the mind is not understood, with its desires, with its pursuits and the ...