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Copyright © 2007-2010 Daniel Marks | beyondthemind.net. All Rights Reserved.
This website went online on November 22, 2007 and is being continually developed.
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What is - Consciousness?
"Consciousness is made up of one's beliefs, one's tendencies, one's secret desires, anxieties, loneliness, and so on. There is the content which makes up consciousness. Without the content, there is no consciousness as we know it. If you observe your own consciousness, that is what you are; your consciousness is what you are. Your fears, your desires, your pleasures, your loneliness, depression, anxiety and all that, that is what you are, what you believe.
So the content makes the consciousness and that consciousness is conditioned. Since it is conditioned, it must be in conflict. Aren't you all in conflict of some kind or other, conflict being dissension between two people, conflict with oneself, what is and what should be? That is conflict. All human beings apparently are violent. The content of our consciousness is part of that violence. Conflict arises when there is duality. That is, I am violent, I should not be violent. Or I have the ideal of non-violence or of practising non-violence, but the fact is you are violent. That is a fact."
(Mind Without Measure: Talks in New Delhi, 1st Public Talk, 30th October, 1982 - 'The Root Cause of Confusion')
“There is in fact only one state, not two states such as the conscious and the unconscious; there is only a state of being, which is consciousness, though you may divide it as the conscious and the unconscious. But that consciousness is always of the past, never of the present; you are conscious only of things that are over. You are conscious of what I am trying to convey the second afterwards, are you not? You understand it a moment later. You are never conscious or aware of the now."
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'There is only consciousness' - September 27, 2007)
“So it is very important to understand not only the conscious, but also the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is much more powerful, much more insistent, much more directive and conservative than the conscious mind; because the conscious is merely the educated mind which adjusts itself to the environment. He is adjusting himself, as you do, to the environment, to the pressure from outside, but inwardly he is the same - that is, the unconscious is still the residue of the past.”
(KH, 3rd Public Talk, Colombo, 1957)
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The content of consciousness is thought, which limits consciousness itself. The central theme of the talks is that thought is limited. There is another state of mind - a state where consciousness as we know it ceases to exist - that can only arise when thought ends. Thought is limited as it is circumscribed by the me, the self. It is this thought-created self that one must understand, through passive, disinterested, choiceless awareness of the content of the mind, which is what we call consciousness. Thought is the known, it is structured on the past, which is memory; the whole movement of thought is consciousness. When the mind is silent, free of thought, there is direct perception, and a state of consciousness but not as we know it, as the mind enters a new state, which it cannot possibly conceive of in advance.
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* What Does This Mean - “The Observer is the Observed”?
“... when you observe your conditioning, the conditioning exists only in the observer, not in the observed.”
(The Awakening of Intelligence: Talk & Dialogue, New York City, April 24, 1971)
“It is this separation of the observer from the observed that makes the observer want more experience,
more sensations, and so he is everlastingly pursuing, seeking. It has to be completely and totally understood that
as long as there is an observer, the one that is seeking experience, the censor, the entity that evaluates, judges,
condemns, there is no immediate contact with what is.”
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Immediate action' - August 21, 2007)
This is the critical statement that underpins the entire talks, which clearly does not apply to the physical world. When you observe a tree, it is patently apparent that you are not the tree; it is solely referring to the psychological realm of the mind.
There is a common misconception that this phrase is equivalent to, and a restatement of, the old aphorism: 'I am That'. This is incorrect. 'I am That' actually is a statement of the self about itself - 'I am that which I think I am', which is a conception of thought, a self-projection. (See Commentaries on Living: First Series, page 170)
[Later, this was to be reworked by René Descartes into the renowned Latin saying cogito ergo sum: 'I think, therefore I am', which is a complete validation of the existence of both thought and the self, as Descartes maintained that thought cannot be separated from the I - that it is, in effect, entirely self-centered (which is correct). However, he failed to point out that the I was a conceptual construction of thought: that thought had set up a separate observer which then looked at its thoughts as though they were independent of it. That is, he failed to expose to modern philosophy (of which it is said he is the father), the basic division between thought and the thinker, and, as he was the supreme authority in the field (and, remarkably, still is, in academia) this failure has crucial repercussions that are still playing out today. (In addition, he espoused dualism, the separation of mind and body, which remains a monumental error in the history of thought.)
Krishnamurti, of course, totally rejected all past authorities in the field, including Descartes, as being a knowledge burden on the mind's ability to have an insight into itself and its conditioning at a single stroke. That is, a flash of total insight in the now, into the nature and limitation of thought. And it is because of this very rejection of Descartes and the authority of all past philosophers that he has not been accepted into the highest levels of academia, the U.S. Ivy League, which has meant he is being essentially passed over today in all mainstream thought on consciousness, thought, the self, and the mind. Of course, a central reason for this as well is that philosophers simply don't understand him.]
So, the statement that the observer is the observed, which is the predominant theme throughout the talks, can be rendered as: 'There is only That.' It is the very antithesis of anything about 'I am,' as it concerns the end of the self, the complete cessation of all psychological division, thought conceptions and self-projection. In essence, the phrase is equivalent to "The thinker is the thought." Thought has separated itself into a thinker and that which the thinker then observes (thus: subject and object; cause and effect). The thinker then tries to act upon that which it observes, never realizing that it is the very thing it is trying to change. The thinker is a fictitious entity created entirely by thought. All true awareness, then, can only take place when this thinker, this chooser, this controller, this censor, ceases.
The observer is at the core of duality - the me and the not me. Thought has separated/divided the world into concepts of its own making, such as good and evil, mind and matter, god and the devil. This is a schism in the mind, which means it is in contradiction with itself. Nonduality is the integration of the mind as one with the universe. This statement underpins the talks throughout their entire history.
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* What is - Meditation?
Meditation is undoubtedly a subject all on its own. (Note that meditation in the talks is clearly differentiated from the current vogue of mindfulness meditation, which is merely being fully present in the moment, the now). As can be seen from the quotes below, there is a "right meditation", which obviously implies there is a wrong meditation. Right meditation is learning about all the ways of thought, which then brings about a quietness to the mind. The great difficulty with this, however, is that if there is any fear, then it is the wrong type of meditation. This means that fear must not be present at all in meditation, nor can there be any intention or motive behind it:
"Meditation is the purgation of the known."
(Commentaries On Living: Series II, Chapter 52, 'Evaluation')
“Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all thought …”
(The Notebook: page 163)
“Meditation is really very simple. We complicate it. We weave a web of ideas round it
- what it is and what it is not. But it is none of these things. Because it is so very simple
it escapes us, because our minds are so complicated, so time-worn and time-based."
(JKTI: Meditations: 'Why are we such tortured human beings…?' - page10, 1969)
“Meditation, … can never be a conscious thing, and one can see the reason for this.
If one meditates purposefully with a deliberate intention, consciousness then continues with all its content. …”
(Lutyens: Volume 2: Krishnamurti: Years of Fulfilment, pp. 212-13)
"... if you are aware deeply you will perceive that the thinker and his thoughts are one; the observer is the observed.
To experience this actual integrated fact is extremely difficult and right meditation is the way to this integration."
(Oak Grove Talks, 1946, 6th Talk, Question and Answers)
(Eight Questions)
“So we are asking now: what is the movement of meditation? First of all we must understand the importance of the senses. Most of us react, or act according to the urges, demands and the insistence of our senses. And those senses never act as a whole but only as a part. Please understand this.
If you don’t mind enquiring into this a little more for yourself, talking over together, but all our senses never function, move, operate as a whole, holistically. If you observe yourself and watch your senses you will see that one or the other of the senses becomes dominant. One or the other of the senses takes a greater part in observation in our daily living, so there is always imbalance in our senses - right? May we go on from there?
Now is it possible - this is part of meditation, what we are doing now - is it possible for the senses to operate as a whole; to look at the movement of the sea, the bright waters, the eternally restless waters, to watch those waters completely, with all your senses? Or a tree, or a person, or a bird in flight, a sheet of water, the setting sun, or the rising moon, to observe it, look at it with all your senses fully awakened. … if you observe this, if you observe this operation of the whole senses acting you will find there is no centre from which the senses are moving. Are you trying this as we are talking together? To look at your girl, or your husband, or your wife or the tree, or the house, with all the highly active sensitive senses. Then in that there is no limitation. You try it. You do it and you will find out for yourself. That is the first thing to understand: the place of the senses. Because most of us operate on partial or particular senses. We never move or live with all our senses fully awakened, flowering. Because as most of us live, operate and think partially, so one of our enquiries into this is for the senses to function fully and realize the importance and the illusion that senses create - are you following all this? And to give the senses their right place, which means not suppressing them, not controlling them, not running away from them but to give the proper place to the senses.
This is important because in meditation, if you want to go into it very deeply, unless one is aware of the senses, they create different forms of neurosis, different forms of illusions, they dominate our emotions and so on and so on.
“Meditation has nothing to offer; you may not come begging with folded hands. It doesn't save you from any pain. It makes things abundantly clear and simple; but to perceive this simplicity the mind must free itself, without any cause or motive, from all the things it has gathered through cause and motive. This is the whole issue in meditation. Meditation is the purgation of the known. ... The unknowable doesn't invite you, and you cannot invite it. It comes and goes as the wind, and you cannot capture it and store it away for your benefit, for your use. It has no utilitarian value, but without it life is measurelessly empty.”
(Commentaries On Living: Series II, Chapter 52, 'Evaluation’)
“But meditation ... is the absolute stillness of the mind, the absolute quietness of the brain. The foundation for meditation has to be laid in daily life; in how one behaves, in what one thinks. One cannot be violent and meditate; that has no meaning. If there is, psychologically, any kind of fear, then obviously meditation is an escape. For the stillness of the mind, its complete quiet, an extraordinary discipline is required; not the discipline of suppression, conformity, or the following of some authority, but that discipline or learning which takes place throughout the day, about every movement of thought; the mind then has a religious quality of unity; from that there can be action which is not contradictory.”
(Beyond Violence: Part IV, Chapter 2)
"Meditation is one of the most extraordinary things, and if you do not know what it is you are like the blind man in a world of bright color, shadows and moving light. It is not an intellectual affair, but when the heart enters into the mind, the mind has quite a different quality; it is really, then, limitless, not only in its capacity to think, to act efficiently, but also in its sense of living in a vast space where you are part of everything....
The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain and the fleeting joy. ... You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is."
(Meditations: 1969 - 1, 'You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim' - ellipses added)
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* What is - Conditioning?
Conditioning is all one's past experiences, one's past memories, is it not? It is tradition and knowledge that has been built up over the millennia. The brain is conditioned by the past, by the recording of knowledge and experience, which is an automatic process. It is the carryover of all this experience that impinges on the experiencing of the present (experience and experiencing are two different things). Dying each day to the accumulations of this recording is to meet the next day as a new event. The immediate quote below is stating clearly that all this conditioning is concerned with the self, after all, the self is conditioning, is it not?:
“So, everywhere society is conditioning the individual, and this conditioning takes the form of self-improvement, which is really the perpetuation of the ‘me’, the ego, in different forms.”
(Collected Works: Vol. IX, 'Conditioning of self-improvement' - page 83)
“The intellect can reason, discuss, analyse, come to a conclusion from inferences, and so on, but intellect is limited, for intellect is the result of our conditioning.”
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Intellect will not solve our problems' - September 6, 2007)
“You see, when the mind is totally aware of its conditioning, there is only the mind; there is no ‘you’ separate from the mind. But, when the mind is only partially aware of its conditioning, it divides itself, it dislikes its conditioning or says it is a good thing; and, as long as there is condemnation, judgment, or comparison, there is incomplete understanding of conditioning, and therefore the perpetuation of that conditioning. Whereas, if the mind is aware of its conditioning without condemning or judging, but merely watching it, then there is a total perception, and you will find, if you so perceive it, that the mind frees itself from that conditioning.”
(Collected Works: Vol. VIII, 'The mind frees itself' - page 266, September 26, 2007)
*** "To free the mind from all conditioning, you must see the totality of it without thought. This is not a conundrum; experiment with it and you will see. Do you ever see anything without thought? Have you ever listened, looked, without bringing in this whole process of reaction? You will say that it is impossible to see without thought; you will say no mind can be unconditioned. When you say that, you have already blocked yourself by thought, for the fact is you do not know. So can I look, can the mind be aware of its conditioning? I think it can. Please experiment. Can you be aware that you are a Hindu, a Socialist, a Communist, this or that, just be aware without saying that it is right or wrong? Because it is such a difficult task just to see, we say it is impossible. I say it is only when you are aware of this totality of your being without any reaction that the conditioning goes, totally. deeply - which is really the freedom from the self."
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Freedom from the self' - May 23, 2008)
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* What is - Negation?
Negation is another word for renunciation; it means in essence to see the false as the false and wipe it. For example, to see what love is, you cannot approach it 'positively'. The positive approach is to say what you think it is - that is, to have a pre-conceived idea of what it is, or should be. However, to approach love through a state of not knowing, is to approach it negatively. You then see what it is not - jealousy, possession, dependence, etc. When all the false has been eliminated as not being love, then you are left with love itself:
"There is no renunciation if you know what you are going to get in return.
There is only renunciation when you drop something not knowing what is going to happen.
That state of negation is completely necessary."
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Complete Emptiness' - October 25, 2008)
"Could we negate completely the whole movement of knowledge? Negate everything except the knowledge of driving a car
and all technological knowledge? Could one negate the feeling that one knows? ...
Can one negate the knowledge of all that one knows?"
(Pupul Jayakar Biography: Chapter 39, 'The Nature of God' - page 416)
“For the complete mutation in consciousness to take place you must deny analysis and search, and no longer be under any influence - which is immensely difficult. The mind, seeing what is false, has put the false aside completely, not knowing what is true. If you already know what is true, then you are merely exchanging what you consider is false for what you imagine is true.
There is no renunciation if you know what you are going to get in return. There is only renunciation when you drop something not knowing what is going to happen. That state of negation is completely necessary. Please follow this carefully, because if you have gone so far you will see that in that state of negation you discover what is true; because, negation is the emptying of consciousness of the known. After all, consciousness is based on knowledge, on experience, on racial inheritance, on memory, on the things one has experienced.
Experiences are always of the past, operating on the present, being modified by the present and continuing into the future. All that is consciousness, the vast storehouse of centuries. It has its usefulness in mechanical living only. It would be absurd to deny all the scientific knowledge acquired through the long past. But to bring about a mutation in consciousness, a revolution in this whole structure, there must be complete emptiness. And that emptiness is possible only when there is the discovery, the actual seeing of what is false. Then you will see, if you have gone so far, that emptiness itself brings about a complete revolution in consciousness: it has taken place.”
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Complete emptiness' - October 25, 2007)
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K: … “So we come back to the basic question of whether it is possible in daily life to live in a state which, for the moment, let us call enlightenment?
Q: I still don't know what you mean by enlightenment...
K: A state of negation. Negation is the most positive action, not positive assertion. This is a very important thing to understand. Most of us so easily accept positive dogma, a positive creed, because we want to be secure, to belong, to be attached, to depend. The positive attitude divides and brings about duality. The conflict then begins between this attitude and others. But the negation of all values, of all morality, of all beliefs, having no frontiers, cannot be in opposition to anything. A positive statement in its very definition separates, and separation is resistance. To this we are accustomed, this is our conditioning. To deny all this is not immoral; on the contrary to deny all division and resistance is the highest morality. To negate everything that man has invented, to negate all his values, ethics and gods, is to be in a state of mind in which there is no duality, therefore no resistance or conflict between opposites. In this state there are no opposites, and this state is not the opposite of something else.
Q: Then how do you know what is good and what is bad? Or is there no good and bad? What is to prevent me from crime or even murder? If I have no standards what is to prevent me from God knows what aberrations?
K: To deny all this is to deny oneself, and oneself is the conditioned entity who continually pursues a conditioned good. To most of us negation appears as a vacuum because we know activity only in the prison of our conditioning, fear and misery. From that we look at negation and imagine it to be some terrible state of oblivion or emptiness. To the man who has negated all the assertions of society, religion, culture and morality, the man who is still in the prison of social conformity is a man of sorrow.
Negation is the state of enlightenment which functions in all the activities of a man who is free of the past. It is the past, with its tradition and its authority, that has to be negated. Negation is freedom, and it is the free man who lives, loves, and knows what it means to die.”
(Freedom, Love and Action: Eight Conversations, Second conversation)
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* What is - Insight?
Is insight the same as direct perception? In the first quote insight is equated to “pure observation”. In the second quote it can clearly be seen that this insight can only arise from an empty mind. It is also apparent that insight, an empty mind, freedom and action are all intimately interrelated: (For more on insight, see the page: Partial or Total Insight)
“When man becomes aware of the movement of his own consciousness he will see the division between the thinker and the thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical change in the mind.”
(Core of the teaching: 1980)
‘What is the state of your mind when you are looking at “what is”? What is the state of your mind when you are not escaping, not trying to transform, or deform “what is”? What is the state of that mind that is looking and has insight? The state of the mind that has insight is completely empty. It is free from escapes, free from suppression , analysis and so on. When all these burdens are taken away - because you see the absurdity of them, it is like taking away a heavy burden - there is freedom. Freedom implies an emptiness to observe. That emptiness gives you an insight into violence - not the various forms of violence, but the whole nature of violence and the structure of violence; therefore there is immediate action about violence, which is to be free, completely, from all violence.”
(The Transformation of Man: pp. 179-80)
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* What is - Relationship?
It is through our relationship with people and with ideas that we can observe ourselves as we actually are. We do not see ourselves clearly in isolation from others, sitting removed in a room in supposed meditation, cut off from the world. Observation is seeing ourselves in action in relationship. The difficulty with this is that what we see is highly uncomfortable, even disturbing. We see things we would normally cover up, escape from - loneliness, envy, hatred.
“So we have to understand what relationship is. Are we related? Is one human being related to another? We mean by relationship, don't we?, to be in contact intellectually, emotionally, psychologically. Are we in such contact? Or, is there contact, relationship, between the image that you have about yourself and the image you have about another? You have an image about yourself, ideas about yourself, concepts, experiences and so on. You have your particular idiosyncrasies, tendencies - all that has built an image about yourself. Please listen to it, observe it in yourself. Do not, as I said, merely listen to words - they have little meaning. But, in hearing the words, if the words reveal your own consciousness, your own state, then the words have meaning.
If you observe, you have an image about yourself: that you are this, you are that; that you had this experience and that experience; that you are ugly or you are beautiful; that you want to be this or you want to be that. You have an image, an idea, a conclusion about yourself: that you are spiritual, that you are the Atman, that you are the soul or whatever it is. You have an image carved by the mind, or carved through your experience, through tradition, through circumstances, through strange pressures. There is that image of yourself, and the other person also has an image about himself. So these two images come into contact, and that is what we call relationship. Whether it is the most intimate relationship between a husband and wife, or the image that you have created about Russia, about America, about Vietnam, about this or that, the contact between the two images is what we call relationship. Please do follow this. That is all the relationship we know.”
(Collected Works: VOL XVI, Bombay, 1st Public Talk, February 13, 1966)
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* What is it to be Serious?
We are reasonably serious when we have an incentive, are we not? This entire society is built around incentive - which means wealth which gives status - the puffed up importance of the self. But the seriousness that is talked about here has no motive, no reward at the end. There is no goal to arrive at. This is why the mind is not serious, for there is no reward in truth. Reward in the sense of fame, fortune and self-expression. The "want" mentioned in this passage is not the desire for a reward. It is the demand of a serious mind. A patient and perservering mind, that is not distracted by passing fads and life circumstances:
“What does it mean to be serious - so that you are completely dedicated to something, to some vocation, that you want to go right to the end of it. … One wants to find out how to live quite a different kind of life, a life in which there is no violence, in which there is complete inward freedom; one wants to find out and intends giving time , energy, thought, everything, to that. I would call such a person a serious person. He is not easily put off - he may amuse himself, but his course is set. … He will listen to others, consider examine, observe… he has got to examine, to question constantly, which means he has to be highly sensitive. He has to find out how and to whom he listens. So he is all the time listening, pursuing, inquiring; he is discovering and with a sensitive brain, a sensitive mind, a sensitive heart - they are not separate things - he is inquiring with the totality and the sensitivity of all that. … One has to have a brain that is sensitive; that means a brain that is not functioning in habits, pursuing its own particular little pleasure, sexual or otherwise.”
(The Impossible Question: Chapter 1, 'The Act of Looking' - page 19; ellipses added)
"Consciousness is made up of one's beliefs, one's tendencies, one's secret desires, anxieties, loneliness, and so on. There is the content which makes up consciousness. Without the content, there is no consciousness as we know it. If you observe your own consciousness, that is what you are; your consciousness is what you are. Your fears, your desires, your pleasures, your loneliness, depression, anxiety and all that, that is what you are, what you believe.
So the content makes the consciousness and that consciousness is conditioned. Since it is conditioned, it must be in conflict. Aren't you all in conflict of some kind or other, conflict being dissension between two people, conflict with oneself, what is and what should be? That is conflict. All human beings apparently are violent. The content of our consciousness is part of that violence. Conflict arises when there is duality. That is, I am violent, I should not be violent. Or I have the ideal of non-violence or of practising non-violence, but the fact is you are violent. That is a fact."
(Mind Without Measure: Talks in New Delhi, 1st Public Talk, 30th October, 1982 - 'The Root Cause of Confusion')
“There is in fact only one state, not two states such as the conscious and the unconscious; there is only a state of being, which is consciousness, though you may divide it as the conscious and the unconscious. But that consciousness is always of the past, never of the present; you are conscious only of things that are over. You are conscious of what I am trying to convey the second afterwards, are you not? You understand it a moment later. You are never conscious or aware of the now."
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'There is only consciousness' - September 27, 2007)
“So it is very important to understand not only the conscious, but also the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is much more powerful, much more insistent, much more directive and conservative than the conscious mind; because the conscious is merely the educated mind which adjusts itself to the environment. He is adjusting himself, as you do, to the environment, to the pressure from outside, but inwardly he is the same - that is, the unconscious is still the residue of the past.”
(KH, 3rd Public Talk, Colombo, 1957)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The content of consciousness is thought, which limits consciousness itself. The central theme of the talks is that thought is limited. There is another state of mind - a state where consciousness as we know it ceases to exist - that can only arise when thought ends. Thought is limited as it is circumscribed by the me, the self. It is this thought-created self that one must understand, through passive, disinterested, choiceless awareness of the content of the mind, which is what we call consciousness. Thought is the known, it is structured on the past, which is memory; the whole movement of thought is consciousness. When the mind is silent, free of thought, there is direct perception, and a state of consciousness but not as we know it, as the mind enters a new state, which it cannot possibly conceive of in advance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* What Does This Mean - “The Observer is the Observed”?
“... when you observe your conditioning, the conditioning exists only in the observer, not in the observed.”
(The Awakening of Intelligence: Talk & Dialogue, New York City, April 24, 1971)
“It is this separation of the observer from the observed that makes the observer want more experience,
more sensations, and so he is everlastingly pursuing, seeking. It has to be completely and totally understood that
as long as there is an observer, the one that is seeking experience, the censor, the entity that evaluates, judges,
condemns, there is no immediate contact with what is.”
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Immediate action' - August 21, 2007)
This is the critical statement that underpins the entire talks, which clearly does not apply to the physical world. When you observe a tree, it is patently apparent that you are not the tree; it is solely referring to the psychological realm of the mind.
There is a common misconception that this phrase is equivalent to, and a restatement of, the old aphorism: 'I am That'. This is incorrect. 'I am That' actually is a statement of the self about itself - 'I am that which I think I am', which is a conception of thought, a self-projection. (See Commentaries on Living: First Series, page 170)
[Later, this was to be reworked by René Descartes into the renowned Latin saying cogito ergo sum: 'I think, therefore I am', which is a complete validation of the existence of both thought and the self, as Descartes maintained that thought cannot be separated from the I - that it is, in effect, entirely self-centered (which is correct). However, he failed to point out that the I was a conceptual construction of thought: that thought had set up a separate observer which then looked at its thoughts as though they were independent of it. That is, he failed to expose to modern philosophy (of which it is said he is the father), the basic division between thought and the thinker, and, as he was the supreme authority in the field (and, remarkably, still is, in academia) this failure has crucial repercussions that are still playing out today. (In addition, he espoused dualism, the separation of mind and body, which remains a monumental error in the history of thought.)
Krishnamurti, of course, totally rejected all past authorities in the field, including Descartes, as being a knowledge burden on the mind's ability to have an insight into itself and its conditioning at a single stroke. That is, a flash of total insight in the now, into the nature and limitation of thought. And it is because of this very rejection of Descartes and the authority of all past philosophers that he has not been accepted into the highest levels of academia, the U.S. Ivy League, which has meant he is being essentially passed over today in all mainstream thought on consciousness, thought, the self, and the mind. Of course, a central reason for this as well is that philosophers simply don't understand him.]
So, the statement that the observer is the observed, which is the predominant theme throughout the talks, can be rendered as: 'There is only That.' It is the very antithesis of anything about 'I am,' as it concerns the end of the self, the complete cessation of all psychological division, thought conceptions and self-projection. In essence, the phrase is equivalent to "The thinker is the thought." Thought has separated itself into a thinker and that which the thinker then observes (thus: subject and object; cause and effect). The thinker then tries to act upon that which it observes, never realizing that it is the very thing it is trying to change. The thinker is a fictitious entity created entirely by thought. All true awareness, then, can only take place when this thinker, this chooser, this controller, this censor, ceases.
The observer is at the core of duality - the me and the not me. Thought has separated/divided the world into concepts of its own making, such as good and evil, mind and matter, god and the devil. This is a schism in the mind, which means it is in contradiction with itself. Nonduality is the integration of the mind as one with the universe. This statement underpins the talks throughout their entire history.
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* What is - Meditation?
Meditation is undoubtedly a subject all on its own. (Note that meditation in the talks is clearly differentiated from the current vogue of mindfulness meditation, which is merely being fully present in the moment, the now). As can be seen from the quotes below, there is a "right meditation", which obviously implies there is a wrong meditation. Right meditation is learning about all the ways of thought, which then brings about a quietness to the mind. The great difficulty with this, however, is that if there is any fear, then it is the wrong type of meditation. This means that fear must not be present at all in meditation, nor can there be any intention or motive behind it:
"Meditation is the purgation of the known."
(Commentaries On Living: Series II, Chapter 52, 'Evaluation')
“Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all thought …”
(The Notebook: page 163)
“Meditation is really very simple. We complicate it. We weave a web of ideas round it
- what it is and what it is not. But it is none of these things. Because it is so very simple
it escapes us, because our minds are so complicated, so time-worn and time-based."
(JKTI: Meditations: 'Why are we such tortured human beings…?' - page10, 1969)
“Meditation, … can never be a conscious thing, and one can see the reason for this.
If one meditates purposefully with a deliberate intention, consciousness then continues with all its content. …”
(Lutyens: Volume 2: Krishnamurti: Years of Fulfilment, pp. 212-13)
"... if you are aware deeply you will perceive that the thinker and his thoughts are one; the observer is the observed.
To experience this actual integrated fact is extremely difficult and right meditation is the way to this integration."
(Oak Grove Talks, 1946, 6th Talk, Question and Answers)
(Eight Questions)
“So we are asking now: what is the movement of meditation? First of all we must understand the importance of the senses. Most of us react, or act according to the urges, demands and the insistence of our senses. And those senses never act as a whole but only as a part. Please understand this.
If you don’t mind enquiring into this a little more for yourself, talking over together, but all our senses never function, move, operate as a whole, holistically. If you observe yourself and watch your senses you will see that one or the other of the senses becomes dominant. One or the other of the senses takes a greater part in observation in our daily living, so there is always imbalance in our senses - right? May we go on from there?
Now is it possible - this is part of meditation, what we are doing now - is it possible for the senses to operate as a whole; to look at the movement of the sea, the bright waters, the eternally restless waters, to watch those waters completely, with all your senses? Or a tree, or a person, or a bird in flight, a sheet of water, the setting sun, or the rising moon, to observe it, look at it with all your senses fully awakened. … if you observe this, if you observe this operation of the whole senses acting you will find there is no centre from which the senses are moving. Are you trying this as we are talking together? To look at your girl, or your husband, or your wife or the tree, or the house, with all the highly active sensitive senses. Then in that there is no limitation. You try it. You do it and you will find out for yourself. That is the first thing to understand: the place of the senses. Because most of us operate on partial or particular senses. We never move or live with all our senses fully awakened, flowering. Because as most of us live, operate and think partially, so one of our enquiries into this is for the senses to function fully and realize the importance and the illusion that senses create - are you following all this? And to give the senses their right place, which means not suppressing them, not controlling them, not running away from them but to give the proper place to the senses.
This is important because in meditation, if you want to go into it very deeply, unless one is aware of the senses, they create different forms of neurosis, different forms of illusions, they dominate our emotions and so on and so on.
“Meditation has nothing to offer; you may not come begging with folded hands. It doesn't save you from any pain. It makes things abundantly clear and simple; but to perceive this simplicity the mind must free itself, without any cause or motive, from all the things it has gathered through cause and motive. This is the whole issue in meditation. Meditation is the purgation of the known. ... The unknowable doesn't invite you, and you cannot invite it. It comes and goes as the wind, and you cannot capture it and store it away for your benefit, for your use. It has no utilitarian value, but without it life is measurelessly empty.”
(Commentaries On Living: Series II, Chapter 52, 'Evaluation’)
“But meditation ... is the absolute stillness of the mind, the absolute quietness of the brain. The foundation for meditation has to be laid in daily life; in how one behaves, in what one thinks. One cannot be violent and meditate; that has no meaning. If there is, psychologically, any kind of fear, then obviously meditation is an escape. For the stillness of the mind, its complete quiet, an extraordinary discipline is required; not the discipline of suppression, conformity, or the following of some authority, but that discipline or learning which takes place throughout the day, about every movement of thought; the mind then has a religious quality of unity; from that there can be action which is not contradictory.”
(Beyond Violence: Part IV, Chapter 2)
"Meditation is one of the most extraordinary things, and if you do not know what it is you are like the blind man in a world of bright color, shadows and moving light. It is not an intellectual affair, but when the heart enters into the mind, the mind has quite a different quality; it is really, then, limitless, not only in its capacity to think, to act efficiently, but also in its sense of living in a vast space where you are part of everything....
The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain and the fleeting joy. ... You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is."
(Meditations: 1969 - 1, 'You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim' - ellipses added)
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* What is - Conditioning?
Conditioning is all one's past experiences, one's past memories, is it not? It is tradition and knowledge that has been built up over the millennia. The brain is conditioned by the past, by the recording of knowledge and experience, which is an automatic process. It is the carryover of all this experience that impinges on the experiencing of the present (experience and experiencing are two different things). Dying each day to the accumulations of this recording is to meet the next day as a new event. The immediate quote below is stating clearly that all this conditioning is concerned with the self, after all, the self is conditioning, is it not?:
“So, everywhere society is conditioning the individual, and this conditioning takes the form of self-improvement, which is really the perpetuation of the ‘me’, the ego, in different forms.”
(Collected Works: Vol. IX, 'Conditioning of self-improvement' - page 83)
“The intellect can reason, discuss, analyse, come to a conclusion from inferences, and so on, but intellect is limited, for intellect is the result of our conditioning.”
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Intellect will not solve our problems' - September 6, 2007)
“You see, when the mind is totally aware of its conditioning, there is only the mind; there is no ‘you’ separate from the mind. But, when the mind is only partially aware of its conditioning, it divides itself, it dislikes its conditioning or says it is a good thing; and, as long as there is condemnation, judgment, or comparison, there is incomplete understanding of conditioning, and therefore the perpetuation of that conditioning. Whereas, if the mind is aware of its conditioning without condemning or judging, but merely watching it, then there is a total perception, and you will find, if you so perceive it, that the mind frees itself from that conditioning.”
(Collected Works: Vol. VIII, 'The mind frees itself' - page 266, September 26, 2007)
*** "To free the mind from all conditioning, you must see the totality of it without thought. This is not a conundrum; experiment with it and you will see. Do you ever see anything without thought? Have you ever listened, looked, without bringing in this whole process of reaction? You will say that it is impossible to see without thought; you will say no mind can be unconditioned. When you say that, you have already blocked yourself by thought, for the fact is you do not know. So can I look, can the mind be aware of its conditioning? I think it can. Please experiment. Can you be aware that you are a Hindu, a Socialist, a Communist, this or that, just be aware without saying that it is right or wrong? Because it is such a difficult task just to see, we say it is impossible. I say it is only when you are aware of this totality of your being without any reaction that the conditioning goes, totally. deeply - which is really the freedom from the self."
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Freedom from the self' - May 23, 2008)
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* What is - Negation?
Negation is another word for renunciation; it means in essence to see the false as the false and wipe it. For example, to see what love is, you cannot approach it 'positively'. The positive approach is to say what you think it is - that is, to have a pre-conceived idea of what it is, or should be. However, to approach love through a state of not knowing, is to approach it negatively. You then see what it is not - jealousy, possession, dependence, etc. When all the false has been eliminated as not being love, then you are left with love itself:
"There is no renunciation if you know what you are going to get in return.
There is only renunciation when you drop something not knowing what is going to happen.
That state of negation is completely necessary."
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Complete Emptiness' - October 25, 2008)
"Could we negate completely the whole movement of knowledge? Negate everything except the knowledge of driving a car
and all technological knowledge? Could one negate the feeling that one knows? ...
Can one negate the knowledge of all that one knows?"
(Pupul Jayakar Biography: Chapter 39, 'The Nature of God' - page 416)
“For the complete mutation in consciousness to take place you must deny analysis and search, and no longer be under any influence - which is immensely difficult. The mind, seeing what is false, has put the false aside completely, not knowing what is true. If you already know what is true, then you are merely exchanging what you consider is false for what you imagine is true.
There is no renunciation if you know what you are going to get in return. There is only renunciation when you drop something not knowing what is going to happen. That state of negation is completely necessary. Please follow this carefully, because if you have gone so far you will see that in that state of negation you discover what is true; because, negation is the emptying of consciousness of the known. After all, consciousness is based on knowledge, on experience, on racial inheritance, on memory, on the things one has experienced.
Experiences are always of the past, operating on the present, being modified by the present and continuing into the future. All that is consciousness, the vast storehouse of centuries. It has its usefulness in mechanical living only. It would be absurd to deny all the scientific knowledge acquired through the long past. But to bring about a mutation in consciousness, a revolution in this whole structure, there must be complete emptiness. And that emptiness is possible only when there is the discovery, the actual seeing of what is false. Then you will see, if you have gone so far, that emptiness itself brings about a complete revolution in consciousness: it has taken place.”
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Complete emptiness' - October 25, 2007)
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K: … “So we come back to the basic question of whether it is possible in daily life to live in a state which, for the moment, let us call enlightenment?
Q: I still don't know what you mean by enlightenment...
K: A state of negation. Negation is the most positive action, not positive assertion. This is a very important thing to understand. Most of us so easily accept positive dogma, a positive creed, because we want to be secure, to belong, to be attached, to depend. The positive attitude divides and brings about duality. The conflict then begins between this attitude and others. But the negation of all values, of all morality, of all beliefs, having no frontiers, cannot be in opposition to anything. A positive statement in its very definition separates, and separation is resistance. To this we are accustomed, this is our conditioning. To deny all this is not immoral; on the contrary to deny all division and resistance is the highest morality. To negate everything that man has invented, to negate all his values, ethics and gods, is to be in a state of mind in which there is no duality, therefore no resistance or conflict between opposites. In this state there are no opposites, and this state is not the opposite of something else.
Q: Then how do you know what is good and what is bad? Or is there no good and bad? What is to prevent me from crime or even murder? If I have no standards what is to prevent me from God knows what aberrations?
K: To deny all this is to deny oneself, and oneself is the conditioned entity who continually pursues a conditioned good. To most of us negation appears as a vacuum because we know activity only in the prison of our conditioning, fear and misery. From that we look at negation and imagine it to be some terrible state of oblivion or emptiness. To the man who has negated all the assertions of society, religion, culture and morality, the man who is still in the prison of social conformity is a man of sorrow.
Negation is the state of enlightenment which functions in all the activities of a man who is free of the past. It is the past, with its tradition and its authority, that has to be negated. Negation is freedom, and it is the free man who lives, loves, and knows what it means to die.”
(Freedom, Love and Action: Eight Conversations, Second conversation)
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* What is - Insight?
Is insight the same as direct perception? In the first quote insight is equated to “pure observation”. In the second quote it can clearly be seen that this insight can only arise from an empty mind. It is also apparent that insight, an empty mind, freedom and action are all intimately interrelated: (For more on insight, see the page: Partial or Total Insight)
“When man becomes aware of the movement of his own consciousness he will see the division between the thinker and the thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical change in the mind.”
(Core of the teaching: 1980)
‘What is the state of your mind when you are looking at “what is”? What is the state of your mind when you are not escaping, not trying to transform, or deform “what is”? What is the state of that mind that is looking and has insight? The state of the mind that has insight is completely empty. It is free from escapes, free from suppression , analysis and so on. When all these burdens are taken away - because you see the absurdity of them, it is like taking away a heavy burden - there is freedom. Freedom implies an emptiness to observe. That emptiness gives you an insight into violence - not the various forms of violence, but the whole nature of violence and the structure of violence; therefore there is immediate action about violence, which is to be free, completely, from all violence.”
(The Transformation of Man: pp. 179-80)
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* What is - Relationship?
It is through our relationship with people and with ideas that we can observe ourselves as we actually are. We do not see ourselves clearly in isolation from others, sitting removed in a room in supposed meditation, cut off from the world. Observation is seeing ourselves in action in relationship. The difficulty with this is that what we see is highly uncomfortable, even disturbing. We see things we would normally cover up, escape from - loneliness, envy, hatred.
“So we have to understand what relationship is. Are we related? Is one human being related to another? We mean by relationship, don't we?, to be in contact intellectually, emotionally, psychologically. Are we in such contact? Or, is there contact, relationship, between the image that you have about yourself and the image you have about another? You have an image about yourself, ideas about yourself, concepts, experiences and so on. You have your particular idiosyncrasies, tendencies - all that has built an image about yourself. Please listen to it, observe it in yourself. Do not, as I said, merely listen to words - they have little meaning. But, in hearing the words, if the words reveal your own consciousness, your own state, then the words have meaning.
If you observe, you have an image about yourself: that you are this, you are that; that you had this experience and that experience; that you are ugly or you are beautiful; that you want to be this or you want to be that. You have an image, an idea, a conclusion about yourself: that you are spiritual, that you are the Atman, that you are the soul or whatever it is. You have an image carved by the mind, or carved through your experience, through tradition, through circumstances, through strange pressures. There is that image of yourself, and the other person also has an image about himself. So these two images come into contact, and that is what we call relationship. Whether it is the most intimate relationship between a husband and wife, or the image that you have created about Russia, about America, about Vietnam, about this or that, the contact between the two images is what we call relationship. Please do follow this. That is all the relationship we know.”
(Collected Works: VOL XVI, Bombay, 1st Public Talk, February 13, 1966)
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* What is it to be Serious?
We are reasonably serious when we have an incentive, are we not? This entire society is built around incentive - which means wealth which gives status - the puffed up importance of the self. But the seriousness that is talked about here has no motive, no reward at the end. There is no goal to arrive at. This is why the mind is not serious, for there is no reward in truth. Reward in the sense of fame, fortune and self-expression. The "want" mentioned in this passage is not the desire for a reward. It is the demand of a serious mind. A patient and perservering mind, that is not distracted by passing fads and life circumstances:
“What does it mean to be serious - so that you are completely dedicated to something, to some vocation, that you want to go right to the end of it. … One wants to find out how to live quite a different kind of life, a life in which there is no violence, in which there is complete inward freedom; one wants to find out and intends giving time , energy, thought, everything, to that. I would call such a person a serious person. He is not easily put off - he may amuse himself, but his course is set. … He will listen to others, consider examine, observe… he has got to examine, to question constantly, which means he has to be highly sensitive. He has to find out how and to whom he listens. So he is all the time listening, pursuing, inquiring; he is discovering and with a sensitive brain, a sensitive mind, a sensitive heart - they are not separate things - he is inquiring with the totality and the sensitivity of all that. … One has to have a brain that is sensitive; that means a brain that is not functioning in habits, pursuing its own particular little pleasure, sexual or otherwise.”
(The Impossible Question: Chapter 1, 'The Act of Looking' - page 19; ellipses added)
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What is - Consciousness?
- The Observer is the Observed?
- Meditation?
- Conditioning?
- Negation?
- Insight?
- Relationship?
What is it to be Serious?
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- The Observer is the Observed?
- Meditation?
- Conditioning?
- Negation?
- Insight?
- Relationship?
What is it to be Serious?
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“There is consciousness only when there is ‘becoming,’ or trying ‘to be something.’”
(The Impossible Question: Reprint Edition, 2003 - page 169)
(The Impossible Question: Reprint Edition, 2003 - page 169)
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(40-page Site exploring the intrinsic nature of consciousness;
Total site page loads: > 150,000;
Page last updated on March 5, 2010)
Total site page loads: > 150,000;
Page last updated on March 5, 2010)
Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons; taken by Böhringer Friedrich, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5
The statement "You are the world" implies that your psychological makeup is the same as people the world over, does it not? Obviously your particular experiences are different, but the core elements of the self, pain, desire, fear and envy are the same in everyone. This is universal consciousness. But this does not mean that you are responsible for other people's actions or behaviour; responsibility is only to the fact that you are contributing to the overall self-centered culture of human beings, is that not so?
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"The content of consciousness is consciousness - the two are not separate.
What is implanted in consciousness makes up consciousness."
The Awakening of Intelligence: Part II, Chapter 1, 1st Public Talk in New York, 18th April 1971 - Inner Revolution')'
What is implanted in consciousness makes up consciousness."
The Awakening of Intelligence: Part II, Chapter 1, 1st Public Talk in New York, 18th April 1971 - Inner Revolution')'
