Krishnamurti On Meditation

Many people in Hong Kong say that they are doing meditations. Some of those who claim to be doing it have complained to me that they found it very difficult to do so. I agree that doing meditation properly is very difficult. The trouble is that many of those are doing it may not know what meditation truly is. Socrates have taught us: Know Thyself. There is nothing in this world more difficult than this task. Some people think that they can do so through meditation.

Some thought that meditation is a technique to help us quieten down our mind and our emotions. It certainly requires some technique and a certain procedure, depending on the type of meditation that one practices and it may certainly help us to become more tranquil. But if we think that meditation is merely a means to an end, a technology to help us achieve that end, then we can never be further away from what we desire to achieve. We  never achieve it because we start out with the wrong premises, premises which are the very antithesis of what we aim to achieve.  Meditation is more than a technique. Meditation is an attitude of mind towards how we look at ourselves and our relation to what we call the world. Our normal way of looking at the world is dualistic. It strives to make a distinction between we and the others, between we and the external world. Meditation is the abolition of that distinction. It is the abolition of the kind of mind which makes such distinction! Meditation is Life being aware of itself at the very moment and place where it is living out itself. It involves a complete transformation of our mind and our psyche and it may well take a whole lifetime for us to do so and yet not completely "achieve" it. In fact, the whole idea of "achieving" it is wrong in principle. As in all complex topics, it is often far easier to say what meditation is not than what it is.  

Many people have written a great number of books on "meditation" to tell us what it is, how to do it and how to practise it. The one that I found most useful on the nature of meditation is one by Krishnamurti (1895-1986). It is an excellent small book on the topic called simply "Meditations" selected and edited by Evelyne Blau and published by Shambala 2002. It was a gift from one of my friends for which I am deeply grateful. I have read it and from time to time I go back to it to remind myself of things which I have learned but then forgot later out of the sheer force of years and years of bad habit. I really like to share with fellow bloggers some of the stuffs which I have learned from this great spiritual master. There is no better way than to let the master speak for himself. So I shall set out below certain extracts from this book which I found particularly enlightening or which are written in way I found most beautiful. Often truth and beauty are inseparable. For ease of reference, I have inserted some titles to the relevant passages. Here they go.

The Importance of Meditation

It is curious how all important meditation becomes; there is no end to it nor is there a beginning to it. It is like a raindrop: in that drop are all the streams, the great rivers, the seas and the waterfalls; that drop nourishes the earth and man; without it, the earth would be a desert. Without meditation the heart becomes a desert, a wasteland.

Silence and Spaciousness

Silence and spaciousness go together. The immensity of silence is the immensity of the mind in which a center does not exist.

Meditation as the ending of Thought

Man, in order to escape his conflicts, has invented many forms of meditation. These have been based on desire, will and the urge for achievement, and imply conflict and a struggle to arrive. This conscious, deliberate striving is always within the limits of a conditioned mind and in this there is no freedom. All effort to meditate is the denial of meditation. Meditation is the ending of thought. It is only then that there is a different dimension which is beyond time.

No Forcing in Meditation

Meditation is to find out whether the brain with all the activities, all its experiences, can be absolutely quiet. Not forced, because the moment you force, there is duality. The entity that says, "I would like to have marvellous experiences,therefore I must force my brain to be quiet," will never do it. But if you begin to inquire, observe, listen to all the movements of thought, its conditioning, its pursuits, its fears, its pleasures, watch how the brain operates, then you will see that the brain becomes extraordinarily quiet; that quietness is not sleep but is tremendously active and therefore quiet. A big dynamo that is working perfectly hardly makes a sound; it is only when there is friction that there is noise.

Meditation is a Discipline for the Righteous Life

To understand what meditaion is, one must lay the foundation of righteous behavior. Without that foundation, meditation is really a form of self-hypnosis; without being free from anger, jealousy, envym, greed, acquisitiveness, hate, competition, the desire for success--all the moral, respectable forms of what is considered righteous--without laying the right foundation, without living a daily life free of the distortion of personal fear, anxiety, greed and so on, meditation has very little meaning....Meditation is hard work. It demands the highest form of discipline--not conformity, not obedience--but a discipline which comes through constant awareness, not only of the things about you outwardly, but also inwardly. So meditation is not an activity of isolation but is action in everyday life which demands co-operation, sensitivity and intelligence. Without laying the foundation of a righteous life, meditation becomes an escape and therefore has no value whatsoever. A righteous life is not the following of social morality, but the freedom from envy, greed, and the search for power--which all breed enmity. The freedom from these does not come through the activity of the will but by being aware of them through self-knowing. Without knowing the acitivities of the self, meditation becomes sensuous excitement and therefore of very little significance.

Meditation cannot be an Aim in itself but only a Condition

Always to seek for wider, deeper, transcendental experience is a form of escape from the actual reality of "what is", which is ourselves, our own conditioned mind. A mind that is awake, intelligent, free, why should it need, why should it have, any experience at all? Light is light: it does not ask for more light.

Meditation is Silence and Love

A meditative mind is silent. It is not the silence which thought can conceive of, it is not the silence of a still evening; it is the silence when thought--with all its images, its words and perceptions--has entirely ceased. This meditative mind is the religious mind--the religion that is not touched by the church, the temples or by the chants. The religious mind is the explosion of love. It is this love that knows no separation. To it, far is near. It is not the one or the many, but rather that state of love in which all division ceases. Like beauty, it is not of the measure of words. From this silence alone the meditative mind acts.

Of course, Krishnamurti has many more things to say about meditation. He spent his whole life reflecting about it, teaching about it and practising it. But according to our psychologists, for the majority of the human species, we can only retain seven items of information in our mind at any one point in time. I shall follow their advice and stop here.