Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti

by J. Krishnamurti

If silence is not put together by thought, then what is it? To see clearly you must be silent, to hear clearly the mind must not be chattering. If you see the truth of it, then it happens. You do not have to make an effort to be silent.

So meditation implies a life of great order and, therefore, great virtue, morality. And it implies the understanding and the depth of beauty. And it implies the emptying of that consciousness which is you, with all your attachments, fears, hopes, despairs, the emptying of all that by observing. Then you have energy which alone can discover that which is eternal, which has no beginning and no ending.

I am that.

When there is complete attention, there is no confusion. It is only when there is no attention that confusion arises. Confusion arises when there is division, which is inattention.

You see, as long as we try to overcome, the very overcoming has to be overcome. But if you say, “Yes, it is a fact and I won’t move from that,” then the thing dissolves—completely, not relatively, not gone one day and then the next day is full of fears. It is gone when you have given complete attention to

If you do not allow time, or never think in terms of time, then the fact is not. Because we allow time the fact becomes important. If there is no time it is resolved.

quiet. And it is a strange fact that in all these churches there is never a moment of quietness, except when it is empty. Because if you are quiet, you might inquire. If you are quiet, you might begin to doubt. But if you are occupied all the time, you never have time to look around, to question, to doubt, to ask. That may be one of the great tricks of the human mind. What is meditation and why should one meditate? Is it natural? Like breathing, like seeing, like hearing, is it natural? And why have we made it so unnatural? Taking postures, following systems of Buddhist meditation, Tibetan meditation, Christian meditation, Tantric meditations, and the meditations set by your favorite guru. Aren’t all those really abnormal? Why should I take a certain position to meditate? Why should I practice, practice, practice? To arrive where? Can

See what we have done. I am struggling, struggling, struggling to end struggling sometime in the future. See what tricks I have played on myself. I am caught in time. I don’t say, “Why should I struggle at all?” If I can end this struggle that is enlightenment.

If you do not change now your future will be the same. This is logical. This is sane.

In seeing the majesty of the great rocks and the lovely valleys and the rivers, at that moment, that second, the self is not. So the mountain has driven away the self, as the toy quiets the child. That mountain, that river, the depth of the blue valleys, dispel for a second all your problems, all your vanities and anxieties. Then you say, “How beautiful that is.” But is there beauty without being absorbed by something outside? That is, beauty is where the self is not.