Krishnamurti's Notebook

by J. Krishnamurti

in 1983 he made a unique "notebook" by speaking into a tape recorder as he sat by himself in the mornings.This was published in 1987 as Krishwamurti to Himself

In 1922, at the age of twenty-eight, Krishnamurti underwent a spiritual experience that changed his life and which was followed by years of acute and almost continuous pain in his head and spine.The

At no time did he take any painkilling drugs for "the process". He has never taken alcohol or any kind of drug. He has never smoked, and for the last thirty years or so he has not so much as drunk tea or coffee. Although a lifelong vegetarian, he has always

Asceticism is, to his way of thinking, as destructive of a religious li...

Only when the brain has cleansed itself of its conditioning, greed, envy, ambition, then only it can comprehend that which is complete. Love is this completeness.

The complete is never within the field of the brain or idea.

Self-critical awareness is essential. Imagination and illusion distort clear observation. Illusion will always exist, so long as the urge for the continuation of pleasure and the avoidance of pain exist; the demand for those experiences which are pleasurable to continue or be remembered; the avoidance of pain, suffering. Both these breed illusion. To wipe away illusion altogether, pleasure and sorrow must be understood, not by control or sublimation, identification or denial.

Every twist of thought must be understood; for all thought is reaction

This activity of doing something for the sake of something else is in essence an intricate series of escapes, escapes from oneself, from what is.

Habit destroys freedom; habit of thought, habit of drinking and so on makes for a superficial and dull life. Organized religion with its beliefs, dogmas and rituals denies the open entry into the vastness of mind. It is this entry that cleanses the brain of space-time. Being cleansed, the brain can then deal with time-space.

As conflict is eliminated, the brain, though highly sensitive and alert, becomes quiet. Then only the inner movement has validity and significance.

Thought can put together the intricacies of systems, dogmas, beliefs, and the images, symbols, it projects are no more holy than the blueprints of a house or the design of a new aeroplane. All this is within the frontiers of thought and there is nothing sacred or mystical about all this.

But there is a sacredness which is not of thought, nor of a feeling resuscitated by thought. It is not recognizable by thought nor can it be utilized by thought. Thought cannot formulate it. But there is a sacredness, untouched by any symbol or word. It is not communicable. It is a fact.

Love's not attachment. Love does not yield sorrow. Love has no despair or hope. Love cannot be made respectable, part of the social scheme. When it is not there, every form of

...every form of travail begins. --- You can only feel the absence of love; not the presence of it because, Love cannot be defined but only experienced. Experience can be at any level. You might call what you experience is not enough love. That is not what Love is not, but you can definitely feel when that small amount is absent. That which erarses that absence is Love.

Each one tries to fill this loneliness in different ways, drink, organized religion, belief, some form of activity and so on. All these are escapes but it's still there.

To control another, to shape another in the name of love is the urge to possess; the urge to find security, safety in another and the comfort. Self-forgetfulness through another, through some activity makes for attachment. From this attachment, there's sorrow and despair and from this there is the reaction, to be detached. And ...

Whatever actions one has to do in daily life, the shocks and the various incidents should not leave their scars. These scars become the ego, the self, and as one lives, it becomes strong and its walls almost become impenetrable.

Power is derived from something, from asceticism, from action, from position, from virtue, from domination and so on. All such forms of power are evil. It corrupts and perverts. The use of money, talent, cleverness to gain power or deriving power from any use of these is evil. But there is a power which is in no way related to that power which is evil. This power is not to be bought through sacrifice, virtue, good works and beliefs, nor is it to be bought through worship, prayers and self-denying or self-destructive meditations. All effort to become or to be must wholly, naturally, cease. Only then that power which is not evil, can be.

Isn't this what Upanishads say? Free of desire at level where you are free of the desire to be free of desire.

illusion.The urge for the repetition of an experience however pleasant, beautiful, fruitful, is the soil in which sorrow grows.The passion of sorrow is as limiting as the passion of power. The brain must cease to make its own ways and be utterly passive.

Stitaprajnata - unphased by anything. Its this state which makes one free of yearning and avoiding. One becomes a part of the change. One is the change ofcourse.

Beyond all explanations which a good brain can give, why do we choose the worse and not the better, why hate rather than love, why greed and not generosity, why self-centred activity and not open total action? Why be mean when there are soaring mountains and flashing streams? Why jealousy and not love? Why?

1. One must be wholly "indifferent" to it coming and going. 2. There must be no desire to continue the experience or to store it away in memory. 3. There must be a certain physical sensitivity, a certain indifference to comfort. 4. There must be self-critical humorous approach. But even if one had all these, by chance, not through deliberate cultivation and humility, even then, they are not enough. Something totally different is necessary or nothing is necessary. It must come and you can never go after it, do what you will. You can also add love to the list but it is beyond love. One thing is certain, the brain can never comprehend it nor can it contain it. Blessed is he to whom it is given. And you can add also a still, quiet brain.

Isn't this "state of union with Brahman" accoridng to Shankara? Isn't this stitaprajnata?

How easy it is to deceive oneself, to project desirable states which are actually experienced, especially when they are pleasure. There's no illusion, no deception, when there's no desire, conscious or unconscious, for any experience of any kind, when one's wholly indifferent to the coming and going of all experience, when one's not asking for anything.

river.You can never be one with that which has no form, no measure, no quality. It is; that is all.

Experiencing is conditioned by experience, the past. Freedom is the emptying of the mind of experience.

Consciousness cannot contain the immensity of innocence; it can receive it, it cannot pursue it nor cultivate it.

The entire consciousness must be still, not wanting, not seeking and never pursuing. The totality of consciousness must be still and only then, that which has no beginning and no end can come into being. Meditation is the emptying of consciousness, not to receive, but to be empty of all endeavour. There must be space for stillness, not the space created by thought and its activities but that space that comes through denial and destruction, when there is nothing left of thought and its projection. In emptiness alone can there be creation.

Austerity is not a thing of the mind, carefully gathered through sacrifice, suppression and discipline. All these must cease, naturally, for they have no meaning for that otherness.

The cup is not only the shape, the colour, the design but also that emptiness inside the cup. The cup is the emptiness held within a form; without that emptiness there ,vould be no cup nor form.

We know consciousness by outer signs, by its limitations of height and depth, of thought and feeling. But all this is the outer form of consciousness; from the outer we try to find the inner. Is this possible? Theories and speculations are not significant; they actually prevent all discovery. From the outer we try to find the inner, from the known we probe hoping to find the unknown. Is it possible to probe from the inner to the outer? The instrument that probes from the outer, we know but is there such an instrument that probes from the unknown to the known? Is there? And how can there be? There cannot be. If there is one, it's recognizable and if it's recognizable, it's within the area of the known.

There's an extraordinary satisfaction in a dead thing, in a picture, in a conclusion, in a word.They are dead, past all recalling and there is pleasure in the many smells of yesterday. The brain is always the yesterday, and today is the shadow of yesterday, and tomorrow is the continuation of that shadow, somewhat changed but it still smells of yesterday. So the brain lives and has its being in shadows; it is safer, more comforting.

Is there love and beauty within the enclosure of thought? Is there beauty when thought is? The beauty, the love that thought knows is the opposite of ugliness and hate. Beauty has no opposite nor has love.

There is no beauty but only a cloud over the mountain; it is creation.

Wherever it was there was life, beyond time and thought. It was a marvellous thing, free, light and unfathomable. It was not to be closed in; where they closed it, in the places of worship, in the market place, in the home, there was decay and corruption and their perpetual reform.

Loneliness-the essence of self-pity and self-defence and life in isolation, in myth, in knowledge and idea-is far away from aloneness; in them there is everlasting attempt to integrate and ever breaking apart. Aloneness is a life in which all influence has come to an end. It is this aloneness that is the essence of austerity.

There must be alertness, without choice, an awareness in which all receiving and adjustment have ceased. Overeating and indulgence in any form makes the body dull and stupefies the brain.

Fancy and imagination are pleasurable and deceptive and they must be wholly banished. Every form of myth, fancy and imagination must be understood and this very understanding deprives them of their significance.

Every form of imagination and fancy must be understood in its totality in order to deprive them of their power to influence. This I think is the quickest and easiest way to overcome all sorts of addictions, for, addiction is nothing but a state of mind that is so fanciful that your body is ordered by the mind itself to take it to those locations that thrive only in a brain that is afflicted by addictions. Once you understand the imagination, fantasy, be it alcohol, drugs, cigarette smoking, wanton desire, in their totality, once you understand that the lands they seem to take you to are completely falsified and never have a place for themselves in reality, then and only then you will able to ignore them. Ignoring these calls of mind makes the mind a slave, albeit, gradually. Attending these calls of mind empowers it and makes you its slave thereby depriving you of the meaning of being alive.

Destroy to go to the very end; destruction is not of the outer things but of the psychological refuges and resistances, the gods and their secret shelters. Without this, there's no journey into that depth whose essence is love, creation and death.

Meditation is this attention in which there is an awareness, without choice, of the movement of all things, the cawing of the crows, the electric saw ripping through the wood, the trembling of leaves, the noisy stream, a boy calling, the feelings, the motives, the thoughts chasing each other and going deeper, the awareness of total consciousness.

There's no perfection, its an ugly thing, except in a machine. The attempt to be perfect is, really, to break the record, as in golf; competition is saintly. To compete with your neighbour and with God for perfection is called brotherhood and love. But each attempt at perfection leads only to greater confusion and sorrow which only gives greater impetus to be more perfect.

Pride in any form is brutal and leads to disaster. The desire for perfection outwardly or inwardly denies love and without love, do what you will, there's always frustration and sorrow.

brain understanding its own activities, hidden and open, is part of meditation; it's the foundation in meditation, without it meditation is only self-deception, self-hypnosis, which has no significance whatsoever. There must be silence for the explosion of creation.

Conflict in all its forms must be understood, not intellectually, but actually, actually coming emotionally into contact with conflict. The emotional contact, the shock, is not possible if it is intellectually, verbally, accepted as necessary or denied sentimentally. Acceptance or denial does not alter a fact nor will reason bring about a necessary impact. What does is "seeing" the fact. There's no "seeing" if there is condemnation or justification or identification with the fact. "Seeing" is only possible when the brain is not actively participating, but observing, abstaining from classification, judgment and evaluation.