The Mystique of Enlightenment: Enriched edition. Challenging Traditional Notions: A Radical Perspective on Enlightenment and Existence

by U.G. Krishnamurti

All that you do makes it impossible for what already is there to express itself. That is why I call this 'your natural state'. You're always in that state. What prevents what is there from expressing itself in its own way is the search.

By 'life' I do not mean something abstract; it is the life of the senses, functioning naturally without the interference of thought. Thought is an interloper, which thrusts itself into the affairs of the senses. It has a profit motive: thought directs the activity of the senses to get something out of them, and uses them to give continuity to itself.

The natural state is a state of great sensitivity — but this is a physical sensitivity of the senses, not some kind of emotional compassion or tenderness for others.

The natural state is not a 'thoughtless state' — that is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated for thousands of years on poor, helpless Hindus. You will never be without thought until the body is a corpse, a very dead corpse. Being able to think is necessary to survive. But in this state thought stops choking you; it falls into its natural rhythm. There is no longer a 'you' who reads the thoughts and thinks that they are 'his'.

The absence of what you are doing — trying to understand, or trying to change yourself — is the state of being that I am describing.

It's not a question of offering opinions — of course I do have my opinions on everything from disease to divinity, but they're as worthless as anybody else's.

You think that there is something more interesting than what you are doing. If that is knocked off, what you are doing becomes very, very interesting.