Kinfonet Quote of the Day: I wonder what people generally mean by meditation.

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Krishnamurti Quote of the Day

Auckland, New Zealand | 3rd Vasanta School Gardens Talk 2nd April, 1934

Question: In order to discover lasting values, is meditation necessary, and, if so, what is the correct method of meditation?

Krishnamurti: I wonder what people generally mean by meditation. As far as I can make out, the so-called meditation which is but concentration, is not meditation at all. We are used to this idea that by concentrating, by making tremendous effort to control the mind and fix it on a certain idea or concept, certain picture or image, by focussing the mind on a particular point, we are meditating.

Now, what is happening when you are trying to do that? You are trying to concentrate your mind on a particular idea and banish all other ideas, all other concepts; and trying to fix the mind on that idea, to force the mind to limit itself to that, whether it be a great thought, an image, or a concept which you have picked up in a book. What is happening when you are doing that? Other ideas come creeping in and you try to banish them away, and so this continual conflict is kept up. Ideas creep in which you do not want, in the attempt to fix your mind on a particular idea. You are but creating conflict; making the mind become smaller, contracting the mind, forcing the mind to fix itself on a particular idea; whereas, to me, the joy of meditation consists, not in forcing the mind, but trying to discover the full significance of each thought as it arises. How can you say which is a better idea and which is a worse idea, which is noble, which is ignoble? You can only say that when the mind has discovered their true values. So, to me, the joy of meditation consists in this process of discovering the right value of each thought. You discover by a natural process the significance of each thought, and therefore free the mind from this continual conflict.

Tags: art, meditation

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