There are several articles raising questions on these lines in this issue, although their starting point and the way they go about it differs widely. On pg.8and pg. 18 we have two accounts which describe beautifully how the world changes when we experience full, undivided sensory awareness. These accounts are a reminder of how limited and conceptual our «normal» way of being is. In the diary notes on pg.28 the author explores - from a background of having two children at school - the many steps which lead to the overriding authority of knowledge and how this, at the same time, creates fear and the invalidation of what is not known. Don’t miss the letter on pg.7 which approaches the issue ofthe known from an almost contrary position.

     One of our most deeply held convictions is the assumption that we exist as aseparate «me». This central piece of our knowledge is under scrutiny in a summary of a thesis entitled ‘Self-Conceptualisation’(pg.37). The author suggests - supported by scientific evidence - that there is no central core in the form ofa «me». Krishnamurti seems to sum it up in his answer to a question (pg.21) where hestates that we are looking for fixed points, but that there are none, either in ourselves or outside in the universe. To live without these fixed points isour challenge.

     Jürgen Brandt

The Newsletter

     Early on in the meetings, we received a specially prepared 36-page booklet of some discussions involving K and the International Committees between 1981 and 1985 in Saanen, Switzerland. There are eight discussions: ‘Why should I feel responsible?’‘What is he trying to tell me?’‘Are you flowering?’‘What will change the brain?’‘Can we think together?’‘Are you learning?’‘What will keep us together?’and ‘Can the brain be absolutely quiet?’

     During our KLI presentation at the International Trustees Meetings, I read aloud an extract from ‘What is he trying to tell me?’and would highly recommend that everyone read the entire discussion, and indeed the whole booklet. For a copy, please request one from us, via the address at the back of The Link. You may also collect a copy from the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust offices at The Krishnamurti Centre at Brockwood Park.

     Here is an extract from ‘Why should I feel responsible?’:

     «And also I will be concerned about whether it is merely a small group that are holding the vase in which the flower is growing; they may be holding it in a small little group, but Iwant to throw the seeds all over the world. That’s my responsibility. It doesn’t matter who understands or who doesn’t understand, but it is my responsibility to sow the seed wherever it will fall - on a piece of dry earth or in a fertile soil. That’s my responsibility, that’s what I would be concerned with if K dies and I was working like the rest of you.»
(Saanen, Switzerland, 17th July 1981, Copyright KFT)

     To read the discussion entitled ‘Can we think together?’please see pg. 23 of this issue of The Link.

     After the International Trustees Meetings, the Link team travelled to Haus Sonne for one of our two annual retreats. These retreats are an important part of our working together. As, I believe, many of the Krishnamurti Foundation trustees also find, meeting informally is vital. It is during these times that the essential things take place - where relationship itself is the focus.

     Haus Sonne (the vegetarian guesthouse in the Black Forest in Germany) has a library of K books and audio and videotapes. People who have never heard of the teachings can come upon them there, and an increasing number of people who have already heard about them are turning up. There have been three or four K books published in Germany this year, perhaps accounting for the growing interest. I also met an Italian man and a Croatian man who were visiting Haus Sonne, having heard of it in The Link. Haus Sonne’s address may be found on pg. 46. The Link team’s first retreat next year will be in June at The Krishnamurti Centre at Brockwood Park.

     I am at the Centre as I write this - it is amazing how many interesting people one meets here. At the lunch table one day, someone asked me if K was perfect. So I asked him,What isperfection? Isn’t it just an idea or an image? But K was full of love and probably that is perfection. And isn’t it his love that brought us together? The person who asked methe question suggested that I write this in The Link, so here it is. We are also including arelated extract from K in this issue, on pp. 21-22.

     The Link team begins work on this issue of The Link in Winchester tomorrow. Afterwards, we will have our second retreat of the year, at Yewfield in the Lake District. Yewfield is the home of Derek Hook, one of the KFTtrustees, and two former Brockwood Park staff members. As a wonderful bed and breakfast, it is also a meeting place for Brockwood staff and students, and for K friends from all over the world.

Near Haus Sonne, Black Forest, Germany

     This coming December and January, I will be in Ojai, perhaps returning there in May 2001 for the International Trustees Meetings, if I am not too travel-weary by then. In any case, Nick, Raman and Rabindra will be in Ojai at that time. It will be a good opportunity for them to function without the ‘boss’. In fact, I prefer to be regarded by them as only primus inter pares - first among equals - a phrase used by K to the new principal of Brockwood Park when he took on his job.

     Going back somewhat, the Link team took part in the Saanen Gathering this past July. Saanen is the most international gathering in the K world, and it is wisely and ably conducted by Gisele Balleys and her dedicated team. For more on Saanen, please see pp. 11 and 34 of this issue of The Link.

     Lastly, here is some brief news about some of the new and renewed contacts made in the past few months: Raman was in Norway and Sweden, where he visited the Krishnamurti Committees there - the groups of people who are involved in showing Kvideos and holding dialogues - and others who are interested in establishing similar activities. He also visited Vestoppland Folkehogskole in Norway, a school run on principles of self-understanding for students who are taking a year’s break between high school and university in order to discover their true vocation.

     Javier was in Spain to attend a conference on education. He subsequently visited Costa Rica and Ecuador, speaking at several major cultural institutions, doing radio and newspaper interviews, and holding meetings and dialogues with educators and other interested groups about K and the teachings. And Jurgen was at Haus Sonne for the German Committee meetings, where he co-facilitated a week of dialogues.

     Friedrich Grohe, October 2000

     Krishnamurti: «Education may have a different meaning altogether - not merely transferring what is printed on a page to your brain. Education may mean opening the doors of perception to the vast movement of life. It may mean learning how to live happily, freely, not with hate and confusion, but in beatitude. Modern education is blinding us; we learn to fight each other more and more, to compete, to struggle with each other. Right education is surely letting the mind free from its own conditioning. And perhaps then there can be love, which in its action will bring about true relationship between man and man.»
(pp. 54-55, Freedom, Love and Action, Copyright KFT)

Letters to the Editor

     We are here to live. We cannot turn the evolutionary clock back. For better or for worse, we are a primate that stands on its hindlegs and has developed a brain that fragments experience with language and thought. With this physical equipment we have to get on and deal with the world of events. So, however often we try to resort to K's solution to all difficulties and all questions - i.e. disconnect consciousness - we have daily to engage with the business of living. Which means that K's teaching is a remedial strategy, a technique for defusing and disarming difficulties. But it is not a philosophy for experiential living.

     I think of the human spirits, bright beacons of intelligence and moral courage, who have shed light, given incalculably to humanity, eased pain on earth for countless others: Marie Curie, Michael Faraday, Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer are examples that come quickly to mind. These individuals rolled up their sleeves and got stuck into the physical world. They steeped themselves in specialised knowledge and grappled with the fragmented world in order to solve problems. K, I suspect, might be the first to agree with this. Yet it is hard to reconcile his repeated assertions - that knowledge is the past, knowledge conditions, knowledge fragments and, therefore, we should not look to the known world and the body of accumulated knowledge for enlightenment - with those men and women who may never have meditated in their lives, yet remain the finest examples of the human spirit.

     Rowland Molony, September 2000

Note for our Readers

While space to include articles and letters in The Link is naturally limited, the publisher and editors nonetheless appreciate hearing from as many readers as possible. Having said this, it is beginning to stretch our resources to engage in correspondence with everyone. We would therefore ask all correspondents to advise us, when writing, whether or not you would permit your letter, or extracts from it, to be published in a future issue of The Link; we would include your name, together with your city and country, unless you specifically instruct us otherwise. Moreover, since many letters share a particular topic, some correspondents may wish to engage in a written dialogue with each other outside The Link. If you would like to do this, please let us know. Your letter, with your name and address included, will then be forwarded to similarly interested people.

An Undistorted Mirror

I live in a quiet, second-floor dwelling in a town known for its trees. California's live-oaks dot the nearby fields and foothills of the Sierra Nevada. One of the most magnificent specimens I've ever seen has been spared the ax on the grounds of this apartment complex. I walk under it almost every day, and every time I do, I feel a shock of non-recognition from its size, spread, and gnarled dignity.

     As a boy I loved tree-forts, and when I walk out onto the porch in the morning, a close canopy of lush maples gives me the feeling of actually being in the trees. In the winter, when the leaves have been stripped from the branches, I can see snow on the higher ridges of the Sierras. Most mornings, after I get up and greet the day, I sit on the porch and reada passage from Krishnamurti's Notebook, something I have done for fifteen years.

     At seventeen, before hearing of Krishnamurti, an event occurred that changed the course of my life and brought me to the teachings. For some months I had been sitting in the backyard of my childhood home, observing and questioning the workings of my own mind. I began noticing that there is always an observer introspectively observing the contents of thought and emotion. Out of a passionate curiosity more than anything else, I asked myself, "What is this observer that always appears to be separate from what it is observing?"

     For some weeks I persisted, in a passionate yet spontaneous way, with this question. Then one day while watching a robin, as I observed myself in the old introspective manner, there was an explosive insight. The observer, I saw, was inextricably part of everything I was observing within! The brain instantly fell silent, and the colors, form, and living presence of the robin burst through the screens of thought into my senses. I realized at that moment that I had never truly seen a bird, or anything, before. At that moment, the goodness of nature and the sorrow of man also opened up, and I saw the root of human ignorance in the separative nature of thought.

     That event initiated a search to find out whether there were others who saw and experienced the same thing. I never used the word meditation, and certainly not "mystical experience", to describe what had happened that day. I read many things, Western and Eastern, even as I continued the joyful practice of sitting in nature. Nothing satisfied me, however.

     About seven years after this insight-event that changed the course of my life, I came upon a book by Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known. Here at last was the unembellished truth, spoken in the clearest language, devoid of jargon, tradition, and cant. Not long after discovering that remarkable book, I learned that Krishnamurti was still very much alive, still speaking all over the world, and that he had begun giving yearly talks again at the Oak Grove in Ojai. Naturally, I had to go to hear him.

     The grandeur of the oaks, the serenity of the hills, the throbbing atmosphere of the place was overwhelming. I could sense a mystery and depth beyond all knowing as I found a place to sit amongst the thousands of people from all over the world who, like me, had come to hear that beautiful, illumined man speak.

     Years later, after attending a number of talks and reading many of the books, my interest in the teachings and K distilled down to the Notebook. Now, just a few of K's words induce ripples of meaning that make me stop and ponder for days. When Iread the Notebook now, I experience it asan arrow to the deepest truths, reflected in the mirror of self-knowing. A sentence or a paragraph often brings some new insight. At the same time, "my normal consciousness" seems increasingly permeable to meditative states during the sittings.

     A friend once called Krishnamurti's Notebook "the most dangerous book ever written," and I agree. As K said, if one does not live the teachings, they become a poison to you, and the Notebook is chock full of powerful medicine. It is not only a clear and concise statement of K's teachings, but it also gives hints of K's meditative states of mind, vastly beyond normal human consciousness. (As K said at the end of his life, "You will not have another brain like this for 500 years.")

     Naturally, I sometimes have doubts and questions about Krishnamurti, and even about the teachings. The teachings remain for me, however, the clearest wellspring oftruth humanity has ever had. To mix a metaphor, the teachings are what they were meant to be: a bright and undistorted mirror. The flaws and failings are my own.

     Martin Lefevre, June 2000

 

Transformation and Infallibility

In reacting on the question of 'translation versus transformation'(The Link, No. 17, pg. 13), I would like to suggest that 'the teachings can penetrate formidable intellects'if the intensity of our attention or devotion is as big as our love and sincerity! I believe it is all a matter of intensity, which carries us to a world beyond human desires, hopes and ambitions - and beyond a purely intellectual understanding of the problem. All the arguments on pg.14 and 15 in The Link, No. 17, to my mind, remain on the intellectual level: they are not representative of deep emotional experiences. 'We need to find more appropriate ways to make the transition'(pg. 16): is there anything sincere and authentic apart from perception of facts, from love or compassion? Can these be 'found'or 'trained'? Can spontaneous intensity be trained?

     In previous issues of The Link, questions arose as to whether K considered himself to be infallible and whether or not he was conditioned in some way. I definitely do not have the impression that the term 'infallible'entered Krishnamurti's mind or the minds of anyone else in his vicinity, or that it is at all applicable. 'Infallible'is a term applied to moral/practical decisions, and there I felt he was totally selfless, enthusiastic, and, in practical matters, sometimes - even often - naïve. He could not see the legal and financial problems and commitments of a school, the practical issues of a study centre in the countryside, or evaluate theconditions and possibilities for these ventures in a given country. (In India, schools correspond to a real need; in Europe, the financing ofschools not corresponding to the official requirements, and therefore not government subsidised, requires enormous private funding or donations.) When he attended international committee meetings in Europe, I occasionally even felt that it would have been better for himnot to have participated in them. Were his spontaneous suggestions practical? No, although I am convinced that he was fundamentally right but naïve in his enthusiasm for the creation of schools, etc. - the idea was perfect, but the possibilities vastly different in different countries

     Henri Methorst, December 1999

 

Worldviews

Two articles in the last issue of The Link especially caught my attention: the article about the senses by Suprabha and the article 'Worldviews and Wholeness'by Colin. The second one I read several times, since it touches questions which have been of great interest to me for some time. The article says that our worldview is deeply influenced by science, that the scientific view penetrates our thinking and feeling and colours the subconscious background of our lives and our actions. But science is constantly moving: out of previous questions, new questions arise that give rise to new ways of looking and that finally create a whole new understanding of the world.

     The dualistic and materialistic worldview was created in this way and conditions us, until now we think, feel and behave as "individual parts in empty space." If the latest scientific view - which sees "motion and change as an undivided and indivisible whole" - is going to influence our consciousness, communicating itself subtly in all areas of our lives and so gradually shaping our thinking, would we then not reach a much more appropriate worldview in a simple and effortless way? Of course, this is not to justify complacency on our part; there is much to do. But it could be that inherent in consciousness is the tendency to understand itself and the world, and that it is most important to allow that tendency to act

     C.W., July 2000

What Is It that Prevents Change

     Before going into the question of what it isthat prevents change, I would like to talk briefly about what I mean by the word 'change'.

     K often said that what is needed is a radical change at the very core of our being. For me, the cause of most of our problems and suffering is the way consciousness or the mind operates and distorts reality. Thus a radical change at the very core of my being would be a change in the way my mind operates. Not a modification or an adjustment of the mind, buta totally different way of seeing and responding. I do not know, nor do I wish tospeculate, on how this changed mind would operate, but I feel it cannot in any way be related to what it is now. It must besomething totally different from its current conditioned and fragmented state.

     Looking at myself, and recognising the same mind in others, it appears that fundamental change has not taken place. I am not saying, though, that the teachings have had no impact on our lives. Indeed, Ifeel that since I became interested in the teachings my life has changed considerably. I first read K while at university, and that summer I came to Saanen. The three weeks I spent here opened my eyes to a whole new world. Reading the books, watching the videos and having dialogues began a movement within me that has changed the way I see life and my role in it. However, Inow see that all these changes, while important for me at the time, did not go to the very core of my being. What I want from life may have changed radically, but the fact is that I still want, I am still full of fear, conflict and sorrow.

     I have been interested in K and the teachings for almost five years now, and Iknow there are some people who have studied the teachings and attended the talks for thirty, forty and even fifty years, and still a radical change has not occurred. Why is this? We have talked endlessly about how - by seeing the truth - the truth liberates; and how - by seeing the false - false things drop away. But we are not liberated, and the false remains.

     So what is it that prevents change? Iwould like to just touch on a few aspects of this question and, in the process, to raise other lines of inquiry.

     K used to say that for transformation to take place, tremendous energy is required. I also sense this and feel most of us lack this vital energy. We may experience occasional moments of heightened awareness or surges of energy, but these are too brief to sustain a serious inquiry. We scratch the surface of consciousness, but the intensity is not there to explore more deeply.

     So why is it that this energy is not there? When we are very interested in something, we have all the energy we need to investigate it thoroughly. The question then arises: are we really interested in all this? Or perhaps more importantly: exactly what are we really interested in? Do we really want to learn about ourselves? Or is our main interest merely to find ways of trying to end our personal sorrows and conflicts?

     Not only is the energy not there to inquire deeply into things, but the energy we do have we dissipate through our habitual and disorderly way of living. We spend all of our time in activity. Most of it is taken up by our work, and when we are not working we talk, read, watch television or plan what activities to do the next day. We are rarely quiet, by ourselves, doing nothing. Krishnamurti often stressed the necessity of having sufficient leisure: time, every day, when one isn't occupied, when one can observe oneself and inquire into deeper questions.

     The way in which we approach this kind of inquiry is also very important. If we look to any outside agency, such as the speakers here in Saanen, friends and family, or even K, for any form of answer or guidance, then we are immediately lost and at the mercy of another's opinion. There is also a tendency to approach inquiry as effort. We feel we must work at analysing the self, dissecting and theorising on it by ourself and with others through dialogue. This is nothing more than using thought to resolve the problems created by thought, and the only effect of this is to leave our rains tired.

     On the other hand, to sit quietly and to passively observe the movement of our thoughts brings a kind of energy that has nothing to do with will. Will brings with it its own force, its own power, that works to achieve and act upon many things. What gives the will this force is that it has a clear direction with an end in mind. It has a single-minded focus that says "I must be like this" or "I must not be like that". We often feel that nothing will ever change unless we do something about it. All the conflicts, fears and jealousies will not simply go away by themselves. An effort must be made to get rid of them. But this effort, this will, is blinding. We focus only on the thing we want to change, and even that we don't see clearly, as judgment and condemnation come in quickly and put an end to observation.

Autumn in Leukerbad, Valais, Switzerland

     The will to change is often only present because we have not understood something. When we have seen something clearly, then force is not required to overcome it. It appears that the will is a major barrier to change because it prevents observation of the whole; also, the effort required in trying to force change dissipates a great deal of our energy.

     So what is it that makes the will strong? I feel that a good part of it comes from our ideas of what we should be. There is a longing for the ideal state that -although slightly different in different cultures and religions (for example, heaven, Brahman, nirvana, etc.) - is without conflict and suffering. Even in K's teachings, the terms 'total freedom', 'choiceless awareness'and 'unconditional love'can easily become our ideals to pursue. This very act of pursuing creates a division between 'what we are'and what we feel 'we should be'.

     However, to simply deny this pursuit of 'what should be'and try to force ourselves to 'stay with what is'is to perpetuate another division and brings us back again to the movement of will and effort. Longing for 'what should be'is part of 'what is', and to condemn it prevents examination of it.

     I feel that I am self-centred. I have become tired of all this self-centred activity, of this endless repetition of ego-driven thoughts and desires. To continue to live like this is painful. I therefore want to move away from it, so I pursue the silent mind. I practise meditation to try to touch the eternal. In dialogues, I ask questions such as "How are we to end thought?""How can we come upon right action?""How can we be free of conditioning?" But all of this is a movement away from 'what is'. I am avoiding what I am. By approaching silence, I hope to become silent. I am constantly running away from 'what is'and never reaching 'what should be'. In this there is no change; in this there is only frustration.

     Nick Hughes, July 2000

Interpretation of the Teachings

David Bohm: On Interpretation

Krishnamurti has repeatedly warned against the danger of distortion of what he teaches through interpretation. And yet, with equal emphasis, he has urged that each person not only live in harmony with the substance of what he is pointing out, but also in this very action of living, be himself a teacher who points out the truth for all who will listen. Is there not a contradiction here? For, if one is living in this way, it is not enough merely to repeat Krishnamurti's words in order to be sure that one is not bringing in something of his own interpretation. Nor is it sufficient to disseminate what Krishnamurti says by publication of books, selling tapes, or by working to make it possible for him to give talks all over the world. For to disseminate means, literally, "to spread the seed." If everyone does nothing but spread the seed, and no one allows the seed to grow in the action and relationship of living, then no fruit can ever come out of such a mode of activity. And in this regard, it is not enough for the essence of what is pointed out in the teachings to penetrate the ordinary activities of daily life. In addition, as Krishnamurti has emphasized, each person has to be able to communicate with others concerning the substance of the teachings; and in so doing, he needs to put what he has to say in his own way. To do this is evidently a kind of interpretation.

     If one now assumed that all interpretation of what Krishnamurti teaches was harmful, one would indeed be led into a contradiction. For it would then follow that only Krishnamurti was capable of teaching, while all others have to be restricted to passing on the message of his teaching, as accurately as possible. But this would reduce people to a largely mechanical function, which is, of course, quite contrary to the essential content of what Krishnamurti constantly indicates; i.e., that each person has to perceive everything deeply for himself, and to act freely and creatively from this insight, in every aspect of life.

     One sees, of course, that there is no real contradiction here. For it is not interpretation as such that is harmful. Rather, what distorts is the kind of interpretation in which, unknowingly and without intending to, one slips in one's own conclusions, as if these were integral parts of the meaning of the teachings. So one needs sensitivity and intelligence, which make possible a perception of the difference between the two kinds of interpretation. The pointing out of the need for such sensitivity and intelligence, not only in this context but also quite generally, is indeed one of the key features of what Krishnamurti teaches. To suggest that no one other than Krishnamurti is capable of this sort of sensitivity and intelligence is to imply that what he says has no value at all. For what would be the use of Krishnamurti's continual pointing out of this need to people who were intrinsically incapable of the kind of response that he calls for?

     As Krishnamurti himself has frequently emphasized, the content of what he says is not a particular and definite body of knowledge which could belong to a specified person, either himself or somebody else. Rather, it is only a pointer which indicates truth and so can give rise to insight. This insight is like a flame, which may spread from one human being to another, in such a way that the question of to whom the flame belongs has no meaning.

     The crucial point at issue is then whether a given person is responding with the genuine flame of insight, or with illusions arising from his own prejudices and conclusions. Of course, there will always be the danger that he will be responding with the latter, and so with the destructive kind of interpretation. But to try to avoid this danger by keeping away from interpretation altogether will evidently be equally destructive. An essential part of a creative response is, in fact, just to be so attentive and aware that in the very act of communication on such questions, one continually sees the ever-changing line between communicating one's own insight in one's own words and imposing one's arbitrary opinions and conclusions. In this way, there will be freedom from the destructive kinds of interpretation, and this freedom will itself be an example of the deep meaning of what Krishnamurti is pointing out.

     David Bohm, 1972, as published in the KFA Newsletter of 1993 (No. 1)
     Copyright David Bohm

Interpretation and this Matter of Meditation

     The following letter by Javier Gómez Rodríguez was written in response to a reader who feltthat Javier should not 'interpret K', as referred to on pg. 14.

     The question of interpretation that you raise in your letter, and in particular with reference to my exploration in the previous issue of The Link of what K meant by meditation and time, is not so easily answered. Interpretation of the teachings is one of the thorniest issues that all those seriously interested in K have to deal with. It concerns not only possible impersonations of K, such as speaking in his name and so on, but also commenting on and explaining what he may have meant by what he said. However, it is my impression that this prohibition against interpretation has also generated a paralysing fear that is preventing precisely what K wanted us all to do, namely to question, doubt, be sceptical and explore freely the meaning of what he said in connection with the actuality of our daily life. I feel that when this is done in a genuine spirit, which means with an awareness of what one understands fully, partially and not at all, then the danger of interpretation is averted. My feeling is that if we do not venture to discuss these things openly, we run the risk of creating arigid orthodoxy whereby nobody can say anything unless they either repeat exactly what K has said, because that is the measure of truth, or else speak only from personal experience, with nothing allowed in between. But my sense is that most of us are precisely in this intermediate stage of dialogue between the teachings and our daily lives. And that's why I have taken the liberty to write about something so delicate as meditation, because it is part of my daily life and yet, as reflected in the teachings, it encompasses depths that Ihave never encountered.

     The reason that led me to write this article was precisely my sense that since K died those interested in his teachings hardly dare speak of meditation and will not hear of anything remotely resembling its 'practice', whereas K told many people, myself included, 'how'to meditate. This fact, which can be verified in his own published writings, and which seemed to be specially relevant for the staff and students in the schools he founded, has been relegated to near oblivion because it seems to contradict so much of what he said about meditation. My feeling is that by doing so, by not engaging directly in the active exploration of meditation as K suggested, we are not only missing a good deal in life generally but the K schools are wasting a great opportunity. And, if you will forgive me for being a bit personal, in my exploration of meditation, as K told me to do it, I found that its unfolding was exactly as he had said. How else, I wonder, could I have verified that he was speaking the truth? So, although, as you rightfully guessed, I still have a sense of self, I can nonetheless speak confidently about a good deal of this from my own exploration and findings. And it is from there that I have felt justified, if such justification were needed, to invite others to do the same.

     I must say that I wrote the article with a certain hesitation due to the possible reactions it might elicit along the lines you have expressed, of it being self-centred interpretation and therefore counter to the very spirit of the teachings. However, when put in the balance, it seemed to me that my reasons for going into this subtle matter outweighed the possible misunderstandings and inconveniences. I do not know what you have done with the question of meditation, how you have understood it and explored it in your own life. My whole point was to call attention to the central importance of meditation and, if possible, to free those interested in the teachings from misconceptions and false inhibitions regarding its nature and our engagement with it. My feeling is that, since freedom is at the heart of the teachings, it makes no sense to be creating hang-ups for ourselves regarding the teachings in our lives. This doesn't mean that one will become reckless or insensitive, but rather that one will question one's assumptions and dispel one's binding contradictions in the light of understanding. So it is not a question of whether l or anyone else has "no right to say what K meant about anything", but whether we are all willing to explore in a spirit of dialogue, friendship and freedom the meaning of all this. That's more my point.

     The concrete spark that set me off to write this article was a brief exchange I had with a Brockwood student a year ago. He was convinced that meditation was not to be practiced in any way, that it was a matter of attention to every moment of the day, to every movement inner and outer. That is clearly so, but I also brought to his attention what K had said about 'meditating'in Beginnings of Learning, so that he would not remain fixed in what I considered to be a mistaken notion of 'practice', which I felt was actually preventing his exploration of meditation for himself. The fact that very little if any attention is being brought to the importance of meditation in K schools concerns me greatly, because for me its active exploration while a student at Brockwood represented the height of sensitivity and the gateway to another, nondualistic, dimension of perception and being, which is precisely the purpose of such an education. So, more specifically, it was out of this concern for the students and staff in these schools that I wrote this article and I hope it has proved useful, at least in bringing meditation back into their field of awareness and living inquiry.

     Javier Gómez Rodríguez,August 2000

The Reprieve

     "The evening was warm though not sunny as is usual in Andalusia at this time of year. There was a high, thin cloud over the sea and surrounding mountains through which the sun filtered, giving that quality of light and pale shadow that pure sunlight never does. The sea air had an invigorating freshness as we approached El Faro, the Costa lighthouse. We chose to walk around a narrow path that wound around the lighthouse, a path overlooking many rocky coves and small bays.

     "As we neared the sea, I suddenly experienced an astonishing change in my sense of myself and in the world around me. It was as if I had walked into a different dimension, a place and mode of being which was entirely new to me. I was the same person yet a different person; I was in the same place, yet a different place. I find what happened difficult to describe, because I was experiencing rather than thinking and memorising. But to begin with my senses - every sense functioned at an extraordinarily intense level. In particular, my sense of smell and my feeling- senses were enhanced beyond my previous experience. I could smell the salty sea, the fish, even the rocks and, behind us, the perfume of the flowers and plants and the earthy odours of the headland. I felt, rather than saw, a change in everything I looked on. Everything seemed new and changed. A black dog swimming out to sea surged in my feelings like an oilblack seal; a woman below, stooping over shells that she had gathered and placed on a piece of cloth, seemed part of a stillness and timelessness that flowed between us; a distant buoy dancing in the seaseemed the cause of uncountable millions of tiny shimmering lights; a Spanish couple walking by, arm in arm, talking together gravely, loudly and unselfconsciously, as if they were in another world. Yet to me everything was somehow connected, in harmony. My feeling-sense was most powerful: I could feel a connection with everything my senses touched, which seemed tomake me part of everything I saw, heard, smelled, or tasted. I could feel as well as hear the hollow boom and echo of the waves washing in the deep coves, and thesmack of sea on rock, I felt as well as tasted the sharp tang of salt on my lips. We sat down on a stone bench and I was aware that my bodily discomfort and soreness had been transformed by the intensely sensuous feelings which were flooding through me! Perhaps the most apt phrase to describe this feeling is one used by Marcus Borg, "erotic exuberance". This isnot specifically a sexual feeling. In my case, it was as if the hard stone of the bench conveyed a feeling of being united sensually with it and with every part of the world I was in. Everything was united by my senses, particularly by my feeling- senses. There were no anxieties, no discords whatsoever. Everything seemed in an unchanging and deeply experienced unity. At thatpoint, the bliss I felt overflowed and tearscame like offerings of gratitude.

The Pacific coast, San Diego, California, USA

     "The rest of the evening, though not somuch in the same mode, was wonderful. I suppose that the activities of going into the restaurant, ordering a meal, dining and conversing, and so on, shifted thefocus from the senses back to the activities of thought. That night I slept little but felt very happy. At one point during the night Iexperienced something thatI can only describe as a profound darkness, adark void in which I felt absent yet not absent, in which there was nothing yet everything. This lasted but a short time, yet time also seemed absent. Later Iwanted to go back to this state but couldn't.

     "The following day I drove to the airport to collect a friend - and a feeling of happiness, a little of what I'd experienced the previous night, was with me through- out the journey. It diminished sometime during the return journey, but something of it remained, something that I know won't ever leave me."

     It was some years later that I came across a description of meditation in The Second Krishnamurti Reader that seemed remarkably similar to mine. But what was of special interest for me was Krishnamurti's emphasis on the importance of the senses:

     "If you walk ... looking at all the things you have passed, with your eyes and all your senses fully awake, but without a single thought in your mind - then you will know what it means to be without separation. ... Not that you are united with the flower, or with the cloud, or with those sweeping hills; rather there is a feeling of complete non-being in which the division between you and another ceases. The woman carrying those provisions which she bought in the market, the big black Alsatian dog, the two children playing with the ball - if you can look at all these without a word, without a measure, without any association, then the quarrel between you and another ceases."
(pp. 153-4, The Second Krishnamurti Reader, Copyright KFT)

     Although I knew my experience was not an illusion or imagination, it was reassuring to read confirmation of this further in the passage:

     "Don't think this is imagination, or some flight of fancy, or some desired mystical experience; it is not. It is as actual as the bee on that flower or the little girl on her bicycle or the man going up the ladder to paint the house -the whole conflict of the mind in its separation has come to an end."

     (As above, pg. 154)

     As Krishnamurti stresses, one should not analyse such an experience, for the "analyser is the analysed, the observer is the observed". On the other hand, he often begins his enquiry from a series of negations. Following his example here, I would say that my experience was not due to a cultivated state of mind, as in what is usually thought of as meditation. I had made no preparation for it: it came unexpectedly. What preceded it was the lifting of agreat fear which had obsessed my thoughts for weeks. This conflict had ended. My mind was extraordinarily quiet. I was relaxed, simply enjoying the world around me. It would seem that, in the absence of the colourings of thought, my senses were left alone to function without interference and interpretation. In short, the self had ended or at least was in abeyance, even if only for a short time, with the very minimum of interpretation. And, with these preconditions, without warning or preparation, I found myself apprehending the world, acutely, through the five senses. It would also seem that the place itself was a factor. It was a beautiful evening. The environment was spacious yet filled with arresting natural objects, the sea, the rocks, the headland covered with wild flowers. People were there, but it was not crowded and noisy. In brief, there was much for the senses to engage with. I have not had a repeat of this experience.

     There must of course have been some activity of memory or the world I was connecting with through my senses would have been unrecognisable. For can we function in the world without some conditioning, a cognitive system which prevents us from walking into the sea rather than on the coastal path, that allows us to distinguish humans from animals and other objects? But this was minimal.

     So - apart from the deductions discussed above - what did I learn from the experience? The bottom line seems to be that, in order for the senses, the brain, and the body as a whole to function in total harmony, the divisive activities of thought and the self must become quiet. If and when this happens in a person, he or she perceives a different world wherein everything exists in a wholeness, a total harmony, and in which there is bliss. There seems no need to talk of God or anything supernatural. This is the world in which we are already living, but which we - personally and collectively - can't realise in its total beauty and harmony. Why not? Because - internally and externally - we are not in harmony.

     E. Morrison, September 2000

K: There Is No Fixed Point

     Krishnamurti: You see, the very idea of the attainment of perfection and the way to it implies time, and in wanting to know what my way to it is, the questioner is still thinking in terms of time. Sir, there may be no way at all. Let us go into it.

     ...I am miserable, and I think I must have time to become perfect, to find happiness, if not in this life, then in some future life, but the mind is still within the field of time, however much that field may be extended or narrowed down. All your sacred books, all your religions say that you need time to become perfect, and thatyou must take a vow of celibacy, of poverty, you must resist temptation, discipline, control yourself in order to get there. So the mind has invented time as a means to perfection, to God, to truth, and it thinks in those terms because in the meantime it can be greedy, brutal, saying that it will polish itself up and eventually become perfect. I say that way is totally wrong, it is no way at all. It is merely an escape. A mind that is caught in perfection, in struggle, can only conceive of what perfection is, and that which it conceives out of its confusion, its misery, is not perfection, it is only a wish.

     So, in its effort to be that which it thinks it should be, the mind is not approaching perfection, it is merely escaping from what is, from the fact that it is violent, greedy. Perfection may not be a fixed point, it may be something totally different. As long as the mind has a fixed point from which it moves, acts, it must think in terms of time, and whatever it projects, however noble, however idealistically perfect, is still within the field of time. All its speculations on what Krishna, Buddha, Shankara, or anyone else has said, all its imaginations, its desires for perfection, are still within the field of time, therefore utterly false, valueless. A mind with a fixed point can only think in terms of other fixed points, and it creates the distance between itself and the fixed point which it calls perfection. Though you may wish otherwise, there may be no fixed points at all. In actuality, there is not any fixed 'you'or fixed 'me', is there? The 'I', the self, is made up of many qualities, experiences, conditionings, desires, fears, loves, hates, various masks. There is no fixed point, but the mind abhors this fact; therefore, it moves from one fixed point to another, carrying the burden of the known to the known.

     So time is an illusion when we think in terms of perfection. Desire has time, sensation has time, but love has no time. Love is a state of being. To love completely, simply, without either seeking or rejecting, is not to think in terms of perfection or of becoming perfect. But we do not know such love; therefore, we say, "I must have something else, I must have time to reach perfection." We discipline ourselves, we gather virtues, and if we don't sufficiently gather in this life, there is always the next life, so this movement of backwards and forwards is set going.

     When you think in terms of time, you are really pursuing the 'more', are you not? You want more love, more goodness, more pleasure, more ways of avoiding pain, more of the experience which delights, which brings a fleeting happiness; and the moment the mind demands more, it must have time, it must of necessity create time. This demand for the 'more'is an escape from the actual. When the mind says, "I must be more clever", that very assertion implies time. But if the mind can look at what is without condemnation, without comparison, if it can just observe the fact, then in that awareness there is no fixed point. As in the universe there is no fixed point, so in us there is no fixed point. But the mind likes to have a fixed point, so it creates a fixed point in name, in property, in money, in virtue, in relationships, in ideals, beliefs, dogmas; it becomes the embodiment of its own inventions, its own desires. The mind's idea of perfection is itself made more peaceful, made more noble, quiet. But perfection is not the opposite of what is. Perfection is that state of mind in which all comparison has ceased. There is no thinking in terms of the 'more', therefore no struggle. If you can just know the truth of that, if you can merely listen and find it out for yourself, then you will see that you are free from time altogether. Then creation is from moment to moment, without accumulation of the moment, because creation is truth, and truth has no continuity. You think of truth as continuous in time, but truth is not continuous, it is not a permanent thing to be known in time. It is nothing of that kind, it is something totally different, something that cannot be understood by a mind that is caught within the field of time. You must die to everything of yesterday, to all the accumulations of knowledge, experience, and only then that which is immeasurable, timeless, comes into being.

     Excerpted from The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, Vol VIII., Bombay, 6th Public Talk,
6th March 1955, Copyright KFA

K: Can We Think Together?