The J.Krishnamurti Experiment

The J.Krishnamurti Experiment

OR what is: meditations

by Raj Arumugam (Director, TTS)

www.ttsworld.com.au

www.ttscourses.com.au

 

3 April 2007

 

Overture

There is a pain. Somewhere in the middle of the chest. A tightness. It spreads itself throughout the chest.What is this feeling?
Fear? Anxiety?
Should it be named at all?
Should I struggle against this?
Think of something pleasant to replace this anguish?
I look at the feeling. I feel its intensity.
I observe it. No judgement. No revulsion. No attachments.
Just observe it.
I even now smile at it. But let’s just observe.
Just observe.
Just see what it is.
I understand this. Not in words. But I understand this.
There is no need to speak of this except that I resolved to share this experiment through a blog.
I understand this.
It diminishes.
It weakens.
It leaves.
There is a silence.
I do not cling to this. Just a while.
Just observe this.
Just see what it is.

J.Krishanmurti: this experiment I share with you what is: meditations

an experiment by Raj Arumugam (Director, TTS) www.ttsworld.com.au www.ttscourses.com.au

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some preliminary thoughts

The works of J.Krishnamurti, it seems to me, are generally hidden from public view.

Even in such an open and free place like Australia.

Why is this so?

Because J.Krishnamurti challenges everything we know – he challenges the individual, and he challenges all authority. And focusing on what we may normally call a philosophical or religious or spiritual life, he challenges all such authority and thought systems.

You can’t point a finger at his system or his authority, because he does not want authority and did not create a system. He just pointed to what is.

His message is quite clear: the discovery is to be made by oneself. Not through what others tell us; not through traditions and establishment and dissertations and grand books, be they scholarly or inspired.

How many establishments or even academic institutions (supposedly committed to free inquiry) can you name that will readily accept this?

Not just readily – but actually accept?

So one can understand why his works are generally not available in public libraries. And not so easily and readily discussed; the powers that control our societies and establishments just don’t really want too many people having easy access to J.Krishnamurti.

The establishments that have influence may allow the works of the Dalai Lama and even Osho to be quite visibly available, but the works of J.Krishnamurti, because he challenges all authority with a purity and clarity that cannot itself be challenged, is quite obviously discouraged and made less accessible.

And as for the individual, when does come across J.Krishnamurti, one may actually find the implications quite frightening. For its insistence on one’s independence and on independent inquiry can be frightening. One can almost hear one say: I do want to be independent – but wait a second, not so independent. Because most people only want a qualified independence, a kind of phony independence, an independence of appearance, like a pose a rebel actor may adopt – J.Krishnamurti can be frightening.

After all, especially in religious matters, we are used to being told what to believe in and what to consider as being holy and unholy. We want to be assured that we are saved and are going to heaven; we want to know that our spiritual present is right and the spiritual future is assured so we can move on to the pleasurable activities of life, and we know – through our establishments – that we can continue with these pleasures in our spiritual future too.

Our favorite territory is a culture-specific and authoritative concept of God, of good and bad, acceptance of a creed and a set of beliefs and an idea that only this belief is true.

With J.Krishnamurti, however, all our props are taken away from us. Our holy books are taken away from us; our houses of prayer and all authority and teachers and all systems and beliefs and doctrines, and holy men and saints and prophets and mentors are all taken away from us.

Because all these prevent us from seeing what is.

One wonders: can I actually rely on myself?

So, even when we stumble across J.Krishnamurti’s works, we are afraid.

We are afraid of the freedom and its responsibilities. It is easier to be a follower; it is to too difficult to be independent.

And so, in my case, even though I’ve had 2 or 3 books of J.Krishnamurti’s speeches for years, it is only recently that I have begun to see his works as less of a mere rebellion against authority and more as an unadulterated expression of truth.

Expression of the truth – for the word is not the thing.

It is only in recent years that J.Krishnamurti’s works have become to me to be the clearest expression of what is.

Uncompromising.

Pure.

Clear.

Pristine.

Not asking for anything in return.

In this blog I shall share with readers and visitors my own exploration of what J.Krishnamurti calls what is.

It is an experiment and I am not sure how it will go. I may abandon it half-way or I may stick to it until a natural conclusion. Or just move on.

J.Krishnamurti says he does not teach – it is up to the individual to discover and so I share in this blog what I shall discover as I go into things, into life, into what is with J.Krishnamurti. I am not sure if discovery is the proper word to use here. And if one can share. I shall share what is possible to share.

Is J.Krishnamurti a teacher to me?

First, I have never met J.Krishanmurti. From early in life, I have never had the desire to meet with anyone in authority – or even to meet one who is an authority. So even if I had had the opportunity to meet him in real life (for those who don’t know, he died in 1986), I probably would not have met him.

But is J.Krishnamurti a teacher to me?

He will be pleased to know that I do not call him a teacher. For that matter, I do not call anyone a teacher.

He will be pleased to know that I declare myself my own teacher.

As each is to oneself.

And this blog is not about J.Krishnamurti. I am certain he would be pleased about that too. Neither is it about me.

But all these words are not important.

What is important?

What is is important. Then perhaps it is not.

We think that somebody else is going to teach us how to look, somebody else is going to show us the way and save us from our endless strife and misery. If you observe, both outwardly and inwardly, you will realize there is no one that can give us the key, the understanding, to our own desperately puzzling, complex, miserable life. But we refuse to look, we refuse to listen to the promptings, to the intimations of that thing which is telling us the story both in detail and in totality, comprehensively – that which is telling us what is actually taking place.

- J.Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

If you do not like a second-hand experience (which is what this blog may turn out to be) and if you want to get to J.Krishnamurti himself, you may wish to visit the following sites:

http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/

http://www.kfa.org/

But please remember that reading J.Krishnamurti’s original works and speeches, and even watching video recordings of J.Krishnamurti may in themselves be second-hand experience.

Why?

Because if you make anyone an authority, if you make anyone your teacher and not go into things yourself, what you have is simply a second-hand experience.

Even if it is J.Krishnamurti you are listening to.

J.Krishnamurti: this experiment I share with you what is: meditations

an experiment by Raj Arumugam (Director, TTS) www.ttsworld.com.au www.ttscourses.com.au

 

 

 

SEE WHAT IS

 

You are standing before a grand creation of nature.

Perhaps you have flown in from miles to see this.

You have paid much for your fare and accommodation to come and see this magnificent expression of nature.

So you stand before it and the mind thinks about it.

Then there are a thousand thoughts.

And around you hear the WOWs! – and the OOHHs!

You compare this spot with other places you have been to and what you have seen.

This reminds you of other memories. You engage in a conversation with the others. Your mind compares. Classifies. This stirs emotions. You engage in a conversation with the others. Or with the partner who has flown in with you.

You take pictures and you pose before the grandeur of nature.

You will have many memories of this. You will have many things to say about this. For many years to come.
Or you can just stand before this.

Whether it is at your local nature reserve or the Niagara Falls.

You can stand still before this.

And you can just observe.

Without imposing your emotions on what you see. Without a conversation. Without the mind chattering.

You can just observe.

Let that speak. Let that express itself.

Do you need to travel so far to express yourself?

Did you come here to express yourself?

Let nature speak. Observe what is.

Without the mind chattering.

Observe, be silent and see what is before you.

Just that.

Just observe.

In one you will see your projections; in the other, you will see what is.

 

 

 

Humility

 

There is a power structure. There is control – there is the controller and the controlled; there is the one with the power and the one without.
Sometimes they take turns.
Within this structure there comes one with great humility.
But that humility is only possible within that structure.
So that humility, like the power structure, is ugly. Humility here is dependent; humility is false.
For where is the need for humility in freedom and in uncorrupted equality and equality?

 

4 April 2007
(7-8pm)

I observe. Thoughts and desires and emotions and fears and nebulous groups of feelings appear. They appear and march before me.
I observe.
There is a thought of one I met today. It was an unpleasant experience. The mind pictures that meeting. That exchange. I step back. I observe.
There is a list of things I have to do.
There is a feeling.
There is a want.
Anger presents itself to me.
There is a desire.
There is a desire.
I step back. I observe.
Thought after thought, some short-lived, some long, thought after thought, and emotion after emotion come and go in a procession before me.
I step back.
I observe.
Is this me? Is this me in this procession of thoughts?

 

 

 

4 April 2007

 

(3.20 pm)

 

My first thoughts are pleasant ones.

There are thoughts about a good day ahead. About last evening’s walk in the garden. There are good thoughts. Calm and pleasant.

But then it seems to me these are not my first thoughts. Other thoughts preceded these.

There had been thoughts of deadlines. Thoughts of work unfinished. There was tension. And anxiety.

And then they seemed to have subsided and then had come the pleasant thoughts.

Is my mind cheating myself, giving me in its more conscious levels –what I expect – just pleasant thoughts?

I observe a while.

Analysis relates to the past; to know what is, one observes.

I get up.

I try and be observant.

I try and be attentive.

I drive and I observe.

There are people speeding past. There are some flashing their headlights behind me, signaling me to drive faster even though I’m on the slow lane, and at the prescribed speed.

I observe. I am attentive. I do not make judgments.

But somewhere in this morning, somewhere when I actually step into work, I do not observe anymore. The speed of work and the urgency and the demands seize me and sometimes I’m simply tossed around by work. Things happen at such speed there is no time for observing.

3.30 pm

I’m alone again. There is quite again.

Now I observe again.

Now I am attentive.

 

 

DESIRE

 

5 April-6 April

 

 

There is an overwhelming desire that rises in the consciousness.

It seeks expression in the physical world.

Because this desire is more intense in my mind than what I have considered of J.Krishnamurti, or what strength or wisdom I may have developed through this experiment thus far, it assumes a life that kills all attention.

The desire demands: Live. Knowing me, you live, it says.

All that are practised thus far, all that one learned, everything recedes. Everything else subsides. They are almost wiped out.

There is pain. There is conflict.

Desire invites, entices and wreaks havoc.

Desire consumes.

One who is smug provides daily quotes from the wisdom of J.Krishnamurti.

One who struggles thinks: Let this desire rage. Le this desire live itself out.

Where is the clarity?

There is only the turmoil.

 

 

Clarity

 

9.30 pm, 6 April 07

 

Clarity is to live in the present – untouched by the past, untouched by the future.

Total attention is clarity; total attention.

What is is certainty.

There is certainty.

Attention is clarity.

This is certainty.

Attention in the happening. Attention in the breath. Attention in the thought that arises and then subsides. Attention in the desire and the act.

That attention is clarity.

Clarity is that which does not connect to the past and that does not connect with the future.

That is certainty.

Fear

There is the fear. The anxiety.

One gazes at this fear. This anxiety.

One observes. There is no judgment; no reaction; no feeling.

One observes. Just observe.

The fear shines for awhile –one understands the fear.

One knows this.

It becomes familiar. It weakens. It disappears.

 

 

7 April 2007

 

8.30am

 

I lie down on the floor on a thin plastic sheet stretched out over the hard floor.

I am tired.

I have been up on my feet since 4am and the work of several days is beginning to take its toll on my body.

I am tired.

I lie down and am attentive to this.

To the tiredness.

To this.

There is a feeling of tiredness. There is stress. I pay attention.

There is the body. The feet ache.

The bones. There is a tension in the left ear. I stretch my hands.

I am attentive to my tiredness.

The tiredness weakens. The tiredness weakens. It goes.

There is a blankness in the mind.

An occasional thought.

Not silence. But an occasional silence and an occasional thought.

Then silence. It is time to get up and go.

 

7 April 2007

 

6 pm

 

I lie down. There is that feeling again. That feeling of deprivation.

The sense of betrayal. Pain.

I am consumed by it. The pain fills the centre of the chest and spreads.

Then I observe.

Just observe the pain.

Be with the pain. This anguish.

Just observe.

Now I do not label it. I do not name it. Just observe. Just see what is.

The pain subsides. It decreases in its intensity. It dwindles. It disappears. Just observe.

There is a quiet. Not complete silence, for there is the odd thought. Now and then. But general quiet.

Just observe.

There is quiet.

 

7pm

 

 

These days, these nights, have my emotions multiplied? Have my thoughts increased? Has my mind more pain and thoughts?

Or is it simply that I am more aware of these that come and go in the mind?

In a mind.

8 April 2007

 

6pm

 

 

So many people have asked: Who am I? What am I?

So many have sought self-knowledge.

So many traditions have declared: Know thyself.

Today we have psychologists and counselors and sociologists and philosophers who tell us what we are.

Specialists research and record, write and offer a model of what we are.

So we read Freud. Or we listen to a new school of psychology. Of psychiatry. We read the latest research and we come to know ourselves – rather, we come to know what we are according to what others say we are.

So we know what we are according to Freud or Jung. Or according to a new researcher. So we know Freud – but not ourselves.

So we must observe. One is here in oneself and one can observe. Without prejudice. Without preconceived notions. One observes and one truly knows. As it is. One knows. What is.

And again one must come to this observation without preconceived notions.

As one does not know oneself through Freud or through the latest research, or the oldest and most secretive traditions.

So one comes to observe, one cannot come to what actually is through ideas one has formed yesterday of oneself.

Then it is no longer oneself according to Freud but oneself to one‘s past judgment.

One comes new to oneself, for the new is ever new – not embedded in yesterday’s knowledge.

 

10 April 2007

 

 

I’m back at work after 4 days of the Easter holidays.

I have my business associates contacting me; staff contacting me on various questions and queries.

There are many decisions to be made; many deadlines to meet and projects to discuss.

By the time I remember anything about observing, or about J.Krishnamurti, it’s about 2pm.

I ask myself: Is it possible, truly possible to observe as one is at one’s work? Is it possible to observe one’s professional life as it progresses, at precisely the moment one makes decisions and rushes from one project to another, and as one is involved with other alert but not attentive minds, quick minds that are waiting for fast and immediate decisions?

Can one actually risk it?

This is not a question J.Krishnamurti can answer. It must be done by oneself. One has to look into it, perhaps without risking it.

Does it mean that what J.Krishnamurti asks of us is to actually forsake the professional world, as that world would be filled with ambition, conflict, desires and aggression?

Does J.Krishnamurti’s philosophy, if that is what one may call that, actually deny the professional life, the life of competition, the working world and the business world. Consider what he says:

Watch it! You can observe each man in competition with the other; each man envious of the other; each man seeking his own security; each man seeking power, position and prestige for himself and for his family…

You can see, if you pay a little attention to it, how each man is frightened , each man is seeking his own security, each man is wanting to fulfill himself (yet never trying to find out if there is such a thing as fulfillment), each man wanting to reach the top of the heap, which is considered success.

Is the J.Krishnamurti philosophy, the approach, is this a turning away from the active life of business, of the working world and the serious business of living?

Is it an approach that demands closures to almost all modes of existence but itself? For is not any action in the political, the social, the business domains and what we might loosely call the real world – are the actions and conduct in these spheres not based on thought, on the past and tradition and plans for the future?

Where is the what is in all this?

Let me put the question to myself in another way, no doubt taking a big leap in imagery: Does one live in the real world with the mystical Tao Te Ching or the pragmatic Sun Tzu’s Art of War?

 

13 April 2007

 

Observing again

 

 

Away from the world of ambition and business, of politics and realpolitik, of the real world of the meeting of peoples with all their conflicting desire and agendas and plans, and motivations, away from the world of ambition and desire and wealth and accumulation, we are back with J.Krishnamurti.

It is like coming home.

We are back with J.Krishnamurti on consciousness. On understanding the self. Or what is.

One learning.

One observing.

One living without a system – if not always, at least when possible.

And yet not making a system of this too.

This freedom. This clarity.

This too is J.Krishanmurti.

So perhaps in this too there is a call. In this too there is a time for all things.

Of course in this there is liberty – but perhaps one must tire of the tension of living, see its pain and its suffering – actually see it, like one sees a car racing towards a child – and then one is ready, it is all clear.

So perhaps in our foolishness, in our immaturity, we leave J.Krishnamurti until the moment of danger – perhaps when it is too late. Until we are unable to do otherwise and we are too weak, too confused to see clearly.

And until then we treat J.Krishnamurti casually – like a statue of a Buddha in the garden, or a picture of a medieval painting of a Madonna we might hang on the wall and ignore except as a conversation piece.

And then when we totally and truly need air – as when we are drowning, or because the house is burning furiously, when we truly need air, we are already drowning, or perhaps suffocating, and all we can get are last gasps before drowning. Before death. Perhaps to follow a little in the continuity.

Please visit again for more entries as the experiment continues.

Any or all parts of this blog may be used freely for non-commercial purposes. Kindly acknowledge the source; and an e-mail to raj@ttsworld.com.au notifying Raj Arumugam of intended use will be appreciated.