One in the south (the fourth parable)

One in the south (the fourth parable)

by Raj Arumugam (Director, www.ttscourses.com.au )

Another stops one as one passes through the south, and the another says, I know all about J.Krishnamurti.

One nods.

This, says another one meets in the south, is exactly what we have said. J.Krishnamurti says what we have always known from our beginnings; he says what our great leaders always say and what our Founder said.

One nods.

Therefore take this, another says, pushing packets and boxes towards one, you will see how we say it even better.

One nods. One says, I am just passing through, and one moves on.

One in the west (the third parable)

One in the west (the third parable)

by Raj Arumugam (Director, www.ttscourses.com.au )

One goes west.
And one is received by a delegation of another.

They welcome one and have one seated at a table.
We are pleased to present you, says the delegation of another, this book which has all the answers. Everything that is anywhere else is in here; and all things that are not anywhere else are all here. So this is complete.

And the delegation of another pauses for dramatic effect.
 

All things have been worked out. The plan; the system; what you must do; how many times things have to be done. All things. There is no need for anything else.
And again the delegation pauses.
And read it. And then listen to our talks; and then our Guides and our Leader will make all things certain. Everything is done for you. All our contact details are in there. Take it.

One gently pushes the book back to the delegation. One stands up, bows and departs.

You are a fool! the delegation shouts. Everything is done for you, and offered to you on a silver platter, and yet you refuse! You are a fool!

One in the north (the second parable)

One in the north (the second parable)

by Raj Arumugam (Director, www.ttscourses.com.au )

And one goes north.
One meets another.

Another looks pleased. Another is happy to see one.

Ah, another says. It is good to see you.
One nods.
It is good to see a friend in J.Krishnamurti, says another.
One nods.

Another paraphrases his knowledge:

You know how he speaks against religions. How he speaks against authority. I love it when he criticizes them. When he says how hollow they are. How violent they are. How hypocritical… How one should not and need not belong to an organization. Shows how organizations are corrupt. How bad they are…

One says:
Is that an inner revolution are you simply using your knowledge in an ongoing rebellion against your mum and dad?

One in the east (the first parable)

One in the east  (the first parable)

by Raj Arumugam (Director, www.ttscourses.com.au )

And one goes east.
And one meets another.

Another says, I have no guru.
One nods.
Another says, I am free.
One nods.
Another says, You know, in Lecture 2228AXK, J.Krishnamurti says…
One nods.

Another continues, He is the greatest philosopher who has lived in recent history…
One nods.
Another says, He speaks of the stream and time…
One nods.
Another says, And also J.Krishnamurti says…
One nods.

Another continues:
And in Lecture 235SRF, J.Krishnamurti says…
And he also said this…and this he did…

Tell me, says one to another. I thought you said you have no guru. But you speak like you do. 

The magician: a parable

The magician: a parable

by Raj Arumugam (Director, www.ttscourses.com.au )

So this magician comes to this one and says: Would you like to play?

Yes, says one.

We’ll play chimera, says the magician. I’ll huff and puff, and you’ll change and change.

Sounds fun, says one.

And so the magician huffs and puffs.

And the one becomes Michael.

And then the magician huffs and puffs.

And the one becomes Susan.

And then the magician huffs and puffs again.

And one becomes Chinese. And later one becomes French. One becomes Italian. One becomes Russian. One becomes this. And that.

And the games goes on as the magician huffs and puffs and the one seems to change and change with every huff and puff: now the one is Indian; and then German; and then black and then white, and then one seems to exist in different worlds and in different forms and with different names, and so the game goes on.

STOP! says one . I’m tired of this. Enough. What’s all this about? What am I? What’s my real name?

I’ll explain, said the magician.

No, says the one. I’ve had enough of you. I’ll do it myself. It’s not the explanation I want – I want to see for myself.

And the magician does his last trick – he disappears.

And the one observes without any word. The one sees for oneself.

Game over.

The Primordial Leviathan: a parable

The Primordial Leviathan: a parable
Raj Arumugam (Director – TTS )
www.ttscourses.com.au

There is one before us.
Can you see this one?

See, one crawls and grows on all fours.
One only sees now the ground, the grass before one, and the pebbles within one’s view.
One crawls and grows. One also crawls and growls.

One stands on two now. One looks around. One’s view is expanded. One looks around farther and one looks up.

There before one is the unwieldy mass – gargantuan, spectacular; frightening, seductive, layer upon layer and thick… a mammoth pile, like the carcass of the largest dinosaur one can envision…the carcass still warm.

One sees its immense expanse; its profound depth; no one can carry or lift it, but any one can sense its immense weight. Its depths seem infinite…it seems to stretch on forever and forever… Where does one start to view it? Where does it end?

One stands before it and it seems to move. It is never static: it moves, and it changes its shapes. In one section it appears magnificent, beautiful and then from another angle it is haggard and ugly. In one section it appears to be benevolent and yet, viewing it from another corner, one sees its depravity, its ugliness.

It is forever changing.
Then one spots a sort of peephole. One places one’s eyes close to the leviathan, one eye at the peephole, and one sees all manner of peoples, all customs and protocol, and all rituals and procedures. There are all languages and all manner of magic and miracles. One places one’s ears at the softer section of the leviathan’s belly and one hears music and singing, and a grand chorus; and yet comes the cacophony of men and women in anguish and pain, and there are screams and vulgarity, and harshness and barbarity.

Everything is there that one can see and hear. That one can feel and imagine.
And one crawls before the gargantuan.
It changes form, it changes its shapes; it changes dimensions if one stands to see it; it is different if one sits to see it – and yet again, altogether something else if one crawls to view it.

And then one sees others sitting in their sofas, sitting comfortably like a family in their living room, complacent, happy and feeling satisfied after dinner, watching their favourite TV show. In their sacred time.

And they are all happy. But the one we see is not.
One does not understand. But they seem to have got it.
They seem to understand it all. There is no contradiction. Their smiles say it. There is no violence. Their contented looks say it. There are no questions. Their relaxed countenances express it all. They understand; they know it all. They are satisfied.

But one does not know. One is confused.
Again one explores the gargantuan mass. One turns round and round its bends and then comes to a corner.
There is a sort of side to this weighty and mystical body.
There is a label.
It says…no, it is an ancient label and its words are faded…but one tries hard to read it and it says: MADE IN…But one cannot read the last word. It is completely blackened out with the soot of time.
One cannot read that last word.

MADE IN…

But it could have been made anywhere. It could have been made in China. In the ancient savannahs and caves. It could have been made in Mesopotamia. In Ur. It could have been created in England. It could have been engineered in Germany. It could have been made in Japan. In India…one can’t tell…It could have been made anywhere.

And as one ponders this, as one thinks about that last word, one thinks to oneself: Perhaps this was deliberate. It could have been made anywhere.One then understands this gargantuan.
One moves back.
Then one pulls at the label.
Just pulls at it.
It comes off like a band-aid on an infected finger.
The mass loses shape. Like a balloon losing all its air. The leviathan loses its weight. It loses all its immensity. Its depth and its history. It loses all its space and time, and its past and its images, and all its immensity and pomposity. Like a deflated balloon below a tree in a park. Punctured and useless.
One understands. One has seen it now.
One does not crawl anymore. One does not groan anymore. One sees.

Raj Arumugam ( Director, TTS)
www.ttscourses.com.au

A mind so full

Raj Arumugam (Director – TTS www.ttsworld.com.au )

1-9 June 2007

It’s a mind so full all these days, so preoccupied with the demands of the world at work, one can only catch glimpses of the order J.Krishnamurti speaks of.
One can ensure there is organization and order at work and in the schedules and agendas and tasks, but work and things as they turn out with the all the challenges and surprises and twists can be so consuming one can almost have no energy left for order, the order of the observing mind, Krishnamurti’s order.

There are glimpses:

*
There is a moment of rest as one waits. One sits in a couch. Arms gently on the armrests. There is a slowing down. A deliberate slowing down. Slow down, one whispers. Slow…A quiet.
There is a clamour in the mind. The clamour of ideas. The chaos of scheduled tasks. The shout of urgency. And impatience. Just observe. After all, things are on schedule. Everything within control and planned for. Slow. Quiet…There is a clarity. Just the breath. Slow. In and out. Thoughts exit. Quiet. There is a clarity…Just being there…just observing…

*
It’s evening. One returns after a regular brisk walk. The sun sets. Thick dark clouds hang directly before one and in the distance there are still crimson rays of the sun. Without much movement, without jerkiness, one observes. The clouds…the darkness. The light behind those clouds…the shape of the clouds…just observing…no comment on its beauty or grandeur…just observing… hunger stirs…one goes, nothing registered…

J.Krishnamurti and Methods for meditation

Are there methods for meditation? A system perhaps?

Raj Arumugam (Director – TTS www.ttsworld.com.au )

Even someone new to J.Krishnamurti’s ideas will know that J.Krishnamurti does not advocate the idea of a formula or a method in meditation.
For example, he says:
If you deliberately take an attitude, a posture, in order to meditate, then it becomes a plaything, a toy of the mind.

J.Krishnamurti is very clear about developing a method or system or even a practice: he does not think they lead to the freedom he is talking about. Why? Because, as J.Krishnamurti says:

The purpose and meaning of meditation given by thought becomes a time-binding bondage

And of course, we know, anything that is time-binding creates pain and sorrow.

So one is almost driven to despair:
So I agree with these ideas of J.Krishnamurti. This is what I have been thinking about all the while and what I have been feeling deep inside me. I understand his point about treating the situation with a sense of urgency. As one might be if caught inside a burning house. And so what do I do? Just observe?

But one need not despair.
Scattered throughout J.Krishnamurti’s writing are hints and instructions on what one could do.
So really there is no need to despair. But at the outset one must remind oneself – and I remind myself very often – that one must not make a path, a method of this; one must not let this evolve into a rigid personal method.

Every meditation – if it is possible to demarcate one from the other – must be fresh, new, living. One does not link one to the other.
With this warning to myself and to the reader, here is one hint or idea that J.Krishnamurti offers to a visitor who has come to seek clarification about silence:

Sit, sometime, on the bank of a river and look into the water. Don’t be hypnotized by the movement of the water, by the light, the clarity and the depth of the stream. Look at it without any movement of thought. The silence is all round you, in you, in the river, and in those trees that are utterly still. You can’t take it back home, hold it in your mind or your hand and think you have achieved some extraordinary state. If you have, then it is not silence; then it is merely a memory, an imagining, a romantic escape from the daily noise of life.
- The Only Revolution, J.Krishnamurti

One may argue that this is something that creative people like artists and musicians and poets might already have used – and continue to use. One may point to William Wordsworth, for example. But one should read again carefully what J.Krishanmurti warns about not taking it home and consider what William Wordsworth did with the silence that he seems to have had a glimpse of.

But really, I think, one should not be driven into so much nervousness about J.Krishnamurti’s warning that one does not dare try it.
Just try it.

thirty minutes

this comes easy today

Raj Arumugam (Director – TTS www.ttsworld.com.au )

5am

One woke up. There had been a dream of some sort, some thought translated in the sleeping mind as a vague dream, and then one was awake.
And one naturally, easily, observed. Still lying in bed, but awake, one just observed. Not many thoughts. Just fleeting ones, not many, just fleeting as one observed. I shall not call it silence, but it was relatively quiet within. One awoke and easily observed, without prompting.

11.15am.

One lies down on the floor, observing.
There is quiet again within.
It is a day of rest, and there is quiet.
There is no one else about. One is alone.
One closes one’s eyes.
Relative quiet. One hears awhile the faint sound of the car racing past outside. Within it is relatively quiet. There are phrases one hears: two phrases. Quite faint. They are not in English; they are both in my mother tongue. Phrases from a distant past; almost like an echo of one’s mother’s voice. It is quiet. One feels the few bread crumbs in the mouth…

1145am.

One must have slept for about 10 minutes…one is awake again…easily slipping into sleep…there is no need to struggle against this…and easily coming back again…and being awake, one naturally, easily observes. Still lying on the hard ground, but awake, one just observes. I shall not call it silence, but it is relatively quiet within. One awakes and easily observes, without prompting. This seems to come easily.

Raj Arumugam (Director, TTS www.ttsworld.com.au)

We are always in search of authority, aren’t we?

Raj Arumugam (Director – TTS www.ttsworld.com.au )

We are always in search of authority aren’t we?
Always in search of someone better to rely on, to tell us what to do, what to think; always in search of speeches and quotes and memorable lines, and talks and texts to lean on.
And in our pictures we stand against a background of bookshelves, or a background of antiquity and the sacred and unquestionable tradition, pretending to be intellectual, to be intelligent, to be so independent but still so dependent on authority.
We wear badges of identity and badges to mark out our intelligence. But since time immemorial we’ve been like that, haven’t we?
The village elders and the shamans and the oldest woman were our authority. And the oral traditions and all the proper and communal way of doing and practising our way of being. And someone, anyone, who spoke with authority and anyone who could create fear and awe and who could command respect.
One in search of authority and one always in search of followers to keep in awe, to keep tame and subdued.

We are always in search of authority, aren’t we?
Even the authority of the cunning mind, yes, and the deceptive intellect. Always in search of revelation and sacred creed and for some what appears to be new – and oracles and mountains; ah, mountains that make us feel smaller, and rivers, rivers that could submerge us in fear. Not the fault of the mountains and the rivers, not that the wild rivers or the snow-capped peaks wanted to drive fear in us. They were what they were; and still they are what they are – as we were being what we’ve always been – always in search of authority. One in search of authority so we can lean on somebody, so we can feel special and different, so by someone’s authority we can feel secure; and one in search of authority to lean on something perceived higher, and to use that to drive into others fear and obedience, by intimidation and awe, so that this one can in turn feel secure.

We change the terms, but our structures for security are still the same.

So followers and leaders, always in search of each other, always in search of security. And so many monuments and edifices and grand structures, and so many organizations and cults and sects and philosophers; and so many faiths so exclusively true, one belittling the other, one subjugating the others. There is no security unless we conquer; unless we destroy the other. One subjugating the other, taking turns, conquering, cajoling, bullying and declaring others evil and so many holy texts and inspirations…so many authoritative texts and the latest clinical research too. All in search of authority and security. Few feeling the truth in their bones; most merely pointing one to the other, the other to another and so on and so forth to a book, or icon, or a stone, or to space, or just looking mystical.
Always looking for security. Always comfortable with authority. The follower and the leader.
But even here one must be careful. Even here one must exercise caution. Even here where freedom is promised. Complete freedom. One seeing it by oneself is what matters. Anything else is just the word. One must be careful even here.

Raj Arumugam (Director, TTS www.ttsworld.com.au)