Krishnamurti: The Book of Life
There is no path to truth, it must come to you. Truth can come to you only when your mind and heart are simple, clear, and there is love in your heart; not if your heart is filled with the things of the mind. When there is love in your heart, you do not talk about organizing for brotherhood; you do not talk about belief, you do not talk about division or the powers that create division, you need not seek reconciliation. Then you are a simply a human being without a label, without a country. This means that you must strip yourself of all those things and allow truth to come into being; and it can come only when the mind is empty, when the mind ceases to create. Then it will come without your invitation. Then it will come as swiftly as the wind and unbeknown. It comes obscurely, not when you are watching, wanting. It is there as sudden as sunlight, as pure as the night; but to receive it, the heart must be full and the mind empty. Now you have the mind full and your heart empty.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Striving is Not Necessary
I was working at my part-time job this morning when it occurred to me that striving is not necessary. Of course I already know, intellectually, that striving is not necessary. My mental plans and cognitive churning has netted me zilch over my lifetime. I'm also aware that my conscious thinking process is a natural event, just like anything else, and I might as well just notice it.
As I was packaging payrolls, as I've done for 14 hrs a week for the past 6 years, I wondered if I could speed up my packaging at will. If I could consciously control the speed of this now fairly automatic process by descrete increments.
I should also add that it has been my practice, when I think of it, to meditate during periods of mindless toil. During these times my tendency is to observe. Observe is, however, too active a verb. "My senses operate," as a node in the flux of the non-seperateness would be a more accurate description, but would possibly make less sense to those who have not experienced it.
When these thoughts all came together as I was slipping bundled checks into FedEx envelopes at a high rate of speed, I had the experience of completely observing the actions that I would normally consider voluntary, as involuntary, natural occurances. As if I was watching my pulse, or my eyes blink in a mirror.
As I was packaging payrolls, as I've done for 14 hrs a week for the past 6 years, I wondered if I could speed up my packaging at will. If I could consciously control the speed of this now fairly automatic process by descrete increments.
I should also add that it has been my practice, when I think of it, to meditate during periods of mindless toil. During these times my tendency is to observe. Observe is, however, too active a verb. "My senses operate," as a node in the flux of the non-seperateness would be a more accurate description, but would possibly make less sense to those who have not experienced it.
When these thoughts all came together as I was slipping bundled checks into FedEx envelopes at a high rate of speed, I had the experience of completely observing the actions that I would normally consider voluntary, as involuntary, natural occurances. As if I was watching my pulse, or my eyes blink in a mirror.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Birdcage
I thought of an analogy to explain the perspective of someone who notices the difference between the real world, and the hypnotic world of facts, events and symbols (sometimes referred to as "Maya").
Seeing Maya as the entire universe is the conventional perspective. Imagine your head being positioned within a birdcage. You can see everything (the real world) and you can also see the bars of the cage (the underlying framework of your rational, symbolic mind). After you were born, and as you grew, you were taught and learned symbols. These symbols could be represented by post-it notes being stuck to the bars of the birdcage. Each discreet "idea" has it's own post-it note. Many of the post-it notes are "instructions of operation" on how to get desired results.
When operating in the conventional mode, people are fascinated by the post-it notes. The world outside of the bird cage often intrudes, but their attention is immediately drawn back inside of the birdcage, to check the post-its so they may place the experience.
As some people grew, they were taught that they were not in control of the post-it notes. These notes were written by someone else, and they had no right or power to change the post-it notes they were given, or to write new ones. Other people realized that they can edit and add post-it notes to their birdcage. Some people may have millions of post-it notes and others just a few.
A person who has peered outside of the birdcage long enough to see the real world, and notice the difference between it and the birdcage, still has the birdcage with post-it notes on their head. The difference is that they notice birdcage, whereas people with the conventional view meld the the birdcage and reality together. Because of this, they can see neither as it is.
Seeing Maya as the entire universe is the conventional perspective. Imagine your head being positioned within a birdcage. You can see everything (the real world) and you can also see the bars of the cage (the underlying framework of your rational, symbolic mind). After you were born, and as you grew, you were taught and learned symbols. These symbols could be represented by post-it notes being stuck to the bars of the birdcage. Each discreet "idea" has it's own post-it note. Many of the post-it notes are "instructions of operation" on how to get desired results.
When operating in the conventional mode, people are fascinated by the post-it notes. The world outside of the bird cage often intrudes, but their attention is immediately drawn back inside of the birdcage, to check the post-its so they may place the experience.
As some people grew, they were taught that they were not in control of the post-it notes. These notes were written by someone else, and they had no right or power to change the post-it notes they were given, or to write new ones. Other people realized that they can edit and add post-it notes to their birdcage. Some people may have millions of post-it notes and others just a few.
A person who has peered outside of the birdcage long enough to see the real world, and notice the difference between it and the birdcage, still has the birdcage with post-it notes on their head. The difference is that they notice birdcage, whereas people with the conventional view meld the the birdcage and reality together. Because of this, they can see neither as it is.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Emotional Beings
It seems like most people think of themselves as rational beings. I used to myself, until the evidence to the contrary became undeniable. It's all about physiology. Over the course of evolution, the globules of changing and reproducing organic matter, which is now temporarily you and I, went through a number of phases. Here I'm primarily talking about the evolution of our consciousness:
1. Reptilian - Instinct based. No thinking or emotions. Brain stem.
2. Mammalian - Emotion and instinct. Well integrated over the course of millennium. Limbic system.
3. Human - Thinking, emotion and instinct. Relatively recent in evolutionary terms, thinking is not that well integrated with the other two components. Neocortex, grey matter.
Logically I could argue that since the instinctual and emotional physiological structures of our being have been around for longer, and are more mechanically or physiologically central to our functioning, that we naturally operate from those areas, more so than the peripheral and newly developed thinking structures. That argument would, in itself, be ironic, because I came to that conclusion by emotionally experiencing it, and rationalized the argument afterwards. We react and feel instantaneously. Then we either rationalize the reason, if one is needed, or for some, we handily apply one of the many reasons that has been supplied us through our social conditioning.
1. Reptilian - Instinct based. No thinking or emotions. Brain stem.
2. Mammalian - Emotion and instinct. Well integrated over the course of millennium. Limbic system.
3. Human - Thinking, emotion and instinct. Relatively recent in evolutionary terms, thinking is not that well integrated with the other two components. Neocortex, grey matter.
Logically I could argue that since the instinctual and emotional physiological structures of our being have been around for longer, and are more mechanically or physiologically central to our functioning, that we naturally operate from those areas, more so than the peripheral and newly developed thinking structures. That argument would, in itself, be ironic, because I came to that conclusion by emotionally experiencing it, and rationalized the argument afterwards. We react and feel instantaneously. Then we either rationalize the reason, if one is needed, or for some, we handily apply one of the many reasons that has been supplied us through our social conditioning.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
I'm In A Trance
I'm in a trance. You are in a trance too. I'd like to explore my trance with this blog.
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