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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti
1895 - 1986

Listen to those crows. If you listen with complete attention, there is no irritation, there is no conflict; you do not say, "I wish they would go away". It is only when you are inattentive that there is conflict. You cannot train yourself to be attentive. But you can be aware that you are inattentive.

 
 

 

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Editor’s prefatory comments:

Jiddu Krishnamurti has been an important teacher in my life. I began learning about the “true” and “false” selves about 15 years ago, and his insights served to inaugurate this vital area of enquiry.

He was the one to make clear that “guru” signifies merely “one who points,” not “infallible sage.” Pointing the way is what even the best teachers provide, but no more. One must walk the path of enlightenment alone, no one can do this for us.

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Public Talk 2, Bombay - 16 Feb 1966

excerpt

If you look at a tree, there are two ways of looking at it. Either you look at it with thought; or you look at it without thought and yet you are intensely aware of that tree. That is, when you look at a tree, what takes place? There is visual perception; then there is the naming of the tree and generalizing it, and so not actually looking at it. You try to look at that tree. When you look at that tree, you immediately say it is a mango tree, it is this or that. That very activity of naming that tree is the process of bringing about conflict. Whereas if you had not named, but actually observed, then there would be no conflict between you and that.

Look at a flower. You will discover it for yourself - first of all, how difficult it is to look at something. To look at something you must give your total attention. And to give your total attention there must be no verbalization, because that becomes inattention. When I look at that flower and say, "It is a rose, I like it", or "I don't like it, I wish it were something else" and so on, I am inattentive. Therefore I am not looking. Whereas to look or to listen I must be completely attentive.

Listen to those crows. Either you listen inattentively, or you listen with complete attention. If you listen with complete attention, there is no irritation, there is no conflict; you do not say, "I wish they would go away". It is only when you are inattentive - that is, when you want to listen to the speaker and discard that noise of the crows - that, in that state of inattention, there is conflict. This is simple, and you can work it out for yourself.

So conflict comes into existence only when there is inattention. You cannot train yourself to be attentive. But you can be aware that you are inattentive. And when you are aware that you are inattentive, you are attentive. So what we are concerned with is to bring about this change without any conflict in the conscious mind or at the lower levels of consciousness, totally right through one's being.

And the fundamental change cannot be brought about under any circumstances through conflict. Therefore, if you see that, then will, discipline, control, subjugation and adjustment have no meaning whatsoever. When you understand very clearly that there is no radical revolution in conformity, in obedience, in suppression, or in acceptance, then you will find out for yourself if you are really deeply interested in this radical revolution of the human being. Then, you have to find out whether it is possible to live in this world using your brain completely, rationally, sanely and yet not have conflict at any level.

 
 

Editor's last word:

"If you listen with complete attention, there is no irritation, there is no conflict." 

This is a very valuable insight by K. We can temporarily force the mind into "the right way" but this produces no fundamental change. All this "trying very hard," a gritting of the teeth, for example, to keep the moral law offers, at best, mere temporary benefit. The apostle Paul spoke of this conflict between religious law and life in the spirit.

K does well but there are other teachers who have explained that real change is produced only by allowing the inner life, from the depths, to flow upward into the surface personality.

Special note: There is a degree of repetition on these pages. But coming to enlightenment is not something that you can quickly read about in a self-help manual and then, all done. As I post these excerpts, I have been practicing these things for 15 years, and so I understand what K is talking about. Even so, I myself gain from the repetition, the clarification, because no knows it all, no one ever shall, the mind and soul will never be altogether mapped and surveyed.

The newcomer here might ask, why doesn’t K simply clearly tell us what to do and then we’d do it. The answer is, there is no single plain answer to any of this. The best we can do is to enter the path, begin to notice the antics of the mind, and after a time we will be treated to “sparks” of insight which will hone and sharpen our view of the way forward. It works this way for everyone, newcomer and old hand, concerning this “private tutoring.”

It all may feel like a random affair, but, in fact, it's a quantum "structured randomness," there's an unseen Intelligence guiding us, as "A Course In Miracles" says, in an "intensely personal" manner.

It will always be so. Coming to enlightenment is an eternal process.