[Krishnamurti:] Do you know anything about meditation?

Student: No, Sir.

 

Krishnamurti: But the older people do not know either. They sit in a corner, close their eyes and concentrate, like school boys trying to concentrate on a book. That is not meditation. Meditation is something extraordinary, if you know how to do it. I am going to talk a little about it.

 

First of all, sit very quietly; do not force yourself to sit quietly, but sit or lie down quietly without force of any kind. Do you understand? Then watch your thinking. Watch what you are thinking about. You find you are thinking about your shoes, your saris, what you are going to say, the bird outside to which you listen; follow such thoughts and enquire why each thought arises. Do not try to change your thinking. See why certain thoughts arise in your mind so that you begin to understand the meaning of every thought and feeling without any enforcement. And when a thought arises, do not condemn it, do not say it is right, it is wrong, it is good, it is bad. Just watch it, so that you begin to have a perception, a consciousness which is active in seeing every kind of thought, every kind of feeling. You will know every hidden secret thought, every hidden motive, every feeling, without distortion, without saying it is right, wrong, good or bad. When you look, when you go into thought very very deeply, your mind becomes extraordinarily subtle, alive. No part of the mind is asleep. The mind is completely awake.

 

That is merely the foundation. Then your mind will go very quiet. Your whole being becomes very still. Then go through that stillness, deeper, further - that whole process is meditation. Meditation is not to sit in a corner repeating a lot of words; or to think of a picture and go into some wild, ecstatic imaginings.

 

To understand the whole process of your thinking and feeling is to be free from all thought, to be free from all feeling so that your mind, your whole being becomes very quiet. And that is also part of life and with that quietness, you can look at the tree, you can look at people, you can look at the sky and the stars. That is the beauty of life.

 

On Education, first published 1974, Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd., London, , p. 58

 

Krishnamurti realised there was a big gap between what he was advocating and the lives of ordinary people. And yet, he was convinced that unless we radically transform we may destroy not only the human race, but the Earth itself. A life which is whole, noble and full of clarity is an imperative for survival. It is not a utopia nor a luxury, but a necessity. He was at pains to assure people that he was not presenting a form of sentimental romanticism. Our existence, our very being, is embedded in the relationships between everything that lives and moves on Earth. The river, the trees, the animals, the singing birds, the bathing pilgrims, the leaping frogs, they are all our relations.

 

He believed the goal of meditation is to replace chatter by attention.  Then we are able to look deeply and see ourselves as an integral part of the universe, the vulgarity of human warfare will vanish, and we will realise a deep and abiding kinship with nature. We will never kill an animal for our appetite, we will never kill a human being to gain power. This is what K meant by the phrase 'putting our house in order'.

 

This summarises the essence of Krishnamurti's formula. It is not to be understood by meditation in the usual sense, but more in what is commonly referred to as "mindfulness" - wherein you pay attention and are aware of your every thoughts and actions during the day, and therefore learn to increasingly discover your own self and "wake up":

"If you really want to know yourself, you will search out your heart and your mind to know their full content and when there is the intention to know, you will know. Then you can follow, without condemnation or justification, every movement of thought and every feeling as it arises; by following every thought and every feeling as it arises you bring about tranquility which is not compelled, not regimented, but which is the outcome of having no problem, no contradiction. It is like the pool that becomes peaceful, quiet, any evening when there is no wind; when the mind is still, then that which is immeasurable comes into being."

 

 

This is now described as mindefulness mediation where one witnesses one's thoughts. It is a form of meditation where one can accept or witness all thoughts, and then evaluate them into a sort of quietness.  It is distinguished from concentrative meditation where the aim is to blank out all thoughts and hope that you will be able to be selective when the world begins to re-enter the mind.