Questioner: We sit quietly in the room.

Krishnamurti: Why? Go on, discuss it with me. Do you read anything?

Questioner: Sometimes people read.

Krishnamurti: What is the meaning of it? Why do you meet every morning?

Questioner: I have been told that it is to find a feeling of togetherness.

Krishnamurti: Do you, sitting quietly, get a feeling of togetherness? Do you actually feel it? Or is this just an idea?

Questioner: Some do, some don’t.

Krishnamurti: Why do you meet at all? Come on, you don’t discuss with me!

You know, meeting in the morning, sitting together, if you do it rightly it is an extraordinary thing. I don’t know if you have ever gone into it. When you sit down, do you sit really quietly? Is your body really very quiet?

Questioner: No. It isn’t quiet most of the time.

Krishnamurti: Why isn’t it quiet? Do you know what it means to sit quietly? Do you keep your eyes closed? Answer! I am doing all the talking. What do you do? Are you relaxed? Do you sit really quietly?

Questioner: Sometimes you are very relaxed.

Krishnamurti: Wait, don’t say ”sometimes”. This is only an escape, stick to one question.

Questioner: I am very quiet and very still.

Krishnamurti: What do you mean by being quiet? Are you quiet physically?

Questioner: Yes.

Krishnamurti: Which means what? Please listen to this. Are your nerves, your body movements and your eyes absolutely quiet? Is your body very quiet without twitching, without any movement and when you close your eyes are they still? To sit quietly means your whole body is relaxed, your nerves are not strained, not irritated, there is no movement in friction, you are physically absolutely quiet. You know, the eyes keep moving because you are always looking at things, therefore when you close your eyes keep them completely quiet.

You go into this room at eight o’clock in the morning to sit quietly so as to have harmony between your mind, your body and your heart. That is the beginning of the day, so that this quietness goes on throughout the day, not just for ten minutes or half an hour. That quietness goes on though you play games, shout or chatter, but at the core there is always the sense of this quiet movement – you follow?

Questioner: How?

Krishnamurti: I am going to show you. Do you see the importance of it? Don’t ask ”How”, first see the logic, the reason for it. When you meet in the morning for ten minutes you sit absolutely quietly, you may read something – it may be Shakespeare, or a poem – and you gather quietness.

Look, sit absolutely quietly without a single movement so that your hands, your eyes, everything are completely quiet – what happens? Somebody has read a poem and you have listened to it; while you were going to the room you watched the trees, the flowers, you have seen the beauty of the earth, the sky, the birds, the squirrels, you have watched everything around you. And when you have watched everything around you, you come into the room; then you don’t want to look out any more. I wonder if you follow? You have finished with looking out (because later you will go back to it), you have finished by looking very carefully at everything as you came in. Then you sit absolutely quietly without a single movement; then you are gathering quietness without any forcing. Be quiet. Then when you leave, when you are teaching or when you’re learning this or that, there is this quietness going on all the time.

Questioner: Isn’t that a forced quietness?

Krishnamurti: You didn’t understand. You have had your bath, you come downstairs and you look, not just casually, but you look at the trees, you look at the bird going by, you look at the movement of the leaf in the wind. And when you do look, look. Don’t just say ”I’ve seen that”, but give your attention to it. Do you see what I am saying?

So before you come into the room look at everything clearly and with attention, with care. And when you come in and somebody reads something, you sit quietly. Do you see what happens? Because you have looked extensively at everything, then when you sit quietly, that quietness becomes natural and easy because you have given your attention to everything that you have looked at. You carry that attention over when you sit quietly, there is no wandering off, no wanting to look at something else. So with that attention you sit and that attention is quietness. You can’t look if you are not attentive, which means being quiet. I don’t know if you see the importance of this?

That quietness is necessary because a mind that is really very quiet, not distorted, understands something which is not distorted, which is really beyond the measure of thought. And that is the origin of everything.

You see, you can do this not only when you are sitting in the room but all the time, whilst you are eating, talking, playing games; there is always this sense of attention you have gathered at the beginning of the day. And as you do it, it penetrates more and more. Do it.

Questioner: Sir, isn’t the attention that one gives more important than sitting down and being quiet?

Krishnamurti: I said, there is the attention that you have given to watching the birds, the trees, the clouds. And then when you go into the room you are gathering that attention, intensifying it – you follow? And that goes on during the day even though you don’t pay attention to it. Try it tomorrow morning, I am going to question you about it. An examination! (Laughter.) Because when you leave this place you must have captured something – neither Hindu nor Christian – then your life will be sacred. (Pause.) What do you say, Sophia? I am going to make her talk!

Questioner: At times we forget and in that time thought reforms us all again.

Krishnamurti: What you are saying is: I watched the birds, the trees, the leaf, the movement of the branch in the wind, I watched the light on the grass, the dew – I paid attention. And when I come into this room I am still attentive. Not attentive to anything – you follow? There I have been attentive to the bird, to the leaf. Here, when I come in, I am not attentive to anything – I am just attentive. Then in that state of attention thought comes in – doesn’t it? ”I haven’t done my bed”, ”I must clean my shoes” or whatever it is and you pursue that thought. Go to the very end of that thought, don’t say, ”I mustn’t think that”. Finish it. In the process of finishing that thought a new thought arises. So pursue every thought to the very end, therefore there is no control, no restraint. It doesn’t matter if I have a hundred thoughts. I am going after one thought at a time so that the mind becomes very orderly. I don’t know if you are following all this?

Questioner: Where does silence come in then?

Krishnamurti: You don’t bother about silence because if thought is coming in you are not silent. Then don’t force yourself to be quiet, pursue that thought.

Questioner: Is there any end to that?

Krishnamurti: Yes, if you finish it; but if you don’t go to the very end of it, it will come back because you haven’t finished one thing. You have understood?

Look, I come out of the house, go round the lawn and watch, pay attention to the beauty, the tenderness, the move of the leaf. I watch everything and I come into the room and sit. You read something and I sit quietly. I am trying to sit quietly and my body jerks because I have a habit of twitching, so I have to watch that, I pay attention to it, I don’t correct it. You can’t correct the movement of the leaf can you? So in the same way I don’t want to correct the movement of my hands, I watch it, I pay attention to it. When you pay attention to it, it becomes quiet – try it. I sit quietly, one second, two seconds, ten seconds, then suddenly up pops a thought: ”I have to go to some place this afternoon. I didn’t do my exercises, I didn’t clean the bath.” Or sometimes the thought is much more complicated: I am envious of that man. Now I feel that envy. So go to the very end of that and look at it. Envy implies comparison, competition, imitation. Do I want to imitate? – you follow? Go to the very end of that thought and finish it, don’t carry it over. And when another thought pops up, you say, ”Wait, I’ll come back to that.”

If you want to play this game very carefully, you write every thought you have on a piece of paper and you will soon find out how thought can be orderly because you are finishing every thought, one after the other. And when you sit quietly the next day you are really quiet. No thought pops up because you have finished with it; which means you have polished your shoes, you have cleaned your bath tub, you have put the towel in its right place at the right moment. You don’t say when you sit down, ”I didn’t put the towel back.” So the thing that you are doing is finished each time, and when you sit quietly you are marvellously quiet, you bring an extraordinary sense of orderliness into your life. If you haven’t that orderliness you cannot be silent, and when you have it, when the mind is really quiet, then there is real beauty and the mystery of things begins. That is real religion.

– Page 96 — J. Krishnamurti Beginnings of Learning Part I Chapter 7 School Dialogue Brockwood Park 5th October 1971
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/print.php?tid=17&chid=600

Occupation gives, to the mind a feeling of activity, of being alive. That is why the mind stores up, or renounces; it sustains itself with occupation. The mind must be busy with something. WHAT IT IS BUSY WITH IS OF LITTLE IMPORTANCE; the important thing is that it be occupied, and the better occupations have social significance. To be occupied with something is the nature of the mind, and its activity springs from this. To be occupied with God, with the State, with knowledge, is THE ACTIVITY OF A PETTY MIND. Occupation with something IMPLIES LIMITATION, and the God of the mind is a petty god, however high it may place him. Without occupation, the mind is not; and the FEAR OF NOT BEING MAKES THE MIND RESTLESS AND ACTIVE. This restless activity HAS THE APPEARANCE OF LIFE, BUT IT IS NOT LIFE; it leads always to death – a death which is the same activity in another form.

The dream is another occupation of the mind, a symbol of its restlessness. Dreaming is the continuation of the conscious state, the extension of what is not active during the waking hours. The activity of both the upper and the deeper mind is occupational. The search for a result is the search for continuity. The mind, the occupation, has no ending; and only to that which ends can there be the new, only to that which dies can there be life. The death of occupation, of the mind, is the beginning of silence, of total silence. The mind cannot commune with silence; it can have contact only with its own self-projected state which it calls silence. But this silence is not silence, it is merely another form of occupation. Occupation is not silence. There is silence only with the death of the mind’s occupation with silence.

If you see danger you act. If you see a dangerous snake, a rattler, you jump, you do something. Just see the rattler. And the rattler, which is a danger, and getting hurt, image, and you see it is impossible to live that way, getting hurt, restraining, fighting, quarrelling, so the whole of that you see clearly, it is finished. But only a very small part of you sees that and sees it clearly, because you don’t see the danger of having an image about yourself, totally.

Why don’t you see it? You don’t see it because part of you says, I like my image, it’s nice to have an image, I am rather a clever chap, I am rather clever, I look rather beautiful, I like that. Part of me, which is not pleasant, I say, yes, I want to get rid of that.

We are seeking something permanent – permanent in the sense of time, something enduring, everlasting. We see that everything about us is transient, in flux, being born, withering, and dying, and our search is. But that which is truly sacred is beyond the measure of time; it is not to be found within the field of the known”.

The Book of Life: Daily Meditation with J. Krishnamurti
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/know.htm

K: Now the questioner asks. What is wrong with sitting quietly every morning for twenty minutes, in the afternoon another twenty minutes and perhaps another twenty minutes in the evening or longer – what is wrong with it? By sitting quietly you can relax, you can observe your thinking, your reactions, your responses and your reflexes. What is the motive of those who sit quietly by themselves, or together in a group? What is the motive behind the desire to sit quietly for half an hour every day? Is it not important to find out why you want to do this? Is it because somebody has told you that if you sit quietly you will have para-psychological experiences, that you will attain some kind of peace, some kind of understanding, some kind of enlightenment, or some kind of power?…

So it is important – before we plunge into all this- to find out what is your motive, what it is that you want. But you do not do that. You are so eager and gullible; somebody promises something and you want it. If you examine the motive, you see that it is a desire to achieve something – like a businessman’s desire to earn a lot of money. That is his urge. Here the psychological urge is to have something that a guru, or an instructor, promises.You do not question what he promises, you do not doubt what he promises…

Is it true? Who are you to tell me what to do? then you will find that sitting quietly, without understanding your motive, leads to all kinds of illusory psychological trouble. If that is the intention of sitting quietly, then it is not worth it. But if while sitting quietly without any motive, or walking quietly by yourself or with somebody, you watch the trees, the birds, the rivers and the sunshine on the leaves, in that very watching you are also watching yourself. You are not striving, not making tremendous efforts to achieve something …

Is it not possible to be quiet, naturally – to look at a person, or to listen to a song, or to listen to what somebody is saying quietly, without resistance, without saying, “I must change, I must do this, I must do that”. Just to be quiet?

Is it possible to sit, or stand, or walk quietly, without any promptings from another, without any reward or desire for extraordinary super-physical sensory experiences? Begin at the most rational level; then one can go very far.

-K Q/A Saanen July 1980

After a silence Krishnamurti said quietly, “Then you are a religious person. Then stillness comes. Completely still.”

Still were the immense mountains around us.

Infinitely still.

http://www.wisdomportal.com/Enlightenment/Krishnamurti-ReligiousMan.html

“When you go into a room—just for fun—look straight ahead. Don’t look around at anything, but be aware of everything in the room; see the shapes, the colors, the people, and the furniture, everything, without looking at it. Don’t move your eyes.”

Later, some students reported to Mark that they had tried out this suggestion, and they felt they had noticed new things in their familiar classroom and been more visually aware than they had been previously.

 
Throughout the decades of his talks all over the world, Krishnamurti made numerous references to the importance of seeing with all the senses—not just with the eyes, but with the ears, the heart, with everything one has—in fact, he asserted that, if you really give everything to your seeing/perceiving, the ‘self’ is not. Krishnamurti also indicated that, if we’re just seeing with our eyes, then we’re not really seeing at all. “If you totally attend—with your ears, with your eyes, with your body, with your nerves, with all your mind, with your heart in the sense of affection, love, compassion, total attention—what takes place?”

In one of his talks, Krishnamurti suggested that when you go into an auditorium, you can notice the curtain, the stage, the audience, the ceiling, individually, one at a time, or you can take all of it in instantly—in a moment. Krishnamurti questioned the value of narrowed concentration. Attention, yes, but concentration, no. How can you tell if you’re concentrating rather than paying attention? If you are startled, as I often am, when someone suddenly comes up to you or says something to you, then you can be pretty sure you were narrowly concentrated rather than fully attentive.

“When there is concentration, which is a process of exclusion, there is a resistance and, therefore, a contradiction. But when there is attention, there is no contradiction, because an attentive mind can concentrate without exclusion.”

For the most part, Krishnamurti offers little instruction in meditation, except to question whether common practices of repeating a mantra or concentrating on a flame or any other object is true meditation. In addition to the importance of keeping the spine straight in meditation, whether sitting or lying down, he lays special emphasis on keeping the body very still, especially the eyeballs. He would say:

“What is observation? You observe through the eye, don’t you? Now, can you observe without moving the eye? Because, if you move the eye, the whole operation of the thinking brain comes into being. I won’t go into this because you’ll turn it into some kind of mystical, nonsensical thing—mysterious—and you know all the rest of that. And, in inquiring, can you observe without any movement of the eye? Because the eye has an effect on the brain.”

Earlier in this article, I mentioned that Krishnamurti has left us some clues for perceiving wholly, freshly, and with full awareness. Please let me now briefly review some of those clues: They include keeping the eyes “completely alive, but still” and “seeing widely, as the Buddha looked” as also the aborigines of Australia. Included in these clues, is the necessity of seeing with all the senses together, not just the eyes ‘and the rest gone to sleep.’ Krishnamurti also mentions that, in profound seeing, there is a sense of seeing ‘not with eyes only, but with one’s whole head as though from the back of the head with one’s entire being.’

Where do all these clues lead? That is for each one of us to discover, for, as Krishnamurti once pointed out, “The challenge is as big as you make it.”

“Is it that we are so caught up in our own network of problems, our own desires, our own urges of pleasure and pain that we never look around, never watch the moon? Watch it. Watch with all your eyes and ears, your sense of smell—watch. Look as though you are looking for the first time. If you can do that, that tree, that bush, that blade of grass you are seeing for the first time. Then you can see your teacher, your mother and father, your brother and sister, for the first time. There is an extraordinary feeling about that: the wonder, the strangeness, the miracle of a fresh morning that has never been before, never will be.”

http://www.journal.kfionline.org/article.asp?issue=9&article=10

[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 is 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 quite. 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

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/meditate.htm

-JK

http://www.kinfonet.org/Biography/Default.asp