In these dialogues and reflections, chosen for their particular intensity and clarity, Krishnamurti points to a state of total awareness beyond mental process. With his characteristic engagement and candor, he addresses such topics as freedom from the known, inward flowering, true transformation, and why it is best to love without attachment.
Readers unfamiliar with Krishnamurti's thought will find his major concerns discussed here, setting the mind free from its conditioning, finding enlightenment in everyday life, meditation as a path to total transformation and integrating freedom, love and action.
From the book:
When you turn your head from horizon to horizon your eyes see a vast space in which all the things of the earth and of the sky appear. But this space is always limited where the earth meets the sky. The space in the mind is so small. In this little space all our activities seem to take place: the daily living and the hidden struggles with contradictory desires and motives. In this little space the mind seeks freedom, and so it is always a prisoner of itself.
Meditation is the ending of this little space. To us, action is bringing about order in this little space of the mind. But there is another action which is not putting order in this little space. Meditation is action which comes when the mind has lost its little space. This vast space which the mind, the I, cannot reach, is silence. The mind can never be silent within itself; it is silent only within the vast space which thought cannot touch. Out of this silence there is action which is not of thought. Meditation is this silence.
Publisher: Shambhala Author: J. Krishnamurti 144 pp - Paper
Jiddu Krishnamurti lived from 1895 to 1986, and is regarded as one of the greatest philosophical and spiritual figures of the twentieth century. Krishnamurti claimed no allegiance to any caste, nationality or religion and was bound by no tradition. His purpose was to set humankind unconditionally free from the destructive limitations of conditioned mind. For nearly sixty years he traveled the world and spoke spontaneously to large audiences until the end of his life in 1986 at the age of ninety. He had no permanent home, but when not traveling, he often stayed in Ojai, California, Brockwood Park, England, and in Chennai, India. In his talks, he pointed out to people the need to transform themselves through self knowledge, by being aware of the subtleties of their thoughts and feelings in daily life, and how this movement can be observed through the mirror of relationship.
The best questions most of us never have been asked...
J Krishnamurti does not give answers. He ask questions and the listener / reader is expected to look honestly within him or herself for their own answers to those questions.
Krishnamurti never say, "Follow me and I will be your guru / messiah". He leads the reader / listener to be their own teacher and to seek salvation from the illusion and conditioning that has controlled them throughout their lives.
He speaks about the here and now, about the "facts" of our lives so as to remind us that any change we seek so as to be truly alive must be made now.
To say, as His Holiness, the XIV Dalai Lama said, that Krishnamurti is one of the greatest minds and thinkers of the Twentieth Century may not fully give him his due.
Read his published works as though it is a glass of cool water on a hot summer day and let it refresh you for moment. Then, on a more temperate day, read it as though it is a cup of hot spiced tea with honey, a sip at a time. Finally, when winter has arrived and you are sitting by the hearth with no where to go, read it as though you are in a prison cell and it is your last meal...savoring every word and considering carefully the questions he is asking you. When you have finished, ask yourself if you are free?
This one highly recommends this collection of discussions in the hopes that you might better know yourself from the engaging in the same. After all, that is what it is all about both in this collection and in your life.
