I was working this morning on my column for next week. I thought of writing something about Krishnamurti, who, as this indicated, was born on this date in 1895. But in thinking about some of the things Krishnamurti had to say, I realize that his key point, perhaps, is simply that we cannot arrive at the truth by thinking about it. In a lecture in Bombay in 1948, he said that "in the interval between two thoughts, is creative joy." In order to write this I must engage in thought and what I write is a record of that thought. That thought, however, though it may be "about" the world and life is not the same as the world in life. Indeed, there is no way of knowing for sure if that thought on the one hand and the world and life on the other have anything at all in common.
This is something I feel I have to work through - and not just think about. I am not even sure how one goes about doing that, though I may have had some sense of it lately when I have been absorbed in doing things - working in the garden or cooking. These have seemed to me simply more vital than anything I have thought or written - and most of what I have read.
Here is something else from Krishnamurti: "Truth cannot be invited. It must come to you. To search for truth is to deny truth. It comes into being when you are open, when you are completely without any barrier, when the mind is no longer creating. It comes into being when the mind is still."
The upshot is that posting here over the next few days will be sporadic at best. Surely someone who has reached my age ought to be concerned principally with being authentic - though those are only words expressing only thoughts, precisely what it seem one must get beyond.
This is something I feel I have to work through - and not just think about. I am not even sure how one goes about doing that, though I may have had some sense of it lately when I have been absorbed in doing things - working in the garden or cooking. These have seemed to me simply more vital than anything I have thought or written - and most of what I have read.
Here is something else from Krishnamurti: "Truth cannot be invited. It must come to you. To search for truth is to deny truth. It comes into being when you are open, when you are completely without any barrier, when the mind is no longer creating. It comes into being when the mind is still."
The upshot is that posting here over the next few days will be sporadic at best. Surely someone who has reached my age ought to be concerned principally with being authentic - though those are only words expressing only thoughts, precisely what it seem one must get beyond.
Would I arrive at truth by thinking about this, that you wrote:
ReplyDeleteHere is something else from Krishnamurti: "Truth cannot be invited. It must come to you. To search for truth is to deny truth. It comes into being when you are open, when you are completely without any barrier, when the mind is no longer creating. It comes into being when the mind is still."
Or should I forget you ever wrote that?
No. We need the writings after the fact especially, but also to hint that it is truth that will arrive when it arrives.
If I have a religious experience, say an hour from now, maybe I would do well to read some Krishnamurti later on. The Bible that I have read a few times over, and have had quoted to me numerous times, makes up most of my religious tradition. It makes me a Christian, whether I would want to be one or not--no matter how much of some other religion I may "become". It is against that valuable scriptural background that I bounce mystical insights. I am going to remember the most powerful religious experiences for all my life. But would I even recognize the more subtle, and would I be able to integrate any of them into my life, without the wisdom writings?
I should add, that from my experience, truth comes when the mind is not still as well as when it is. It may be more that it comes when we are open to answers.
I agree with you about authenticity. Some months ago I realized I wasn't blogging because I wanted to anymore, I was doing it because I felt I had to, for others' sake, and not for my own pleasure. So I cut way back. Authenticity means doing things because they emerge from within us, out of our nature and character.
ReplyDeleteOne lesson that I learned from Krishnamurti years ago, and is one I keep repeating, and telling to friends: Smart people have a tendency to believe that they can think their way out of their problems; but that doesn't work. In fact, it's when we "lose the mind" that the larger Self comes out.
Those moments when the Self emerges are often what many people take to be religious experiences, because they have no other way to frame them; but in fact they're very ordinary moments, profound but also ordinary, and always available. Jung had a lot to say about this, BTW.
K is talking about mind-drama, mind-games, the hamster wheel of thought that we keeping running around thinking we're making progress. His point was to get off the hamster wheel.
Reading Krishnamurti this morning simply brought to a head something that had been forming within me for some time: the way in which by playing with ideas we think we are getting at the truth. God is not an idea and an idea about God is not God. The recent religion/science and atheist/theist debates have all been about ideas about God and religion. One of Krishnamurti's main notions is that creation is what is happening right now, but we fail to see it because we insist upon seeing everything in terms of what has already happened and what we would like to happen. The space between that dead past and fantasy future is where truth is happening. That is why I feel I need to be quiet for a bit and just listen.
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