Krishnamurti on what meditation is

 

[J. Krishnamurti had the following dialogue with students at one of his schools in India.]

[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.

 

Æviminningar Halldórs Haraldssonar

 

Æviminningar Halldórs Haraldssonar

Í byrjun október munu koma út æviminningar Halldórs Haralssonar, píanóleikara, undir heitinu, Þá er ástæða til að hlæja. Ekki vildi Halldór skrifa þær sjálfur, en var til í að svara spurningum. Spyrjandi og höfundur bókarinnar er Jónas Sen, píanóleikari og tónskáld. Auk tónlistarferils síns hefur Halldór verið virkur í Lífspekifleaginu síðan 1960, haldið fjölmörg erindi, skrifað greinar í Ganglera, setið í stjórn félagsins og verið forseti þess í átta ár. Jónas spyr Halldór að sjálfsögðu út í feril hans á tónlistarsviðinu en einnig um áhuga hans á andlegum málum. Það er heilmikill húmor í bókinni, sagt frá prakkarstrikum æskuáranna, en einnig allýtarlega farið inn á svið andans, kynni Halldórs þar af merku fólki o.fl. Bókinni fylgir geisladiskur með leik Halldórs. Á félagsfundi föstudaginn 3. nóvember munu þeir Halldór og Jónas spjalla saman og kynna bókina, sem verður til sölu í Bókaþjónustunni.