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Jiddu Krishnamurti - Meditation involves attention
Jiddu Krishnamurti -
We are concerned with life, and with the living of that life every day,
with its painful struggles and fleeting pleasures, with its fears,
hopes, despair and sorrow, with the aching loneliness and the complete
absence of love, with the crude and subtle forms of selfishness, and
with the ultimate fear of death.
So it is that which directly concerns us and to understand it deeply,
with all the passion at our disposal, meditation is the key, but not the
meditation given by another, put together by some book, by some
philosopher or specialist, because the quality of meditation is very
important. The word itself means to ponder over, to think over, to enter
deeply into an issue.
Meditation then is not how to think or what to do to control the mind so
that it becomes quiet and silent, but rather the understanding of all
life's problems, so that the beauty of silence comes into being, because
without this quality of beauty, life has no significance at all. I do
not mean by beauty, the beauty of those mountains, of those trees, the
beauty of the light over the water or the bird on the wing, but the
beauty in living, to come upon it in your daily life whether you are in
the office or at home, when you are walking by yourself communing with
nature and the world, because without that beauty life is utterly
meaningless.
So let us together go into this question, not only objectively,
outwardly but also inwardly. The outward movement is the inward as well,
the two are not separate; they are like the outgoing and incoming tide
and to understand them, not separate or divided, is the beauty of
meditation. Therefore what is required to live totally, in which there
is no strife, no contradiction, is balance and harmony, and meditation
is the way.
Many things are involved in meditation; I hope you are interested in all
this because it is one of the most important things to understand. If
you do not know how to meditate, how to live - I am afraid most of us
lead a very superficial life, going to the office, having a good job,
having a family and a home, being entertained either at a cocktail party
or at the cinema, and this we call living - then your life becomes a
very dull, empty, shallow affair.
Unfortunately modern civilization, especially in this country, is
becoming more and more standardized, more superficial. You may have all
the luxuries in the world, good food, good houses, good bathrooms, and
enjoy good health, but without the inward life, not the second-hand
inward life of another, but an inward life of your own, which you have
discovered for yourself, which you have cherished, which you are living
and which is meditation, then life becomes a very shoddy business; then
we shall have more wars, more destruction and more misery; so
meditation, whether you like it or not, is absolutely essential for
every human being, whatever he is, whether he is highly sophisticated or
a simple person by the wayside, so I hope we can enter and take this
journey together.
Meditation involves
concentration, which if one observes it, is a way of
exclusion; that is, concentration implies forcing thought in one
particular direction and excluding everything else; that is generally
what is meant by concentration. You focus and direct the mind upon
something and that concentration builds a wall, erects a barrier which
prevents any other thought from entering, and in doing that there is a
dualistic process at work, a division, a contradiction, which is fairly
obvious if you look at it.
So meditation is something other than concentration and control of
thought although, of course, concentration is necessary. Meditation
involves attention, which is not concentration, although concentration
is included in attention. To attend - that means to give your whole
mind, your heart and your body passionately to something and in that
attention, if you observe very carefully, there is neither the thinker
nor the thought, neither the observer nor the observed, but only a state
of attention; and to attend so completely, so freely, there must be
freedom.
Here then is the whole problem: it is only a mind which is totally free
that can give complete attention, that can attend both intellectually
and emotionally, aware of all its responses, from which comes
freedom.
And this is not so difficult, if you don't give it an extraordinary
meaning; it is really very simple. When you listen to anything - whether
to music or to the weird cry of the coyotes as they call to each other
of an evening, whether to the song of a bird or to the voice of your
husband or wife - then give complete attention to it, and you do when
the challenge is very great, immediate, then you listen with
extraordinary attention.
When it is painful or profitable, when you are going to get something
out of it, you listen very attentively; but when there is a reward in
that listening, there is always the
fear of losing.
Therefore in attention there is freedom, and only a free mind is capable
of that quality of attention in which there is no achieving, no gaining
or losing, and no fear. And a quiet, attentive mind is absolutely
essential to understand this immense problem of living and come upon
that state of love
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