Life 30 (Jun 18 - Oct 18)

[winston]

Why should we choose to make the Divine, our best friend?

Modern friends come close to you as long as there is money in your pocket and your father has a high position. They will say, ‘hello, hello’ to you.

When your pocket is empty or your father has retired, they will leave you immediately.

The Divine is not like that. He is always with you, in you, above you, and below you.

He is your real friend. It is only Him who will protect you in difficulties.

The Divine will always be with you. He is the embodiment of eternal bliss, wisdom absolute, beyond the pair of opposites, and expansive and pervasive like the sky.

The Divine will never forsake you. Have friendship with such a true Friend. Then only will your life as a human being become worthwhile.

When you have such a friend, you will never fall short of anything. Troubles and difficulties can never bother you. You will always be blissful.

- Divine Discourse, Apr 7, 1993.

The Divine alone is totally selfless as friend and benefactor.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

How should we lead our lives within our families and in the society?

Let us grow together, move and learn together, develop intelligence and attain noble goals together, without any conflict and let us live in friendship. This is the true meaning of equality.
This equality gives peace. Without equality, there will be only enmity, differences, and duality.

Every day you say, shanti (peace) three times! Say it with a pure heart and say it softly. When there is enmity in the heart, chanting Shanti Mantra will be of no use!

Chanting it harshly also nullifies the effect of the chant! Words are not important, the feelings within your heart are important. Hence, perform all spiritual practices with purity of heart.

The path of love is the noblest. It may not be possible for you to do chanting of the Divine’s Name. You may not be able to make the mind steady in meditation. You may not know the path of yoga. But you can develop love in your heart. The path of love is easy and it is a shortcut.

- Divine Discourse, Apr 7, 1993.

The person filled with love has peace of mind, is pure at heart and will be unruffled
by any adverse circumstances, failures or losses.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Introspection is incomplete

In awareness there is only the present—that is, being aware, you see the past process of influence which controls the present and modifies the future. Awareness is an integral process, not a process of division.

For example, if I ask the question, “Do I believe in God,”—in the very process of asking, I can observe, if I am aware, what it is that is making me ask that question;

If I am aware I can perceive what have been and what are the forces at work which are compelling me to ask that question. Then I am aware of various forms of fear—those of my ancestors who have created a certain idea of God and have handed it down to me, and combining their idea with my present reactions, I have modified or changed the concept of God.

If I am aware I perceive this entire process of the past, its effect in the present and in the future, integrally, as a whole.

If one is aware, one sees how through fear one’s concept of God arose; or perhaps there was a person who had an original experience of reality or of God and communicated it to another who in his greediness made it his own, and gave impetus to the process of imitation.

Awareness is the process of completeness, and introspection is incomplete. The result of introspection is morbid, painful, whereas awareness is enthusiasm and joy.

The Book of Life, June 16, Harper SanFrancisco, 1995

Source: JKrishnamurti.com

[winston]

Can a human being change?

One must have asked oneself, I’m quite sure, whether one changes at all.

I know that outward circumstances change; we marry, divorce, have children; there is death, a better job, the pressure of new inventions, and so on.

Outwardly, there is a tremendous revolution going on in cybernetics and automation. One must have asked oneself whether it is at all possible for one to change at all, not in relation to outward events, not a change that is a mere repetition or a modified continuity, but a radical revolution, a total mutation of the mind.

When one realizes, as one must have noticed within oneself, that actually one doesn’t change, one gets terribly depressed, or one escapes from oneself.

So the inevitable question arises, can there be change at all?

We go back to a period when we were young, and that comes back to us again. Is there change at all in human beings? Have you changed at all?

Perhaps there has been a modification on the periphery. But deeply, radically, have you changed? Perhaps we do not want to change, because we are fairly comfortable...

I want to change. I see that I am terribly unhappy, depressed, ugly, violent, with an occasional flash of something other than the mere result of a motive; and I exercise my will to do something about it.

I say I must be different, I must drop this habit, that habit; I must think differently; I must act in a different way; I must be more this and less that.

One makes a tremendous effort and at the end of it one is still shoddy, depressed, ugly, brutal, without any sense of quality. So one then asks oneself if there is change at all. Can a human being change?

The Book of Life, October 29, Harper San Francisco, 1995

Source: Jkrishnamurti.com

[winston]

As those who received Divine love, how should our conduct be?

Prema (Pure Love) has no trace of self-interest in it. It is absolutely pure.

The Divine knows only how to give, not how to receive. His hand is held above for conferring something, not stretched for seeking anything. Moreover, the Divine has declared, "You are Mine", whatever wrong ways they may pursue, He will not abandon them.

It may be asked why anyone who has been accepted by Him, thus should be subject to hardships and troubles. These troubles are the consequences of their own karma (actions). They have to see that their conduct is right.

If, supposing, the Divine blesses a man with a hundred years of life, he should not get puffed up with pride and start jumping from a tree in the confidence that he will live for a century. He may live for a hundred years, but may have his leg broken in the fall.

So in accepting the blessing of the Divine, one should also try to lead a righteous life.

- Divine Discourse, Jul 13, 1984.

Righteous action and control of senses, are essential for the cultivation of universal love and goodness.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

The active still mind

The mind that is really still, is astonishingly active, alive, potent—not towards anything in particular.

It is only such a mind which is verbally free—free from experience, from knowledge. Such a mind can perceive what is true, such a mind has direct perception which is beyond time.

The mind can only be silent when it has understood the process of time and that requires watchfulness, does it not? Must not such a mind be free, not from anything but be free?

We only know freedom from something. A mind that is free from something is not a free mind; such freedom, the freedom from something, is only a reaction, and it is not freedom.

A mind that is seeking freedom is never free. But the mind is free when it understands the fact, as it is, without translating, without condemning without judging; and being free, such a mind is an innocent mind, though it lived 100 days, 100 years, having all the experiences.

It is innocent because it is free, not from anything but in itself. It is only such a mind that can perceive that which is true, which is beyond time.

The Book of Life, October 11, Harper San Francisco, 1995

Source: JKrishnamurti.com

[winston]

What is the connection between our will-power, thoughts and habits?

Desires and willpower, both emerge from thoughts.

Willpower is very important, like the life principle of every human-being. All other powers like power of intellect, of understanding, of determination, of speech, etc., come out of it. This willpower is like the king of all other powers.

It will lead one to the sacred path if one makes proper use of it. On the contrary, if one makes improper use of it, the person becomes wicked.

Willpower affects your thoughts, and thoughts influence willpower. Bad thoughts make the willpower weak. Decline in willpower makes desires stronger and ultimately weakens you!

Here is a small example. Suppose one person has the habit of drinking too much coffee or tea, smoking cigarettes, etc. will his bad habits not weaken his willpower and ability to accomplish great things? Hence develop good thoughts, good habits and practice ceiling on desires.

- Divine Discourse, Apr 22, 1993.

Our deeds reveal our motives, our motives design our habits, our habits decide our character,
and our character determines our destination.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Only that which dies can renew itself

When we talk of a spiritual entity, we mean by that something which is not within the field of the mind, obviously.

Now, is the “I” such a spiritual entity? If it is a spiritual entity, it must be beyond all time; therefore it cannot be reborn or continued.

Thought cannot think about it because thought comes within the measure of time, thought is from yesterday, thought is a continuous movement, the response of the past; so thought is essentially a product of time.

If thought can think about the “I”, then it is part of time; therefore that “I” is not free of time, therefore it is not spiritual—which is obvious.

So, the “I”, the “you” is only a process of thought; and you want to know whether that process of thought, continuing apart from the physical body, is born again, is reincarnated in a physical form.

Now go a little further. That which continues—can it ever discover the real, which is beyond time and measurement.

That “I”, that entity which is a thought-process—can it ever be new? If it cannot, then there must be an ending to thought. Is not anything that continues inherently destructive?

That which has continuity can never renew itself. As long as thought continues through memory, through desire, through experience, it can never renew itself; therefore, that which is continued cannot know the real.

You may be reborn a thousand times, but you can never know the real for only that which dies, that which comes to an end, can renew itself.

The Book of Life, November 14, Harper San Francisco, 1995

Source: Jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

There is a quietness

I hope that you will listen, but not with the memory of what you already know; and this is very difficult to do.

You listen to something, and your mind immediately reacts with its knowledge, its conclusions, its opinions, its past memories. It listens, inquiring for a future understanding.

Just observe yourself, how you are listening, and you will see that this is what is taking place. Either you are listening with a conclusion, with knowledge, with certain memories, experiences, or you want an answer, and you are impatient.

You want to know what it is all about, what life is all about, the extraordinary complexity of life.

You are not actually listening at all. You can only listen when the mind is quiet, when the mind doesn’t react immediately, when there is an interval between your reaction and what is being said. Then in that interval there is a quietness, there is a silence in which alone there is a comprehension which is not intellectual understanding.

If there is a gap between what is said and your own reaction to what is said, in that interval, whether you prolong it indefinitely, for a long period or for a few seconds—in that interval, if you observe, there comes clarity. It is the interval that is the new brain.

The immediate reaction is the old brain, and the old brain functions in its own traditional, accepted, reactionary, animalistic sense.

When there is an abeyance of that, when the reaction is suspended, when there is an interval, then you will find that the new brain acts, and it is only the new brain that can understand, not the old brain.

The Book of Life, October 21, Harper San Francisco, 1995

Source: JKrishnamurti.com

[winston]

Extraordinary seeing

So we are asking, as at the beginning, can the mind come to that extraordinary seeing, not from the periphery, from the outside, from the boundary, but come upon it without any seeking?

And to come upon it without seeking is the only way to find it.

Because in coming upon it unknowingly, there is no effort, no seeking, no experience; and there is the total denial of all the normal practices to come into that center, to that flowering.

So the mind is highly sharpened, highly awake, and is no longer dependent upon any experience to keep itself awake.

When one asks oneself, one may ask verbally; for most people, naturally, it must be verbal. And one has to realize that the word is not the thing—like the word “tree,” is not the tree, is not the actual fact.

The actual fact is when one touches it, not through the word but when one actually comes into contact with it. Then it is an actuality—which means the word has lost its power to mesmerize people.

For example, the word God is so loaded and it has mesmerized people so much that they will accept or deny, and function like a squirrel in a cage! So the word and the symbol must be set aside.

The Book of Life, May 19, Harper San Francisco, 1995

Source: Jkrishnamurthi.com