Life 12 (Jul 11 - Oct 11)

[winston]

Understanding Suffering

"Why do we enquire 'what is happiness'? Is that the right approach? Is that the right probing?

We are not happy. If we were happy, our world would be entirely different; our civilization, our culture would be wholly, radically different.

We are unhappy human beings, petty, miserable, struggling, vain, surrounding ourselves with useless, futile things, satisfied with petty ambitions, with money, and position.

We are unhappy beings, though we may have knowledge, though we may have money, rich houses, plenty of children, cars, experience.

We are unhappy, suffering, human beings, and because we are suffering, we want happiness, and so we are led away by those who promise this happiness, social, economic or spiritual.

What is the good of my asking if there is happiness when I am suffering? Can I understand suffering? That is my problem, not how to be happy.

I am happy when I am not suffering, but the moment I am conscious of it, it is not happiness. So, I must understand what is suffering. Can I understand what is suffering when a part of my mind is running away seeking happiness, seeking a way out of this misery?

So must I not, if I am to understand suffering, be completely one with it, not reject it, not justify it, not condemn it, not compare it, but completely be with it and understand it?

The truth of what is happiness will come if I know how to listen. I must know how to listen to suffering; if I can listen to suffering I can listen to happiness because that is what I am.

- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

Suffering is suffering, not yours or mine

Is your suffering as an individual different from my suffering, or from the suffering of a man in Asia, in America, or in Russia?

The circumstances, the incidents may vary, but in essence another man's suffering is the same as mine and yours, isn't it?

Suffering is suffering, surely, not yours or mine. Pleasure is not your pleasure, or my pleasure, it is pleasure.

When you are hungry, it is not your hunger only, it is the hunger of the whole of Asia too. When you are driven by ambition, when you are ruthless, it is the same ruthlessness that drives the politician, the man in power, whether he is in Asia, in America, or in Russia.

You see, that is what we object to. We don't see that we are all one humanity, caught in different spheres of life, in different areas. When you love somebody, it is not your love. If it is, it becomes tyrannical, possessive, jealous, anxious, brutal.

Similarly, suffering is suffering; it is not yours or mine. I am not just making it impersonal, I am not making it something abstract. When one suffers, one suffers. When a man has no food, no clothing, no shelter, he is suffering, whether he lives in Asia, or in the West.

The people who are now being killed or wounded, the Vietnamese and the Americans, are suffering. To understand this suffering, which is neither yours nor mine, which is not impersonal or abstract, but actual and which we all have, requires great deal of penetration, insight.

And the ending of this suffering will naturally bring about peace, not only within, but outside.

- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life


Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

What exactly does the Guru do?

The Guru warns and awakens. He reveals the truth and encourages you to progress towards it.

Unless you have the yearning, the questioning heart, or the seeking intelligence, he cannot do much. The hungry can be fed; he who has no hunger will discard food as an infliction.

The Guru is a gardener who will tend the plant; but the sapling must have sprouted before he can take charge. He does not add anything new to the plant; he only helps it to grow according to its own destiny, quicker perhaps, more fully perhaps, but not against its inner nature.

He removes the spiritual poverty by pointing to the treasure that lies buried within oneself; he advises the method of recovering it, the vigilance needed to use it to the best advantage.

- Divine Discourse, July 14, 1965.


Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Acquiring Beliefs to Ward Off Pain

Physical pain is a nervous response, but psychological pain arises when I hold on to things that give me satisfaction, for then I am afraid of anyone or anything that may take them away from me.

The psychological accumulations prevent psychological pain as long as they are undisturbed; that is, I am a bundle of accumulations, experiences, which prevent any serious form of disturbance;and I do not want to be disturbed. Therefore I am afraid of anyone who disturbs them.

Thus my fear is of the known; I am afraid of the accumulations, physical or psychological, that I have gathered as a means of warding off pain or preventing sorrow. But sorrow is in the very process of accumulating to ward off psychological pain.

Knowledge also helps to prevent pain. As medical knowledge helps to prevent physical pain, so beliefs help to prevent psychological pain, and that is why I am afraid of losing my beliefs, though I have no perfect knowledge or concrete proof of the reality of such beliefs.

I may reject some of the traditional beliefs that have been foisted on me because my own experience gives me strength, confidence, understanding; but such beliefs and the knowledge which I have acquired are basically the same, a means of warding off pain.

- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life


Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

The four stages to attain Divinity.

There are four stages in the journey to the Divine;

They are: Saalokya, Saameepya, Saaroopya and Saayujya.

The first stage is Saalokya, which is coming to the divine presence.

From there on, you should progress forward to Saameepya, which means getting nearer to the Guru.

Then you march forward to Saaroopya where you shine with the very form and splendour of Divinity.

Finally you enter the stage of Saayujya, which is complete mergence with the Divine. At this stage, the bubble bursts and becomes one with the sea.

Service gives you the opportunity to progress along each and every one of these steps and merge with the Divine.

- Divine Discourse, July 7, 1985.


Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What is our goal and why do we need a Guru?

Every animate being has to attain fulfillment; that is destiny.

The length and difficulty of the journey are determined by the nature of the cumulative effects of many lives. In order to attain fulfillment in the spiritual field, the help of those who have mastered the path is very necessary.

This guidance can be transmitted only from one heart to another when an intimate kinship is established between the seeker and the Master.

Texts, commentaries and guide books only breed doubts, discords and discussions. Intellectual reasoning will only lead to cleverness and ill-advised sharpness.

Experience achieved through intuition alone is valid in the realm of the spirit. For the journey from intuition to illumination, layers of egoism and its evils have to be penetrated and destroyed.

A Guru will be of great help in this adventure. For, He alone who has reached the goal can guide the pilgrim to it. Without the Guru, the aspirant tends to wander in the wilds.

- Divine Discourse, July 27, 1980.


Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Integrated Understanding

"What do we mean by 'grief'? Is it something apart from you? Is it something outside of you, inwardly or outwardly, which you are observing, which you are experiencing?

Are you merely the observer experiencing? Or, is it something different? Surely that is an important point, is it not? When I say 'I suffer', what do I mean by it?

Am I different from the suffering? Surely that is the question, is it not? Let us find out. There is sorrow, I am not loved, my son dies, what you will.

There is one part of me that is demanding why, demanding the explanation, the reasons, the causes. The other part of me is in agony for various reasons.

And there is also another part of me which wants to be free from the sorrow, which wants to go beyond it.

We are all these things, are we not? So, if one part of me is rejecting, resisting sorrow, another part of me is seeking an explanation, is caught up in theories, and another part of me is escaping from the fact;how then can I understand it totally?

It is only when I am capable of integrated understanding that there is a possibility of freedom from sorrow. But if I am torn in different directions, then I do not see the truth of it.

Now, please listen carefully; and you will see that when there is a fact, a truth, there is understanding of it only when I can experience the whole thing without division,and not when there is the separation of the 'me' observing suffering. That is the truth.

- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

[winston]

You are the suffering

When there is no observer who is suffering, is the suffering different from you? You are the suffering, are you not?

You are not apart from the pain,you are the pain. What happens? There is no labeling, there is no giving it a name and thereby brushing it aside,you are merely that pain, that feeling, that sense of agony.

When you are that, what happens? When you do not name it, when there is no fear with regard to it, is the center related to it?

If the center is related to it, then it is afraid of it. Then it must act and do something about it. But if the center is that, then what do you do? There is nothing to be done, is there?

If you are that and you are not accepting it, not labeling it, not pushing it aside;if you are that thing, what happens? Do you say you suffer then? Surely, a fundamental transformation has taken place. T

hen there is no longer 'I suffer', because there is no center to suffer and the center suffers because we have never examined what the center is. We just live from word to word, from reaction to reaction.

- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

Is suffering essential?

There are so many varieties and complications and degrees of suffering. We all know that.

You know it very well, and we carry this burden right through life, practically from the moment we are born until the moment we collapse into the grave.

If we say that it is inevitable, then there is no answer; if you accept it, then you have stopped inquiring into it.

You have closed the door to further inquiry; if you escape from it, you have also closed the door. You may escape into man or woman, into drink, amusement, into various forms of power, position, prestige, and the internal chatter of nothingness.

Then your escapes become all-important; the objects to which you fly assume colossal importance. So you have shut the door on sorrow also, and that is what most of us do.

Now, can we stop escape of every kind and come back to suffering? That means not seeking a solution for suffering.

There is physical suffering-a toothache, stomachache, an operation, accidents, various forms of physical sufferings which have their own answer.

There is also the fear of future pain, which would cause suffering. Suffering is closely related to fear and, and without comprehension of these two major factors in life, we shall never comprehend what it is to be compassionate, to love.

So a mind that is concerned with the comprehension of what is compassion, love, and all the rest of it must surely understand what is fear and what is sorrow.

- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com

[winston]

Which is the surest way to attain Joy?

This holy day ( Guru Poornima ) is the day you should decide to become masters of your senses and intellect, emotions and passions, thoughts and feelings through spiritual discipline.

Even during meditation, ego will disturb you. A scholar too can be polluted by ego; he delights in discussing pros and cons, and in the process raising doubts that disturb faith.

Hence offer yourself completely to the Divine seeking nothing but spiritual progress. Such dedication cannot arise out of scholarship. Therefore engage yourselves in spiritual practices without delay.

Cultivate virtues; be free from evil habits, thoughts, words and deeds. Treat everyone with love and grow in love. This is the way to joy.

- Divine Discourse, July 27, 1980

Source: radiosai.org