Life 31 (Oct 18 - Jan 19)

Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Thu Nov 29, 2018 7:36 am

Empty techniques

You cannot reconcile creativeness with technical achievement.

You may be perfect in playing the piano, and not be creative; you may play the piano most brilliantly, and not be a musician.

You may be able to handle color, to put paint on canvas most cleverly, and not be a creative painter. You may create a face, an image out of a stone, because you have learned the technique, and not be a master creator.

Creation comes first, not technique, and that is why we are miserable all our lives. We have technique—how to put up a house, how to build a bridge, how to assemble a motor, how to educate our children through a system—we have learned all these techniques, but our hearts and minds are empty.

We are first class machines; we know how to operate most beautifully, but we do not love a living thing.

You may be a good engineer, you may be a pianist, you may write in a good style in English or Marathi or whatever your language is, but creativeness is not found through technique.

If you have something to say, you create your own style; but when you have nothing to say, even if you have a beautiful style, what you write is only the traditional routine, a repetition in new words of the same old thing.

... So, having lost the song, we pursue the singer. We learn from the singer the technique of song, but there is no song; and I say the song is essential, the joy of singing is essential.

When the joy is there, the technique can be built up from nothing; you will invent your own technique, you won’t have to study elocution or style. When you have, you see, and the very seeing of beauty is an art.

The Book of Life, November 4, Harper San Francisco, 1995

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"
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Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Thu Nov 29, 2018 8:03 am

What is the importance of being in good company?

A wise man once stressed the importance of spending time in good company (Satsanga). He taught that for liberation, Satsanga is the first and important step.

Here is a small example: if a piece of black charcoal is kept in the proximity of a bright red fire, the area along which this black charcoal is in contact with the bright fire, begins to glow.

In this analogy, the black charcoal is your ignorance. The bright red fire is the good company. By the two coming together, only the portion of your ignorance that is exposed to the effects of good company will be dispelled.

But if you employ spiritual practice as a fan to increase the area of contact, then the entire region of ignorance will be illumined.

It is thus not enough if you are merely in the company of good people. You should also develop the sadhana of love, and be loved by the good people. It is necessary to be near and dear to the good people.

- Summer Showers In Brindavan, May 24, 1973.

You are shaped by the company you keep; a piece of iron turns into rust if it seeks the company
of the soil. It glows and takes on useful shapes it if enjoys the company of fire.

Source: radiosai.org
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Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:41 am

Most of us listen to spiritual talks and discourses. What more must we do to truly reap the harvest of the wisdom we listen to?

Today, spiritual exercises are confined to listening and not practising.

Listening has become so popular, and after listening, people brag that they know everything.
This crazy boastfulness, is deepening one's ignorance.

You must ruminate over what you listen. After rumination, one should practice the lessons. Only then you will achieve purity in thought, word and deed.

To develop a spiritual outlook and to inspire it in others, you must possess purity of heart.
Spiritual wisdom dawns only when there is purity of heart.

Just as removal of weeds, tilling the land, sowing the seeds and watering the earth are required before the crop can be harvested, the field of the human heart has to be cleared of bad thoughts and feelings, the Divine Name sown, watered with love and tilled by spiritual practices. Only then you are entitled to reap the harvest of Divine Wisdom (Jnana).

- Divine Discourse, Oct 07, 1993.

Pure Love sees all as one Divine Family.

Source: radiosai.org
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Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:24 am

As spiritual aspirants, what should we do to improve ourselves?

Different people today, pursue different kinds of Spiritual Practice. To realise the benefits of this, they go to Ashrams, adore elders and worship them.

As long as egoism remains in them, all these exercises are of no avail. Hence suppress your ego, bury the sense of possessiveness and develop attachment to the Inner-Self, to realise your true humanness.

In our organisations, the primary requisite is unity and mutual trust. Only with unity can you promote the wellbeing of the world. If there is discord within the organisation, how can you serve others?

Today, envy, hatred and anger are causing havoc amongst all people. At the outset, destroy your ego. Then anger will subside.

Anger is described as incense offered to sin. Make forbearance your ornament. Through love, eliminate your bad traits.

Do your duty without projecting your ego. Develop mutual helpfulness. Be friendly towards each other and carry on your work with joy and peace.

- Divine Discourse, Oct 07, 1993.

Desire destroys devotion, anger destroys wisdom, greed destroys work – hence these bad qualities must be given up.

Source: radiosai.org
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Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:28 am

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: jkrishnamurthi.com
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Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Sun Dec 02, 2018 7:39 am

Why should we persist in seeing the Divine in everyone who we come in contact with?

You must cultivate love towards everyone, however distinct the character and capacity of each may be.

Though the same blood flows through the entire body, the eye cannot smell, the ear cannot taste, the nose cannot see, and so on.

So, do not amplify the distinctions and quarrel with one another. Emphasize upon the basic brotherhood of mankind and the principle of love.

Just like sugar that is fully dissolved in the cup of water is invisible, but patent to the tongue in every drop, so too the Divine is invisible but immanent; He is capable of being experienced in every individual, whether rich, poor, educated or illiterate.

Repeat the names of the Divine (Namasmarana) incessantly. Dwell on His glory and compassion which those names reveal to you.

Taste the sweetness that is in the heart of every one. Then, it will be easier for you to visualise Him in all, to love Him in all, and to adore Him in all.

- Divine Discourse, Jul 31, 1967.

Remove the roots of the weed of egoism from the field of your heart; that is enough Spiritual Practice.

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com
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Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Sun Dec 02, 2018 7:43 am

How do we end fear?

We are discussing something which needs your attention, not your agreement or disagreement.

We are looking at life most rigorously, objectively, clearly—not according to your sentiment, your fancy, what you like or don’t like.

It’s what we like and don’t like that has created this misery. All that we are saying is this: "How do we end fear?"

That’s one of our great problems, because if a human being can’t end it, he lives in darkness everlastingly, not everlastingly in the Christian sense but in the ordinary sense; one life is good enough.

For me, as a human being, there must be a way out and not by creating a hope in some future. Can I as a human being end fear, totally; not little bits of it?

Probably you’ve never put this question to yourself, and probably you’ve not put the question because you don’t know how to get out of it.

But if you did put that question most seriously, with the intention of finding out not how to end it, but with the intention of finding out the nature and the structure of fear, the moment you have found out, fear itself comes to an end; you don’t have to do anything about it.

... When we are aware of it and come into contact with it directly, the observer is the observed. There is no difference between the observer and the thing observed.

When fear is observed without the observer, there is action, but not the action of the observer acting upon fear.

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

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com
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Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Mon Dec 03, 2018 7:59 am

How can we ensure a safe journey towards our life’s ultimate destination?

Convince yourself that the Divine is in you, as your charioteer, holding the reins of the five horses (the senses) and giving you constant counsel

Then it becomes easy for you to convince yourself that the self-same charioteer is leading and guiding everyone else.

When you are established in this faith firmly, you become free of hate and malice, greed and envy, anger and attachment.

Pray to the Divine to strengthen this conviction and this faith; He will open your eyes to the Truth and reveal to you that He is the "Eternal Charioteer" in all.

That revelation will confer on you incomparable bliss and grant you kinship with the creation's manifoldness. Know Him as your strength, your breath, your intelligence, your joy - He becomes all of this for you.

He will direct all your senses, mind, consciousness and intelligence towards the highest Goal; His Grace will confer all you need.

- Divine Discourse, Jul 31, 1967.

Be always attentive to the signs of His Glory and His Mercy and His Omnipresence.

Source: radiosai.org
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Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Mon Dec 03, 2018 8:02 am

Aloneness is not loneliness

Though we are all human beings, we have built walls between ourselves and our neighbors through nationalism, through race, caste, and class—which again breeds isolation, loneliness.

Now a mind that is caught in loneliness, in this state of isolation, can never possibly understand what religion is.

It can believe, it can have certain theories, concepts, formulas, it can try to identify itself with that which it calls God; but religion, it seems to me, has nothing whatsoever to do with any belief, with any priest, with any church or so-called sacred book.

The state of the religious mind can be understood only when we begin to understand what beauty is; and the understanding of beauty must be approached through total aloneness.

Only when the mind is completely alone can it know what is beauty, and not in any other state.

Aloneness is obviously not isolation, and it is not uniqueness.

To be unique, is merely to be exceptional in some way, whereas to be completely alone, demands extraordinary sensitivity, intelligence, understanding.

To be completely alone implies that the mind is free of every kind of influence and is therefore uncontaminated by society; and it must be alone to understand what is religion—which is to find out for oneself whether there is something immortal, beyond time.

The Book of Life, December 2, Harper San Francisco, 1995

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com
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Re: Life 31 (Oct 18 - Feb 19)

Postby winston » Tue Dec 04, 2018 10:50 am

Realize you are violent

The animal is violent. Human beings who are the result of the animal, are also violent; it is part of their being to be violent, to be angry, to be jealous, to be envious, to seek power, position, prestige and all the rest of it, to dominate, to be aggressive.

Man is violent—this is shown by thousands of wars—and he has developed an ideology which he calls non-violence...

And when there is actual violence as a war between this country and the next country, everybody is involved in it. They love it.

Now, when you are actually violent and you have an ideal of non-violence, you have a conflict. You are always trying to become non-violent—which is a part of the conflict.

You discipline yourself in order not to be violent—which, again, is a conflict, friction. So when you are violent and have the ideal of non-violence, you are essentially violent.

To realize that you are violent is the first thing to do—not try to become non-violent. To see violence as it is, not try to translate it, not to discipline it, not to overcome it, not to suppress it, but to see it as though you are seeing it for the first time —that is to look at it without any thought.

I have explained already what we mean by looking at a tree with innocence—which is to look at it without the image. In the same way, you have to look at violence without the image which is involved in the word itself.

To look at it without any movement of thought is to look at it as though you are looking at it for the first time, and therefore looking at it with innocence.

The Book of Life, June 25, Harper San Francisco, 1995

Source: jkrishnamurthi.com
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