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BR81T4 - What is meditation?
Brockwood Park, UK - 6 September 1981
Public Talk 4



1:11 Krishnamurti: This is the last talk. I’m glad we have had such good weather for the whole week. Strange for England!
1:33 I think we ought to talk over together, this morning, not only about meditation but about what a religious life is. And we ought also to consider together what is beauty. A religious life, beauty and meditation go together. They’re not separate states, to be compartmentalised, and kept separate. So, if we could, this morning, together first consider what is beauty?
2:50 I think this is an important question, whether beauty is in those things that man has created paintings, sculpture, poetry, literature, the beauty of nature, the lovely evening, the clear stars, and the bright evening’s light of a sun setting among all the hills, mountains and valleys and the wild animals, here, in this country, we have almost destroyed them all. They do still exist. We ought to consider together the question whether beauty is in the paintings, in the poems, or in nature, or it is something entirely different? The beauty of a face, the loveliness of a poem, the great delight of a sunset and a large sheet of water, the bird on flight, and the breeze among the leaves, whether all that is beauty. Or, when you look at a mountain against the blue sky, the deep valleys and shadows, when you look at something enormously great, all the problems that one has had are, for this moment, wiped away and you are in front of that, silent, quiet. There, the majesty of the mountain has driven away your self, the self with all the problems of daily life, that great rock has banished your problems, for a second. So, like a child given a toy, a complicated toy, he’s absorbed by it for a time, till he breaks it or gets bored with it. So human beings, too, are absorbed by the toy of a mountain, or by football, or when one enters into a temple, the temples of the world, where there is a certain quality of silence and all that, that also helps human beings to forget themselves, for the moment. In that forgetfulness, they appreciate that which is beautiful, for a second. That is, where the self is not, beauty is. Is that beauty in the picture, painting, in a concert of Mozart or Beethoven, or in a poem by Keats, or is it possible to be totally free of oneself to look at the world? Then, in that, there is great beauty. There, you are not absorbed by anything. Something doesn’t take you over, the very grandeur, majesty of something driving away the self, for a second. When there is the absence of that self, with all its problems, there is then great beauty, not in something, or externally or subjectively but the very complex problems of one’s life, which is the problem of the self, the selfishness, the agony and so on, to be free of all that, totally, completely, then there is great beauty, beauty to be found nowhere else on earth or in any painting or any poem. That is part of meditation.
9:28 Also, we are going to talk over together what is a religious life and what is meditation? I think we should begin with meditation. What is meditation? That word has been brought over from India, quite recently, unfortunately. Because they’ve brought with it a lot of systems, methods and all kinds of fanciful, imaginative thoughts and the projection of thought of various types. There are the Zen meditations, probably, you have heard about all these things, and also, the Tibetan meditation, the Buddhist meditation, the varieties of Hindu meditation, and one can invent one’s own meditation. One can observe, see logically, that any form of routine, repeating over and over and over again certain words – Ave Maria – or some words which you have bought with a coin, repeating those words only makes the mind more dull, makes the mind or the brain continue in a certain pattern. All these meditations are basically, if you have gone into it, studied it or talked to people who have done it, or you have done it yourself, their basis is control – controlling thought, disciplining, being aware, exercising great effort to be aware, to concentrate, to attend. In all this, there is the exercise of will. If you have studied it, or if some of you have practised various forms of meditation, also, if you have done any of the so-called transcendental meditation – a good word spoilt – by repeating a certain mantra. All these forms, all these efforts, practising, what relationship has all that to daily life? Is it a form of escape? Or trying to understand something, or experience something, which will then alter your whole way of thinking and then that experience will totally alter the ways of one’s life. That is, meditate, whatever that may mean, then that meditation will somehow alter the ways of one’s living. That’s one approach to this whole problem of meditation. I don’t know why we have made it into a problem, but apparently, it has become a problem.
14:53 Or bring about order in one’s daily life, not order based on some form of conformity, imitation, but understanding the whole movement of thought, in daily life, in our relationship with each other, so that we put our house in order, first. And bringing about that order in daily life, is part of meditation. There are these two approaches.
15:51 The first, which is the traditional, meditate first, control your thought, concentrate, be aware of every movement of your hands, toes, all that, begin with that and that will transform your daily life. Let us talk that over, first. What are the implications of such meditation? We are not denying or condemning one or the other. We are examining together the whole question of meditation, which when it is really understood has an extraordinary significance. So, together, first, let’s examine this question of meditation, which will then flow into our life and alter the whole misery of life.
17:20 When you meditate in the first category, if we can put it that way, you sit in a certain posture, breathe properly, control your thoughts, concentrate, either on some word, on a sound, which is the word, and put your whole energy on some concept and not let your thoughts wander away, so that gradually, through innumerable days of practice, not only do you control your body but also you control the very movement of thought, through concentration. That’s what is generally understood to be meditation by those who practise.
18:49 Now, in concentration, what takes place? Please, as we said, we are thinking together, we are not laying down any laws, we’re not doing any kind of propaganda for this or for that, but we are examining together what is right meditation. In the examination of that, we ought to consider the implications that are involved in concentration. In concentration on an idea, on a picture, on a symbol, or on a word and follow the sound of that word because sound has an extraordinary importance, which we’ll go into presently, if we have time. Concentration means focusing all your energy, forcing thought in one direction upon a certain point, which the student does in a school. He wants to look out of the window, see that lizard going by, watch that spider spinning its web, or the bird. The teacher says, ‘Concentrate on your book, don’t look out of the window’. So, he learns gradually to concentrate, which means focusing thought. But thought wanders off, that is its nature, a movement, a flow. So, there is a controller and the controlled. That is what is implied in concentration. Resistance, narrowing it down and focusing it on a certain point by a repetition of words or by buying a mantra, making the other fellow very rich, and pursuing all that.
22:02 The word ‘mantra’ means – unfortunately you have all heard about it – the root meaning of it is, meditate or ponder over not becoming. And also, put away all self-centred activity. That’s the meaning of it. Ponder over not becoming, put away all kinds of self-centred activity. You understand the meaning? You can’t buy that. You can’t practise it by repeating, repeating for 20 or 30 minutes – all that nonsense that goes on with it. There are also meditational centres – the Buddhist, the Hindu – which is a good racket.
23:23 And concentration – one must understand who is the controller, who is it that says, ‘I must control my thought from wandering away’ – who is the controller and the thing he’s going to control? Are they two different things? This is very important to understand, if you don’t mind it being pointed out. As long as there is a division between the controller and the controlled, there must be struggle. Thought wanders away and you pull it back, by will, will being the essence of desire. That desire is to achieve certain results or experience certain states, and so, there is this battle going on, in concentration. Till of course, you can achieve complete concentration which is thought being controlled by thought, so that thought never moves away from its focus. That is mechanical. It is so obvious, you can see it. That does not alter one’s daily life because in that meditation, in that concentration, you can experience anything you want, according to your conditioning, to your knowledge, to your desire. So, that’s one type of meditation which has been practised throughout the Asiatic world. Take a certain posture, concentrate, repeat and so quieten the mind or the brain which is to make the brain more and more routine, dull and lethargic. Those who practise such meditations haven’t brought about a social change, or a change radically in themselves. They may be more polished, more theoretically involved. That is one type.
26:38 The other is to put your house in order, first. If the house hasn’t got a deep foundation, the house is of very little importance. So, the other which we are considering now, is to see if we can bring about order, which is an art, not just following a blueprint of order, because order is a living thing, like morality is a living thing. Aesthetics or conduct are living things. So, if we do not put that house in order, do what we will without love, without fear, finding out the right relationship between human beings, without laying a deep foundation in that in our daily life, not an abstraction called ‘life’. So, one has to consider what is discipline in that order and what part memory plays in it, that is knowledge, which we went into yesterday. So, is it possible, living in this modern world, society disintegrating, the authority of governments, which are inept, which follow tribalism and therefore creating more wars, and more misery for humanity, can we live in this world, in the modern world, pursuing our daily life, jobs, relationship, the whole problem of existence of one’s daily life, can there be absolute order? That’s really the first question in meditation.
29:49 The word ‘meditation’ also means to measure, in Sanskrit, the root meaning of the word ‘meditate’ is to measure. Measure is not only this act of becoming – ‘I am this, I will be that, I will be better still’. This idea of climbing, getting better and better, nobler and nobler, less and less angry or violent, is measurement. Our brains are trained to measure. This measurement was given to the Western world by the ancient Greeks on whose philosophy, democracy from those Greeks, the whole mathematical, philosophical world in the West, is based – measurement is technology. That’s part of the word we are understanding, the meaning of that word is ‘to measure’. The Asiatic world says, ‘Measurement is illusion’. Follow this, just for fun! Is illusion. So they look at the technological world, though they are full of it. At present, when Indians come over to the West, are inventing a great many things, but in their blood, in their past, there is this idea that every form of measurement must be technical and therefore, is not spiritual, therefore, seek that which is immeasurable. You follow the sequence of it? So exercise will to find the immeasurable, control thought – back into the whole rut. You are following this? It’s very interesting if you go into it, observe it, how man plays tricks with himself, denying measurement is an illusion and yet be caught in measurement.
32:51 So, that is one of the meanings of meditation. Please, if you want to go into it very, very deeply, is it possible to live a life without measurement, that is without comparison, without any form of psychological imitation? Because all that is measurement. Can the brain, which has been trained for a million years to measure, can that brain put aside its conditioning and be afresh? That is one of the issues in meditation, an issue which must be answered if you really want to find out, if one is really serious enough to find out, or allow that which is eternal – if there is an eternity – to come into being. That is part of meditation.
34:29 Also, if one is serious and wants to go into it, to give knowledge its place, because without knowledge, we couldn’t communicate with each other, without knowledge, we could not drive a car, go to the office and so on. So knowledge has its place in our daily life, but psychological knowledge is what we are concerned about. Can that psychological knowledge which has been accumulated through generation upon generations, not only the communal knowledge, the family knowledge, the traditional knowledge, knowledge which one has acquired, can all that psychological knowledge end? Otherwise, it will project, that knowledge, which is part of memory, thought, action, if the nature of that knowledge is not completely understood, it must inevitably lead to all kinds of illusions, to all kinds of neurotic actions. In that, there is no sanity. That is one of our problems in meditation.
36:31 Another deeper problem is whether the brain, which is constantly recording, recording your reactions, conscious or unconscious, recording every incident which affects the psyche, can that record stop? Please, meditation isn’t something you play with, if you are serious. You can play with it, it’s your affair, but if one wants to go very deeply into the whole nature of meditation, one has to investigate all this and be absolutely clear, not vague and fanciful, or imaginative. Can this recording, which is psychological knowledge, because that’s what is happening, when you tell me something that is harmful to me, that is, you insult me or flatter me, both are the same, it is recorded. That becomes the knowledge and can that recording of this brain, operate where it is necessary, and where it is psychologically not necessary, end? Are we working together in all this, or am I talking…? Probably, it’s all new to you.
38:44 So, what will bring about the end of recording? You understand the importance of it? I record an insult. It has wounded me, the image which I have about myself. That image is hurt by your insult, by your word, by a gesture. Or that image is strengthened through flattery. When you come and tell me, ‘What a marvellous talk that was’. The brain records that knowledge. You understand? So, when you insult or flatter, to have no record. That is to learn. To learn the process of recording, what is implied in the recording, the consequences of that recording, when you flatter me you are my friend, when you insult me, you are my enemy, you’re a foreigner, barbarian, but when you are pleasant, then you are my friend. The consequences of recording are very superficial but it is the deeper layers of that, the recording of deep incidents, of deep relationship, deep experiences that one holds to, conclusions, theoretical, practical and so on, all those are forms of recording. On that record we live, psychologically. Of course, one needs to record how to go to the office, take the bus at a certain time and so on. If you are a carpenter, a surgeon or a scientist, there must be recording – not that the scientists are helping the world. In certain ways, they are and in other ways they are helping to bring about the destruction of man, because the poet, the artist, the scientist have partial insight. It’s only the religious mind that has total insight.
42:18 So, is that possible? To have a brain that only records that which is absolutely necessary and not record anything else. You understand the beauty of it? In that, there is tremendous freedom, that is real freedom, not the freedom that money gives, or some fanciful, imaginative idea of freedom. That’s one of the problems in meditation. That is, to learn, because learning demands certain order. The word ‘discipline’ means to learn. It comes from the word ‘disciple’, who is learning from the master. You are not learning from me, we are thinking over together. But learning, not conforming, not obeying, not repetitive, ‘I have read this, you have said that, what do you mean by this, explain it’ which means you are not learning. Learning is to observe, to observe how the brain records. You can watch it yourself, it is very simple. Recording that which is... It thinks everything is necessary to record because it is seeking security. Because the brain must record when it goes to the office because there it’s necessary to acquire money and so on. Also, it thinks it’s necessary to accumulate the psychological knowledge that has been gathered together in the past generation after generation, which is the structure of the ‘me’. In that, it seeks security. So, we went into that, there is no security, except in intelligence, the intelligence which is not yours or mine. That intelligence can only come about when there is love, compassion. We went into that, yesterday.
45:21 So, meditation is to understand the futility of all systems, to learn about it, not to say all systems are wrong or right, but to learn the implications of systems, which is to follow a pattern laid down by somebody who says, ‘I know and you don’t know. I am the guru, follow this’ – which is too childish. But we all want to follow somebody. The more bizarre or absurd it is, the better. We are so gullible.
46:18 The other question is that knowledge has a certain place and psychological knowledge is totally unnecessary. Because if I am related to you, as a wife or a husband, or a girlfriend, if that relationship is based on memory, on the recorded incidents, building images about you and you build about me, then in that relationship, in that record, it’s merely memory. And we have said, is memory love? We went into that yesterday. Knowledge is not love, on the contrary. Knowledge brings sorrow – psychological knowledge. That’s one of the questions, in meditation.
47:32 The other is to be in a state of constant observation and learning which brings its own order. Learning is order. If I want to be a good carpenter, I have to learn the quality of the wood, the right type of tools, the grain, the beauty of the wood, all the rest of it I have to learn. If you are a gardener, you have to learn and so on. But our brains are sluggish, so we follow the easiest. Therefore not to follow the easiest, is to doubt everything, be sceptical about your sacred books, your gurus, about your politics, about yourself, because doubt and scepticism cleanse the brain, sharpens the brain, gives clarity. But you can’t doubt all the time. You must hold it and let it go sometimes, like a dog on a leash. Also, learn about the whole movement of concentration, which is only strengthening, controlling the energy of thought, controlling the energy of thought by will, by conformity, by measurement. I hope you’re all doing this. Is this too much for a morning?
49:54 Meditation, also, is to find out, learn, whether it is possible for the brain never to be occupied. Because our brains are occupied all the time about God, about sex, about oneself, about one’s own conclusions, beliefs. I’m sure you watch yourself, how one’s brain is occupied. When the brain is occupied, there is no space. When knowledge has occupied the brain, occupied it, how can that brain experience anything original? So, to experience something original when the brain is crowded, occupied, you take drugs to experience something fantastic – you do, not that the speaker has taken any drugs, but he has talked to many people who have taken drugs. They have certain experiences, projected by their own conditioning, by their own desire, will and so on, of which they are unconscious, only the chemical alters their focus, and sometimes it does great harm. If one has taken drugs for a couple of years, then your brain is gone. Or, if you have played with it for a little while, there’s still some hope. One has to find out whether the brain can ever be free from all occupation. Are we listening with occupied brains to what is being said? Or watching your own brain activity to see whether it is occupied now, sitting there quietly, if it is occupied. Are you occupied with listening, or are you just listening? You see the difference? You understand? May I go on with this? Gosh!
53:24 When you are attempting to listen, making an effort, saying, ‘I must understand what that chap says’, you are exercising your will to listen, you’re occupied. But if you are listening, what the speaker is saying is rational, he’s explaining yourself, so you are not listening to the speaker, you’re listening to yourself, therefore, you’re listening very quietly, without any occupation. That is, to be aware of yourself, how you are listening. In this listening, are you learning or merely observing? You see the difference? If you are observing, there is no accumulation. But if you say, ‘I must learn what he is saying, I must remember what he’s saying’, then your mind is being occupied, therefore, there is no space in which you can listen. In the same way, to observe without occupation, just to look.
55:03 The other deeper problem is, whether the brain can ever be quiet, absolutely still. It has its own rhythm, its own movement – we’re not talking about that, you can’t stop that – of course, you can stop it if you take something… or die, we’re talking about the movement which thought has created, whether thought can ever be completely still. That is part of the enquiry into meditation, not how to make the brain still, then you can practise some form of idiocy and you can force the brain, force thought to be still. You follow? That is mechanical. So, there is no exercise of will at all, in meditation. Oh, you don’t see the beauty of all this!
56:46 Is it possible for thought to be absolutely still? That is, for time to stop, not science fiction time, but the actual movement of time as thought. This question is very complex. Unless one understands the whole movement of thought, sees how thought operates, what it has done in the outside world and the inside world, what is the nature of knowledge, what is the experiencer who experiences, or the thinker who thinks, all that is the movement of thought. A brain that has been educated for a million years to think, because everything we do is through thought. The movement of the arm, because I want to move it in that direction, it is all the movement of thought. The brain is conditioned to that. You’re asking something enormously significant, against the conditioning. So, one has to learn the nature of thought and find out for oneself, not through compulsion, imitation, conformity, will, whether there is absolute stillness of thought.
58:55 Silence is of many kinds. There is silence between the barking of that dog, when the noise stops, there is a certain silence. There is silence between two thoughts. There is silence of an evening when everything is quiet. There is silence of a morning when there is not a movement, just before the dawn comes. But there is a silence which is entirely different, which is the silence of a brain which has no movement of thought. Only in that silence, can there be that which is sacred. The things thought has created are not sacred. The things that thought has invented are not holy. But we worship the things which thought has created. See the game we play. That is, I worship a symbol, a figure, that figure, that symbol is created by thought, invented, moulded by hand or by the mind, then thought says, ‘I must worship that’, which is worshipping itself. I wonder if you see this! And we pray to that.
1:00:55 This is meditation. Either you go through all this step by step, which is impossible, or you see the whole of it at a glance. You understand the difference? Either we take into consideration and analyse, fear, pleasure, pain, wound, all that bit by bit by bit, having slight insight into each, and then try to meditate, which is obviously incomplete, or you watch the whole movement of it. They’re all related to each other, you can’t separate them, say, ‘This I will examine today, and tomorrow I will do this, and the day after tomorrow that’. But if you can observe the whole movement of it, and you can only observe it when there’s no motive or direction at all. That silence of the brain is necessary, for into that silence something sublime, something timeless can come into being.
1:02:51 Now, the question is, what value has all that in daily life? What value has meditation, that which we have talked about, not the first category, what value has that meditation? In asking that question, one must also ask, what is a religious life? As the world exists now, technology is the most important thing, the marvellous submarine with its atom bomb, the warships. The mechanical culture is spreading through the world. That is not going to bring about a new religion. The old religions have lost their meaning, altogether. They’re still popular, own a great deal of property, money, position, all the rest of it, but they are all sectarian – the Catholic world, the Hindu world – you follow? They have broken up the world into their own particular forms of beliefs. One religion is not going to conquer the rest of the world. They want to – the Hindus want it, the Christians… And the mechanical world, which is now being put together, is not going to bring about a new society, a new culture, only religion has ever done it – not the present religion. So, there needs to be a religion, not of faith, not belief, not rituals, not authority. However profitable, comforting, the hierarchical religious structure has altogether lost its meaning for any intelligent, thoughtful man. A thoughtful man totally rejects all that.
1:06:09 Religion is the way of life which is built on right order in our daily life and the meditation in which is born the most sacred, not that sacred is my experience and your experience, that which is sacred has no experience, you cannot experience it because if you experience it, there must be an experiencer. I don’t know if you are following all this. We are back then, if there’s an experiencer saying, ‘I have achieved. I am illumined’ – the very words, ‘I am illumined’. That is something abominable. So, that realisation, if all of us can do that, we’ll be the most religious people. We will be responsible then for a new culture, not based on fear. We’ll have a society which is incorruptible because we are incorruptible. That is the meaning of meditation, to gather all our energy which is now being dissipated, so that our consciousness is totally empty of its content of fear, so on. Where there is this emptiness and space, there is vast energy. And that energy is sacred. It is not the energy of belief in God, that belief in God is created by thought through fear. But when there is no fear, and no sorrow, then there is that quality of silence in which that which is nameless can come into being. That has immense significance in daily life.
1:09:06 Right.