Sunday, February 14, 2010

Hounded By Heaven 3: Total Freedom


Lately, I've been aware of my pettiness and anxieties. I get to thinking I've arrived at a secure base camp and I start ascending to a loftier life, then something happens and I'm thrown back down the mountain. I know this is part of the process and as standing reminds me, I just need to breathe.

Part of that breathing always leads me to reading material that lifts me up again. This is from J. Krishnamurti's Total Freedom:


How do you come upon that which is sacred? Is there anything sacred? Man has sought throughout the ages something beyond. From the times of the ancient Sumerians, the Egyptians, Romans, people have sought. And they worshiped light, worshiped the sun, worshiped the tree, worshiped the mother, never finding anything. So can we together discover or rather, come upon, that thing which is most holy?

That can only take place when there is absolute silence, when the brain is absolutely quiet. You can discover for yourself - if you are attentive, watchful, watchful of your words, the meaning of the words, never saying one thing and doing another, if you are watchful all the time - that the brain has its own natural rhythm. But upon that natural rhythm thought has placed all kinds of things. For us, knowledge is tremendously important. To do anything physical requires knowledge, but psychological knowledge, that knowledge you have accumulated about your hurts, about your vanity, your arrogance, your ambition, all that knowledge is you. And with that knowledge we try to find out if there is anything most holy. You can never find out through knowledge, because knowledge is limited, and it will always be - physically, technologically, and psychologically.

So the brain must be absolutely quiet, not through control, not through following some method, system, not by cultivating silence. Silence implies space. Have you noticed how little space we have in our brain? It is cluttered up, full with so many thousands of things; it has very little space. And for silence there must be space because that which is immeasurable, that which is unnameable, cannot exist or be perceived or seen by a narrow little brain. If you take a journey into yourself, empty all the content that you have collected and go very, very deeply, then there is that vast space, that so-called emptiness, that is full of energy.

And in that state alone there is that which is most sacred, most holy.

New Delhi, November 13, 1983

5 comments:

Gabriela Abalo said...

I always say that there is nothing secure or that make us safe. That we try “to be safe” we are imprisoning who we are, as we stop our course of experimenting new things, challenges and experiences, which are the basis of our own existence. That is why many times we need to be kicked out of our comfort-zone, for as to react and keep moving.
When we switch off (silence) our mind we realize who we really are, and then we know that there is nothing to be scared about, that everything is find, because we are more than a body with a brain – we are pure energy, growing while experimenting for eternity.

To silence our mind we need to let go of everything we have learnt, breath in/out deeply, and watch our empty spaces - the ones in-between the thoughts.

Your post resonated with me, I’m also going down the mountain.. but not because I have been kicked out, but because I decided to climb a different one. I’m leaving my comfort-zone and following my heart. I’m trying not to freak out and enjoy the process... but it’s tough, so I keep breathing in and out. ;-)

loveNlight
Gabi

Garlandless Judy said...

You're right, Gabi, everything around us keeps reminding us that the only security is within.

I'm happy for you that you are following your bliss. That's what I'm trying to do. I just need to get a little organized about it and trust my intuition.

Unknown said...

Judy as you struggle with anxiety I struggle with frustration, anger and pettiness. I have been contemplating the ebb and flow of our emotional lives. It's almost bipolar in its effect and perhaps tied in to the greater rhythms of the universe; diurnal changes, tidal forces, seasonal changes, the movement of our solar system through the galaxy and the simple rhythms of of our pulse and breath. To me this says that whatever our emotional state at this moment will pass as the forces that influence us change.
I find myself in agreement with Gabi on watching the empty space between thoughts. Our thoughts seem to well up out of nowhere, or perhaps from the depths of our consciousness then break like a wave on the beach; soon to return to the depth they came from. For me this analogy is very soothing, for I love the rhythms of the sea. This is my favorite meditation.
I disagree with Krishnamurti on the lack of space. I have thought that our inner and outer worlds are in balance. That infinity resides in both directions.

rraine said...

i tell my yoga students that through asana, we are creating space in the body and mind. we are undoing the collapse that takes place by way of inattention and fear. this is what i don't tell them: that in that space resides silence, and in that silence resides the field of all being, of the unmanifest. this is where that unchanging part of us lives, the aspect of the divine that we are. and it is from this deep silent space that we create.
on the rare occasions that i can be in that space for more than a nanosecond, i find peace and balance. oh yes, and love.

it is the memory of that which keeps me (at least some of the time!) from bouncing off the walls and taking everyone with me!

Busana Muslim said...

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