Most of us have been brought up in society to want to feel a part of something; to belong to this or that group — giving us the sensing that our lives really matter and that we are not alone in the world. As Jiddu Krishnamurti so eloquently puts forth in this excerpt from “Freedom from the Known”, it is just this clinging to events of yesterday, and to a mind that is full of distorted memories and projections, that keeps us from the innocence of our true nature.
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***“You are never alone because you are full of all the memories, all the conditioning, all the mutterings of yesterday; your mind is never clear of all the rubbish it has accumulated. To be alone you must die to the past. When you are alone, totally alone, not belonging to any family, any nation, any culture, any particular continent, there is that sense of being an outsider. The man who is completely alone in this way is innocent and it is this innocency that frees the mind from sorrow.
We carry about with us the burden of what thousands of people have said and the memories of all our misfortunes. To abandon all that totally is to be alone, and the mind that is alone is not only innocent but young — not in time or age, but young, innocent, alive at whatever age — and only such a mind can see that which is truth and that which is not measurable by words.
In this solitude you will begin to understand the necessity of living with yourself as you are, not as you think you should be or as you have been. See if you can look at yourself without any tremor, any false modesty, any fear, any justification or condemnation — just live with yourself as you actually are.
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Inner Life Exercise
(also from Freedom from the Known, J. Krishnamurti)
Have you ever experimented with looking at an objective thing like a tree without any of the associations, any of the knowledge you have acquired about it, without any prejudice, any judgement, any words forming a screen between you and the tree and preventing you from seeing it as it actually is? Try it and see what actually takes place when you observe the tree with all your being, with the totality of your energy. In that intensity you will find that there is no observer at all; there is only attention.
So beautiful! No time involved, nothing to know, no one to ask, no one to Be, nothing to Fear, no one to love or hate… Just Looking … Attention … Innocence
This is nice. Have you ever started to cook a complicated meal in a dirty kitchen (the dirty dishes and pans are not cleaned up from a prior meal)? The prior mess cause you endless troubles with your preparation with things being in the way and needing a pan, etc. that isn’t cleaned. This is how we start our days, we bring yesterdays thoughts and troubles into today and the results are messy (to say the least). K points out a fact that is above our inner cluttered mind. Clarity, Clarity, Clarity. Thank you Mr. K.
Most people are so caught up in their heads, dreaming, planning, reminiscing, that they walk right by a tree and never even see it. How beautiful would it be to just see the tree, or anything else, as it is and not as I identify with it. Simple innocent Truth is all there is. We need to take out the trash and be free to really begin living! Thank you Mr. Krishnamurti for reminding us of what is real.