Spirituality -A garden of wisdom. Jiddu Krishnamurti

[The Cat]

Restoring...
I started a thread in the Holiday forum on the spirituality topic and mentionned therein that I couldn't find anybody better than Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895/1986) to open the subject.

Krishnaji (his diminutive) was discovered, while playing on an Indian beach with his brother, by CM Leadbeater and Annie Besant (founders of the Theosophical Society) at the age of 13. They saw in him the 'Awaited Messiah' and brought both brothers in England to receive an English education. The death of his beloved brother, I think from tuberculosis, brought Krishnamurti into s deep questionning as the matter of life. Then, in 1929, he dismissed the Order of the Star built around him in the turning point of his teachings, saying that ''Truth is a pathless land'' and that ''It is the truth that frees, not your effort to be free.''

His many exchanges with the reknown physician David Bohm are extremely insightful for those who see a bridge between science and spirituality. There are relations between the Quantum theory and the spirituality propounded by Krishnamurti. He is often considered from the ADVAITA (no-two) Hindu scholl of teachings. Will a 'religion' arise from his words, although he explicitly rejected that, like Buddha or Jesus?

For a start, I propose these sites, dedicated to his teachings:
http://www.bernie.cncfamily.com/K1.htm
http://www.prahlad.org/gallery/krishnamurti.htm
A huge site dedicated to spirituality and the Advaita philosophy.

A blossom of different articles at:
http://www.krishnamurtiaustralia.org/articles/articles.htm

A Buddhist site on Krisnaji:
http://www.buddhanet.net/bvk_study/bvk002.htm

Agaricus brought two more sites:
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/theosophy/krishnamurti.html

Krishnamurti major publications:
--Commentaries of Living, part I (1956), part 2 (1959) and part 3 (1961).
--Freedom from the known (1969).
--The Only Revolution (1970).
--The First and Last Freedom (1975), introduction by Aldous Huxley.
--The Ending of Time (1985).

I discovered him with the 'Only Revolution' and ever since he has been like a spiritual lighthouse for me, NOT A GURU. I see him as a Grand Teacher of humility, the kind of humility this world is in tragic need of. As said to Agaricus, Krishnamurti's message is akin to Jesus stating: ''He who is not becoming like a child, won't get into the Kingdom of God.'

Well, that's quite enough for an introduction. Though this thread will be centered around Krishaji, its purpose really is to bring a thread on spirituality and wisdom, so more genral addings are most welcome in order to make this thread A GARDEN OF WISDOM, as its title wants, but spirituality as apart from any organized religion, which many threads already take care of.
--

[The Cat]

The one sentence from Krishnamurti that really struck me is:
''The primary cause of disorder is the seeking of reality promised by another''.

From 'You are the Wordl':
--Freedom is not an idea; a philosophy written about freedom is not freedom. (...) Thought can never be free. Thought is the response of memory, knowledge and experience; it is the product of the past and it cannot possibly bring about freedom because freedom is in the living active present, in the daily life. Freedom is not freedom from something -which is merely a reaction. (...) The formulation of ideologies and the attempted conformity to those ideologies is observable throughout the world. The Hitler movement did it, the Communist people are doing it very thouroughly; the religious groups, the Catholics, the Protestants, the Hindus, and so on have asserted their ideologies through propaganda (...) So we ask: Can thought ever solve our human problems?

Agaricus brought this quotation:
--In our search for knowledge, in our acquisitive desires, we are losing love, we are blunting the feeling of beauty, the sensitive to cruelty; we are becoming more and more specialized and less and less integrated. Wisdom cannot be replaced by knowledge, and no amount of explanation, no amount of explanation, no accumulation of facts, will free man from suffering. Knowledge is a necessity, science has its place; but if the mind is suffocated by knowledge, and if the cause of suffering is explained away, life becomes vain and meaningless...

Information, the knowledge of facts, is by its very nature limited. Wisdom is infinite, it includes knowledge and the way of action; but we take hold of a branch and think it is the whole tree. Through knowledge of the part, we can never realize the joy of the whole. Intellect can never lead to the whole, for it is only a segment, a part.

We have separated intellect from feeling, and have developed intellect at the expense of feeling. We are like a three-legged object with one leg much longer than the others, and we have no balance. We are trained to be intellectual; our education cultivates the intellect to be sharp, cunning, acquisitive, and so it plays the most important role in our life. Intelligence is much greater than intellect, for it is the integration of reason and love; but there can be intelligence only when there is self-knowledge, the deep understanding of the total process of oneself.

Then, Playa Moya came with this one:
--For the total development of the human being, solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. One has to know what it means to be alone, what it is to meditate, what it is to die; and the implications of solitude, of meditation, of death, can only be known by seeking them out. These implications cannot be taught, they must be learnt. One can indicate, but learning by what is indicated is not the experiencing of solitude and meditation. To experience what is solitude and what is meditation, one must be in a astate of inquiry; only a mind that is in a state of inquiry is capable of learning. But when inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority and experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and imitation causes human being to repeat what is learnt without experiencing it.

------------ --
I'll slowly bring back the most important posts from the Holiday forum on this crucial topic that spirituality is for me. Next, some wisdom's links and bouquets from different world traditions. Feel free to add your own bouquets so that this Garden becomes luxuriant for everyone to find comfort and shelter in, a hideaway from confrontational issues.

[The Cat]

Rational spirituality: an exegis on Being and Nonbeing (by Ali Sina)
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina40313.htm

Eastern perennial wisdom
(Lao Tzu, Confucius and lots from Buddha)
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/eastasia/eastasiasbook.html

Confucius (Kongfuzi, K'ong-fu-Tseu, ~555/~479).
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/analects.html
The Golden Rule (Analect XV.23): Tzu-Kung asked -Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?- The Master said: Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

Lao Tzu (~570/~490, author of the Daodejing or Way of the Dao)
http://academic.brooklyn.edu/core9/texts/taote-v1.txt
Tao Teh Ching (-38-).
When the Way is lost, virtue arises
When virtue is lost, kindness arises
When kindness is lost, morality arises
When morality is lost, custom arises
Custom being a superficial expression
of loyalty and faithfulness,
and the beginning of disorder.

We all signed on some 'Dao' to get a passage to this forum.

[plata moya]

One is everlastingly comparing oneself with another, with what one is, with what one should be, with someone who is more fortunate. This comparison really kills. Comparison is degrading, it perverts one's outlook. And on comparison one is brought up. All our education is based on it and so is our culture. So there is everlasting struggle to be something other than what one is. The understanding of what one is uncovers creativeness, but comparison breeds competitiveness, ruthlessness, ambition, which we think brings about progress. Progress has only led so far to more ruthless wars and misery than the world has ever known. To bring up children without comparison is true education.

J. Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti, A Biography
by Pupul Jayakar, 1986, pp. 255-256

_________________
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man, keep alive for yourselves.

[The Cat]

Welcome back, Playa Moya, happy you found it back. I was just about to bring in your post

Macbeth V.v,19:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The wau to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

When Agaricus find his way back here to, I hope he'll be kind enough to copy/paste again his Stoic excerpts from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, book II, from 167.
http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html

Stoicism, people like him, Plotinus, Porphyrus and Epicarius are full of reflexions (meditations) this thread is longing for.

[The Cat]

India (Bharata) perennial wisdom
(The Vedas, Upanishads, the Ramayana, the Bhagavad-Gita, etc)
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/indiasbook.html

Rig Veda, X.129
Who knows for certain? Who shall declare it?
Whence was it born, whence came creation?
The Gods are later than this world's formation;
Who then can know the origins of the world?
None knows whence creation arose;
And whether he has or has not made it;
He who surveys it from the lofty skies,
Only knows -or perhaps he knows not.

A Hindu prayer recited at the opening of a temple:
O Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations:
--Thou art everywhere, but I worship you here;
--Thou art without form, but I worship you in these forms;
--Thou needest no praise, yet I offer you these prayers and salutations.
O Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations.

[The Cat]

From another Hindu sage, named OSHO, as found in:
http://www.otoons.com/osho/osho_wake_up.htm

--The world is against individuality. It is against your being just your natural self. It wants you just to be a robot, and because you have agreed to be a robot you are in trouble. You are not a robot. That was not the intention of nature, to make a robot out of you. So because you are not what you were meant to be, what you were destined to be, you are constantly looking: ''What is missing? perhaps better furniture, better curtains, a better house, a better husband, a better wife, a better job...

----------- --
--The mind is a mechanism. It has no intelligence. The mind is a bio-computer. How can it have any intelligence? It has skill, but has no intelligence; it has a functional utility, but has no awareness. It is a robot; it works well but don't listen to it too much because then you lose your inner intelligence. Then it is as if you are asking a machine to guide you, lead you. You are asking a machine which has nothing original in it -cannot have.

Not a single thought in the mind is ever original, it is always a repetition. Watch. Whenever the mind says something, see that it is again putting you into a routine. Try to do something new and the mind will have less grip on you.

[The Cat]

Completing recovery from the Holiday forum.
I answered to Agaricus and Playa Moya about meditation...

If I remember well, JK differenciated the mental, which is mechanical, from intelligence, which is uncreated. That is why as so many others JK refers to meditation in order to be connected with this unborn source we call intelligence, some will say 'G-d'. That word, intelligence, comes from the latin INTER-LEGERE, meaning the faculty to 'read between the lines', to understand (or standing under) beyond appearances, illusions and falsety; thus, not to be the slaves of words and their mechanisms. When submerged by the incessant verbiage of the mental (the ego, the Self), which separate the observer from the observed (a screen of interpretations), one becomes incapable of being connected directly to intelligence, bringing forth wisdom, and thus is merely a repeating machine.

Krishnamurti didn't intend the kind of meditation obtained through disciplining the mental, as advocated by gurus and 'spiritual' masters. JK sees meditation as the conscientisation of the reality, while being aware on how the mental gets in with its interpretative screen. I think of meditation as an inner bath, cleaning our accumulated mental dirt.

For Krishnamurti, the effort to 'be somebody' (a Christian, a Communist, an American, whatever) is the source of much malignity as he stated that ''To be nobody is of the utmost importance''. He means (I think) that only when one does not identify himself first with being 'somebody' (a Muslim, a Capitalist, and so forth), only then can he be plugged to the Intelligent Conscience, and stand away from being the answering machine responding to its conditionment. Any entrenched mechanical answer is followed by deceits and sufferings. The mental is a self-defence thing acting as a protective armor or shield, a response to our animal fears, able to protect a certain reality, but then again jailing us into its limited parameters.

So to meditate consists of stopping the verbiage of the mental, vanities of all sorts, so that intelligence may raise back within ourself and bring about the naked truth of undefiled awareness. The inner bath of meditation will wash away the ego of its 'imperfection' and refresh our innerself like a good old bath.

The word 'Tree' is not a tree. We easily tend to idolize words, repetitive, and they finally subtitute themselves to reality. When so, we alter ego the truth and selfishness becomes our trade mark. Like in Plato's Cavern allegory, we start taking the shadows for reality and worship lamps because we lost the light. ''You cannot think about joy, said Krishnamurti. Joy is an immediate thing and by thinking about it, you turn it into pleasure. Living the present is the instant perception of beauty and the great delight, in it without seeking pleasure from it.''

[plata moya]

What is knowledge? It is acquired through thousands of years through experience, stored in the brain as knowledge and memory. And from that memory thought arises. So knowledge is limited always, whether now or in the future. And so thought is always limited. And where there is limitation there is conflict. So what place has creativity with regard to science? Is there a relationship at all? Please, we are thinking together, we are questioning the very source, the very accumulative process of knowledge. Science means knowledge - Latin and so on. And can creativity in its deepest sense, in its profound activity, what place has creativity, or creation with regard to knowledge? We have given tremendous importance to knowledge, from the ancient times, from China, India, before the Christian civilization came into being they were tremendously respectful, worshipped knowledge.

And knowledge, as we said before, is always limited because it is based on experience and so memory, thought, is limited. Thought has created the most extraordinary things in the world - all the great monuments, from the ancient of times, great art, vast technology in the present day, and the creation of a nuclear bomb and so on. Thought has brought about an extraordinary state in the world. Thought has created god, built the vast cathedrals of Europe, all the things that are in the museums - poetry, statues, and all the marvellous things that thought has done. Because thought is the outcome of knowledge, knowledge is science, expressed technologically or otherwise. Thought also has created wars - and we are faced with another war, maybe.

And human beings for the last five thousand or more years have been killing each other in the name of god, in the name of peace, in the name of their own particular tribal country. Man has destroyed other human beings, now, in the present civilization where we are gathered here, where they are producing these enormous destructive things. That is the result of science which is knowledge."


- First Talk at Los Alamos National Laboratory March 20th, 1984
_________________
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man, keep alive for yourselves.

[The Cat]

Recovery on. A GARDEN OF WISDOM.
Miscellaneous quotations.

Kahlil Gibran
http://www.dm.net.lb/mchelhot/gibran.htm
--Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
--Let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion.
--Say not 'I have found the truth', but rather 'I have found a truth'.

Abraham Lincoln.
http://www.worldofquotes.com
--Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
--I don't like this person. I should get to know him better...
_________________
Authority has the same etymological root as authenticity.

[Ariel]

Blessed be he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Jonathan Swift.
===========================================

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back -- but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
_________________
Tabari IX:69
“Killing disbelievers is a small matter to us.”

[plata moya]

Mere suffering exists but no sufferer is found;
The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;
Nirvana is, but not the man that enters it;
The path is, but no traveller on it is seen
buddha
_________________
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man, keep alive for yourselves.

[The Cat]

Funny spiritual Bits.
Benny Hill
--Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect.

Noelie Alito
--The shortest distance between two points is under construction.

Unknown (Anonymous)
--Any generalisation is dangerous, including this one.
--The complaint office is at the 25th floor, madam. But the elevator is being repaired.
--The little light at the end of the tunnel will be down a while due to technical problems.
--It isn't the mountain to climb that wear you out, it's the grain of sand in your shoe.
_________________
Authority has the same etymological root as authenticity.

[plata moya]

No one can teach you how to love. If people could be taught how to love, the world problem would be very simple, would it not? If we could learn how to love from a book as we learn mathematics, this would be a marvelous world; there would be no hate, no exploitation, no wars, no division of rich and poor, and we would all be really friendly with each other. But love is not so easily come by. It is easy to hate, and hate brings people together after a fashion; it creates all kinds of fantasies, it brings about various types of co-operation, as in war. But love is much more difficult. You cannot learn how to love, but what you can do is to observe hate and put it gently aside. Don't battle against hate, don't say how terrible it is to hate people, but see hate for what it is and let it drop away; brush it aside, it is not important. What is important is not to let hate take root in your mind. Do you understand? Your mind is like rich soil, and if given sufficient time any problem that comes along takes root like a weed, and then you have the trouble of pulling it out; but if you do not give the problem sufficient time to take root, then it has no place to grow and it will wither away. If you encourage hate, give it time to take root, to grow, to mature, it becomes an enormous problem. But if each time hate arises you let it go by, then you will find that your mind becomes very sensitive without being sentimental; therefore it will know love. K.
_________________
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man, keep alive for yourselves.

[The Cat]

EDITED: A summary of all following pages...
For convenience: links to every five pages

Pages and main subjects therein (not including pictures)...
1. Introduction, recovery and links; Playa Mota.
2. Krishnamurti on Love, wisdom quotes.
3. Exchanges Playa Mota/Annanta, Bolden Hansen; IHSoter.
4. Islamis_Allah_Transit; introducing Anthony deMello.
5. Exchanges I_A_T/The Cat.
6. Same. Krishnamurti on Death.
7. More exchanges.
8. Upanishads; Book of Wisdom; Agaricus on William Blake.
9. Book of Wisdom; J.S. Romanides; Kr. on Desire.
10. goedels_paradox interventions. The Self.
11. Same. Exchanges g_p/The Cat.
12. Same.
13. Same. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 1.
14. Same. M. Aurelius 2.
15. Same. M. Aurelius 3-4.
16. Confucius. M. Aurelius 5-6.
17. Places of worship; A tribute to Albert Einstein.
18. Southern Cross constellation. Lao Tzu; Agaricus 'Lotus Sutra'.
19. Krishnamurti on the Self; A. deMello.
20. Pollution; Bob Dylan; Ramana Maharshi.
21. Sacred mountains; T. Jefferson; A. Lincoln; JF Kennedy.
22. Ancient Egypt special.
23. Plato: the Cave Allegory.
24. Universe. Kr. on Self-knowledge & Enlightenment, Idea and Action. Don Quixote pics.
25. Playa Mota interventions; Dalai Lama XIV.
26. Answering Playa; Meditation, Judo, Karate and Tai Chi. Shiva Nataraja.
27. Dance and spirituality; Krishnamurti on Desire, Sex and Love.
28. Plotinus (1-Nature of the Soul); Agaricus on Sufi Wisdom.
29. Plotinus (on Beauty); Funny signs; Monasteries; Milky Way.
30. Plotinus (Of the Universe); Self delusions; Krishnamurti on Fear.
31. Plotinus (Nature of the Good); Kahlil Gibran on Love; Kr. on aloneness.
32. Quotes from Krishnamurti; Kahlil Gibran on Marriage and Children.
33. Plotinus (on Intellectual Beauty); Yogi Berra quotes; Kahlil Gibran on Giving.
34. A. deMello ''Sleepwalking''; K. Gibran on Religion; Kr. on Time.
35. Kahlil Gibran on Work; Krishnamurti on Awareness; Rumi (1).
36. Henry David Thoreau; Ralph Waldo Emerson.
37. R.W. Emerson (quotes) and 'Divinity School Address'.
38. Stonehedge; L.A. Waddell; W. Churchill (quotes); Funny signs.
39. A. deMello; Vincent by Don McLean; Upanishads Khandoya 6.8-16; Ducks.
40. K. Gibran on Talking; Krishnamurti on Anger & Sorrow.
41. The Golden Rule; Francis of Assissi; Sent'san's The Faith Mind; A. deMello.
42. A.deMello; Lotus Feet and autumnman exchanges; harvest pics.
43. Krishnamurti, On The Mind; K. Gibran, On Pain; 2 Beatles' lyrics; About Fruits.
44. Shapespeare, John Milton and William Blake (quotes).
45. Lao Tse (Tzu), the Dao De Ching (Tao Te King); pics from China.
46. Lotus Feet/Cat; Dao De Ching (ending); The Beauty Therapy (pics); George Harrison.
47. Krishnamurti: Thinking November; Taj Mahal; Krishnaji in pictures; the Aksharam temple.
48. Rumi; Pie-Cuesta; Thiruvalluvar; Kanyakumari; India-space; Kashmir's requiem; Vivekananda.
49. Lord Sakyamuni, Quoting the Buddha; Help!(the movie); exchanges with Bolusbikker.
50. Quoting the Buddha; Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Being Religious.
51. Quotes on Freedom; Liberty Statue; Kahlil Gibran, On Freedom; On Reason & Passion.
52. The 42 Principles of Maat; Harmony; Aristotle: the plague of the mind.

ps. I only mentioned pictures when under a theme (more than 500 pics!).
Direct access to pages 5,10,15,20.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=135
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=210
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=285
Pages 25, 30, 35, 40.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=360
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=435
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=510
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=585
Link to page 45, 50:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=660
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12205&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=735
_________________
Authority has the same etymological root as authenticity.