If there is one book by J. Krishnamurti which all can understand, it must be "The World Within", published by The Krishnamurti Foundation of India, and available in Indian bookstores. It seems that during the second World War, Krishnamurti did not make public speeches in the United States but continued advising people who would visit him in Ojai, California. The book is a collection of essays based on discussions Krishnamurti had with people from all walks of life during those days, and the essays seem to contain a clear and consistent advice across the dozens of essays. In a nutshell, Krishnamurti seems to be advising each of the questioners to "think out, feel out" each thought in the most expansive way possible, gain invaluable self-knowledge about the thinker in this way (including his less obvious motives, desires and confusions) and thereby enable the mind to get into deeper levels of silence and finally into truly "choiceless awareness" of all motions of the mind. Constant choiceless awareness of all aspects of the mind would finally bring clarity, integration of different layers of the conscious and unconscious mind, and would resolve conflicts and other problems of human life in a more fundamental way.
While no summary given here should be expected to be a full substitute for the book, the present author hopes that this article will prove to be a fair summary of and a good pointer to the unparalleled wisdom in this book. Towards this end, a few of the essays have been selected and summarized below. Each essay is based on a conversation with a particular person who visited Krishhnamurti in those days to get his advice on a particular matter. The summaries are in my own language, but I hope that the message of Krishnamurti is still intact - even where my words differ a bit from his. For example, the title "think out, feel out" may give the impression that thought is central to Krishnamurti's teachings in this book. That is true, but it should be also be kept in mind that deep thinking has been promoted in these essays as a means to arrive at that "choiceless awareness" of all activities of the mind, which is closer to the yogic idea of "thoughtless meditation" or "nirvikalpa samadhi", which has been upheld by teachers of all generations as "the" gateway to superconscious knowledge. Choosing these words for the title (and the words have been used by Krishnamurti himself in some of the essays) should not, therefore, be misunderstood as an attempt to downplay the place that "thoughtless awareness" has in yoga, or in the pursuit of super-conscious knowledge in general.
Chapter 1: Anger and Intolerance
This is a 1-page chapter in which Krishnamurti points out to the quesioner that his anger towards a colleague was a result of his own attempts to make the colleage conform to a particular pattern, and therefore, the problem would persist even if he took up another job. Such patters breed thoughtlessness and prevent understanding of the circumstances. According to Krishnamurti, the questioner would benefit much more by trying to understand the deeper reasons behind his own thoughtlessness rather than by being a slave to the environment and expecting the environment to change in his favor all the time.
Chapter 2: The Voice of Reality?
A lady who had now started meditating more regularly wanted to discuss whether the voice she heard was her intuition (and therefore enlightened) or merely the voice of tradition or thought playing in her head. Although the voice had been guiding her into more noble thoughts (like those of service to others), she had started doubting it too. Krishnamurti writes that meditation does not lead to enlightenment without understanding the course of desire. Deeper awareness of the "me" and the "mine", and of the process by which desire arises (via contact and habitual thinking patterns) and how it manifests itself in thought and action, would provide the right kind of self-knowledge which could then lead to right thinking. That right thinking would then be the beginning of right meditation. Meditation must not be based merely on mental formulations, even if noble. Right thinking based on self-knowledge is important.
Chapter 3: The Joyous and Aching Problem of Birth and Death
A lady who had lost her son in the war came to discuss reincarnation and existence beyond the bodily life. Krishnamurti pointed out that a mind almost paralyzed with sorrow could not be expected to consider the problem of death adequately. If her loss was her main concern, then no theories and beliefs about the hereafter would really fill that void. He explained to her that hatred towards those who caused her son's death would only prevent the development of the state of mind which can experience reality. On the contrary, in transcending hate, anger and grief, the mind may become more compassionate and compassion could purify the mind and help it grow to the state where it would be ready to comprehend the timeless. Evil means do not produce good ends and violent means do not result in peace. Mothers on both sides were crying for their sons, and hating the mother on the other side was no solution to her own sorrow. With this introduction, Krishnamurti led her into her initial question about life after death, and the lady said that she would come back another time to discuss that.
Chapter 5: Psychological Dependence
A lady wanted to go over with Krishnamurti her psychological dependence on her husband and her environment. Although this dependence was not financial, it had yet resulted in nervousness and exhaustion and had made her a bit more quick-tempered.
Krishnamurti advised her to be aware of the process of attachment and detachment that this dependence caused in her (i.e. the movement between aloofness and attachment which was set in motion by the dependence), but to do that without condemnation and judgement. This way, if she could guide her conscious mind into understanding all the reasons for her psychological dependence, then her unconscious mind would also slowly start projecting itself into the conscious mind. By pursuing this "method" again and again, the conscious and unconscious mind would start getting integrated and would work together to find the solution. The resuling integration of the mind, coupled with good diet and general health, would bring the needed fullness to her life.
Chapter 7: Lust is in the Mind
A man came to discuss how to overcome his all-powerful sexual appetite, to which he said he was a slave. He had tried joining different cults to transform the habit, and had also been seeking help from an analyst, on whom he was becoming more and more dependent. What was the way out?
Krishnamurti reminded him that love was not just a sensation - it was a quality felt when there was no awareness of the petty self. It is a great creative force and without understanding and releasing this creativity, sexual release would inevitably become a burden and a problem. To release this creative energy requires understanding and transforming desire and craving. Each desire further deepens the grooves of habits in the mind, and many such desires, when not understood and transformed, add up to create lust. To be free of this gigantic momentum of lust, the man would do well to practice awareness of each desire at the deepest possible level. Each time he chooses awareness over dark habitual patterns, the light of self-knowledge will deepen and ultimately dispel the darkness of the earlier habitual thought patterns. When this process is followed with regard to all thoughts and feelings, the awareness and self-knowledge will lead to right thinking, which will liberate thought from the sense of the "me" and "mine" and bring forth the realization of that love which is of the highest.
Chapter 10: A Different Standard of Living
A doctor approached Krishnamurti with his dissatisfaction with his own medical practice. He said he was earning lots of money and prescribing pills and medicines, but felt that medicines were only a temporary relief and that true healing of patients required a very different approach. To try that, however, would mean that he may have to give up his present standard of living and that might bring forth resistance from the near and dear as well.
Krishnamurti explained that in giving in to various pressures to maintain a high standard of living, we would be helping create a mechanical and cruel world of competition and pride. The doctor agreed to that. Krishnamurti went into whether the doctor was himself ready to change and lead a simple life, if that is where deep reflection and understanding led him. The doctor asked how that could be made possible, and Krishnamurti explained to him the need to practice choiceless awareness of each thought, motive and feeling, whether conscious or unconscious, because without the "right thinking" explained in other chapters, there could be no peace and no love. Krishnmurti ends the chapter by saying that he explained to the doctor what is really involved in this arduous task of developing right thinking and self-knowledge.
Chapter 21: Not by Bread Alone
A man said that "socialism was his religion" and that "bread for all" was the highest goal for which even liquidation of people who stood in the way of this socialism was acceptable. The means may be violent but the ends justified it, said the man.
Krishnamurti says the man was surprised when Krishnamurti started off by asking him if bread held first place in his own life. The man replied that that was not so. Krishnamurti explained that by giving primary importance to matters which were secondary would not solve the confusion of the world. While man could not survive without bread, giving bread (or, baser human tendencies) the primary role in life had itself created a world of sensate values, of authority, ruthlessness and bloodshed. The end of these baser tendencies did not lie in violent changes or revolts which give in to the opposite. Opposites create their own opposites, says Krishnamurti, and there is no solution in the opposites. In giving in to violent anger against the system, man would not be going beyond the lust (or, craving) for power or personal immortality. The solution to these opposites was in using the right means - love and peace - to transcend the problem of opposites.
Chapter 34: Prayer, A Complex Affair
A man aggressively demanded of Krishnamurti why prayer was not part of his prescribed methods and why Krishnamurti focused only on meditation and did not concern himself with prayer. He insisted that prayer was an integral part of the pursuit of the divine and prayer according to some traditionally well-respected processes had been known to produce results.
Krishnamurti starts by writing that prayer is a complex affair and is offered for a variety of different ends. There is prayer for worldly ends but there is also prayer to experience "reality" or God. While many of these prayers often bring forth particular results, the subtle process of "demanding and supplicating", "begging and offering" continues and it needs to be considered whether these mental processes themselves bring forth an understanding of ultimate reality. The dualism inherent in us, which divides the prayerful and the prayed to, needs to be carefully understood as a mental process guided by conscious or unconscious motives. By constant choiceless awareness, when craving in all its forms is deeply understood without condemnation or judgement, then the processes of dualism start withering away. The distinctions between the one praying and the one being prayed to, start falling away and it is this understanding which can make the mind ready for perceiving reality. The delusions of craving - even if noble - are not, by themselves, the road to happiness.
Chapter 42: The Dull and the Sensitive Areas
A man mentioned to Krishnamurti his increasing dullness and lack of interest in most matters, whether business and politics or his personal interests. There were still a select few areas which were not yet in the same category, but for the most part, things were becoming dull and routine and nothing seemed to interest him much. There was no real need to earn much anymore, because he had savings, etc., and needs were therefore taken care of.
Krishnamurti writes that it is unproductive to fight the areas of the mind which are already dull. The more we work on the dull areas, the more confusion it leads to. Rather, the man should work on those areas of his mind which are still lively and in deepening these areas, through an oblique approach, one could hope to reviviffy the other dull areas of the mind too. Starting with these areas, persistent awareness of all thought-feeling could slowly start spreading the light of self-awareness to other areas as well. Entering a gardenn only through our chosen door amounts to being obstinate and obstinacy leads to dullness, not to expanding awareness. The oblique way of working further on areas of the mind which were still lively could give hope.
Chapter 76: In Seeking the Real, Bread will be Supplied
Here, Krishnamurti deals with the question of distant spiritual goals and whether they are a help or a hindrance in discovering reality. He starts out by asserting that there is no beginning and end - rather, greed of achievement creates these. The "distant goals" inspire us mainly when the present is not fully understood. In that situation, the lure of a distant goal, and the feeling that we may achieve it some day, create their own comfort of a distant but possible improvement. Yet, if the present is not understood in its full significance, there is little hope of improvement in the future because what is not understood, persists, and the confused reality of the present creates a confused future. Ignorance is to be understood and transformed now - as it arises. As a tree dies when its branches are repeatedly cut as soon as they arise, so also does ignorance get transformed into wisdom if it is understood and transformed every moment, as it arises. That which is understood, ceases to be, while that which has not been dealt with adequately, continues into the future. Reality is always new and patterns of confused memory coupled with the desire for security, are not the means to understand it. The questioner of course asks that if all reality is truly new and therefore uncertain, then how can we even expect to earn our daily bread? Krishnamurti replies that in seeking the real, bread will be supplied, but if we seek only bread, then even that will be destroyed. Bread is not of ultimate value to man, but making it of primary value leads to a society of murder and starvation. The advice, then, is to seek the eternal through the transient. As Krishnamurti puts it, "there is no path to it because it is the ever-present".
As an end-note, the author of this article would like to make another note on the title's suggestion to "think out, feel out" in the deepest and most expansive way possible. Is this to be taken to an extreme and called the only method which can be of help in any and every circumstance? While Krishnamurti recommends it, and while the present author has no claims to any similar spiritual experiences, it seems clear that there could be a few situations where an aspirant finds it easier to calm his/her mind by a distracting thought. Technically, that may be different from 'thinking out, feeling out" in the most expansive way, but let us note that the same book says that working on the dull areas of the mind is often unproductive. Therefore, it would perhaps be easy enough for readers to accept that even the method given here - that of thinking and feeling out in the deepest possible way - may need to be combined judiciously with other "techniques" and "methods" in a few peculiar situations. When the problem of excessive craving comes up as a large enemy battalion on the horizon, all tools should be kept handy. That does not, in any way, mean that there is no place for the longer-term and time-tested strategy in a war.
Sadanand Tutakne
