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Jiddu Krishnamurti: A light to oneself

~ Tom Das ~ 4 Comments

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One has to be a light to oneself; this light is the law. There is no other law. All the other laws are made by thought and so are fragmentary and contradictory.

One has to be a light to oneself

To be a light to oneself is not to follow the light of another, however reasonable, logical, historical, and however convincing. You cannot be a light to yourself if you are in the dark shadows of authority, of dogma, of conclusion.

Morality is not put together by thought; it is not the outcome of environmental pressure, it is not of yesterday, of tradition. Morality is the child of love and love is not desire and pleasure. Sexual or sensory enjoyment is not love…

…love is not desire and pleasure

…Freedom is to be a light to oneself; then it is not an abstraction, a thing conjured up by thought. Actual freedom is freedom from dependency, attachment, from the craving for experience. Freedom from the very structure of thought is to be a light to oneself. In this light all action takes place and thus it is never contradictory.

Actual freedom is freedom from dependency, attachment, from the craving for experience.

Contradiction exists only when that light is separate from action, when the actor is separate from action. The ideal, the principle, is the barren movement of thought and it cannot coexist with this light; one denies the other.

Where the observer is, this light, this love, is not.

The structure of the observer is put together by thought, which is never new, never free. There is no ‘how’, no system, no practice.

Freedom from the very structure of thought is to be a light to oneself…
…The structure of the observer is put together by thought…

There is only the seeing that is the doing. You have to see, not through the eyes of another. This light, this law, is neither yours nor that of another.

There is only light. This is love.

The above is an excerpt from Krishnamurti’s Journal from the entry dated September 24, 1973

Dare to question, and more…

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Here are some recent quotes from my Facebook page:

 

It should be obvious that something is not necessarily true just because it is written in a sacred text or spoken by some great authority/teacher.

History and experience shows us that even highly intelligent people capable of great logical thinking can often have bizarre irrational beliefs

There is never a feeling of doership. What is called the feeling/sense of doership is just a cluster of sensations that is interpreted by the mind/thought as indicative of doership.

The concept of non-doership roots out the concept of doership. Then both concepts are let go of and neither concept exclusively operates in the mind.

Most seekers I work with are consciously or unconsciously seeking a subtle object and think lasting fulfillment will come through that. ie. They are seeking enlightenment as an experience. Much of my teaching is simply dispelling that notion in such a way that the seeker clearly sees.

Another way of putting it is that the feeling of doership can continue but that doesn’t mean you are a doer.

Oneness is also a story…a nice story, but a story nonetheless

What is, is. Accept it and move on. This doesn’t mean that you just passively accept things such as injustice…

Do you get what I’m saying?

There is no doer here, there never was one 😮

I don’t buy the whole ‘there is no time’ thing. When you look at it, time is just a way of describing movement.

The key is to see through the separate doer.

(Can you find a separate doer-entity? Where is this autonomous entity that supposedly authors thoughts and actions?)

When that is seen, what more can be done?

This is the whole purpose of atma vichara (self-inquiry)

The whole world is your guru, each and every experience, constantly emanating pure-teaching-essence beyond words.

Just be open and listen

Yes, that’s one of the reasons a genuine living teacher can be so useful – to indicate the total normality of this. Ramana himself said this many times…
Q: How can I attain Self-realisation?
Ramana Maharshi: Realisation is nothing to be gained afresh; it is already there. All that is necessary is to get rid of the thought ‘I have not realised’.

Silence of the mind (relative silence) allows us to notice the Silence that is ever-present, the Silence that is beyond both noise and (relative) silence.

It is the Silence of our very being, the Silence of where we are looking from.

There seem to be a lot of people on Facebook saying silence is the best way and that silence is the highest form of teaching

Ramana’s lineage? Ramana had no lineage. Ramana never gave authority for other’s to teach in his name, not even his closest disciples. Many teachers have been deeply affected by his teachings, myself included, but this is quite different to saying you are in Ramana’s lineage.

Debate, critical thinking and constructive criticism are important parts of spirituality and are to be encouraged. Who’s with me on this?

To say there is no one here is like saying there are no waves on the ocean. There is no separate self, just as there are no separate waves, but I am here, just as (I assume) you are.

The concept of a wave is a fiction, but also points to something true: the phenomenon of a wave.

Q: It’s all about ONENESS
Tom: For me that’s another belief. It can be a useful teaching, until it’s not.

Freedom, beyond all concepts and all stories, embracing all concepts and all stories.

How can we know something has no limitations?

Being ‘okay with that’ is freedom

If you think you are definitely not the body or that the world is definitely an illusion, you have probably stumbled into the world of beliefs.

This much I know: it happened the way it happened. All else is speculation (not that there is anything wrong with speculation).

The desire to improve can be very healthy

We think we chose to read or hear the teachings and apply them. When we understand the teachings more fully, we realised that the teachings came to us, they were a gift to us, that they chose us, and they work their magic on us.

Most do not go far enough and remain caught up in words, beliefs, teachings and spiritual-sounding slogans

Inquiry is only needed to remove ignorance (belief in the doer). When ignorance is seen to be non-existent, where is the need of inquiry?

Know your limits. Be honest. Be humble. Do not cling to beliefs. Admit and know what you don’t know.

Perhaps freedom itself is not conditional, but the realisation of the unconditional freedom is conditional.

What in ignorance is taken to be the subject,
in Understanding is seen to be an object.

 

No need to surrender.
Just ‘what is’.