Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Can't I just look?

Can I look without the word at every problem: the problem of fear, the problem of pleasure? Because the word creates, breeds thought; and thought is memory, experience, pleasure, and therefore a distorting factor.

This is really quite astonishingly simple. Because it is simple, we mistrust it. We want everything to be very complicated, very cunning; and all cunning is covered with a perfume of words. If I can look at a flower nonverbally—and I can; anyone can do it, if one gives sufficient attention—can’t I look with that same objective, nonverbal attention at the problems which I have? Can’t I look out of silence, which is nonverbal, without the thinking machinery of pleasure and time being in operation? Can’t I just look? I think that’s the crux of the whole matter—not to approach from the periphery, which only complicates life tremendously, but to look at life, with all its complex problems of livelihood, sex, death, misery, sorrow, the agony of being tremendously alone—to look at all that without association, out of silence, which means without a center, without the word which creates the reaction of thought, which is memory and hence time. I think that is the real problem, the real issue: whether the mind can look at life where there is immediate action, not an idea and then action, and eliminate conflict altogether.

J. Krishnamurti
Collected Works, Vol. XV - 143

3 Comments:

Blogger DobyD said...

Hi Wendy, great blog you've got going here. I am finally begining to experience K's explanations. Its quite revealing when you see the subtleties that underline behavior.

12:51 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think thought is idea, feeling and action. Without thought no action. Life will become meaningless. There will be hunger but no thought of were the food should come from. One becomes lazy because there is no thought of the future. Every moment would be nothing but silence and longing for food or drink. We will have a lazy dog's life

2:58 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The silent one will beg or starve. The believers will have plenty to eat and will go to heaven.

3:01 pm  

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