If you set out to meditate, it will not be meditation. If you set out to be good, goodness will never flower.
Interpretation
True meditation and goodness arise naturally rather than through forceful intention.
Jiddu Krishnamurti emphasizes that when one approaches meditation or the pursuit of goodness with a rigid goal or expectation, the true essence of those practices is lost. Authentic experiences are born out of a natural unfolding rather than a calculated effort to achieve them. This quote encourages an open, effortless engagement with life instead of striving toward predefined outcomes.
In practice
This quote can inspire individuals in a meditation workshop to embrace a more relaxed approach.
The following of authority is the denial of intelligence. [It] may help us temporarily to cover up our difficulties and problems; but to avoid a problem is only to intensify it, and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.
If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.
All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.
Have the guts to be true to yourself. Nothing more.
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
Grace works that way. It's a kind word from a gentle person with an impossible prayer. It's a force sometimes transmitted best hand to hand in a dark place.
To hope till hope creates_x000D_ _x000D_ From its own wreck the thing it contemplates.
I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.
Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.