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.
When our actions create discord in another person, we, ourselves, in this lifetime or another, will feel that discord. Likewise, if our actions create harmony and empowerment in another, we also come to feel that harmony and empowerment.
Saki says that youth is like hors d'oeuvres: you are so busy thinking of the next courses you don't notice it. When you've had them, you wish you'd had more hors d'oeuvres.
Young girls are sad. They like to be; it makes them feel strong.
In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your piece of heart. As soon as you compare that shadow with the shadows of other people, you lose all joy, because you have begun to trade in unrealities and there is no joy in things that do not exist.
Give yourself more opportunities for privacy, when you are not bombarded with duties and obligations. Privacy is not a rejection of those you love; it is your deserved respite for recharging your batteries.
People do not always understand the motives of sublime conduct, and when they are astonished they are very apt to think they ought to be alarmed. The truth is none are fit judges of greatness but those who are capable of it.
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