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.
As I talk about strengths and weaknesses in academic economics, one interesting fact you are entitled to know is that I never took a course in economics. And with this striking lack of credentials, you may wonder why I have the chutzpah to be up here giving this talk. The answer is I have a black belt in chutzpah. I was born with it.
Everyone has to learn to think differently, bigger, to open to possibilities.
If one is sufficiently lavish with time, everything possible happens.
I soon discovered that man's importunity is God's opportunity. he uses our problems as building materials for his miracles. I began to understand that this was my first lesson in learning to trust him completely, my first steps on the path to complete dependence on, and obedience to, his guidance.
If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.
The only antidote to dangerous ideas is strong alternatives vigorously advocated.
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