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.
Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.
Gratefulness for what is there is one of the most powerful tools for creating what is not yet there. What does gratefulness mean? It means you appreciate what is. You value, you give attention to, you honor whatever is here at this moment.
Rather than engage in the sort of selective retention that so many investors tend to do and pretend mistakes never happened, I prefer to 'own' them. This allows me to learn from them and, with any luck, avoid making the same errors again.
No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it.
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.
Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can - a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement - we are training in letting go.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.