Meditation is like the breeze that comes in when you leave the window open; but if you deliberately keep it open, deliberately invite it to come, it will never appear.
Interpretation
Meditation requires openness and invitation, but forcing it can prevent its natural occurrence.
In this quote, Jiddu Krishnamurti suggests that meditation is a naturally soothing experience, akin to a gentle breeze that brings tranquility. However, he emphasizes that if one attempts to control or force the process of meditation, just as one might force the breeze to come in, it can elude us. The quote encourages a balance of openness and receptivity, promoting a more effortless and organic approach to achieving a meditative state.
In practice
During a mindfulness workshop, I shared this quote to emphasize the importance of being open during meditation.
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.
There are two good rules which ought to be written on every heart - never to believe anything bad about anybody unless you positively know it to be true; never to tell even that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary, and that God is listening.
Some men storm imaginary Alps all their lives, and die in the foothills cursing difficulties which do not exist.
Force a hand, the voice warned, and it will fight you. But convince a mind to think as you want it to think, and you have an ally.
Decisions are constantly before us. To make them wisely, courage is needed-the courage to say no, the courage to say yes. Decisions do determine destiny. I plead with you to make a determination right here, right now, not to deviate from the path which will lead to our goal: eternal life with our Father in Heaven.
Well, pray if you like, only you'd do better to use your judgment.
On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.
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