Category: Mind

J. Krishnamurti: How to Meditate

Tom Das

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Jiddu Krishnamurti famously did not prescribe any methods and was generally against spiritual paths and spiritual authorities including gurus. However, sometimes on rare occasions, he did prescribe a method and give hints and clues about meditation, often when speaking with children at the various schools he visited. This is what we will look at here.

Here is a wonderful example of how he simply and profoundly explains meditation to a student. It is a rare example. The following excerpt is taken from ‘On Education’ page 58.

Bold type has been added by myself for emphasis, and my comments are interspersed in red, with Krishnamurti’s words in black. Try reading the text both with my comments and without them to get a feel for it. If you can, try to see how my comments are related to the specific words and phrases in the text. I hope you will clearly see…

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The Paradox of Seeking Enlightenment

You set out seeking enlightenment as the solution to all the ills that beset life as is ordinarily lived. On this quest, if you are lucky, sooner than later you get told “You are that which you are seeking. The seeker is the sought.” There may be several reasons that are offered as to why … Continue reading The Paradox of Seeking Enlightenment →

Mind is the Unreal – Osho

Sat Sangha Salon

It seems as if everything I perceive in or out of meditation is my own creation or projection. I can’t distinguish between what I see, feel or am creating.

Osho, what is?

There is no need to distinguish between thoughts, dreams and reality. If you try, you will feel more confused. There is no way to distinguish, because as far as mind is concerned everything appears in the mind as a thought. It may be real, it may not be real; but the moment anything appears in the mind it appears in the form of thought.

You cannot distinguish, and there is no need. And don’t go on that journey, because that journey becomes a journey of thinking, and meditation is lost. Rather, on the contrary, remain centered in your witnessing. Don’t be worried by the objects in the mind; whatsoever they are, they are mind stuff. You simply remain…

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Does stillness of mind lead to liberation?

Tom Das

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Advaita Bodha Deepika is a traditional text and a masterpiece, summarising the methods and techniques of advaita vedanta. It was a favourite text of Sri Ramana Maharshi and was often recommended by him. Here is what it says about how to attain liberation, the following is from Chapter 3:

17…Master: With complete stillness of mind, samsara will disappear root and branch. Otherwise there will be no end to samsara, even in millions of aeons (Kalpakotikala).

18. Disciple: Cannot samsara be got rid of by any means other than making the mind still?

M: Absolutely by no other means; neither the Vedas, nor the shastras nor austerities, nor karma, nor vows, nor gifts, nor recital of scriptures of mystic formulae (mantras), nor worship, nor anything else, can undo the samsara. Only stillness of mind can accomplish the end and nothing else.

19. D: The scriptures declare that only Knowledge can do…

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Fascination for our Mental Suffering

Buddhism now

Seated Buddha, Sakyamuni, China, Shanxi province, Tianlongshan, early 8th century, © Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler MuseumWe hear and read that we should look inside. We suffer, we are stuck in some kind of pain, mostly mental — mental torment, mental pain — and the dharma, the wisdom-path emphasises how necessary, how crucial, it is to look inside. And that is different from always looking outside which is much more common. We tend to find faults here and there but not look at the roots inside. So we like this idea, after some hesitation maybe, ‘Ah looking inside, yeah!’ After some enthusiasm, however, we might find that it’s not that easy. We might still be convinced that we should look inside, but we keep looking outside.

Now, a simple reflection can help, at least it did in my case. And very simply it’s this: all the causes of suffering — mental causes with their vast ramifications — are inevitably impinging upon our relationship to meditation. It is not that there is ambivalence, mistrust…

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