Leaving Yr Head and Entering the World

[J. Krishnamurti had the following dialogue with students at one of his schools in India.]

[Krishnamurti:] Do you know anything about meditation?

Student: No, Sir.

Krishnamurti: But the older people do not know either. They sit in a corner, close their eyes and concentrate, like school boys trying to concentrate on a book. That is not meditation. Meditation is something extraordinary, if you know how to do it. I am going to talk a little about it.
First of all, sit very quietly; do not force yourself to sit quietly, but sit or lie down quietly without force of any kind. Do you understand? Then watch your thinking. Watch what you are thinking about. You find you are thinking about your shoes, your saris, what you are going to say, the bird outside to which you listen; follow such thoughts and enquire why each thought arises. Do not try to change your thinking. See why certain thoughts arise in your mind so that you begin to understand the meaning of every thought and feeling without any enforcement. And when a thought arises, do not condemn it, do not say it is right, it is wrong, it is good, it is bad. Just watch it, so that you begin to have a perception, a consciousness which is active in seeing every kind of thought, every kind of feeling. You will know every hidden secret thought, every hidden motive, every feeling, without distortion, without saying it is right, wrong, good or bad. When you look, when you go into thought very very deeply, your mind becomes extraordinarily subtle, alive. No part of the mind is asleep. The mind is completely awake.
That is merely the foundation. Then your mind is very quiet. Your whole being becomes very still. Then go through that stillness, deeper, further – that whole process is meditation. Meditation is not to sit in a corner repeating a lot of words; or to think of a picture and go into some wild, ecstatic imaginings.
To understand the whole process of your thinking and feeling is to be free from all thought, to be free from all feeling so that your mind, your whole being becomes very quiet. And that is also part of life and with that quietness, you can look at the tree, you can look at people, you can look at the sky and the stars. That is the beauty of life.

J Krishnamurti

Change Society . . . or Change Yourself???

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

J. Krishnamurti

You'll Never Know Her

“You’re a very good dancer.”
“Sure”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you. It’s just that I know I’m a good dancer.”
“Oh, wow. What an ego. Do you come here often?”
“Yes. I like this place. It swings.”
“Well maybe you can take me here next week.”
“But I didn’t ask you.”
“Well, if I want to go, I’m sure you’ll take me.”
“Now, look, Lelia, where I come from, the men do the asking. The girls just go yes or no.”
“Well. I guess I just don’t fit into that pattern, now, do I?”
“No, you don’t. As a matter of fact, you’re just a little too much for me.”
“Well, then why don’t you take me home? Why did you ask me in the first place?”
“Now, steady, girl. Do you always shout down your boyfriends that way?”
“I never shout.”
“Well, it would seem that way to me . . . Look, do you always go around embarrassing people in front of strangers? I mean laughing at them in front of your family, keeping them waiting for hours just to show off how masculine you are.”
“Darling, I’m not masculine.”
“Well, it would seem that way to me.”
[Giggling] “Well, how do you want me to behave?”
“Look, just dance. And be as lovely as you look.”
“Look, David, I am what I am, and nobody tells me what to do.”
“Look, I don’t know who you think you’re fighting. You know, I saw the way he looked at you back there. And I also saw the way he looked at me . . . You know, despite your horrible exterior, it’s you I like.”

Shadow, by John Cassavetes

Very Cellular Song ISB

May the long time sun shine upon you
All love surround you
And the pure light within you guide your way on

Kundalini Yoga - Farewell Blessing

"But I Don't Feel Anything"

We all have strong emotional reactions to our parents. Some of us are in touch with these feelings, but others protect themselves from the intensity of their emotions by burying them.
You may have gotten strong messages in your childhood that it wasn't safe to feel. Perhaps you were punished for expressing feelings, or perhaps your feelings were so painful that you pushed them deep into your unconscious in order to survive. Perhaps you had to convince yourself that you just didn't care, or perhaps you needed to prove to your parents that they couldn't get to you.
As an adult it may be very difficult for you to turn your emotional faucets back on. The connection between powerful feelings and your past and current relationship with your parents may be especially difficult for you to see. The feelings I'm discussing throughout this book may seem foreign to you. Perhaps you describe yourself as cold or numb, or you believe that you don't have any feelings - that you don't have much to offer in the way of love or caring. If so, your childhood feelings were probably very intense, and you required a great deal of protective defenses to make it into adulthood.

TOXIC PARENTS: OVERCOMING THEIR HURTFUL LEGACY AND RECLAIMING YOUR LIFE, BY DR. SUSAN FORWARD