MEDITATION IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK

Those words – meditation is not what you think – were written on a bookmark I once received when I purchased a book from a metaphysical bookshop.

For some time – I must be slow or dim-witted – I pondered what those words meant. They seemed to be saying to me that meditation was something different from what I thought it was. Well, that was certainly true, for I was to learn that meditation was indeed something very different from what for many years was my limited understanding of the practice. Then, one day, it dawned on me what was the real ‘meaning’ of the phrase. Meditation is not what you think. Meditation is not about thinking. Meditation is not thinking at all. Meditation is something other than thinking.

What, then, is meditation? Well, meditation is many things such as waiting, listening, sitting in silence, observing, being attentive, being aware – that is, choicelessly aware – of the content of the action of our mind as well as the action of our surrounds.

Now, when we think about the activity of our mind – in particular, our conscious mind – we come to be aware of, and observe, what J. Krishnamurti (pictured) referred to as ‘the activity of the self’. Actually, there is more than one self in our mind. There is, for example, the ‘self that is judgmental’, the ‘self that hates immigrants and refugees’, the ‘self that loves pleasure’, and so on. Each of our innumerable likes, dislikes, views, opinions, beliefs, attachments and aversions is a ‘self’ of sorts. They are all our little ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ – and there are literally hundreds, even thousands, of them. The combined activity of these ‘selves’, none of which is the true person each of us is, is known as the ‘activity of the self’. This activity causes us no end of trouble. What sort of trouble? Self-obsession, self-centredness, self-absorption as well as addictions, obsessions and compulsions of various kinds. The activity of the self results in all manner of thoughts, words and deeds that are selfish

This is what Krishnamurti has to say about the activity of the self and meditation (This Light in Oneself, Seventh Public Talk in Saanen, July 1973):

Where there is the activity of the self, meditation is not possible. This is very important to understand, not verbally but actually. Meditation is a process of emptying the mind of all the activity of the self, of all the activity of the ‘me.’ If you do not understand the activity of the self, then your meditation only leads to illusion, your meditation then only leads to self-deception, your meditation then will only lead to further distortion. So to understand what mediation is, you must understand the activity of the self. …

Meditation can assist a person to become free from the bondage to self – free from the activity of the self. The ‘secret’ is to sit quietly and watch, non-judgmentally, the activity of the self. In the words of Krishnamurti (The First and Last Freedom, Chapter 19 (‘Self-Centred Activity’)):

If you watch yourself and are aware of this centre of activity, you will see that it is only the process of time, of memory, of experiencing and translating every experience according to memory; you also see that self-activity is recognition, which is the process of the mind. … Is it possible for the mind ever to be free from self-centred activity? That is a very important question first to put to ourselves, because in the very putting of it, you will find the answer. That is, if you are aware of the total process of this self-centred activity, fully cognizant of its activities at different levels of your consciousness, then surely you have to ask yourselves if it is possible for that activity to come to an end - that is, not to think in terms of time, not to think in terms of what I will be, what I have been, what I am. From such thought, the whole process of self centred activity begins; there also begin the determination to become, the determination to choose and to avoid, which are all a process of time. We see, in that process, infinite mischief, misery, confusion, distortion, deterioration taking place. Be aware of it as I am talking, in your relationship, in your mind.

In his many talks and writings Krishnamurti would often talk about the futility of self-forgetfulness, pointing out that there is no means of forgetting the self. In his Commentaries on Living, Series I, Chapter 41 ('Awareness')), we read:

Problems will always exist where the activities of the self are dominant. To be aware which are and which are not the activities of the self needs constant vigilance. This vigilance is not disciplined attention, but an extensive awareness which is choiceless. Disciplined attention gives strength to the self; it becomes a substitute and a dependence. Awareness, on the other hand, is not self-induced, nor is it the outcome of practice; it is understanding the whole content of the problem, the hidden as well as the superficial.

‘Problems will always exist when the activities of the self are dominant.’ How true that is! It is especially true of the addict – and we are all addicts of one kind or another. Not all of us are addicted to alcohol or other drugs but each one of us is addicted to certain ways of thinking, feeling and acting. We are addicted to our own views, opinions and beliefs, our own likes and dislikes. Meditation, practised as choiceless awareness, helps us to disengage, to dis-identify, from the objects of our addictions. When we observe – non-judgmentally – the activity of the self diminishes and reduces in intensity. In the words of Krishnamurti, we come to understand ‘the whole content of the problem, the hidden as well as the superficial’.

Meditation is not what you think. Meditation is not thought or words. Learn to empty your mind of the activity of the self. Refuse to identify with it. You are not those false selves that cause you so much grief and angst. You are a person among persons. A person caught up in the activity of the self is never free. He or she is in perpetual bondage to self. However, it need not be so. Meditate. Practise emptying your mind of the activity of the self. Let it go. Don’t hold onto it. Then, and only then, will you be free.

WHY MOST SELF-HELP BOOKS DON’T HELP

‘Who is the “I” that is going to change it? The “I” is also a habit,

the “I” is a series of words and memories and knowledge, 

which is the past, which is a habit.”

J. Krishnamurti, The Impossible Question.

Go into any book shop, or look online, and you will find self-help books galore. I have bought quite a few of them myself over the years. Most of them are a total waste of money. They don’t work. Why? Because most of them rest on an assumption that is completely false, namely, that what we call the self can change the self. It can’t.

We use the word ‘self’ in two different senses. First, we use the word to describe the ‘person’ each one of us is---the ‘real you,’ so to speak---and that is a most legitimate use of the word. However, we also use the word to refer to what we mistakenly perceive to be our real identity. Let me explain.

We perceive life through our senses and by means of our conscious mind. Over time, beginning from the very moment of our birth, sensory perceptions harden into images of various kinds formed out of aggregates of thought and feeling. In time, the illusion of a separate 'observing self' emerges, but the truth is that our sense of mental continuity and identity are simply the result of habit, memory and conditioning. Hundreds of thousands of separate, ever-changing and ever-so-transient mental occurrences—in the form of our various likes, dislikes, views, opinions, prejudices, biases, attachments and aversions, all of them mental images—harden into a fairly persistent mental construct of sorts. This construct is, however, nothing more than a confluence of impermanent components (‘I-moments’ or ‘selves’) which are cleverly synthesized by the mind in a way that appears to give them a singularity and a separate and independent existence and life of their own. The result is the ‘observing self', but it is little more than a bundle of remembered images from and out of which further thought and new images—yes, more of them—arise.

As mentioned, this ‘observing self’ consists of hundreds of other selves, each of which is an image that we build in our mind over time and in time. There is, for example, the angry false self (‘I am angry’), the jealous false self (‘I am jealous’), the fearful false self (‘I am fearful’), the unworthy self (‘I am a miserable sinner’), and so on. These selves—lots and lots of psychological ‘I's’ and ‘me's’ that collectively manifest as our ego-consciousness) are called false because they are not the real person each one of us is, but we mistakenly believe that one or more of these false selves---which are nothing more than self-images in our mind---are the real person that we are. In truth, all of these 'I's' and 'me's' have been created by thought. Indeed, they are thought--thought images, if you like.

Now, these false selves are illusory, not because they do not exist--for they do indeed exist as images in our mind--but because they have no separate, distinct, permanent identity from the person that we are, the latter being a mind-body complex that is ontologically real (the 'physical "I"'). Only the person that you are---a person among persons---is ontologically real.

We are self-conscious beings, and not only is there this ‘observing self’ in our mind—along with many other mind-invented selves—there is also an ‘observed self,’ in that the observing self (a subject) is able to ‘split,’ so to speak, and become an ‘observed self’ (an object). So, we have the ‘I’ subject and the ‘I’ object. But that’s not the end of it. Every like, dislike, view and opinion hardens over time into a little ‘self’, so we have hundreds of these selves in our mind at any one point in time. The ‘observing self’ can easily morph into the ‘judging self’, deciding which likes and dislikes we will keep, and which ones we will discard. Ditto views and opinions. The ‘observing self’ can and does also morph into an ‘analytical self’ which analyses our other false selves. At the risk of repeating myself, none of these little selves, has no separate, discrete, or independent existence apart from the person each one of us is. In that sense the ‘observing self’ is false and illusory. Worse, it is the very same self—any other false self---that is being observed. This is what it means to be trapped in the illusion of self---a false self, lots and lots of them, in fact. Listen to what the Indian spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti [pictured right] has to say about the matter. These lines come from chapter 12 of his book Freedom From the Known:

One image, as the observer, observes dozens of other images around himself and inside himself, and he says, 'I like this image, I'm going to keep it' or 'I don't like that image so I'll get rid of it', but the observer himself has been put together by the various images which have come into being through reaction to various other images. So we come to a point where we can say, 'The observer is also the image, only he has separated himself and observes. This observer who has come into being through various other images thinks himself permanent and between himself and the images he has created there is a division, a time interval. This creates conflict between himself and the images he believes to be the cause of his troubles. So then he says, "I must get rid of this conflict", but the very desire to get rid of the conflict creates another image.'

So, I hope you can see by now that self is indeed the problem. The self that wants to change is the very same self that doesn’t want to change. The self that observes is the self being observed. Self is always self and nothing else but self. As a former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple [pictured left], pointed out, ‘no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour.’ The self that wants to get rid of the self that is causing problems in one’s life is the same self as the one causing the problems. Self cannot change self. The only way self can change is by morphing into some other self, but you still end up with a self, and what good is that, I ask you? In any event, a self, being nothing more than a mental image in our mind, has no power in and of itself in any event. That is why we need to rely upon some power-not-oneself.

Let me say it again. Self can’t change self, and that’s where most self-help books go horribly wrong. However, the person that you are can change, but where does the power to change come from if it doesn't come from one's negative, conditioned ego-self? Is it some person, some god or god-like figure who will step in and change everything for us? Well, there are some who assert that is the way out, but I beg to differ. One of the many things I like about Buddhism is that it says, in effect, ‘Only you, the person that you are, can get yourself out of the mess you have created for yourself.’

Here’s some more wisdom from Krishnamurti, again taken from chapter 12 of his book Freedom From the Known:

Any movement on the part of the observer, if he has not realized that the observer is the observed, creates only another series of images and again he is caught in them. But what takes place when the observer is aware that the observer is the observed? … The observer does not act at all. The observer has always said, 'I must do something about these images, I must suppress them or give them a different shape'; he is always active in regard to the observed, acting and reacting passionately or casually, and this action of like and dislike on the part of the observer is called positive action -- 'I like, therefore I must hold. I dislike therefore I must get rid of.' But when the observer realizes that the thing about which he is acting is himself, then there is no conflict between himself and the image. He is that. He is not separate from that. When he was separate, he did, or tried to do, something about it, but when the observer realizes that he is that, then there is no like or dislike and conflict ceases.

For what is he to do? If something is you, what can you do? You cannot rebel against it or run away from it or even accept it. It is there. So all action that is the outcome of reaction to like and dislike has come to an end.

Then you will find that there is an awareness that has become tremendously alive. It is not bound to any central issue or to any image -- and from that intensity of awareness there is a different quality of attention and therefore the mind -- because the mind is this awareness - has become extraordinarily sensitive and highly intelligent.

The answer is self-awareness—choiceless, non-judgmental awareness. You look. You observe. You are alert and aware. When you truly come to see—and know—that all of those false selves in your mind are illusory and have no power over you except the power you choose to give them by identifying with them—note carefully that word ‘identify’—you, the person that you are, will have become free of their grip upon you. 

Yes, you can and will be relieved of the bondage of self when you come to understand that you need no longer be a slave to self. Stop trying to change or eradicate your false selves. Freedom comes when you are no longer for or against whatever self is the supposed problem at the partiuclar time—that is, when you are no longer fighting against that self being in your mind nor are you trying to hold on to it. This is what is known as letting go. Others call it acceptance. Krishnamurti calls it ‘choiceless awareness’. The words don’t matter, only the reality behind those words.

So, what is the ‘power-not-oneself’? It is you—the person that you are—when, to quote Krishnamurti once again, ‘there is an awareness that has become tremendously alive’.

That, my friends, is the only kind of self-help that works.

Freedom From the Known.
J. Krishnamurti. Edited by Mary Lutyens. New York: Harper & Row.

Copyright © 1969, 2010 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Limited,

Brockwood Park, Bramdean, Hampshire, United Kingdom.

All rights reserved.

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