MINDFULNESS MEDITATION IS THE BEST WAY TO RESPOND TO THE WORRY OF WAITING

Recent research published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin shows that mindfulness meditation is an effective antidote to the phenomenon of the worry of waiting, whether waiting for exam results, medical test results or whatever.

The research involved 150 California law students who had taken the bar exam and who were awaiting their results. There was a period of some four months between the exam and the date on which the results were posted online. The students completed a series of questionnaires in that four-month waiting period. During that waiting period the students were asked to participate in a 15-minute audio-guided meditation session at least once a week.

It was found that the practice of mindfulness meditation helped to postpone the phenomenon of ‘bracing’, which we do when we prepare ourselves for the worst. You may well ask, ‘What’s wrong with bracing? Surely, it’s a good thing to hope for the best while preparing yourself for the worst.’ I’m not so sure of that. If bracing sets in too early in the waiting period, most of us will start to worry … and worry … and worry.

Now, here's something especially interesting. The study shows that even 15 minutes of mindfulness meditation once a week, which was the average amount of meditation practised by the participants, was found to be enough to ease the stress of waiting.

We all worry, some of us more than others. The English word ‘worry’ comes from the Old English word wyrgan and Old High German word wurgen, both meaning ‘to strangle, to choke’. When we worry, we strangle ourselves, so to speak. Actually, not so to speak, but well-nigh literally. Worry is very bad for the body, the mind and the spirit. People say, 'I'm sick with worry,' or 'I'm worried to death.' Do they really know the truth of what they're saying? People can literally worry themselves sick--and in some cases even to death. Corrie ten Boom wrote, ‘Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.’ That’s so true, my friends.

The regular practice of mindfulness, as well as mindfulness meditation, helps one to accept, and not resist or fight against, our thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations and, as J Krishnamurti [pictured right] used to say, ‘On the acknowledgement [that is, acceptance] of what is, there is the cessation of all conflict.’ Got that? All conflict—whether physical, mental or emotional.

I used to think that whenever a negative thought—say, a thought of anticipated or feared failure—entered the mind that it was necessary to substitute for that negative thought a positive thought. That works for some people but it is not necessary to do it. Simply observe the negative thought. Give it no power. Don’t resist it. Just watch it arise and vanish, for it will not last long. Bracing yourself for the worst is generally advocated by Stoics—and it definitely has its place. When? Later. Don’t brace yourself too early, lest worry set in.

Journal reference

Sweeny K and Howell J L. ‘Bracing Later and Coping Better: Benefits of Mindfulness During a Stressful Waiting Period.’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2017; 43 (10): 1399 DOI: 10.1177/0146167217713490

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ‘CONSTANTLY AWARE’?

‘But how can I be constantly aware?’ a student said to me the other day. ‘Surely that’s impossible---not to mention very tiring!’

He’s right, you know. Yet so many books on mindfulness and meditation generally talk about the need to be constantly aware. For example, Krishnamurti wrote, 'True meditation is constant awareness, constant pliability, and clear discernment.' But how is that possible? Well, it’s not. It’s just a manner of speaking, so to speak. We must look beyond the words, as Krishnamurti would also say. ‘The word is not the thing,’ he often said. Good advice, that.

The fifth international president of the Theosophical Society, of which I am a member, was a very spiritual and enlightened man---N Sri Ram [pictured left]. He wrote much that I have found to be both inspiring and very practical. In one of his writings Sri Ram addressed the very matter I’m talking about now, namely, this idea of 'constant awareness.' He wrote:

At the same time it is not possible to be turning the attention to what passes in our minds all the hours of the waking day. We would find it too fatiguing, the attention would wander, just as when we try to meditate on a particular theme. To be constantly aware is a manner of speaking. When you try to meditate or contemplate something, you will find that the mind wanders off within a minute or two, and exactly the same thing happens when you try to pay attention to your thinking. This difficulty was put to Krishnamurti, and in one of his talks he replied, ‘play with it,’ that is, take it easy. He also lays stress on non-effort, that means it has to be done easily and pleasantly. …

Sri Ram goes on to refer to so-called constant awareness as simply the immediate perception of something taking place. ‘We have to become so sensitive that as soon as something takes place, whether outside or inside ourselves, we immediately perceive it, like a well-trained musician who becomes conscious of a false note as soon as it is struck. … This requires a certain sensitivity, without which one will not be aware.’

I have often written about the need for non-effort. ‘Resist not’ is the great wisdom of the ages. When we resist (something), there is an immediate loss of immediate perception. Straightaway we embark upon translation, interpretation, analysis, judgment, and condemnation. Meditation, wrote Sri Ram, requires a mind 'completely denuded of all previous ideas and knowledge.' Whenever there is translation, interpretation, analysis, judgment or condemnation, the 'past'---in the form of beliefs, conditioning, ideas, values, and so forth---is at work, and we are then no longer in the now. So, let any thoughts or feelings that arise fade out in their natural manner. Don't dwell upon or otherwise cling to them in any way.

The essence of mindfulness is the immediate perception of what is, from one moment to the next. The content of that which is perceived may be outside or inside ourselves. It will always be an uneven mixture of both. So be it. Such is the flow of life. Stay with it. Be with it … and live. Mindfully.



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YOU ARE AN AGGREGATE---YES, A HEAP!

Yes, you are an amalgam---a heap. Perhaps that doesn’t sound very flattering, but as the American comedian Jimmy Durante [pictured left] used to say, ‘Them is the conditions that prevails.’

The historical Buddha saw the human being as simply an amalgam of ever-changing phenomena of existence. It is written that Buddha had this to say about the matter:

The instructed disciple of the Noble Ones does not regard material shape as self, or self as having material shape, or material shape as being in the self, or the self as being in material shape. Nor does he regard feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness in any of these ways. He comprehends each of these aggregates as it really is, that it is impermanent, suffering, not-self, compounded, woeful. He does not approach them, grasp after them or determine 'Self for me' ['my self']--and this for a long time conduces to his welfare and happiness.

The instructed disciple of the Noble Ones beholds of material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness: 'This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self.' So that when the material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness change and become otherwise there arise not from him grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation, and despair. (Adapted from the Samyutta Nikaya.)

The Buddha thus makes it clear that the so-called ‘self’ is only an ‘aggregate’ or ‘heap’ of perceptions and sensations. It is, in the words of Manly Palmer Hall [pictured right], ‘a summary of what is known and what is not known’. We are not a ‘self’; we are persons among persons. However, when it came to attempting to explain the conventionally accepted concept of ‘person’, the Buddha referred to various psycho-physical ‘elements’ at work in a person---the ‘five aggregates’ (skandhas [Sanskrit], khandhas [Pāli], ‘aggregates’ in English)---which are said to serve as the basis (or rather ‘bases’) of what we ordinarily designate as a ‘person.’

These ‘five aggregates’---‘aggregates’ being ‘facts’---are said to be nothing more than ‘constantly changing conglomerates of moments of materiality, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness’ (R C Lester, Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia, 1973: 26). The ‘five aggregates,’ which are also known as the ‘five hindrances,’ are as follows. 

First, there are the aggregates of corporeality or materiality, that is, matter or bodily form, and more specifically the physicality of the sentient being or person, being the gross physical body, gross form, together with the six sense organs (organs of sight, sound, touch, taste, smell---and the mind)---all objects regarded as being compounded entities.

Secondly, there are the aggregates of sensations and emotions (or feelings), and more specifically the physiological processes resulting from the contact of matter with matter, sense organs with objects of sense, including the five ordinary bodily senses as well as mental feeling with ‘feeling overtones.'

Thirdly, there are the aggregates of perceptions, more specifically, those of recognition and perception---being mental discriminations born of sensations, the recognition of objects and, more specifically, the capacity and power to perceive as well as recognise and distinguish between physical objects of all kinds, including the ability to comprehend the specific marks of phenomenal objects.

Fourthly, there are the aggregates of predispositions, more specifically, those of ‘dispensational’ or mental formations or factors (eg fixations and conclusions of the mind such as attitudes, beliefs and opinions), and more specifically volitions which are said to be primarily responsible for bringing forth future states of existence.

Fifthly, there are the aggregates of consciousness, that is, consciousness in the fullest sense of the word. The aggregates of consciousness are composed of moments of awareness as well as awareness of awareness (or mindfulness). Although not an ‘entity’ as such, the aggregates of consciousness binds the varied sense and feeling elements of the individual---physical awareness, bodily feeling-tone, and mental constructs---into a personalized unity, that is, the person among persons that each of us is. Moreover, these aggregates remain more-or-less continuous throughout unceasing change, until death comes with the disintegration of all the aggregates.

The Buddha, ever the empiricist and realist, acknowledged the important distinction between our perceptions or sensations of things and the things themselves, stating that ‘the senses meet the object and from their contact sensation is born’ (Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha, 2002[1894]: 54). Also worth noting are these words attributed to the Buddha and quoted above---‘when the material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness change and become otherwise.’ In other words, the same event or situation can bring about different effects, and it is also the case that different events or situations can bring about the same effect. It all depends on the ‘field’ of context (the so-called ‘causal field).

The spiritual philosopher J Krishnamurti [pictured left], although not a Buddhist, articulated a number of distinctive ideas that have much in common with Buddhist thought and teaching. For example, Krishnamurti wrote:

In uncovering what one actually is, one asks: Is the observer oneself, different from that which one observes---psychologically that is. I am angry, I am greedy, I am violent: is that I different from the thing observed, which is anger, greed, violence? Is one different? Obviously not. When I am angry there is no I that is angry, there is only anger. So anger is me; the observer is the observed. The division is eliminated altogether. The observer is the observed and therefore conflict ends. (J Krishnamurti, The Wholeness of Life, 1987[1978]: 142.)

Now, you may well ask, ‘What does all of this matter, assuming for the moment that it is true?’ Well, as I see it, it is very important. True, lasting, in-depth psychological transformation can only take place when there is, firstly, a realization that self cannot change self because self is ‘illusion,’ and secondly, there is a reliance upon a power-not-oneself. That power-not-oneself can take various forms, one of which is the personalized unity that is the person among persons that each of us is. The ‘self’ cannot change the ‘self,’ but the person can change---even if that person be little more than a heap, that is, an amalgam of ever-changing phenomena of existence.

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HOW TO BE FREE OF THE PAST---OR WHY ANALYSIS DOESN’T WORK

So, you want to be free of the past? Really? If so, you can be, provided you really want freedom and are prepared to go to any length to get it.

Listen to these wise words from the Indian spiritual philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti ['K'] (pictured left and below right):

We are the result of the past. Our thought is founded upon yesterday, and many thousand yesterdays. We are the result of time, and our responses, our present attitudes, are the cumulative effect of many thousand moments, incidents and experiences. So the past is, for the majority of us, the present, which is a fact, which cannot be denied. You, your thoughts, your actions, your responses, are the result of the past.

So, the question becomes---how can we be free of the past?

Most methods of psychology and psychiatry involve varying degrees and types of analysis including traditional psychoanalysis as well as self-analysis, but can analysis of any kind really give us the freedom from the past we seek? K's view, which is also mine, is that analysis cannot relieve us of an unwanted past. Here is K again:

Now, what is the past? What do we mean by the past? … We mean, surely, the accumulated experiences, the accumulated responses, memories, traditions, knowledge, the subconscious storehouse of innumerable thoughts, feelings, influences and responses, With that background, it is not possible to understand reality, because reality must be of no time: it is timeless. So, one cannot understand the timeless with a mind which is the outcome of time. The questioner wants to know if it is possible to free the mind, or for the mind, which is the result of time, to cease to be, immediately; or must one go through a long series of examinations and analyses, and so free the mind from its background. You see the difficulty in the question.

What normally happens is this. The more analysis, structured or unstructured, the more internal division and conflict. The conditioned mind is, in varying degrees, a sick and divided mind. It is the result of time, and thus the past. Do you think that such a mind, which is the result of the past---which is time---can be liberated from time, such that it can ‘look at reality directly’ (K’s words), by and as a result of a process of analysis over time and in time?

Self-analysis fails because of the problem of self-bondage---you need to understand that the analyser (the so-called witnessing, judging or transcendental self) and that which is being analysed (mental manifestations of self in myriads of forms and thousands of ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ over a considerable time period) are what K referred to as a ‘joint phenomenon.’ The first mentioned ‘self’---the so-called witnessing self---is just another of those annoying little, pesky ‘selves’ that we all too often allow to run riot through our mind, and need I remind you that no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own introspection and mental machinations.

Here is an example. A thought of anger arises in the mind. The part of the mind which analyses the anger is part of the anger. There is simply no way, by that means, to free ourselves from the background. So, intellectual analysis and all other forms of introspective dissection are not the way to go. No, true psychological transformation can only arise when one is entirely free of the ‘background’ (or ‘mental furniture’). It is a total re-creation of the person we are without dependence on time or any method grounded in or otherwise dependent on time. Look and observe. Be aware---choicelessly. Don’t analyse or interpret. Just look, observe and see things as they are---both the things outside of us as well as the contents of our own mind. The insight you gain will change you forever---that is, if you want such change in your life. This is the ‘much simpler … more direct way’ spoken of by Krishnamurti and many other teachers.

What if someone else---say, a professional psychoanalyst---does the ‘analysing’? Well, once again, there are huge difficulties inherent in such an approach. To quote K:

To be free of the background, many of the analysts say that you must examine every response, every complex, every hindrance, every blockage, which implies a process of time, obviously; which means the analyser must understand what he is analysing; and he must not misinterpret what he analyses. Because, if he mistranslates what he analyses, it will lead him to wrong conclusions, and therefore establish another background. Do you follow? Therefore the analyser must be capable of analysing his thoughts, feelings, without the slightest deviation; and he must not miss one step in his analysis, because to take a wrong step, to draw a wrong conclusion, is to reestablish a background along a different line, on a different level. And this problem also arises: Is the analyser different from what he analyses? Are not the analyser and the thing that is analysed a joint phenomenon?

Although I am sure that various methods of analysis as well as insight-oriented psychotherapy have helped many, many people, there is that real problem described by K. Just the process of analysis, introspection and evaluation creates more ‘background’---that is, more past, and more conditioning. But isn’t the goal to be free from all that?

The good news is that you can be totally free of the past---at any moment. It’s entirely up to you. No one else can do ‘it’ for you. Yes, there can indeed be that ‘total revolution’ (or psychological mutation or transformation) of which Krishnamurti constantly spoke. I am not talking here about change as a result of intellectual analysis or any form of traditional psychology including psychoanalysis. My view on the latter is encapsulated in that well-known phrase ‘analysis paralysis.’ Whether you want to hear it or not, the truth is that we can instantaneously liberate ourselves from the past and from past conditioning (including beliefs and misbeliefs of all kinds)---all thought is nothing but memory---if we refuse to analyse or dissect the content of our consciousness (the ‘background’ or ‘mental furniture’) and we see things as they really are, without judgment or evaluation.

You can start doing that right now---if you're prepared to do what it takes. But first you must see the falseness in the analytical process. Analysis involves thought, and, obviously, the analysis of thought in greta detail. Thought is a thing of time, and the result of time. Self-evidently, thought itself cannot free itself of the process of time, the latter including the unwanted past. K said, 'you can be free of [the past], not tomorrow, but in the present, in the now.' He went on to say, 'That can be done only when you realize that which is false; and the false is obviously the analytical process.'

So, this is what you can choose to do---if you really want to be free, forever, and instantaneously, from the bondage of the past. Watch, almost with disinterest, whatever happens, as if it were happening to someone else. Let there be no comment, judgment or attempt to change anything. Note the presence of any unhealthy, painful thoughts or emotions, but give them no power or attention. Don’t suppress or deny them, and do not ‘resist’ them, for whatever you resist, persists. The law of non-resistance—how very important, and true, that metaphysical law is! Dr Norman Vincent Peale (pictured left), writes:

The power of non-resistance removes certain blocks and limitations in the human mind or soul. … Stop resisting your problems so furiously in your mind. Stop struggling to solve them yourself. If you do that, a great sense of peace followed by a great sense of power will come to you.

As K puts it, ‘your mind, when you discard the analytical process with all its implications and see it as false, is freed from yesterday, and therefore is capable of looking directly, without going through the process of time [that is, analysis], and thereby discarding the background immediately.’ That is the way ‘a mind that is the result of time, of many thousand yesterdays, [can] be instantaneously free of this complex background.’

Mindfulness, involving the presence of choiceless awareness of, and bare attention to, the action of the present moment, from one moment to the next, is the way to go forward. Note that word---forward. At any ‘point’ in time, you are in direct and immediate contact with what is, and in that directness and immediacy there is your ‘salvation,’ if you can but mindfully experience it, but you must be prepared to stop doing certain things which will otherwise keep you forever in bondage to the past. In what follows, K describes, much better than I could ever hope to do, the essential features of a mind that is ‘mindful’ (or, K's word, 'tranquil'):

Now, to put it very simply, when you want to understand something, what is the state of your mind? When you want to understand your child, when you want to understand somebody, something that someone is saying, what is the state of your mind? You are not analysing, criticizing, judging what the other is saying; you are listening, are you not? Your mind is in a state where the thought process is not active, but is very alert. Yes? And that alertness is not of time, is it? You are merely being alert, passively receptive, and yet fully aware; and it is only in this state that there is understanding. Surely, when the mind is agitated, questioning, worrying, dissecting, analysing, there is no understanding. And when there is the intensity to understand, the mind is obviously tranquil.

There you have it. The insight that can and will change you---indeed, transform and re-create you---is to be found not in or as a result of analysis, introspection or self-knowledge but only in and as a result of the creation and maintenance of a ‘tranquil’ mind, that is, a mind that is not analysing, criticising, evaluating or judging what is parading before you, at any point in time, as the content of your mind and life experience.

One of my favourite books on spirituality is The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master, by the Japanese Zen monk, calligrapher, painter and poet Takuan Sōhō. Here is some wisdom from that book:

The mind that thinks about removing what is within it will by the very act be occupied. If one will not think about it, the mind will remove these thoughts by itself and of itself become No-Mind.

Effort defeats itself in all mental workings, and analysis requires effort---great effort---on the part of at least one person. Don't try---instead, let. Let the past stay in the past. Refuse to analyse it, and walk forever from this day forward in the eternal now with a tranquil mind, that is, a mind that is not analysing, criticising, evaluating or judging what is parading before you. That is the way to go!

Bless you all.

Acknowledgment is made, and gratitude is expressed,

to the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, Ojai, California, USA.

Krishnamurti Excerpts: Benares 2nd Public Talk, 23 January 1949.

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THE MINDFUL ART OF KNOWING ONESELF

Most of us---except those who, for reasons best known to themselves, prefer the 'unexamined life' (which, as Socrates supposedly pointed out, is not worth living)---want to know more about ourselves. We want what is often referred to as 'self-knowledge,' for with that, so we have been told, comes a certain 'power,' 'presence' and---most importantly---'peace of mind.' However, few of us have any real idea of how to gain true knowledge of who we really are.

Many people meditate, in various well-known ways, in order to gain so-called 'self-knowledge.' However, as the great Indian spiritual philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti (pictured left) pointed out more than once, without knowing yourself there cannot possibly be a state of meditation. Meditation is self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is meditation.

That is why mindfulness meditation has one great advantage---it actually has several---over other forms of meditation where the ‘method’ employed is usually to sit still and concentrate. Mindfulness meditation, on the other hand, ‘happens’ while living, so to speak, and is applied to the whole of one’s life and daily living---from one moment to the next. It is meditation without ceasing---something like what the Apostle Paul (pictured below right) perhaps had in mind when he gave the advice to ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thes 5:17). True meditation has no ‘method’---it simply happens all by itself or not at all. It ‘happens’ when you simply---observe! Here is a YouTube video clip in which Krishnamurti and Dr Allan W Anderson have a discussion to find out what meditation truly is:

True self-knowledge means knowing the whole content of your mind and consciousness and the experience of your body---yes, every thought, every feeling, every mood, every sensation. And what do I mean by ‘knowing’? It means paying bare attention to, and being choicelessly aware, of every thought, every feeling, every mood, and every sensation, as they arise from one moment to the next, and observing where they come from. There must be no analysis, no judgments, no interpretations, no self-criticism. If you engage in any of the foregoing, you are no longer living in the present, you are back in the past---inextricably caught (indeed, bound) up in bundles of memories, belief systems, opinions, ideas and so forth. Bad stuff. You bet! Why? Well, it’s very simple. All those things prevent you---yes, prevent you---from experiencing life in all its directness and immediacy.

That is why I am totally and implacably opposed to religions and ideologies which require you to believe 'this' or 'that.' Unfortunately, Christianity, except in its more liberal, progressive and esoteric forms, is a religion of beliefs. Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam are not, for the most part, religions of belief. You can be a Buddhist, Hindu, Jew or Muslim without holding any specific beliefs. Not so with Christianity, the two main creeds of which begin with the words 'I/We believe.' A so-called 'secular Christian' is an oxymoron if ever there was one, but there can be, and indeed are, secular Muslims, Jews, etc. As for ideologies, Marxism is an example of a belief-based ideology, but I digress. Forgive me. 

Beliefs are a menace to society---and a total, impenetrable barrier to true knowledge and wisdom. Beliefs are always someone else's 'version' of reality---the result of someone else's conditioned mind, mental habits and fragmentary thinking, that is, the past. There is nothing of any value to believe, and there is nothing to be gained by believing anything or anyone. Just observe. Then you will know---and understand. You do not need to believe anything, and if you truly want to know---don't believe! Beliefs, being 'mechanical' in nature, and constructed entirely of past thoughts, are for spiritual cripples---that is, those who can't, or won't, think for themselves. In that regard, I have always found helpful these words attributed to the Buddha: 'Do not believe, for if you believe, you will never know. If you really want to know, don't believe.' My point exactly.

So, we must merely observe, that is, be aware---choicelessly so---of the movement of the mind, otherwise you are back in the past---the so-called conditioned mind with all its baggage and wallpaper. Merely observe.

Of course, that’s not an easy thing to do. As soon as we become aware of something, we almost invariably start to analyze, judge, form an opinion as to whether or not we like it, and so forth. We get caught up in the movement of the mind, which is nothing other than the ‘self.’ As I have said many times before, the problem with the movement of the mind as self is that it is a veritable prison. Unless we are freed from the bondage of self, there is no hope for us. The thousands of ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ are nothing more memory and habit.

Krishnamurti denied the separate, independent existence of a ‘Self’ (with a capital ‘S’)---that is, a ‘Supreme Self,’ a ‘Big Self,’ a ‘Higher Self,’ or ‘Atman.’ For Krishnamurti, any such concept was ‘still within the field of thought.’ Possibly. However, the ‘Self’ of which I speak is simply the absence, or freedom from the bondage, of the thousands of ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ which, in themselves, have no separate, independent existence. As I see it, the ‘Self’ of you is nothing more nor less than the presence of the very livingness of life in you and as you---that is, the person that you are. End of the matter. I am not referring to anything ‘supernatural’ or ‘hocus pocus.’ When you get rid of the ‘little selves’---which are illusory in any event---you are left with the so-called ‘Big Self.’ It’s as simple as that---so please keep it simple.

Most self-knowledge is anything but knowledge of the person that you are. All too often, the knowledge is nothing more than the ceaseless, mindless, senseless activity of the waxing and waning I’s’ and ‘me’s’ which are solely the result of conditioned mind and thinking. The result of such ‘self’ observation? More and more bondage to self. More and more self-obsession and self-absorption. Not a good thing.

You are wasting your time meditating unless you understand the reality of what I have just written. Krishnamurti wrote that you must first establish ‘deeply, irrevocably, that virtue which comes about through self-knowing, is utterly deceptive and absolutely useless.’ Strong stuff, but undeniably true.

So, don’t engage in self-deception, which is just another way of describing what the world refers to as so-called 'self-knowledge.' The true ‘emptiness’ of which the mystics and the holy ones---in all religious traditions and none---have spoken comes from a total surrender, a letting go, of all desire to do anything other than to observe, to be aware, to know---yes, a letting go of 'self.' Freedom comes from the realization that only a free mind---a mind which is free from conditioning and beliefs of all kinds---can both enquire and know. The problem with most Westerners is that we have taken too seriously the ‘advice’ that we must analyze everything, form opinions, believe this or that, and so forth. It’s all self-deception and self-delusion. There is no ‘way’ to be free---and certainly no ‘path.’ The way to be free is to be free.

There is no ‘path’ to true self-knowledge. There is no ‘technique’ or ‘method’ that can be employed, so don't bother trying to find one---and reject all those so-called 'gurus' and 'teachers' who would try to teach (or sell) you one. If you are looking for, or relying upon, any of those things or persons, you will not acquire self-knowledge. You may acquire knowledge of ‘this’ or ‘that’---but no knowledge of the person that you are. I am deadly serious---as always.

Acknowledgment is made, and gratitude is expressed,
to the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, Ojai, California, USA.

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