Article: 1013 of sgi.talk.ratical
From: (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: Krishnamurti on Effort, observing what is
Summary: celebrating the conclusion of my 38th revolution around Sol
Keywords: conflict, effort, fragmentation, observation, consider not becoming
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 14:44:55 GMT
Lines: 285
. . . effort is a strife or a struggle to transform that which is
into something which you wish it to be. I am only talking about
psychological struggle, not the struggle with a physical problem,
like engineering or some discovery or transformation which is
purely technical. I am only talking of that struggle which is
psychological and which always overcomes the technical. You may
build with great care a marvellous society, using the infinite
knowledge science has given us. But so long as the psychological
strife and struggle and battle are not understood and the
psychological overtones and currents are not overcome, the
structure of society, however marvellously built, is bound to
crash, as has happened over and over again.
Effort is a distraction from what is. The moment I accept what is
there is no struggle. Any form of struggle or strife is an
indication of distraction; and distraction, which is effort, must
exist so long as psychologically I wish to transform what is into
something it is not.
. . . It is only if you are aware of inward insufficiency and live
with it without escape, accepting it wholly, that you will
discover an extraordinary tranquillity, a tranquillity which is
not put together, made up, but a tranquillity which comes with
understanding of what is.
celebrating at 4:26 this aft, the conclusion of my 38th revolution around
Sol. the sanskrit meaning of the word "mantra" is, `consider not becoming.'
as human beings, we are tremendously conditioned to always be striving
towards some goal. to become other than what we are now. the only state of
being we ever actually know is right now, this moment. but how fervently we
continuously are "elsewhere" than this moment, than the now. Krishnamurti
discusses at great length, "observe what is." sounds extraordinarily simple.
and yet how unfamiliar we are with the actuality of such being. to observe
the fact of what is, free from our own opinions, judgement, bias, free from
condemnation, resistance, approval--to simply observe the actuality of what
is--in such self-awareness begins true intelligence. existence is infinite.
to think is to abstract. but the totality of existence is NOT an
abstraction! we confine ourselves to a limited, hence fragmentary
understanding of this when we attempt to live life wholly through the
process of thought, of the intellect, as if this alone possessed closure:
It is important to understand from the very beginning that I am
not formulating any philosophy or any theological structure of
ideas or theological concepts. It seems to me that all ideologies
are utterly idiotic. What is important is not a philosophy of life
but to observe what is actually taking place in our daily life,
inwardly and outwardly. If you observe very closely what is taking
place and examine it, you will see that it is based on an
intellectual conception, and the intellect is not the whole field
of existence; it is a fragment, and a fragment, however cleverly
put together, however ancient and traditional, is still a small
part of existence whereas we have to deal with the totality of
life. And when we look at what is taking place in the world we
begin to understand that there is no outer and inner process;
there is only one unitary process, it is a whole, total movement,
the inner movement expressing itself as the outer and the outer
reacting again on the inner. To be able to look at this seems to
me all that is needed, because if we know how to look, then the
whole thing becomes very clear, and to look needs no philosophy,
no teacher. Nobody need tell you how to look. You just look.
Can you then, seeing this whole picture, seeing it not verbally
but actually, can you easily, spontaneously, transform yourself?
That is the real issue. Is it possible to bring about a complete
revolution in the psyche? . . .
If I were foolish enough to give you a system and if you were
foolish enough to follow it, you would merely be copying,
imitating, conforming, accepting, and when you do that you have
set up in yourself the authority of another and hence there is
conflict between you and that authority. You feel you must do such
and such a thing because you have been told to do it and yet you
are incapable of doing it. You have your own particular
inclinations, tendencies and pressures which conflict with the
system you think you ought to follow and therefore there is a
contradiction. So you will lead a double life between the ideology
of the system and the actuality of your daily existence. In trying
to conform to the ideology, you suppress yourself--whereas what is
actually true is not the ideology but what you are. If you try to
study yourself according to another you will always remain a
secondhand human being. . . .
So you see that you cannot depend on anybody. There is no guide,
no teacher, no authority. There is only you--your relationship to
others and with the world--there is nothing else. When you realise
this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism
and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else
are responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you
think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we
thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity.
-- Krishnamurti, Freedom From The Known, 1969, pp. 15, 16, 17
consider not becoming. consider yourself as you are now--not as you hope to
be "later," not as you "will be"--but simply as you are in this moment.
anything else but what we are NOW is illusion. this moment is all any of us
ever have. how curious to see the mechanism of escape from this
totality--that we are so conditioned to be anywhere else but actually and
totally in this, the present, and only, moment.
--ratitor dave
from The First And Last Freedom, by J. Krishnamurti, 1954, pp. 66-70:
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CHAPTER VII
EFFORT
FOR MOST OF US, our whole life is based on effort, some kind of
volition. We cannot conceive of an action without volition,
without effort; our life is based on it. Our social, economic and
so-called spiritual life is a series of efforts, always
culminating in a certain result. And we think effort is essential,
necessary.
Why do we make effort? Is it not, put simply, in order to achieve
a result, to become something, to reach a goal? If we do not make
an effort, we think we shall stagnate. We have an idea about the
goal towards which we are constantly striving; and this striving
has become part of our life. If we want to alter ourselves, if we
want to bring about a radical change in ourselves, we make a
tremendous effort to eliminate the old habits, to resist the
habitual environmental influences and so on. So we are used to
this series of efforts in order to find or achieve something, in
order to live at all.
Is not all such effort the activity of the self? Is not effort
self-centred activity? If we make an effort from the centre of the
self, it must inevitably produce more conflict, more confusion,
more misery. Yet we keep on making effort after effort. Very few
of us realize that the self-centred activity of effort does not
clear up any of our problems. On the contrary, it increases our
confusion and our misery and our sorrow. We know this; and yet we
continue hoping somehow to break through this self-centred
activity of effort, the action of the will.
I think we shall understand the significance of life, if we
understand what it means to make an effort. Does happiness come
through effort? Have you ever tried to be happy? It is impossible,
is it not? You struggle to be happy and there is no happiness, is
there? Joy does not come through suppression, through control or
indulgence. You may indulge but there is bitterness at the end.
You may suppress or control, but there is always strife in the
hidden. Therefore happiness does not come through effort, nor joy
through control and suppression; and still all our life is a
series of suppressions, a series of controls, a series of
regretful indulgences. Also there is a constant overcoming, a
constant struggle with our passions, our greed and our stupidity.
So do we not strive, struggle, make effort, in the hope of finding
happiness, finding something which will give us a feeling of
peace, a sense of love? Yet does love or understanding come by
strife? I think it is very important to understand what we mean by
struggle, strife or effort.
Does not effort mean a struggle to change what is into what is
not, or into what it should be or should become? That is we are
constantly struggling to avoid facing what is, or we are trying to
get away from it or to transform or modify what is. A man who is
truly content is the man who understands what is, gives the right
significance to what is. That is true contentment; it is not
concerned with having few or many possessions but with the
understanding of the whole significance of what is; and that can
only come when you recognize what is, when you are aware of it,
not when you are trying to modify it or change it.
So we see that effort is a strife or a struggle to transform that
which is into something which you wish it to be. I am only talking
about psychological struggle, not the struggle with a physical
problem, like engineering or some discovery or transformation
which is purely technical. I am only talking of that struggle
which is psychological and which always overcomes the technical.
You may build with great care a marvellous society, using the
infinite knowledge science has given us. But so long as the
psychological strife and struggle and battle are not understood
and the psychological overtones and currents are not overcome, the
structure of society, however marvellously built, is bound to
crash, as has happened over and over again.
Effort is a distraction from what is. The moment I accept what is
there is no struggle. Any form of struggle or strife is an
indication of distraction; and distraction, which is effort, must
exist so long as psychologically I wish to transform what is into
something it is not.
First we must be free to see that joy and happiness do not come
through effort. Is creation through effort, or is there creation
only with the cessation of effort? When do you write, paint or
sing? When do you create? Surely when there is no effort, when you
are completely open, when on all levels you are in complete
communication, completely integrated. Then there is joy and then
you begin to sing or write a poem or paint or fashion something.
The moment of creation is not born of struggle.
Perhaps in understanding the question of creativeness we shall be
able to understand what we mean by effort. Is creativeness the
outcome of effort, and are we aware in those moments when we are
creative? Or is creativeness a sense of total self-forgetfulness,
that sense when there is no turmoil, when one is wholly unaware of
the movement of thought, when there is only a complete, full, rich
being? Is that state the result of travail, of struggle, of
conflict, of effort? I do not know if you have ever noticed that
when you do something easily, swiftly, there is no effort, there
is complete absence of struggle; but as our lives are mostly a
series of battles, conflicts and struggles, we cannot imagine a
life, a state of being, in which strife has fully ceased.
To understand the state of being without strife, that state of
creative existence, surely one must inquire into the whole problem
of effort. We mean by effort the striving to fulfil oneself, to
become something, don't we? I am this, and I want to become that;
I am not that, and I must become that. In becoming `that', there
is strife, there is battle, conflict, struggle. In this struggle
we are concerned inevitably with fulfilment through the gaining of
an end; we seek self-fulfilment in an object, in a person, in an
idea, and that demands constant battle, struggle, the effort to
become, to fulfil. So we have taken this effort as inevitable; and
I wonder if it is inevitable-- this struggle to become something?
Why is there this struggle? Where there is the desire for
fulfilment, in whatever degree and at whatever level, there must
be struggle. Fulfilment is the motive, the drive behind the
effort; whether it is in the big executive, the housewife, or a
poor man, there is this battle to become, to fulfil, going on.
Now why is there the desire to fulfil oneself? Obviously, the
desire to fulfil, to become something, arises when there is
awareness of being nothing. Because I am nothing, because I am
insufficient, empty, inwardly poor, I struggle to become
something; outwardly or inwardly I struggle to fulfil myself in a
person, in a thing, in an idea. To fill that void is the whole
process of our existence. Being aware that we are empty, inwardly
poor, we struggle either to collect things outwardly, or to
cultivate inward riches. There is effort only when there is an
escape from that inward void through action, through
contemplation, through acquisition, through achievement, through
power, and so on. That is our daily existence. I am aware of my
insufficiency, my inward poverty, and I struggle to run away from
it or to fill it. This running away, avoiding, or trying to cover
up the void, entails struggle, strife, effort.
Now if one does not make an effort to run away, what happens? One
lives with that loneliness, that emptiness; and in accepting that
emptiness one will find that there comes a creative state which
has nothing to do with strife, with effort. Effort exists only so
long as we are trying to avoid that inward loneliness, emptiness,
but when we look at it, observe it, when we accept what is without
avoidance, we will find there comes a state of being in which all
strife ceases. That state of being is creativeness and it is not
the result of strife.
But when there is understanding of what is, which is emptiness,
inward insufficiency, when one lives with that insufficiency and
understands it fully, there comes creative reality, creative
intelligence, which alone brings happiness.
Therefore action as we know it is really reaction, it is a
ceaseless becoming, which is the denial, the avoidance of what is;
but when there is awareness of emptiness without choice, without
condemnation or justification, then in that understanding of what
is there is action, and this action is creative being. You will
understand this if you are aware of yourself in action. Observe
yourself as you are acting, not only outwardly but see also the
movement of your thought and feeling. When you are aware of this
movement you will see that the thought process, which is also
feeling and action, is based on an idea of becoming. The idea of
becoming arises only when there is a sense of insecurity, and that
sense of insecurity comes when one is aware of the inward void. If
you are aware of that process of thought and feeling, you will see
that there is a constant battle going on, an effort to change, to
modify, to alter what is. This is the effort to become, and
becoming is a direct avoidance of what is. Through self-
knowledge, through constant awareness, you will find that strife,
battle, the conflict of becoming, leads to pain, to sorrow and
ignorance. It is only if you are aware of inward insufficiency and
live with it without escape, accepting it wholly, that you will
discover an extraordinary tranquillity, a tranquillity which is
not put together, made up, but a tranquillity which comes with
understanding of what is. Only in that state of tranquillity is
there creative being.
--
We are always comparing what we are with what we should be. The
should-be is a projection of what we think we ought to be.
Contradiction exists when there is comparison, not only with
something or somebody, but with what you were yesterday, and hence
there is conflict between what has been and what is. There is what
is only when there is no comparison at all, and to live with what
is, is to be peaceful. Then you can give your whole attention
without any distraction to what is within yourself--whether it be
despair, ugliness, brutality, fear, anxiety, loneliness--and live
with it completely; then there is no contradiction and hence no
conflict.
-- Krishnamurti, Freedom From The Known, p. 63