far away

Keep far away.

You should never be here too much; be so far away that they can’t find you,

 they can’t get at you to shape, to mold.

Be so far away, like the mountains, like the unpolluted air;

 be so far away that you have no parents, no relations, no family, no country;

 be so far away that you don’t know even where you are.

Don’t let them find you; don’t come into contact with them too closely.

Keep far away where even you can’t find yourself; keep a distance 

which can never be crossed over; keep a passage open always 

through which no one can come.

Don’t shut the door for there is no door, only an open, endless passage;

 if you shut any door, they will be very close to you, then you are lost.

Keep far away where their breath can’t reach you

 and their breath travels very far and very deeply; 

don’t get contaminated by them, by their word, by their gesture,

 by their great knowledge; they have great knowledge

 but be far away from them where even you cannot find yourself.

For they are waiting for you, at every corner, in every house to shape you, 

to mold you, to tear you to pieces and then put you together in their own image.

Their gods, the little ones and the big ones, are the images of themselves,

 carved by their own mind or by their own hands.

They are waiting for you, the churchman and the Communist,

 the believer and the non-believer, for they are both the same;

 they think they are different but they are not for they both brainwash you, 

till you are of them, till you repeat their words, till you worship their saints,

 the ancient and the recent; they have armies for their gods 

and for their countries and they are experts in killing.

Keep far away but they are waiting for you, the educator and the businessman; 

one trains you for the others to conform to the demands of their society, 

which is a deadly thing.

They have a thing called society and family: these two are their real gods,

 the net in which you will be entangled.

They will make you into a scientist, into an engineer,

 into an expert of almost anything from cooking to architecture to philosophy.

Keep far, far away; they are waiting for you, the politician and the reformer;

 the one drags you down into the gutter and then the other reforms you; 

they juggle with words and you will be lost in their wilderness.

Keep far away; they are waiting for you, the experts in God and the bomb throwers: 

the one will convince you and the other show you how to kill;

 there are so many ways to find God and so many, many ways to kill.

But besides all these, there are hoards of others to tell you what to do 

and what not to do; keep away from all of them, 

so far away that you cannot find yourself or any other.

You too would like to play with all of them who are waiting for you 

but then the play becomes so complicated and entertaining that you will be lost.

You should never be here too much, 

be so far away that even you cannot find yourself.

They were all sitting in a row in the fairly well kept garden; 

they had on the light and they were eating and the big house was behind them. 

There was the scent of many flowers in the air and the breeze 

was coming from the restless sea. On that road there was hardly any car 

and your brain was utterly still and the movement of a flash was taking place. 

The meditation was the flash and that flash can only be in emptiness; 

the flash that opens the door into the unknown. 

That flash has no time but it’s only a fleeting second. 

You can never keep that flash any more than you can hold

the winds in your fists.




~ J. Krishnamurti
from his notebook