Your desiring cannot

.

.

Love is not condescending, never that,

nor books, nor any marking on paper,

nor what people say of each other.

.

Love is a tree

with branches reaching into eternity

and roots set deep in eternity,

and no trunk.

.

Have you seen it? The mind cannot.

Your desiring cannot.

.

The longing you feel for this love

comes from inside you.

.

When you become the Friend,

your longing will be as the man in the ocean

who holds to a piece of wood.

.

Eventually, wood, man, and ocean

become one swaying being,

Shams Tabriz, the secret of God.

.

~ Rumi

.

once, more intimate

.

.

Yet in the alert, warm animal there lies

the pain and burden of an enormous sadness.

For it too feels the presence of what often 

overwhelms us: a memory, as if

the element we keep pressing toward was once

more intimate, more true, and our communion

infinitely tender.  Here all is distance;

there it was breath.  After that first home,

the second seems ambiguous and drafty.

.

Oh bliss of the tiny creature which remains

forever inside the womb that was its shelter;

joy of the gnat which, still within, leaps up

even at its marriage: for everything is womb.

And look at the half-assurance of the bird,

which knows both inner and outer, from its source,

as if it were the soul of an Etruscan,

flown out of a dead man received inside a space,

but with his reclining image as the lid.

And how bewildered is any womb-born creature

that has to fly.  As if terrified and fleeing

from itself, it zigzags through the air, the way

a crack runs through a teacup.  So the bat 

quivers across the porcelain of evening.

.

And we: spectators, always, everywhere,

turned toward the world of objects, never outward.

It fills us.  We arrange it.  It breaks down.

We rearrange it, then break down ourselves.

.

Who has twisted us around like this, so that

no matter what we do, we are in the posture

of someone going away? Just as, upon

the farthest hill, which shows him his whole valley

one last time, he turns, stops, lingers -,

so we live here, forever taking leave.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

excerpt from the Duino Elegies

.

Knowing Nothing

.

Love is not the reason.

Love is the lure,

the thin goat staked out in the clearing.

The lion has stalked

the village for a long time.

It does not want the goat,

who stands thin and bleating,

tied to its bit of wood.

The goat is not the reason

The reason is the lion,

whose one desire is to enter -

Not the goat, which is

only the lure, only excuse,

but the one burning life

it has hunted for a long time

disguised as hunger.  Disguised as love.

Which is not the reason.

Or would you think

that the bones of a lion reason?

Would you think that the tongue?

The lion does not want the goat,

it wants only to live.  Alone if it must.

In pain if it must.  Knowing nothing.

Like the goat, it wants only to live.

Like love. Or would you think that the heart?

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Lives of the Heart

.

A Month of Days and Nights

.

Days that could have
been anything,
night that could have been anything,
turned with the leaves.

Then, someone played
the piano -
halting,
unpracticed, and perfect.

I listened to pity
and lowered my head in shame.
Ashamed not at my tears,
or even at what has been wasted,
but to have been dry-eyed so long.

~ Jane Hirshfield
from The lives of the Heart


.

stay with that silence

...

There was a time we lost ourselves in others,

a time we ate the best of foods.

There was time we relied on the intellect,

a time we looked for fortune

but all this had no value in the end.

.

For a mouthful of food and some bitter herbs

we went everywhere,

we made so many plans

one day it was Rome,

the next day it was Africa.

.

We entered a raging battlefield, for what?

a few crumbs of bread.

.

Lose your soul in God's love, I swear

there is no other way.

.

Stay with that silence.

I once ran toward the knowledge of this world;

now the papers are packed, the pens are broken

O Saaqi, bring on the wine!

.

~ Rumi

from A Garden Beyond Paradise

version by Jonathan Star

.

Autumn Quince

.

How sad they are,

the promises we never return to.

They stay in our mouths,

roughen the tongue, lead lives of their own.

Houses built and unwittingly lived in;

a succession of milk bottles brought to the door

every morning and taken inside.

.

And which one is real?

The music in the composer's ear

or the lapsed piece the orchestra plays?

The world is a blurred version of itself --

marred, lovely, and flawed.

It is enough.

.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Of Gravity & Angels

.

from "Among School Children"

.

.

Labour is blossoming or dancing where

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.

Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

.

~ W. B. Yeats

.

Be still

.

.

Be still.

Listen to the stones of the wall.

be silent, they try

To speak your

.

Name.

Listen

To the living walls.

Who are you?

Who

Are you? Whose

Silence are you?

.

Who (be quiet)

Are you (as these stones

Are quiet). Do not

Think of what you are

Still less of

What you may one day be.

Rather

Be what you are (but who?) be

The unthinkable one

You do not know.

.

~ Thomas Merton

excerpt from In Silence

.

emptiness and freedom

.

.

What can I say about the emptiness and freedom 

into whose door I entered for that half-minute, 

which was enough for a lifetime, 

because it was a new life altogether?  

.

There is nothing with which to compare it.  

I could call it nothingness, 

but it is an infinitely fruitful freedom, 

to lack all things and to lack my self 

in the fresh air of that happiness 

that seems to be above all modes of being.  

.

Don't let me build any more walls around it, or I will shut myself out.

.

~ Thomas Merton

from Dialogues with Silence

sketch by the author

.

I wearied myself searching

I wearied myself searching for the friend

With efforts beyond my strength

I came to the door

And saw how powerfully the locks were bolted

And the longing in me became that strong

And then I saw that I was gazing from within the presence

Only after that waiting and giving up all trying

Did Lalla flow out from where I knelt

~ Lalla

love lays siege

Love lays siege to each being 

and seeks to discover an opening, 

a path leading into the heart, 

by means of which love can permeate everywhere. 

The difference between the sinner and the saint 

is that the sinner closes his heart to love 

while the saint opens himself to this same love. 

In both cases the love is the same and the pressure is the same.

~ Lev Gillet

The Burning Bush

.

death

There stands death, a bluish distillate

in a cup without a saucer.  Such a strange

place to find a cup: standing on

the back of a hand.  One recognizes clearly

the line along the glazed curve, where the handle

snapped.  Covered with dust.  And HOPE is written

across the side, in faded Gothic letters.

The man who was to drink out of that cup

read it aloud at breakfast, long ago.

What kind of beings are they then,

who finally must be scared away by poison?

Otherwise would they stay here? Would they keep

chewing so foolishly on their own frustration?

The hard present moment must be pulled

out of them, like a set of false teeth.  Then

they mumble.  They go on mumbling, mumbling...

O shooting star

that fell into my eyes and through my body -:

Not to forget you.  To endure.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from Uncollected Poems

translated by Stephen Mitchell

for freedom

.

.

As a bird soars high

In the free holding of the wind,

Clear of the certainty of ground,

Opening the imagination of wings

Into the grace of emptiness

To fulfill new voyagings,

May your life awaken

To the call of its freedom.

.

As the ocean absolves itself

Of the expectation of land,

Approaching only 

In the form of waves

That fill and pleat and fall

With such gradual elegance

As to make of the limit 

A sonorous threshold

Whose music echoes back along 

The give and strain of memory,

Thus may your heart know the patience

That can draw infinity from limitation.

.

As the embrace of the earth

Welcomes all we call death,

Taking deep into itself

The tight solitude of a seed,

Allowing it time 

To shed the grip of former form

And give way to a deeper generosity

That will one day send it forth,

A tree into springtime,

May all that holds you

Fall from its hungry ledge

Into the fecund surge of your heart.

.

~ John O'Donohue

from To Bless the Space Between Us

photo by Edan Chapman

.

on the mechanical activity of thought

.

We were talking of the importance of thought and yet of its

unimportance; of how thought has a great deal of action and within

its own field only limited freedom. We spoke of a state of mind

that is totally unconditioned. This morning we can go into this

question of conditioning; not only the superficial, cultural

conditioning, but also why conditioning takes place. We can

enquire about the quality of mind that is not conditioned, that has

gone beyond conditioning. We have to go into this matter very

deeply to find out what love is. And in understanding what love is,

perhaps we shall be able to comprehend the full significance of

death.

.

So, first we will find out whether the mind can be totally and

completely free of conditioning. It is fairly obvious how we are

superficially conditioned by the culture, the society, the

propaganda around us, and also by nationality, by a particular

religion, by education and through environmental influences. I

think it is fairly clear and fairly simple to see how most human

beings, of whatever country or race, are conditioned by the

particular culture or religion to which they belong. They are

moulded, held within a particular pattern. One can fairly easily put

aside such conditioning.

.

Then there is the deeper conditioning, such as an aggressive

attitude towards life. Aggression implies a sense of dominance, of

seeking power, possessions, prestige. One has to go very deeply to

be completely free of that, because it is very subtle, taking many

different forms. One may think one is not aggres- sive, but when

one has an ideal, an opinion, an evaluation, verbal and non-verbal,

there is a sense of assertiveness which gradually becomes

aggressive and violent. One can see this in oneself. Behind the very

word `aggression' though you may say it very gently - there is a

kick, there is a furtive, dominant, compulsive action which

becomes cruel and violent. That aggressive conditioning one has to

discover, whether one has derived it from the animal, or has

become aggressive in one's own self-assertive pleasure. Is one

aggressive in the total sense of that word, which means `stepping

forward'?

.

Another form of conditioning is that of comparison. One

compares oneself with what one thinks is noble or heroic, with

whit one would like to be, as opposed to what one is. The

comparative pursuit is a form of conditioning; again, it is

extraordinarily subtle. I compare myself with somebody who is a

little more intelligent or more beautiful physically. Secretly or

openly, there is a constant soliloquy, talking to oneself in terms of

comparison. Observe this in yourself. Where there is comparison

there is a form of aggression in the feeling of achievement; or,

when you cannot achieve, there is a sense of frustration and a

feeling of inferiority. From childhood we are educated to compare.

Our educational system is based on comparison, on the giving of

marks, on examinations. In comparing yourself with somebody

who is cleverer, there is envy, jealousy, and all the conflict that

ensues. Comparison implies measurement; I am measuring myself

against something I think is better or nobler.

.

One asks: `Can the mind ever be free of this social and cultural

conditioning, of the mind measuring and comparing, the

conditioning of fear and pleasure, of reward and punishment?' The

whole of our moral and religious structures are based on this. Why

is it that we are conditioned? We see the outward influences which

are conditioning us and the inward voluntary demand to be

conditioned. Why do we accept this conditioning? Why has the

mind allowed itself to be conditioned? What is the factor behind it

all? Why do I, born in a certain country and culture, calling myself

a Hindu, with all the superstition and tradition imposed by the

family, the society, accept such conditioning? What is the urge that

lies behind this? What is the factor that is constantly demanding

and acquiescing, yielding to or resisting this conditioning? One can

see that one wants to be safe and secure in the community which is

following a certain pattern. If one does not follow that pattern one

may lose one's job, be without money, not be regarded as a

respectable human being. There is a revolt against that, and that

revolt forms its own conditioning - which all the young people are

going through now. One must find out what is the urge that makes

one conform. Unless one discovers it for oneself, one will always

be conditioned one way or the other, positively or negatively. From

the moment one is born until one dies, the process goes on. One

may revolt against it, one may try to escape into another

conditioning, withdrawing into a monastery as do the people who

devote their life to contemplation, to philosophy, but it is the same

movement right through. What is the machinery that is in constant

movement, adjusting itself to various forms of conditioning?

Thought is everlastingly conditioned, because it is the response

of the past as memory. Thought is always mechanical; it falls very

easily into a pattern, into a groove, and then you consider you are

being tremendously active, whether you are confined to the

Communist groove, the Catholic groove, or whatever it is. It is the

easiest, the most mechanical thing to do - and we think we are

living! So although thought has a certain limited freedom in its

field, everything it does is mechanical. After all, to go to the moon

is quite mechanical, it is the outcome of the accumulated

knowledge of centuries. The pursuit of technical thinking takes you

to the moon, or under the sea and so on. The mind wants to follow

a groove, wants to be mechanical and that way there is safety,

security, there is no disturbance. To live mechanically is not only

encouraged by society, but also by each one of us, because that is

the easiest way to live.

.

So thought being a mechanical, repetitive pursuit, accepts any

form of conditioning which enables it to continue in its mechanical

activity. A philosopher invents a new theory, an economist a new

system, and we accept that groove and follow it. Our society, our

culture, our religious prompting, everything seems to function

mechanically; yet in that there is a certain sense of stimulation.

When you go to Mass, there is a certain excitement, emotion, and

that becomes the pattern. I do not know if this is something you

have ever tried - do it once and you will see the fun of it: take a

piece of stick or a stone, any odd piece with a little shape to it, put

it on the mantlepiece and put a flower beside it every morning.

Within a month you will see that it has become a habit, as a

religious symbol, and you have begun to identify yourself with

that.

.

Thought is the response of the past. If one has been taught

engineering as a profession, one adds to and adjusts that

knowledge, but one is set in that line; similarly if you are a doctor

and so on. Thought is somewhat free within a certain field, but it is

still within the limits of mechanical functioning. Do you see that,

not only verbally and intellectually, but actually? Are you as aware

of it as when you hear that train? Sound of passing train.)

Can the mind free itself from the habits it has cultivated, from

certain opinions, judgments, attitudes and values? Which means,

can the mind be free of thought? If this is not completely

understood, then the next thing which I am going to talk, about will

have no meaning. The understanding of this leads to the next

question, which is inevitable, if you go into it. If thought is

mechanical, if it inevitably conforms to the conditioning of the

mind, then what is love? Is love the product of thought? Is love

nurtured, cultivated by thought, dependent on thought?

What is love? - bearing in mind that the description is not the

described, the word is not the thing. Can the mind be free of the

mechanical activity of thought so as to find out what love is? For

most of us love is associated, or equated, with sex. That is a form

of conditioning. When you are enquiring into this really very

complex, intricate and extraordinarily beautiful thing, you must

find out how that word `sex' has conditioned the mind.

We say we will not kill - we will not go to Vietnam or some

other place to kill, but we do not mind killing animals. If you

yourself had to kill the animal which you eat, and saw the ugliness

of it, would you eat that animal? I doubt it very much. But you do

not mind the butcher killing it for you to eat; in that there is a great

deal of hypocrisy.

.

So one asks not only what love is, but also what is compassion.

In the Christian culture the animals have no soul, they are put on

earth by God for you to eat; that is the Christian conditioning. In

certain parts of India to kill is wrong, whether to kill a fly, an

animal or anything else. So they do not kill the least thing, they go

to the extreme of exaggeration; again, that is their conditioning.

And there are people who support antivivisection, yet wear

marvellous furs: such hypocrisy goes on!

.

What does it mean to be compassionate? Not merely verbally,

but actually to be compassionate? Is compassion a matter of habit,

of thought, a matter of the mechanical repetition of being kind,

polite, gentle, tender? Can the mind which is caught in the activity

of thought with its conditioning, its mechanical repetition, be

compassionate at all? It can talk about it, it can encourage social

reform, be kind to the poor heathen and so on; but is that

compassion? When thought dictates, when thought is active, can

there be any place for compassion? Compassion being action

without motive, without self-interest, without any sense of fear,

without any sense of pleasure.

.

So one asks: `Is love pleasure?, - sex is pleasure, of course. We

take pleasure in violence, we take pleasure in achievement, in

assertion, in aggression. Also we take pleasure in being somebody.

And all that is the product of thought, the product of measurement

- `I was that' and `I will be this'. Is pleasure, in the sense in which

we have been speaking, is that love? How can a mind which is

caught in habit, in measurement and comparison, know what love

is? One may say, love is this or that but that is all the product of

thought.

.

From that observation arises the question: what is death? What

does it mean, to die? It must be the most marvellous experience! It

must imply something that has completely come to an end. The

movement that has been set going the strife, struggle, turmoil, all

the despairs and frustrations - all that suddenly comes to in end.

The man who is trying to become famous, who is assertive, violent,

brutal - that activity is cut off! Have you noticed how anything that

continues psychologically becomes mechanical, repetitive. It is

only when psychological continuance comes to an end, that there is

something totally new - you can see this in yourself. Creation is not

the continuation of what is, or what was, but the ending of that.

So psychologically can one die? You understand my question?

Can one die to the known, die to what has been - not in order to

become something else - which is the ending of and the freedom

from the known? After all, that is what death is.

.

The physical organism will die, naturally; it has been abused,

kicked around, frustrated; it has eaten and drunk all kinds of things.

You know how you live and you go on that way till it dies. The

body, through accident, through old age, through some disease,

through the strain of constant emotional battle within and without,

becomes twisted, ugly, and it dies. There is self pity in this dying

and also pity for oneself when somebody else dies. When

somebody dies whom we consider we love, is there not in that

sorrow a great deal of care? For you are left alone, you are exposed

to yourself, you have nobody to rely on, nobody to give you

comfort. Our sorrow is tinged with this self-pity and fear and

naturally in this uncertainty one accepts every form of belief.

The whole of Asia believes in reincarnation, in being reborn in

another life. When you enquire what it is that is going to be born in

the next life, you come up against difficulties. What is it?

Yourself? What are you? a lot of words, a lot of opinions,

attachments to your possessions, to your furniture, to your

conditioning. Is all that, which you call the soul, going to be reborn

in the next life? Reincarnation implies that what you are today

determines what you will be again in the next life. Therefore

behave! - not tomorrow, but today, because what you do today you

are going to pay for in the next life. people who believe in

reincarnation do not bother about behavior;t all; it is just a matter

of belief, which has no value. Incarnate today, afresh not in the

next life! Change it now completely, change with great passion, let

the mind strip itself of everything, of every conditioning, every

knowledge, of everything it thinks is `right' - empty it. Then you

will know what dying means; and then you will know what love is.

For love is not something of the past, of thought, of culture; it is

not pleasure. A mind that has understood the whole movement of

thought becomes extraordinarily quiet, absolutely silent. That

silence is the beginning of the new.

.

Questioner: Sir, can love have an object?

.

Krishnamurti: Who is asking the question? Thought or love?

Love is not asking this question. When you love, you love! - you

do not ask, `Is there an object, or no object, is it personal or

impersonal?'. Oh, you do not know what is means, the beauty of it!

Our love, as it is, is such a trial; our relationship with each other is

such a conflict. Our love is based on your image of me and my

image of you. Look at it very carefully, at the relationship between

these two isolated images which say to each other, `We love'. The

images are the product of the past, of memories, memories of what

you said to me and I said to you; and this relationship between the

two images must inevitably be an isolating process. That is what

we call relationship. To be related means to be in contact not

merely physically which is not possible when there is an image,

when there is the self-isolating process of thought, which is the

`me', and the`you'. We say: `Has love an object? Or is love divine

or profane?, - you follow? Sir, when you love, you are neither

giving nor receiving.

.

Questioner: When one goes behind these words, `beauty' and

`love', don't all these divisions disappear?

Krishnamurti: Have you ever sat, not day-dreaming, but very

quietly, completely aware? In that awareness there is no

verbalization, no choice, no restraint or direction. When the body is

completely relaxed, have you noticed the silence that comes into

being? That requires a great deal of investigation, because our

minds are never still but endlessly chattering and therefore divided.

We divide living into fragments.

Can all this fragmentation come to an end? Knowing that

thought is responsible for this fragmentation, we ask: `Can thought

be completely silent yet respond when it is necessary, without

violence, objectively, sanely, rationally - still let this silence

pervade?' That is the only way: to find for oneself this quality of

the mind that has no fragments, that is not broken up as the `you'

and the `me'.

.

Questioner: Sir, is the killing of a fly on the same level as the

killing of an animal or a human being?

.

Krishnamurti: Where will you begin the comprehension of

killing? You say you will not go to war, kill a human being ( I do

not know if you say it or not, it is up to you), but you do not mind

taking sides your group and my group. You do not mind believing

in something and standing by what you believe. You do not mind

killing people with a word, with a gesture - and you will be careful

not to kill a fly! Some years ago the speaker was in a country

where Buddhism is the accepted religion. If you are a practising

Buddhist, it is one of the accepted principles not to kill. Two

people came to see the speaker and said, `We have a problem: we

do not want to kill. We are ardent Buddhists, we have been brought

up not to kill; but we like eggs and we do not want to kill a fertile

egg - so what are we to do?' You understand? Unless inwardly you

are very clear as to what killing implies - not only with a gun, but

by a word, by gesture, by division, by saying `my country', `your

country', `my God', `your God" there will inevitably be killing in

some form. Do not make a lot of ado about killing a fly and then go

and `kill' your neighbour with a word.

.

The speaker has never eaten meat in his life, does not know

what it tastes like even, and yet he puts on leather shoes. One his to

live,and although in your heart you do not want to kill anything,

hurt anybody - and you really mean it - yet you have to `kill' the

vegetable which you eat; for if you do not eat anything you come

very quickly to an end. One has to find out for oneself very clearly

without any choice, without any prejudice, one has to be highly

sensitive and intelligent and then let that intelligence act - not say,

`I will not kill flies', yet say something brutal about one's husband.

.

~ J. Krishnamurti

from a public talk in Saanen on July 28th 1970

.

Going Blind

.

.

She sat just like the others at the table.

But on second glance, she seemed to hold her cup

a little differently as she picked it up.

She smiled once.  It was almost painful.

.

And when they finished and it was time to stand

and slowly, as chance selected them, they left 

and moved through many rooms (they talked and laughed),

I saw her.  She was moving far behind

.

the others, absorbed, like someone who will soon 

have to sing before a large assembly; 

upon her eyes, which were radiant with joy,

light played as on the surface of a pool.

.

She followed slowly, taking a long time,

as though there were some obstacle in the way;

and yet: as though, once it was overcome,

she would be beyond all walking, and would fly.

.

~  Rainer Maria Rilke

from New Poems

translated by Stephen Mitchell

.