You have lived in thought. You have given tremendous importance to thinking, but thinking is old, thinking is never new, thinking is the continuation of memory. If you have lived there, obviously there is some kind of continuity. And it is a continuity that is dead, over, finished. It is something old, but only that which ends can have something new. So dying is very important to understand. To die to everything that one knows. Have you ever tried it? To be free from the known, to be free from your memory, even for a few days; to be free from your pleasure, without any argument, without any fear; to die to your family, to your house, to your name; to be completely anonymous. It is only the person who is completely anonymous who is in a state of non-violence, who has no violence. So die every day, not as an idea, but actually. Do it sometime.
One has collected so much, not only in books, houses, the bank account, but inwardly; the memories of insults, the memories of flattery, the memories of your own particular experiences, neurotic achievements which give you a position. To die to all that without argument, without discussion, without any fear, just give it up; do it sometime and you will see. To do it psychologically—not giving up your wife, your clothes, your husband, your children or your house, but inwardly—is not to be attached to anything. In that there is great beauty. After all, that is love, isn't it?
~
Writing: from This Light in Oneself - J. Krishnamurti
Art: Make All Things New - James B. Janknegt
One to One
Q: Some say the universe was created. Others say it always existed and is forever undergoing transformations. Some say it is subject to eternal laws. Others deny even causality. Some say the world is real. Others that it has no being whatsoever.
A: Which world are you enquiring about?
Q: The world of my perceptions, of course.
A: The world you can perceive is a very small world indeed. And is entirely private. Take it to be a dream and be done with it.
Q: How can I take it to be a dream? A dream does not last.
A: How long will your own little world last?
Q: After all my little world is but a part of the total.
A: Is not the idea of a total world part of your personal world? The universe does not come to you to tell you that you are part of it. It is you who has created a totality to contain you as a part.
In fact all you know is your own private world however well you have furnished it with your imaginations and expectations.
Q: Surely, perception is not imagination!
A: What else? Perception is recognition, is it not? Something entirely unfamiliar can be sensed, but cannot be perceived. Perception involves memory.
Q: Granted, but memory does not make it illusion.
A: Perception, imagination, expectation, anticipation and illusion are all based on memory. There are hardly any border lines between them. They just merge into each other. All are responses of memory.
Q: Still, memory is there to prove the reality of my world.
A: How much do you remember? Try to write down from memory what you were thinking, saying and doing on the 30th of last month.
Q: Yes, there is a blank.
A: It is not so bad. You do remember a lot—unconscious memory makes the world in which you live so familiar.
Q: Admitted that the world in which I live is subjective and particular. What about you? In what kind of world do you live?
A: My world is just like yours. I see, I hear, I feel, I think, I speak and act in a world I perceive, just like you. But with you it is all, with me it is almost nothing. Knowing the world to be a part of myself, I pay it no more attention than you pay to the food you have eaten. While being prepared and eaten, the food is separate from you, and your mind is on it; once swallowed, you become totally unconscious of it. I have eaten up the world and I need not think of it anymore.
~
Writing: Nisargadatta Maharaj - I AM THAT
Art: Triple Self Portrait - Norman Rockwell
Beautiful Words
As new waked from soundest sleep
Soft on the flowery herb I found me laid
In balmy sweat, which with his beams the sun
Soon dried, and on the reeking moisture fed.Straight toward heaven my wondering eyes I turned,
And gazed a while the ample sky, till raised
By quick instinctive motion up I sprung,
As thitherward endeavoring, and upright
Stood on my feet; about me round I saw
Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains,
And liquid lapse of murmuring streams; by these,
Creatures that lived, and walked, or flew,
Birds on the branches warbling; all things smiled,
With fragrance and with joy my heart overflowed.My self I then perused, and limb by limb
Surveyed, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran
With supple joints, and lively vigor led:
But who I was, or where, or from what cause,
Knew not; to speak I tried, and forthwith spake,
My tongue obeyed and readily could name
Whatever I saw.
~
—Milton - Paradise Lost - Chapter VIII
Art by: Jane Tomlinson
Sights & Sounds
From Unknown White Male
10:56 min
Unknown White Male
The true story of Douglas Bruce
Funny One
Two elderly couples were enjoying friendly conversation when one of the men asked the other, "Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?"
"Outstanding," Fred replied. "They taught us the latest memory techniques of visualization and association. It has really helped me."
"That's great! What was the name of the clinic?"
Fred went blank and he thought and thought, but couldn't remember. Then a smile broke across his face and he asked, "What’s the name of that red flower with a long stem and thorns?"
"You mean a rose?"
"Yes, that's it!" He turned to his wife and said, "Rose, what’s the name of that memory clinic?"
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