A Krishnamurti Story
by Jim Dreaver
A fear that many
people have is that if they don’t hold tightly to their goals and dreams and
think about them all day long, they won’t accomplish them. Yet it is the very
attachment to outcomes, to getting a specific result, that sets the stage for
anxiety, the fear that you won’t achieve what you want. As you learn to release
the attachment, new creative energies—as well as feelings of courage and
confidence—spring forth, and actually move you closer to your objectives.
Worrying about the
future is one of the main causes of stress in our lives. It is a habit that
just perpetuates fear, the uncomfortable feeling that we aren’t enough as we
are. It keeps us stuck in the belief that such-and-such must happen if we are
going to be happy, and that if it doesn’t, our lives will be miserable.
There’s a story about
J. Krishnamurti that speaks reams about what it means to be free of this
limiting, fear-based pattern of thinking. Every spring he used to give talks in
a beautiful oak grove in Ojai, in southern California. He had been speaking
there for over sixty years. On this particular occasion when I went to hear
him, in the late nineteen-seventies, there must have been close to two thousand
people in attendance, sitting on the grass, or in their folding chairs.
It was always an
extraordinary experience, hearing Krishnamurti in person. Aldous Huxley, who
was a friend of Krishnamurti’s, described it as: “Like listening to a discourse
of the Buddha—such authority, such intrinsic power.”
Part way through this
particular talk, Krishnamurti suddenly paused, leaned forward, and said, almost
conspiratorially, “Do you want to know what my secret is?” Almost as though we
were one body we sat up, even more alert than we had been, if that was
possible. I could see people all around me lean forward, their ears straining
and their mouths slowly opening in hushed anticipation.
Krishnamurti rarely
ever talked about himself or his own process, and now he was about to give us
his secret! He was in many ways a mountaintop teacher—somewhat distant, aloof,
seemingly unapproachable, unless you were part of his inner circle. Yet that’s
why we came to Ojai every spring, to see if we could find out just what his
secret was. We wanted to know how he managed to be so aware and enlightened, while
we struggled with conflict and our numerous problems.
There was a silence.
Then he said in a soft, almost shy voice, “You see, I don’t mind what happens.”
I don’t mind what
happens. That is the essence of inner freedom. It is a timeless spiritual truth:
release attachment to outcomes, and—deep inside yourself—you’ll feel good no
matter what. You’ll feel good because you are connected to, one with, the
energy of the universe, the beauty and power of creation itself. Or, as
Krishnamurti himself put it:
‘When you live with
this awareness, this sensitivity, life has an astonishing way of taking care of
you. Then there is no problem of security, of what people say or do not say,
and that is the beauty of life.’