1097 This Light in Oneself

A timely email (I receive K emails daily) from the Krishnamurti Foundation of America; it ties in with my essay PHOSPHORESCENCE

This light in oneself

"If we could go into this it would be immensely worthwhile to see for each one of us if we could be a light to ourselves, a light that has no dependence on another and that is completely free. To go into that, one has to explore rather a complex problem. Either one can explore it intellectually, analytically, taking layer after layer of confusion and disorder, taking many days, many years, perhaps a whole lifetime - and then not finding it. Either you do that, this analytical process of cause and effect; or perhaps you can side-step all that completely and come to it directly - without the intermediary of any authority of the intellect, or of a norm.

To do that requires that much abused word 'meditation'.”

In all ‘spiritual matters’ there must be no authority whatsoever,

because otherwise you can’t be free,

you can’t be free to investigate,

to find out for yourself what meditation means.

This question of meditation (not how to meditate, that is childish),

the question of meditation is a question of authority,

but where there is authority, there can be no freedom.

So if one wants to go into the question of meditation,

One wants to be completely, inwardly, free from authority.

There is no one to guide you,

to tell you that you are progressing or to encourage you.

You have to stand completely alone in meditation.

This light can only come to you when you understand what you are.

What you are, that is self-awareness, to know what you are,

not according to psychologists, some philosopher,

but to be aware of your own nature, your own structure,

of your own thinking, feeling.

Therefore self-knowing becomes extraordinarily important,

not the description given by another, but what actually is,

what you are … not what you think you are,

or what you think you should be,

but what actually is going on.

To be aware of oneself without any choice,

allowing the whole movement of the self to flower.

As you observe, it undergoes a radical transformation.