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Meditation
What Is Meditation?
Conversation between Jiddu Krishnamurti
& Professor Allan W. Anderson
...continued from part seven
Anderson: Mr. Krishnamurti, we were discussing meditation in our conversation last time. And just as we concluded you brought up the very beautiful analogy from the flowering of a plant, and it struck me that the order that is intrinsic to the movement of the plant as it flowers is a revelatory image of order that you have been discussing. And we were talking also about the relation of meditation to understanding on the one hand and knowledge on the other, a distinction that's very, very rarely made.
Krishnamurti: Yes.
Anderson: Though in ordinary language we make the distinction perhaps unwittingly. It's there.
Krishnamurti: It's there.
Anderson: We have the two words.
Krishnamurti: Quite.
Anderson: But then to go into what the distinction is was something you were beginning to do. And perhaps we could...
Krishnamurti: We could go on from there.
Anderson: Yes.
Krishnamurti: Sir, we were talking, if I remember rightly about control.
Anderson: Yes.
Krishnamurti: And we said the controller is the controlled. And we went into that sufficiently. And when there is control there is direction. Direction implies will. Control implies will. And in the desire to control there is established a goal and a direction. Which means to carry out the decision made by will, and the carrying out is the duration of time; and therefore direction means time, control, will, and an end. All that's implied in the word control. Isn't it?
Anderson: Yes.
Krishnamurti: So what place has will in meditation and therefore in life?
Anderson: Yes, yes.
Krishnamurti: Or it has no place at all. That means there is no place for decision at all. Only seeing, doing. And that doesn't demand will, nor direction. You follow?
Anderson: Yes, I do, yes I do.
Krishnamurti: The beauty of this, sir, how it works out. When the mind sees the futility of control because it has understood the controller is the controlled, one fragment trying to dominate other fragments, and the dominant fragment is a part of other fragments, and therefore it is like going around in circles, a vicious circle, never getting out of it. So can there be a living without control? Without will, and without direction? There must be direction in the field of knowledge. Agreed. Otherwise I couldn't get home, to the place I live. I would lose the capacity to drive a car, ride a cycle, speak a language, all the technological things necessary in life. There, direction, calculation, decision in that field is necessary. Choice is necessary between this and that. Here where there is choice there is confusion, because there is no perception. Where there is perception there is no choice. Choice exists because the mind is confused between this and that. So, can a life be led without control, without will, without direction, that means time? And that is meditation. Not just a question, an interesting, perhaps a stimulating question, but a question however stimulating has no meaning by itself. It has a meaning in living.
Anderson: I was thinking about ordinary language usage again, as you were speaking. It's interesting isn't it, that when we regard that somebody has performed an action that we call willful, this is an action that has been undertaken without understanding.
Krishnamurti: Of course.
Anderson: So in the very distinction between will as a word and willful as an adjective, we have a hint of this distinction. But I'd like to ask you, if I could, about the relationship of will, for the moment, even though we are talking about meditation, we did regard that knowledge, in its own right, does have a proper career.
Krishnamurti: Of course.
Anderson: And we say that decision is referred to that. Choice is referred to that and therefore will is operative there.
Krishnamurti: And a direction and everything.
Anderson: And a direction and so on. And so we are, we are making a distinction here between will and its role in relation to the whole field of what we call loosely "know-how".
Krishnamurti: Know-how, knowledge.
Anderson: Yes. And the confusion that occurs when that activity, so necessary in its own right, is brought over into this.
Krishnamurti: That's right.
Anderson: And then we can't do either of them, really.
Krishnamurti: That's just it. Therefore we become inefficient.
Anderson: Yes.
Krishnamurti: Personal.
Anderson: But you see we don't think that. What we think is that we can be terribly efficient in knowledge and be what is called unspiritual. And be a success here and not be a success there. Whereas, if I understand you correctly, you don't fail in one or the other, you just fail period. It's a total failure if this confusion is made. You simply can't operate well even here no matter what it might look like in the short run.
Krishnamurti: As long as you are not completely in order inside yourself.
Anderson: Right. Exactly. So the very division that we make between inner and outer is itself a symptom of this terrible...
Krishnamurti: ...of thought which has divided the outer and the inner.
Continue to next part...
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