If you set out to meditate, it will not be meditation. If you set out to be good, goodness will never flower.
Interpretation
True meditation and goodness arise naturally rather than through forceful intention.
Jiddu Krishnamurti emphasizes that when one approaches meditation or the pursuit of goodness with a rigid goal or expectation, the true essence of those practices is lost. Authentic experiences are born out of a natural unfolding rather than a calculated effort to achieve them. This quote encourages an open, effortless engagement with life instead of striving toward predefined outcomes.
In practice
This quote can inspire individuals in a meditation workshop to embrace a more relaxed approach.
The following of authority is the denial of intelligence. [It] may help us temporarily to cover up our difficulties and problems; but to avoid a problem is only to intensify it, and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.
If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.
All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.
Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.
No enemy is indeed so terrible as a man of genius.
Union in privacy (with one's wife); boldness; storing away useful items; watchfulness; and not easily trusting others; these five things are to be learned from a crow.
Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.
Blessed is the one who has arrived at infinite ignorance.
The end and aim of spying in all its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy; and this knowledge can only be derived, in the first instance, from the converted spy. Hence it is essential that the converted spy be treated with the utmost liberality.
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