Comment

Comment by Bill Meredith on May 18, 2009 at 8:49am

Introduction to Thinking At the Edge
By Eugene T. Gendlin, Ph.D.
University of Chicago

The Folio, Vol. 19 No. 1, 2004

{...}
In my philosophy I have developed a new use of bodily-sourced language with which we can speak directly from the body about many things — especially about the body and language.

Language is deeply rooted in the human body in a way that is not commonly understood. Language does not consist just of the words. The situations in which we find ourselves, the body, and the language form a single system together. Language is implicit in the human process of living. The words we need to say arrive directly from the body. I have a bodily sense of what I am about to say. If I lose hold of that, I can’t say it. If I have the sense of what I want to say, then all I do is open my mouth and rely on the words that will come. Language is deeply rooted in the way we physically exist in our interactive situations.

The common situations in a culture each have their appropriate phrases, a cluster of possible sayings that one might need. The words mean the effect they have when they are used in a situation. Our language and the common situations constitute a single system together. However, this bodily link between words and situations applies no less when the situation is uncommon and what needs to be said has no established words and phrases.

All living bodies create and imply their own next steps. That is what living is, the creating of next steps. The body knows to exhale after inhaling, and to search for food when hungry. And, in a new situation new next steps come from the body. Even an ant on a fuzzy rug crawls in an odd way in which it has never crawled before. When we sense something that doesn’t fit the common repertory and nevertheless wants to be said, the body is implying new actions and new phrases.

TAE empowers people to think and speak.
We find that when people forgo the usual big vague words and common phrases, then — from their bodily sense — quite fresh colorful new phrases come. These phrases form in such a way that they say what is new from the bodily sense. There is no way to say “all” of it, no sentence that will be simply equal, no sentence which will simply “represent” what is sensed. But what can happen is better than a perfect copy. One strand emerges from the bodily sense, and then another and another. What needs to be said expands! What we say doesn’t represent the bodily sense. Rather it carries the body forward.

First it must be recognized that no established word or phrase will ever be able to say what needs to be said. The person can be freed from trying to “translate” the felt sense into regular sayings. Yet what a person wanted a word to mean can be expressed but only in one or more whole sentences that use words in a fresh and creative way. In certain kinds of sentences a word can go beyond its usual meaning, so that it speaks from the felt sense. When one has tried several words and found that each of them fails to say what needs to be said, fresh sentences can say what one wished the word to mean. Now it turns out that each of the rejected words gives rise to very different fresh sentences. Each pulls out something different from the felt sense. In this way, with some further developments, what was one single fuzzy sense can engender six or seven terms. These terms bring their own interrelations, usually a quite new patterning. This constitutes a whole new territory where previously there was only a single implicit meaning. One can move in the field created by these terms. Now one can enter further into the experiential sense of each strand and generate even more precise terms. People find that never again are they just unable to speak from this felt sense.

{...}
http://www.focusing.org/tae-intro.html

Comment by Bill Meredith on May 16, 2009 at 7:49am

Eyes of Forgotten Children
By Erica Letzerich

Strive to give back the Divine in yourselves to the Divine in the All.
Plotinus

Could divine wisdom or theosophy be a written system? Would that not contradict the very meaning of the word theosophy? How could intellectual knowledge which is superficial and absent of wisdom be theosophy? Can we win in the battlefield of free thinking and do not surrender to the creation of dogmas?

For so long humanity is in constant but silent battle that seems to not have an end, and whose battlefield is within human mind. The battle between dogmas and freethinking is one of the major causes of conflicts. Two paths are unrolled: the path of those who lost in the battlefield and are prisoners and generators of dogmas, and the path of the freethinkers that are searching for the truth and do not associated it to dead letter.

Within the theosophical circles we can see the reflexes of such battle, and many have already surrendered to the powerful human tendency to dogmatize: quarrels, disagreements, original teachings, non original teachings, this is theosophy this is not theosophy etc. Exactly like Christians, Buddhists, and every other religious movement with intellectual division and conflicts.

Today the word theosophy is generally associated to a set of doctrines based upon the genesis presented into the Secret Doctrine of Blavatsky, and numerous have been the authors that have written books in an attempt to simplify and explain the so called theosophical system. Other interpretation common given for theosophy is the ancient wisdom-tradition, and also the wisdom underlining religion, philosophy and science or the perennial philosophy. A third interpretation is that theosophy is pure altruism, the realization of the oneness of life.

The Greek word theosophy has two compounds: Theos (god) and Sophia. In ancient Greece Sophia (wisdom) was one of Plato’s four cardinals Aretes (Virtues). According to Plato the spiritual harmony of the soul where related to the four cardinal virtues, which he considered expressions of the three basic energies of the Soul. Wisdom was an inner condition that would be an expression of one the three basic energies of the soul.

Divine Wisdom or Theosophy is related to the energies of the soul, consequently can be understood only from within, there are no words in any language able to express the Divine Wisdom or theosophy. You may learn by heart the whole system presented in the work of Blavatsky and in the work of others, you may write, debate, teach, and affirm this knowledge is theosophy. But you will be still trapped by the intellect, consequently unable to know what theosophy is. Theosophy, Divine Wisdom, ought to be a potential alive within human nature, consequently theosophy can’t be the lifeless letter, expressed in any book or writing.

Theosophy is a deep awareness of the unity of life of someone else’s suffering that is also our suffering. It is compassion, altruism and love. Can you teach love, compassion and altruism? You may describe it, transform into words, but you will never be able to make the other to experience it merely by intellectual discussions. It is only the ability to experience it that will teach someone what theosophy, Divine Wisdom, is.

Our great challenge in a world immersed in problems, where violence increases, wars, millions of children die every year of hunger is to try to realize theosophy from within and do not create dogmas. But if one cannot realize theosophy from within, can still be a fighter for freethinking and do not surrender to the battle. Only the cultivation of an open mind, investigative and a pure heart would irrigate the field making possible to flourish theosophy ­ Divine Wisdom.

If you cannot see the light in the eyes of the forgotten children, because you cover it with the darkness of human indifference, you don't know what theosophy is. And many that spread the darkness of indifference think they know what theosophy is and that they are able to discuss about theosophy. But they cannot see, as they cannot see the light in the eyes of the forgotten children, which they are simply generating dogmas, divisions, illusions, and that is not theosophy. Theosophy is the ability to see the light in the eyes of the forgotten children because their hopes, their dreams, their pain and happiness are also our hopes our dreams our pain and happiness.

http://teozofija.info/Theosophy_World.htm

Comment by Bill Meredith on May 12, 2009 at 6:40pm

The Freedom of the Will

There is indeed freedom. When we enter the world of
the Real we do experience freedom, not the illusion of free-
dom which was 'to do as we liked,' to have our own way, to
choose without compulsion, but a true Freedom in which we
are free because there is nothing outside us to limit or
compel. As long in the illusion of our world-image we
imagined ourselves to be separate individuals with a will of
our own, surrounded by a world full of opposition and of
other creatures with wills of their own, our demand for
freedom was as impossible as would be the demand of a
swimmer that the water should not wet him. In our very
assertion of individuality, in our separateness we are unfree,
since we are limited by all that which we are not, influenced,
opposed and compelled by the surroundings in which we live,
by the character with which we identify ourselves, Our very
physical existence makes us unfree, we are bound in one
place and can only move about on the face of the earth by
the aid of complicated technical means. When a man says
'I am free' his very assertion is a contradiction, since 'I'
can never be free and Freedom comes only when 'I' is no
longer. It comes in the world of Reality when we are indeed
no longer the separate creature, the individual separate from
a surrounding world, but when we are That which is all
things past and present. In That we are free.
Nothing now can limit or compel. We are the road on
which we walk as well as the man we meet and the stream we
have to cross. When suffering or misfortune comes to us
we still are free, since we are that which hurts us as well as
the one who took that which was ours. Here then is freedom,
when Nature by her laws no longer limits or compels us, when
we are Nature and her laws our will, when man no more
opposes or restrains our will, since we are all men. The
phantom freedom, for which we so loundly clamoured when
we were bound in illusion, now seems a paltry and a petty
thing, impossible and full of contradictions. In the joy of
our true Freedom, we no longer need it, since we are That
which contains it and infinitely more. Who would desire
a thing when he is all things, and what greater freedom can
there be than that which becomes ours when we are ultimate
Reality, beyond which and outside which nothing is? Then
are freedom and necessity seen as one, necessity the way in
which freedom appears to man, bound in illusion.
Knowing that Freedom we are invincible. Nature in the
strength of her elements may oppose us, man in his violence
imprison and humiliate us, all we have may be taken from us
and yet we shall be rich beyond imagination, being all things,
and live in utter freedom, since we are prison as well as
prisoner. Our will is free when it no more desires to do
this or the other thing, but when it knows that whatever
happpens is its own expression. Such is the Freedom of the
Will.

--Van der Leeuw, J.J. THE CONQUEST OF ILLUSION; Alfred A. Knopf: London and New York; 1928, p175-176

Comment by Bill Meredith on May 11, 2009 at 6:04am

Native American Religions

Native American religions recognize that the natural world is pervaded by the primary generative spiritual forces. In the Native American world view, all beings are related, both physically and emotionally, and there is no sharp distinction between natural and supernatural entities. This world with its divine powers is symbolized in ritual by the six directions: North, South, East, West, the zenith, and the nadir, and by the living entities which represent them. Hence the zenith is understood as Grandfather (day) Sky, represented by Father Sun and the Thunderbirds; the night sky, especially Grandmother Moon, is understood as female. The nadir is Mother or Grandmother Earth, including all of her aspects which give life and nourishment: Water, Corn Mother, Buffalo Mother, etc. In many modern Native American cultures, the totality of the spiritual forces may be referred to by a single term, examples being K'che Manitou in the Ojibwa language of the Algonquin and Wakan Tanka in Lakot of the Sioux.

The goal of Native American religions is wholeness, to bring individuals, the community, and all their relations (Earth, plants, animals, spirits) into harmonious balance, to complete the circles of life, to walk in beauty. Native American rituals are oriented toward communal wholeness. Thus, the ritual use of tobacco, unique to the Americas, creates communion both among the participants and with the sacred beings to whom tobacco is offered in the sacred pipe. In many rituals, the participants strip themselves to their essential being in order to approach the spirits with humility and openness. Rituals of the sweat lodge, fasting, the sun dance, the vision quest, and those using psychoactive substances all serve to create the means for direct apprehension and communication with spiritual beings. Through these means, individuals develop relationships with spiritual entities that enable them to successfully live their lives for the good of their communities.

Shamanism is widespread in most traditional religions. The shaman is specially gifted with the ability to communicate with the spiritual world. Since the unseen spiritual forces are recognized as in control of many phenomena on earth, a shaman may be called upon to heal physical and mental illness, to ferret out criminals, or to discover the reason for bad luck. The shaman may go into a trance for many hours, accompanied by dancing and the presentation of ritual objects. Other participants may join in the trance as well, as they try to cure the afflicted soul.

http://www.unification.net/ws/wsintr4.htm

Comment by Bill Meredith on May 7, 2009 at 8:27am

If those who lead you say to you, "See, the Kingdom is in the sky," then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, "It is in the sea," then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.

- (All the sayings of Jesus gathered from ancient sources and compiled into a single volume for the first time. Compiled by Ricky Alan Mayotte)

From /The Complete Jesus./ (Pg 71) Jesus

Comment by Bill Meredith on May 6, 2009 at 7:18am

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer


WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

-- Walt Whitman

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/2312-Walt-Whitman-When-I-Heard-the-Learn-d-Astronomer

Comment by Bill Meredith on May 5, 2009 at 8:14am

Author's Foreword to

THINKING and DESTINY [by Harold Waldwin Percival]


(...)
Here is a sketch of some experiences of my early life:

Rhythm was my first feeling of connection with this physical world. Later on I could feel inside the body, and I could hear voices. I understood the meaning of the sounds made by the voices; I did not see anything, but I, as feeling, could get the meaning of any of the word-sounds expressed, by the rhythm; and my feeling gave the form and color of the objects which were described by words. When I could use the sense of sight and could see objects, I found the forms and appearances which I, as feeling, had felt, to be in approximate agreement with what I had apprehended. When I was able to use the senses of sight, hearing, taste and smell and could ask and answer questions, I found myself to be a stranger in a strange world. I knew I was not the body I lived in, but no one could tell me who or what I was or where I came from, and most of those whom I questioned seemed to believe they were the bodies in which they lived.

I realized that I was in a body from which I could not free myself. I was lost, alone, and in a sorry state of sadness. Repeated happenings and experiences convinced me that things were not what they appeared to be; that there is continued change; that there is no permanence of anything; that people often said the opposite of what they really meant. Children played games they called "make-believe" or "let us pretend." Children played, men and women practiced make-believe and pretense; comparatively few people were really truthful and sincere. There was waste in human effort, and appearances did not last. Appearances were not made to last. I asked myself: How should things be made that will last, and made without waste and disorder? Another part of myself answered: First, know what you want; see and steadily hold in mind the form in which you would have what you want. Then think and will and speak that into appearance, and what you think will be gathered from the invisible atmosphere and fixed into and around that form. I did not then think in these words, but these words express what I then thought. I felt confident I could do that, and at once tried and tried long. I failed. On failing I felt disgraced, degraded, and I was ashamed.

I could not help being observant of events. What I heard people say about things that happened, particularly about death, did not seem reasonable. My parents were devout Christians. I heard it read and said that God made the world; that he created an immortal soul for each human body in the world; and that the soul who did not obey God would be cast into hell and would burn in fire and brimstone for ever and ever. I did not believe a word of that. It seemed too absurd for me to suppose or believe that any God or being could have made the world or have created me for the body in which I lived. I had burned my finger with a brimstone match, and I believed that the body could be burned to death; but I knew that I, what was conscious as I, could not be burned and could not die, that fire and brimstone could not kill me, though the pain from that burn was dreadful. I could sense danger, but I did not fear.

People did not seem to know 'why' or 'what', about life or about death. I knew that there must be a reason for everything that happened. I wanted to know the secrets of life and of death, and to live forever. I did not know why, but I could not help wanting that. I knew that there could be no night and day and life and death, and no world, unless there were wise ones who managed the world and night and day and life and death. However, I determined that my purpose would be to find those wise ones who would tell me how I should learn and what I should do, to be entrusted with the secrets of life and death. I would not even think of telling this, my firm resolve, because people would not understand; they would believe me to be foolish or insane. I was about seven years old at that time.

Fifteen or more years passed. I had noticed the different outlook on life of boys and girls, while they grew and changed into men and women, especially during their adolescence, and particularly that of my own. My views had changed, but my purpose--to find those who were wise, who knew, and from whom I could learn the secrets of life and death--was unchanged. I was sure of their existence; the world could not be, without them. In the ordering of events I could see that there must be a government and a management of the world, just as there must be the government of a country or a management of any business for these to continue. One day my mother asked me what I believed. Without hesitation I said: I know without doubt that justice rules the world, even though my own life seems to be evidence that it does not, because I can see no possibility of accomplishing what I inherently know, and what I most desire.

In that same year, in the spring of 1892, I read in a Sunday paper that a certain Madam Blavatsky had been a pupil of wise men in the East who were called Mahatmas; that through repeated lives on earth, they had attained to wisdom; that they possessed the secrets of life and death, and that they had caused Madam Blavatsky to form a Theosophical Society, through which their teachings could be given to the public. There would be a lecture that evening. I went. Later on I became an ardent member of the Society. The statement that there were wise men--by whatever names they were called--did not surprise me; that was only verbal evidence of what I inherently had been sure of as necessary for the advancement of man and for the direction and guidance of nature. I read all that I could about them. I thought of becoming a pupil of one of the wise men; but continued thinking led me to understand that the real way was not by any formal application to anybody, but to be myself fit and ready. I have not seen or heard from, nor have I had any contact with, 'the wise ones' such as I had conceived. I have had no teacher. Now I have a better understanding of such matters. The real 'Wise Ones' are Triune Selves, in The Realm of Permanence. I ceased connection with all societies.

From November of 1892 I passed through astonishing and crucial experiences, following which, in the spring of 1893, there occurred the most extraordinary event of my life. I had crossed 14th Street at 4th Avenue, in New York City. Cars and people were hurrying by. While stepping up to the northeast corner curbstone, Light, greater than that of myriads of suns opened in the center of my head. In that instant or point, eternities were apprehended. There was no time. Distance and dimensions were not in evidence. Nature was composed of units. I was conscious of the units of nature and of units as Intelligences. Within and beyond, so to say, there were greater and lesser Lights; the greater pervading the lesser Lights, which revealed the different kinds of units. The Lights were not of nature; they were Lights as Intelligences, Conscious Lights. Compared with the brightness or lightness of those Lights, the surrounding sunlight was a dense fog. And in and through all Lights and units and objects I was conscious of the Presence of Consciousness. I was conscious of Consciousness as the Ultimate and Absolute Reality, and conscious of the relation of things. I experienced no thrills, emotions, or ecstasy. Words fail utterly to describe or explain CONSCIOUSNESS. It would be futile to attempt description of the sublime grandeur and power and order and relation in poise of what I was then conscious. Twice during the next fourteen years, for a long time on each occasion, I was conscious of Consciousness. But during that time I was conscious of no more than I had been conscious of in that first moment.

Being conscious of Consciousness is the set of related words I have chosen as a phrase to speak of that most potent and remarkable moment of my life.

Consciousness is present in every unit. Therefore the presence of Consciousness makes every unit conscious as the function it performs in the degree in which it is conscious.

Being conscious of Consciousness reveals the 'unknown' to the one who has been so conscious. Then it will be the duty of that one to make known what he can of being conscious of Consciousness .

The great worth in being conscious of Consciousness is that it enables one to know about any subject, by thinking. Thinking is the steady holding of the Conscious Light within on the subject of the thinking. Briefly stated, thinking is of four stages: selecting the subject; holding the Conscious Light on that subject; focusing the Light; and, the focus of the Light. When the Light is focused, the subject is known. By this method, Thinking and Destiny has been written.
(...)

H.W.P.

New York, March 1946

http://www.thewordfoundation.org/b-TandD-foreward.htm

Comment by Bill Meredith on May 4, 2009 at 7:31am

Lecture given by J. Krishnamurti, in 1929, when he dissolved the Order of the Star of the East.
The Order of the Star in the East was founded in 1911 to proclaim the coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti was made Head of the Order. On August 2, 1929, the opening day of the annual Star Camp at Ommen, Holland, Krishnamurti dissolved the Order before 3000 members. Below is the full text of the talk he gave on that occasion. What he said then is equally valid today.

We are going to discuss this morning the dissolution of the Order of the Star. Many people will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, as I am going to explain.

You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of Truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to let him organize it."

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. You must climb towards the Truth, it cannot be "stepped down" or organized for you. Interest in ideas is mainly sustained by organizations, but organizations only awaken interest from without. Interest, which is not born out of love of Truth for its own sake, but aroused by an organization, is of no value. The organization becomes a framework into which its members can conveniently fit. They no longer strive after Truth or the mountain-top, but rather carve for themselves a convenient niche in which they put themselves, or let the organization place them, and consider that the organization will thereby lead them to Truth.

So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why the Order of the Star should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably form other Orders, you will continue to belong to other organizations searching for Truth. I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind, please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would take me to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of organization, merely mechanical, like the post or the telegraph. I would use a motor car or a steamship to travel, these are only physical mechanisms which have nothing whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality.

If an organization be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve it. No one has persuaded me to this decision.

This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this: not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be! I do not want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality.

Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come to a Camp or live in a damp country! I am speaking frankly because I want this settled once and for all. I do not want these childish discussions year after year.

One newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organization in which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act because, he said: "What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you." If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves? If I speak strongly, please do not misunderstand me, it is not through lack of compassion. If you go to a surgeon for an operation, is it not kindness on his part to operate even if he cause you pain? So, in like manner, if I speak straightly, it is not through lack of real affection - on the contrary.

As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him towards freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of the self.

Because I am free, unconditioned, whole-not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal - I desire those, who seek to understand me, to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears-from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want any thing from anyone.

You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers-a miracle-transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority.

You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyze what I am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage.

If I talk frankly, please remember that I do so, not out of harshness, not out of cruelty, not out of the enthusiasm of my purpose, but because I want you to understand what I am saying. That is the reason why you are here, and it would be a waste of time if I did not explain clearly, decisively, my point of view.

For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the World-Teacher. For eighteen years you have organized, you have looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would transform your whole life, who would give you a new understanding; for someone who would raise you to a new plane of life, who would give you a new encouragement, who would set you free-and now look what is happening! Consider, reason with yourselves, and discover in what way that belief has made you different-not with the superficial difference of the wearing of a badge, which is trivial, absurd. In what manner has such a belief swept away all the unessential things of life? That is the only way to judge: in what way are you freer, greater, more dangerous to every Society which is based on the false and the unessential? In what way have the members of this organization of the Star become different?

As I said, you have been preparing for eighteen years for me. I do not care if you believe that I am the World-Teacher or not. That is of very little importance. Since you belong to the organization of the Order of the Star, you have given your sympathy, your energy, acknowledging that Krishnamurti is the World-Teacher- partially or wholly: wholly for those who are really seeking, only partially for those who are satisfied with their own half-truths.


You have been preparing for eighteen years, and look how many difficulties there are in the way of your understanding, how many complications, how many trivial things. Your prejudices, your fears, your authorities, your churches new and old - all these, I maintain, are a barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I am saying.

This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face things as they are. You want to have your own gods - new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old - all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few.

So why have an organization?

Why have false, hypocritical people following me, the embodiment of Truth? Please remember that I am not saying something harsh or unkind, but we have reached a situation when you must face things as they are. I said last year that I would not compromise. Very few listened to me then. This year I have made it absolutely clear. I do not know how many thousands throughout the world- members of the Order-have been preparing for me for eighteen years, and yet now they are not willing to listen unconditionally, wholly, to what I say.

So why have an organization?

As I said before, my purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal, is the harmony between reason and love. This is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which is Life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom . And I, for whom you have been preparing for eighteen years, now say that you must be free of all these things, free from your complications, your entanglements. For this you need not have an organization based on spiritual belief. Why have an organization for five or ten people in the world who understand, who are struggling, who have put aside all trivial things? And for the weak people, there can be no organization to help them to find the Truth, because Truth is in everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there.

Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organizations become your chief concern. "How many members are there in it?" That is the first question I am asked by all newspaper reporters. "How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false." I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. As I said, if there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough.

Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.

So you will see how absurd is the whole structure that you have built, looking for external help, depending on others for your comfort, for your happiness, for your strength. These can only be found within yourselves.

So why have an organization?

You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things.

So why have an organization?

But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship- which you do not seem to know-there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice.


So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free.


© Copyright 1998 — KFA; All Rights Reserved
Krishnamurti Foundation of America,
founded in 1969 by J. Krishnamurti

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/star.htm

Comment by Bill Meredith on May 3, 2009 at 6:41am

The Journey of the Magi
by T.S.Eliot


"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Comment by Sue Crosby on May 2, 2009 at 2:12pm

Thank you for sharing these ponderings and stories. Happy Birthday to you.
Sue

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