Abhishek Singha Roy is a college student in his early twenties and resides in the outskirts of Kolkata. He feels that discovering the beauty of J Krishnamurti’s work has been like a rebirth. Abhishek is interested in philosophy and feels passionately about the need for reform in education.
A few months ago, I stumbled upon a random YouTube video. Keen to move on with other things, I believed it wouldn’t take long for me to get the essence and end the video after a while.
I was wrong. I saw a resilient yet persuasive old man delivering a talk about ‘observation’ in the most amiable way possible. His words lingered in my mind. It led me to pause and reflect on each attempt of me shamming to myself.
Where did I learn all this? Krishnamurti to me isn’t just a placebo. His piercing insights have urged a switcheroo in my incoherent, breeding thoughts.
The most striking observation I had from his commentaries on living was how we ourselves have placed barriers to the possibilities of pure perception. Those possibilities have been ceaselessly deterred by our stubborn holding onto identities and ‘ticking the boxes’ set by society.
Albeit in this timeline, men will prattle on about how identifying with more can potentially make them integral as a whole. Krishnamurti suggested that the ‘observer is the observed’. Man’s reflections are confined within the images he creates. Observation that is embedded in evaluation and accumulation prevents the process of observing, seeing.
The gnawing pain of isolation is fuelled by our ignorance. We don’t understand how being alone is not tantamount to being lonely. Being alone means that the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society. We resort to revolt within society in order to make it a little better. But that is like the revolt of prisoners to improve their lives within the prison walls!
After turning down the privilege of having disciples, Krishnamurti added, the moment one chooses to follow, one ceases to see and find the truth for oneself. Truth is indeed a pathless land and so the real wisdom lies in constant unlearning. Then one is truly free to inquire, see, observe without any baggage. Isn’t that the only revolution?
