Thank you so much to friends who joined us on Sunday 10 July at Kolkata Centre for an informal get-together. We listened to an interesting audio (Saanen 1971) where Krishna ji responds to a question related to harmony of mind, heart and body. Here below are the links.
Link for video: https://jkrishnamurti.org/content/harmony-mind-heart-and-body-0
Link for transcript: https://jkrishnamurti.org/content/harmony-mind-heart-and-body
Krishna ji seems to suggest that being able to see things as they are is a start. ‘So one lives a distorted life in which there is no harmony, a life of contradiction, a life of hypocrisy, thinking one thing, doing another, saying something else. All those are indications of contradiction, imbalance, a life of no harmony. That is the fact. Now I want to find out how to change that fact, not how to become the ideal which I have projected – you see the difference? I am concerned with changing ‘what is’ – and is it possible to change a mind, a heart and the body which have acquired a great many habits – smoking, drinking, you know, habits.’
Krishnaji then devoted a lot of time to the central issue in all this which is watching, observation. ‘We began by asking what a harmonious life is. We said we live a disharmonious life and not a harmonious life. And that is a fact. Now I am left with this, that I live a life which is not harmonious and I see why it is not. It is contradictory and so on, so on. Then I say, who is watching all this? If thought is watching, it is still the past watching. Is there watching which is not the result of thought?’
So, clearly there is much more to explore. Krishnaji concludes with the following words. ‘When you watch the nature and the structure of thought, see where it is important, where it is not important, see the truth of that – you follow? – the truth of its operation and its non-operation, then there is a different kind of watching. That watching has no time. It is not based on time. If you apply your mind, your awareness, you will discover it for yourself.’
Perhaps, as we reflect, we will be able to comprehend the significance of ‘watching without thought.’ That seems to hold the key. Watching, observation, intelligence, perception, awareness seem to hold the key to harmony. Observing without the ‘me’.
Is there a watching, an observation in which the totality of ‘what is’ (including the ‘me’) is revealed?
