608 Krishnamurti and the mind
One of my favourite subject matters is the mind. We are aware of the mind as the faculty that is 'limitless', that it at least has 'unlimited potential'. This is an orthodoxy that is widely accepted and hailed as a positive. The human mind is running our world, for better or for worse ... nothing happens in society, without there first having been a thought.
But how often do we ponder the potentially negative aspect of our mind? A seminal experience for me was to have had the opportunity to ask a question to the Master ... the answer I received was as much - if not more - than I had hoped for: It set me on my path to self-discovery ... I wrote an essay about the experience Q & A. Subsequently I wrote more on MIND 1 and MIND 2 in my book with no title ... instead three definitions for the term en.light.en.ment
I receive daily snippets of Krishnamurti's insights (more - in fact a full introduction to K - here) ... (and here, a most profound talk about meditation); today the nature of the mind is addressed ...
The mind which merely gathers experience remains very shallow
"Being aware does not mean learning and accumulating lessons from life; on the contrary, to be aware is to be without the scars of accumulated experience. After all, when the mind merely gathers experience according to its own wishes, it remains very shallow, superficial.
"A mind which is deeply observant does not get caught up in self-centred activities, and the mind is not observant if there is any action of condemnation or comparison. Comparison and condemnation do not bring understand-ing, rather they block understanding. To be aware is to observe, just to observe, without any self-identifying process. Such a mind is free of that hard core which is formed by self-centred activities."
Krishnamurti, The Collected Works, Vol. X", 17, Choiceless Awareness