Chayacitra

=== JKrishnamurti.org – Daily Quote ===

Can I look at life, at it all, without the image?

Is it possible to observe without the thinker? I look at everything with an image, with a symbol, with memory, with knowledge. I look at my friend, at my wife, at my neighbour, at the boss, with the image which thought has built. I look at my wife with the image I have about her, and she looks at me with the image she has about me: the relationship is between these two images. This is a fact – it’s not an invention on my part – it’s a fact!

Thought has built these symbols, images, ideas. Can I look, at first, at a tree, at a flower, at the sky, at the cloud, without an image? The image of the tree is the word I have learnt which gives a certain name to the tree, tells its species, and recalls its beauty. Can I look at that tree, at that cloud, at that flower, without thought, without the image? That’s fairly easy to do, if you have done it.

But can I look – without the image – at a human being with whom I am intimate, whom I consider as wife, husband, child? If I can’t, there is no real relationship: the only relationship is between the images that we both have. So can I look at life – the clouds, the stars, the trees, the river, the bird on the wing, my wife, my child, my neighbour, this whole earth – can I look at it all without the image?

Though you have insulted me, though you have hurt me, though you have said nasty things about me or praised me, can I look at you without the image or the memory of what you have done and said to me?

The Collected Works, Vol. XVI – 169

=== Thoughts ===

Images are the single most destructive product of the human mind, of thought. They create a division, or a boundary between ourselves and our environment- between people, objects, and events.

Wherever there’s an image, there can be no real relationship, since the image, quite obviously created by the subjective mind, with all it’s prejudices, preconceptions, and limitations, is interposed between the “self” and “other” (another false dichotomy).

Rather than perceiving things as they actually exist, or the actual, the image forces us to experience reality as an interpretation, an extraction, and a false construction, colored by personal history.

It’s our responsibility, as moral human beings, to NOT create an image.

It’s our responsibility, as moral human beings, to REFUSE to cling to prejudices, personal opinions, and even subjective conclusions.

In an ever-changing environment, surrounded by people, objects, and events that are constantly in flux (which is quite obvious to anyone who’s paid even a shred of attention to their surroundings), why SHOULD we cling to private conclusions, prejudices, and rigid belief systems?

What is so difficult about admitting that “I do not know”?

Attempting to meet the now with an image, constructed upon past experience, leaves no hope for perceiving the actual. You’re simply seeing things according to previous experience, to your own petty little prejudices, your selfish beliefs, and egotistical conclusions.

Don’t you want to see people, events, places, and things for what they really are?

Or are you so attached to your selfish little perspective and your rampant, unwarranted, and illogical attachment to images, that you refuse to even make the attempt?

The choice is yours to make.

The cat’s face, it’s been said, is all eye.

I consider myself quite fortunate, having had the pleasure of living with cats, from whom I think a great deal could be learned.

They possess a certain quality of passion, of attentiveness, yet a fierce and tenacious independent spirit, one which refuses to be tamed, tempered, or even molded, like that of the dog.

It’s no wonder to me that cats were worshipped by the ancient Egyptians and yet persecuted by historical Christians.

Society’s treatment of cats- who steadfastly refuse conformity, assimilation, subjugation and supplication- provides quite an illumination of motive, value, and above all, inclination.

=== JKrishnamurti.org – Daily Quote ===

If I had no concept about myself, what would happen to me?

Why have I, who have lived forty, fifty, sixty – or whatever number of years it is that one has lived – why have I gathered this store-houseful of what I think, what I feel, what I am, what I should be, this accumulation of experience, knowledge? And if I had not done that, what would happen? Do you understand? If I had no concept about myself, what would happen to me? I would be lost, wouldn’t I? I would be uncertain, terribly frightened of life. So I build an image, a myth, a concept, a conclusion about myself, because without this framework life would become for me utterly meaningless, uncertain, fearful: there would be no security. I may be secure outwardly; I may have a job, a house, and all the rest of it, but inwardly also I want to be completely secure. And it is the desire to be secure that compels me to build this image of myself, which is verbal. Do you understand? It has no reality at all; it is merely a concept, a memory, an idea, a conclusion.

The Collected Works, Vol. XV – 193

=== Thoughts ===

If this doesn’t make you think about “identity” or the “self”, then I don’t know what possibly could.

Why do we spend our entire lives constructing such a well-developed internal narrative, this long-running monologue, building up ideas about who we are, what we like, what we believe, and all the rest?

What is everyone so afraid of that they simply won’t allow themselves to say “I do not know”?

And why do we focus so much attention on our thoughts, our beliefs, and our conceptions- all of which exist only inside our own heads- rather than the one that truly matters, the one thing that affects both everyone and everything around us

Why do we choose to ignore our own behavior?

Without looking into this, without seeing around the “I”, beyond the “self”, and into the great unknown, how could you ever expect to understand that which we call “reality”, “truth”, or “God”?

It’s only once the self has been completely put aside that that which is truly real can come into being.

What is it about the Sunset that so captures the imagination?

Perhaps a fear- That beauty should never return- Or even a hint at our own eminent ends?

What is it about those final fading moments, when the day is all but spent, that so silences the mind?

Perhaps a promise- That beauty should always return- Or even a hint that our own eminent ends are no more than another nightfall, to be scattered by the radiant light and the daybreak of dawn.

An emphatic ocean of emptiness, “Sunyata”.

Humble contours and lazy, ambling lines.

Without pretense, without a sound.

Unfolding into the infinite.