54) The key message of J.Krishnamurti according to me
The last few months I was involved a lot in reading the books/works of J.Krishnamurti .For me my first introduction to J.Krishnamurti ( shortly called J.K) came when I was young( around 15 years) and at that time I came across one of his books "Commentaries on Living-Vol-2 " and after reading one of the chapters in it titled " What is the true function of a Teacher ( Chapter -31 pg.142 )" I was completely bowled over by his insights and many days I sat silent dazed reflecting on the powerful insights I got from that chapter but then life went on its own course and while I continued to read other works of JK I could not understand what he was trying to convey and hence slowly my interest in his teachings slowly started to drop and I started pouring over the teachings of other Spiritual Gurus like Swami Chinmayananda , Swami Vivekananda , Swami Sivananda ,Ramana Maharshi etc etc . These teachers had a specific message ,their teachings had clear cut themes and one could at least understand what they were saying even if one could not follow it but the same could not be said of J.K whose talks looked quite vaguge , no clear themes and while what he says looked revolutionary , at the end we come back puzzled as to what is it we can do in life or confused as to how to follow his teachings in our life .
It was only recently i.e 6 months back when I started to read the book J.Krishnamurti: As I knew Him by Susunaga Weeraperuma ,that I got a sort of clear picture of what J.K was trying to say . Unlike other books on J.K this book is not dry and it is easy reading and full of interesting incidents in J.K's life as closely observed by the author .
Coming to the point only from this book I got a clear picture of what exactly J.K was trying to convey . I feel that the essence of J.K's message is this " Investigate the motive behind each and every action of yours and verify whether there is self-centeredness in any of your actions" . According to JK the root cause of violence whether small or big is due to self-centeredness in one form or the other . But at the same time he says that we cant force ourselves to be not self centered as that is artificial and will not work .He asks us to investigate each and every motive of ours without jumping in to conclusions and without suppressing them by following some spiritual practices like mantra chanting , meditations etc . By the way JK is not against Yoga , Pranayama etc and he says that one can follow any practice to keep the body fit and healthy and the mind calm and centered but that alone will not help us resolve the problems in our life and nothing will compensate for the self investigation of our own motives .You can call it the direct path or the path of vichara .That is the key of his teachings according to me .
Now in what way has this new insight from JK teachings impacted me ?
Previously I believed that doing spiritual sadhana in one form or the other was itself enough and hence I was doing my yoga practices , pranayama practices , mantra chanting , meditation , study of spiritual books , visit spiritual places etc etc but now I have understood that while all those activities have their own merit they will never compensate for the vichara or self investigation that I need to do myself to get clarity in my life .This is the sadhana I need to do for myself as only I know the contents of my thoughts and motives and no Guru / Book etc can do that work for me .So these days while I continue to do my yoga sadhana and my prayers I do it basically to keep my body fit and energetic and my mind calm but at the same time I keep constantly investigating each and every motive of mine , every thought of mine .This is the inner sadhana that I keep doing now silently . While it is easy to explain this sadhana ,it is quite difficult to put it in practice as the mind always resists self investigation and prefers to keep itself busy with some thing or the other - spiritual or worldly .
Now with this new understanding of J.K's message ,I am able to go understand what J.K is trying to say by reading his other books or listening to his various talks .Now they no longer appear to be vague as they used to be few years back .
So this is my understanding of the essence of J.K's teachings and I am really thankful to Susunaga Weeraperuma for helping me understand the same through his various books on JK and most notably the book J.Krishnamurti: As I knew him . I suggest people interested in the message of JK to first start reading books by Susunaga Weeraperuma .
The last few months I was involved a lot in reading the books/works of J.Krishnamurti .For me my first introduction to J.Krishnamurti ( shortly called J.K) came when I was young( around 15 years) and at that time I came across one of his books "Commentaries on Living-Vol-2 " and after reading one of the chapters in it titled " What is the true function of a Teacher ( Chapter -31 pg.142 )" I was completely bowled over by his insights and many days I sat silent dazed reflecting on the powerful insights I got from that chapter but then life went on its own course and while I continued to read other works of JK I could not understand what he was trying to convey and hence slowly my interest in his teachings slowly started to drop and I started pouring over the teachings of other Spiritual Gurus like Swami Chinmayananda , Swami Vivekananda , Swami Sivananda ,Ramana Maharshi etc etc . These teachers had a specific message ,their teachings had clear cut themes and one could at least understand what they were saying even if one could not follow it but the same could not be said of J.K whose talks looked quite vaguge , no clear themes and while what he says looked revolutionary , at the end we come back puzzled as to what is it we can do in life or confused as to how to follow his teachings in our life .
It was only recently i.e 6 months back when I started to read the book J.Krishnamurti: As I knew Him by Susunaga Weeraperuma ,that I got a sort of clear picture of what J.K was trying to say . Unlike other books on J.K this book is not dry and it is easy reading and full of interesting incidents in J.K's life as closely observed by the author .
Coming to the point only from this book I got a clear picture of what exactly J.K was trying to convey . I feel that the essence of J.K's message is this " Investigate the motive behind each and every action of yours and verify whether there is self-centeredness in any of your actions" . According to JK the root cause of violence whether small or big is due to self-centeredness in one form or the other . But at the same time he says that we cant force ourselves to be not self centered as that is artificial and will not work .He asks us to investigate each and every motive of ours without jumping in to conclusions and without suppressing them by following some spiritual practices like mantra chanting , meditations etc . By the way JK is not against Yoga , Pranayama etc and he says that one can follow any practice to keep the body fit and healthy and the mind calm and centered but that alone will not help us resolve the problems in our life and nothing will compensate for the self investigation of our own motives .You can call it the direct path or the path of vichara .That is the key of his teachings according to me .
Now in what way has this new insight from JK teachings impacted me ?
Previously I believed that doing spiritual sadhana in one form or the other was itself enough and hence I was doing my yoga practices , pranayama practices , mantra chanting , meditation , study of spiritual books , visit spiritual places etc etc but now I have understood that while all those activities have their own merit they will never compensate for the vichara or self investigation that I need to do myself to get clarity in my life .This is the sadhana I need to do for myself as only I know the contents of my thoughts and motives and no Guru / Book etc can do that work for me .So these days while I continue to do my yoga sadhana and my prayers I do it basically to keep my body fit and energetic and my mind calm but at the same time I keep constantly investigating each and every motive of mine , every thought of mine .This is the inner sadhana that I keep doing now silently . While it is easy to explain this sadhana ,it is quite difficult to put it in practice as the mind always resists self investigation and prefers to keep itself busy with some thing or the other - spiritual or worldly .
Now with this new understanding of J.K's message ,I am able to go understand what J.K is trying to say by reading his other books or listening to his various talks .Now they no longer appear to be vague as they used to be few years back .
So this is my understanding of the essence of J.K's teachings and I am really thankful to Susunaga Weeraperuma for helping me understand the same through his various books on JK and most notably the book J.Krishnamurti: As I knew him . I suggest people interested in the message of JK to first start reading books by Susunaga Weeraperuma .
