65) Self Investigation is Hard Work - J.Krishnamurti

But, you see, that (i.e  self investigation ) is tremendously arduous; it is hard work, and you do not like hard work. You prefer an easy, indolent existence—earning a livelihood, accepting what comes, and just drifting along through life. Or, if you don’t do that, you practise some system, some form of compulsion, discipline. You get up every morning at 4 o’clock to meditate—by which you mean forcing yourself to concentrate, compelling your mind to conform to a particular pattern. You drill yourself incessantly, day after day, and that you consider hard work. But that, it seems to me, is a most childish way of working. It is not the work of a mature mind. By hard work I mean something totally different. It is hard work to examine every thought and feeling, every belief, without bringing in your own prejudices, without shielding yourself behind an idea, behind a conclusion, an explanation. It requires hard, clear thinking—which is real work. And most of us do not want to tackle that kind of work. We would rather accept a senseless belief, belong to an organized religion, go to the temple, the church, or the mosque, repeat some words and get a little sensation; and with these things we are satisfied.                
  - J. Krishnamurti

63) Be A Light Unto Yourself - J.Krishnamurti

To be aware is to watch your bodily activity, the way you walk, the way you sit, the movements of your hands; it is to hear the words you use, to observe all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your reactions. It includes awareness of the unconscious, with its traditions, its instinctual knowledge, and the immense sorrow it has accumulated-- not only personal sorrow, but the sorrow of man. You have to be aware of all that; and you cannot be aware of it if you are merely judging, evaluating, saying, "This is good and that is bad, this I will keep and that I will reject," all of which only makes the mind dull, insensitive.

From awareness comes attention. Attention flows from awareness when in that awareness there is no choice, no personal choosing, no experiencing... but merely observing. And, to observe, you must have in the mind a great deal of space. A mind that is caught in ambition, greed, envy, in the pursuit of pleasure and self-fulfillment, with its inevitable sorrow, pain, despair, anguish-- such a mind has no space in which to observe, to attend. It is crowded with its own desires, going round and round in its own backwaters of reaction. You cannot attend if your mind is not highly sensitive, sharp, reasonable, logical, sane, healthy, without the slightest shadow of neuroticism. The mind has to explore every corner of itself, leaving no spot uncovered, because if there is a single dark corner of one's mind which one is afraid to explore, from that springs illusion...

It is only in the state of attention that you can be a light unto yourself, and then every action of your daily life springs from that light-- every action-- whether you are doing your job, cooking, going for a walk, mending clothes, or what you will. This whole process is meditation....

-- J. Krishnamurti

60)  On being "Effective " and "Art of Living"

 Recently I saw the tamil Movie "Nanban( friend )" which is the Hindi remake of the movie "3 Idiots " and that movie talks about how youngsters are treated like machines in colleges and how due to pressure from parents and teachers youngsters are forced to take up things that does not resonate with their heart and end up as failures in life ( in totality ) though they may be successful in their jobs etc . I do not want to put forth a new theory of how schools and collages are to be or advice others how to be . All I am interested now in how effective as a Human being I am and what are the tools I need to equip myself with to be a more effective human being .  The word "Effective" may denote different meanings to different people and each one will have their own interpretation to what 'effective" means .For me I define "Effectiveness " with regard to how much smooth and productive I am with regard to people with  whom I deal in my day to day life - my close family members , my close students , my closest friends and other general people with whom I have to deal with life on functional basis like in banks ,shops ,  during travel etc etc . Do these people feel comfortable with me or my behavior ? Do I radiate peace , happiness , harmony in their presence ?  Do they feel empowered or dis empowered in my presence or in my actions .These are the questions I ask myself daily . I believe in quality rather than quantity . One of the reasons why I take fewer students for my Yoga is I know for certain that my quality will get diluted when I take more students . For me Yoga is not just on the mat daily for 1 hr or when I teach but it extends all throughout the day 24 hrs , 7 days a week and 365 days a year .I do not know what Enlightenment or Moksha or Nirvana or Samadhi  is . Each scripture has its own definition for the same and I am sorry I do not want to vomit what those scriptures say .I am committed only to improving my own personal effectiveness daily and I consider that art of living to be the greatest of arts and I want to live my life in this true spirit of effectiveness and I know I am not perfect and do have lot of areas to be improved and fine tuned but willing to put my effort ,time and energy in the same .

I conclude here with a quite of J.Krishnamurti on "Art of Living " .

"The Art of living is far greater than any other art . We never have spent perhaps a day or two , or a month to find out what is the art of living . There is an art of living . One has spent years and years to become a scientist ; you go to monasteries and spend all your life there ; or you spend your whole life earning a livelihood which is a vocation of limitation . To become a surgeon , a doctor , we spend ten to fourteen years and we never learn or even spend a day to find out what is the art of living ."

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 .