Hope Is For Tomorrow, Not Today
Interaction: U G Krishnamurti
|
I would like to have peace of mind.
UG: When do you expect to have it? It is always tomorrow, next year. Why? Why does tranquility, or quietness of the mind, or whatever you choose to call it, only happen tomorrow; why not now? Perhaps this disturbance this absence of tranquility is caused by the very sadhana (practice) itself.
Q: Whatever i do seems meaningless. There is no sense of satisfaction. I feel that there must be something higher than this.
UG: Suppose I say that this meaninglessness is all there is for you, all there can ever be for you. What will you do? The false and absurd goal you have before you is responsible for hat dissatisfaction and meaninglessness in you. Do you think life has any meaning? Obviously you don't. You have been told that there is meaning, hat there must be a meaning to life. Your notion of the “meaningful“ keeps you from facing this issue, and makes you feel that life has no meaning. If the idea of the meaningful is dropped, then you will see meaning in whatever you are doing in daily life.
Q: But we all have to have an idea of a better, more spiritual life.
UG: Whatever you want, even the so-called spiritual goals, is materialistic in value. What, if I may ask, is so spiritual about it? If you want to achieve a spiritual goal, the instrument you use will be the same which you use to achieve materialistic goals, namely thought. You don't actually do anything about it; you just think. So you are just thinking that there must be some purpose to life. And because thought is matter, its object the spiritual or meaningful life is also matter. Spirituality is materialism. In any event you do not act, you just think, which is to postpone. There is simply nothing else thought can do.
That instrument called thought, which you are employing to achieve your so-called spiritual goals, is the result of the past. Thought is born in time, it functions in time, and any results it seeks are bound to be in and of time also. And time is postponement, the tomorrow. Take, for example, the fact of selfish ness. It is condemned, while selflessness, a pure creation of thinking, is to be sought after.
Its realisation, however, lies always just ahead, tomorrow.
You will be selfless tomorrow, or the next day , or, if there is one, in the next life.
Why is it not possible for you to be totally free from selfishness now, today? And do you really want to be free from selfishness?
You do not, and that is why you have invented what you call selflessness, in the meantime remaining selfish. So, you are not going to be selfless at all, ever, because the instrument which you use to achieve that state of selflessness or peace of mind is materialistic in value.Whatever you do to be free from selfishness will only strengthen and fortify it. I am not saying that you should therefore be selfish, only that thinking about its abstract opposite, which you have called “selflessness“, is useless.
You have also been told that through meditation you can bring selfishness to an end. Actually , you are not meditating at all, just thinking about selflessness, and doing nothing to be selfless. I have taken that as an example, but all other examples are variations of the same thing. All activity along these lines is exactly the same. You must accept the simple fact that you do not want to be free from selfishness.
UG: When do you expect to have it? It is always tomorrow, next year. Why? Why does tranquility, or quietness of the mind, or whatever you choose to call it, only happen tomorrow; why not now? Perhaps this disturbance this absence of tranquility is caused by the very sadhana (practice) itself.
Q: Whatever i do seems meaningless. There is no sense of satisfaction. I feel that there must be something higher than this.
UG: Suppose I say that this meaninglessness is all there is for you, all there can ever be for you. What will you do? The false and absurd goal you have before you is responsible for hat dissatisfaction and meaninglessness in you. Do you think life has any meaning? Obviously you don't. You have been told that there is meaning, hat there must be a meaning to life. Your notion of the “meaningful“ keeps you from facing this issue, and makes you feel that life has no meaning. If the idea of the meaningful is dropped, then you will see meaning in whatever you are doing in daily life.
Q: But we all have to have an idea of a better, more spiritual life.
UG: Whatever you want, even the so-called spiritual goals, is materialistic in value. What, if I may ask, is so spiritual about it? If you want to achieve a spiritual goal, the instrument you use will be the same which you use to achieve materialistic goals, namely thought. You don't actually do anything about it; you just think. So you are just thinking that there must be some purpose to life. And because thought is matter, its object the spiritual or meaningful life is also matter. Spirituality is materialism. In any event you do not act, you just think, which is to postpone. There is simply nothing else thought can do.
That instrument called thought, which you are employing to achieve your so-called spiritual goals, is the result of the past. Thought is born in time, it functions in time, and any results it seeks are bound to be in and of time also. And time is postponement, the tomorrow. Take, for example, the fact of selfish ness. It is condemned, while selflessness, a pure creation of thinking, is to be sought after.
Its realisation, however, lies always just ahead, tomorrow.
You will be selfless tomorrow, or the next day , or, if there is one, in the next life.
Why is it not possible for you to be totally free from selfishness now, today? And do you really want to be free from selfishness?
You do not, and that is why you have invented what you call selflessness, in the meantime remaining selfish. So, you are not going to be selfless at all, ever, because the instrument which you use to achieve that state of selflessness or peace of mind is materialistic in value.Whatever you do to be free from selfishness will only strengthen and fortify it. I am not saying that you should therefore be selfish, only that thinking about its abstract opposite, which you have called “selflessness“, is useless.
You have also been told that through meditation you can bring selfishness to an end. Actually , you are not meditating at all, just thinking about selflessness, and doing nothing to be selfless. I have taken that as an example, but all other examples are variations of the same thing. All activity along these lines is exactly the same. You must accept the simple fact that you do not want to be free from selfishness.
