Spiritual Change or a Complete Revolution?



J. Krishnamurti - Book of Life - October 25

Emptiness itself brings about a complete revolution in consciousness...



For the complete mutation in consciousness to take place you must deny analysis and search, and no longer be under any influence - which is immensely difficult. The mind, seeing what is false, has put the false aside completely, not knowing what is true. f you already know what is true, then you are merely exchanging what you consider is false for what you imagine is true. There is no renunciation if you know what you are going to get in return. There is only renunciation when you drop something not knowing what is going to happen. That state of negation is completely necessary. Please follow this carefully, because if you have gone so far you will see that in that state of negation you discover what is true; because, negation is the emptying of consciousness of the known. After all, consciousness is based on knowledge, on experience, on racial inheritance, on memory, on the things one has experienced. Experiences are always of the past, operating on the present, being modified by the present and continuing into the future. All that is consciousness, the vast storehouse of centuries. It has its usefulness in mechanical living only. It would be absurd to deny all the scientific knowledge acquired through the long past. But to bring about a mutation in consciousness, a revolution in this whole structure, there must be complete emptiness. And that emptiness is possible only when there is the discovery, the actual seeing of what is false. Then you will see, if you have gone so far, that emptiness itself brings about a complete revolution in consciousness: it has taken place.

J. Krishnamurti - Book of Life - October 26

...A deliberate change...is no change at all...

In the very action of the individual changing, surely, the collective will also change. They are not two separate things opposed to each other, the individual and the collective, though certain political groups try to separate the two and to force the individual to conform to the so-called collective.

If we could unravel together the whole problem of change, how to bring about a change in the individual and what that change implies, then perhaps, in the very act of listening, participating in the inquiry, there might come about a change which is without your volition. For me, a deliberate change, a change which is compulsory, disciplinary, conformative, is no change at all. Force, influence, some new invention, propaganda, a fear, a motive compels you to change,-that is no change at all. And though intellectually you may agree very easily with this, I assure you that to fathom the actual nature of change without a motive is quite extraordinary.

J. Krishnamurti - Book of Life - October 27

Change outside of the field of thought...

You have changed your ideas, you have changed your thought, but thought is always conditioned. Whether it is the thought of Jesus, Buddha, X, Y, or Z, it is still thought, and therefore one thought can be in opposition to another thought; and when there is opposition, a conflict between two thoughts, the result is a modified continuity of thought. In other words, the change is still within the field of thought, and change within the field of thought is no change at all. One idea or set of ideas has merely been substituted for another.

Seeing this whole process, is it possible to leave thought and bring about a change outside the field of thought? All consciousness, surely, whether it is of the past, the present, or the future, is within the field of thought; and any change within that field, which sets the boundaries of the mind, is no real change. A radical change can take place only outside the field of thought, not within it, and the mind can leave the field only when it sees the confines, the boundaries of the field, and realizes that any change within the field is no change at all. This is real meditation.