“Meditation is not a practice, following a system, a method; these only lead to the darkening of the mind… Meditation is without the meditator. The meditator interferes with his stupidities and vanities, ambitions and greed. The meditator is thought, nurtured in these conflicts and injuries, and thought in meditation must totally cease. This is the foundation for meditation.”

“Meditation is the emptying the mind of all thought, for thought and feeling dissipate energy; they are repetitive, producing mechanical activities which are a necessary part of existence. But they are only part, and thought and feeling cannot possibly enter into the immensity of life.”

“Meditation is the emptying of the mind of the known. It cannot be done by thought or by the hidden prompting of thought, nor by desire in the form of prayer, nor through the self-effacing hypnotism of words, images, hopes and vanities. All these have to come to an end, easily, without effort and choice, in the flame of awareness.”

“Thought shattering itself against its own nothingness is the explosion of meditation. This meditation has its own movement, directionless and so is causeless.”

“Meditation is never the further experiencing; it is not only the ending of experience, which is the response to challenge, great or small, but it is also the opening of the door to essence, opening the door of a furnace whose fire utterly destroys, without leaving any ashes.”

“In the flame of meditation thought ends and with it feeling, for neither is love. Without love, there is no essence; without it there are only ashes on which is based our existence. Out of the emptiness love is.”

“Without self-knowing all meditation leads to delusion and to varying forms of self-deception, factual and fancied.”

“Meditation according to a system is the avoidance of the fact of what you are; it is far more important to understand yourself, the constant changing of the facts about yourself, than to meditate in order to find god, have visions, sensations and other forms of entertainment.”

“Meditation is not a means to an end; there is no end, no arrival; it is a movement in time and out of time. Every system, method, binds thought to time but choiceless awareness of every thought and feeling, understanding their motives, their mechanism, allowing them to blossom is the beginning of meditation. When thought and feeling flourish and die, meditation is the movement beyond time. In this movement there is ecstasy; in complete emptiness there is love, and with love there is destruction and creation.”

“The flower is the form, the scent, the colour and the beauty that is the whole of it. Tear it to pieces actually or verbally, then there is no flower, only a remembrance of what was, which is never the flower. Meditation is the whole flower in its beauty, withering and living.”

“Without meditation the heart becomes a desert, a wasteland. Meditation has its own movement; you can’t direct it, shape it or force it, if you do, it ceases to be meditation. This movement ceases if you are merely an observer, if you are the experiencer. Meditation is the movement that destroys the observer, the experiencer; it’s a movement that is beyond all symbol, thought and feeling. Its rapidity is not measurable.”

“Meditation breaks down the frontiers of consciousness; it breaks down the mechanism of thought and the feeling which thought arouses. Meditation caught in a method, in a system of rewards and promises, cripples and tames energy. Meditation is the freeing of energy in abundance, and control, discipline and suppression spoil the purity of that energy. Meditation is the flame burning intensely without leaving any ashes. Words, feeling, thought, always leave ashes and to live on ashes is the way of the world. Meditation is danger for it destroys everything, nothing whatsoever is left, not even a whisper of desire, and in this vast, unfathomable emptiness there is creation and love.”

“Meditation is explosion in understanding. There is no understanding without self-knowing; learning about the self is not accumulating knowledge about it; gathering of knowledge prevents learning; learning is not an additive process; learning is from moment to moment, as is understanding. This total process of learning is explosion in meditation.”

“Meditation was like that river, only it had no beginning and no ending; it began and its ending was its beginning. There was no cause and its movement was its renewal. It was always new, it never gathered to become old; it never got sullied for it had no roots in time. It is good to meditate, not forcing it, not making any effort, beginning with a trickle and going beyond time and space, where thought and feeling cannot enter, where experience is not.”

J. Krishnamurti

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Meditation is generally practiced to find the peace of mind, to maintain the physical and mental health, to have extra-sensory experiences, to achieve certain spiritual goals, to find God and for many other such reasons. Such meditation is usually restricted to certain hours of a day and is practiced according to certain systems or methods. But what happens if meditation itself is the way of life? What is the nature of such meditation? What is its significance? What is the energy of such meditation? Is it an activity restricted to certain times or it covers the whole of life? What is meditation? Why should one meditate? Who is the meditator? How does one go about meditating? All such and many other related questions will be explored in this workshop. Also, the japas, prayers, mantras and other ways of worship will be enquired into. Participants can also ask their questions. Krishnamurti’s approach to meditation will be central to this enquiry. It is hoped that as the participants enquire into what is meditation, they will begin to meditate. Various selections from Krishnamurti’s works relevant to the theme of this workshop will be provided as a reading material to each participant. Also links to the relevant videos of Krishnamurti will be provided. Each participant is expected to devote these two days fully to the study in order to benefit maximum from this workshop.