Tag Archives: seeing

imperishable, unnameable, the unknowing

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words from my treasured teacher 4

 

J Krishnamurti

 

On July 20, 1961, Krishnamurti wrote an extraordinary account in his journal of the ineffable and unknowable as It was experienced through his body-mind. He struggles to find the appropriate words … the outpouring is, to my mind, pure poetry:

The room became full with that benediction. Now what followed is almost impossible to put down into words; words are such dead things, with definite set meaning and what took place was beyond all words and description. It was the centre of all creation; it was a purifying seriousness that cleansed the brain of every thought and feeling; its seriousness was as lightning which destroys and burns up; the profundity of it was not measurable, it was there immovable, impenetrable, a solidity that was light as the heavens. It was in the eyes, in the breath. It was in the eyes and the eyes could see. The eyes that saw, that looked were wholly different from the eyes of the organ and yet they were the same eyes. There was only seeing, the eyes that saw beyond time-space. There was impenetrable dignity and a peace that was the essence of all movement, action. No virtue touched it for it was beyond all virtue and the sanctions of man. There was love that was utterly perishable and so it had the delicacy of all new things, vulnerable, destructible and yet it was beyond all this. It was there imperishable, unnameable, the unknowing. No thought could ever penetrate it; no action could touch it. It was “pure”, untouched and so ever dyingly beautiful.

All this seemed to affect the brain; it was not as it was before. (Thought is such a trivial thing, necessary but trivial.) Because of it, relationship seems to have changed. As a terrific storm, a destructive earthquake gives a new course to the rivers, changes the landscape, digs deep into the earth, so it has levelled the contours of thought, changed the shape of the heart.

– J Krishnamurti,  Krishnamurti’s Notebook

It was coming upon such clearly authentic writings about the inescapable presence of the Unknowable that led me to Brockwood Park, the school Krishnamurti founded in Hampshire, England. I was a teacher and I found my perfect niche in this unbelievably rich and stimulating environment, where students are guided towards both academic excellence in their studies and deep inquiry into the workings of their thinking.

I revisit these words decades later with delight, and with inexpressible gratitude I can say, “Yes. It is exactly so: the shape of the heart is changed. And there is no way back.”

Other posts featuring Krishnamurti’s writing:

try it, do it

keep far away

words from my treasured teacher 1

Find a comprehensive selection of Krishnamurti’s books at the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust website.

 

the awakened eye

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the awakened eye is the eye that perceives without labeling
– we could also call it the innocent eye,
or the eye of beginner’s mind

[This is where I put on another cap – the one that’s splashed with color and whiffy with linseed oil.  Since some of you might well be artists too, I’m posting these links for you.  I hope you’ll visit the website and its blog.]

Many artists and artisans have understood that the practice of drawing, and engaging in creative encounters in the visual arts, can – by making explicit one’s conditioned responses – open the mind to another way of seeing, a way that transcends habitual dualistic assumptions.

Nondual awareness occurs when consciousness is no longer divided into subject and object; when an inexplicable wholeness pervades and one’s actions flow seamlessly from and as that Oneness.  Yet we have no language with which to speak of this seamlessness – even the phrase “encounters with nondual awareness” (the site’s subtitle) invites confusion, for, within the encounter there is no entity separate from that nonduality.  Logically and experientially it is impossible to speak of subject and object, and yet speak one must.

Throughout history there have been – and still are – many wise teachers who speak of this transcendence of duality as one’s original nature – an a-priori ‘beingness’ which we seem compelled to simultaneously seek and reject.  Their teachings are sometimes referred to as advaita, which means “one without a second” – or more simply, nonduality.  Regarded in this wider context the awakened eye is synonymous with the awakened I.

the awakened eye website and its blog have been conceived as places where ideas and teachings on this topic put forward by artists, educators, scientists, philosophers, sages and saints, can be accessed; a rich and varied smorgasbord of offerings.  No claim that the visual arts have exclusive rights to either the ‘eye’ or the ‘I’ that awakens is being put forward – they simply happen to make up my personal creative milieu, the playground in which I first encountered the mysterious merging and began a lifelong attempt to make sense of it.  Writers, poets, athletes and performers are similarly familiar with this experience of merging, often referring to it as flow.  Indeed it seems so common in human experience that it can hardly be seen as unusual.  Why then, is it so elusive for most of us?  Why does it vanish the minute it’s stalked?

Read more at the awakened eye …

Your comments and feedback are very welcome.  Enjoy!

the clear light of seeing

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You are the clear light of seeing that is already there when a thought arises to be seen.

You are the clear light of seeing that is already there when the idea of a body arises.

Where are you?  You are prior.  You have to be, before the thought “I am” can be.

~ Annette Nibley

what never changes