PARTY PHYSICAL REALM

Just been revisiting my wise old friend J. Krishnamurti who my other wise friend Peter Hall (of delectable North Fitzroy eatery Munsterhaus) introduced me to by way of a book right when I needed him, late 2009. Now I'm living with Pete and have been perusing his copy of The Awakening of Intelligence. Here's an excerpt :

It is only the still mind that understands that in a quiet mind there is a movement that is totally different, that is of a different dimension, of a different quality. That can never be put into words, because it is indescribable. What can be described is what comes up to this point, the point when you have laid the foundation and seen the necessity, the truth and the beauty of a still mind

For most of us beauty is in something, in a building, in a cloud, in the shape of a tree, in a beautiful face. Is beauty "out there", or is it a quality of mind that has no self-centred activity? Because like joy, the understanding of beauty is essential in meditation. Beauty is really the total abondonment of the "me", and the eyes that have abandoned the "me" can see the trees, the beauty of it all, and the loveliness of the cloud; that happens when there is no centre as the "me". It happens to each one of us doesn't it? - when you see a lovely mountain, when you come upon it suddenly, there it is! Everything has been pushed aside except the majesty of that hill. That mountain, that tree, absorbs you completely.........

So beauty means sensitivity - a body that is sensitive, which means the right diet, the right way of living, and you have all this if you have gone that far. I hope you will, or are doing it now; then the mind will inevitably and naturally, unknowingly become quiet.

You can't make the mind quiet, because you are the mischief maker, you are yourself disturbed, anxious, confused - how can you make the mind quiet? But when you understand what quietness is, when you understand what confusion is, what sorrow is and whether sorrow can ever end, and when you understand pleasure, then out of that comes an extraordinarily quiet mind; you don't have to seek it. You must begin at the beginning and the first step is the last step, and this is meditation.