Overview
Jiddu Krishnamurti’s approach to meditation rejects traditional techniques and emphasizes choiceless awareness—observing all experience without judgment, preference, or division between observer and observed.
Critique of Traditional Meditation Methods
- Krishnamurti opposed repetitive systems, mantras, or prescribed postures for meditation.
- He argued such practices condition the mind, making it mechanical, dull, and dependent.
Choiceless Awareness
- Meditation is described as choiceless awareness—observing thoughts, emotions, and surroundings without preference or judgment.
- This observation involves no attempt to change, escape from, or condemn what is seen.
- The distinction between the observer and the observed dissolves in true observation.
- Awareness occurs without effort, technique, or guidance from a teacher.
Nature of the Mind and Conditioning
- The mind is habitually conditioned to choose, to seek pleasure, and to avoid discomfort, resulting in conflict and lack of inner silence.
- Choiceless awareness is free from conflict because it does not divide experience or pursue desired states.
Practicing Choiceless Awareness
- One should notice unawareness and watch how the mind moves, escapes, compares, and judges.
- Observation is compared to watching a leaf float by—without naming, resisting, or interfering.
- True awareness arises from complete listening and seeing, without psychological commentary or ego involvement.
Freedom Versus Discipline
- Awareness is born from freedom, not from discipline, effort, or the desire to achieve a certain state through meditation.
- Seeking outcomes from awareness reduces it to a goal-oriented pursuit and destroys true awareness.
Intimacy with Life
- Real meditation is being fully present with life’s experiences—sunrise, emotions, sounds—without the urge to change or possess them.
- Sacredness is found in this intimacy with what is, not in rituals or external practices.
The Observer and the Observed
- Krishnamurti emphasized that there is no separate self observing experience; the observer is the observed.
- Remaining with emotions like anger, without analysis or suppression, dissolves the division and brings stillness.
Stillness and Perception
- When the mind is naturally still due to understanding, a deeper clarity and intelligence emerge.
- Truth and insight arise not through effort but through effortless stillness and direct perception.
Awareness Versus Concentration
- Concentration narrows attention to an object, excluding distractions.
- Awareness is inclusive, spacious, and alert, accommodating all experience without selection.
Meditation as Discovery
- Meditation is described as a state of being, not a process of doing or following a path.
- In complete awareness, all mental fragmentation dissolves, leading to insight and peace.
- The sacred is found in the vast silence of an undivided, attentive mind.