Word: krishnamurti
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Krishnamurti dispelled his other-wordly appearance with a pragmatic approach to "the new awareness." One doesn't have to become a monk, he argued. "All that is required is about two hours a day dedicated to complete consciousness, and you will be able to look at your boss with a new perspective." It is not a retreat from the real world which is necessary, but rather a new vitality...
...question remained whether the world was a bleak as Krishnamurti made it out to be. Aren't there moments of pleasure and happiness...
According to the philosopher, no one knows happiness -- absence of conflict -- until he becomes aware, and awareness is impossible in a world of pleasure-seekers. "Don't get me wrong," Krishnamurti said, "I don't mean this in any puritanical sense." There are instants of unutterable pleasure, he admitted, but how long does such a moment last in the sexual act? Before one makes love, he continued, one anticipates the pleasure; afterwards there is only the memory and longing...
...Krishnamurti described looking at a leaf (most quasi-philosophers usually aim at larger objects like a tree, but our man was being more selective). "While looking at a leaf my attention is distracted by other images which flash through my mind," he said. By following these images to their conclusion, Krishnamurti clears his mind of the day's debris and returns to the leaf with all his powers of concentration. He is convinced that if a man did this with every idea which crossed his mind during the day, he would have explored everything in his unconscious. He would have...
...left Krishnamurti where I found him, in a leather chair surrounded by students eager to impress him with their knowledge of obscure Indian cults. Not until a few days later did I realize what an impact he had made on me. I was walking through the Yard when I happened to be struck by the slender, bright-white spire of Mem Church slicing the dark sky. I stopped, looked, and tried to concentrate. "What the hell are you doing standing like a fool gazing at the sky?" I asked myself. There was an embarrassing silence. Then it started raining...