The Art of Real Meditation - J Krishnamurti

‘The mind in meditation is that which has freed itself without effort from the known. The known has fallen away as a leaf drops from the tree, and so the mind is motionless, in a state of silence; and such a mind alone can receive the immeasurable, the unknown

Throughout the ages man has invented numerous systems of meditation. These methods of meditation were ingeniously devised in the belief and expectation that his strivings might somehow result in spiritual salvation. In man’s religious quest there seems to have been an underlying belief that meditation was the path to reality or God. Having thus conceived God in his imagination, man strove vainly to find ways and means of ‘discovering’ that reality. Seldom was it realized that the imagined God as well as all the supposed paths leading thereto were all equally the clever fabrications of the human mind.

The examination of every known system of meditation can be very laborious and time-consuming. Fortunately, however, systems of meditation, both ancient and modern, fall conveniently into easily recognizable groups. Often what is advertised as the latest system of meditation turns out to be adaptation of an old technique by a new guru under a new name. For the purpose of this discussion it will suffice if we examine just one representative method of meditation of each type. At the end of this survey one should be able to recognize the salient characteristics and limitations of all these methods.

© "Living and Dying" by Susunaga Weeraperuma, published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 41 UA Bungalow Road, Jawahar Nagar, Delhi 110 007. Reprinted with permission.

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