Jñānāgni : The Fire of Wisdom

All that I am trying to do is to help you to discern for yourself that there is no salvation outside of yourself, that no Master, no society, can save you; that no church, no ceremony, no prayer can break down your self-created limitations and restrictions; that only through your own strenuous awareness is there the comprehension of the real, the permanent.
— J. Krishnamurti (source)

Self-knowledge or knowledge of truth is not had by resorting to a guru (preceptor) nor by the study of scripture, nor by good works; it is attained only by means of enquiry inspired by the company of wise and holy men. One’s inner light alone is the means, naught else.
— Yoga Vasishta (tr. by Swami Venkatesananda, p. 147)

Be free; hope for nothing from anyone. I am sure if you look back upon your lives you will find that you were always vainly trying to get help from others which never came. All the help that has come was from within yourselves.
— Swami Vivekananda (Complete Works, vol.2, p.324)

Weigh in the balance of your wisdom, the sense-pleasures on one side and the bliss of peace on the other. Whatever you determine to be the truth, seek that.

— Yoga Vasishta (tr. by Sw. Venkatesananda, p. 146)

Questioner: How would you cope with an incurable disease?

Krishnamurti: Most of us do not understand ourselves, our various tensions and conflicts, our hopes and fears, which often produce mental and physical disorders.

Of primary importance is psychological understanding and well being of the mind-heart, which then can deal with the accidents of disease. As a tool wears out so does the body, but those who cling to sensory values find this wasting away to be a sorrow beyond measure; they live for sensation and gratification and the fear of death and pain drives them to delusion. As long as thought-feeling is predominantly sensate there will be no end to delusion and fear; the world in its very nature being a distraction it is essential that the problem of delusion and health be approached patiently and wisely.

If we are organically diseased then let us cope with this condition as with all mechanism, in the best way possible. The psychological delusions, tensions, conflicts, maladjustments produce greater misery than organic disease. We try to eradicate symptoms rather than cause; the cause itself may be sensate value. There is no end to the gratification of the senses which only creates greater and greater turmoil, tension, fear and so on; such a living must culminate in mental and physical disorder or in war. Unless there is a radical change in value there will and must be ever increasing disharmony within, and so, without. This radical change in value must be brought about through understanding the psychological being; if you do not change, your delusions and ill health will inevitably increase; you will become unbalanced, depressed, giving continuous employment to physicians. If there is no deep revolution of values then disease and delusion become a distraction, an escape, giving opportunity for self-indulgence. We can unconditionally accept an incurable disease only when thought-feeling is able to transcend the value of time.

The predominance of sensory values cannot bring sanity and health. There must be a cleansing of the mind-heart which cannot be done by any outer agency. There must be self-awareness, a psychological tension. Tension is not necessarily harmful; there must be right exertion of the mind. It is only when tension is not properly utilized that it leads to psychological difficulties and delusions, to ill health and perversions. Tension of the right kind is essential for understanding; to be alertly and passively aware is to give full attention without the conflict of opposition. Only when this tension is not properly understood does it lead to difficulty; living, relationship, thought demand heightened sensitivity, a right tension. We are conscious of this tension and generally misread or avoid it thus preventing the understanding that it would bring. Tension or sensitivity can heal or destroy.

Life is complex and painful, a series of inner and outer conflicts. There must be an awareness of the mental and emotional attitudes which cause outward and physical disturbances. To understand them you must have time for quiet reflection; to be aware of your psychological states there must be periods of quiet solitude, a withdrawal from the noise and bustle of daily life and its routine This active stillness is essential not only for the well being of the mind-heart but for the discovery of the Real without which physical or moral well being is of little significance.

Unfortunately most of us give little time to serious and quiet self-recollectedness. We allow ourselves to become mechanical, thoughtlessly following routine, accepting and being driven by authority; we become mere cogs in the vast machine of the present culture. We have lost creativeness; there is no inward joy. What we are inwardly that we project outwardly. Mere cultivation of the outer does not bring about inward well being; only through constant self-awareness and self-knowledge can there be inward tranquillity. Without the Real, existence is conflict and pain.

Ojai 7th Public Talk 1945 (source)

The greatest problem for us is being a fool. We try not to be fool. All our life we resist and fear arises in us. A fool is one who acts with freedom, who has all freedom, isn’t it? That is how he could be a fool. If somebody has not experienced freedom, he cannot be a fool. Freedom is behind every fool. God loves you being a fool. He doesn’t love wise men so much. He is bored of their theses and philosophies. He is terribly bored by all the books written about him.

Make the whole life a game. A game means there is no purpose, there is nothing. Just take it lightly, easily. Play the game. That is worship, that is celebration. There is nothing that you do that will please God. There is nothing that you will do that will displease God. He is not waiting there with a staff, just waiting for you to do a mistake so He can punish you. … If He doesn’t want you to do something, you can never do it. It is impossible. He has allowed you so much freedom to do anything you like, means He says, “Don’t take anything seriously, it is all a game. It’s all like a dream.”

Whatever has happened till today, till this moment in your life, is like a dream. You cried, laughed, shouted and got angry at somebody, threw the dishes all over your floor, made all sorts of drama, haven’t you? You banged your heads against walls, or banged somebody else’s head. You yelled or made somebody yell at you. To God it is all fun. He is watching, it is all just a game.

…

A fool is one who is relaxed, who is free, who is happy. He is not bothered about what he gains, whether material or spiritual or whatever. What have you done with all that you have gained? Where has it led you? Nothing to gain, nothing to lose. By your doing, you are not pleasing or displeasing God. There is a saying in Sanskrit: “My original home is in heaven. I come here to rest.” I have come to the word to rest and play, to watch and to see what is happening here. In this world, you just be aware and alert and watch everything that is happening around you. It is great fun.

— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, God Loves Fun

Wishing all a happy fools day.

Let us thank and adore water…

I am the fresh taste of the water; I
The silver of the moon, the gold o’ the sun,
The word of worship in the Veds, the thrill
That passeth in the ether, and the strength
Of man’s shed seed. …
— The Lord says so in The Bhagavad Gita (ch.7)

There is no small pleasure in sweet water.
— Epistoloe Ex Ponto (II, 7, 73)

With true friends . . . even water drunk together is sweet enough.
— Chinese Proverb

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
— Francis of Assisi

And Allah has created from water every living creature: so of them is that which walks upon its belly, and of them is that which walks upon two feet, and of them is that which walks upon four; Allah creates what He pleases; surely Allah has power over all things.
— Qur’an 24.45

You visit the earth, and water it. You greatly enrich it.
The river of God is full of water. You provide them grain, for so you have ordained it.
You drench its furrows. You level its ridges.
You soften it with showers. You bless it with a crop.
— Psalm 65:9-10

Let’s conserve water…

Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.
— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Every human should have the idea of taking care of the environment, of nature, of water. So using too much or wasting water should have some kind of feeling or sense of concern. Some sort of responsibility and with that, a sense of discipline.
— The Dalai Lama

Let’s learn from water…

Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.
— Buddha

There is nothing softer and weaker than water,
And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things.
For this reason there is no substitute for it.
— Tao te Ching, Ch. 78.

Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
— Bruce Lee

And let the rain kiss you!

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night –

And I love the rain.

— Langston Hughes (1902-1967), April Rain Song, 1921

Today, 22 March, is the World Water Day.

A story about what makes heaven and hell…

Once a person died and went to the other world. He was taken to Yamaraja, the god of death. Yamaraja asked for checking up his account of merits and demerits, in order to decide if he should be sent to hell or heaven. Chitragupta, the celestial accountant of Yamaloka, who never missed recording every single act, good or bad, of every single being, was rather surprised. Here was a freak case of the man having a perfectly squared or balanced account. His merits were as much as were his demerits. Which side should he, then, go? Yamaraja seemed indecisive for a moment. His mighty intellect, however, soon came forth with a solution. He gave the choice to the man: ‘You will have to experience both [for, the Hindu tradition tells us, neither hell nor heaven, is permanent. One 'lives' there as long as one's merits and demerits permit one to do so;thereafter one returns to earth again] but you can chose the sequence.’ Hence, the man was given the choice to decide as to where he wished to go first.

Accordingly, he was first taken to hell. He saw there a large group of people sitting across a dining table and eating through large bowls containing heaps of food of many varieties, and soups of all kinds. A delicious aroma filled the place. They ate through spoons with long handles — for that was the rule of the place. Despite so much of food around, however, they looked so emaciated and weak. They were so misrable. Looking at them the man wondered how were they still alive!

Then he came to heaven. Here too he saw a group of people sitting across a dining table, eating through large bowls of food and soup. The people, like the ones in hell, too ate using spoons with long handles. But unlike hell. here everyone looked well nourished and cheerful. There was an atmosphere of joy and sunshine here.

The man paused to see what made the difference despite similarities. In heaven, people ate, right, but actually they fed each other! The long handle of the spoon made its movement time-consuming and tiresome. Hence,the people had devised their own way of eating. Long handle made it easier to feed the food to the person sitting across the table than to use it for eating oneself. Everyone, thus, fed each other and that was the secret of their healthy bodies and cheerful minds.

And this is what differentiates heaven from hell too — the degree of unselfishness one has. Rightly did Swami Vivekananda say, ‘Unselfishness is God’. Where there love and concern, there is heaven. And its absence is hell. Hell, whatever be its types, is only an extension of selfishness in all its hideous forms; heaven is an extension of unselfishness in all its glory and beauty. Hell and heaven are extensions of out selfishness and unselfishness respectively.

(Story copied from the editorial of March 2009 issue of The Vedanta Kesari.)

And thanks to my brother for helping me post this story!

On health, healing…

Know that all healing forces are within, not without! The applications from without are merely to create within a coordinating mental and spiritual force.

Remember, the body does gradually renew itself constantly. … Hold to that KNOWLEDGE- and don’t think of it as just therapy-that the body CAN, the body DOES, renew itself!

Which of my aptitudes should I follow for the greatest success in life, financially?

Forget the financial angle and consider rather which is the best outlet for the greatest contribution you can make towards making the world a better place in which to live. Efforts should never be expended purely for mercenary reasons. Pecuniary gains should come as a result of the entity’s using his abilities in the direction of being helpful.

Please give a detailed account as to how I can best serve humanity.

In those ways that open to you day by day. It isn’t always the individual that plans to accomplish some great deed that does the most. It is the one who meets the opportunities and privileges which are accorded it day by day. As such opportunities are used, there are better ways opened. For what we use in the way of helpfulness to others, increases in itself. Begin with what you are!

Where is the safest place to live?

Don’t worry so much where you live but how you live. Make the family of man [humanity] your family as well.

Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945)

• Edgar cayce quotes
• Pearls of Wisdom from Edgar Cayce

A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

For the most part we humans live with the false impression of security and a feeling of being at home in a seemingly trustworthy physical and human environment. But when the expected course of everyday life is interrupted, we are like shipwrecked people on a miserable plank in the open sea, having forgotten where they came from and not knowing whither they are drifting. But once we fully accept this, life becomes easier and there is no longer any disappointment.

It is high time the ideal of success should be replaced with the ideal of service … Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

— Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955)

Love is not of the self. Self cannot recognize love. You say ‘I love’; but then in the very saying of it, in the very experiencing of it, love is not. But when you know love, self is not. When there is love, self is not.

— J. Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you’ll be a success.

— Albert Schweitzer

In the true order of things one does not do something in order to be happy—one is happy and, hence, does something. One does not do some things in order to be compassionate, one is compassionate and, hence, acts in a certain way.

— Conversations with God

Your effort to smile and laugh is making you cry and weep. You are doing the opposite. There is nothing you need to do. Just smile and laugh. Life has no purpose, no mission. It is a game. It’s a play. Life has no message. Life itself, is an expression of joy.

— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, God Loves Fun

Doing is a function of the body. Being is a function of the soul. The body is always doing something. Every minute of every day it’s up to something. It never stops, it never rests, it’s constantly doing something.

The soul is forever being. It is being what it is being, regardless of what the body is doing, not because of what it’s doing. If you think your life is about doingness, you do not understand what you are about.

— Conversations with God

So, don’t try to do something to make yourself happy. Just be happy, just Be, everything else follows.

Narendra — All is one, isn’t it?

Sri Ramakrishna — No, beyond one and two.

(source)

When the mind perceives duality then there is both duality and its counterpart, which is unity. When the mind drops the perception of duality there is neither duality nor unity. When one is firmly established in the oneness of the infinite consciousness, whether he is quiet or actively engaged in work, then he is considered to be at peace with himself.

— Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (tr. by Swami Venkatesananda, p.66)

The Vedas deal mainly with the subject of the three modes of material nature. O Arjuna, become transcendental to these three modes. Be free from all dualities and from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be established in the self.

— Bhagavad Gita 2.45