“Meditation implies, not the orthodox meditation, not the Zen meditation, not the meditation through repetition, all that is stupefying, mechanical, has no meaning. The real meditation is to find out whether the brain with all its activities, with all its experiences, can be absolutely quiet, not force it, because the moment you force it there is again duality. The entity that says, ‘By Jove, I’d like to have a marvellous experience, therefore I must force my brain to be quiet, will it’ – you will never do it. But if you begin to enquire, watch, observe, listen to all the movements of thought, its conditioning, its pursuits, its fears, its pleasures, how the brain operates, then you will see the brain becomes extraordinarily quiet. And the quietness is not dormancy, sleep, but tremendously active and therefore quiet. You understand? A machine, a big dynamo that is working perfectly, ticking over, well-oiled, hardly makes any sound, it’s only when there is friction, there is noise. So the brain and therefore the body, must be completely quiet.”
– J. Krishnamurti
Public Talk 7
Saanen, Switzerland – 30 July 1970
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