Commentaries on Living

The books which have attracted and affected my life most are J. Krishnamurti’s  COMMENTARIES ON LIVING. These Commentaries were published in three volumes from the notebooks of Krishnamurti.  The first volume was published in 1956, the second in 1958 and the third in 1960. These Commentaries contain beautiful descriptions of nature and dialogues with people of various backgrounds about the problems of living. It seems that Krishnamurti wrote these notebooks spontaneously from his memory immediately after his walks in nature and dialogues with people. The commentaries contain the poetic and spiritual insight into the nature of our mind and all our psychological problems like fear, anger, jealousy, loneliness and also about love, meditation, beauty etc..Anne Morrow Lindbergh said about these Commentaries –“ The sheer simplicity is breathtaking. The reader is given in one paragraph, often in one sentence, enough to keep him exploring, questioning, thinking for days..” It seems that Krishnamurti could see everything (including thoughts and feelings) directly with a silent clear awareness and he had the ability to describe beautifully and clearly in words what he saw. He must have felt deeply the sorrow of human beings within himself. In all his dialogues he takes people to the source from where problems arise. One article from the Commentaries which kept me looking at myself for years is-Love In Relationship- from Volume 1. Here Krishnamurti writes –“ How easy it is to destroy the thing we love! How quickly a barrier comes between us, a word, a gesture, a smile! Health, mood and desire cast a shadow and what was bright becomes dull and burdensome. Through usage we wear ourselves out, and that which was sharp and clear becomes wearisome and confused. Through constant friction, hope and frustration, that which was beautiful and simple becomes fearful and expectant. Relationship is complex and difficult and few can come out of it unscathed. Though we would like it to be static, enduring, continuous, relationship is a movement, a process which must be deeply and fully understood and not made to conform to an inner or outer pattern. Conformity, which is the social structure, loses its weight and authority only when there is love. Love in relationship is a purifying process as it reveals the ways of the self. Without this revelation, relationship has little significance.” We can see clearly that relationships which are full of deep feelings cause conflicts in the form of jealousy, fear, loneliness, anger etc. Love is very rare in which there are peace, happiness, wisdom and clarity. What we call love is mostly attachment which leads to conflicts in relationship. Such relationship is based on deriving pleasure, security, comfort. We like to possess and control people in such relationship. There is no freedom and there is suffering which can lead to loneliness, depression, divorce and in some extreme cases murder and suicide. Krishnamurti writes-“ Our difficulty lies in what we call love, which is really of the mind. We fill our hearts with the things of the mind and so keep our hearts  ever empty and expectant. It is the mind that clings, that is envious, that holds and destroys. Our life is dominated by the physical centres and the mind. We do not love and let it alone, but crave to be loved; we give in order to receive, which is the generosity of the mind and not of the heart. The mind is ever seeking certainty, security; and can love be made certain by the mind? Can the mind, whose very essence is of time, catch love, which is its own eternity?” Krishnamurti writes with great clarity and beauty about the conflict which goes on within a human being in deep emotional relationship. The conflict can end only when a person is able to watch clearly his own thoughts and feelings from a source higher than the thinking mind. From this source, one feels that one is not separate from the world. This feeling of integration is not brought about by the mind. It comes only when the mind is silent and awake.