The Meditative Mind: A Selection of Passages from the Teachings of J. Krishnamurti

by J. Krishnamurti

The Meditative Mind collects Krishnamurti’s meditations on meditation itself. In his original austere, challenging voice, Krishnamurti overthrows traditional ideas of what meditation means. “The very inquiry into what is meditation will open the door to meditation.” “A system of meditation is not meditation. A system implies a method which you practice in order to achieve something at the end. Something practiced over and over again becomes mechanical, does it not? How can a mechanical mind which has been trained and twisted, tortured to comply to the pattern of what it calls meditation, hoping to achieve a reward at the end be free to observe, to learn?” “Meditation is renewal: it is an intense passive awareness, the burning away of the desire to continue, to become……Only when the mind ceases is there creation.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti, was a world renowned figure both in the West and in the East. He was born on May 11, 1895 and died on February 17, 1986. He remains today one of the most important philosophical and spiritual thinkers of the 20th century. In the West he is most commonly classified as a philosopher and an educator. Yet in a very real sense he is not easy to categorize as his unique work is truly trans disciplinary and is not grounded in any particular tradition or school of thought. His singular probing work into the nature and limits of thought and knowledge would touch many fields from philosophy to quantum physics to religion. In terms of philosophical questions proper he would have important contributions to make all the way from religion to ethics and even aspects of philosophy of mind.