Journal

18th Entry 3rd October 1973

It was quite cold at the airport so early in the morning; the sun was just coming up. Everyone was wrapped up and the poor porters were shivering; there was the usual noise of an airport, the roars of the jets, the loud chatter, the farewells and the take-off. The plane was crowded with tourists, business men and others going to the holy city, with its filth and teeming people. Presently the vast range of the Himalayas became pink in the morning sun; we were flying south-east and for hundreds of miles these immense peaks seemed to be hanging in the air with beauty and majesty. The passenger in the next seat was immersed in a newspaper; there was a woman across the aisle who was concentrating on her rosary; the tourists were talking loudly and taking photographs of each other and of the distant mountains; everyone was busy with their things and had no time to observe the marvel of the earth and its meandering sacred river nor the subtle beauty of those great peaks which were becoming rose-coloured.

There was a man further down the aisle to whom considerable respect was being paid; he was not young, seemed to have the face of a scholar, was quick in movement and cleanly dressed. One wondered if he ever saw the actual glory of those mountains. Presently he got up and came towards the passenger in the next seat; he asked if he might change places with him. He sat down, introducing himself, and asked if he might have a talk with us. He spoke English rather hesitantly, choosing his words carefully for he was not too familiar with this language; he had a clear, soft voice and was pleasant in his manners. He began by saying he was most fortunate to be travelling on the same plane and to have this conversation. "Of course I have heard of you from my youth and only the other day I heard your last talk, meditation and the observer. I am a scholar, a pundit, practising my own kind of meditation and discipline." The mountains were receding further east and below us the river was making wide and friendly patterns.

"You said the observer is the observed, the meditator is the meditation and there's meditation only when the observer is not. I would like to be informed about this. For me meditation has been the control of thought, fixing the mind on the absolute."

The controller is the controlled, is it not? The thinker is his thoughts; without words, images, thoughts, is there a thinker? The experiencer is the experience; without experience there's no experiencer. The controller of thought is made up of thought; he's one of the fragments of thought, call it what you will; the outside agency however sublime is still a product of thought; the activity of thought is always outward and brings about fragmentation.

"Can life ever be lived without control? It's the essence of discipline."

When the controller is the controlled, seen as an absolute fact as truth, then there comes about a totally different kind of energy which transforms what is. The controller can never change what is; he can control it, suppress it, modify it or run away from it but can never go beyond and above it. Life can and must be lived without control. A controlled life is never sane; it breeds endless conflict, misery and confusion.

"This is a totally new concept."

If it may be pointed out, it is not an abstraction, a formula. There's only what is. Sorrow is not an abstraction; one can draw a conclusion from it, a concept, a verbal structure but it is not what is, sorrow. Ideologies have no reality; there is only what is. This can never be transformed when the observer separates himself from the observed.
"Is this your direct experience?"

It would be utterly vain and stupid if it were merely verbal structures of thought; to talk of such things would be hypocrisy.

"I would have liked to find out from you what is meditation but now there's no time as we are about to land."

There were garlands on arrival and the winter sky was intensely blue.

 
19th Entry 4th October 1973

As a young boy, he used to sit by himself under a large tree near a pond in which lotuses grew; they were pink and had a strong smell. From the shade of that spacious tree, he would watch the thin green snakes and the chameleons, the frogs and the water snakes. His brother, with others, would come to take him home. [Krishnamurti is describing his own childhood.] It was a pleasant place under the tree, with the river and the pond. There seemed to be so much space, and in this the tree made its own space. Everything needs space. All those birds on telegraph wires, sitting so equally spaced on a quiet evening, make the space for the heavens.

The two brothers would sit with many others in the room with pictures; there would be a chant in Sanskrit and then complete silence; it was the evening meditation. The younger brother would go to sleep and roll over and wake up only when the others got up to leave. The room was not too large and within its walls were the pictures, the images of the sacred. Within the narrow confines of a temple or church, man gives form to the vast movement of space. It is like this everywhere; in the mosque it is held in the graceful lines of words. Love needs great space.

To that pond would come snakes and occasionally people; it had stone steps leading down to the water where grew the lotus. The space that thought creates is measurable and so is limited; cultures and religions are its product. But the mind is filled with thought and is made up of thought; its consciousness is the structure of thought, having little space within it. But this space is the movement of time, from here to there, from its centre towards its outer lines of consciousness, narrow or expanding. The space which the centre makes for itself is its own prison. Its relationships are from this narrow space but there must be space to live; that of the mind denies living. Living within the narrow confines of the centre is strife, pain and sorrow and that is not living. The space, the distance between you and the tree, is the word, knowledge which is time. Time is the observer who makes the distance between himself and the trees, between himself and what is. Without the observer, distance ceases. Identification with the trees, with another or with a formula, is the action of thought in its desire for protection, security. Distance is from one point to another and to reach that point time is necessary; distance only exists where there is direction, inward or outward. The observer makes a separation, a distance between himself and what is; from this grows conflict and sorrow. The transformation of what is takes place only when there is no separation, no time, between the seer and the seen. Love has no distance.

The brother died and there was no movement in any direction away from sorrow. This non-movement is the ending of time. It was among the hills and green shadows that the river began and with a roar it entered the sea and the endless horizons. Man lives in boxes with drawers, acres of them and they have no space; they are violent, brutal, aggressive and mischievous; they separate and destroy each other. The river is the earth and the earth is the river; each cannot exist without the other.

There are no ends to words but communication is verbal and non-verbal. The hearing of the word is one thing and the hearing of no word is another; the one is irrelevant, superficial, leading to inaction; the other is non-fragmentary action, the flowering of goodness. Words have given beautiful walls but no space. Remembrance, imagination, are the pain of pleasure, and love is not pleasure.

The long, thin, green snake was there that morning; it was delicate and almost among the green leaves; it would be there, motionless, waiting and watching. The large head of the chameleon was showing; it lay along a branch; it changed its colours quite often.

20th Entry 6th October 1973

There is a single tree in a green field that occupies a whole acre; it is old and highly respected by all the other trees on the hill. In its solitude it dominates the noisy stream, the hills and the cottage across the wooden bridge. You admire it as you pass it by but on your return you look at it in a more leisurely way; its trunk is very large, deeply embedded in the earth, solid and indestructible; Its branches are long, dark and curving; it has rich shadows. In the evening it is withdrawn into itself, unapproachable, but during the daylight hours it is open and welcoming. It is whole, untouched by an axe or saw. On a sunny day you sat under it, you felt its venerable age, and because you were alone-with it you were aware of the depth and the beauty of life.

The old villager wearily passed you by, as you were sitting on a bridge looking at the sunset; he was almost blind, limping, carrying a bundle in one hand and in the other a stick. It was one of those evenings when the colours of the sunset were on every rock, tree and bush; the grass and the fields seemed to have their own inner light. The sun had set behind a rounded hill and amidst these extravagant colours there was the birth of the evening star. The villager stopped in front of you, looked at those startling colours and at you. You looked at each other and without a word he trudged on. In that communication there was affection, tenderness and respect, not the silly respect but that of religious men. At that moment all time and thought had come to an end. You and he were utterly religious, uncorrupted by belief, image, by word or poverty. You often passed each other on that road among the stony hills and each time, as you looked at one another, there was the joy of total insight.

He was coming, with his wife, from the temple across the way. They were both silent, deeply stirred by the chants and the worship. You happened to be walking behind them and you caught the feeling of their reverence, the strength of their determination to lead a religious life. But it would soon pass away as they were drawn into their responsibility to their children, who came rushing towards them. He had some kind of profession, was probably capable, for he had a large house. The weight of existence would drown him and although he would go to the temple often, the battle would go on.

The word is not the thing; the image, the symbol is not the real. Reality, truth, is not a word. To put it into words wipes it away and illusion takes its place. The intellect may reject the whole structure of ideology, belief and all the trappings and power that go with them, but reason can justify any belief, any ideation. Reason is the order of thought and thought is the response of the outer. Because it is the outer, thought puts together the inner. No man can ever live only with the outer, and the inner becomes a necessity. This division is the ground on which the battle of "me" and "not me" takes place. The outer is the god of religions and ideologies; the inner tries to conform to those images and conflict ensues.

There is neither the outer nor the inner but only the whole. The experiencer is the experienced. Fragmentation is insanity. This wholeness is not merely a word; it is when the division as the outer and inner utterly ceases. The thinker is the thought.

Suddenly, as you were walking along, without a single thought but only observing without the observer, you became aware of a sacredness that thought has never been able to conceive. You stop, you observe the trees, the birds and the passer-by; it is not an illusion or something with which the mind deludes itself. It is there in your eyes, in your whole being. The colour of the butterfly is the butterfly.

The colours which the sun had left were fading, and before dark the shy new moon showed itself before it disappeared behind the hill.

21st Entry 7th October 1973

It was one of those mountain rains that lasts three or four days, bringing with it cooler weather. The earth was sodden and heavy and all the mountain paths were slippery; small streams were running down the steep slopes and labour in the terraced fields had stopped. The trees and the tea plantations were weary of the dampness; there had been no sun for over a week and it was getting quite chilly. The mountains lay to the north, with their snow and gigantic peaks. The flags around the temples were heavy with rain; they had lost their delight, their gay colours fluttering in the breeze. There was thunder and lightning and the sound was carried from valley to valley; a thick fog hid the sharp flashes of light.

The next morning there was the clear blue, tender sky, and the great peaks, still and timeless, were alight with the early morning sun. A deep valley ran down between the village and the high mountains; it was filled with dark blue fog. Straight ahead, towering in the clear sky was the second highest peak of the Himalayas. You could almost touch it but it was many miles away; you forgot the distance for it was there, in all its majesty so utterly pure and measureless. By late morning it was gone, hidden in the darkening clouds from the valley. Only in the early morning it showed itself and disappeared a few hours later. No wonder the ancients looked to their gods in these mountains, in thunder and in the clouds. The divinity of their life was in the benediction that lay hidden in these unapproachable snows.

His disciples came to invite you to visit their guru; you politely refused but they came often, hoping that you would change your mind or accept their invitation, becoming weary of their insistence. So it was decided that their guru would come with a few of his chosen disciples.

It was a noisy little street; the children played cricket there; they had a bat and the stumps were a few odd bricks. With shouts and laughter they played cheerfully as long as they could, only stopping for a passing car as the driver respected their play. They would play day after day and that morning they were particularly noisy when the guru came, carrying a small, polished stick.

Several of us were sitting on a thin mattress on the floor when he entered the room and we got up and offered him the mattress. He sat cross-legged, putting his cane in front of him; that thin mattress seemed to give him a position of authority. He had found truth, experienced it and so he, who knew, was opening the door for us. What he said was law to him and to others; you were merely a seeker, whereas he had found. You might be lost in your search and he would help you along the way, but you must obey. Quietly you replied that all the seeking and the finding had no meaning unless the mind was free from its conditioning; that freedom is the first and last step, and obedience to any authority in matters of the mind is to be caught in illusion and action that breeds sorrow. He looked at you with pity, concern, and with a flair of annoyance, as though you were slightly demented. Then said, "The greatest and final experience has been given to me and no seeker can refuse that."

If reality or truth is to be experienced, then it is only a projection of your own mind. What is experienced is not truth but a creation of your own mind.

His disciples were getting fidgety. Followers destroy their teachers and themselves. He got up and left, followed by his disciples. The children were still playing in the street; somebody was bowled out, followed by wild clapping and cheers.

There is no path to truth, historically or religiously. It is not to be experienced or found through dialectics; it is not to be seen in shifting opinions and beliefs. You will come upon it when the mind is free of all the things it has put together. That majestic peak is also the miracle of life.

22nd Entry 8th October 1973

The monkeys were all over the place that quiet morning; on the verandah, on the roof and in the mango tree - a whole troop of them; they were the brownish red-faced variety. The little ones were chasing each other among the trees, not too far from their mothers, and the big male was sitting by himself, keeping an eye over the whole troop; there must have been about twenty of them. They were rather destructive, and as the sun rose higher they slowly disappeared into the deeper wood, away from human habitation; the male was the first to leave and the others followed quietly. Then the parrots and crows came back with their usual clatter announcing their presence. There was a crow that would call or whatever it does, in a raucous voice, usually about the same time, and keep it up endlessly till it was chased away. Day after day it would repeat this performance; its caw penetrated deeply into the room and somehow all other noises seemed to have come to an end. These crows prevent violent quarrels amongst themselves, are quick, very watchful and efficient in their survival. The monkeys don't seem to like them. It was going to be a nice day.

He was a thin, wiry man, with a well-shaped head and eyes that had known laughter. We were sitting on a bench overlooking the river in the shade of a tamarind tree, the home of many parrots and a pair of small screech-owls which were sunning themselves in the early morning sun.

He said: "I have spent many years in meditation, controlling my thoughts, fasting and having one meal a day. I used to be a social worker but I gave it up long ago as I found that such work did not solve the deep human problem. There are many others who are carrying on with such work but it is no longer for me. It has become important for me to understand the full meaning and depth of meditation. Every school of meditation advocates some form of control; I have practised different systems but somehow there seems to be no end to it."

Control implies division, the controller and the thing to be controlled; this division, as all division, brings about conflict and distortion in action and behaviour. This fragmentation is the work of thought, one fragment trying to control the other parts, call this one fragment the controller or whatever name you will. This division is artificial and mischievous. Actually, the controller is the controlled. Thought in its very nature is fragmentary and this causes confusion and sorrow. Thought has divided the world into nationalities, ideologies and into religious sects, the big ones and the little ones. Thought is the response of memories experience and knowledge, stored up in the brain; it can only function efficiently, sanely, when it has security, order. To survive physically it must protect itself from all dangers; the necessity of outward survival is easy to understand but the psychological survival is quite another matter, the survival of the image that thought has put together. Thought has divided existence as the outer and the inner and from this separation conflict and control arise. For the survival of the inner, belief ideology, gods, nationalities, conclusions become essential and this also brings about untold wars, violence and sorrow. The desire for the survival of the inner, with its many images, is a disease, is disharmony. Thought is disharmony. All its images, ideologies, its truths are self-contradictory and destructive. Thought has brought about, apart from its technological achievements, both outwardly and inwardly, chaos and pleasures that soon become agonies. To read all this in your daily life, to hear and see the movement of thought is the transformation that meditation brings about. This transformation is not the "me" becoming the greater "me" but the transformation of the content of consciousness; consciousness is its content. The consciousness of the world is your consciousness; you are the world and the world is you. Meditation is the complete transformation of thought and its activities. Harmony is not the fruit of thought; it comes with the perception of the whole.

The morning breeze had gone and not a leaf was stirring; the river had become utterly still and the noises on the other bank came across the wide waters. Even the parrots were quiet.

23rd Entry 9th October 1973

You went by a narrow-gauge train that stopped at almost every station where vendors of hot coffee and tea, blankets and fruit, sweets and toys, were shouting their wares. Sleep was almost impossible and in the morning all the passengers got into a boat that crossed the shallow waters of the sea to the island. There a train was waiting to take you to the capital, through green country of jungles and palms, tea plantations and villages. It was a pleasant and happy land. By the sea it was hot and humid but in the hills where the tea plantations were it was cool and in the air there was the smell of ancient days, uncrowded and simple. But in the city, as in all cities, there was noise, dirt, the squalor of poverty and the vulgarity of money; in the harbour there were ships from all over the world.

The house was in a secluded part and there was a constant flow of people who came to greet him with garlands and fruit. One day, a man asked if he would like to see a baby elephant and naturally we went to see it. It was about two weeks old and the big mother was nervous and very protective, we were told. The car took us out of town, past the squalor and dirt to a river with brown water, with a village on its bank; tall and heavy trees surrounded it. The big dark mother and the baby were there. He stayed there for several hours till the mother got used to him; he had to be introduced, was allowed to touch her long trunk and to feed her some fruit and sugar cane. The sensitive end of the trunk was asking for more, and apples and bananas went into her wide mouth. The newly-born baby was standing, waving her tiny trunk, between her mother's legs. She was a small replica of her big mother. At last the mother allowed him to touch her baby; its skin was not too rough and its trunk was constantly on the move, much more alive than the rest of it. The mother was watching all the time and her keeper had to reassure her from time to time. It was a playful baby.

The woman came into the small room deeply distressed. Her son was killed in the war: "I loved him very much and he was my only child; he was well-educated and had the promise of great goodness and talent. He was killed and why should it happen to him and to me? There was real affection, love between us. It was such a cruel thing to happen." She was sobbing and there seemed to be no end to her tears. She took his hand and presently she became quiet enough to listen.

We spend so much money on educating our children; we give them so much care; we become deeply attached to them; they fill our lonely lives; in them we find our fulfilment, our sense of continuity. Why are we educated? To become technological machines? To spend our days in labour and die in some accident or with some painful disease? This is the life our culture, our religion, has brought us. Every wife or mother is crying all over the world; war or disease has claimed the son or the husband. Is love attachment? Is it tears and the agony of loss? Is it loneliness and sorrow? Is it self-pity and the pain of separation? If you loved your son, you would see to it that no son was ever killed in a war. There have been thousands of wars, and mothers and wives have never totally denied the ways that lead to war. You will cry in agony and support, unwillingly, the systems that breed war. Love knows no violence.

The man explained why he was separating from his wife. "We married quite young and after a few years things began to go wrong in every way, sexually, mentally, and we seemed so utterly unsuited to each other. We loved each other, though, at the beginning and gradually it is turning into hate; separation has become necessary and the lawyers are seeing to it."

Is love pleasure and the insistence of desire? Is love physical sensation? Is attraction and its fulfilment love? Is it a commodity of thought? A thing put together by an accident of circumstances? Is it of companionship, kindliness and friendship? If any of these take precedence then it is not love. Love is as final as death.
There is a path that goes into the high mountains through woods, meadows and open spaces. And there is a bench before the climb begins and on it an old couple sit, looking down on the sunlit valley; they come there very often. They sit without a word, silently watching the beauty of the earth. They are waiting for death to come. And the path goes on into the snows.

24th Entry 10th October 1973

The rains had come and gone and the huge boulders were glistening in the morning sun. There was water in the dry riverbeds and the land was rejoicing once again; the earth was redder and every bush and blade of grass was greener and the deep-rooted trees were putting out new leaves. The cattle were getting fatter and the villagers less thin. These hills are as old as the earth and the huge boulders appear to have been carefully balanced there. There is a hill towards the east that has the shape of a great platform on which a square temple has been constructed. The village children walked several miles to learn to read and write; here was one small child, all by herself, with shining face, going to a school in the next village, a book in one hand and some food in the other. She stopped as we went by, shy and inquisitive; if she stayed longer she would be late for her school. The rice fields were startlingly green. It was a long, peaceful morning.

Two crows were squabbling in the air, cawing and tearing at each other; there was not enough foothold in the air, so they came down to the earth, struggling with each other. On the ground feathers began to fly and the fight began to be serious. Suddenly about a dozen other crows descended upon them and put an end to their fight. After a lot of cawing and scolding they all disappeared into the trees.

Violence is everywhere, among the highly educated and the most primitive, among the intellectuals and the sentimentalists. Neither education nor organized religions have been able to tame man; on the contrary, they have been responsible for wars, tortures, concentration camps and for the slaughter of animals on land and sea. The more he progresses the more cruel man seems to become. Politics have become gangsterism, one group against another; nationalism has led to war; there are economic wars; there are personal hatreds and violence. Man doesn't seem to learn from experience and knowledge, and violence in every form goes on. What place has knowledge in the transformation of man and his society?

The energy that has gone into the accumulation of knowledge has not changed man; it has not put an end to violence. The energy that has gone into a thousand explanations of why he's so aggressive, brutal, insensitive, has not put an end to his cruelty The energy which has been spent in analysis of the causes of his insane destruction, his pleasure in violence, sadism, the bullying activity, has in no way made man considerate and gentle. In spite of all the words and books, threats and punishments, man continues his violence.

Violence is not only in the killing, in the bomb, in revolutionary change through bloodshed; it is deeper and more subtle. Conformity and imitation are the indications of violence; imposition and the accepting of authority are an indication of violence; ambition and competition are an expression of this aggression and cruelty, and comparison breeds envy with its animosity and hatred. Where there's conflict, inner or outer, there is the ground for violence. Division in all its forms brings about conflict and pain.

You know all this; you have read about the actions of violence, you have seen it in yourself and around you and you have heard it, and yet violence has not come to an end. Why? The explanations and the causes of such behaviour have no real significance. If you are indulging in them, you are wasting your energy which you need to transcend violence. You need all your energy to meet and go beyond the energy that is being wasted in violence. Controlling violence is another form of violence, for the controller is the controlled. In total attention, the summation of all energy, violence in all its forms comes to an end. Attention is not a word, an abstract formula of thought, but an act in daily life. Action is not an ideology, but if action is the outcome of it then it leads to violence.

After the rains, the river goes around every boulder, every town and village and however much it is polluted, it cleanses itself and runs through valleys, gorges and meadows.

25th Entry 12th October 1973

Again a well-known guru came to see him. We were sitting in a lovely walled garden; the lawn was green and well kept, there were roses, sweet peas, bright yellow marigolds and other flowers of the oriental north. The wall and the trees kept out the noise of the few cars that went by; the air carried the perfume of many flowers. In the evening, a family of jackals would come out from their hiding place under a tree; they had scratched out a large hole where the mother had her three cubs. They were a healthy looking lot and soon after sunset the mother would come out with them, keeping close to the trees. Garbage was behind the house and they would look for it later. There was also a family of mongooses; every evening the mother with her pink nose and her long fat tail would come out from her hiding place followed by her two kits, one behind the other, keeping close to the wall. They too came to the back of the kitchen where sometimes things were left for them. They kept the garden free of snakes. They and the jackals seemed never to have crossed each other, but if they did they left each other alone.

The guru had announced a few days before that he wished to pay a call. He arrived and his disciples came streaming in afterwards, one by one. They would touch his feet as a mark of great respect. They wanted to touch the other man's feet too but he would not have it; he told them that it was degrading but tradition and hope of heaven were too strong in them. The guru would not enter the house as he had taken a vow never to enter a house of married people. The sky was intensely blue that morning and the shadows were long.

"You deny being a guru but you are a guru of gurus. I have observed you from your youth and what you say is the truth which few will understand. For the many we are necessary, otherwise they would be lost; our authority saves the foolish. We are the interpreters. We have had our experiences; we know. Tradition is a rampart and only the very few can stand alone and see the naked reality. You are among the blessed but we must walk with the crowd, sing their songs, respect the holy names and sprinkle holy water, which does not mean that we are entirely hypocrites. They need help and we are there to give it. What, if one may be allowed to ask, is the experience of that absolute reality?"

The disciples were still coming and going, uninterested in the conversation and indifferent to their surroundings, to the beauty of the flower and the tree. A few of them were sitting on the grass listening, hoping not to be too disturbed. A cultured man is discontented with his culture.

Reality is not to be experienced. There's no path to it and no word can indicate it; it is not to be sought after and to be found The finding, after seeking, is the corruption of the mind. The very word truth is not truth; the description is not the described.

"The ancients have told of their experiences, their bliss in meditation, their super consciousness, their holy reality. If one may be allowed to ask, must one set aside all this and their exalted example?"

Any authority on meditation is the very denial of it. All the knowledge, the concepts, the examples have no place in meditation. The complete elimination of the meditator, the experiencer, the thinker, is the very essence of meditation. This freedom is the daily act of meditation. The observer is the past, his ground is time, his thoughts, images, shadows, are time-binding. Knowledge is time, and freedom from the known is the flowering of meditation. There is no system and so there is no direction to truth. or to the beauty of meditation. To follow another, his example, his word, is to banish truth. Only in the mirror of relationship do you see the face of what is. The seer is the seen. Without the order which virtue brings, meditation and the endless assertions of others have no meaning whatsoever; they are totally irrelevant. Truth has no tradition, it cannot be handed down.

In the sun the smell of sweet peas was very strong.

26th Entry 13th October 1973

We were flying at thirty-seven thousand feet smoothly and the plane was full. We had passed the sea and were approaching land; far below us was the sea and the land; the passengers never seemed to stop talking or drinking or flipping over the pages of a magazine; then there was a film. They were a noisy group to be entertained and fed; they slept, snored and held hands. The land was soon covered over by masses of clouds from horizon to horizon, space and depth and the noise of chatter. Between the earth and the plane were endless white clouds and above was the blue gentle sky. In the corner seat by a window you were widely awake watching the changing shape of the clouds and the white light upon them.

Has consciousness any depth or only a surface fluttering? Thought can imagine its depth, can assert that it has depth or only consider the surface ripples. Has thought itself any depth at all. Consciousness is made up of its content; its content is its entire frontier. Thought is the activity of the outer and in certain languages thought means the outside. The importance that is given to the hidden layers of consciousness is still on the surface, without any depths. Thought can give to itself a centre, as the ego, the "me", and that centre has no depth at all; words, however cunningly and subtly put together, are not profound. The "me" is a fabrication of thought in word and in identification; the "me", seeking depth in action, in existence, has no meaning at all; all its attempts to establish depth in relationship end in the multiplications of its own images whose shadows it considers are deep. The activities of thought have no depth; its pleasures, its fears, its sorrow are on the surface. The very word surface indicates that there is something below, a great volume of water or very shallow. A shallow or a deep mind are the words of thought and thought in itself is superficial. The volume behind thought is experience, knowledge, memory, things that are gone, only to be recalled, to be or not to be acted upon. Far below us, down on the earth, a wide river was rolling along, with wide curves amid scattered farms, and on the winding roads were crawling ants. The mountains were covered with snow and the valleys were green with deep shadows. The sun was directly ahead and went down into the sea as the plane landed in the fumes and noise of an expanding city.

Is there depth to life, to existence at all? Is all relationship shallow? Can thought ever discover it? Thought is the only instrument that man has cultivated and sharpened, and when that's denied as a means to the understanding of depth in life, then the mind seeks other means. To lead a shallow life soon becomes wearying, boring, meaningless and from this arises the constant pursuit of pleasure, fears, conflict and violence. To see the fragments that thought has brought about and their activity, as a whole, is the ending of thought. Perception of the whole is only possible when the observer, who is one of the fragments of thought, is not active. Then action is relationship and never leads to conflict and sorrow.

Only silence has depth, as love. Silence is not the movement of thought nor is love. Then only the words, deep and shallow, lose their meaning. There is no measurement to love nor to silence. What's measurable is thought and time; thought is time. Measure is necessary but when thought carries it into action and relationship, then mischief and disorder begin. Order is not measurable, only disorder is. The sea and the house were quiet, and the hills behind them, with the wild flowers of Spring, were silent.

Rome 1973

27th Entry 17th October 1973

It had been a hot, dry summer with occasional showers; the lawns were turning brown but the tall trees, with their heavy foliage, were happy and the flowers were blooming. The land had not seen such a summer for years and the farmers were pleased. In the cities it was dreadful, the polluted air, the heat and the crowded street; the chestnuts were already turning slightly brown and the parks were full of people with children shouting and running all over the place. In the country it was very beautiful; there is always peace in the land and the small narrow river with swans and ducks brought enchantment. Romanticism and sentimentality were safely locked up in cities, and here deep in the country, with trees, meadows and streams, there was beauty and delight. There's a road that goes through the woods, and dappled shadows and every leaf holds that beauty, every dying leaf and blade of grass. Beauty is not a word, an emotional response; it is not soft, to be twisted and moulded by thought. When beauty is there, every movement and action in every form of relationship is whole, sane and holy. When that beauty, love, doesn't exist, the world goes mad.

* Krishnamurti was now in Rome until October 29.

On the small screen the preacher, with carefully cultivated gesture and word, was saying that he knew his saviour, the only saviour, was living; if he was not living, there would be no hope for the world. The aggressive thrust of his arm drove away any doubt, any enquiry, for he knew and you must stand up for what he knew, for his knowledge is your knowledge, your conviction. The calculated movement of his arms and the driven word were substance and encouragement to his audience, which was there with its mouth open, both young and old, spellbound and worshipping the image of their mind. A war had just begun and neither the preacher nor his large audience cared, for wars must go on and besides it is part of their culture.

On that screen, a little later, there was shown what the scientists were doing, their marvellous inventions, their extraordinary space control, the world of tomorrow, the new complex machines; the explanations of how cells are formed, the experiments that are being made on animals, on worms and flies. The study of the behaviour of animals was carefully and amusingly explained. With this study the professors could better understand human behaviour. The remains of an ancient culture were explained; the excavations, the vases, the carefully preserved mosaics and the crumbling walls; the wonderful world of the past, its temples, its glories. Many, many volumes have been written about the riches, the paintings, the cruelties and the greatness of the past, their kings and their slaves.

A little later there was shown the actual war that was raging in the desert and among the green hills, the enormous tanks and the low-flying jets, the noise and the calculated slaughter; and the politicians talking about peace but encouraging war in every land. The crying women were shown and the desperately wounded, the children waving flags and the priests intoning blessings.

The tears of mankind have not washed away man's desire to kill. No religion has stopped war; all of them, on the contrary, have encouraged it, blessed the weapons of war; they have divided the people. Governments are isolated and cherish their insularity. The scientists are supported by governments. The preacher is lost in his words and images.

You will cry, but educate your children to kill and be killed. You accept it as the way of life; your commitment is to your own security; it is your god and your sorrow. You care for your children so carefully, so generously, but then you are so enthusiastically willing for them to be killed. They showed on the screen baby seals, with enormous eyes, being killed.

The function of culture is to transform man totally.

Across the river mandarin ducks were splashing and chasing each other and the shadows of the trees were on the water.

28th Entry 18th October 1973

There is in Sanskrit a long prayer to peace. It was written many, many centuries ago by someone to whom peace was an absolute necessity, and perhaps his daily life had its roots in that. It was written before the creeping poison of nationalism, the immorality of the power of money and the insistence on worldliness that industrialism has brought about. The prayer is to enduring peace: May there be peace among the gods, in heaven and among the stars; may there be peace on earth, among men and four-footed animals; may we not hurt each other; may we be generous to each other; may we have that intelligence which will guide our life and action; may there be peace in our prayer, on our lips and in our hearts.

There is no mention of individuality in this peace; that came much later. There is only ourselves our peace, our intelligence our knowledge, our enlightenment. The sound of Sanskrit chants seems to have a strange effect. In a temple, about fifty priests were chanting in Sanskrit and the very walls seemed to be vibrating.

There is a path that goes through the green, shining field, through a sunlit wood and beyond. Hardly anyone comes to these woods, full of light and shadows. It is very peaceful there, quiet and isolated. There are squirrels and an occasional deer, shyly watchful and dashing away; the squirrels watch you from a branch and sometimes scold you. These woods have the perfume of summer and the smell of damp earth. There are enormous trees, old and moss-laden; they welcome you and you feel the warmth of their welcome. Each time you sit there and look up through the branches and leaves at the wonderful blue sky, that peace and welcome are waiting for you. You went with others through the woods but there was aloofness and silence; the people were chattering, indifferent and unaware of the dignity and grandeur of the trees; they had no relationship with them and so in all probability, no relationship with each other. The relationship between the trees and you was complete and immediate; they and you were friends and thus you were the friend of every tree, bush and flower on earth. You were not there to destroy and there was peace between them and you.

Peace is not an interval between the ending and beginning of conflict, of pain and of sorrow. No government can bring peace; its peace is of corruption and decay; the orderly rule of a people breeds degeneration for it is not concerned with all the people of the earth. Tyrannies can never hold peace for they destroy freedom: peace and freedom go together. To kill another for peace is the idiocy of ideologies. You cannot buy peace; it is not the invention of an intellect; it is not to be purchased through prayer, through bargaining. It is not in any holy building, in any book, in any person. No one can lead you to it, no guru, no priest, no symbol.

In meditation it is. Meditation itself is the movement of peace.

It is not an end to be found; it is not put together by thought or word. The action of meditation is intelligence. Meditation is none of those things you have been taught or experienced. The putting away of what you have learnt or experienced is meditation. The freedom from the experiencer is meditation. When there is no peace in relationship, there is no peace in meditation; it is an escape into illusion and fanciful dreams. It cannot be demonstrated or described. You are no judge of peace. You will be aware of it, if it is there, through the activities of your daily life, the order, the virtue of your life.

Heavy clouds and mists were there that morning; it was going to rain. It would take several days to see the blue sky again. But as you came into the wood, there was no diminishing of that peace and welcome. There was utter stillness and incomprehensible peace. The squirrels were hiding and the grasshoppers in the meadows were silent and beyond the hills and valleys was the restless sea.

29th Entry 19th October 1973

The wood was asleep; the path through it was dark and winding. There was not a thing stirring; the long twilight was just disappearing and the silence of the night was covering the earth. the small gurgling stream, so insistent during the day, was conceding to the quietness of the coming night. Through the small opening among the leaves were the stars, brilliant and very close. Darkness of the night is as necessary as the light of day. The welcoming trees were withdrawn into themselves and distant; they were all around but they were aloof and unapproachable; they were asleep, not to be disturbed. In this quiet darkness, there was growth and flowering, gathering strength to meet the vibrant day; night and day were essential; both gave life, energy, to all living things. Only man dissipates it.

Sleep is very important, a sleep without too many dreams, without tossing about too much. In sleep many things happen both in the physical organism and in the brain (the mind is the brain; they are one, a unitary movement. To this whole structure sleep is absolutely essential. In sleep order, adjustment and deeper perceptions take place; the quieter the brain the deeper the insight. The brain needs security and order to function harmoniously, without any friction. Night provides it and during quiet sleep there are movements, states, which thought can never reach. Dreams are disturbance; they distort total perception. In sleep the mind rejuvenates itself.

But you might say dreams are necessary; if one doesn't dream one might go mad; they are helpful, revealing. There are superficial dreams, without much meaning; there are dreams that are significant and there is also a dreamless state. Dreams are the expression in different forms and symbols of our daily life. If there is no harmony, no order in our daily life of relationship, then dreams are a continuance of that disorder. The brain during sleep tries to bring about order out of this confusing contradiction. In this constant struggle between order and disorder the brain is worn out. But it must have security and order to function at all, and so beliefs, ideologies and other neurotic concepts become necessary. Turning night into day is one of those neurotic habits; the inanities that go on in the modern world after nightfall are an escape from the daytime of routine and boredom.

The total awareness of disorder in relationship both private and public, personal and distant, an awareness of what is without any choice during conscious hours during the day, brings order out of disorder. Then the brain has no need to seek order during sleep. Then dreams are only superficial, without meaning. Order in the whole of consciousness, not merely at the conscious level, takes place when division between the observer and the observed ceases completely. What is, is transcended when the observer who is the past, who is time, comes to an end. The active present the what is, is not in the bondage of time as the observer is.

Only when the mind the brain and the organism during sleep has this total order, is there an awareness of that wordless state, that timeless movement. This is not some fanciful dream, an abstraction of escape. It is the very summation of meditation. That is, the brain is active, waking or sleeping, but the constant conflict between order and disorder wears down the brain. Order is the highest form of virtue, sensitivity, intelligence. When there is this great beauty of order, harmony, the brain is not endlessly active; certain parts of it have to carry the burden of memory but that is a very small part; the rest of the brain is free from the noise of experience. That freedom is the order, the harmony, of silence. This freedom and the noise of memory move together, intelligence is the action of this movement. Meditation is freedom from the known and yet operating in the field of the known. There is no "me'` as the operator. In sleep or awake this meditation goes on.

The path came slowly out of the woods and from horizon to horizon the sky was filled with stars. In the fields not a thing moved.

30th Entry 20th October 1973

It is the oldest living thing on the earth. It is gigantic in proportion, in its height and vast trunk. Among other redwood trees, which were also very old, this one was towering over them all; other trees had been touched by fire but this one had no marks on it. It had lived through all the ugly things of history, through all the wars of the world, through all the mischief and sorrow of man, through fire and lightning, through all the storms of time, untouched, majestic and utterly alone, with immense dignity. There had been fires but the bark of these redwood trees were able to resist them and survive. The noisy tourists had not come yet and you could be alone with this great silent one; it soared up to the heavens as you sat under it, vast and timeless. Its very years gave it the dignity of silence and the aloofness of great age. It was as silent as your mind was, as still as your heart, and living without the burden of time. You were aware of compassion that time had never touched and of innocency that had never known hurt and sorrow. You sat there and time passed you by and it would never come back. There was immortality, for death had never been. Nothing existed except that immense tree, the clouds and the earth. You went to that tree and sat down with it and every day for many days it was a benediction of which you were only aware when you wandered away. You could never come back to it asking for more; there was never the more, the more was in the valley far below. Because it was not a man-made shrine, there was unfathomable sacredness which would never again leave you, for it was not yours.

In the early morning when the sun had not yet touched the tops of the trees, the deer and the bear were there; we watched each other, wide-eyed and wondering; the earth was common to us and fear was absent. The blue jays and the red squirrels would come soon; the squirrel was tame and friendly. You had nuts in your pocket and it took them out of your hand; when the squirrel had had enough the two jays would hop down from the branches and the scolding would stop. And the day began.

Sensuality in the world of pleasure has become very important. Taste dictates and soon the habit of pleasure takes hold; though it may harm the whole organism, pleasure dominates. Pleasure of the senses, of cunning and subtle thought, of words and of the images of mind and hand is the culture of education, the pleasure of violence and the pleasure of sex. Man is moulded to the shape of pleasure, and all existence, religious or otherwise, is the pursuit of it. The wild exaggerations of pleasure are the outcome of moral and intellectual conformity. When the mind is not free and aware, then sensuality becomes a factor of corruption which is what is going on in the modern world. Pleasure of money and sex dominate. When man has become a secondhand human being, the expression of sensuality is his freedom. Then love is pleasure and desire. Organized entertainment, religious or commercial, makes for social and personal immorality; you cease to be responsible. Responding wholly to any challenge is to be responsible, totally committed. This cannot be when the very essence of thought is fragmentary and the pursuit of pleasure, in all its obvious and subtle forms, is the principal movement of existence. Pleasure is not joy; joy and pleasure are entirely different things; the one is uninvited and the other cultivated, nurtured; the one comes when the "me" is not and the other is time-binding; where the one is the other is not. Pleasure, fear and violence run together; they are inseparable companions. Learning from observation is action, the doing is the seeing.

In the evening when the darkness was approaching, the jays and the squirrels had gone to bed. The evening star was just visible and the noises of the day and memory had come to an end. These giant sequoias were motionless. They will go on beyond time. Only man dies and the sorrow of it.

31st Entry 21st October 1973

It was a moonless night and the Southern Cross was clear over the palm trees. The sun wouldn't be up for many hours yet; in that quiet darkness all the stars were very close to the earth and they were sparklingly bright; they were a penetrating blue and the river was giving birth to them. The Southern Cross was by itself without any other stars around it. There was no breeze and the earth seemed to stand still, weary of man's activity. It was going to be a lovely morning after the heavy rains and there wasn't a cloud on the horizon. Orion had already set and the morning star was on the far horizon. In the grove, frogs were croaking in the nearby pond; they would become silent for a while and wake up and begin again. The smell of jasmine was strong in the air and in the distance there was chanting. But at that hour there was a breathless silence and its tender beauty was on the land. Meditation is the movement of that silence.

In the walled garden the noise of the day began. The young baby was being washed; it was oiled with great care, every part of it; special oil for the head and another for the body; each had its own fragrance and both were slightly heated. The small child loved it; it was softly cooing to itself and its fat little body was bright with oil. Then it was cleaned with a special scented powder. The child never cried, there seemed to be so much love and care. It was dried and tenderly wrapped in a clean white cloth, fed and put to bed to fall asleep immediately. It would grow up to be educated, trained to work, accepting the traditions, the new or old beliefs, to have children, to bear sorrow and the laughter of pain.

The mother came one day and asked, "What is love? Is it care, is it trust, is it responsibility, is it pleasure between man and woman? Is it the pain of attachment and loneliness?"

You are bringing up your child with such care, with tireless energy, giving your life and time. You feel, perhaps unknowingly, responsible. You love it. But the narrowing effect of education will begin, will make it conform with punishment and reward to fit into the social structure. Education is the accepted means for the conditioning of the mind. What are we educated for - for endless work and to die? You have given tender care, affection, and does your responsibility cease when education begins? Is it love that will send him to war, to be killed after all that care and generosity? Your responsibility never ceases, which doesn't mean interference. Freedom is total responsibility, not only for your children but for all children on the earth. Is love attachment and its pain? Attachment breeds pain, jealousy, hatred. Attachment grows out of one's own shallowness, insufficiency, loneliness. Attachment gives a sense of belonging, identification with something, gives a sense of reality, of being. When that is threatened there is fear, anger, envy. Is all this love? Is pain and sorrow love? Is sensory pleasure love? Most fairly intelligent human beings know verbally all this and it is not too complicated. But they do not let all this go; they turn these facts into ideas and then struggle with the abstract concepts. They prefer to live with abstractions rather than with reality, with what is.

In the denial of what love is not, love is. Don't be afraid of the word negation. Negate all that is not love, then what is, is compassion. What you are matters enormously for you are the world and the world is you. This is compassion.

Slowly the dawn was coming; in the eastern horizon there was a faint light, it was spreading and the Southern Cross began to fade. The trees took on their shape, the frogs became silent, the morning star was lost in the greater light and a new day began. The flight of crows and the voices of man had begun but the blessings of that early morning were still there.

32nd Entry 22nd October 1973

In a small boat on the quiet slow current of the river all the horizon from north to south, east to west was visible; there wasn't a tree or house that broke the horizon; there was not a cloud floating by. The banks were flat, stretching on both sides far into the land and they held the wide river. There were other small fishing boats, the fishermen huddled at one end with their nets out; these men were immensely patient. The sky and the earth met and there was vast space. In this measureless space the earth and all things had their existence, even this small boat carried along by the strong current. Around the bend of the river the horizons extended as far as the eye could see, measureless and infinite. Space became inexhaustible. There must be this space for beauty and compassion. Everything must have space, the living and the dead, the rock on the hill and the bird on the wing. When there is no space there is death. The fishermen were singing and the sound of their song came down the river. Sound needs space. The sound of a word needs space; the word makes its own space, rightly pronounced. The river and the faraway tree can only survive when they have space; without space all things wither. The river disappeared into the horizon and the fishermen were going ashore. The deep darkness of the night was coming, the earth was resting from a weary day and the stars were on the waters. The vast space was narrowed down into a small house of many walls. Even the large, palatial houses have walls shutting out that immense space, making it their own.

A painting must have space within it even though it's put in a frame; a statue can only exist in space; music creates the space it needs; the sound of a word not only makes space: it needs it to be heard. Thought can imagine the extension between two points, the distance and the measure; the interval between two thoughts is the space that thought makes. The continuous extension of time, movement and the interval between two movements of thought need space. Consciousness is within the movement of time and thought. Thought and time are measurable between two points, between the centre and the periphery. Consciousness, wide or narrow, exists where there is a centre, the "me" and the "not me".

All things need space. If rats are enclosed in a restricted space, they destroy each other; the small birds sitting on a telegraph wire, of an evening, have the needed space between each other. Human beings living in crowded cities are becoming violent. Where there is no space, outwardly and inwardly, every form of mischief and degeneration is inevitable. The conditioning of the mind through so-called education, religion, tradition, culture, gives little space to the flowering of the mind and heart The belief, the experience according to that belief, the opinion, the concepts, the word is the "me", the ego, the centre which creates the limited space within whose border is consciousness. The "me" has its being and its activity within the small space it has created for itself. All its problems and sorrows, its hopes and despairs are within its own frontiers, and there is no space The known occupies all its consciousness. Consciousness is the known. Within this frontier there is no solution to all the problems human beings have put together. And yet they won't let go; they cling to the known or invent the unknown, hoping it will solve their problems. The space which the "me" has built for itself is its sorrow and the pain of pleasure. The gods don't give you space, for theirs is yours. This vast, measureless space lies outside the measure of thought, and thought is the known. Meditation is the emptying of consciousness of its content, the known, the "me".

Slowly the oars took the boat up the sleeping river and the light of a house gave it the direction. It had been a long evening and the sunset was gold, green and orange and it made a golden path on the water.

 
33rd Entry 24th October 1973

Way down in the valley were the dull lights of a small village; it was dark and the path was stony and rough. The waving lines of the hills against the starlit sky were deeply embedded in darkness and a coyote was howling somewhere nearby. The path had lost its familiarity and a small scented breeze was coming up the valley. To be alone in that solitude was to hear the voice of intense silence and its great beauty. Some animal was making a noise among the bushes, frightened or attracting attention. It was quite dark by now and the world of that valley became deep in its silence. The night air had special smells, a blend of all the bushes that grow on the dry hills, that strong smell of bushes that know the hot sun. The rains had stopped many months ago; it wouldn't rain again for a very long time and the path was dry, dusty and rough. The great silence with its vast space held the night and every movement of thought became still. The mind itself was the immeasurable space and in that deep quietness there was not a thing that thought had built. To be absolutely nothing is to be beyond measure. The path went down a steep incline and a small stream was saying many things, delighted with its own voice. It crossed the path several times and the two were playing a game together. The stars were very close and some were looking down from the hill tops. Still the lights of the village were a long way off and the stars were disappearing over the high hills. Be alone, without word and thought, but only watching and listening. The great silence showed that without it, existence loses its profound meaning and beauty.

To be a light to oneself denies all experience. The one who is experiencing as the experiencer needs experience to exist and, however deep or superficial, the need for it becomes greater. Experience is knowledge, tradition; the experiencer divides himself to discern between the enjoyable and the painful, the comforting and the disturbing. The believer experiences according to his belief, according to his conditioning. These experiences are from the known, for recognition is essential, without it there's no experience. Every experience leaves a mark unless there's an ending to it as it arises. Every response to a challenge is an experience but when the response is from the known, challenge loses its newness and vitality; then there's conflict, disturbance and neurotic activity. The very nature of challenge is to question, to disturb, to awaken, to understand. But when that challenge is translated into the past, then the present is avoided. The conviction of experience is the negation of enquiry. Intelligence is the freedom to enquire, to investigate the "me" and the "not me", the outer and the inner. Belief, ideologies and authority prevent insight which comes only with freedom. The desire for experience of any kind must be superficial or sensory, comforting or pleasurable, for desire, however intense, is the forerunner of thought and thought is the outer. Thought may put together the inner but it is still the outer. Thought will never find the new for it is old, it is never free. Freedom lies beyond thought. All the activity of thought is not love.

To be a light to oneself is the light of all others. To be a light to oneself is for the mind to be free from challenge and response, for the mind then is totally awake, wholly attentive. This attention has no centre, the one who is attentive, and so no border. As long as there's a centre, the "me", there must be challenge and response, adequate or inadequate, pleasurable or sorrowful. The centre can never be a light to itself; its light is the artificial light of thought and it has many shadows. Compassion is not the shadow of thought but it is light, neither yours nor another's.

The path gradually entered the valley and the stream went by the village to join the sea. But the hills remained changeless and the hoot of an owl was the reply to another. And there was space for silence.

34th Entry 25th October 1973

Sitting on a rock in an orange orchard the valley spread out and disappeared into the fold of mountains. It was early in the morning and the shadows were long, soft and open. The quails were calling with their sharp demand and the mourning dove was cooing, with soft, gentle lilt, a sad song so early in the morning. The mocking-bird was making swooping curves in the air, turning somersaults, delighted with the world. A big tarantula, hairy and dark, slowly came out from under the rock, stopped, felt the morning air and unhurriedly went its way. The orange trees were in long straight lines, acre upon acre, with their bright fruit and fresh blossom flower and fruit on the same tree at the same time. The smell of these blossoms was quietly pervasive and with the heat of the sun the smell would get deeper, more insistent. The sky was very blue and soft and all the hills and mountains were still dreaming.

It was a lovely morning, cool and fresh, with that strange beauty which man had not yet destroyed. The lizards came out and sought a warm spot in the sun; they stretched out to get their bellies warm and their long tails turned sideways. It was a happy morning and the soft light covered the land and the endless beauty of life. Meditation is the essence of this beauty, expressed or silent. Expressed, it takes form, substance; silent it's not to be put into word, form or colour. From silence, expression or action have beauty, are whole, and all struggle, conflict cease. The lizards were moving into the shade and the humming-birds and the bees were among the blossoms.

Without passion there's no creation. Total abandonment brings this unending passion. Abandonment with a motive is one thing, and without a purpose, without calculation, it is another. What which has an end, a direction, is short lived, becomes mischievous and commercial, vulgar. The other, not driven by any cause, intention or gain, has no beginning and no ending. This abandonment is the emptying of the mind of the "me", the self. This "me" can lose itself in some activity, in some comforting belief or fanciful dream but such loss is the continuing of the self in another form, identifying with another ideology and action. The abandonment of the self is not an act of will, for the will is the self. Any movement of the self, horizontally or vertically, in any direction, is still within the field of time and sorrow. Thought may give itself over to something, sane or insane, reasonable or idiotic, but being in its very structure and nature fragmentary, its very enthusiasm, excitement, soon turn into pleasure and fear. In this area the abandonment of the self is illusory, with little meaning. The awareness of all this is the awakening to the activities of the self; in this attention there is no centre, the self. The urge to express oneself for identification is the outcome of confusion and the meaninglessness of existence. To seek a meaning is the beginning of fragmentation; thought can and does give a thousand meanings to life, each one inventing its own meanings which are merely opinions and convictions and there's no end to them. The very living is the whole meaning but when life is a conflict, a struggle, a battlefield of ambition, competition and the worship of success, the search for power and position, then life has no meaning. What is the need of expression? Does creation lie in the thing produced? The thing produced by hand or by the mind, however beautiful or utilitarian is that what one is after? Does this self-abandoned passion need expression? When there is a need, a compulsion, is it the passion of creation? As long as there is division between creator and the created, beauty, love, come to an end. You may produce a most excellent thing in colour or in stone, but if your daily life contradicts that supreme excellence the total abandonment of the self that which you have produced is for admiration and vulgarity. The very living is the colour, the beauty and its expression. One needs no other.

The shadows were losing their distance and the quails were quiet. There was only the rock, the trees with their blossom and fruit, the lovely hills and the abundant earth.