33. The Best Way to Live

If I had to sum up the essence of Krishnamurti's teachings in one sentence, it would probably be "We are the world".

This thought suggests that there is no self that is separate from the world. The idea of separateness is an illusion created by the mind. This is an obvious mistake, but one that we do not recognise as such.

The reason is clear: we don't see the world as it really is. We fail to see that we and the world are inextricably intertwined.

Our minds misinterpret the information they receive from the world. Krishnamurti saw this very clearly and tried to help others to see it. He admitted that his message did not get across too well in the human consciousness.

The problem lay not in the content, but in how it was received. Our mindset is wrong. We hear what we think, not what is actually said. The truth is not revealed by words alone.

Krishnamurti wanted to change the program in our brains, he wanted us to connect with the world. This is only possible if we see the world as it is. The image we have of ourselves is something we have created in our minds.

Living in 'What is'

Krishnamurti used the wonderful term what is to describe the world. This is what he wanted us to see, but it is exactly what we fail to see. We don't realise that we are not seeing when our inner world takes control of us.

There is only one world. 'My world' is an insignificant part of the infinite scope of life. We only see a tiny part of the whole, and even that is heavily filtered.

Our consciousness plays tricks on us. It creates an image of the world that seems and feels right, but which is not. We live according to these distorted images, and they ruin our lives.

Our ancestors believed that the sun circled the flat Earth, but this mistaken belief did not pose much danger. At that time, most people

never travelled far from their home, let alone to the edge of the Earth. They had other concerns in life than their perceptions of the world. They spent their time trying to survive at the mercy of nature.

However, it can have fatal consequences when we think of other people as separate from ourselves. We fail to understand how dependent we are onhow we treat others and relate to others.

Unfortunately, Krishnamurti's message about the dangers of separation went unheard. His words did not lead to a mutation in the minds of his listeners.

He knew that words alone could not change the mind, and that a more powerful tool is needed. The self does not possess such a tool. It exists in time and thought.

To change, we need intelligence and insight. They silence the noise in our minds, helping us to address thoughts before they cause harm.

David Bohm said that we lack proprioception of thought. We don't see directly that thinking is a reaction of memory. Thinking is necessary for acquiring knowledge and skills, but it can cause havoc when it runs rampant in the psyche.

The 'I', the self, is the source of all human problems. Self-centredness is a mental disability, and we suffer the consequences of this.

The Self Is Our Own Creation

Many people do not see the self as something that needs to be overcome. On the contrary, for most people, their whole life revolves around the self. For many of us, it is enough to try to deal with it, accept, and improve the self.

However, this view of life can lead to problems.

We talk a lot about the importance of self-knowledge. But what exactly is the self that we try to know? According to K, there is no self to know; there is only thinking without a thinker.

The self emerges when we identify with our thoughts and start to think of them as our own.

When the self is experienced, there must also be the not-self, that is others, and the rest of the world. We draw a mental line between our inner and outer worlds. We can try to influence the inner world directly with our will and the outer world only indirectly through our actions.

K encouraged us to realise that the boundary between the inner world and the outer worlds is imaginary and self-imposed. There is no actual boundary.

It is important to bear in mind that K was talking about the psychological realm of the mind. Of course, we all have different bodies, knowledge and skills, as well as our own memories and friends. Problems arise from the meaning we give to these differences.

Individual differences are emphasised in the modern world. We are raised to be individuals and encouraged to 'be ourselves'. This is somewhat ironic, because we can never be anyone other than who we are.

Self-acceptance is a noble concept, but K does not like it. For him, the self is a fiction created by a limited mind and is not worth settling for. It consists of memories and knowledge that limit life and exclude what is essential to life: connection with others and the world.

Once you realise that there is only one world, shared by everyone, the boundaries of the self become meaningless.

A New Dimension

When we free ourselves from the self, another reality opens up before us: a timeless, boundless dimension that cannot possibly be contained within our minds.

Liberation comes through insight, direct seeing. It is not a trick that can be learnt nor a goal to strive for. We are either free or we are not.

Insight changes the way our brain cells work. It silences the movement of the brain. This happens when we connect directly to the miracle of life, without intermediaries.

Thinking about all this disconnects us and prevents us from being one with the world. It creates boundaries and divides the world into separate parts. It also assumes that the perceptions it creates are true.

In direct connection, there is only one kind of movement. That movement does not happen in time, but in a timeless moment.

Krishnamurti led people to the threshold of direct connection and unity, but even he could not accompany anyone across the threshold. We must take this pivotal step by ourselves — or perhaps it is too concrete to speak of crossing a threshold, because direct seeing is action that does not involve time. Life just happens.

Krishnamurti often spoke of the sacredness of life. On a few occasions, he used the word mystery. According to the dictionary, a mystery is defined as something beyond understanding, an enigma or an inexplicable phenomenon. It is something that cannot be explained in words.

Life is a mystery. Yet, the 'me' is imprisoned in a world of words and concepts. It wants to understand and explain the world and itself.

There is another way to live. Living directly means living without the self and being surrounded by the wonders of life.

This may be the best way to live.