Vrijdag 1 februari 2008 – J. Krishnamurti: 'Innocence...'

Er is licht. Mensen en dingen komen aan de dag. Licht geeft kleuren, licht geeft vrolijkheid. Wolken komen voor de zon. Trekken worden minder sprekend. ’s Nachts heerst stilte, niet-zijn.
Er is soms geen ontvangst mogelijk. Heel af en toe leent iets mij mijn zijn. Saskia en Koos zitten te praten. Twee mensen, met elk hun verhaal. Hoe moet ik hen ontvangen? Hoe zien ze eruit. Wat is het diepste dat er in hen te zien is? Wat brengen ze ten diepste ter wereld? Tot mij? Ben ik ontvankelijk?
Koos zit schrijlings op zijn stoel. Hij gebaart van alles aan Saskia. Zij luistert stil en aandachtig. Zij heeft info nodig voor haar werk. En Koos vertelt. Ze staat op, doet haar kleding recht, Koos wrijft zijn ogen even uit, doet zijn armen over elkaar, kijkt even naar buiten terwijl hij praat. En zich verdiept in zijn probleem. Saskia loopt weg naar haar plaats. Andries loopt hier ook rond. Klaas Jan loopt peinzend te bellen.
Dingen komen zo rauw en zonder samenhang naar mij toe. Ze versplinteren me, ‘they shatter me’.
Intussen legt zich met de muziek van Vasks in mij neer:
Pater noster, qui es in caelis; santificetur nomen tuum; adveniat regnum tuum; fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo,et in terra. Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie; et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; et ne nos inducas in tentationem; sed libera nos a malo. Quia tuum est regnum, et potestas, et gloria in saecula. Amen.
Er komt eenheid – even -, iets van heelheid, zachtheid, een beetje vervulling.
En het licht van de hemel, van het verlangen, van het goede, spreidt zich even uit over de wereld. Ik zag een zacht licht van overgave en rust.
Dat gebed wast je in onschuld. En de term ‘innocence’ vind je regelmatig bij J. Krishnamurti.

Within Krishnamurti's thought, solitude has its place as a methodological tool. Here he anticipates Western psychology while borrowing from Eastern tradition. We know that solitude has little place in the historical philosophy of the West, except among mystics. But Krishnamurti "rescues" solitude from mysticism and makes solitude available to all. Of course, he has seen its efficacy in Eastern traditions, but here there is little trace of solitude as strictly Eastern. This is notable because Krishnamurti is developing these themes as early as the 1930's, before Western audiences, when Westerners still knew little about Eastern thought and even less were they applying it to philosophy.

We can follow Krishnamurti's train of thought concerning solitude by beginning with what he calls "sensitivity." In Life Ahead, Krishnamurti explains the context.

Sensitivity means being sensitive to everything around one -- to the plants, the animals, the trees, the skies, the waters of the river, the bird on the wing; and also the moods of the people around one, and to the stranger who passes by. This sensitivity brings about the quality of uncalculated, unselfish, response, which is true moraliity and conduct.

Buddhist tradition has identified this virtue as compassion, the origin of which is in mindfulness. Krishnamurti points to it as a methodology for dispelling the arbitrariness of culture and authority. Other traditions will root this virtue in metaphysics or define it as the essence of morality. But from the point of view of Krishnamurti's philosophy and psychology -- not Western but not merely Eastern, either -- mindfulness or sensitivity is a prerequisite to knowledge of self.

For the total development of the human being, solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. One has to know what it is to be alone, what it is to meditate, what it is to die; and the implications of solitude, of meditation, of death, can be known only by seeking them out.

Krishnamurti points out not only the path of solitude as a necessity to enlightenment but also the necessity of experience rather than ritual or doctrine external to oneself. How much solitude? How much meditation? That is exactly for the individual to discover, not awating authority to sanction it or persuade the individual to pursue it.

Solitude cannot be brought about by instruction, or urged by the external authority of tradition, or induced by the influence of those who want to sit quietly but are incapable of being alone. Solitude helps the mind to see itself clearly, as in a mirror, and to free itself from the vain endeavor of ambition with all its complexities, fears, and frustrations, which are the outcome of self-centered activity.

This freedom from personal vanities cultivates a better self, a universal self. One need not be a moralist to witness the fuller humanity that unfolds in such a process. It has great fruits for the individual returning to society.

Solitude gives to the mind a stability, a constancy, which is not to be measured in terms of time. Such clarity of mind is character. The lack of character is the state of self-contradiction.

Krishnamurti is not proposing solitude for hermits and solitaries. He is proposing solitude as a method, for everyone. The result of this process is "character," or integrity, the very heart of the person, especially in a social setting. He is distinguishing solitude from isolation and from what he calls the "cultivation of detachment," (as in, presumably, Stoicism). Instead, Krishnamurti sees solitude as aloneness, but aloneness as that condition distinct from and separate from culture. We may call it alienation in existential terms, but it means separation from the social contrivances and accretions of oppressive culture around us. If we can rid ourselves of all that is merely dependent on culture, says Krishnamurti, we can become alone, yes, but also free.

You are never alone because you are full of all the memories, all the conditioning, all the mutterings of yesterday; your mind is never clear of all the rubbish it has accumulated. To be alone you must die to the past. When you are alone, totally alone, not belonging to any family, any nation, any culture, any particular continent, there is the sense of being an outsider. (Freedom from the Known. Ojai, 1969)

The word "outsider" is reminniscent of Albert Camus' L'estranger, the novel sometimes translated as "outsider" or "stranger." This status is alienation from culture that is not (yet) at a fruitful stage. (This is also reminniscent of Thomas Merton's use of existentialism in his Notes Towards a Philosophy of Solitude). For Krishnamurti such a person would achieve "innocence," which is the beginning of a mind "free from sorrow."

We carry about us the burden of what thousands of people have said and the memories of all our misfortunes. To abandon all that is to be alone, and the mind that is alone is not only innocent but young -- not in time or age, but young, innocent, alive at whatever age -- and only such a mind can see that which is truth and that which is not measurable by words.

Krishnamurti wants the individual to open the mind to the true nature of itself and the universe, and to use solitude to begin to accomplish the task of self-knowledge. While his concept of solitude appears utilitarian, Krishnamurti wisely sees that everyone -- hermit or civil servant -- has the task of discovering their true nature, and will benefit from the practice of solitude. For in this sense of aloneness, we disclose the essential, and the universe itself discloses it to us at every moment.

In a late journal entry, Krishnamurti wrote:

It is good to be alone. To be far away from the world and yet walk its streets is to be alone. To be alone walking up the path beside the rushing, noisy mountain stream full of spring water and melting snows is to be aware of the solitary tree, alone in its beauty. The loneliness of a man in the street is the pain of life; he's never alone, far away, untouched and vulnerable ...

Uit ‘Book of Life’:
Only in aloneness is there innocence

Most of us are never alone. You may withdraw into the mountains and live as a recluse, but when you are physically by yourself, you will have with you all your ideas, your experiences, your traditions, your knowledge of what has been. The Christian monk in a monastery cell is not alone; he is with his conceptual Jesus, with his theology, with the beliefs and dogmas of his particular conditioning. Similarly, the sannyasi in India who withdraws from the world and lives in isolation is not alone, for he too lives with his memories.I am talking of an aloneness, in which the mind is totally free from the past, and only such a mind is virtuous, for only in this aloneness is there innocence. Perhaps you will say, "That is too much to ask. One cannot live like that in this chaotic world, where one has to go to the office every day, earn a livelihood, bear children, endure the nagging of one's wife or husband, and all the rest of it." But I think what is being said is directly related to everyday life and action; otherwise, it has no value at all. You see, out of this aloneness comes a virtue which is virile and which brings an extraordinary sense of purity and gentleness. It doesn't matter if one makes mistakes; that is of very little importance. What matters is to have this feeling of being completely alone, uncontaminated, for it is only such a mind that can know or be aware of that which is beyond the word, beyond the name, beyond all the projections of imagination.

Uit ‘Freedom from the known’:
Having realised that we can depend on no outside authority in bringing about a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, there is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our own inward authority, the authority of our own particular little experiences and accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and ideals. You had an experience yesterday which taught you something and what it taught you becomes a new authority --and that authority of yesterday is as destructive as the authority of a thousand years. To understand ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or of a thousand years because we are living things, always moving, flowing never resting. When we look at ourselves with the dead authority of yesterday we will fail to understand the living movement and the beauty and quality of that movement.
To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. It is only in that state that one learns and observes. And for this a great deal of awareness is required, actual awareness of what is going on inside yourself, without correcting it or telling it what it should or should not be, because the moment you correct it you have established another authority, a censor.