Immortality

The Dimension of Time

J. Krishnamurti: You are always meeting experiences partially, and out of that arises conflict. To overcome that conflict, you say that you must have a principle; you establish a principle, an ideal, and strive to condition your action by it. That is, you are constantly trying to imitate, you are trying to control your daily experience, the actions of your everyday life, through the idea of consistency. But when you really understand it with your heart and mind, with your complete being, then you will see the falsity of imitation and of being consistent. When you are aware of this, you begin to free your mind without effort from this long-established habit of consistency, though this does not mean that you must become inconsistent.

Sam Yogi: When one establishes a principle, one enters the dimension of conditioning and strives to condition one’s action by the established principle. In this talk, Krishnamurti (K in short) has used the example of consistency as one such principle. To understand what the principle of consistency is, please check the post below.

Here, K uses the term “heart and mind” to denote more than just an intellectual understanding; it is understanding with one’s complete being. Only then does one see THE FALSITY OF IMITATION and of being consistent.

J. Krishnamurti: To me, then, consistency is the sign of memory, memory that results from lack of true comprehension of experience. And that memory creates the idea of time; it creates the idea of the present, past, and future, on which all our actions are based. We consider what we were yesterday, what we shall be tomorrow. Such an idea of time will exist as long as mind and heart are divided. As long as action is not born of completeness, there must be the division of time. Time is but an illusion, it is but the incompleteness of action.

Sam Yogi: One’s action is seldom complete. That is why one does not understand timeless life, timeless reality; one lives in the dimension of time as yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Incomplete action arises because one’s mind and heart are not free, because one’s mind and heart are limited by hindrances, by barriers. One meets every experience fully when one’s mind and heart are free.

J. Krishnamurti: A mind that is trying to mold itself after an ideal, to be consistent to a principle, naturally creates conflict, because it constantly limits itself in action. In that there is no freedom; in that there is no comprehension of experience. In meeting life in that way, you are meeting it only partially; you are choosing, and in that choosing you lose the full significance of experience. You live incompletely, and hence you seek comfort in the idea of reincarnation; hence you question, “What happens to me when I die?” Since you do not live fully in your daily life, you say, “I must have a future, more time in which to live completely.”

Sam Yogi: When one lives in an incomplete manner, one is postponing completeness. In other words, using the example of reincarnation as brought up by K above, one asks: “I must have a future life in which I can live completely, for right now the way I live, it is hardly complete.” K suggests that we live partially, limited by the idea or the ideal or the principle, when we mold ourselves after the ideal or the principle - anything that limits us makes us incomplete. As K suggests, in that there is neither freedom nor comprehension of experience as the experience unfolds in the present.

J. Krishnamurti: Do not seek to remedy that incompleteness, but become aware of the cause that prevents you from living completely. You will find that the cause is imitation, conformity, consistency, the search for security which gives birth to authority. All these keep you from the completeness of action because, under their limitation, action becomes but a series of achievements leading to an end, and hence, to continued conflict and suffering.

Sam Yogi: Let’s take the example of security. The search for psychological security leads one to a spiritual authority, a priest, or a Guru. Let’s suppose, among other things, the Guru teaches one Yoga and Pranayama (breathing practices). Pranayama is pronounced as PRAANAAYAAMA in Sanskrit and in Indian languages, and when dissected, it equates to PRAANA and AAYAAMA; in other words, PRAANAAYAAMA = PRAANA + AAYAAMA, or to write it in a simplified way, Pranayama = Prana + Ayama. Suppose the Guru teaches Yoga and starts teaching Pranayama as Prana and Yama, or Pranayama = PRANA + YAMA. Now, YAMA means control and has a special meaning in Yoga, YAMA being the first limb in ASHTANGA or the eight-limbed Yoga, the other seven being NIYAMA, ASANA, PRANAYAMA, PRATYAHARA, DHARANA, DHYANA, and SAMADHI. So, the Guru teaches one Pranayama as Yama or control of Prana. However, actually Pranayama is Ayama or expansion of Prana. Thus, the Guru instructs one to certain breathing practices to CONTROL Prana, which one does for the rest of one’s life, severely constraining one in terms of one’s Prana, whereas Pranyama is Ayama or Aayama or EXPANSION of Prana; there is a difference. Thus, the Guru limits one’s Yogic experience because of his own limitations. This example is given by the author because he has come across Yoga and Spirituality Gurus all across India and America who teach Pranayama as Yama or control of Prana; very few teach correctly Pranayama to be Ayama or expansion of Prana. So, in this example, the spiritual authority, the Guru, limits one and makes one’s life and action incomplete, whereas if one had not succumbed to (spiritual) authority but had explored Yoga more deeply and widely, one would have definitely come across someone who would have shown one how to expand one’s Prana and make it infinite, instead of just controlling it. This, in a nutshell, is an example of barriers like security and authority leading to incompleteness of action, which K points out.

J. Krishnamurti: Only when you meet experiences without barriers will you find continual joy; then you will no longer be burdened by the weight of memory that prevents action. Then you will live in the completeness of time. That to me is immortality.

Sam Yogi: For K, immortality is when one frees oneself from the conflict of choice. For most people, the idea of immortality is the continuance of the ‘I’, without end, through time; such a concept is false, as per K. For certain other people, death is total annihilation. Their belief that total annihilation must follow the cessation of the limited consciousness we call the ‘I’, is false, as per K. The above mentioned two concepts are opposite to each other; as per K, immortality is free from all opposites; it is harmonious action in which the mind is utterly freed from the conflict of the ‘I’.

For K, immortality is the capacity to understand the fullness of action in the present. On immortality, K has answered a question from someone in Stresa, Italy, on July 8, 1933 as follows.

J. Krishnamurti: There will always be conflict between life and death. Only when you know immortality is there neither beginning nor end; only then does action imply fulfillment, and only then is it infinite.

I say that immortality is reality. You cannot discuss it; you can know it in your action, action born of the fullness, the richness, of wisdom; but that fullness, that richness, you cannot attain by listening to a spiritual guide or by reading a book of instruction. Wisdom comes only when there is fullness of action, when there is complete awareness of your whole being in action; then you will see that all the books and teachers that pretend to guide you to wisdom can teach you nothing. You can know that which is immortal, everlasting, only when your mind is free from all sense of individuality which is created by the limited consciousness, which is the ‘I’.