The Beauty of Life by Jiddu Krishnamurti

Author:Jiddu Krishnamurti
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786787538
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

MALIBU

April 1, 1975

Even so early in the morning, the sun was hot and burning. There was no breeze and not a leaf was stirring. In the ancient temple it was cool and pleasant; the bare feet were aware of the solid slabs of rocks, their shapes and their unevenness. Many thousands of people must have walked on them for a thousand years. It was dark there after the glare of the morning sun, and in the corridors there were few people. In the narrow passage, it was darker still. This passage led to a wide corridor which led to the inner shrine. There was a strong smell of flowers and the incense of many centuries.

A hundred Brahmins, freshly bathed, in newly washed white loincloths, were chanting. Sanskrit is a powerful language, resonant with depth. The ancient walls were vibrating, almost shaking to the sound of a hundred voices. The dignity of the sound was incredible, and the sacredness of the moment was beyond the words. It was not the words that awakened this immensity but the depth of the sound, the sound of many thousand years held within these walls and in the immeasurable space beyond them. It was not the meaning of those words, nor the clarity of their pronunciation, nor the dark beauty of the temple, but the quality of sound that broke the walls and limitations of the human mind. The song of a bird, a distant flute, a breeze among the leaves—all these break down the walls that human beings have created for themselves.

In the great cathedrals and lovely mosques, the chants and the intoning of their sacred books, it is the sound that opens the heart, to tears and beauty. Without space, there is no beauty; without space, you have only walls and measurement; without space, there is no depth; without space, there is poverty, inner and outer. You have so little space in your mind; it is so crammed full of words and remembrances, knowledge, experiences and problems. There is hardly any space left, only the endless chatter of thought. And so your museums are filled and every shelf with books. Then you fill the places of entertainment, religious or otherwise. Or you build a wall around yourself, a narrow space of mischief and pain. Without space, inner and outer, you become violent and ugly.

Everything needs space to live, to play and to chant. That which is sacred cannot live without space. You have no space when you hold, when there is sorrow, when you become the centre of the universe. The space that you occupy is the space that thought has built around you, and that is misery and confusion. The space that thought measures is the division between you and me, we and they. This division is endless pain.

There is that solitary tree in the wide, green, open field.

April 2, 1975

It was not a land of trees, meadows, streams, flowers and mirth. It was a sunburnt land of sand and barren hills, without a single tree or bush; a land of desolation, endless scorched earth, mile upon mile.

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