Chapter 3 Chapter Two Achieves Inaction Through Actions

Meditation is always passive, its essence is passivity.It cannot be active, because its essence is non-doing.If you are doing something, "doing" itself interferes with the whole thing.Your ambition, your initiative, creates obstacles. Doing nothing is meditation, but when I say doing nothing is meditation, I am not telling you to do nothing.Even to achieve this non-doing, one has to do many things.But this activity is not meditation, it is just a stepping stone, a springboard.All "promising" is just a springboard, not meditation. You just stand at the door, on the steps...the door is non-action, but to reach the non-action of the mind one has to do a lot.But do not confuse this activity with meditation.

Life energy works in contradictory ways.Life exists dialectically, it is not a simple movement.The energy of life is not flowing like a river, but dialectical.With every movement, life creates its opposite, and through the struggle with the opposite it moves forward.With each new movement, the thesis generates an antithesis, and this goes on and on: the thesis generates an antithesis, which merges with the antithesis to become a synthesis, which in turn becomes a new thesis, and then produces an antithesis. What I mean by dialectical movement is that it is not a simple linear movement, but a movement of separation and reunion, splitting itself, creating opposites, and then re-merging with opposites, and then splitting into opposites.It is the same with meditation, because meditation is the deepest thing in life.

If I say to you, "Just relax," then you cannot relax because you don't know what to do.So many teachers who claim to teach relaxation keep saying, "Just relax. Don't do anything. Just relax." So what to do?You can lie down, but that is not relaxation.The whole inner turmoil is still there, and there is a new conflict - the demand to relax.Something has been added to the original.All the noise is still there, all the commotion is still there, and there is something more -- a call for relaxation.Now a new tension has been added to the old one. So, a person who is trying to live a relaxed life may be the most nervous person.He is doomed because he has not yet understood that life flows dialectically.He thinks that life flows in a straight line, as long as he tells himself to relax, he will relax.

This is impossible.So if you come to me, I will never just tell you to relax.Be tense first, as intensely as possible, totally tense!Get your whole body tensed first, and continue to tense as far as you can, as far as you can.Then, all of a sudden, you will feel that relaxation has come.You have done all that you can, and now, the life energy will create the opposite. You've pushed the tension to the top and now there's nothing to go any further, you've got nowhere to go.The whole energy has been given to the tension, you cannot continue this tension indefinitely, the tension has to dissolve, it will start to dissolve very soon, now you become a caretaker to it.

By tensing, you come to the edge, to the jumping point, and that's why you can't go on tensing any longer.If you go on tense, you will explode, you will die.The sweet spot has been reached, now the vibrations will relax by themselves. The life energy relaxes.Now be aware and watch the relaxation come.Every part of the body, every muscle of the body, and every nerve of the body will relax naturally without you having to do anything.You are not doing anything to relax it, and it is relaxing.You will start to feel relaxation in many points of the organism, the whole organism is nothing but a collection of countless relaxed points, just be aware.

This awareness is meditation.But it is an inaction, you do nothing, because awareness is not an action, it is your nature, an inherent quality of your being.You are awareness, your achievement is non-awareness, and you have achieved it with great effort. So, for me, there are two steps in meditation: the first step is active, which is not meditation at all; the second step is completely inactive, passive awareness, which is real meditation.Awareness is always passive.Once you become active, you lose your awareness.It is only possible to be active and aware when the awareness reaches the point where you don't have to meditate to get, know or feel.

When meditation becomes useless, you drop it completely.Now, you are aware.Only at this time can you be both aware and active, otherwise it is impossible.You cannot be aware in the initiative if meditation is still required. If you have become meditative, you no longer need to meditate.Then you can be active, but even in that active you remain a passive spectator.At this point you are never the doer, you are always the watching consciousness. Consciousness is passive... Meditation must also be passive, because it is only the door to consciousness, the door to perfect consciousness.So when someone is talking about "active" meditation, they are wrong.Meditation is passivity.It is understandable that you may need a little initiative, something to do to achieve meditation, but it is by no means because meditation itself is active.Rather, because you have been active through so many lifetimes, activity has become such an important part of your mind that you even need to be active to achieve inactivity.You have become so caught up in the initiative that you cannot drop it.So someone like Krishnamurti can go on saying, "Drop it," and you go on asking how to drop it.He'll say, "Don't ask how. All I'm saying is: Throw it away! There's no question of how to throw it. Don't ask how."

In a way, he's right.There is really no "how" in passive awareness or passive meditation.There cannot be, because as long as there is a "how", it cannot be passive.However, he was also wrong, because he didn't think about who he was listening to, he was talking about himself. There is no "how" in meditation, there is no technique, there is no technique.So Krishnamurti is absolutely right, it's just that he doesn't take into account the listener.There is nothing in the listener but activity; for him everything is activity.So when you say things like "meditation is passive, inactive, choiceless, you are in it. It doesn't require any effort. It doesn't require effort" you are using language that the listener cannot understand .He understood the words literally—and that was the difficulty.He said, "Intelligently, I completely understand. Everything you say, I completely understand." But he could not understand the meaning of it.

There is nothing mysterious about Krishnamurti's teachings.He is the least mysterious of a mentor.There is no mystery whatsoever, everything appears so clear, precise, analytical, logical, rational that anyone can understand it.And this has become the biggest obstacle, because the listener thinks he understands, but in fact he only understands the literal part, and he does not understand the passive language. He understood what was said to him—some words.He listened, he understood, he knew what the words meant, and he connected them to create a complete picture in his mind.He understood what others said; he had mental communication.But he does not understand the language of passivity, he cannot understand it.As far as his current state is concerned, it is impossible for him to understand.He understands only the language of action, the language of activity.

So I have to talk about being active, I have to use being active to bring you to a point where you can jump into being passive.Activeness has to reach a limit, a point at the edge where it becomes impossible for you to be active anymore, because if it is still possible to be active, you will keep on being active. Your initiative must be exhausted, and whatever you can do must be allowed to do.Whatever you do, be sure to push you on until at a certain point you cry out, "I can do nothing now, I have done everything I have to do. Now nothing is possible, no effort is necessary." Impossible. I'm exhausted."

At that point, I say, "Now, drop it!" The dropping can be communicated.You are on the edge, you are ready to drop, and then you understand the language of passivity.Before this, you cannot understand; you are too active. You have never reached the extreme of initiative.Things can only be lost at the extreme, never halfway.You must not throw it away.You can drop sex, if you have been totally in it then you can drop it completely; otherwise it is impossible.Anything as long as you have reached its limit, there is no way to go ahead, and there is no reason to turn back, then you will be able to let go.You can drop it because you know it thoroughly. When you know something thoroughly, it will tire you.Maybe you want to go further, but if there is no way to go, then you have to "stop like death".You can neither turn back nor move forward, and you have reached a corner.Then you can drop it, you can become passive.Once you become passive, meditation will happen.It comes to you like a flower blooming.This is a "dead stop" that falls into passivity. So, for me, effort leads to no effort, action leads to inaction, mind leads to meditation; this material world leads to enlightenment.Life is a dialectical process whose opposite is death.Take advantage of it, not just throw it away. Use it and you will be thrown into its opposite.Be Aware: Be aware when you are being thrown into the wave.It's not difficult.When you go from a tense orgasm to a point of relaxation, it is very easy to be aware, very easy.Then it is not difficult, because to be aware you have to be only passive, only witnessing. There should not even be an effort of witnessing, no need.You are exhausted through activity and you just feel, "Enough! Fuck it!" Then only meditation exists without you.Once this taste is tasted, it will never be lost again.It will be with you wherever you move, wherever you go. It is with you.Then it also seeps into your activity.There will be activity, and at the same time, in the very center of your being, there will be a passive stillness.On all sides is the whole world, and in the center is Brahman.On all sides, there is activity of all kinds; in the center, there is only silence.But it is a living stillness, not a dead stillness, for it is a stillness that contains everything, even initiative. All creativity comes from this stillness, which is a living stillness.So whenever I say "quiet," I don't mean the silence of a cemetery, the silence of empty buildings.No, I mean the stillness of a seed, the stillness of a mother's womb, the stillness of the roots of a tree underground.It holds great hidden potential, and it won't be long before it will reveal itself. The action is still there, but there are no doers, no doers.This is exploration; this is pursuit. There are two opposing traditions: one is yoga, and the other is Sankya.Yoga says that if you don't work hard, you get nothing.The whole of yoga, the whole of Patanjali's yoga, Raja's yoga is nothing but effort.This has become mainstream because effort is understandable to many.Activities can be understood, so yoga has always been the mainstream.Sometimes there are strange people who say, "There is nothing to do." Nagarjuna, Krishnamurti, Huangpan -- they are all strange people!They say, "There is nothing to do, don't do anything. Don't ask how." This is the tradition of Sankhya. ①Samkhya: One of the six orthodox philosophical systems in India.Also translated as number theory.It maintains a consistent dualism of matter (prime) and soul or self (principal man). ——Editor's Note ② Rajayoga: A type of yoga, also translated as Rajayoga. ——Editor's Note ③ Rajayoga: A type of yoga, also translated as Rajayoga. ——Editor's note ④ Nagarjuna (approximately 150-250 AD): Hindu philosopher, founder of the Madhyamaka School, revered as a Bodhisattva a hundred years after his death. —— Annotation There are actually only two religions in the world: Yoga and Sankhya.But Sankhya has been of only sporadic interest, so it isn't talked about much.That is why Krishnamurti appears novel and original.He only looks like this because Shan Keya is young. People only know yoga.There are yogis, ashrams (villages or communities formed around a holy man) and training centers all over the world.Yoga is a tradition of effort, it's well known.Shankeya is not known at all.Krishnamurti never said a word that was new, it only seemed new because we were not familiar with the tradition of Sankya.It is only because of our extreme ignorance that there are revolutions in the world. Shankya means knowledge, knowing.Sankya said, "Just knowing is enough; just being aware is enough." However, these two traditions are precisely in a dialectical relationship.In my opinion, they are not opposites, they are dialectical and can be synthesized.That synthesis I call non-effort through effort: yoga through samkhya, samkhya through yoga—that is, non-action through doing.In this day and age, neither of these opposing and dialectical traditions can function alone.You can reach Sankhya with yoga, and you have to reach Sankhya with yoga. If you understand Hegel's dialectics, you will clearly see the whole picture of this matter.After Marx, no one has applied the concept of dialectical motion, although Marx's usage is nothing like Hegel's usage.Marx applied the concept of dialectical movement to material evolution, to society, and to class to prove that society progresses through classes and class struggles.Marx said: "Hegel stood on his head on the ground, and I made him stand on his feet again." But the reality is quite the opposite.Hegel stood with his feet on the ground, but Marx turned him upside down with his head on the ground.Dialectics, a concept with rich connotations, is very beautiful, very meaningful, and very deep.Hegel said: "The advancement of a thought, the advancement of consciousness is always dialectical. Consciousness advances through dialectics." I said that any vitality advances through dialectics, and meditation is the most profound phenomenon, and meditation is the explosion of vitality.It is deeper than the atomic explosion, because the atomic explosion is nothing but a particle of matter exploding, whereas meditation is the explosion of a living cell, a living being, a living being. This explosion comes through dialectics.So use activity and remember that there is no activity.You have to do a lot, but remember, all this activity is just to achieve a state of doing nothing. Both shankyra and yoga seem simple.Krishnamurti is not difficult, he is simple, because he has only chosen a part of the dialectic; so it is very consistent.Krishnamurti is very consistent, absolutely consistent. In 40 years he has not said a word of inconsistency, because he has chosen one part of the whole process, and its opposite has been rejected.Viveknanda ① is also consistent, he chose a part. ① Vivekananda (Vivekananda, 1863~1902): Hindu spiritual leader and reformer.Advocate practical philosophy and attach importance to social reform.Founded the Ramakrishna Missionary Society. —— Annotation I can appear very inconsistent.Or you could say that my inconsistencies are consistent.Use dialectics, relax through tension, and meditate through action. That's why I'm going to talk about fasting.Fasting is an action, a very deep act.The activity of eating is not a bigger activity than fasting, because you eat and then forget, it is not much of an activity.But if you don't eat, it's a big thing, you can't forget it, the whole body remembers it, every cell is asking for it, the whole body is in a kind of turmoil.It is extremely active, active, thoroughly active, not passive. Dancing is not passive, but very active.Skip later and you become movement; the body is forgotten, only movement remains.In fact, dancing is the most incredible thing, the most otherworldly art, because it is only rhythm in motion.It is absolutely immaterial, so you cannot grasp it.You can catch the dancer, but never the dance.It dissipates in the universe, it is there and then it is not there; it is not here and then suddenly here - it is here out of nothing - it comes from nothing and returns to nothing. A dancer is sitting here, there is no dance in him.But if a poet is sitting here, there may be poetry in him; poetry can exist in the poet.A painter sits here, and in a very subtle way, the painting is already there.Painting existed before he painted.But in a dancer nothing is present, and if there is, then he is only a craftsman, not a dancer.Dance is a new phenomenon that comes in, the dancer just becomes a tool and dance takes over. One of the greatest dancers of this century, Nizhinsky, at the end he went mad.He was perhaps the greatest dancer who ever lived, but dance became so intense and intense to him that one was lost in it.In his final years, he had lost control of it.At any time, anywhere, he can start dancing.And when he's dancing, there's no telling when it's going to end, he might even last the whole night. ①Nijinsky (Nijinsky, 1890～1950): A famous ballet dancer in Russia. In 1919, due to schizophrenia, he withdrew from the stage at the age of 29. ——Editor's note Friends asked him, "What's the matter with you? Once you started, you never ended." Nizhinsky replied, "I just existed in the beginning, then something took over, and I'm gone— Who is dancing, I don't know." He went mad and was put in a madhouse, where he died. Do any activity to the limit, either madly or meditatively.Lukewarm pursuits will not do much.