“Love is a state in which there is no ‘me’; love is a state in which there is no condemnation, no saying that sex is right or wrong, that this good and something else is bad.
Love is none of these contradictory things.
Contradiction does not exist in love.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
Question: Krishnamurti says that one craves sex because in that, one finds no ‘me’, ego, and hence no conflict. And one uses it as an escape. Why does one not use meditation too as an escape? Is it because that one lacks understanding, energy? Or is it because that the outside influences and inherent tendencies, acquired and hence biological, are too strong?
Does this call for an inner strength stronger than the outer influences? How would one describe this inner strength in words, if it exists?
Acharya Prashant(AP): The basis of the question is, that one probably does not use meditation as an escape. But one does use meditation as an escape. One uses everything as an escape.
One uses meditation in precisely the same way, as one uses sex, or any other means of getting away.
Of course, Krishnamurti is spot on when he says that, in the experience of sex, there is no ‘me’, no ego, and hence no conflict. So, there is a great Peace, a Silence, a touch of the Beyond. That Peace, that Silence, that touch of the Beyond, is one’s ultimate desire.
But, is one ready to go beyond the touch? The ego is so afraid, and so stupid, that it is terrified of the one it loves; that it wants to run away from the same healing touch, it so craves for.
One will have ‘a little’ of it, one does not want ‘the whole’ of it. A little of it ensures continuity of the ego. A little of it implies that one could have the healing touch, and yet remain what one is, yet continue with one’s ways. That much is acceptable to the ego. But only that much, not beyond that.
The ego says, “My first priority is to remain, exist, and after that comes everything else. Even the Truth must be subservient to my first priority.”
So, Liberation is alright, as long as it is a second of Liberation. Peace is alright, as long as, it is five minutes of Peace. But if Silence threatens to take over the entire life, if Peace starts dominating noise, to the extent that noise might be completely annihilated, then the ego rejects.
The ego wants Truth, but only a modicum of Truth. The ego wants Peace, but only a sliver of Peace. The ego is foolish. It’s first priority is always it’s own sustenance. So when the ego will enter meditation, it will enter false meditation, it will enter limited meditation.
People meditate for five minutes. People set a particular time to meditate. I would ask professional meditators, people who have been practicing meditation for so long: “If you love meditation so much, why do you get up from it? If you love meditation so much, why do you limit it to half an hour of the morning time? Why don’t you let meditation in your entire life? Why can’t you live meditatively?”
They would not have an answer. The answer is clear.
The answer is: if you start living meditatively, rather than limiting, just isolating, relegating meditation to a corner of your daily schedule, then your daily schedule itself would be threatened. You do not want to allow that.
The ego does not want to allow that.
The ego says, “Meditation is good as long as it is for half an hour. Then it will serve my my ends. I can become a little peaceful. Mind you, just a little peaceful. I can become a little peaceful, and then go about doing my usual, daily tasks.”
“Even if meditation has to be there, it has to be there as a servant of my daily priorities. I want to go to the same office, and continue with the same humdrum business, and to be effective in the same humdrum business, and to perform more efficiently in the same office. I want to be meditative.”
“I will not let meditation overpower me. I will not let meditation, become a canopy over the space of my life. I will not let meditation become a complete solution that dissolves me away. I will use meditation as a tool. I will use meditation as a tool to remain more of what I anyway, and already am.”
That is how the mind uses meditation, that is how the mind uses sex, that is how the mind uses Truth and God.
Because you are disturbed, dull, restless, after the entire day’s soul-sapping routine, in the night you use sex as an entertainment, as a relief, as a getaway.
Using sex as a relief, enables you to wake up the next morning, and again continue with your routine, and then again hit the bed in the night, again use sex as a dissipator, again use sex as a temporary healer, and then again go back to the same shop, same work, same office, same society, same people, same routine that disturb you.
Sex, Meditation, Prayer, God – in that sense, all of them are just used by the ego, as enablers. They enable the ego, to continue as it is.
One returns to his shop, and then goes to the Temple. Going to the Temple enables one to return to his shop.
One does, what one does the entire day, and then in the evening, one wants to atone. One goes and confesses. It might be an evening, or it might be a Sunday in the Church; one goes and confesses. Or one would write a letter of guilt, confession, admission to a Teacher.
One would say that I wasted the entire day. One would say that I am a lousy man, an evil man. And all that confession in the evening enables one to conveniently again embark the next morning, on the same beaten path.
That is how we work.
We exploit even the Highest.
If a prophet would come to us, we would use him to serve our petty purposes. Don’t you see what people do when they go to holy places, to pilgrimage, to a Dargah , to a Guru? They go there and they ask about their little things. That is all the relationship that they have with the Guru, or the Pir , or the Granth , or the Temple, or the Gurudwara .
“Let everything exist, to allow me, to even help me remain as rotten as I am” – that is the world view of the ego, that is how we look at the entire universe. Unfortunately, that is also how we look at the one, beyond the universe.
The ego is an exploitative being, the ego is a stupid being. It exploits the one it ought to surrender to. It goes to the ocean, and asks only for two drops. And it thinks it is being quite clever, in asking just as much as it can hold.
Can you look at the mind, the psychology of the person who has the entire ocean available of him, and is instead asking for only as much, as his limitations would allow? Can you see that?
Sex is a window, organised meditation too is a window. Every moment in life is a window. But the ego is scared of free, open, unlimited space. It would have only as much of the Sky, as the window would allow.
That is why one is so agreeable to the five seconds of peace that orgasm brings, but one is not agreeable to Samadhi , because Samadhi is infinite peace.
One wants customised Samadhi, one wants temporal *Samadhi. *
One wants Samadhi that can be used and exploited. One wants Samadhi, that would not be a total and final dissolution. One wants Samadhi, that one can be on the top of.
And that is why, one never gets *Samadhi. *
And that is why, that which is so easily available and one’s innate nature, remains elusive.
