EXPLOSION
On the 14th August I had another interview with Krishnamurti. While I was waiting for him his hostess was kind enough to come and have a word with me.
‘Do you understand what Krishnaji says?’ She asked.
I said: ‘I feel I do – If I may say so. But everyone can understand if one wants to, can’t one? There is nothing difficult what he says is so simple.’
Krishnaji came out in a little while and led me to a room where we settled down for a serious talk. Here are the notes of our conversation.
Vimala Thakar: I am sharing with you my experience. I have decided after great hesitation to tell you about the present state of my mind because it concerns you in a way…
Krishnamurti: You need not hesitate at all. You can say anything to me – for or against. Do you understand?
V. I have told you about the invasion of a new awareness, irresistible and uncontrollable.
I have told you how it has swept away everything. Now – this has something to do with that healing. If it had come independently I would not have felt as I feel today. If the mind had come by it, say, while listening to you, I would not have felt what I feel today.
Today I feel that the two are related. And I feel deeply indebted to you for both.
That feeling of indebtedness makes the mind heavy and uncomfortable. Your talks have helped me and I am deeply thankful to you for the talks.
But my love for you was never burdened with a sense of indebtedness before. Today it is.
K. Wait a bit. Who told you that the two are related?
V. No one. I feel it.
K. Your feeling may be wrong. Perhaps you are confusing the two. You don’t owe me a damn thing in the world. Do you understand it? The healing has happened. It has taken two persons – you and me – for it to happen. Why not let it remain at that? It is very simple.
V. Are you sure that the two are not related?
K. Yes. Quite sure. You have been listening to the talks. You have a serious mind. The talks were sinking deep into your being. They are operating all the time. One day you realized the truth.
What have I done to it? Look here- you were walking in a forest. You came across another person.
He said: ‘If you walk this way you might arrive earlier.’ You walked. You arrived. You thanked the person. It is as simple as that.
Why should you feel you owe something to me? Why make an issue of it?
V. I can’t tell you why. But I do feel obliged to you.
K. All right why do you feel disturbed over it?
V. Because my affection feels hurt by that. Obligation and indebtedness seem to have polluted love and friendship. Our very relationship seems to be changing.
K. Goodness me. Our relationship need not and should not change. It should be as free as it was before. I wonder if you are frightened…
V. Yes – Krishnaji. I feel a kind of awe, a kind of fear…
K. That’s the crux. There is nothing to feel afraid of. I have not done anything to you. I don’t know how the healing takes place. I know as much as you do. Do you understand? Shake this off. I shall be sorry if our relationship is affected by this. Vimalaji, the earth was ready to receive the rains. She has received with full abandon. No wonder there is new life.
V. So be it Krishnaji. Let me only confess that this sudden invasion does baffle me. It is not due to anything that I have done. As if it is not related to me as an effect is related to its cause. It has descended with an irresistible force. The intensity and the depth of the force know neither increase nor decrease.
K. It happens. Why not watch it?
I prepared to leave. Krishnamurti knew that I was leaving Gstaad for Zurich the same evening. So he said:
‘I hope to find you in excellent health when we meet in India. Have a pleasant journey.’
While I was walking back to the hotel I met Mr. B. who was practicing as a psychiatrist in New York. He had come all the way to attend the talks. He was putting up in the same hotel and we had met several times during the fortnight.
B. Vimala, I have been shaken all over by Krishnamurti’s talks. We had learnt that the unconscious is indestructible. Krishnamurti says: ‘It can drop away.’ I had learned that it has taken a million years for the human mind and the brain to develop to its present state. Krishnamurti says: ‘You can jump out of this mind and brain.’ It is fantastic and incredible.
V. It is neither incredible nor fantastic. He is not presenting a theory or an idea which you could accept or reject. He communicates his experience. He is a challenge to your science of psychology.
Why should not a group of you take it up for scientific investigation? Why not make a research into whether the conscious and the unconscious can be done away with?
Krishnamurti is no fool. He knows what he says and he says what he means.
B. Do you agree with Krishnamurti, that the unconscious can be destroyed completely?
V. I am not a student of psychology. And there is nothing to agree with. I see that what he says is true.
B. Excuse me for being personal. Have you destroyed it?
V. You can’t destroy it, my dear. It gets destroyed. One sees that it has dropped. That is all.
I left Gastaad in the evening and by midnight I was in Zurich. Next day I wrote two letters, one to my father and one to Krishnamurti.
To my father I wrote:
‘Everything has dropped away. A tremendous tempest has swept away everything with one stroke. It is not ‘The cosmic evolution become conscious of itself.’ It is life anew. A journey wither I know not! Why, I know not! No excitement! No enthusiasm. But an intense flame of passion is consuming the whole being. I wish I could describe the strength of integrity which makes me walk now fearlessly. I wish I could describe how I witnessed the ego being torn to pieces and being thrown to the winds. I wish I could communicate what this denudation is! Or may one call it ex-centration? The center of thinking getting dissolved into nothingness.
The words might sound familiar. Perhaps you would say Krishnamurti – type terms and phrases. But you are well aware that borrowed phrases cannot transmit life. Nor can they enable one to see the reality. They cannot give you the moral courage to knock down and pull down your house in which you have lived until now.
Only truth liberates. Only truth transmits fresh life. Truth breathes innocence into you.
Destruction and creation mingle in that breath.’
To Krishanmurti I wrote:
‘I am not making ‘an issue’ of the event. I am trying to understand it in relation to total life. You may tell me, ‘ It is simple.’ My mind looks upon it as something strange. Is it simple to see the total mind being born anew? If one who has suddenly witnessed it happening, feels overwhelmed, would you call it an emotional disturbance?
Let me assure you that it is not the personal aspect (It’s happening in my life) that overwhelms me. Life is neither yours nor mine. Life is life. This phenomenon comes as a challenge to the medical science and to psychology. Does it not?
It is true that I have been listening to your talks for five years. I knew that they were sinking deep into the very being. But surely, that could not cause this sudden explosion. Understanding does not explode; nor does love explode. Or do they? Not that I am sorry for it. Not that I am excited about it? Far from it. I am watching everything with a passionate interest.
I do not think I shall attend anymore talks. I would love, however, to come and see you when you are in India. I would love to sit quietly with you, provided you do not mind sparing some time for a person who wants to see you without any purpose whatsoever.
Thank you very deeply indeed for everything I have received through you.’
After spending three weeks in Zurich I left for India by plane. I was in good cheer. I was relaxed and happy. There was intense alertness to understand every movement of life. Life had fanned a glowing flame of passionate interest.
One could call that state of deep attention an absolutely new experience of meditation. I am sorry it is not quite correct to call it an experience or a state. Both have a beginning and an end. In my case, however, I did not know how it came about; nor had I any idea whether it would continue forever whether it would discontinue the next moment.
-Vimala Thakar
From On an Eternal Voyage, p. 31-34
The entire book can be downloaded here: http://o-meditation.com/jai-guru-deva/some-good-books/downloadable-books/vimala-thakar/
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