Behind My Hand

“This is the crux of the whole problem. The one that is looking at what you call the self is the self. It is creating an illusory division of itself into subject and object, and through this division it is continuing. This is the divisive nature that is operating in you, in your consciousness. Continuity of its existence is all that interests it. As long as you want to understand yourself or to change yourself into something spiritual, into something holy, beautiful or marvelous, you will continue. If you do not want to do anything about it, it is not there. It's gone.“ —- The Natural State, In the Words of U.G. Krishnamurti, p. 15 —- It is a trap. A conundrum. A koan. A wonderful absurdity.

Just what exactly do you mean by consciousness? You are conscious, aware, only through thought. The other animals use thought. The dog, for example, can recognize its owner in a simple manner. They recognize without using language. Humans have added to the structure of thought, making it much more complex. - The Natural State, In the Words of U.G. Krishnamurti pdf, p. 62; Peter Maverick

All insights, however extraordinary they may be, are worthless because it is thought that has created what we call insight and through that it is maintaining its continuity and status quo. - U G Krishnamurti in “The Natural State”

This death process is yoga, not the hundreds of postures and breathing exercises. When the thought process stops splitting itself in two, the body goes through a clinical death. First the death must take place, then yoga begins. Yoga is actually the body's skill in bringing itself back from the state of clinical death. This is supposed to have happened to a few people, like Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramana Maharshi. I wasn't there and have no interest or resources to find out if this is so. This yoga of renewal is an extraordinary thing. (UG Krishnamurti in Mind is Myth)

From UG Krishnamurti: Q: Where do all these thoughts come from? A: They are all over. There is a thought sphere in which we are all functioning. But one question (I don't ask myself that question because there is no point in posing that question to myself, nor am I interested in finding an answer for it) for which the answer is not very clear is: do these thoughts come from outside passed on from generation to generation, or are they also transmitted through the genes? I have every reason to believe that the totality of knowledge is not only transmitted through our education in all forms, shapes, sizes, and degrees, but also, to a greater extent, through the genes. Now they are saying that the capacity to learn not only languages but a language is genetically controlled. (Thought Is Your Enemy)

So take it or leave it! You will be better off if you leave it. Anything you listen to is turned into a method, a system. You want to get something through this. For example, somebody says there is a mind and you must uncondition your mind. How are you going to uncondition your mind? You are conditioning your mind through this lingo. That is all that it is necessary for you to see. ... All paths must go. As long as you follow somebody else's path, the path is the product of thought. So it is actually not a new path, it's the same old path, and you are playing the same old game in a new way. It is not a new game. It is the same old game that you are playing all the time, but you think you are playing a new game. You have to come to a point where you can't do anything at all. - The Natural State, U. G. Krishnamurti

I have shared this piece, from UG Krishnamurti, a few times over the years. It still stands up.  Have you ever looked at that parallel movement of thought? The books on English grammar will tell you that 'I' is a first person singular pronoun, subjective case; but that is not what you want to know. Can you look at that thing you call 'I'? It is very elusive. Look at it now, feel it, touch it, and tell me. How do you look at it? And what is the thing that is looking at what you call 'I'? This is the crux of the whole problem: the one that is looking at what you call 'I' is the 'I'. It is creating an illusory division of itself into subject and object, and through this division it is continuing. This is the divisive nature that is operating in you, in your consciousness. Continuity of its existence is all that interests it. As long as you want to understand that 'you' or to change that 'you' into something spiritual, into somethin...

The natural state is not a 'thoughtless state' -- that is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated for thousands of years on poor, helpless Hindus. You will never be without thought until the body is a corpse, a very dead corpse. Being able to think is necessary to survive. But in this state thought stops choking you; it falls into its natural rhythm. There is no longer a 'you' who reads the thoughts and thinks that they are 'his’. U. G. Krishnamurti in The Mystique of Enlightenment.

Belief is the final resort of those who have given up the search.

The jnani's anger is anger without attachment. It remains uncultivated. It  equates to the anger one might feel towards the finger which just poked its  own eye.

It is pointless to obsess over the words of others while the obsessing mind remains unknown.

There is no self to be realised. That is the sum and substance of your search.