The Pursuit of Visions and Experiences Leads to Illusions and Self-Hypnosis

"What an extraordinary thing meditation is. If there is any kind of compulsion, effort to make thought conform, imitate, then it becomes a wearisome burden. The silence which is desired ceases to be illuminating. If it is the pursuit of visions and experiences, then it leads to illusions and self-hypnosis. Only in the flowering of thought and so ending thought does meditation have significance. Thought can only flower in freedom, not in ever-widening patterns of knowledge. Knowledge may give newer experiences of greater sensation but a mind that is seeking experiences of any kind is immature. Maturity is the freedom from all experience; it is no longer under any influence to be or not to be.Maturity in meditation is the freeing of the mind from knowledge, for knowledge shapes and controls all experience. A mind which is a light to itself needs no experience. Immaturity is the craving for greater and wider experience. Meditation is the wandering through the world of knowledge and being free of it to enter into the unknown." - Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti Notebook,213

The Prodigal Poem

Some fly high in ships of light

Some sail stormy seas at night

They seek the end of their great plight

But it’s in their mind  they've taken flight

Some fly high... Some fly low

In the search to finally know

Why they wander through the land to grow...

Feed Your Satisfaction... Not Your Hunger

"You may feed your hunger by thinking of your desire, or feed its satisfaction by thinking from its fulfillment." (Neville)

...A critical distinction in the use of your mind towards creative ends. It is important to remember that

thoughts do not create things. 

Thoughts come in patterns from the channel you are tuned into unconsciously. To change to a more desirable channel, one must tune the mind to it by 'Thinking FROM the fulfillment of desire'. That means imagining the FEELING of already having what you now desire. Practice the feeling until it feels natural and normal. You may even lose the feeling of desire for it. The worst case scenario is that nothing will change but you will have the joy of feeling better while you practice. And if you practice, for as little as 17 seconds a day, you WILL see results!

The Keyboard of Life...

Every experience in life is like a note, played on an infinite piano keyboard...
The following is an exerpt from the lecture, "Seedtime and Harvest" 

Read it at http://neville-goddard.blogspot.com/p/seedtime.html

Your Children are not Your Children

      "Your children are not your children. 

      They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing to know itself. 

      They come through you but not from you, 

      And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. 

      You may give them your love but not your thoughts. 

      For they have their own thoughts. 

      You may house their bodies but not their souls, 

      For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. 

      You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. 

      For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. 

      You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. 

      The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. 

      Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; 

      For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable." (Kahlil Gibran) 

A Mind that is Choosing is a Mind that is in Confusion...

If you knew what you wanted, you would not be choosing. Your desire would be obvious to the point

that no other options existed to 'choose' from. It is the EGO and the Intellect that like choices... "Look what "I" chose... and aren't "I" soo smart, knowledgeable, clever for making such an good choice." or "Look what "I" have identified myself with".

And is there any real choice if your decision is the result of an unconscious program that was put in your mind by "others"? 

 You think you are choosing a Chevrolet, or to vote Republican, or buy Nike... a zillion ideas have been put into our heads by the time we are 10 years old and most people have never stopped to question any of them because they are unaware that they exist. The great advertisers and propagandists of the world are very well aware of how the mind works... are YOU? 

If you are not, you have probably never made any real choice at all your entire life.

Choice implies an awareness of options but if you are not aware of your own mental programming, are you really in choice? Certainly not. But well developed Egos and Intellects feed off of all these unconscious identifications and most find it comfotable there.

I hope you do not!

Here, Krishnamurti sets us straight...

"We think we are free when we choose; but we are not, are we? Where there is choice, there is no freedom because that very choice springs from our conditioned state. We thing we have a will of our own, and we exercise that will through choice. But, if you observe, you will see that well is the outcome of innumerable desires, of many forms  of frustration, fears; and these frustrations, fears , desires are the outcome  of our conditioning, of our background; so when we choose, we are never free. Choice in itself indicates the lack of freedom. A man who is really free has no choice; he is free... not to be this or that, but to BE. As long as we have choice, we are really not free and we are not really individuals." (J. Krishnamurti)