A mind in contemplation is free of symbols; it has no visions because visions are projections of that background in which it has been conditioned. A mind in contemplation is no longer making effort, as effort is generally understood; therefore, there is no observer, there is no censor. A mind in contemplation, which is the state of meditation, is completely silent, and that silence is not induced. You can discipline your mind to be silent, but that is merely conformity to a pattern in the hope of getting what you desire; therefore, it is not silence. A mind in meditation is absolutely silent, and that silence is not projected, not wished for, not cultivated. That silence is from moment to moment, it has no continuity; therefore, it cannot be practiced, it cannot be developed any more than you can develop humility. Do you understand? If you cultivate, develop humility, you are no longer humble; you don’t know what humility means. Leave the cultivation of humility to the saints, to the leaders, who are full of vanity and therefore cultivate the opposite, hoping thereby to become still more respectable. The cultivation of virtue is effort in limitation, so this quality of silence is not something to be cultivated.

The mind in meditation is in a state where there is no movement of thought, and therefore no projection of the background in which it has lived. Only the mind which has understood all that we have been talking about—understood in the sense of having perceived the fact, not merely having accepted the words, the explanations, which are ashes—and is therefore completely silent with a silence that is not induced by breathing or any other trick—it is only such a mind that can know the immeasurable, the eternal, that which has no beginning and no end.

February 28, 1960.

The Collected Works of
J. Krishnamurti – Volume XI 1958-1960: Crisis in Consciousness
Jiddu Krishnamurti