Neither Accepting Nor Rejecting

Jiddu Krishnamurti, born in Colonial India to a Brahmin family and raised by Charles Webster Leadbeater of the Theosophical Society, rejected his pampered upbringing after he experienced what he later called "the process". The Theosophical Society had expected Krishnamurti to fulfill the role of a long-awaited World Teacher and had groomed him from childhood specifically for this role. At the age of 27 Krishnamurti began to experience a feeling of immense pain in his neck accompanied by a hard swelling. His symptoms worsened from day to day, coming to include delirious ramblings, loss of appetite, and others until he appeared to fall into unconsciousness, although Krishnamurti recounts that he was fully cognizant during this time. This first experience of "the process" was followed by a sense of "immense peace", and a recounting of having experienced divine bliss. His experience of the process would happen on an almost nightly basis for the next two months, and intermittently from then on. Krishnamurti's experience proved to be a spiritual happening all his own; a path to some sort of enlightenment taught to him by neither theosophists, priests, nor gurus. To be taught of spiritual matters and paths to higher consciousness by a society ones whole life and to then experience one never mentioned by them must have been jarring to say the least.
Because of this, Krishnamurti chose the dissolution of the Order of the Star, a branch of the Theosophical Society created in his honor stating that the moment a person chooses to follow another on their path to mental and spiritual freedom they have ceased to follow the Truth.

Yesterday morning, while pouring boiling water on my coffee, the kettle's stream found its way from the french press holding my coffee grounds to my right hand holding the press. I heard the hiss of hot on cold and imitated it with a sharp inhalation, "Tsssss," before I realized what had just happened. Whether I muttered "fuck" or saw the already reddening skin of my hand first I could not say, but immediately afterward my mind slipped into a sort of meditation whose source I cannot readily identify, but that has been my reaction to pain for quite some time.
To say that I began to concentrate on the pain comes close to summing up this meditation, but it does not capture the true essence of it. As the hue of my burnt skin continued to darken, rather than letting pain overwhelm rationality, I found myself looking at the skin, watching its transformation and by caressing it with my left thumb felt its rough texture become smooth. More importantly though, as the red turned to maroon turned to rust, I set my awareness not on the pain, but on the sensation of pain; on the relationship between skin, nerves, brain, and the communication occurring between the three, telling me to hurt. After about a half minute of simply observing the pain, it began to become just another feeling, neither enjoyable or not.
I convinced myself of nothing, not trying to brain wash myself into believing this tingling that should have seared felt good and not trying to ignore the screaming voice of a million years of instinct urging me to recoil from pain. In this space between acceptance of my pain and denial, there was solace. There was a calm set aside from the judgement of my physical feelings. It was a somewhat eerie calm. The coffee steeped in its water unaffected, my roommates slept in their beds undisturbed, and the world moved on unaware of my pain and unaware of my accomplishment.
It was in this silence that a quote that had sat at the back of my mind for weeks, thrusting itself into my consciousness in between thoughts, made yet another appearance. When the words to a song could not be recalled, there it was. When my worst depressions overwhelmed me with embittered thoughts and gave me but one second of silence before starting on a new barrage, there it was. When things were alright and when things were fucked, this riddle of a quote would baffle the extent of logical dissection and its optimistic mystery would pull me through with its simplicity.


During a brief period of free time a few weeks earlier I had found myself watching videos of speeches given by one J. Krishnamurti, having remembered the name after watching Zeitgeist: Addendum which included a brief audio clip from one of his many lectures. After his dissolution of the Order of the Star, Krishnamurti continued his lecture tours but his focus changed to radical new topics. In his eyes, the only remedy for the problems of humanity was a revolution of the mind. The world could not attain any sort of lasting peace until its population saw past its own governments, religions, nationalities, and the infinite boundaries that they separate one another by. This change was not something that could be brought about from the outside though. It was a process each individual must undergo by dealing with their own mental hang-ups. In order to save the world, we must save our minds. When asked how a person could begin to do such a thing, his response was that we must view ourselves "neither accepting nor rejecting."
Neither accepting nor rejecting. We live our whole lives seeing things from our own perspective both physically and mentally. We have two eyes converting images into electrical impulses interpreted by our minds to tell us whats happening, and more importantly we have a self-conscious telling us what to think about it. This is how its been our whole lives. Everything impulse physical and mental is either accepted, thought to be good, moral, beautiful, tasty, or rejected, thought to be bad, amoral, ugly, or disgusting. So as great as it sounds to say that all you have to do is neither accept nor reject, just how in the fuck does one go about doing so?

And as I sipped my coffee, rubbed my right hand with left thumb, and let that phrase reverberate through my mind "Neither accepting nor rejecting. Accepting nor rejecting. Neither..Nor rejecting..Neither nor." I could almost feel the connection, as my synapses fired and a million neurons that had always longed to touch made that ecstatic bond. A feeling is a feeling is a feeling. An affectation of one of your physical senses is a sensation, an affectation of your mind is an emotion, but we use the same word for both interchangeably. They are feelings. I do not believe it is a shortcoming or failure of the English language that a feeling can be used describe something both concrete and abstract.
To think about it now, the whole experience forms a logical progression explaining beyond a doubt that indeed, there is an invisible disease largely unknown to us festering in our individual minds and as our consciousness collectively. It is every time you are unsatisfied with your reflection, every time you hate yourself for your bank account, every time you regret your past, every time you fear the future, every word you've never said and all the ones you wish you hadn't. When you want your mortal coil to reach its end now, and when you're more than willing to cut it yourself please remember that it is not really you. There is a plague on our emotions. These emotions that have tinted everything we experience are not entirely ours. This sickness twists them to its will, and the only way to remove the sickness is to step back from our emotions long enough to see it growing there.
When you see it it will be a sickening green, gleaming with slime and pulsing to your own heart beat. The veins thinly veiled beneath its thin outer membrane bulge and trace million paths, all leading to nothing but misery.
And even then you must neither accept it nor reject it, and through this ambivalence you will rob it of its power and watch it unlatch itself, fall to the floor, and give one slight quiver of a death rattle before it dies.

"An old dream is dead and a new one is being born, as a flower that pushes through the solid earth. A new vision is coming into being and a greater consciousness is being unfolded...A new strength, born of suffering, is pulsating in the veins and a new sympathy and understanding is being born of past suffering - a greater desire to see others suffer less, and, if they must suffer, to see that they bear it nobly and come out of it without too many scars. I have wept, but I do not want others to weep; but if they do, I know what it means."
Krishnamurti writing in the bulletin of the Order of the Star (The Herald of the Star, January 1926, published in London).

April Showers

There's dark clouds creeping over the city right now. Everything is turning gray, but for some reason it doesn't depress me like it did. It has been maybe two weeks, but these same clouds two weeks ago would have driven me up the stairs and to the bottom of many cans. Packs of cigarettes would tremble in my presence, aware of their inevitable immolation. The gray would have its way with me.
But, having survived yet another winter of discontent, having weathered the storm, having survived the part of me that wants myself destroyed, I see can finally see that the other colors aren't really getting grayed out. The green of grass and trees and the yellow strip of a no parking area along the curb become if anything more vibrant. There's nothing visually appealing about concrete and asphalt, but these creeping clouds turn the sunlight silver and it saturates these fields of suburban sprawl and I find them...tolerable.

Gotta go to work, work all day
It keeps me busy, prevents me from spending terribly too much money, and I'm finally get back in shape. The weather does affect (effect?) my mood quite a bit, but the horrible truth of the matter is that money does so too, and probably even more. When I'm poor, I can hardly find the motivation to do anything. Just..sit here a bit more, should I try to go hang out, find out if the roommates are home, clean myself? No. I'll just..sit here a bit more.
I'm telling myself that working outdoors is whats improving my spirits and I know that it's partially true. But the horrible, awful, depressing in itself truth is that money has such a strangle-hold on my emotions that I revert to thirteen every time I'm running short on money. Text-book depression.

Gotta go to work indeed, time to make the coffee.

Oh to be the life of the party
The big cheese, cock of the walk
Listen to my stories
Speaking skills impecable

Oh to be extroverted
Crazy and flirtatious
Listen to my voice
So loud you can't help it

Oh to be sweet
A dear, a doll
Listen to me
I'll swoon you in a heartbeat

Oh to be confident
Sincere, honest
Listen to what I say
Because it comes from the heart


I know I fucked it up. I had my fair chance. But every time I tried to come clean to you, the words stuck in my throat and resulted in an uncomfortable coughing fit. A sidelong glance at you, caught in the act, resulting in a careful investigation of my shoes. My knees point toward you, hands yearn to move just a few...more...inches. It always ends in paralysis. I would tell you how I feel, but my tongue would turn to stone; my hand would finally grasp yours, but its tendons become taught; my legs would span those last few inches and touch yours if those last few inches weren't so fucking far. Yes, we are friends. Great friends. And it's great having you for a friend. I'm perfectly...content. But to be content is to settle for less than say: happy, marvelous, fantastic.
I've settled for content for so long, and now I know its secret. Contention is the opiate of the masses. We settle for being content and tell ourselves it's good enough. Sure, things aren't great but we get by. We're content. It's just good enough. But I want to be ecstatic. Like when my day has been shit and we sit and talk until six in the morning. It's ecstasy to me. I love your intelligence, your less than perfect past, your ability to make do, your love of books, your smile, your eyes, your style, and as a result..or rather as a culmination of this and more..I love being with you.

I hate that I fumble my words around you. I hate it when I mistake actors in front of you and when I can't think of the book I want you to know about. I hate knowing that I'm not an idiot and knowing I make an ass of myself in front of you constantly. I hate how fucking self-conscious you make me. I hate that I can't picture myself ever having your confidence. I hate myself for writing these things I'll never say to you.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it