This Light in Oneself
Krishnamurti ranks up there withKahlil Gibranin what you might call common sense mysticism. Repudiating his upbringing as a Theosophist World Leader, Krishnamurti pushed a sort of religious self-reliance, as evidenced in the title of this collection of essays,This Light in Oneself. Meditation for Krishnamurti has nothing to do with gurus, postures, or concentration exercises, nor is its purpose "to sleep longer, do your job better, or to get more money." What it is can be a bit slippery, though. As Krishnamurti states it, meditation is a psychological state--a kind of choiceless awareness, "a state in which the 'me' is totally absent." His argument comes out gradually in this series of essays that are here published for the first time. But since each essay was originally a self-enclosed lecture on meditation, there is much overlap of material. So the reader must approach the book like a spaceship that circles planets and moons in order to be slingshot to further reaches. Path: unknown. Final destination: enlightenment. --Brian Bruya