37 A Ghost Story
[Krishnamurti Foundation, Chennai, Tamil Nadu] The compound lay south of the city, in the suburbs, and was large enough to be self-contained. One could eat and sleep there, and the walk around the perimeter or through the grounds was sufficient and varied enough for exercise and interest, though the confusion of the city was still there in the incessant blaring of horns and the sounds of numerous temples competing with each other and the more secular film music blasted out by the various stalls that lay round about.
In the middle of the grounds stood a stately white house, an austere building marked by a swathe of red bougainvillea, which made its way up to the first-floor balcony. There was a well-kept lawn in front, with a small ornamental pond to one side. The scene was most enchanting by moonlight and I sometimes spent the evenings sitting on one of the white wicker chairs under the night sky. From the outside the building was ordinary enough, new inside there was something a little unexpected, with a large spacious hall downstairs, and an airy library upstairs, and only a few living rooms on the periphery. The whole house had an expansive feel about it, but the proportions were such that it also retained a certain homeliness.
I had come here to meet a ghost who periodically put in an appearance in this place. I arranged a convenient time and we met one day in the attic. As far as these things go one was aware that this particular shade had more life in him than most who are still living. We sat down together and talked over some things, and there was an extraordinary intensity about the way he spoke: before each sentence it was as though he had descended into the depths of his being and had gathered together all his energies into one spot, and he spoke slowly, coherently, from out of that centre:
there is a state
of chaos and disorder
throughout the world today
there are divisions
both inside and outside
and no end to the conflict
the search for safety
in the wrong place
just makes matters worse
is it possible to break
with all those things
that have gone before?
is it possible
that something new
might come into being?
why do we argue
about what ideas
lead to right action?
while energy is wasted
in self contradiction
still no one is acting
disaster is coming
why can you not see
the danger to us all?
we pursue the more:
more status, more power
more of what always has been
we are not committed
to truth and action
that arises out of that truth
and so it continues
and we are caught up
in this most vicious circle
are we missing
what is happening
because our world is too small?
It seems that fear dominates our lives, which is as much as to say that yesterday casts its shadow over us, we are always seeing the present in terms of the past, and in doing so we break up the wholeness of the moment, fragmenting the totality with the past and its abstractions and divisions. We have lazy minds that like to operate from a tiny corner of consciousness, minds that are seeking the ease of continuity. But that very search gives rise to conflict and so the struggle begins. One wonders why there is so much need to resist change until one sees just how dangerous life is. The mind, being the organ of self-security, instinctively knows that there is nothing so safe as the past, nothing so secure as death. And so we kill life in our search for security and we never get to know the totality of ourselves, all our darkness and light, and never come across the wholeness of life.
It seems that it is only when we break out of the routine of everyday life that we can even get a glimpse of something more. As long as we are operating within a comfortable groove we never make a move, never take that all important first step. And so it’s only when our cosy existence is disrupted that we look again; and as often as not it’s suffering in one form or another that opens us up to enquiry; and if the suffering is deep enough then the very demand of the questions that arise create room for exploration.
We only really come to know ourselves when we’ve found some space and time in our lives, when we sit down quietly and look at ourselves and at the world around us, and start to question what it’s all about. Initially when we look at our lives, perhaps all we see are the clouds of confusion that make up our day to day lives, the clouds are dense and seemingly impenetrable, and like an overcast day there appears to be no end to them, it’s as though that’s all there is and all there could be. It may be that we would like to be free of this confusion, but what to do when all our lives we’ve been taught to suppress or move away from what we don’t like, and it soon becomes obvious that suppression is just one more cloud on the horizon trying to keep all the others down, and running away is like trying to escape from your own shadow. But maybe if we see the falseness of this approach, perhaps we can learn not to resist the clouds but to come to know them, their shape and colour, their coming into being and their passing away again. And when one is simply aware of what is there then on occasion we may see that there are gaps in the clouds, and we have a first sight of the sky beyond.
As we look more deeply we see that without the sky there could be no clouds – and that’s a deep realisation when one knows that all clouds of whatever kind arise on the emptiness of the sky, and one sees that the sky must always be there, it always was there, even when it was obscured. That can be a real breakthrough for one knows thereafter that even if it’s very cloudy one day, and you have apparently lost your way, still the sky must be there, and you are able to sit back and simply watch the clouds form and change, and it’s no longer a problem, in fact, in its own way, it’s very beautiful. And if one has learned not to be afraid of these things then perhaps there’s a certain kind of freedom in that.
as I was sitting one day by a tree
a man came up and spoke to me:
‘to whom do you listen, whom do you hear?
are you a prophet, or are you a seer?’
‘the question is good, it’s really quite fitting,
I’ll say what it is I hear when I’m sitting:
the bees in the air, the call of the dove,
the sound of the wind in the branches above,
I listen with care to the thoughts in my mind,
and in all these things great joy do I find.
I listen to others who come here to talk,
we sit here together, or maybe we walk.’
Then he turned and he asked: ‘Will you listen to me,
I can’t give you much, will you listen for free?’
and he told of his life and all he had seen,
of what he had done, and where he had been
I listened to that man all through the day,
the sun was setting when he went on his way,
and I could tell by his face as he left that field,
that during that day that man had been healed.