Somendra Pant
Thu, 21 Jun 2001 07:50:44 -0700
>rob: my conditioning and everyone around me seems to
>tell me that my achieving is everything. i am told
>that if i fail to achieve titles, or do something
>*considered by others* as great -- then i am a failure.
>a failure is a nobody. "you must be somebody!"
>screams the conditioning. my natural survival instinct
>is to win approval from my elders -- and we are a social
>animal in which the inclination ot cooperate is biologically
>ingrained to a degree.
>rob: yes, then i have fit in to the corrupt stream that is
>society as we know it.
>rob: yes. sometimes inaction from exerting effort to
>do my best in terms of the particular grooves of
>achieving which society offers allows one to learn from
>failing to fit in to a corrupt world. failing may be
>merely the gate to the road of discovery.
Som: What you wrote is very basic Krishnamurti, and I think all of us on
this list are
quite familiar with those ideas.
What I tried doing was to dig deeper in to the implication of what K wrote.
Sure competition to conform is detrimental to creativity and authentic living.
The danger of taking K too literally is that one can easily take his words
as an excuse for
being complacent, which wasn't his intention.
Time and again he insisted on excellence and people giving their best to
the task at hand.
If you pay attention to his talks and writings, he is meticulous about the
use of his words
and language and there is little or no sloppiness in K. He was also careful
about his health
and body and you will find an atmosphere of neatness and efficiency at K
schools.
All this wouldn't be possible if people do not strive for excellence in
what they do, because
in the absence for drive to excellence, sloppiness would prevail.
The issue, imo, is simple: do we give our best to the job at hand, whatever
be the nature of
the job? Is our home and surroundings neat and organized? Do we write and
speak with clarity?
Do we make an effort to keep the body and mind healthy and refrain from
drugs and other unhealthy lifestyles? All these small little things add
towards excellence in living.
The indolent may spend a good part of their lives reading a Krishnamurti
primer under a pepper
tree, which, imo, will not take them anywhere ("taking them anywhere" is
used in a figurative sense,
so, please do not get distracted. Thanks).
In summary: while there is merit in the statements that K made (as posted
by Marilyn),
those statements can not and should not be taken as an excuse for not
striving for
excellence.
The question that we need to ask ourselves is: do we strive for excellence
in ourselves
and demand the very best of ourselves (and those around us), or, do we use
K's words as
an excuse to be sloppy and indolent?
Makes sense?
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