Creative Happiness: A Journey with J. Krishnamurti

Krishnaji asked, “What is it like to listen? How do you listen to that crow? Do you listen emptily, like an empty vessel, an empty cup, or do you hear it along with all the other sounds? Do you name it? Do you suppress all ideas, feelings—leave them in the bottom of the cup and with the remaining emptiness on top, with that empty remainder at the top of the cup, hear the crow? Can you listen to the sound of the crow, see the flower in total emptiness? Are you totally empty when you view the whole problem of man, and in that total emptiness see the heart, the core, of what man is doing—what he is—and so, all that he does?” We sat in silence; quietly Krishnaji rose and walked away, leaving the whole problem and its resolution with us in a room now empty of his presence and stimulation. The state of emptiness remained. No one moved for some time; the state of unenclosed, uninfluenced emptiness, of stillness, of silence, lived on. In that hour the whole problem of man’s confusion and struggle dissolved into stillness… temporarily. ==== This memoir by Donald Ingram Smith (d. 2006) reveals a person grappling with self-transformation, and in company of a remarkable person who spoke about transforming human consciousness through learning and being in touch with the creative movement that is not the result of the thinker, the observer, or the actor. This radical new sense of creativity is what Ingram Smith found for himself at the heart of Krishnamurti's teachings and which he wanted to share with readers.