An email by Dr. Harshad Parekh 

Reprinted with permission

THINKING AND AWARENESS

When I lived in Neem House in Rishi Valley, a rat used to come in my room at night in darkness through a hole in the tiled roof. Whenever I heard the sound of the rat running on the roof, I switched on the light. The rat immediately disappeared. It could not be seen in the light. This used to happen several times every night. The rat was attracted to some food kept in the cupboard.

Our thoughts (or the thinking process) is like a rat. It comes in the darkness of unawareness. But when the light of awareness is switched on, thoughts disappear. Thoughts cannot go in in awareness. The mind is quiet but alert. This is the initial stage of meditation. In advanced stage of meditation, thoughts may come and go in the background of awareness. In the blue sky of awareness, thoughts come and go like white clouds.

Do you have time and space to experiment with watching how thoughts come and go? Have you experienced a gap between two thoughts? This is the key to understanding oneself by direct perception. Human beings are caught in the whirlpool of thoughts. The deeper human psychological problems cannot be solved by just thinking. Awareness, which is not made of thinking, is the instrument in understanding. Thinking is narrow, limited space, awareness is immeasurable.

Krishnamurti talked about this for 60 years. He had found the key to psychological freedom. His words are simple and clear. Hope you will read and experiment with his teachings in the daily life. A new world may open up for you as it happened to me many years ago. Once the awareness is ignited, it would reveal to you everything without any effort. Then you can stop reading books of Krishnamurti.
The book of your own life will be read with freshness as it is written. Then you may understand the meaning of words like love and beauty.

Harshad Parekh