Krishnamurti: The Tidy Room

I rediscovered this quote from Krishnamurti which describes the process of spiritual practice beautifully. It comes from his book "Freedom From The Known," which I highly recommend.


"Verbally we can go only so far. What lies beyond cannot be put into words because the word is not the thing. Up to now, we can describe, explain, but no words or explanations can open the door. What will open the door is daily awareness and attention: awareness of how we speak, what we say, how we walk, what we think. It is like cleaning a room and keeping it in order. Keeping the room in order is important in one sense, but totally unimportant in another. There must be order in the room, but order will not open the door or the window. What will open the door is not your volition or desire. You cannot possible invite the other. All you can do is to keep the room in order, which is to be virtuous for itself, not for what it will bring. To be sane, rational, orderly. Then perhaps, if you are lucky, the window will open and the breeze will come in."


(The punctuation might be a bit off. For some reason I couldn't find my copy of the book and had to transcribe it from a lecture series I've ben listening to.)