An Introduction to "Krishnamurti's Notebook" | Book Review by Eckhart Tolle

Without presence, to keep a life interesting, you need to look for something extraordinary. So that's why you're always somewhere else. Because usually in the present moment, if you're not present, it's not that interesting. So for today, I have chosen a book, again, to talk about. And this book I've had for many years, it's been on the shelf occasionally picked up somehow. It's one of those books that didn't get lost during my many travels in the past 30 years. And I've always loved this little book. When you take a book that you've had for a long time, you take it off the shelf and you notice that the edges are turning yellow. It means you're getting old. So I looked and said, ever had this for that long, such a long time. Turning yellow. So this book is by a spiritual teacher, Krishnamurti, whom some of you will be quite familiar with, and some of you may never have heard of him. And despite the name, he has nothing to do with Hare Krishna or anything like that. In fact, Krishnamurti was not aligned with any religion or school whatsoever. He was Indian, but he didn't teach Hindu philosophy or anything like that. So quite neutral teaching. He was born in 1895 and passed away in 1986. He has an interesting life history, which I won't talk about now, that would take too long. But he traveled around the world for 60 years, talking, giving spiritual talks. He was brought up mostly in England for early years in India, where he was born, and then in England for many years. And later on his home base was Ojai in California. There are many books by Krishnamurti. Most of the books were not written by him. They are skillfully edited transcripts of his talks. There are only about two books that were written by him. And one of those books is the book we're just going to look at today. It's called Krishnamurti's notebook. And in 1961, 62, the impulse came to him to get a notebook and write every day, make a few small, short entries into his notebook every day. And he did that for a year and a half or so, and then suddenly stopped. And that was it. And the entries, I'm going to read a few to you today and comment on each one. They are all about the way in which he perceives nature. So many descriptions of nature, nature perceived through his state of consciousness, of stillness. So to read that, to read those brief passages can also take you into stillness. And as we read them here, some passages together, that's an invitation for us to enter the same state of consciousness through which he perceived what he describes. And then he also speaks about his own state of consciousness. And he would often go into very deep states of stillness or presence, although he doesn't use the word presence. So he would talk about his state of consciousness at that moment. And basically those are the two types of entries in the notebooks. Observations of nature against the background of intense presence and direct observations and descriptions to the extent to which it's possible of his own state of consciousness. Krishnamurti was not an ordinary human being. He went through strange transformations and processes for many years. He had intense pain in his spine and in his head, which he attributed to a process. Some consciousness was doing something to him, transforming him. He never sought any medical help for it. So as we look at some of these passages. Oh, by the way, there's another book called Krishnamurti's Journal, which again, he did a little bit late. Few years after that, he also did this again. They're both good, but I think the notebook is deeper and probably better if you want to read one of them. And this is definitely not a book for continuous reading. This is a book you can open anywhere and read a page or even half a page, and that's enough. He is in different. He traveled continuously, so he was always in each place for a month or six weeks and sometimes less. So some of the places he describes, he never says exactly where he is, but from the way in which he describes what he perceives, you can gather whether he is in Switzerland or in India or in Ojai or in England, wherever he happened to be, or Paris. I think those are the places that are described here. So I don't know where I will start. I went through last night and marked a few passages. Let's start with something very simple. Well, it's all simple, but here he is in Paris, staying somewhere in Paris, where he gave a couple of talks, and he suddenly looks on a piece of grass, a lawn and a rose bush somewhere in the middle of the city, a little park, a lawn. But he was brought up in England. Traditionally, it's the old fashioned. They say that a lawn needs to be tended and cared for for a long, long time. That's the traditional British belief. And it's only after a hundred years or so that the lawn really becomes perfect. You have to cut it and roll it and look after it. Kind of what he also talks about. So let's. So here he is somewhere in the middle of Paris, and suddenly he looks at this Little piece of lawn and rose bush There was a beautifully kept lawn, not too large, and it was incredibly green. It was behind an iron grill, well watered, carefully looked after, rolled, and splendidly alive, sparkling in its beauty. It must have been many hundred years old. Not even a chair was on it, isolated and guarded by a high and narrow railing. At the end of the lawn was a single rose bush with a single red rose in full bloom. It was a miracle, the soft lawn and the single rose. They were there. Apart from the whole world of noise, chaos and misery. Though man had put them there, they were the most beautiful things. Far beyond the museums, towers and the graceful line of bridges. They were splendid in their splendid aloofness. They were what they grass and flower and nothing else. There was great beauty and quietness about them and the dignity of purity. It was a hot afternoon with no breeze and the smell of exhaust of so many cars was in the air. But there the grass had a smell of its own and one could almost smell the perfume of the solitary rose. So something that is ordinary, which one would completely overlook, because if you are in Paris, there are many more interesting things to look at then a little piece of lawn and a rose bush. But instead of focusing and writing about the spectacular things that you would usually focus on and look at in Paris, he never describes anything spectacular of that kind. He looked at this little, seemingly insignificant lawn and the rose bush and perceived it against his inner stillness and saw that intense aliveness which he's attempting to put into words. And as presence arises, you don't necessarily look for the spectacular. You see the extraordinary in the ordinary through presence. Without presence. To keep life interesting, you need to look for the something extraordinary. So that's why you're always somewhere else. Because usually in the present moment, if you're not present, it's not that interesting unless you're having some drama. So you're looking for something bigger, something greater, some big thing to come into your life, continuously missing all the little things of which your life really consists. It's really all little things. But if you continuously ignore the little things, then you ignore something very vital, the miracle of life all around you. It.