Meditation and Clairvoyance, or Siddhis

Masters, gurus, teachers, cannot help to free thought from its own self-imposed bondage and suffering; neither ceremonies, nor priests, nor organizations, can liberate thought from its attachments, fears, cravings; these may force it into a new mould and shape it, but thought can free itself only through its own critical awareness and self-reliance.

Extrasensory perception, clairvoyance, occult powers, cannot free thought from confusion and misery; sensitive awareness of our thoughts and motives, from which spring our speech and action, is the beginning of lasting understanding and love. Mere self-control, discipline, self-punishment, or renunciation, cannot liberate thought; but constant awareness and pliability give clarity and strength. Only in becoming aware of the cause of ignorance, in understanding the process of craving and its dual opposing values, is there freedom from suffering. This discerning awareness must begin in our life of relationship with things, people, and ideas, with our own hidden thoughts and daily action.

The way we think makes our life either complete or contradictory and unbalanced. Through awareness of craving, with its complex process, there comes an understanding; which brings detachment and serenity. Detachment or serenity is not an end in itself. In this world of frenzied buying and selling, whose economy is based on craving, unless thought is persistently aware, greed and envy bring the confusing and conflicting problems of possessions, attachment, and competition. Our private thoughts and motives can bring either harmony in our relationship or disturbance and pain. It depends on each one what he makes of relationship with another or with society. There can never be self-isolation, however much one may crave for it; relationship is ever continuous; to be is to be related.

!940 Notes on Sarobia Discussions
The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, Vol III

Look, Sirs, because the mind is quiet, the body becomes still, not the other way round. You force your body to sit still. You do all kinds of things to come upon this strange beauty of silence. Do not do it, just observe. Look, Sirs, you know in all this are various powers of clairvoyance, reading somebody’s thought. There are various powers, you know what I am talking about, don’t you? You call them siddhis, don’t you? Do you know all these things are like candles – candlelight in the sun? When there is no sun, there is darkness, and then the light of the candle is very important; but when there is the sun, the light, the beauty, the clarity, then all these powers, these siddhis, are like candlelight. They have no value at all. And when you have the light, there is nothing else – developing various centres, the charkas, kundalinis, you know all that business. You need a sane, logical, reasoning mind, not a stupid mind. A mind that is dull can sit for centuries breathing, concentrating on various charkas, and you know all that playing with kundalinis, - it can never come upon that which is timeless, that which is real beauty, truth and love.

So put aside the candlelight which all the gurus and the books offer you. And do not repeat a word that you yourself have not seen the truth of, which you yourself have not tested.

Krishnamurti in India 1970-71 Chapter 15 4th Public Talk, Bombay, p. 179, 180

So meditation has a significance. One must have this meditative quality of the mind, not occasionally but all day long. And that implies another thing, which is: this something that is sacred, not imagined, not fantastic, affects our lives not only during the waking hours but during sleep. And in this process of meditation there are all kinds of powers that come into being. One becomes clairvoyant, the body then becomes extraordinarily sensitive. Now clairvoyance, healing, thought transference and so on, becomes totally unimportant. All the occult powers become so utterly irrelevant and when you pursue those you are pursuing something that will ultimately lead to illusion. That is one factor.

4th Public Talk, Brockwood Park, 1975
“Truth & Actuality”, Chapter 9