meeting sorrow with a superficial mind

How do you meet sorrow?

I'm afraid that most of us meet it very superficially. 

Our education, our training, our knowledge, the sociological influences to which we are exposed, all make us superficial.

A superficial mind is one that escapes to the church, to some conclusion, to some concept, to some belief or idea. Those are all a refuge for the superficial mind that is in sorrow.

And if you cannot find a refuge, you build a wall around yourself and become cynical, hard, indifferent, or you escape through some facile, neurotic reaction.

All such defenses against suffering prevent further inquiry.Please watch your own mind; observe how you explain your sorrows away, lose yourself in work, in ideas, or cling to a belief in God, or in a future life.

And if no explanation, no belief has been satisfactory, you escape through drink, through sex, or by becoming cynical, hard, bitter brittle. 

Generation after generation it has been passed on by parents to their children, and the superficial mind never takes the bandage off that wound; it does not really know, it is not really acquainted with sorrow. It merely has an idea about sorrow. It has a picture, a symbol of sorrow, but it never meets sorrow, it meets only the word sorrow."

J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Nature of Trap called ' Sorrow'

The nature of the trap called ' Sorrow'

Sorrow is the result of a shock, it is the temporary shaking up of a mind that has settled down, that has accepted the routine of life.

Something happens -a death, the loss of a job, the questioning of a cherished belief- and the mind is disturbed. 

But what does a disturbed mind do? It finds a way to be undisturbed again; it takes refuge in another belief, in a more secure job, in a new relationship. 

Again the wave of life comes along and shatters its safeguards, but the mind soon finds still further defenses; and so it goes on. This is not the way of intelligence, is it?

No form of external or inward compulsion will help, will it? 

All compulsion, however subtle, is the outcome of ignorance; it is born of the desire for reward or the fear of punishment.

To understand the whole nature of the trap is to be free of it; no person, no system, no belief can set you free. The truth of this is the only liberating factor,but you have to see it for yourself, and not merely be persuaded. 

You have to take the voyage on an uncharted sea.

What we do , to ward off Pain ...

Acquiring Beliefs to Ward Off Pain

Physical pain is a nervous response, but psychological pain arises when I hold on to things that give me satisfaction, for then I am afraid of anyone or anything that may take them away from me.

The psychological accumulations prevent psychological pain as long as they are undisturbed; that is, I am a bundle of accumulations, experiences, which prevent any serious form of disturbance;and I do not want to be disturbed. 

Therefore I am afraid of anyone who disturbs them. Thus my fear is of the known; I am afraid of the accumulations, physical or psychological, that I have gathered as a means of warding off pain or preventing sorrow. But sorrow is in the very process of accumulating to ward off psychological pain. 

Knowledge also helps to prevent pain. As medical knowledge helps to prevent physical pain, so beliefs help to prevent psychological pain, and that is why I am afraid of losing my beliefs, though I have no perfect knowledge or concrete proof of the reality of such beliefs.

I may reject some of the traditional beliefs that have been foisted on me because my own experience gives me strength, confidence, understanding; but such beliefs and the knowledge which I have acquired are basically the same, a means of warding off pain.