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Without agreeing or disagreeing, I invite you to listen to an observation that J. Krishnamurti made in a talk entitled, "The Full Significance of Death," which appears in THE POCKET KRISHNAMURTI:

"As one is the master of psychological time, can one live with death and not keep it separate as something to be avoided, postponed, something to be put away? Death is part of life. Can one live with death and understand the meaning of ending? That is[,] to understand the meaning of negation; ending one's attachments, ending one's beliefs, by negating. When one negates, end, there is something totally new. So, while living, can one negate attachment completely? That is living with death."

I am struck by two things in the forgoing chapter: I am the master of psychological time; and to negate--end--my attachments is living with death. I ordinarily think of myself as the victim of time; I am powerless before the bulldozer of time. Krishnamurti is saying precisely the opposite: I am the master of time, which is psychologically constructed. From his point of view, the ending of thought is the ending of psychologically constructed time and, with the ending of time, one is instantly--and forever--freed from the fear fear of death.

To realize the "me" IS what generates time is the first and last step in attaining freedom. The self continues through thought, through attachment and identification. Krishnamurti proposes that through meditative awareness the ending of attachment is possible. Without attachment, clinging, the self dissolves. In fact, in another essay entitled, "Understand What Love Is," he explicitly observes: "Can we live with death, and can thought and time have a stop? They are all related. Do not separate time, thought, and death. It is all one thing."

Yes. dying to thought, to time, to ego or self, is to enter into Eternity. There is nothing nihilistic in what Krishnamurti is proposing. The body has its inevitable end, but not awareness. Through the negation of attachment there is the quiet and pervasive joy of unending awareness.

not smoke
not ashes
blue gray sky