The Art of Meeting Life Directly

The Art of Meeting Life Directly

My exploration of awareness began in 1981 with an encounter with J. Krishnamurti's radical insights into human consciousness. His uncompromising inquiry into the nature of thought, conditioning, and freedom laid the groundwork for what would become a lifelong journey. From 1999, this engagement with Krishnamurti's teaching deepened significantly, challenging fundamental assumptions about transformation and the nature of awareness itself.

This journey took a profound turn when around 2012 I encountered Mukesh Gupta's teachings and the inquiry done during these retreats. In Mukesh's approach, I found Krishnamurti's insights flowering in a way that spoke directly to daily living. While Krishnamurti often emphasized the limitations of thought and the necessity of complete psychological revolution, Mukesh reveals how this understanding manifests in the simple art of meeting life directly. He would say: The essence of life is very simple, but our minds make it complex. We are usually living within the field of conditioning—the old machinery of thought, memories, and past stories. From this conditioned mind, we cannot discover deep peace in our relationships or find true love and compassion. Our life becomes a constant movement of noise, aggression, and suffering.

The key is to discover a different source of energy that is already present within us. This energy of awareness, which is not conditioned, is the key to freedom. This awareness is not passive but incredibly alive and alert. When the mind stops its habitual interference through effort and control, a natural intelligence emerges - not through practice or method, but through direct seeing. Just as in martial arts, our most effective responses arise when conscious control drops away. 

When we are totally attentive, totally aware, there is freedom. If I am aware of my conditioning, my programming, then there is freedom. We cannot delete the programming, the conditioning—there is no need to delete it. Just to be aware of it, choicelessly aware, without saying this is good or bad, without labeling, judging, naming, or fighting with it.

So real transformation happens through this shift—from meeting life through the ego mind, which is through thought, to meeting life from this space of awareness, which is actually the space of stillness. Awareness and stillness—they are not two separate things. When psychological separation ends, love flowers naturally.

At the heart of both teachers' approach lies a fundamental insight: transformation happens through direct seeing, not through methods or practices. They point to a quality of attention that emerges naturally when we stop trying to change or improve ourselves through knowledge or technique. This attention isn't something to be cultivated but rather our natural state when we cease interfering with what is.

The Art of Living, as Mukesh illuminates it, means discovering how to meet each moment with our whole being. This involves a quality of listening that goes beyond the physical ears to encompass our entire presence. It means looking without the filter of our psychological images and conclusions. Instead of accumulating more knowledge or techniques, it's about learning through direct perception. Rather than living from mechanical patterns and conditioning, it invites us to move from awareness and love.