I was glad to see that Henry added Krishnamurt to his famous list of The Hundred Books That Influenced Me Most and went on to talk about K in book The Books in My Life:

“Men are reluctant to accept what is easy to grasp. Out of a perversity deeper than all Satan’s wiles, man refuses to acknowledge his own God-given rights: he demands deliverance or salvation by and though an intermediary; he seeks guides, counselors, leaders, systems, rituals. He looks for solutions which are in his own breast. He puts learning above wisdom, power above the art of discrimination. But above all, he refuses to work for his own liberation, pretending that first “the world” must be liberated.

Yet, as Krishnamurti has pointed out time and again, the world problem is bound up with the problem of the individual. Truth is ever present, eternity is here and now. And salvation? What is it, O man, that you wish to save? Your petty ego? Your soul? Your identity? Lose it and you will find yourself. Do not worry about God—God knows how to take care of Himself.

Cultivate your doubts, embrace every kind of experience, keep on desiring, strive neither to forget nor to remember, but assimilate and integrate what you have experienced.”

Henry Miller clearly admired Krishnamurti and I am sure his consciousness was influenced by K’s writings.

Steven Pressfield, author of Do The Work and The War of Art,  recently put together this list on Miller’s advice for writers, it’s good.

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no new material to Black Spring.
3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can’t create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it the next day.Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

You could just replace the word ‘write’ with ‘work’ or whatever you do, and you’d find it’s sound advice.

Now, go write!

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.

2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6. Check your quotations.

7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it.

8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

David

We’ll miss you Sean, thank you for giving us the ability to surf smarter!

Love is not a memory. Love is not a thing of the mind or the intellect. But it comes into being naturally as compassion, when this whole problem of existence as fear, greed, envy, despair and hope has been understood and resolved. An ambitious man cannot love. A man who is attached to his family has no love. Nor has jealousy anything to do with love. When you say, “I love my wife,” you really do not mean it, because the next moment you are jealous of her.Love implies great freedom -not to do what you like. But love comes only when the mind is very quiet, disinterested, not self-centered.

These are not ideals. If you have no love, do what you will go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the poor, the politics, write books, write poems -you are a dead human being. And without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly. And with love, do what you will, there is no risk; there is no conflict. Then love is the essence of virtue. And a mind that is not in a state of love is not a religious mind at all. And it is only the religious mind that is freed from problems, and that knows the beauty of love and truth.

- J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

~ Vaclav Havel