Living with no control | Krishnamurti

Key wellness / self-care / productivity ideas (from the subtitles)

• Use “attention,” not “concentration,” for meditation

  • Concentration is described as an effortful mental focusing that involves:
    • Controlling thought so it doesn’t wander
    • A controller vs. controlled split (an inner command to “look,” “focus,” “don’t do this”)
  • Attention is described differently:
    • Full observation using one’s whole capacity/energy
    • No controller / no controlled—just attention itself

• Notice how control operates as a psychological pattern

  • In daily life, “control” appears as:
    • “I must do this / I must not do that”
    • Attempts to manage emotions, impulses, and habits (e.g., anger, smoking, desires)
  • This control is linked to the past (knowledge), which thought uses to create the controller.

• Recognize the “thought trick”

  • Thought divides itself into:
    • Controller (based on accumulated knowledge/past)
    • Controlled (what the controller tries to manage)
  • The speaker frames this as self-manipulation by thought.

• Question the need for control in everyday living

  • A key inquiry is whether there is a way to live daily life where:
    • No control mechanisms exist at all
  • Control is said to involve effort and division, whereas attention involves integration (no split).

• Be careful: people may misread the message as “be permissive”

  • The subtitles address a common misunderstanding:
    • If you “don’t control,” some think you become careless or meaningless
  • The speaker emphasizes that the point is not permissiveness—it’s a different quality of awareness (attention without the controller/controlled structure).

Presenters / sources

• Krishnamurti (video title: “Living with no control | Krishnamurti”)