This was taken recently by me,  when I travelled to North East part of India. This is a snap, taken on river Bramhaputra in Assam state. Recently my wife has gifted me, a mirrorless camera. I am learning to take photographs  with this camera. Before starting the tour to North East part of India, I viewed few you tube videos, on how to use digital camera for taking pictures. One of the video, showed different settings and how to use them.  While showing the settings, the photographer in the video, was showing the display screen of the camera to demonstrate, how to achieve different settings. One thing that struck me was, there was no memory stick in the camera. 

He was taking pictures with different settings and showing them on the display for some time to explain the effect of differences between the settings. Suddenly it dawned on me that the camera is just taking pictures without storing any thing. It is not getting affected by the images previously taken as it is not storing it. J. Krishnamurty talks about seeing which is not conditioned by past , which is always fresh and present. Which does not judge the present on past accumulated knowledge. Can we do that?

Can we look at the surroundings, the experience we are going through , the sound we are hearing, without judging the same from our memories or conditioned mind. Then what you will see/ hear, will always be new, even if you are seeing it again and again. 

” The real voyage of discovery is not in seeking new places but in seeking with new eyes” Marcel Proust.

How can we have new eyes, which are not burdened by the experiences of the past , which don’t interpret, what they are seeing now. In brief how can we uncodition our mind. What are hacks for that to remain in present and observe? Following paragraph from J. Krishnamurty, talks about this and may be helpful.

“That emptiness of the mind cannot be produced: the mind cannot be made empty, cannot be put together to be empty. That emptiness comes as a sunset comes of an evening, full of beauty, enchantment, and richness; that comes as naturally as the blossoming of a flower when there is no fear, when there are no escapes, when there is no boredom, and when there is no seeking. That is the most important of all – there must be no seeking. You cannot find; you cannot find the everlasting. That which is beyond time you cannot search out. It may come to you but you cannot go to it because your minds are too shallow, petty, empty, full of ambition, fears, ugliness, and distortion. Therefore, the mind must empty itself – not because it wants that, because when you want that, you have a motive, and the moment you have a motive, you have lost your energy. Therefore, it is only the mind that is completely empty that is in a state of inaction. That inaction is action. And it is only such a mind that is passionate; it is only such a mind that can live with beauty and not get used to beauty – the beauty of a tree, the beauty of a face, the beauty of an eye, of a smile, of the ugly, dirty road, the squalor, the poverty, it is only the passionate mind that can live with it and not get distorted. And it is only such a mind that is so completely empty that is in a state of meditation.”

Tell me what you do, to have such empty mind or in other words remain present. Meditation of course helps as well as the  practice of mindfulness. 

I was on the deck of the river cruise, when I was taking this picture. Lot of people were around me, scrambling for taking pictures. But when I had put my eye to the view finder, I was completely focused on the scene and oblivious to the surroundings. I felt serene and contented. I was fully present there and I clicked. Probably I got the best result.

How it will be  to experience our life  like a camera without a memory stick? Some people will object to this saying that memories make life beautiful. Is it the memories or replay of the memories at this instant that we feel beautiful?

Tell me what you think?