Since time is irrelevant in this matter and something new cannot be compared with what was known, may we already conclude that its mission has failed?
Seeds need time and space to blossom and already the perfume is discernible here and there without being able to prove its causality.
This presumes that the whole can easily be explained to one that has only seen the parts - has anyone explained it better than K?
Por seguro - could even be considered one of those tautology type whotsits.
Tricky - if as soon as you notice the reactions appearing they dissapear, then we could say that the cage appears and dissapears. Where is the dependance?
If we notice the sensations/emotions and are non judgemental, unnaffected - we donât change envy into desire for non-envy - where is the dependance?
But if we judge the envy as non-desirable, and react with some kind of mental process of observation with a goal/motive, we are still in the cage.
Planted seeds, yes. Who knows, maybe some day people will speak of the pivotal point when the brain went wrong and the pivotal point (of Krishnamurti and Bohm) when it began to correct itself.
Back to Quixote: Are those who are deeply engaged with Krishnamurti tilting at windmills?
If thoughts and feelings of envy appear dozens of times a day but the mind truly doesnât bite, just lets these thoughts and feelings rise and fall without leaving any wake behind, itâs kind of like the ignition button on your engine keeps getting pushed, but the engine never ignites. So youâre free of having a running engine. But youâre not free of the ignition button pushes. ?
Whatever you are reacting to, you are reacting to - to say : I should only react to this but not that is reaction, or well done for this, now I just gotta do that, this is knowledge/confusion/motive/progress/effort/habitual reaction.
The mind that distinguishes between this and that, preferring what should be to what is, is not free of the story. (aka the known)
If I think of death or a coma as nirvana. Suddenly I want it.
And perhaps the envy you keep feeling in this hypothetical situation eventually loses (some of) its power because you are not stoking the fire, rather letting all the sparks of envy come and go âon their own?â
I once heard a Buddhist teacher sum up the goal of all Buddhist meditation as learning how to let thoughts-feelings rise and fall unimpeded and without any stickiness or attachment.
Yes - these stories can be useful starting points, but to conclude that we have understood anything from believing them is a danger (this includes the story that facts are stories) - the true seeing happens alone with ourself.
All the stories are slightly wrong (at best) which eventually means we end up in the wrong galaxy.
I sometimes think that the best stories are the ones we donât understand - like maybe : the journey to freedom takes just one step. (eventually envy loses its power in an instant - before that it was just disguising itself as pride or something else)
Is direct âpureâ perception NOT a story? Or is it stories, all the way up, all the way down?
You know my opinion, but maybe itâs flexible enough to budge if nudged convincingly?
As long as pure perception is something that I am imagining - it is a story. (simple non?) And even if some amazing spiritual/psychological thing happens to someone - the interpretation & narrative of that experience is a story.
Are you hoping that someoneâs words can free you? (obvious case of âstory-junkyâ) I am sure that near perfect words have already been said by someone - and that you have heard them.
Now either your understanding (karma/conditioning) was lucky enough to grok something useful, and your energy was high (fueled by enough urgency) or not.
PS - Or you practise what that Buddhist priest said to you above about habitualising freedom everyday - in which case the difference between direct perception (if it occurs) and narration will be barely noticed.(ie.no fireworks/boring)
Would you say that whatever thought touches is a story?
And whatever thought doesnât touch is not a story?
Mental narratives (from which arise verbal narratives) could even work as the defintion of a story.
I understand that we can divide phenomenon into subsets that are stories, and those that are not defined as such. But I am not sure what else your question implies.
Itâs not the same to say âWhatever thought touches is a storyâ and âWhatever thought doesnât touch is not a story.â You seemed to be saying the former, and I wondered if you think the latter holds?
I think the former is probably right, but the jury is still out on the latter.
Unfortunately I have not been at leisure to participate in the discussion for the last couple of days, but I thought I would address some of these comments here.
Clearly the world is still in crisis - perhaps more so than ever before - and clearly humanity is still living in the vast shadow of egotism and ignorance.
However, this question of Krishnamurtiâs success or failure in bringing liberating insight is a measurement that we are making based on what we see of it from our individual, time-oriented perspective, correct?
If we provisionally assume - for the sake of argument - that this liberating insight is possible, and that it sometimes occurs in human beings, how are we to tell from our end what its effects are supposed to be on human consciousness?
Remember that, from the point of view of insight - if it exists - there is no time, and no individual consciousness. So assuming individual effects in time - which is what we are doing - is perhaps the wrong measure for measuring the impact of liberating insight (if it exists).
I thought it might be worthwhile putting across the view from the other side of the river, as it were. What might a liberated person say about the effect of liberating insight on human consciousness?
Below is a longish (edited) excerpt from a particular discussion between Krishnamurti and David Bohm that I think addresses this matter quite directly. It is from the dialogue Can Insight be Awakened in Another?, in 1980 The Ending of Time series.
Especially relevant passages have been highlighted in bold.
K: Various religions have described a man who has been saved, who is illuminated, who has achieved something or other. They have described very clearly, especially in Hindu religious books, how he walks, how he looks, how he talks, the whole state of his being. I think that is merely a poetic description which . . .
DB: You think it is imagination?
K: I think a great deal of it is imagination⌠So what is a man of that kind? How does he live in this world? This is a very interesting question, if you go into it deeplyâŚ. What is that mindâthe quality of that mindâthat has started from the beginning and pursued the becoming and gone through all that centre of darkness which has been wiped away? That mind must be entirely different. Now, what does such a mind do, or not do, in the world which is in darkness? âŚ
Probably X is the teacher. X is out of society. X is unrelated to this field of darkness and saying to the people who are caught in it, âCome out.â Whatâs wrong with that?
DB: Nothing is wrong with that.
K: That is his means of livelihoodâŚ. There are those people who in darkness cultivate this and exploit people, but there are Xs who donât exploit. All right. That seems very simple.
DB: Right.
K: Is that the only function of X?
DB: Well, it is really a difficult function.
K: But I want to find out something much deeper than mere function.
DB: Yes, function is not enough.
K: Thatâs it. Apart from function, what is he to do? X says to Y, âListen.â And Y takes time, and gradually, perhaps, at some time he will wake up and move away. And is that all X is going to do in life?
DB: That can only be an outcome of something deeper.
K: The deeper is all that, the ground.
DB: Yes, the ground.
K: But is that all he is to do in this world? Just to teach people to move out of darkness?
DB: Well, that seems to be the prime task at the moment, in the sense that if this doesnât happen, the whole society will sooner or later collapse. We could ask whether he needs to be in some sense more deeply creative.
K: What is that?
DB: Well, it is not clear.
K: Suppose X is you, and you have an enormous field in which to operate, not merely teaching me but having this extraordinary movement which is not of time. That is, you have this abounding energy, and you have reduced all that to teach me to come out of darkness.
DB: That can only be a part of it.
K: So what does the rest do? You follow? I donât know if I am conveying this.
DB: Well, this is what I tried to suggest by talking of some creative action, beyond this, taking place.
K: Yes, beyond this. You may write, you may preach, you may heal, you may do this and that, but all those activities are rather trivial. But you have something else. Have I reduced you, X, to my pettiness? You canât be so reduced. My pettiness says, âYou must do something. You must preach, write, heal, do something to help me to move.â Right? You comply to the very smallest degree, but you have something much more than that, something immense. You understand my question?
DB: Yes. So what happens?
K: How is that immensity operating on Y?
DB: Are you saying that there is some more direct action?
K: Either there is more direct action, or X is doing something totally different to affect the consciousness of man.
DB: What could this be?
K: Because X is not âsatisfiedâ with merely preaching and talking. That immensity which he is must have an effect, must do something.
DB: Are you saying âmustâ in the sense of the feeling of needing to do it, or are you saying âmustâ in the sense of necessity?
K: It must.
DB: It must necessarily do so. But how will it affect mankind? You see, when you say this, it would suggest to people that there is some sort of extrasensory effect that spreads.
K: That is what I am trying to capture.
DB: Yes.
K: That is what I am trying to convey.
DB: Not merely through the words, through the activities or gestures.
K: Letâs leave the activity alone. That is simple. It is not just that, because that immensity must . . .
DB: . . . necessarily act? There is a more direct action?
K: No, no. All right. That immensity necessarily has other activities.
DB: Other activities at other levels?
K: Yes, other activities. This has been translated in the Hindu teachings as various degrees of consciousness.
DB: There are different levels or degrees of acting.
K: All that too is a very small affair. What do you say, sir?
DB: Well, since the consciousness emerges from the ground, this activity is affecting all mankind from the ground.
K: Yes.
DB: You see, many people will find this very difficult to understand.
K: I am not interested in many people. I want to understandâyou, X, and me, Yâthat that ground, that immensity, is not limited to such a petty little affair. It couldnât be.
DB: The ground includes physically the whole universe.
K: Yes, the whole universe, and to reduce all that to . . .
DB: . . . these little activities . . .
K: . . . is all so silly.
DB: I think that raises the question of what is the significance of mankind in the universe, or in the ground?
K: Yes, thatâs it.
DB: Because even the best of these little things that we have been doing have very little significance on that scale. Right?
K: Yes, this is just opening the chapter. I think that X is doing somethingânot doing, but by his very existence . . .
DB: . . . he is making something possible?
K: Yes. When you read of Einstein, he has made something possible, which man hadnât discovered before.
DB: We can see that fairly easily because it works through the usual channels of society.
K: Yes, I understand that. What is X bringing apart from the little things? Putting it into words makes it sound wrong. X has that immense intelligence, that energy, that something, and he must operate at a much greater level than one can possibly conceive, which must affect the consciousness of those who are living in darkness.
DB: Possibly so. The question is will this effect show in any way? You know, manifestly.
K: Apparently not. If you hear the television or radio news and know what is happening all over the world, apparently it is not doing so.
DB: That is what is difficult, and a matter of great concern.
K: But it must have an effect. It has to.
DB: Why do you say it has to?
K: Because light must affect darkness.
DB: Perhaps Y might say that; living in darkness, he is not sure that there is such an effect. He might say perhaps there is, but I want to see it manifest. Not seeing anything and still being in darkness, he then asks, âWhat shall I do?â
K: I understand that. So are you saying that Xâs only activity is just writing, teaching, and so on?
DB: No. Merely that it may well be that the activity is much greater, but it doesnât show. If only we could see it!
K: How would it be shown? How would Y, who wants proof of it, see it?
Q: What about the other activities of X? We said he has the function of teaching, but also that X has other activities.
K: He must have. Necessarily must.
Q: But what?
K: I donât know; we are trying to find that out.
DB: You are saying that somehow he makes possible an activity of the ground in the whole consciousness of mankind which would not have been possible without him.
K: Yes.
Q: His contact with Y is not only verbal. Y listens but there is some other quality . . .
K: Yes, but X says all that is a petty little affair. That is, of course, understood, but X says there is something much greater.
Q: The effect of X is perhaps far greater than can be put in words.
K: We are trying to find out what that greater is that must necessarily be operating.
Q: Is it something that appears in the daily life of X?
K: Yes. In his daily life X is apparently doing fairly small thingsâteaching, writing, bookkeeping, or whatever. But is that all? It seems so silly.
DB: Are you saying that in the daily life X does not look so different from anybody else?
K: No, apparently not.
DB: But there is something else going on which does not show. Right?
K: Thatâs it.
DB: Let me ask a question. Why does the ground require this man to operate on mankind? Why canât the ground, as it were, operate directly on mankind to clear things up? ⌠Why does it require a particular man to affect mankind?
K: Oh, that I can easily explain. It is part of existence, like the starsâŚ. The ground doesnât need the man, but the man has touched the ground.
DB: Yes.
K: So the ground is using him, letâs say employing him. He is part of that movement.
DB: Doing nothing makes possible the action of the ground. It may be that. In doing nothing which has any specified aim . . .
K: Thatâs right. No specified content which can be translated into human terms.
DB: Yes, but still he is supremely active in doing nothing.
K: X says he is sorry, but.⌠I am not interested in proving anything. It isnât a mathematical or a technical problem to be shown and proved. X says that he has walked from the beginning of man to the very end of man, and that there is a movement which is timeless, the ground which is the universe, the cosmos, everything. And the ground doesnât need the man, but the man has come upon it. And he is still a man in the world, who says, âI write and do something or other,â not to prove the ground, not to do anything. X does that just out of compassion. But there is a much greater movement which necessarily plays a part in the world.
Q: Does the greater movement play a part through X?
K: Obviously, X says that there is something else operating which cannot possibly be put into words. He asks, âWhat am I to do?â There is nothing which a man like Y will understand. He will immediately translate it into some kind of illusory thing. But X says there is something else. Otherwise it is all so childishâŚâŚ X says, perhaps there will be ten people with this insight and that might affect society. It will not be communism, socialism, this or that political reorganisation. It might be totally different, and based on intelligence and compassionâŚ
You see, man Y is concerned with concepts like âShow me,â âProve it to me,â âWhat benefit has it?,â âWill it affect my future?â You follow? He is concerned with all that. And he is looking at X with eyes that are accustomed to this pettiness! So he reduces that immensity to his pettiness and puts it in a temple and has therefore lost it completely. But X says, I wonât even look at that; there is something so immense, please do look at it. But Y is always translating it by wanting demonstration, proof, or reward. He is always concerned with that. [Pause]
X brings light. Thatâs all he can do.
We see immensity only as a very small thing. And that immensity is the whole universe. I canât help but think that it must have some immense effect on Y, on society.
DB: Certainly the perception of this must have an effect, but it seems that it is not in the consciousness of society at the moment.
K: I know.
DB: But you are saying that still the effect is there?
K: Yes.
Q: Are you saying that the perception of even a small part is the infinity?
K: Of course, of course.