Does it? I’m not talking about getting personal about our likes and dislikes - that would be silly.
I’m saying that we can begin by admitting that we have personal likes and dislikes. Being honest doesn’t mean sharing every personal detail.
We are trying to find out if there can be impersonal friendship that goes beyond like and dislike. Friends in truth, in facts.
I don’t see why this should be messy.
The question of our relationship here on the forum is a serious one. Whether we can have an impersonal friendship in truth or facts is important to look at, don’t you feel?
For those of us who are
and
I started this website some 25 years ago hoping it would lay the groundwork for an Institute for the Possible (R)evolution of Man, For all I know, it may have happened somewhere, a few people may have formed friendships based on the hypothesis that truth is inaccessible to the past, and we are the past. The individual is the past. So we have no direct access to truth. We only have access to. that which obliterates the truth.
I remain steadfast in my desire that to protect that singular focus here against all odds. Krishanamurti once called thought evil (in very early works, quickly pivoting once he saw how what he meant was being misinterpreted). It is like trying to shield a candle in a windstorm to me. Am I a prisoner of that idea? Yes, of course I am. How could I not be. That is the whole point. I am tired. Tired of living, Tired of the violence, in me and around me. It is an unfortunate, thankless role, but there you have it.
Probably every invention or creation involves some kind of idea or ideal. To set up and maintain a website like this doesn’t happen without some degree of personal investment and interest. So what if it begins as an idea?
The problem isn’t with the website. The problem is clearly with those of us participating on the website.
Every digital forum has some kind of guidelines, some kind of context. Or take a school like Brockwood Park - it has guidelines for student and staff behaviour, including being vegetarian on campus, not drinking alcohol (for students), taking drugs, etc. The problems arise from our inability as people, as human beings, to find some kind of impersonal friendship in facts that go beyond like and dislike.
Perhaps the details of our understanding are different, for each person: so when you say that there is no truth in the past, or that thought is inherently corrupt, problematic, I may be slow to catch up with this; or, because I’ve never deeply considered this, I resist you when you say it.
But if we both have an interest in facts and truth, then even if I don’t see the same fact as you yet, or I don’t like the notion (for instance) of the past not being truth, or of thought being inherently problematic - nevertheless because we are in agreement on our concern for facts and truth, we can dialogue about it, be ‘friends in truth’ about it, even if we are not personally friends. Right?
I see the value of a website like this as protecting this possibility of enquiring into facts and truth - along the lines suggested by Krishnamurti - in a spirit of impersonal friendship.
But it is an ideal of course. Impersonal friendship in truth is a potential of a forum like this one. But the facts and truth we are enquiring into are not scientific truths, or truths of historical fact, etc. We are enquiring into the human truths of our conflict, our limitations, our self-centredness and suffering.
So I guess we have to accept or see the difficulty of doing this. It seems to be a hopeless task - for who has patience for it? We are the world - and look at the way the world is! It seems hopeless.
And yet it is also so important and valuable, precisely because it is there to be done. So even though it seems hopeless, I’m grateful that this kind of website exists.
A website for the Possible Revolution of Humankind.
No one wants any of us to be a prisoner. Kinfonet has been a very important place for many more than we realize. Nothing lasts forever, though. Thank you, Dev for all you have done. It may be time for something new for you and the rest of us. When you ended the dialogue groups, they continued elsewhere. If you shut down Kinfonet, inquiry will continue in a new form. May love flow through you. All the best forever for you.
Hi Richard, thanks for the reply and for posting the quote by K. It’s good to hear what K said about this.
Many years ago I visited Brockwood Park and met many interesting people. In one discussion I had, a woman made a clear implication that she had gone through the kind of transformation K had undergone. I didn’t directly ask her if this was the case - I was too shy to do this, I suppose. However, I think it’s reasonable to ask this question if someone implies they are somehow transformed. If not, communication comes to some kind of impasse. I don’t see it as rude to directly ask if someone thinks they are transformed in the way way K spoke about. How do the rest of you see this?
Let us do it and see.
There is the possibility of starting a new forum designed and managed by a group rather than an individual. It’s quite easy to set up a forum: buy a domain, get a host (cheap), et voilà! Managing the world that arises in the forum, therein lies the challenge.
I think this is a little bit presumptuous isn’t it?
To quote someone recently: I fear the reports of our deaths are highly exaggerated!
You might not be personally interested in a website like this anymore. But I assure you there are others who are.
It is natural for people to come and go. That’s the nature of a forum like this. But it is presumptuous to think that because you are no longer interested in being here that others won’t be.
Good idea, Rick. Please “set up a forum”. I want to see how you manage it and where it goes. Good luck.
To whom am I speaking now? Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde? Am I speaking to the contrarian Rick, or to the thoughtful and serious Rick? 
I have ‘done it’ (or begun doing it) - as in stating the fact that I like and dislike, I have images, etc. I have also said that I don’t see the value of being too personal or going into detail about this, as this then becomes a messy distraction from the central fact of like and dislike, and whether we can move beyond like and dislike.
So I have proposed that we can go beyond like and dislike when we have a mutual interest in facts and truth. If you or another shares this interest, then it doesn’t matter if there is personal like or dislike - do you see what I’m saying?
This is still bearing in mind the issues we mentioned previously (1 & 2)
The point is to have a group make the forum, I’d guess a minimum of three people. But I’m with James here and would love to see Kinfonet move towards harmony.
Jekyll and Hyde! Mea culpa, I guess. Honesty is subtle, right? Who am I being honest to?
I was being sincere, let’s dare to be honest with ourselves and each other. And see what gives.
Which means we are so adept at pretending that we don’t know we’re doing it.
I’m pretending to be who/what I feel like being or can’t help being every moment instead of letting every moment be what it is.
But this doesn’t mean choosing to let every moment be what it is (as if I could), but simply being aware of my reaction every moment because I am usually a conditioned response, a reaction.
Honesty in ourselves and harmony in truth (or facts) - as much as possible.
And when your truth is not my truth? Can there be harmony in seeing fundamentals differently?
I do not know where this is going to.
I asked a simple question in reaction upon James saying that he would clear things out with rick privately, as to not hijacking the thread.
Why do you not do what you promise?
If there is a mutual interest in truth and facts, then we will not hold onto separate truths - or refuse to part with them if they turn out to be falsehoods.
I have no idea what you are talking about Joost. I don’t recall saying anything of the kind, nor making any promises. And who is hijacking the thread? I don’t follow.
The thread is on the topic of seriousness. We then talked about what it means to be serious in the context of our relationships on Kinfonet. We have been discussing this openly between everyone.
And now we are asking what it means to share a mutual interest in truth and facts - regardless of personal like and dislike - in the context of an open interest in Krishnamurti’s teachings, and the fact that we are the world.
If you have only dropped by every once in a while, you may have missed all this.
Is truth yours or mine? Isn’t truth what actually is from moment to moment, and therefore impossible to hold? Isn’t the question whether the unfolding of events can be followed - flowed with - rather than seized and held? If it is possible, harmony is flowing, following, flowering, and not seizing and holding.