Beyond Myth and Tradition

Found this treasure not too long ago. It’s a series of 12 videos, less than 30 minutes each, produced by Evelyne Blau. Beyond Myth and Tradition:

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Only 8 minutes in : “Knowledge is destructive in relationship”

I suppose because it becomes a relationship with oneself - which isn’t the best of relationships.

And the lady presenting is surprisingly good so far.

I watched the first two. Will probably finish the set. Might be good to discuss.

Beyond Myth and Tradition

  1. Conflict
  2. Change
  3. Freedom and authority
  4. The sacred
  5. Choiceless awareness
  6. Meditation
  7. Mirror of relationship
  8. Conditioning: prisoners of the past
  9. The violent self
  10. Death: leaving the stream
  11. Love: the flame without smoke
  12. What is the religious mind?

All of these are imo great topics for investigation.

Sometimes, I think it might be best to be alone with K’s teachings.

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I understand, but wonder: Being the world, are we ever really alone?

Or perhaps we are never alone because we are so fragmented. Composed of multiple, often opposing, desires one of which is dominant at any given moment.

The statement, ‘You are the world’ has never made sense to me — in the sense of identical not similar, I mean – and how if we change the whole world changes. I guess it means we all influence each other? Can’t see how a single individual can make any significance difference though. Stuff just gets moved around in the collective consciousness if a person has an outsized influence.

Our private inner tribe. Or sometimes: intertribal war!

Maybe it is pointing to something profound that doesn’t make logical sense?

Not much use to us non-believers then, though I might be missing something.

What would you need to believe in for “We are the world” to be of use?

The way that I understand “you are the world” is this way. All living things ‘have’ an awareness of themselves, their being…I as a living thing also ‘have’ that awareness of being. The world ‘may’ have an awareness of itself, the sun, the stars, the universe, etc. Rather than think of different ‘awarenesses’ I see the possibility that it is ‘one’ . And in this sense of an undivided quality we are calling ‘awareness’ each of us, each living thing, is the world. There is no division?

I would need to believe that there was something I could definitively do to end the war in Ukraine for example, seeing I have dominion over myself and I believe I and the world are one. That individuality is an illusion and we are part of some kind of hologram?

This may well be the case, Dan. That awareness is essentially personality-less. Sorta like the simile they often use in Eastern literature about waves and the ocean being all composed of water.

However, I was referring more to Krishnamurti’s take on individual conditioning and its relationship to that of society. I remember vaguely him mentioning something about a common stream of consciousness that sounded somewhat esoteric and a departure from his usual consideration of the more mundane.

Is that what Krishnamurti meant by “You are the world?”

Like I said, I never was able to wrap my head around that statement. I am pretty sure you are right though about it pointing to something beyond the rational. Intuition?

Yes, I agree that there is something a little mysterious about this statement.

There seem to be at least two distinct ways of making sense of it - a positive way and a negative way.

First, the positive: that is to say, there is meaningful sense in which we all share in the same basic fabric of the world. At the most general and abstract level, we are all manifestations of the same unanalysable energy that makes up the whole universe; at a slightly less abstract level we all share in the process of organic life; we are part of the same animal kingdom as all other animals (sharing a common evolutionary history, etc); and we are part of the same human race (hominids, homo sapiens). If the mystics of the world are correct, then this commonality may be even deeper than this (that is, we may be part of a unitary ‘mind’ of some sort).

However, there is also a negative sense in which we are the world: psychologically speaking, we are all manifestations of thought, a common stream of thinking, which has created fear, aggression, suffering, violence, anxiety, etc. So long as we think of ourselves as individuals, we continue to contribute to this stream of suffering. If we are no longer individuals then we are ‘out of the stream’, and no longer contribute to this stream. - But then, are we ‘the world’ (of humanity) in that sense anymore?

Yes, this seems a little mysterious to me too.

Obviously one person changing their way of living is not going to change the world in any fundamental sense - it is like rearranging the furniture on the titanic. The massive sociological and geopolitical forces already in motion, such as the war in Ukraine, are not going to stop just because one person changes (unless, perhaps, that person is Putin). But it remains true that all these massive geopolitical forces ultimately boil down to the activities, the behaviour, the thoughts and feelings of individuals like you and me - so the changes that individuals make are ultimately the most fundamental changes that can be made.

It also depends on how fundamental the ‘change’ is that we are talking about. If it is a superficial change of religion or behaviour, then you are correct to say that it

However, if it is truly fundamental, which means that it involves a transformation at the roots of the mind (i.e. the total emptying - in a single brain - of the contents of consciousness), then such a ‘change’ would no longer be limited to the individual (because the roots of consciousness are not individual). It would then necessarily act on the whole of the mind (the global human ‘mind’, whatever that means), at a depth that it may not be possible to track or measure.

I’m not sure what it’s pointing to. Maybe it’s literal, maybe metaphorical. Knowing Krishnamurti, its meaning might depend on the context: What he’s talking about, whom he’s talking to, the setting and mood. To know what Krishnamurti meant in an ‘objective’ way, you’d have to examine a specific quote and determine the context in which he said it. Or you could take a more subjective path and let the words work on you without trying to nail down the context.

I see pros and cons of each approach, maybe a mix would work best?

Is there any way (understanding) in which “You are the world” makes sense for you?