What did K mean by “what-is”? If he said that “what-is” is sacred, then the observer cannot see what-is, but only what accords with his/her illusions.
So why did K talk about “what-is” to people who couldn’t see through or past their illusions?
Inquiry,
But that’s exactly why Krishnamurti kept talking to people, because they didn’t see! He believed that it was possible for people to change and be free. He said, as you must remember, that because he was free he wanted other people to be free. Probably to be free includes seeing the sacred.
What appears to be suggested here seems that when self in involved there is no sacredness.
Let us say ,one sees a beautiful sun set . If there is no reaction of the self like ’ what a beautiful sight ’ etc. but only perception of beauty, which is ‘part of what is/ reality’ , it is sacred since self in not involved.
But if one sees a man torturing another, then self being involved in both torturer and person being tortured begging for stopping torture , though is part of ‘what is’/ reality, it is not sacred because self is involved.
Now observer who sees this, if he reacts with anger/pain ,then self in involved, so observer also being part of ‘what is’/ rsality is not sacred.
But here is the catch. If there is no reaction in terms of anger/pain ( no self involved in observation), only perception of ‘what is’ ,then it is sacred even though the incident of torture is not sacred.
Does it mean sacredness of ‘what is’/reality is dependent. Or when K said ‘what is’ is sacred, he meant something entirely different.
TNP,
Of course ‘sacredness’ cannot be dependent, we cannot jump to conclusions specially having used flawed tools! But maybe a simple example may somehow solve your doubt: electricity is in the air somehow, but we can only have access to it if we have the due resources, so sacredness is only available if you’re in possession of the proper requisites.
Krishnamurti spoke of a state of meditation over and over again and that in this special state the sacred was unveiled, it simply has nothing to do with the self, as I see it.
If One has proper requisites , can sacred Ness be found in violent incidents also?
The way I understood “Sacred is what is” when I first read it was that what was sacred about it is the ‘nowness’ of what is taking place … not how the ‘nowness’ is judged but whatever is taking place. Here and everywhere in the universe. “Torture” as an example arouses emotions and can’t be seen to fit in the understanding of ‘sacred’. Where I am physically in nature, it is quite a common sight to watch an eagle or osprey consume a live fish as it struggles ineffectively to be free. There is nothing pleasant in watching that scene but I would not exclude it from the ‘sacredness’.
TNP,
You seem to be still grappling with W Blake’s question, it will be hard work if you’re looking for an answer to it. Now, specifically the torture being ‘what is’… Accepting it is ‘what is’ -and we’ve gone into it speaking of the energy behind the action -I would say that you can only see it as a monstrosity because deploying energy like that is not adequate for a human being. Maybe the book ‘To be human’ will help clarify what being human implies, but we can lie in this principle of being ethical.
Torture is a result of division…of hate…violence. K never claimed all that was sacred. I spent his whole life asking if we can understand the root of division and violence and eliminate it. If it were sacred there would have been no need for him to talk. If everything was sacred then why spend 50 years speaking of the need for change. “The Urgency of Change”…one of his book titles.
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No of course not, he said “‘what is’ is sacred”. If you pick out this from that, I think you miss the point he was making. There is a kind of ‘lawfulness’ in the world and in the material universe. It extends to our actions: if you have been programmed to hate, to be cruel, etc, what follows from that programming is ‘lawful’. Like “when it rains, the streets get wet”. You or I may not like wet streets, but that’s the ‘way it is’. The ‘sacredness’ is in the ‘movement of Now’ which we aren’t in touch with because we have been ‘programmed’ to live in the past or future or present, none of which are ‘what is’. So the ‘sacredness’ is hidden from us. Without seeing it, life is a ‘waste’. Life is wasted on us because perceiving that ‘sacredness’, is possible for us, for the brain to perceive it…but the brain stays imprisoned by the ‘self’ (which he did call “evil”)…and dies in that ‘prison’.
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Every thing that takes place, takes place in the ‘now’ ,so everything has nowness to it , so sacred. If that is so, why should K say what is, is sacred, implying what is not, is not sacred.
Agree with you. Problem here seems to be that there is no example of sacredness in our life like beauty. Momentarily one can be free from self and perceive beauty of a setting sun, but when it comes to sacredness, no such example. So I do not know what sacredness means except as a belief/concept/idea.
Beauty IS an example of the sacred. Beauty-Sacred.
Only if you believe in a Creator.
I don’t know but possibly he’s pointing at the whole movement of creation? As an undivided oneness. That is the ‘sacred’. It has no opposite. The 'self’s inability to see the sacred in everything is due to its illusory existence? Thought constructs its own individual vision of sacred / profane, etc.
Inquiry,
Give it whatever name you will, in The Ending of Time Krishnamurti and David Bohm talk about the Source or the Ground, something in that direction.
TNP,
Krishnamurti talks of 'what is’as ‘most sacred’. I tend to identify ‘beauty’ with ‘sacredness’, but when it comes to you you will know, ‘this light in oneself’ cannot be mistaken
Except in those cases like a Donald Trump? 
Do you believe in a creator?
You know this for a fact? Is the reader to understand that “this light” is in you and you are speaking from It?
Inquiry,
I read Krishnamurti, I’ve watched many videos, I’ve been to retreats at Krishnamurti centres, I’m committed to learning that way. We have to do our homework and be as truthful as possible. I don’t understand what you mean to say when you say ‘speaking from the light’!