This is an important observation, …and therefore we can’t kill off the so called ‘character’ as if it’s a residue born of in the process of perception, and in which case self is reduced to a psychological phenomenon. As I see, ‘character’ has it’s physical correlates, to kill of the character therefore implies also, the surrendering of the aspect of will (which requires the physical to actualize it) and also the discipline of action as in giving attention. Where these two haven’t actualized for both the speaker and listener, the one who asks to kill off the character is donning the role of a teacher, no harm in that, but then, it would be good to bear in mind that what is really asked is an innermost change of heart in the listener. For this reason, teachers cannot effect a change completely but only attempt to awaken it, and therefore in long run would appear as tragic figures as evidenced by K’s own words that ‘no one got it’. That statement is in fact not an admission of failure but an assertion that he indeed has played the role of a teacher.
You are missing the point. It is not a case of the self coming to an end. That will always take time; and time is the essence of the self. We are here together now, two average human beings with a common language. Does the self have to enter into this dialogue, either from your side or mine? Why should it play any part at all in our relationship?
You are not putting these questions. I am putting them because this enquiry into what it all means to live through and with the self is the only thing that matters.
You talk of evidence, but love surely requires no evidence. Love has no weight, no measurement; therefore, being outside of time, love is the only thing that can trump the will and dissolve the illusion.
Yes, we believe that there is something real beneath or behind the nonsense. But if there is something real, actual, eternal, it has nothing to do with me; it’s only my vanity that clings to such a belief as an adjunct of the same personality that wants to get beyond the nonsense.
In the hope that this might help : the suffering is the self.
This is what the self is. When there is fear, longing, judgement, anger etc - this is the movement of the self.
If that doesn’t help, then I’ll ask the question : who is this human mistaking itself for the self?
And something/someone who can figure it all out…get beyond the pain.
Yes i would say…the images of the imagined future bad arise and the reaction is a resistance to them and that resistance is what we experience as suffering…psychological conflict and physical changes in blood pressure, heart rate, breathing…The self as thought is the creator of the negative (positive?) images (time?) and the self as thought says that they must not (or must?) happen. (in time?) One ‘self’ will react one way and another ‘self’ differently. But it is the same self that we all share?
Or Is It the animal brain that reacts to the sophisticated images of the neo cortex or new brain’s imaginings and treats them as a threat to survival…or in the case of pleasure images welcomes them as a source of security? And that brings about the body’s reactions?
Can we here be clear about how this ‘suffering/pleasure actually works in us?
It must because no self could survive that much freedom.
Are you not self-centered? Can you toggle back and forth between egocentricity and freedom?
You talk of evidence, but love surely requires no evidence
A lovely sentiment.
I find what you say strange. What do you know about the ‘self’ and how much ‘freedom’ it can tolerate?
As I said, an image can’t suffer, or do anything. It’s the human that identifies with the image that suffers.
Again what is this “human “?
The mind that can’t see the illusion of self for what it is
The ‘mind’ or the human brain? The physical brain?
Yes, the cognitive function of the brain
I wouldn’t know, and I doubt that you do, either. But it sounds enough like Krishnamurti to impress some people.
The “cognitive function of the brain” cannot see the illusion of self for what it is,… which to me says that it’s stuck in some pattern. It wants familiarity? The unknown is scary, isn’t it? In my dreams often, I want to “get back” to some place, to get away from the strangeness of the present dream scene. I want to get ‘back home’…
I’m not saying that it can’t be seen, but that it can’t be acknowledged until it is ready to go on without it.
Why should it want to go on without the security of the ‘self’? What would make it “be ready” to let go of an ‘illusion’ that it has held forever?
As I said earlier to Paul DImmock, when the evidence of the error of this way of operating outweighs what supposedly is gained by it.
Why do we focus on a problem?