Perhaps some of us are astute enough to make the best of our conditioning without suffering the worst, and some may be brilliant enough to unlearn the conditioning altogether.
Well I think there’s a good point in there, which is that cutting out the foundations can be very destabilising. These things have to be gone into with enough sensitivity.
By oneself. …
Then what does it mean to do nothing? You have already mentioned the passive observation of conditioned responses. Can we look at this a little together? Where there is an observer of all these responses, it can never be a passive process, can it? So are we talking of an observation where there is no observer at all?
The conditioned mind is not blind - it’s under the influence of its conclusions. That means it interprets actuality instead of acknowledging it. But to interpret something one must encounter the thing as it is, so observation is the raw data that is interpreted by the conditioning.
The observer is conditioned observation; a distortion of what actually is. You can’t respond conditionally to something that isn’t actual, and that response is so reflexive, we’re unaware of it. It escapes our notice.
You ask if we’re “talking of an observation where there is no observer at all”. We’re reacting to what is actual by distorting its actuality, and doing it so automatically that it’s sleight of hand, like an illusionist. Observation is so quickly distorted by conditioning, the observer, that inattention misses it.
Is this statement correct ?
Maybe you are trying to indicate that something does exist. And maybe you are also trying to indicate something about the division between the subject and the object, and the interpretation that the one holds about the other - but what that might be is not clear to me.
PS - To be honest I’m completely lost at sea in this conversation.
But if we both see the danger of this distortion now, we are not missing it, are we?
Have we seen it? Or have we adopted a theory?
The question was : Can the Self Come to an End?
Its a good question.
I’ll try again. The conditioned mind sees things for what its conditioning makes of things, not for what things actually are. So conditioned response is a distortion of what actually is, and that distortion happens so fast that the inattentive mind misses it and mistakes the distortion for the thing. It’s like seeing the word for the thing instead of the thing itself.
Krishnamurti used the example of mistaking a coil of rope for a snake and reacting appropriately (for a snake), then realizing it was only a rope. This is what’s good about conditioning. It can save your life, even though it can trigger false alarms.
What’s bad about conditioning is that one can get the wrong idea about a thing and mistake the thing for the idea. So to be aware of one’s conditioning is to be mindful of your every thought and conditioned response so you can question their accuracy or appropriateness.
Actually, its not so much what you’ve been saying that is confusing me - despite our (macdougdoug and inquiry) seeming incapacity to communicate on this forum - I am under the impression that I do understand what you are saying (which is why I am able to respond).
Surely we would be the least competant person to judge? Either we are free of fear and act out of love - or we struggle for progress?
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It’s not an either/or matter, and it’s not an all-or-nothing situation. Jumping to those conclusions is cognitive distortion. Look it up.
It’s about self-knowledge. If you’re interested in the way the mind, thought, operates, you observe its activity. You wouldn’t bother if there’s nothing to learn by doing so.
This self we are talking about has already read some books, watched some videos, and is conversant with some ideas. Already there is the danger of being confused, psychologically, and wanting to be sure about itself. The tradition is psychological observation. Interest is accumulative. I have to be first clear of confusion; not be looking for clarity, and applying technique. The clarity is not in looking at particular matters, or answering questions about problems. It is a clarity of quiet, effortless, observing of the world free from thought.
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Yes, sir, that’s the whole point. Maybe we are just playing with a lot of ideas. After all, that is what the phrase ‘self-knowledge’ really means: it is all the ideas one has accumulated about the operation of the psyche. But the accumulation of those ideas is also the self in action. Surely, therefore, what is far more important is to be aware of what we are doing and where we are standing right now in relation to one another. Self-knowledge can only ever keep us apart, each of us standing on different levels and enthralled by the subtleties of our personal experience. This self-knowledge may keep us from feeling lost, but it is bound to be a false feeling of psychological security, however cleverly phrased and explained.
There’s a much simpler approach, but we have to take it together otherwise it has no meaning. When we start together simply, there are no different levels, except possibly a few difficulties caused by the language we are using. But if we care for one another, we’ll similarly take great care to make sure that we are using simple words that we both understand. This is truly the self in action, which is you and I communicating with each other. Then it is much easier to spot the dangers and the mistakes as we go along. But if we believe that for some strange reason we are already far along the path, we are never going to meet.
Now, do we both see this? Not as something seen yesterday or a year ago, but as something we are seeing for the very first time in our lives. Meeting some clever idea from the past is to bring into the dialogue a very limited form of energy, whereas meeting the fact of where we both are right now has an unlimited energy all of its own.
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Either the self is present or it is not - (Are you trying to present the case for some sort of semi-presence? I hope not)
Please try to follow this simple reasoning :
Does the self distort what is? Yes.
Are you the self? Yes
Therefore whatever conclusions you come to via observation is erroneous.
End. (Before arguing back, please point out if there are any errors in the above reasoning?)
Why are you interested? That observation may be part of the activity of itself. Tricky stuff - maybe the knot cannot unravel itself?
Okay - self knowledge as useless baggage is obviously only good for further conditioning. (Philosophers and Psychologists are no more free from suffering and confusion than the rest of humanity)
So I think that you are proposing that we don’t just compare useless baggage.
So what should this dialogue consist of ?
PS - I was under the impression that the most liberating part of any discussion was the ability to listen - Listen as in see what is being said, rather than compare to one’s own “useless baggage”.
Here is how I see together. Thinking is having the thinker, and the thinker is having thoughts as its thoughts, identifying with the notion of itself as a self, so once there is thinker as self, there will be the duality self/other, and then there can arise concern to be together. Being together is at the end of a subtly reinforcing chain, and ‘together’ will never substitute for being apart to begin with. So achieving or touching upon together won’t help though it may reveal aspects of fragmentation.
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Self-knowledge can only ever keep us apart, each of us standing on different levels and enthralled by the subtleties of our personal experience. This self-knowledge may keep us from feeling lost, but it is bound to be a false feeling of psychological security
In saying this you radically depart from Krishnamurti’s teaching to promote your notion of dialogue. Why does “self-knowledge” mean to you something opposite to the way Krishnamurti used the term?
Without self-knowledge there cannot be complete action
August 14, 1949
Self-knowing is the beginning of meditation Saanen, 1961
I am interested in self -knowing because, without that, whatever I think, whatever I do, whatever I proceed with has no basis.
DIscussion in Bombay, January 14, 1977
No. I am thought, which means I am under the influence of the self when I’m not thinking practically, logically. If I was incapable of practical thinking (as opposed to psychological thinking) I’d be totally dysfunctional, totally self-absorbed, practically disabled. Carrying on a discussion requires practical, logical thinking.
I “am” the self in so much as I identify with it unconsciously, and in conflict with it during waking consciousness.