Are we thinking together? Whether it is just two or three or four, or many more of us. Are we thinking together? That’s really the question at the heart of any dialogue. We already have plenty of beliefs, opinions, theories and principles, and texts galore of wisdom both ancient and modern. And at the end of many centuries we are just as confused about the essential issues of life as were our forefathers. We are still largely irrational creatures driven by our own inward desires and fears. We still prefer to hide behind arguments than face one another with nothing. So thinking that comes from the past, thinking that has arisen out of the vast stores of gathered wisdom and knowledge, has never really made much difference to our lives. Technologically, it has made tremendous differences around the world; but inwardly we are still each of us caught in our violent, psychological prisons.
Thinking together means there is no self at all on either side of the dialogue, no baggage, no theories, no assertive opinions. That’s what I am getting at. Therefore it isn’t at the end of a chain or at the end of anything else. It is simply our starting point because it is the sanest place to start.
When we see very clearly the mess we are in, we are already together. It is only when each of us offers our own solution to the mess that we start to drift apart. And so the arguments and the counter arguments soon follow. The only sensible solution is start together at the same place, at the same time and with the same degree of affection and care. Nothing else has worked.
What is self-knowledge? What do we both understand by this term? K used the phrase in different ways, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, sometimes using the phrase ‘self-knowing’ instead. But what self-knowledge does any of us actually possess that does not belong to a time already dead and gone? That’s the point. We are living now, meeting one another now. What’s more important? To meet one another now as we actually are, free from all the petty trappings of the past? Or are we just going to carry on sharing old ideas and never meet one another at all?
Here is K on the subject:
“Why does the mind accumulate knowledge or acquire virtue? Why does the mind constantly strive to become something, to perfect itself? In the process of acquisition and accumulation, the mind is burdened. All accumulation in self-knowledge is a hindrance to the further discovery of the self. Now, is it possible to discover and not be acquisitive, so that the discovery does not leave an experience which will condition further discovery? This is really the freedom from the self, so that there is no accumulative entity, and therefore there is creative being. Accumulation is not creativeness. A mind which is constantly acquiring can obviously never be creative. It is only the free mind that is creative. There can be no freedom if every experience is stored up, because that which is accumulated becomes the centre of the “me”, of the “I”.” New York 1954, Talk 5
But I would rather forget K altogether. This is our problem, not his.
Here is how I see “together”. We come to this forum to find out what we need to find out about Krishnamurti’s teaching because our study of it leaves questions. What did he mean by certain words and phrases? Why can’t we get to the end of his teaching so we can proceed with our own discovery?
If we’re here for some other reason, we should be honest enough to say so.
Self-knowledge is not about this particular self, but about self, per se…or call it “psychological thought” if you prefer. The more you learn about it, the better you understand your own behavior because it’s not just about you, but about we all do: identifying with a self, and thinking incoherently as a result.
You’re conflating self-knowledge with disposable knowledge. If you knew nothing about the self and how it corrupts thought, you’d be incorrigibly corrupt. Without self-knowledge, there’s no understanding of why your life is so full of confusion and conflict. Knowing how the self operates by turning thought to its own ends is the insight that frees the mind. Call it self-knowing if “knowledge” to you means the past.
If you’re familiar with cognitive distortion, you’ll recognize your question as all-or-nothing thinking. You want a yes or no answer because you want to keep the conversation black and white, no nuance. Many people interested in the teaching think that the mind is either free or it is completely imprisoned in egocentric mode.
If you’re not examining your prison, you’re planning your escape or hoping for a miracle.
So you may or may not be yourself, and in any case you are struggling with yourself.
Rather than using the word “self” then, maybe we can just say that you are in a state of confusion and conflict?
So the question becomes : Can this state of confusion & conflict come to an end?
Must we be totally dependant on this state of confusion & conflict?
Why do we separate ourselves, make this division of a self and the world? Then we say I am functioning, I am practical, I have ability, and have my ways of addressing life and all its problems. Don’t we see the separation, the division, is the dysfunction?
If you’re asking whether self-knowledge “worked” for me, my answer is that it is not a technique or a remedy. It’s what the mind does when it is confused and conflicted, yet knows better than to seize upon what one hopes will “work”.
Therefore you are saying that it hasn’t worked totally, because the mind is still experiencing moments when it is confused and conflicted and then acting upon that confusion and conflict through the auspices of self-knowledge. The point is that we said at the very beginning of all this that there is nothing we can do. A mind confused and conflicted can only perpetuate confusion and conflict by its actions. By turning thought to its own ends, the mind is still caught in the trap of activity, however refined and subtle that activity may be. It is all still within the limited realm of the self.
I know it is black and white and ‘all or nothing’, but is there not a total insight whereby thought doesn’t do a thing? That means a mind that can never be confused because there is within it no shadow of the self.
Give up all hope in Myself. Thanks to the realisation that all the suffering and conflict and confusion is me. Thanks to the realisation that anything I do is just more conflict and confusion.
So the next thought that comes up - what will you do with it? Or what will it do to you?
I understand what you are saying and see the outcome of self just as you do, but it’s the step you are trying to make in response which is awry to me. It hinges on what you mean by together which seems significant to you. For me there is a parallel here between what Krishnamurti often outlined about chronological time, and psychological time, with physiological together, and psychological together. People can come together to lift the bus off the person who has become trapped underneath, but we cannot truly be together in any other way. Had you asked: can we be apart from the outset, I would have said a resounding yes, because that is the fact.
We need to be clear here: the thinker is not having thinking, thinking is having the thinker. The fact you and I are apart is not down to choice, it is down to what thinking is. Thinking is having us as we are, and the only way we could be otherwise is if thinking did synchronised thinkers. Which of our multiple fragments or selves is together with even one other self of ours? we all being multiple selves whether we’re aware of it or not.
To me ‘together’ is a reaction to the fact of being apart, and the horror show which is following on from that, but it is not an accurate response. The other factor here for me is alone. Can I be alone? Alone as you will be aware not meaning lonely but all one. I say alone is not together. What do you make of this?
Yes, this is all-or-nothing thinking, your cognitive distortion. With you its total freedom or total enslavement, and that’s your problem. You don’t seem to know what self-knowing is and therefore you dismiss it.
A mind confused and conflicted can only perpetuate congusion and conflict by its actions.
This is not true. The situation is not hopeless, as you seem to think. Learning about the self, egocentricity, is like learning about anything. It takes time. If the mind is capable of practical (as opposed to psychological) thought, it is capable of learning about the illusion of self. If you believe otherwise, ask yourself why, because it isn’t rational.
Is there not a total insight whereby thought doesn’t do a thing?
Possibly, but are you going to wait and pray for it and learn nothing along the way? Can there be a total insight that isn’t preceded by many partial insights? Your all-or-nothing thinking has you hamstrung.
Agreed, it is most certainly the fact that we are apart. But do we both of us see this fact with the same degree of intensity? We are separated physically and temporally, which is the physiological and chronological aspect; that’s a simple enough fact to see. Psychological separation is an entirely different issue because, although it is easy enough to see the idea and to grasp the concept of separation, the fact is not of the same calibre as when we see that we are separated by space or time. What separates us psychologically is only ever going to be as a result of our own perceptions. So there is this extra layer beneath the obvious surface. Now, are we looking at this together? Alone, I can look and see both the surface and the deeper significance; also alone, you can do the same thing. In looking, we may see the absurdity of being apart; and then from there we meet the world, discuss it and all the rest of it. Or, in looking together, the perception of this fundamental absurdity changes the whole nature of our relationship immediately. It is the difference between saying, ‘I like you,’ and, ‘I love you.’
This makes logical sense because silence acknowledged by thought, is thought, and the absence of self acknowledged is the return of self. Or so it would seem.
I am not looking for a realisation. There is no-one there to realise it. Such a realisation is merely the way in which thought creeps back in and takes control of the mind. The ending of the self is not an experience. Put it simpler: love is not an experience; it is all about the other.
The total insight into all this is right now. Otherwise, it will never come. Partial insight is incomplete; and so each fragment of insight only creates further division and breeds the desire for more insight, which is just another form of greed. So, no, this is not my problem. I don’t take time over any psychological issue; so there is no problem. Time is the core of the self; it is the space where thought runs amok. Having seen it once, I won’t live that way. It is a stupid way to live. If I am greedy, I am greedy; I won’t pretend that through time I shall become a better person. If I am angry, I am angry. So nothing ever festers.
