In the excercise of 'choiceless awareness. it is seen as far as I have been able to see, that the brain has restricted itself to a process of ‘psychological’ thought that includes the duality illusion of a thinker apart from the thinking itself. This arrangement means that each of us identify in this narrow space that we call,‘I’. It is made of experience, belief and memory. The brain finds order (as well as pleasure and suffering) in this arrangement. But what comes clear in seeing this limiting of its own potential for this ‘false’, divisive sense of order and security around a ‘center’, is what it is potentially denying itself from experiencing, that it is the whole world? The ‘self’ is like a closed fist.
Could be, but the critical issue, imo, is the creation of suffering that this center causes.
Why don’t we , who are interested , talk a bit about why this ‘center’ causes suffering? Does it? Who or what is it , that undergoes the suffering?
The center has an image about you as an enemy. I shoot you to protect myself. Of course the center is responsible
The one shot for one . OK, I’m being a little disengenuous. You want to know how the center creates suffering for ‘me’ most likely. I compare my image to your image and find myself lacking. I get depressed. I feel I’m a failure and take to the bottle or smoking or drugs. All due to the images in the ‘center’…in consciousness.
And given your intellectual understanding of the suffering caused by this image-making center, why does it continue?..Of course all are invited to bring their own thoughts to this discussion around ‘choiceless awareness.’
I started this topic of ‘Choiceless Awareness’ in the ‘Quiet Place’ forum because I glimpsed its importance and thought there was misunderstanding about it. Working with it, and sharing with the others, there have been many insights and Natarajan’s posts as well as others have been invaluable for me in learning other’s understanding regarding this, as I see it, key area of Krishnamurti’s message.
The obvious answer is that intellectual understanding doesn’t change anything. Like the intellectual understanding of the danger of war.
can you say what this misunderstanding is, in your view?
Can you share some …and any questions that arose from them to further the discussion?
I would say that even in experiencing what we call ‘suffering’, we are already aware of choices as a mitigation measure out of the situation, meaning a factor of false division has been introduced. We may ask who or what introduces division, as far as I see and as far as there is an awareness of that division all the time, it’s a call for a need of greater integration of our being, a blessing very much in disguise. We begin to understand the paradox that evil is after-all not the opposite of good.
Thought/memory? What else?
Thought/memory? What else?
Is this possible “integration of our being” brought about by what we are calling ‘choiceless awareness’? That by ‘seeing’ what is ,in all the same ‘light’, the intelligence of identifying with one or the other sides (or any sides!) can be brought into question? (And especially, identification with the center/self that is felt to be the ‘real me’?)
Yes, it’s so, ‘brought about’, yes, but not as in effort or becoming, which are again in the domain of choice.
Bernadette Roberts (read her writings some years back when Tom suggested it) speaks of a ‘feeling center’ as the ‘me’ which gets emptied out to the effect that there is nothing left as the center to identify with. It’s the partial nature due to division that makes it unreal. As the division disappears, the question of identity/I disappears too.
I heard Bernadette live on the radio over 20 years ago:
Doesn’t this bring up a strange question? If ‘I’ am not this “bundle of memories” as K. has called it, then what am I? If there is no ‘real’ individual ‘me’, then what am I actually? There is a physical body, there is mental activity, thought, feeling, etc. But what is choiceless awareness? Is that what in essence we are? Not my awareness or your awareness just this phenomena we are calling awareness? Does anyone have any insight into this? I would be very interested to read it.
Isn’t any answer I give just more knowledge to identify with…to prop up the ‘I’? Do we need an ‘I’ at all to live sanely?
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There isn’t and “real” self separate from the self. No super self, no ultimate self. It is still the self. And the self can never experience “choice-less awareness”. Choice-less awareness is what is there when all of the senses are operating and the self, the center, is completely quiet.
Here are some pertinent quotes from Krishnamurti from the Question and Answer 2 session at Saanen in 1981 which I have randomly selected for what I see as being relevant to what I wrote above:
“Can the brain be free of myself whether it is the super, super ultra self it is still the self.”
“One has to discover for one’s self whether there can be total and complete freedom from all selfishness, from all self-centered activity right? That is meditation!”
“When you use all your senses there is no me, no self”
“This can only take place when the brain is completely quiet.
So no shadow of thought but absolute silence of the mind”
“I would like to use the word ‘emptiness’ but that gives a wrong meaning most peoples’ brains are empty anyway. But to have a brain that is not occupied with anything; with god, meditation but nothing!”
The self, thought which is rooted in experience and knowledge, can never talk positively about what happens outside of thought; choice-less awareness or anything else. As a consequence we can only discuss what is beyond thought, mindlessness, in the negative. What it isn’t. It isn’t thought. It can’t be understood through opinions and theories or any other usage of thought. .
As you already know, any attempt to pin down an identity or to describe an essence would be an abstraction made from the reality of relationship where choice-less awareness is in operation. I think the same goes true when speaking about society or to focus on its transformation. It too is an abstraction made at some level, though it can be said to ‘exist’. A level down from the fact of immediate relationship.
I think there is a discussion of K involving the theme of one being a part of stream, held in the chain of cause/effect or Karma, and continuing in that past one’s death unless one steps out.
The following quotes from Krishnamurti were taken from Chapter XVII THE FUNCTION OF THE MIND, THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM, Copyright 1954, pages 115-116.
“What is the function of the mind? To find that out, you must know what the mind is actually doing. What does your mind do? It is all a process of thinking, is it not? Other wise the mind is not there. So long as the mind is not thinking consciously or unconsciously, there is not consciousness.”
“Now what is mind as it is functioning? It is actually a process of isolation, is it not? Fundamentally that is what the process of thought is.”
“Memory, of your experience, of your knowledge, of your belief.” End of K quotes
Our thinking gives us a sense of being, a sense of security but it can never solve the problem of being. It can only confuse. You can theorize about physics; about the General and Special Theories of Relativity, about String Theory, about Quantum Physics and so on. But how can you (we) theorized or generalize, philosophize about something that is not a part of thought? The quiet mind, the silent mind, as K often pointed out, is the mind where there is no self, no center. So what meaning, what value do these long theoretical discourses have with regard to understanding that the self is limited and as long as the self is the “other” is not?
Thinking expands the self. Do we want to expand the self or discover if the self can end? Discover if there is something beyond the self?
" It’s a difficult concept, imo…to be choicelessly aware. Because simply, it’s not the way we’ve always been functioning for our entire lives. Our consciousness is a movement of choosing, isn’t it? Desiring…rejecting…opposing…aspiring…and the rest. Anyone can offer us any help with this difficult topic that K often broached?"
What is seen here is that to be “choicelessly aware” can only happen when there is no one there (to be aware or not). Actually there is not choice as there is not any one there to be aware or not. Awareness is the only “thing” that is out there, with no one being aware.
If we consider we have been living “entire lives”, then, there exist somebody there (precisely, that one who thinks hi has a history, a past, then time there exist, etc, and that that is what he is).
There is not such a thing as “my consciousness” (“our consciousness”), and there is not choice if I am not.
“Desiring, rejecting, oposing, aspiring and the rest” is just what looks to be happening (what appears) when it looks to happen. But it doesn´t happen to any body (as there is not such a thing). And so, it also doesn´t really happen.
What is meant by state of choice less awarness?.Is it a state in which no thought arises,one is just aware.But then thought arises,one is lost in field of thought, then again one becomes aware and thought ceases, this alternative state goes on. If I desie and make an effort to remain in state of choice less awarness, then I end up in conflict. Does it mean without effort, just slip into state of choice less awarness, just aware of every thing with no thought, but with no desire to continue in that state. Living a life moment to moment, some moments filled with thought and some moments in choice less awarness with no goal in mind.
This is a very interesting discussion and the topic is quite crucial to the understanding of K.’s teaching concerning the solution of the main human problems. According to K. all our psychological born problems can be solved only through choiceless awareness. This single thing is therefore of the utmost importance. Is here someone who managed to wipe out fear or any other mind disturbances through this particular form of awareness? I confess that I didn’t despite my numerous attempts. Actually, I have the impression that the more I try the more I’m out in the left field. I find it frustrating, don’t you?
Awareness is the most elusive of all brain functions and what makes things worse, I think K. uses this word with a different meaning than the one commonly accepted. I don’t know whether you have explored this aspect in your long discussion (sorry it’s too long for me to read). If you did then please forgive me.
It seems that we attribute to thought the capacity to be aware (and this can be true according to the dictionary meaning of this word) and so when we look inside to a psychological phenomenon, we are exercising thought. How many times I stayed with an intense pain, observing it, but the pain never ended, only I got exhausted after a while and moved away to another thing. It’s obvious that it was not what K. intended.
Inaki said:
“What is seen here is that to be “choicelessly aware” can only happen when there is no one there (to be aware or not). Actually there is not choice as there is not any one there to be aware or not. Awareness is the only “thing” that is out there, with no one being aware.”
This reminds me of a paradox which I have often found in some K.’s statements: to be free of the ego with all its problems one must be free of ego!
This is at least the essence of his discoveries and the only real meaning of his teachings. K. often deceives us (or better we deceive ourselves listening to him), he seems to “explain” what we should do, but actually he’s only explaining what can happen. When I realized that my first reaction was: it’s not fair! We are left alone with our problems.
It’s like the old Zen koan about the goose in the bottle, how can you take the goose out without breaking the bottle or killing the goose? The answer is: look the goose is out. There is no way to do it, just like K. says.
So, to be free of the manifestations of the ego (fears, desires, etc.) there must be choiceless awareness and to be choiceless aware there must be no ego!
Is K. playing with words? I don’t think so, he is using words without giving too much importance to them and often he uses different words to mean the same thing. For instance, today I found this quotation which seems quite appropriate for our discussion:
“The ending of a psychological fact is only possible when the mind is in immediate contact with the fact. There is no contact with the fact if there is a time interval as the observer and the observed. Only the very quiet mind is capable of observing. Only a quiet mind observes, sees and listens. It is the quiet mind, without any effort, without wanting to change or justify, that ends violence immediately.”
Public Discussion 1 in Ojai, California, 4 November 1966
“Immediate contact with a fact” is another way of meaning “choiceless awareness”. At a first reading the whole sentence seems to convey an important communication, yet, here too we stumble upon the same paradox because to have a quite mind we must be free of all egoic activities. Now I ask: what’s wrong in our approach that prevents us to observe with a quiet mind?
Sorry to have been long but I felt I had to introduce the matter slowly…
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