Without going into detail, here are some questions we explored:
Man has built in himself images as a fence of security—religious, political, personal.
Images, what are they, what is their essence?
To what extent are images built by us? Rather than emerging from the physiology of the brain?
Are all images fences of security? (All psychological images?) Or are some liberators, truth-pointers?
What, in this dialogue, here and now, is image? What is not?
So, with this global perspective in mind as a prelude - “We are one people” and yet “The world is broken up by tribalism” - maybe I can share an edited extract from my suggested Book of the Month.
Maybe it will stir some discussion, maybe not, but I will be focussing on this for the time being (others are free to ignore it or continue with their own interests - no judgement!).
Last Talks at Saanen 1985
Talk 1
This is what is happening in the world: economic division, religious division, political division and all the religious, sectarian divisions…
Mr X has travelled all over the world… And he said, ‘Let’s talk things over together like two friends, you and I—like two friends who have lived together in the world, been through every kind of travail. What is it all about? …
Let’s … talk together as two human beings, living in this world… on the earth which is so beautiful, which is the mother of all things.’ …
Centuries before Christianity, the religions have talked endlessly about peace—be peaceful, be quiet, be gentle, generous, affectionate, loving. [And yet] In spite of their propaganda this conflict goes on…
So Mr X said to the speaker, ‘Let’s talk, let us question each other, never accepting what the other says. I won’t accept a thing from you, nor will you accept a thing from me. We are on the same level. You may be very clever, you may have a reputation which is nonsense, you may go round the earth, or a certain part of the earth, all that doesn’t count. It has no value.’ With which the speaker agreed wholeheartedly. ‘So let us explore this curse which man has borne from the beginning of time: why man, which includes woman… is in conflict…’
What is the cause of it? Everywhere there is struggle. You might say there is struggle in nature, the big animal lives on the smaller animal and so on. In a forest the little tree is struggling against the gigantic trees for light. You might say everywhere on earth, in nature, there is conflict, some kind of struggle going on, so why shouldn’t we also go on in that way because we are part of nature? What human beings call conflict, may not be conflict out there; it may be the most natural way for nature to act: the hawk, the eagle kill the rabbit, bears kill salmon, the tiger kills something swiftly, or the cheetah; in nature killing, killing, killing goes on, and one might say that we are part of nature so it is inevitable that we should be in constant struggle. If one accepts that it is natural, inevitable, there is nothing more to be said about it; if we say it is natural, we will go on in that way because we are part of the whole earth, but if one begins to question it then where are you? Are you willing together to find out because we are supposed to be a little more active, intelligent than the trees, the tigers, the elephants (fortunately the elephants don’t kill too many things, but they destroy trees)…
So one discovers that where there is division between the Swiss and the Germans, the French and the English, I and you, we and they—wherever there is division there must be conflict. Not that there is not division; the rich are very powerful. But if we create subjectively a division—I belong to this and you belong to that, I am a Catholic, you are a Protestant, I am a Jew and you are an Arab—then there is conflict. So wherever there is division between two people, between man and woman… there is conflict…
Strangely, your brain, though [it is] not the brain of another, is [in fact] also the other—you understand? Your brain is like the brain of every other human being… Our brains are not ours, they have evolved through a long period of time, and in that evolution we have gathered tremendous knowledge, experience, but in all that there is very little of what is called love… So my brain which has evolved through a long period of time, that brain with its consciousness is not mine because my consciousness is shared with every other human being.
Mr X is saying, ‘I have read something about what you have said, I am not repeating what you have said, but this is what I also feel. I see, wherever I have been, in every corner of the earth, that there are human beings who suffer pain, anxiety, desperate loneliness, and so our consciousness is shared by all other human beings.’ …
So your consciousness is shared by every human being on this earth. Therefore you are entire humanity. Do you understand, sirs? You are in actuality, not theoretically or theologically… but in actuality there is this strange irrevocable fact that we all go through the same mould, the same anxiety, hope, fear, death, loneliness that brings such desperation.
So we are mankind. And when one realises that deeply, conflict with another ceases because you are like me.
Thanks for giving a taste of what you were discussing, Rick.
I guess what I’m currently interested in is why - given our global, planetary interdependence - these images, beliefs, identifications, nationalists, etc need to divide us all. And whether we are in fact one humanity (at least primarily), or just billions of separate human beings all in conflict with each other?
Does the belief that ‘unity is good’ divide us?
And whether we are in fact one humanity (at least primarily), or just billions of separate human beings all in conflict with each other?
Does this have to be binary: either unified or separated? Can we be (are we) both?
Each brain has its particular accumulations, knowledge, art, politics etc. Differences in likes, dislikes, temperament, intellect etc. Differences but not necessarily ‘divisive’. Our ‘beliefs’ divide us, sometimes violently so. Beliefs need a ‘believer’ and that’s where the ‘I sensation’ comes in. I believe. That I am this or that. That I am an individual. That I exist apart from the beliefs. That I exist! This ‘I sensation, identification needs to be investigated in myself. Not to get rid of it but to see how it manifests with thought, feelings and the body.
Maybe said better, to bring into awareness the sensation of the I in the moment and it can only be in the moment, when there is thinking and the sensation is that ‘I am thinking’, when eating, ‘I am eating’, ‘I am looking’, etc. This isn’t to put an onus on ‘I’ in conversation, trying to avoid it sounds stilted to me, but to see when possible how it ‘joins’, ‘owns’ the thoughts, feelings and physical sensations and actions.
Any belief is capable of dividing people, but I’m not sure what you are referring to here?
K has proposed something - i.e. that human consciousness, humanity, is one thing, one unit, that we mistakenly break up into tribes of one kind or another.
All I am doing - in the spirit of a book-club - is putting this forward for our consideration. If you reject it, that’s ok, but I wouldn’t have shared it if I didn’t feel it was worthy of at least some consideration.
Speaking for myself, the perception of humanity - of human consciousness - as one unitary whole, is not present. But I am open to this possibility on account of the very great similarities between human beings, and, genetically, on account of our shared origins. So I don’t think it is an absurd thing to propose.
Yes, we can be both - we are both. The question is, at what level are we both? We are separate physically, that is obvious. But we may not be separate at the level of our consciousness - that seems to be the proposal that K is making.
As I said, I don’t see this proposed unity for myself, but I am open to it for the reasons I gave. As well as for the negative reasons that human separateness eventually means war, hate, division, etc (which we can see all around us in the world).
It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to just reject this out of hand.
Yes, this seems like a reasonable distinction to make.
It seems to me perfectly natural for different bodies (and brains) to manifest as different proclivities and temperaments. Such differences are surely natural and unobjectionable.
But strong psychological walls between different people are something extra: they make for divisions. How these walls build up is important to take account of, whether this is through images, beliefs, strong identification with nations, class, or what have you.
Maybe I can put it this way - the first film I ever saw at the cinema was E.T.
Part of the ambiance of the movie for me was the feeling of how strange it is for us human beings to all live on one planet 
- a plant that another intelligence might one day visit; and how tragic the planet might look like to such an extra terrestrial visitor - with all the violence and war going on, all the silly divisions between religions and nations, when the whole planet is an interdependent whole.
Exactly, I have had similar thoughts. Also, seeing the pictures of our planet from another vantage point, one as a big blue green ball and the other as a tiny dot, does indeed help to put things in perspective.
Whats amazing to me is that we live with such self importance and yet those images of our planet show we are insignificant, just a speck in the larger picture, place in the universe.
Somehow space and distance changes our perspective, has the power to do that, but for some reason most of us focus on the narrow close self centeredness instead of this larger picture and oneness.
One never knows what will interest people or create a response, but I have tried bringing up this issue of our shared human consciousness elsewhere, and very few people seem to engage with it for long. Is it the way it is expressed in words?
I raise the matter because it is one of the things that K banged on about especially in the latter part of his teaching career, and said was essential for us to understand, to get to grips with.
Clearly, it requires a perception that most of us do not have, and this may be why it fails to communicate.
Speaking for myself, I have an infinitely easier time seeing the unity that we have with nature (in spite of the way we treat it!) than with seeing the unity we have with each other as human beings. And yet because I respect K, and he gave so much emphasis to this matter, I am willing to look at it and ponder it.
So why does it create a reaction in some people? Is the unity of human consciousness a belief (as Rick suggested)?
Is proposing something to others that they do not yet see completely (as K has done) a matter of belief?
Or is it a matter of perception and using one’s reason?
As far as I can see it is obvious that the divisions created between human beings by religions and nationalities are invented by our thinking - out of fear, out of illusion, out of a search for security. Such divisions are neither necessary nor rational - and yet most human beings do not see this because of the strength of political and religious propaganda, the strength of our collective conditioning.
Looking at the earth 
from space clarifies all this for me, it gives pictorial emphasis to a situation I otherwise overlook or fail to consider.
We all share vastly more than we let on; we are dependent on each other and the planet for everything we are. So to turn a blind eye to all these walls that separate us from each other, that divide us off from each other, seems to me a mistaken way of looking.
Even among us K folk, these walls are as strong as elsewhere - as Dan says, perhaps this is just the nature of feeling that we are separate individual consciousnesses. But I wish we could pause and look at this stuff for a little but, before rejecting it and labelling it belief, authority, etc.
Anyway, I’m sure I have an indignant ‘po-face’ right now, and so Rick is free to throw a tomato or two 
if he feels like it!
Do Giraffes share the same Giraffe consciousness?
I do reckon that Mr Giraffe probably feels like Mr Giraffe, Mrs Giraffe like Mrs Giraffe, and Baby Giraffe feels like baby Giraffe. Is that 3 different Giraffe consciousnesses?
This is my response. And the reason I have not been engaging. 
If possible, can you clarify what is present for you and what exactly is not?
No, you are doing a fine job expressing all of this difficult material. Some of Ks teachings is not easy to truly see, grok, live. For most of us, it is just words, concepts, is not an actuality.
You are doing a great job bringing this material forward, distilling it for us. I read the piece you posted from Last Talks at Saanen and what you chose is very good, powerful, a lot there.
It is easy to see how our divisions are created by thinking, very easy to see we are one from space and at a distance.
But it is not so easy to see that we are humanity, that our human consciousness is one, and that our brains are not personal, but contain all of mankind, past and present.
I remember several dialogues where K was met with resistance by the participants, they just had a hard time accepting we are humanity, one human consciousness, and not just that we are similar, that we go through the same things.
Our conditioning is so strong that we are separate individuals with our own unique consciousness, that it is not the same as the others. But as K pointed out, that is what he was saying, that is the illusion, we are not individuals (as he used that word, indivisible whole) but that we are just like the rest of mankind, no different, not unique. To step out of that stream is to be an individual.
I am sorry if this is rambling and not as coherent as your posts James, but I am with you, reading you, looking with you, even if I cannot articulate my thoughts that well.
Yes, this is the point. You have put it well. It is clear that we have divided ourselves artificially, but it is not so clear that we are one, unitary whole.
As you mention, it is easy to see our similarities with each other - even with all our differences it is clear that we share all the most basic human experiences with every other person on earth (and in space!).
But that step from similar to same has not happened for me - it is a perception that K clearly felt, perceived, realised, but that for most of us is lacking.
But just as it would have been foolish to rule out the possibility of galaxies other than our own (as was the case in the early 20th century), I feel it would be foolish to rule out this perception that K talked about so often.
Part of the reason for this, as you say, is simply that our individual conditioning is so strong. We feel like individuals, separate consciousnesses - I know I do. And so we find it hard to grasp the possibility that our consciousness is fundamentally shared.
And so even though our way of looking might be wrong, mistaken, foolish, we seldom question it, because it runs so much against the grain. I am not preaching about all this, because this is exactly what I do too.
So I am still wondering, pondering, reflecting, what is the step from similar to same?
Maybe. Why would we dismiss the idea so quickly?
I used to study animal ecology back in the day (it has been a long time since I did so properly!), and I vaguely recall studies that ecologists were doing about the shared intra-species consciousness of whales, wolves, chimpanzees and other animal groups.
Although it is partly discredited (in the some of the fields where it was applied), Sheldrake’s theory of morphic-resonance is still applicable to many animal groups who seem to share information telepathically and with minimal outward gestures or vocalisations, which at least suggests that there is some form of group consciousness in many or most animal species. This wouldn’t surprise me as language is a very late adaptation anyway, and groups depend on a common or shared intuitive basis of communication to survive and thrive.
What I am trying to get at, is to be really specific what is going on with us personally.
For myself, I have read Krishnamurti for years, and in some areas, what he had to say seems to have an effect on my life.
I am able to see myself as a human being, and not as a Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, nor as a left or right wing politics, nor as an American, Russian, German, etc but all as a human being, and there is no division between me and any of these other labels. So in this area, there is no division and no conflict.
But yet I somehow, even after reading Ks teachings, I still somehow identify myself as a separate human being with a separate personal brain and separate personal consciousness. I just cannot shake this conditioning off.
But and here is the but, at times, I have glimpses that we are all one or one consciousness or one humanity and not really separate, that this separateness is the illusion.
Phrases like “You are the world” on some level sounds true to me and in some ways I am living it, and others the perception hasnt gone far enough and there is still separation and division in some areas.
So to summarize, even though K talked about all of this, I still struggle with the brain being not my personal brain, but the brain of humanity ( I guess through evolution he is talking about and all of mans experiences that has created and developed this brain).
I still struggle with our consciousness being one, being human consciousness and not my own, not a separate consciousness. It is possible I already understand it for I do see we all go through the same things and have pretty much the same consciousness, it is modified a little here and there but basically the same. But to me, I always felt it just means we are similar, not exactly the same consciousness.
This is it, this is exactly what I was talking about too. Nicely summarized, you hit the nail on the head, as far as I am concerned, and even bolded similar and same 
For most of us, we are still stuck in similar, but not the same and for K he felt, perceived, realized and lived from that.
So yes, I am wondering too, reflecting on what is the step from similar to same or if there even is a step?
Yes, this is how I see it. I think I have had glimpses of this shared human consciousness (or what I take to be our shared humanity), but it has never broken through to being a definite perception of some continuous and solid truth.
So yes, I wonder too if there is a step or not to realising this thing. But I’ll keep on asking about it/pondering it until it seems fruitless to do so!
The self loves to read. The “conditioning” can’t be shaken off because the wannabe “shaker” and what it wants to “shake off” are one and the same!
Krishnamurti’s ‘message’ to me is very personal: Humanity is what it is, because you are what you are.
Just being my usual pan-negational self, The Neti-Neti Man! cautioning us all to remember that if the weak link is in the very essence of belief, then all beliefs, including those that seem positive (belief that unity, harmony, love are all good and desirable) are to be taken with a hefty grain of salt.
There is ample evidence of both separateness and unity for physical and mental entities. Physically, every person’s body ends (mostly) at their skin, yet all bodies are made of the same stuff. Mentally, every person’s mindstream is only directly available to that person, yet we all share the same mindstream basis: language, Zeitgeist, global culture, brain anatomy and physiology.