I’m not sure what it means. Even to Dr. Bohm it was a puzzle, let alone the poor lady to whom K made this remark. Perhaps it just means that we don’t have to rule out any approach because the Teachings are quite capable of looking after themselves without self-appointed guardians.
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The sacred is aisi the most and least fragile of things. Least because the truly sacred is indestructible and inviolable. Most fragile because trying to engage with it (the image of it) the wrong way (with force, motive, conditioning) can keep it good 'n hidden.
No I am not saying there IS the sacred … how would I know?
Another example comes to mind. If I am going through a difficult period , worry, fear, depression etc, it’s possible that K’s ‘secret’ might come to mind. What would be necessary for me in this state now to be able to say that “I don’t mind what happens “? Obviously I do very much.
The realisation that suffering only leads to further suffering. The realisation that death is far more preferable, and reasonable.
Therefore let’s stick with what we know. Do we know death? Come back to death. Because that hasn’t gone away.
Are there really different states of mind? That’s probably the first thing to find out.
I was replying to the K remark to “imagine you’re me”. If there is a disturbance, problem, what would K do? Maybe that’s what he meant?
I understand all that. But first look at what K does when people come to him with psychological problems. Doesn’t he look at the whole picture? In which case, we would have to ask ourselves whether or not our inward disturbances are merely sporadic, dependent upon circumstance, with joy and fear as part of a psychological mixture. Or is there in fact only one state of mind? It’s a huge question, but this is surely what K would do. So here is the imaginative leap, not the imagining of a solution, which is just a trick.
Does thought let things die?
We said that thought itself is something already dead. Therefore when it interferes in any aspect of our existence it is killing or draining life from what it touches. This is clear enough, isn’t it?
There is only “one state of mind”. Every ‘thing’ is transitory. We can name it attention, awareness, love, intelligence, etc but it is nameless and no-thing can grasp it.
But we said that this is a huge question. We can’t just land on an answer so quickly.
I don’t remember ever putting this question before, so how can we already have an answer to it?
Is fear a state of mind? Let’s start simply.
Rather than a ‘state’, a transitory disturbance like a storm or a flood?
I feel like you’re putting words in my mouth. I remember saying a while back that thought was very much alive for me. You might say it plays with dead things (i.e. memory relics), but the playing is alive.
But why is thought using dead things to meet existence? Is this its way of sustaining both itself and me? We may both be dead.
Thought doesn’t seem to have a say in the matter, that’s just how it works. Even when it thinks about the present moment, there’s a lag time between the thought and the actuality. Thought-free awareness otoh can snuggle up to the actuality, the lag time is minimal.
When there is fear, is it that the mind is disturbed or is it that thought is disturbed? Part of the disturbance of thought - perhaps the major part of it - is to claim occupancy of the mind in which it resides.
Says thought: ‘It’s just my nature.’ Or I say to myself that it’s my nature to be afraid. It is the same thing. But what is the nature of a living thing? Does a living thing have any awareness at all of its own essential nature? I can watch the peripheral manifestations of my own interaction with the world, but that’s all l can do. Thought, however, doesn’t seem able to do even this one simple thing without attempting to interfere in what it is watching.
Do you see what all of this means? Thought is literally killing off the world. Fifty years from now, probably, it will have done it.
Yes, thought and its kissin’ cousin feeling want to preside over every situation they find themselves in. But I don’t even know if thought can watch. At least not directly. It seems to me that awareness/consciousness does the direct watching and thought grabs pieces of what’s seen. Thought might be blind, incapable of observing.
Do you see what all of this means? Thought is killing off the world.
And it is simultaneously creating a simulation that, for most of us, feels as real or realer than the world. Enter The Matrix!
So this isn’t a game. For I am destroying the world.