Well most would consider this about thought to be cult fodder, certainly the ones who think the way I presented above. The ‘thinker is the thought’ is about as far out as you can get…mainstream thought is “It’s all just ‘human nature’.” Boys will be boys and killers will be killers…
We can’t say there is hope but we can’t say it’s impossible either.
When we play new mysterious games fearlessly, honestly - not hiding behind the “truth” - for that moment we are not torturing our neighbours, we are not building our power base of fear.
For this moment its not business as usual.
Thought is attracted to K because his thought is fresh and exciting…it opens up new vistas that have never been thought about. Insight is necessary to verify them. They can’t be just ‘adopted’ or they remain dead dogma. Being aware that thought is using them to enhance its image of itself is important to see.
It’s important since thought/thinking works by association, to know what my ‘core’ thoughts are because my thinking will flow from and around them. I guess you would call them my core beliefs about myself and about others, ideals, dogmas, knowledge etc. My thoughts ‘reflect’ them?
We are aware of our thought processes and yet, we allow those processes to carry us along as they please. Then we regret it, and sometimes we even ask for forgiveness… but only until next time. We seem to be incapable of rebelling against them, or stopping them.
Yes - this awareness that we are referring to is not sufficient.
We have an idea about some magical “awareness” - but the normal everyday self-awareness that we are familiar with refers to the experience of self-reflexivity, or meta-consciousness - a recognition of ourselves and what we are doing provided by, created by the brain.
For this everyday awareness to play any part in “freedom from the known” something is lacking.
Yes, we may have an idea of a certain ‘magical awareness’ after listening to Krishnamurti or some Buddhist lama talking about Buddha nature. And that may be why we divide our so-called ‘everyday self-awareness’ from the so-called ‘magical awareness’, thinking that the former is one thing and the latter is another, unreachable for the former. But it could be that the former is not as separate from the latter as it seems to us.
Yes - I’m very much in agreement that awareness is just awareness.
What transforms awareness into that which provokes freedom from experience is the question.
I’m saying that awareness alone is not sufficient for freedom from the known - there is something missing in the equation - something we have not yet mentioned (usually referred to as “immense energy that allows for honesty and insight”)
My personal perception of this ‘something missing in the equation’ is that it is always there, and that only we, or rather our thought with its eagerness to control everything, prevents its manifestation. But it is there, the link between the so-called ‘everyday self-awareness’ and this so-called ‘magical awareness’ is always there, waiting for us to let it manifest freely and spontaneously.
So perhaps we could take a look (according to the unwritten rules of the game we are playing) at what it is that might be preventing (if anything) its free and spontaneous manifestation whenever it feels it is necessary, and if eventually the thought can withdraw of its own accord to the place it should not have left and the ‘other’ occupies the place that belongs to it.
Has the feeling of I/me become so inextricably intertwined with the movement of thinking that it would take an ‘immense energy’ to set it free? If the actual ‘me feeling’, shorn of all personal experience, memory, knowledge (the past) is awareness itself, then isn’t this statement by K directly pointing at what is necessary: “Freedom is born with the perception that freedom is essential “? Is the missing ‘perception’ (energy), that this mistaken identification HAS taken place and that it MUST be dissolved? It is ‘essential’ that it be dissolved!
Good work yous guys. 
What is involved in seeing freedom as essential? Seeing in the big sense: understanding, knowing, feeling. We tend to change (in a profound way) only when there is either no alternative, or all alternatives are clearly culs de sac.
Let me just say that I think the game is over for the moment - we are now allowed to act like complete jerks and be a pain in the butt to everyone (nb. forum guidelines may still apply)
You seem to be saying that whatever it is that may allow for transformation exists but cannot manifest.
The difference between “non-existence” and “having no effect” is not apparent to me.
The difference between “does not exist” and “indetectable” seems negligeable to me.
Maybe it would help if you gave some indication of what this non-manifest thing might be?
So @fraggle - could you restate what you mean by all the stuff in italics sorry I don’t understand - a discussion on the bit about “whenever it feels it is necessary” feels like it could be an eye opener.
Yes I think that is what he is trying to point out: That there is no ‘alternative’, only ‘freedom’ will do. Freedom from the known. And that will take ‘intelligence’, about which he said: The highest form is seeing oneself with no judgement. And that kind of ‘seeing’ oneself sounds already like freedom? Trying it for oneself shows how ‘difficult’ seeing oneself without judgement is.
I identify with and cling to the known, because that’s what humans are designed to do.
If I can see clearly that this experience is as much a bug as a useful feature - then surely its power is no longer supreme, we are no longer blind to it.
Once we see clearly that the delusion is more detrimental than beneficial - it starts to dissolve of itself - whether it becomes essential that we no longer be slaves to the known is another question.
PS - yes - its essential when there are no alternatives
Let’s say that in conversation I say something to the person in front of me, and I perceive – let’s use this concept here for a moment – his ‘non-verbal communication’ to my words because I am attentive in the conversation. At that moment, ‘otherness’ (this is the correct word used by Krishnamurti and not the one I used earlier as ‘the other’) spontaneously manifests itself, making me realize that my words may have hurt him in some way. So if the attention remains and is not contaminated by the thought, a spontaneous action will arise that will alleviate in some way the harm that my words may have caused him. But if I lose my attention, and the thought intrudes and takes over the situation, all will be ruined because the thought will start to judge and the action that will arise will be totally contaminated by it. But that does not mean that the so-called “magical awareness” is not there.
His message (right or wrong) is that any alternative to freedom will be a continuation of what is going on in and around us and that it is likely to get worse…understanding (perceiving) that that is likely to be the case could push one closer to grasping the essential need to be free? That for humanity, selfishness is a ‘cul de sac’?
By magical awareness we mean an awareness that provokes “freedom from the known” - or that releases us from the grip of whatever “reality” we may be experiencing in that moment. - or that releases us from mere self-concern.
If the “thought intrudes and takes over the situation” then surely there is no awareness (of the movement of self) or that it is not magical awareness?
Maybe, but
Does understanding that we are doing harm make us see that there are no alternatives?
If so, smokers would stop happily as soon as they look into the question of smoking.
Perhaps it seems to us that this so-called “magical awareness” (which I would call “natural/innate awareness”, or simply “awareness”) is not there because thought does not see that it does not provoke any “freedom from the known” since it itself is that freedom that thought hopes to eventually attain after having heard someone talking about it. Not realizing that it is the one who is constantly trying to hijack this “awareness” when it spontaneously appears, preventing its natural manifestation in its attempt to take possession of something that it (the thought) believes to be its own every time we lose attention.
I don’t know, perhaps we could put Krishnamurti aside for a moment, and reflect afresh on this possibility.
It’s an important question. No, doing harm has been
Normalized over centuries. We’ve been desensitized to the chaos caused by our selfishness…a ‘shock’ is probably in order but I don’t know where it will come from, if it comes at all.
Our extinction would certainly do the trick but short of that, what is possible?