“One must live with a global brain, without any division, without any nationality, without any self. Don’t make that into some kind of heightened illumination, only a few can reach it. Anybody who sets his brain and heart to understand the nature of the self, and be free of that self, anybody can do it if they put their mind.”
Krishnamurti: Public Question & Answer 1, Bombay (Mumbai), India - 09 February 1984
Do we have a global brain? And are we then able to communicate with one another very simply and clearly, globally? Or are we to start from an assumption that we are already divided, conditioned, and thus remain caught in the trap, not only of being endlessly divided but also of forever seeking a way out of this apparent division? Which is it?
Or are we to start from an assumption that we are already divided, conditioned, and thus remain caught in the trap,
The “trap” is our choice, our chosen comfort zone, and we are “caught” in it until/unless we understand how and why we have created and sustain our trap.
Do you have a global brain or are you as trapped as the rest of us?
If we take this at a simple, mundane level, this is a personal question we each have to put to ourselves.
Do I feel, first and foremost like an Earthling? A human being whose existence is intimately entwined with life on this planet.
Or do I feel like something more tribal and exclusive? eg. I am first and foremost a white agnostic American man, or a spiritual Indian woman, or something like that.
When you say you don’t know if you have a “global brain”, you’re dissembling, as usual. If your brain was not self-centered, there would be no you to know or not know anything.
That is perhaps what it means. That is why I am asking you where your response is coming from. Where does your, ‘No,’ come from? Please bear in mind that I am not saying, ‘Yes.’ There is no-one here in contradiction to yourself. I am first saying only that I do not know. But when you immediately start with, ‘Yes,’ or, ‘No,’ it seems you invite contradiction within and upon yourself.
It is interesting that you go first to feelings in order to find out an answer to this question. Are our feelings totally reliable? Or the fact that our feelings are so often changeable and variable is an indicator of something troubling.
How you feel in this moment is who you are in this moment.
What do you reckon Mahesh? Does that sound like a fact? Or a bit odd?
Depends what we mean - what are you referring to? They are of course totally reliable indicators of what we are feeling.
What is troubling about changing feelings? Surely it would be weird if we only had one emotional response? Are we hoping for some sort of permanent phenomenon?
I am not assuming that we’re divided, conditioned, caught in a trap because it’s my reality, as it is for you. It is the human condition.
If you know you’re assuming this condition, you can drop it any time and quit dissembling. But if, like the rest of us, you are not assuming anything beyond what thought is telling, suggesting, leading you to assume, you can’t do anything new, significant, liberating or illuminating until/unless you awaken to what you choose to be unaware of doing.
As long as we assume we are not dissembling mechanisms guided and directed by our psychological content, the least we can do is quit denying it and look honestly at what we’re doing.
But whose moment is it? Don’t our feelings have their roots in the past, which then affects our feelings about the future? Can we not meet the moment - the moment right now - with a brain totally unconcerned about feelings?
Can you meet yourself with a brain totally unconcerned about feelings? If so, you can quit trying to “meet” others here, and free yourself from this forum.
Can you be completely attentive to whatever is happening in the world without any feeling or thought coming in? Then there is no you and the world as separate entities.
You say this as if you know it for a fact; as if you’re here to tell us what we need to know.
But you’re just imagining, speculating, creating an image of what-should-be. Do us a favor and stay with what we’re actually dealing with: the movement of incoherent, compulsive thought.
You claim to know that the human condition, our incoherent, compulsive thought, “has a stop”, but the only way to know this is for it to have stopped for you. Perhaps you expect us to take your word for it, as if we were naive and credulous.
You may believe that for you it has stopped, and you’re not alone. Many have posted in this forum their certainty that they are free, that we should take their word for it and, by implication, welcome them as our teachers.