Positive thinking is to define love and try to approach it. But your definition is based on your background.
1 Like
Positive thinking is to use words to justify and rationalize psychological needs, wants, desires, their past, their life, etc. so as to maintain a society which stands for everything thatās corrupt, etc. so as to avoid doing negative thinking.
In my building, some young millennials are about to offer weekly sessions on mindfulness and āteachā meditation so as to enable some of their victims to experience āself-loveā (positive thinking - i.e. being a narcissist is good !). Charley has tried to have a conversation with some people in my area who have been ātaughtā meditation. One had a similar reaction when one tried to have a conversation with those in the fringe here, politically speakingā¦
Negative thinking (nirodha): even to what appears to be small actions like pointing out speculation, conclusions, beliefs, etc. [Edit: also: choices]
Thought has no value( negative/positve)whatsoever in human relationships. It is divisive in its working. Me vs You, They vs US, and so on.
1 Like
I would like to make you understand the negative approach, the meaning of negativity in the following way.
While responding to a challenge, man usually comes to a point where he is stuck. This point appears to him as a problem. Questions arise. And man now sets out to solve the problem in the structural relations as it arises in thought. And the solution enables him then to continue his reacting within this structure.
For example. If fear of something arises, then thinking takes this fear as a problem of not being safe from something. The direction in which solution of the problem moves is to find something that provides protection. The movement in this structure then gives the background for the justification and reasoning of all the activities on the one hand, on the other hand it causes perpetuation of the structure in which the thought is operating itself. All that results in an collective consent.
The negative approach registers at the appearance of the problem, that a disturbance in the course of action, presents itself as a challenge to thought. From here, the direction changes of how to understand the problem. The question of the relationship of thinking to the emergence of the problem at all, comes to the fore. Thus the questioning moves into the depth, and does not get caught in the superficial relations within which thought normally looks for a solution.
Perhaps you have also noticed that the normal approach to a problem, a disorder, contains the structural principle, which must always bring the problem into being in different ways. To see that is to refrain from doing all that. Total negation is the essence of the positive, K wrote in the summary of his teaching at that time. It frees the mind, the perception, from the burden and the limitations of the activity of being caught up in the superficial relations within which the thinking works itself out.
2 Likes
Underlying this activity is the belief that āIā am ādoingā this thinking, isnāt it? The thinker and his thoughts make up the structure? There is an āidentificationā with thought that resists or precludes negative thinking?
1 Like
Yes Sir, it isnāt. Your hiding assertions behind suggestive questions does not hide the fact that in your assertions you are hitching the cart to the horse.
Coincidentally to your posting, thought this a.m., came up with a challenge that was perceived inside its āāstructureā as a possible threat to āmyā securityā¦It then as you suggested in your post, set about ways to avoid and / or resolve situations seen as ābadā. The resulting suffering, fear, it seemed was tied to some sort of āidentificationā, I donāt know if that is the right word; the thinker, me, was caught inside the structure reacting to the āfearfulā images not realizing (in the brain?) that the thinker, āmeā and the thoughts were one and the same.
From here it looked like Danās suggestions/questions were actually in agreement with walkusā quote. 
They were indeedā¦
Walkus,
There is a very well-known English expression, āputting the cart before the horseā. One wonders whether you meant that, because it completely changes the meaning of your post. Also, not a fan of the double negative.
Whatās the difference between your definition of negative thinking and ācritical thinkingā?
Critical Thinking,
Critical thinking is by any other name positive thinking. In positive thinking (mainly as an intellectual exercise - speaking psychologically), one uses oneās experiences, oneās past, the information and knowledge that one has amassed - always using thought - by analysis, evaluating or formulating or comparing concepts and ideas, evaluating what one knows of others to determine how to treat others - in terms of oneās conditioning, oneās likes and dislikes, oneās past choices, etc. - all with a view to guide oneās actions, oneās behaviour, and/or to form and/or modify oneās beliefs and ideas by which one chooses to live, etc. Such positive thinking may also try to manipulate others to accept and agree with oneās conclusions. Obviously, greed, ambition, fear, anger, etc. are factors which determine what kind of results positive thinking ends up with.
In such positive thinking, there is no effort, no work, to discover and understand how this positive thinking has come into being, which now dominates and governs oneās life.
So, one can see that all positive thinking is additive; it strengthens the āIā, the āmeā, the āmineā. It is all based on knowledge, and ignores the fact that knowledge is limited, that in fact that thought itself is limited, and that positive thinking believes it is being creative when in fact it isnāt being creative at all, because it is all built on the pastā¦
Of course, these paragraphs do not cover scientific thinking (i.e. in medicine, etc.).
Negative thinking involves the end of thought.
When and if one has placed thought in its correct place, it would no longer indulge in positive thinking at all. So, anyone, believing or affirming that they have placed thought in its right place, could never indulge in positive thinking, psychologically speaking. And, in that case, if and when they do affirm that they have placed thought in its right place, that would be tantamount to hypocritical thinkingā¦ 
Edit: The only true positive is love. And when there is love, thought isnāt there.
The kind of negativity we find in Krishnamurti has different sides. On the one hand, it concerns the direction, the deep understanding of the inevitability of the suffering experience in the relationship to reality, which is conditioned by thought. In this respect, this negativity is radical. On the other hand, it is confrontation with the forms of thought man interprets his experience. In this respect, this negativity is critical, beginning with doubt. Once he remarked, that the reason for not-understanding ist to be not critical enough.
What comes out of it as result: because one thinks, and does not understand the workings of thought in relation to reality, man has all the psychological, political and social problems with which he struggles. And by the way man reacts now again to it, directed by thought, the logical structure continues in which these problems must appear again and again.
Now the fact is that you canāt separate the two sides. If, for example, fear appears and one interprets the fear in relation to past experiences, to oneās intensions, hopes and desires, then one is already caught in the logical structure within which the fear must appear again and again. To see this means to meet āwhat isā with the attitude not to interpret, because any kind of interpretation continues exactly what is known. For example, somewhere it is said by Krishnamurti that it is important to see that the walls must fall, but every attempt to tear down the walls, to overcome them, leads to the building of new walls.
Therefore this kind of negativity is total objective. And this kind of objectivity is to be distinguished from the subjective reasoning described above as critical thinking.
1 Like
To get over the the paradox here, instead of āwith the attitude not to interpretā, we could say āfreelyā or āwithout being fooled by our own interpretationsā ?
Or maybe I should just ask : is it possible not to interpret?
There is no paradox there. You donāt seem to recognize the subtlety that is Krishnamurtiās kind of negativity. When there is said that one has to meet the challenges freely, one is setting a condition whereby one must demand of oneself that one has yet to achieve it. If there is said, one has to be without being folded by interpretations, then again one must demand oneself to discard everything that tempts to interpret, that is, you must turn against your interpreting, reject it. But if you really see what effect interpreting has in your relationship to reality, then you are not interpreting. It is this insight alone that frees you from the past. And as long as you demand anything of yourself that will make you free, you will be trapped in time.
Positive thinking is to define the positive .Positive thinking is based on reward or punishment. Negative thinking is to negate the positive thinking. It is that simple.
Negative thinking is negating everything that thought has created psychologically.
So it must be understood that the āattitude not to interpretā or the āfreedom from interpretationā must arise spontaneously from an understanding of the subjectivity and self -centeredness of interpretation.
But surely interpretation can not always be avoided?
Critical thinking says this is your opinion, and of no use to one who wants to understand what the difference is between critical thinking and negative thinking.
How would you put this in your own words? Can you give some examples of what thought has ācreated psychologicallyā, and explain why thought turns on itself and goes from creating to negating?
" Do you know what negative thinking is?"
I wonder, are we alluding to what is called negation? Positive thinking and negative thinking, are two sides to thinking in the way that we do. The negating is not selecting one way more than another.