Seeing is thinking. Positive thinking is not thinking , it is mere reaction. Negative thinking is seeing the false as false.
K used āseeingā to mean the same as observationā¦the absence of thought.
Thatās interesting. If I see the falseness of beleiving , or of speculating, as an example , this is negative thinking , would you say?
To see cars on the street or to see a movie is merely superficial and optical seeing but seeing or being aware of what happens psychologically and inwardly is the challenge.
I would suggest that negative thinking is another matter.
K: Negative thinking is to denude the mind totally; negative thinking is to make the brain, which is the repository of reactions, quiet.
Europe 1961 , London, Saanen, Paris
When and where did he say this? Can you post the entirety of what he said about negative thinking?
Hereās the link.
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What is the positive according to K.
K.:We were saying yesterday that the very essence of the positive is seeking and finding. This question interests me tremendously. I am very much excited about this; I have never before thought about this point - not thought about it, it has never happened to me. The positive, as we said yesterday, is the self-centered activity which identifies itself with a formula, with a utopia, with a social activity, and so on. We also said that it is the positive that follows, believes, conforms, obeys, possesses, dominates, and accepts domination. In the area of the so-called positive one feels secure, one feels safe; and the mischief begins when we deny the impermanency of everything we touch. The positive mind wants a shelter at any cost, so it establishes an ideological area, as God, atma, or some other Hindu, Christian, or Buddhist ideal. It establishes a formula and holds on to it like grim death, but to be without shelter, without anchorage, without comfort, is to be without fear.
Discussions With Krishnamurti In Europe 1965 (Authentic Report) London-Saanen
And isnāt positive thinking inherent in all this ?
Yes. I would add: seeing the truth in the false. Without negative thinking, there canāt be truth.
Is my thinking, what ever label you give it, the construction of thought? This is an observation not intended to become a conclusion about thinking. Do I continue with the thinking, saying I have surpassed some other thinking? Is truth really anything to do with the words and ideas and what I think? Truth is not a way of thinking, it is the true living.
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To say that the negativity in Kās thinking is to see the false as false and the true as true, then it is quite an abstract view. Taken as a definition, it suffers from the fact that the false does not present itself as such. It is the same with the true. The determination of the false as false is then based from the beginning on a judgment about what is false. If we therefore have a consensus from the outset about what we together regard as false, then it is naturally easy for us to reassure each other of our negative thinking when we deal with what we regard as false. And what is considered true or false is thereby bound to an authority through which this consensus is mediated.
When we talk about what this negativity in the thinking of K is, if we want to understand it, then this negativity must also be effective and show itself in thinking about it. Otherwise it is like the sole knowledge about right food, one has nothing to eat with it yet. One has an idea, but in chewing it is not present. But ultimately only in chewing itself the food shows itself as food.
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Are we only able to point at what it is not?
What can thought say about this ātrue livingā (@Peter) ? Or about what āchewingā on proper negativity is like?
Thought itself can recognize that it considers the object with which it deals only under the form of the object, but not under the form, external expression, of its immediate current movement.
Iād say thought considers what it perceives via its interpretation of what it perceives - ie as being filled with objects
However, I do consider that reality is not readily available to me. Thought has led to the conclusion that what is is not apparent.
Negative thinking as teach by K. ( I donāt think anyone have ever talk about that as K. does ) seems very difficult to grasp. Here is another quote that can explain his point.
K . : You see, there is positive thinking and negative thinking. Positive thinking is deciding what to do, how to break down oneās conditioning by practicing a system, a method, a discipline. In practicing a method or a discipline in order to be free of conditioning, one has merely introduced a further conditioning, a new habit. That is positive thinking. Whereas negative thinking is to look at the fact of oneās conditioning, and see the truth that no system or discipline can bring freedom from conditioning (end of quote).
This is an example. I think that we can approach any problem in the same way, that is to say by negative thinking.
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If you say that thought considers what is perceived via interpretation, that is the same what I mean by saying thought considers the perceived under the form of being an object. As an object, thought has to react on. And what we may say is, that under this kind of consideration there must be conflict. If you pursue the idea of love, try to confirm with an image you form, you are attached with tho problem to balance your forming and persecution with your possibilities. And so we say, that idea of love is not love. It is another kind of desire. On this level of thinking about thought we have the position of skepticism. That is the part of skepticism to lead to the cognition, that what thought is grasping for, is not what the mind thinks it is. To conclude from that naturally brings you to the statement, that what is cannot be apparent.
But I donāt conclude from that nothing. What I do is only to state it. We know, the formed images are wrong.They are not true. We therefore see them as relative and conditional. But we donāt conclude from that the relativity of reality, or stamp reality as an illusion That kind of conclusion leads to a kind of dogmatism or nihilism.
So we ask, what makes the mind to form images about its psychological reality in the first place? With this kind of question we donāt ask if the images are true of false. That we left behind. And that frees us from the argument about right or wrong, that is, an argument that we could previously only answer in relation to images. That means we left behind skepticism. What now turns out is that the images are the projection of external anchors at which the escape from reality is organized. We suffer and look for a way out of it. The forming of images is the mirror of that. And now we ask: how is the suffering and the looking for a way out of it related?
This question leads us to the insight that our suffering is the way we are aware of the unsuccessful search for a way out. Whatever one reaches for, one has to discard it again.
Therefore I said, that thought can realize, that with what it deals with must considered under the form as to be the external expression of its immediate current movement, which is a movement in contradiction. This insight ends the activity of escape and with that all what is related to it.
There is a talk with Krishnamurti and J.Needlemann (Awakening of intelligence). They together come to the question how to empty consciousness. As said, one can not empty it like a backpack. It is the same as it is useless to resolve to forget something, because if you are going to prove it, you keep reminding yourself of it. But thought is bound with the idea of emptying. What to do in relation to the content? Thought is concerned with the content and misses the movement that creates the content and gives the content importance. And so there is a twist to this conversation. It bursts out of Krishnamurti all of a sudden: If you donāt form an image now, the images of the past have no place. And it is also explained in more detail: If you are in the process of forming an image, then this always takes place in relation to the images that you already have. But if one does not form an image, then the images of the past have no meaning.
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Like going from believing the tenets of some religion to believing Kās teaching.
. This is exactly what positive thinking is. If one go from believing the tenets of some religion to believing another set of believes, it is, according to K., positive thinking. But donāt believe that . It would be positive thinking .
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As someone has remarked, basically there is an image process. I have been trying to learn another language. When writing in the foreign script I have found it difficult to remember the characters. I found I could only do it with images. That is, think of a picture which reminded me of the character in some way. The actual character could not come to mind on its own, and I had to use this second hand method of image association. The characters are themselves imagery we have invented to mean something. This made me aware there is this process of using an image in the mind. So while I may think and speak automatically, it has all been built with images, and I am not aware of them anymore. What these may be in particular I donāt know. It raises the question, is this image making process based on some primordial interaction, and my thinking is filled with the image associations which happened at the time, like pleasure, desire, emotions, and fear etc. And now in the course of daily life, internally the mind is unwittingly normalising all these associations, and not addressing the actuality. We developed artificial social practices, customs, traditions, and religion, compensating for the disorder, and the imagery gives meaning to the disorder?
Yes, negative thinking is to remain with "what is " without any movement of positive thinking.
Yes it is my understanding of it . Regarding K.'s work, negative thinking is a very important thing to consider. It is one of his discovery that is overlook. My last quote on the subject.
K. : If we are concerned with a total change of consciousness, of the quality of the mind, then I think we must think negatively because negative thinking is the highest form of thinking, not the so-called positive thinking. The positive is merely the pursuit of a formula, a conclusion, and all such thinking is limited, conditioned.
Seventh Talk in Madras, 1958
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