That’s true, language reinforces the idea of subject and object in the realm of the psyche. E.g. “I need to learn how deal with my fear.”
And when someone tells me: “I am nobody” I automatically think: How is this - you are standing there? Your body is obviously there and you’re talking to me? And how would you know that anyway?
This might be right - or it might imply confusing the material world with the realm of the psyche, the activity of I, or thought or whatever we name it.
Doesn’t each ‘thing’ in the material world have its own ‘being’? It comes into existence, continues for a certain period and then dissolves. Is our brain the only thing in nature that is aware of this process?
Aware that everything disappears and that one day it too, this brain, will ‘die’? So something that has gone unnoticed in nature for millions of years is now realized. But somehow this realization of its own ending rather than being a source of joy, the awareness of ‘being here’, of being present , of living etc, has become a source of terror? Something to be dreaded? To be avoided? Isn’t that the reason this needs to be looked into carefully? In myself and with ‘others’?
Physically we are all going to die, right? Isn’t the question, what happens with psychological death, the death of the self? If one only engages the self in the dialogue nothing will happen, right? The action that ends psychological thought is independent of the dialogue. The source of terror is psychological. The feeling of terror is a reaction to psychological thought. The self creates it. Observe it. The self will also defend it, which is an escape from the feeling. The escape ends the feeling but only temporarily, until the thought arises again and again and so on. If this process is repeated for every reaction, not just terror, then dialogue is just another way of escaping. There needs to be an action that is not originating from psychological thought.
But you are not saying, don’t dialogue are you?
I don’t know with any kind of certainty. But I can guess, based on grappling with these things for many years. You’d know if you were being not-self, functioning from choiceless awareness. The knowing might happen during the moments you ‘fall out of’ not-self, a seeing what was. Or it might happen while you are being aware, a kind of global ‘knowingness.’
What is being said is - if there is no fundamental transformation then dialoguing may be no different a process than discussing or debating. The process hasn’t changed. Just the word to describe the process has changed.
But our knowledge, pleasure, pain, and recognition are just reactions, distortions of actuality to fit our reality.
What this thread seems to show is that even when we try to change the process, our habitual ways of relating to what we know quickly take back control.
Anyone well acquainted with K’s teaching acknowledges that psychological thought transmutes the actual entity into the fictional character we believe ourselves and others to be.
I’m tempted to say, “Quit reminding us”, but we have to be reminded every time we do it (which is constantly), because we are reflexively distorting actually to accord with our reality.
We know of animals that mourn the loss of a companion or an infant, but they don’t articulate it and memorialize it the way we do, so the feeling of loss dissolves, too.
Because I feel that I am as I imagine myself, yet others perceive me as someone else, and I usually realize I am not who I think I am, the implication is that we are all living more in accordance with what we think about what we’re aware of than with what awareness tells us. Is this what you’re saying?
Could you and Bob demonstrate in a dialog together how you think this should work?
Please give some examples, things you or others have said here that come from falling back on what we know. Is it worth challenging these habits, or is seeing them enough?
Is it accurate to say that by ‘trying’ to change the process, there is no control to take back as control is never given up.
Let’s say we are not content with the way we talk with each other: There should be an other way to dialogue than telling each other what we already know, what we take for true, explanations or approaches we have sucessfully applied, relief we have felt after doing this or that, or after performing spiritual exercises.
Is there an underlying actuality apart from applying our knowledge or is our knowledge
actuality?
Is this what is: our constant looking for something other than what is?
The brain is relating to “things”, this kind of being aware seems to be a seperating process and not an unifying process to me.
We think of relationship as something positive, maybe it is rather a kind of exploitation?
Yes, because now the ending in the future is in focus ?
You are obviously not familiar with our work together - thems’ that talk the talk ain’t always those that can best walk the walk.
We have tried written communication here on Kinfonet, its usually short and painful.
However what we all did together right at the beginning of this thread was heartwarming - it necessitated care and attention in a novel headspace - we moved out of our habitual headspace for a second, and paid attention to something new for a second. It was a moment of co-creation, destination unknown (for just a second there)
Well after post 8 of this thread we abandoned the guidelines and went back to our habitual ways of interacting eg. speculation, giving answers and opinions, expressing ourselves freely, giving free reign to our conditioning.
Even when we were following the guidelines, our personality and opinions shined through quite brightly - changing the tone of the initial question almost immediately.
As to what should or should not be, how we should deal with ourselves : this is what we are experimenting, looking at together - the mind is always in movement and self correcting for those who have not yet calcified.
I don’t know - maybe thats why we are looking.
Is it possible to be free from the process of self? Free from the known? Maybe not, but some feel the need to keep looking.
If I had to give a Yes of No answer, I suppose it would be : we cannot afford to ignore control. (aka conditioning)
By which I mean : the weight of the past flows through us, how freely we enact our biological & psychological conditioning depends on our relation to, and awareness of this moment.
Aren’t you filtering everything you read or hear through what you know? If you are thinking about the question just read then you are not listening. You are trying to understand by falling back on what you know.
Are they seen if they are seen through the self? If you are thinking about the question just read then you are not listening. You are trying to understand by falling back on what you know.
Are you looking? If you are thinking about the question just read then you are not looking or listening. You are trying to understand by falling back on what you know.