I will leave it at that. I said what I said . If you haven’t got my point of view, then let us leave it at that. And have it your way.
You see Richard, you claim that I misinterpreted your post, and when I show you your own words, together with the simplest interpretation of them, you continue to suggest I’ve misinterpreted you.
I don’t think I’ve misinterpreted you at all. But you don’t appreciate my skeptical attitude, that’s all, for reasons unknown to me. To me, being skeptical of people who claim to be transformed is a healthy, normal and hygienic thing. Krishnamurti made this skepticism central to his teachings, and so I don’t feel it is a matter of being impolite.
1 Like
We sadly don’t understand each other. My girlfriend is waiting for me with a good bottle of wine. So I have to go. See you maybe in another post .
Let it be clear there is no defending or taking any position.
Let me ask a question that might clear up any misinterpretation of the words used.
Is Krishnaji examining his own mind or is he observing the mind of someone who claims to be transformed?
My premise is that a transformed mind cannot compare itself to a prior situation because it is itself out of the picture and thus introducing time, do you understand now?
Which is not to say that during observation it can be established that someone’s claim to be transformed is false.
Excuse me for also pointing out that there was deliberately omitting personal pronouns as much as possible.
It is sad that people who speak so much of sensitivity are not sensitive in their interchanges! When someone says he/ she feels you’re being rude all you can answer is I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. Saying you’re skeptical is not the same as telling another you’re skeptical, that is confrontation, which just causes conflict, not inquiry. Krishnamurti is not an excuse for one’s behaviour, he had his own ways and wouldn’t like people to copy his ways… And once again you just see that one thread after another on different subjects ends up in some sort of adversity!!!
3 Likes
It seems we have come to a momentary impasse in communication - which is good, despite being uncomfortable, because it means certain core assumptions are emerging in the discussion.
As I recall, the particular detour we have been focussing on during this thread began with a discussion about insight, and whether it is partial or total. Partial insights, as I understand it, do not radically transform consciousness, do not end sorrow at its root, do not wipe out the self-centre. Only a total insight will do this, as I understand it.
However, this distinction has clearly created some controversy, and not everyone seems to accept it. The only conversation I remember having had previously with @Jess was also on this topic; during which she said that she didn’t accept a distinction between partial and total insights, that “partial insight doesn’t exist”, which logically implies that there is only total insight (although she didn’t wish to continue the conversation, so this was never properly clarified). This also seems to be @danmcderm’s view, as far as I understand his comments. That is, in response to a post of mine about the distinction (between partial and total insight), he said that I was “entitled to [my] opinion regarding Krishnamurti’s message”, but he wasn’t interested in discussing the matter any further.
I then wrote:
And
It was after this exchange that @WimOpdam and @anon46701211 stepped into the discussion. There seemed to be a language issue, because both Wim and Richard feel I have misunderstood what they said, but both their questions seemed to be to do with the validity of the distinction between someone’s claim to have had a partial insight - which I called “little fishes” - and a total insight that transforms consciousness as a whole. Richard asked “the radical insight you talk about… You arrive there and it is the end of all troubles?” While Wim asked, with respect to the total insight I had been discussing before that is different from the “little fishes”: “This may be correct but… we will never know, do we?”
Wim’s question took the discussion in a slightly different direction, because we were then discussing whether total insight - i.e. the total eradication of the ‘I’, the ending of suffering, the emptying of the contents of consciousness - would show up in daily life in any tangible way. I felt that it would, but Wim didn’t agree.
(Wim’s most recent post continues this aspect of the discussion, by saying that a transformed mind cannot compare itself because it is beyond comparison, beyond time - but this doesn’t meet the issue I have been raising of whether we agree that there is a distinction between a partial transformation and a total transformation at the root. For myself, if we do not see the validity of such a distinction, we will continually get lost in secondary issues. This was something that Krishnamurti stressed endlessly in his talks: transformation at the root, not just modified changes at the periphery).
I also shared with Wim an example of someone who claimed to have had total insight, but who - through watching their behaviour, their actions, etc - revealed to Krishnamurti’s observational sensitivity a lack of credibility.
But, more importantly, Wim also seemed to object to the notion that someone with insight would subject themselves to doubt, criticism, in case their insight was invalid. I started a separate ‘Insight’ thread on the topic to help clarify the situation, and shared with Wim an extract in which Krishnamurti encouraged people to doubt themselves, even if they have had a true insight:
At this point Dan returned to the thread and wrote that it is hypocritical for a person who has not dissolved the self in themselves to question or doubt another person who is claiming to be transformed. It seems that Richard agreed with this point, as he later called me arrogant and rude for openly questioning or doubting someone’s claim to be transformed. I tried to say that this is a Krishnamurti forum, and Krishnamurti’s whole teaching is based on skeptical inquiry, on doubt, on the rejection of spiritual authority, etc. But this only seemed to lead to more contention.
This was when I went to sleep last night. It is clear that the discussion has moved in subtly different directions, so it’s difficult to know where everyone’s head is at. But I think the central issue is something like the following:
-
Some of us accept the distinction between partial insight (along with partial transformation) and total insight (which implies total transformation).
-
While others either don’t accept this distinction, or seek to problematise it without having fully understood why the distinction is being made.
This also corresponds to roughly two different sets of people participating on Kinfonet:
-
People who implicitly or explicitly claim to be transformed, or who create a strategic ambiguity around this issue; along with people who defend, protect, the right of such people to make their claims, and who feel that being “openly skeptical” of such claims is “rude”.
-
People who feel that everyone has the capacity for insights of various kinds, transformations of various kinds, but that to claim to have total insight or be totally transformed - if this is not a fact - is problematic, because it’s very falseness introduces confusion in the discussions, and it creates a division between those who are (claiming to be) transformed (along with their supporters) and those who are not.
For me, total transformation, total insight, is something I don’t feel that anyone has had here on Kinfonet. Partial insights yes. But I don’t think anyone here is transformed in the total sense of that word.
However, clearly there are other people who feel differently, either because they think themselves to be transformed, or because they do not recognise the distinction between partial and total insight, and want to conflate the two.
This is the real issue as I see it. It has created tension between people here, with accusations being thrown, people taking sides. But I think the issue is a straightforward one, and can be clarified if people are willing to look at why it may be reasonable to make a distinction between partial and total insight (with the partial or total transformation to which they give rise).
1 Like
Ditto. To feel they are in any way related is wishful thinking, the perception of which itself is an example of partial insight.
2 Likes
That is simply what I was trying to say .
Richard, rather than focussing on whether or not it is rude to directly question someone who is claiming to be transformed, have you understood why a distinction has been made between partial insights (with their partial transformations) and total insight (total transformation)?
Do you accept such a distinction?
First, for me there is a difference between discussion and dialogue.
I offer my view of something and am not out to prove me right or someone wrong.
Truth to me is like a diamond with many facets and possibly someone else sees a different facet and possibly someone makes my mistake clear.
Thus I am not contradicting that after a total transformation you should not remain critical, what I was trying to make clear is that in my view after a total transformation the question of whether or not you have been transformed does not occur to you. Because everything presents itself as new you are not concerned with the old, you are examining whether it is right, not whether it is different from before.
A subtle but fundamental difference it seems to me.
What is also related to it is whether that so-called total transformation of the brain cells occurs once or occurs multiple times?
It seems logical to me that it is one time with an infinite action.
So only a total understanding of the conditioned brain leads to total transformation which is then the action of the brain cells.
Except that in this case, I don’t feel I was being rude to Dan or to Richard by pointing out that it is entirely valid to be skeptical of whether someone (implicitly or explicitly) claiming to be totally transformed is actually totally transformed.
Putting this to one side for a moment, can I ask you whether or not you accept the distinction between partial and total insight?
Maybe Wim. But this is hypothetical, right? We can discuss whether or how total transformation may express itself in the mind of a person who has undergone total transformation, but we have to accept that this is a speculative matter.
My question is, do you see why it may be helpful to make a distinction between partial insights (which I think many of us have had) and total insight (which completely ends the self, ends suffering, empties consciousness of its contents, etc, and which I don’t feel any of us has had)?
Hello, Richard!
Yes, that’s what I understood you were saying and I was with you - and Dan of course - on this.
I wasn’t meaning to take part in the discussion and for me this business of partial or total isn’t an issue at all. Krishnamurti could use the sort of language he chose to at some moment as he knew he could change it the next minute or stick to it if he saw it went well. The real issue behind this is who is a ‘guru’ or not as Krishnamurti of course never accepted he was anybody’s guru because he in no way wanted to be on the row of the gurus popular at the time. Were they enlightened, was Krishnamurti enlightened?? Who can tell?? I thought you were right when you told James it was no problem for you if someone said he/she had an insight. And of course to have an insight doesn’t mean you’re enlightened! There is this ‘insight meditation’ for those who know they aren’t enlightened for sure! There is no point in making a fuss about it!
2 Likes
I feel it is an issue Jess, which is why I have raised it. You actually have participated in the discussion, by calling me rude etc, and saying that you don’t accept the distinction between partial and total insight.
For me it is rude to take part in a discussion without actually taking part: to fly by and drop accusations without following up on the content and context of a discussion is, I feel, rather rude. But I’m not expecting an apology, because I know you don’t see this as rude.
Nevertheless, by saying:
you are actually accepting that there is a difference between partial and total insight.
Just as Wim is, implicitly at least, accepting the same thing when he says:
For some reason, perhaps because neither of you like the words ‘partial insight’ and ‘total insight’, you don’t want to admit this straightforwardly. But if we take your statements as read, then you do actually accept the distinction, which is what I was asking.
And this is not hypothetical?
as my description is not a statement but a view there is not a claim that it is so only that it seems logical.
It is definitional.
One of the topics with which this thread began is how the differences we have in using primary words leads to unnecessary confusion and conflict.
If someone is talking about partial insight but using the word ‘insight’ in such a way as to conflate partial with total insight, this will lead to confusion. As it has done on this thread!
We are talking about the possibility of total insight because this is a forum for understanding the teachings of Krishnamurti, and Krishnamurti’s teachings are concerned with the total transformation of human consciousness through total insight.
This is the context for using such a word.
1 Like
No. I don’t accept anything that I don’t see by myself. I listen to what is being said . Then I look into myself to see the truth or the false of it. I have read your post : What do we mean by insight ? I put a heart on it because what K. said was enlightening. Though I don’t remember much of it.
1 Like
So, rather than take sides on the matter and make it into a confrontation, can we look at why this distinction has been made?
I suppose you are familiar with Krishnamurti’s question of whether human consciousness can undergo a radical transformation? He talked about what is involved in that, even though you or I may not be able to say for ourselves whether such a transformation is possible. K has pointed out something that may or may not be a fact: that is, the possibility of total insight.
Would you accept this point? I think you would, because anyone familiar with K’s talks has heard him say this.
So the next point is: would you accept that many of us have had what we would ordinarily call insights into various aspects of our thinking or feeling? Ordinarily we call these insights, and we know that they can liberate energy, free up a certain amount of space in the mind, and are transformative in their own way.
But they have not transformed one’s consciousness fundamentally, in the way that Krishnamurti talked about.
Would you accept this point too?
If you understand both the points being made here, and see their distinction, then whatever words we use to distinguish these two orders of insight is irrelevant. We can call it the difference between partial and total insight, but if you don’t like those words we can find other words.
The point is, do you see the distinction being pointed out here?
1 Like
Hello, James!
I’m sorry if you didn’t understand when I said I didn’t mean to take part in the discussion. I meant the theme of the thread in which I actually wasn’t taking part. The rest is not an issue for me as I said before.
Usually, Jess, the etiquette of a dialogue is that if you involve yourself in a very conspicuous way, then you are responsible for following it through.
The only conversation I remember us having before was on the same topic of partial and total insight. This is the present topic here. Both then and now you are apparently unwilling to look at the topic for any length of time, and so naturally you don’t see what the fuss is about. But I think I have done all I reasonably can to make clear why the distinction is significant, and if you simply refuse to engage then there’s nothing more one can do about it.