You are completely free to think what you want, I don’t care , but do you realise that by saying this you are labelling anyone who does not agree with what you deem necessary as not serious?
It would behoove you to ask yourself why your way apparently evokes resistance and the way Bohm and Krishnaji did not.
If Knowledge were power the world would look different. Your ability to deal with knowledge is admirable, I would almost become jealous, but when it comes to dealing with people, I think you have a lot to learn.
Then discuss the content of the thread, rather than side-issues, which you are continually doing.
Probably because I am not Bohm or Krishnamurti, and I am direct with people. If I feel something is false, I call it out. Just as you do.
I have learned a lot about people from being on Kinfonet. Very few are willing to go beyond side-issues and trivialities to meaningfully discuss content.
I am not opposing to what you say but how you say it. I’ve walked that road and believe or not changing your attitude does wonders🤣
Also are very few willing to freely go into a straitjacket.
If you asked for conformation if there is a difference between total and partial insight , why do you need that and why you belitle those who negate to reply what they see qs such? It"s as if asking a child if water is weth and ice not
So let us take the side-issue of tone, or the side-issue of “attitude”. I am not claiming to be enlightened, I am not a saint, I get annoyed by what I perceive to be other people’s wilful intransigence. I acknowledge that this annoyance is not helpful in bringing about harmonious relations between people, and will reflect on this.
However, this thread is the fruit of each one of us. You can’t just blame one person. From my point of view, both you, Richard, Jess and Dan have failed to adequately meet the essential points raised on the thread. First of all, much of the confusion of the thread could have been cleared up right at the start if Dan had had simply clarified that his ‘little fishes’ of insight are not the insight that Krishnamurti talked about which transforms consciousness.
As I have said repeatedly, there is absolutely no need for ambiguity around this matter, because it is a question of spiritual integrity. I remain surprised by Dan’s intransigence on this issue, and feel that his unwillingness to clarify the matter is an act of destructive pettiness. It has essentially ended any relationship between us (though the door is still open from my side).
If you or Richard or Jess do not see what the problem is after all my explanations, then I don’t feel there’s anything more I can do. You all feel that I am at fault, while I - though I acknowledge my irritability and impatience - feel none of you have actually the points I have made; partly because of language issues, partly due to each one’s own private impatience and irritability, or the images others have of me, or the points of view each person feels they are defending, etc.
So where do we go from here? I can and will reflect on my manner of participating on the forum. I realise that frustration and annoyance - however much justified - are not conducive to deep comprehension of anything.
But I can also see, after two years of participating here, that very few people are willing to be clear and open in their enquiries. Most people have already formed certain set views and are unwilling to look at them afresh as though for the first time. Some people want to believe themselves to be in possession of the truth, which separates them from true dialogue (which I take to be synonymous with relationship) - and I do not accept this attitude. This is a red line for me. Even Krishnamurti, who I think many of us will acknowledge had great insight, was able to start afresh on the same ground of relationship as the ordinary person he spoke with. He didn’t begin to dialogue from a hierarchical standpoint, he was often discovering truth as he went along, in common investigation with others. So there can be no excuse for posing as someone with special insight on the forum.
If others don’t see this as an issue, then I don’t feel that dialogue with such persons is possible. Because there is no hierarchy in relationship. We are all on the same ground of human consciousness. Even with our ‘little fishes’ of insight, we begin there. So, I want to say, ‘Don’t claim to be out of the boat when you’re not. Let’s together find out if human consciousness can be transformed.’ Then a dialogue becomes possible.
Is it a question of settling? Settling for some notion of awareness that gives us the feeling we have gone beyond the fray of the intellect, that it possible to not be identified with our ideas. The teachings, being comprised of language as they are, unfortunately makes it all too easy to conflate introspection with the radical, disruptive force of insight (in the K sense of the word).
This stuff is difficult, requires tremendous energy, so the need to come away from our contact with the teachings with something tangible is understandable and forgivable. Being aware of what we think is one thing, but that is way too late in the game. Becoming conscious of the why of what we think, what K terms the origin of every thought and feeling, is obviously something extraordinary. Unless we are honest enough to admit we do not understand ourselves to that degree, that we, as a matter of course, function from images and conclusions, how can we even begin to talk about whether such a thing is possible or even worth considering. Belief masking as fact is still belief, and belief ends inquiry.
It is not pleasant to admit we are nowhere, but unless we do how are we to begin?
Yes, I agree with you. Some of us seem to be unwilling - perhaps for the reasons you mention - to simply admit the limitedness of our so-called insights, the limitedness of what we call our awareness, etc. And, being unwilling to admit this, we consciously or unconsciously collude with others who share this fanciful self-belief, and keep the masquerade going. Why do this?
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the partial insights we have, the awareness we are able bring to daily life, are invalidated by not having had total insight. But it does relativise our efforts, and reminds us that whatever breakthroughs in consciousness we may think we have had are not fundamental. We are all equally humbled by this fact, and so there is no call for dividing people into awakened and unawakened. Someone who truly has awakened doesn’t divide themselves off from other people anyway, and so one doesn’t have to worry about exceptional cases where they exist. Exceptional cases do not see themselves as exceptional! So we are all beginners in this business of a single moment. At least, this is how I understand it.
They are not fundamental in that they don’t fully expose, and thereby bring an end to the illusory foundation of self. But these partial insights have the effect of ending some part of that grand illusion as they chip away at it.
Every partial insight reminds us of what we’re living with by removing (by exposing) some part of it.
I don’t know. A little insight now and then may help one to see certain things more clearly, but it doesn’t change anything fundamentally. A prison can have more space, better furniture; but it is still a prison. As I understand it, we have to be able to die to our knowledge and our insights to live a moment completely.
Yes, I’m not saying that partial insights are like knowledge that accumulates, but are negations that eliminate, reducing the size and strength of the center, the self; that a part of I dies with every partial insight.
I’m not saying this with certainty or confidence, but it just seems that the effect of every partial insight is fundamental because it weakens and shrinks the size and strength of the false foundation.
To use the prison metaphor, if my cell is growing in size and allowing for more light, more air, more freedom of movement, I can be sensible enough to acknowledge that this is not absolute freedom, though it seems to be moving toward it.
As I understand it, we have to be able to die to our knowledge and our insights to live a moment completely.
Of course, but I can’t deny that if I am less tightly bound, less depressed and distraught, less confused and conflicted with every partial insight, that this may be leading to a tipping point and the collapse of the whole illusion.
If this is just wishful thinking, and I have the partial insight that it is, maybe I’ll see that prison is prison no matter how much less like prison it feels, and that total awakening is not arrived at gradually or progressively.
Following along with this thread over the last week or so, I also found myself thinking about how strange it is that we here are so divided into camps, even here. Is it that we don’t all see - despite this being a Krishnamurti forum - that we all share a common human consciousness, that we all function the same way fundamentally? That it is only when someone “implies” that they are somehow different, that the division occurs, that we can no longer together address our common problem? There are times when I don’t feel divided from any other human being because it momentarily strikes me very strongly that we are literally all in the same soup, whether the other is aware of it or not.
This is the whole point. It seems so obvious - so I just don’t understand why it isn’t as clear as this to everyone? Have we all gone crazy with some kind of spiritual illness?
As you say, we are all in the same soup. Does it matter whether we are on one side of the bowl or another? To imply that we are somehow outside the soup hovering in mid air is just silly. And yet sometimes we get carried away by talking about ‘no division’, living without ego, ‘being nothing’, as though we had somehow miraculously escaped the soup! But we are still in it! Why do we do this?
Of course it divides us. And of all the divisions it is the most unnecessary.
I think this is the illusion. We become a little free from certain contents and then start to believe we are close to leaving the ‘soup’. We start to put some distance between ourselves and the soup, and even think we have transcended the soup. But we are still in the soup!
It is in this sense that I think it is true that partial insights are no insights at all. They are worthless if all they do is help to create the illusion of freedom when one is still in prison.
Yes, we’re all in the soup, but those with self-knowledge, self-awareness, are not wasting as much energy in the soup than those who think they are free of the soup or that there is no soup.
Yes, this is comparison, but I think it’s valid. Clearly, there are humans who are more aware of the human condition than others because they are interested in it. But this difference doesn’t inflate their ego - to the contrary, it makes them feel more responsible, more obliged to talk about the human condition.
We start to put some distance between ourselves and the soup
I don’t feel any more outside of the soup than ever, but my relationship with the soup has changed. I’m not fighting it, cursing it, or escaping it as mindlessly as I had been. All I can really do is be increasingly aware of the soup we’re all in.
Why do we assume this? It may be true. But maybe we have an idea of gradual liberation through awareness, through slowly shaving off aspects of the ‘I’ piece by piece? With each newly shaved off piece, each newly liberated fragment of consciousness, we may feel that we are making progress, becoming more enlightened, more free of the soup. This is ego. It is the continuation of consciousness in a modified form.
Haven’t you noticed the egotism of famous gurus? They’ve had various insights into themselves, but they have identified themselves with their breakthroughs, their experiences, and so continue egotism in a modified form.
This is all good. But there is only ever the present moment of consciousness, no? So whatever one has seen or been aware of yesterday is over. One never knows what consciousness (or life) will throw up in the next moment. So the idea of progress has to be questioned. The idea of comparison. This is what Krishnamurti calls psychological time.
To give oneself the idea that one is making progress spiritually is to place oneself in time - and time is ego.
I would take out the “increasingly”, and just say all we need to do is to observe, be aware - without escape, without evaluation - of ‘what is’ (the soup).
Yes, of course, but what’s wrong with a reduced ego? If I’m overweight I need to lose weight, and when I do, I’m healthier.
So the idea of progress has to be questioned. The idea of comparison. This is what Krishnamurti calls psychological time.
This is what I don’t understand. If the content of consciousness is the problem, and the emptying of it is the solution, what’s wrong with the emptying being gradual, piece by piece until the whole thing collapses?
To give oneself the idea that one is making progress spiritually is to place oneself in time - and time is ego.
Please explain.
I would take out the “increasingly”, and just say all we need to do is to observe, be aware - without escape, without evaluation - of ‘what is’ (the soup).
Your questions have to do with the possibility of psychological evolution: the gradual reduction of ego, gradual emptying of the contents of consciousness, and so on.
This notion is based on physical evolution where clearly it is valid: gradually reducing weight and becoming physically fit, gradually emptying a bucket of water drop by drop, and so on.
Psychological evolution, or psychological time, is essentially the idea, carried over from the physical world, that one can gradually become free of the contents of consciousness, of the ego, the self.
What is wrong with such an idea?
This question probably requires its own thread to unpack properly, but it is essentially to do with the inseparability of an effect from its cause.
That is, the cause - which is consciousness, the ego, which is put together by thought, feeling, desire, etc - can be modified, which is the effect. But unless the cause is wiped out completely at its root, the effect will still exist in a modified form.
I am greedy, and I want to become less greedy: the ‘less greedy’ person is an ideal image of oneself that is projected into the future, away from my actual present ‘what is’ which is greedy. Psychological becoming here is to move gradually between the ‘what is’ of my greediness (the cause) towards the goal of being non-greedy (the effect). But the effect is inseparable from its cause: so unless ‘what is’ (which is my present greediness) ends completely, the effect (which is modified greediness) will still be there.
So either the cause comes to an end completely, or it continues in a modified form. The ‘what is’ is the actual state, while the projected less greedy state (what ‘should be’) is an idea projected out of my inability to remain with ‘what is’ or end the cause.
If there is only the present actuality of one’s life, only the ‘what is’ - because all future thinking is a projection of one’s imagination in desire or fear - then progress in time has no meaning. There is only the cause which is perpetually active in the present, producing its effects moment by moment.
So the question is: can we remain with the cause, with ‘what is’, with our actual greediness (or whatever is going on in the actual present), without splitting it up into present greed and future non-greed or lesser greed, and find out whether there can be an ending to ‘what is’ (to the cause itself)?
The cause may not end. But if we do not remain with it in the present, it is inevitable that it will continue its effects in a modified form. So remaining with the cause, facing it directly, without introducing an imagined future state of its ending, is the only intelligent thing to do.
If one does not escape from the cause, then the observer is the observed (in Krishnamurti’s language). The observed greediness is ‘what is’. And if one can remain observing one’s greed without the mind trying to change it or alter it (which is the activity of the separate observer), then there is only ‘what is’ and no future.
This is the most actual state of mind to be in psychologically speaking. While the psychological projection of a future state is non-actual.
That was not my intention and I don’t blame anyone I just tried to made clear an issue which is valid for manny of us even sometimes for me.
Very nice formulated and appriciated as being clear and true.
Yesterday we didn’t feel like going along with the pretence of holiness around peace on earth etc… so we watched/listened to two episodes of 'beyond tradition and religion '. The last one ‘the sacred’ ended nicely in the context of this item, by the way. Anderson responds that he has been transformed during the past dialogues and Krishnaji then responds with that is because you made the effort to really listen.
Well, yes and no? Krishnamurti was obviously being polite. I think he appreciated Anderson’s sincerity and openness, and clearly Anderson felt touched. But if you’ve seen some later interviews with Anderson he said that he honestly didn’t know what Krishnamurti was saying much of the time, and it was only afterwards that he began to understand some of the things they had talked about. So transformed in the ‘minor key’ I would say; not totally transformed.
K: … we have problems that demand tremendous attention, deep thought and inquiry, not a repetition of what somebody has said, however great he may be.
…
And what we are really seeking is not clarity, is not the understanding of the actual state of one’s mind, but rather we are searching for ways and means to escape from ourselves.
… when you put away all the things that have been, that have brought about this immense misery, this utter brutality and violence, then we are confronted with facts, actually with what is …
Season’s greetings to everyone. Thank you all for being here.