Facts-Only Inquiry :: The Unconscious Mind

Kinfonet Discussion
61

At one level, the whole of Krishnamurti’s teaching seems to be concerned with having an insight into the limits of thought.

If there is an insight into the limits of thought, he suggests, then only can one go ‘beyond’. But so long as this insight doesn’t exist (that thought is limited), one remains on ‘this bank’ of the shore.

But Krishnamurti also teaches that thought is time (psychologically speaking), so the realisation of psychological time cannot take psychological time to realise (because that way one is caught within an eternal loop).

Neither can a conscious process of ‘thinking’ realise the limitation of thought (as this is a similar eternal loop). Although Krishnamurti did nevertheless emphasise the importance of enquiring into the nature of thought, pointing out its inherent limitations, its connection to knowledge, memory and experience (which he said was always limited).

So Krishnamurti seems to be suggesting that thought must see its own limitations directly in some sense: thought must become aware of itself (directly), and in that awareness drop away or become silent.

What do you feel about this?

The alternative to this approach would be to start with a statement of totality - such as the numerical and ontological one without a second - and contemplate that, or permit that statement to penetrate; which I personally find attractive.

However, the problem with this approach is that any statement of totality, whether it was originally made from a space free of thinking or not, is itself a thought, and is now part of our thinking. So if we are not ourselves free from thought, then the contemplation of it can only be thought (indirectly) contemplating thought.

So Krishnamurti’s approach seems to be to cut out the middle-man (that is, any positive statement made by thought, no matter how insightful), and to enquire into thought itself directly, so as to see its inherent limitations - a seeing which ultimately implies direct, immediate, timeless insight (into the inherent limits of thought).

And yet Krishnamurti did make positive statements about thought which he obviously expected us to consider, to ponder over, to listen to. So there is a degree of ambiguity here for me.

Nevertheless, the difference between the two approaches seems clear enough. - What is your feeling about this?

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James,

It may be useful and easier to see that knowledge is limited, knowledge being compiled and amassed by thought. So, again, thought amasses knowledge, and in effect, all it would take is a simple realization (which is instantaneous), that no matter how much knowledge one has about anything, it always falls short. Again, the knowledge that exists now is always being added to, and replacing what was previously taken for as the standard. This is easier to understand when one is observing what is happening in the world, and in various sectors of society, whether engineering, science, medicine, technical, even psychological “knowledge”.

You see, as soon as there is the seeing of the truth of that, that alone can awaken intelligence, which is the whole point of being here.

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63

Aha. I thought you were talking about The Realization.

Which raises the question: In what way are (or aren’t) realization and Realization related?

(Warning: Trap set! :wink: )

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Yes. You have articulated it well.

As K often said, there can never be complete knowledge of anything. Knowledge is always a fragment (and so can never cover the whole).

I guess the issue is to see this with complete clarity, in all its depth (because knowledge is not just intellectual knowledge - of science, mathematics, geography, etc - but the totality of our conditioning, the whole content of ‘our’ consciousness, the psychological past).

That is: what we ordinarily call “knowledge” doesn’t cover the entirety of what K meant by that word.

I see that knowledge is limited, but the part of K’s teaching on this matter that I personally struggle with is where he says that knowledge is based on experience, and that all experience is limited (which, he says, is why knowledge is limited).

I have often wondered what K meant by this word “experience”, because he uses it in different contexts with slightly different meanings.

But in the example he often used to explain the relationship between knowledge and experience, he says that ‘yesterday I had an accident’. The accident actually happened - it is a fact that I had an accident. That accident was an experience that my brain has recorded, and that recording of the experience (of the accident) becomes my knowledge.

Now K says that all such experience is limited. And because it is limited, knowledge is limited, and so thought is limited.

So my question is, what is it about experience itself that makes it intrinsically limited?

K never really spells this out, and so I am forced to speculate: is it because our senses are limited? When K talks about experience, is he talking about our sense-perceptions of the world?

And yet he has elsewhere said that if the senses are left to themselves, without the interference of thought (and without concentrating on a particular sense at the expense of the others), then perception can be whole, complete, unlimited.

But then this is quite different to our experience of having the accident (which K said is intrinsically limited).

So is K really just saying that our sense-experience of the world as it currently is, is intrinsically limited? (which, because it is limited, can be registered by the brain as knowledge, from which thought arises, etc)?

And our sense-experience of the world is currently limited because we are currently dominated by our thinking, by our knowledge - which means that we are never holistically aware with all our senses… Right?

So the problem is that

  1. we are not currently aware with all our senses fully awake; and
  2. we are currently dominated by our thinking, by our knowledge.

So which problem requires our primary attention? Are they the same problem looked at from two different points of view? - so they can be tackled simultaneously? Or must one problem take precedence over the other?

One thing seems obvious to me: so long as one is dominated by thought - by knowledge - the senses cannot be free to be fully, holistically awake.

So having an insight into the limits of thought is primary. And this involves seeing that all one’s sense-experience is currently limited by thought and knowledge.

65

James,

You bring in “senses”:

You bring in other questions.

You don’t really know that. You seem to be struggling with the ideas of experience as it is related to knowledge.

The word “experience” actually means “to go through and end it” (K), i.e. finish with it, which most people do not do!

So, what do they do that relates experience to knowledge?

They compare whatever happened to them as something which they can recognize, as something known in the past.

They have had previous accidents, so they relate one experience of one accident to another. So, they may relate the fact that they stubbed their toe as a child, and it was termed “accident”. Later, they have a car “accident”, and so they recognize that it is an “accident”. So, you can see that from this one little accumulation of recognition of things that happens to oneself, they are relating their knowledge to some past experience, of something that they call “knowledge”.

And they are constantly adding to a series of experiences, increasing at the same time their knowledge. And that is their life. Every experience, whether remembered by what one may call their senses, it is remembered by their self, and all these experiences are held in thought, understood as how they see the world. But every experience just adds, and so whatever experience they do have, it can be never complete. It isn’t complete because their idea of “accident” is always being reformulated by every other experience. So, their understanding is based on all of the memories of every experience they have every had - their knowledge. So, can you see that all of their experiences (which most people do) are just an accumulation of knowledge? Is this clear?

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Yes. This is why I find K’s use of the word perplexing. It means, in fact, that most people don’t experience anything at all!

Yes. But this is not what I was talking about Charley.

If one has already had comparable experiences, then one can relate them to each other. But I was asking a question about the initial experience (or accident - in his analogy K does not distinguish between ‘experiencing’ and ‘accidenting’, they both refer to the same thing).

So why is that initial experience limited?

Or, putting it differently, what is going on in the initial experience of having an accident?

This is why I brought in the senses.

The senses are obviously active - the seeing, hearing, sensing of what is taking place (the car suddenly coming to a stop, the sound of crashing, the pain of being bruised by the sudden jolt).

But K has also said that the senses do not have to be limited in their operations. Yes, each sense is limited to a fragment of what is ‘out there’ to be perceived - one doesn’t see the whole of the sky, just what one’s eyes currently are capable of seeing. But the simultaneous operation of the senses is something different. And this - according to K - does not lead to the limitation of what we are talking about, the limitation of thought.

So it is not the senses per se which are the limiting factor, it seems to me.

So it is the way that our senses are (currently) limited by our habitual mode of perceiving which is limited - right? And that mode of perception is one dominated by thought and knowledge - right? And it is this which recognises a present experience in relationship to previous experiences - right?

But then it isn’t experience which is limited: it is the presence of thinking, previous knowledge (as memory) - and so recognition - which is the limiting factor. Right?

So it is the thought and knowledge-based “understanding” of any experience which is limiting, not experience per se (which is otherwise just a sensory happening). As you say

So this knowledge is then imposed onto, or interferes with, experiencing. It is knowledge that is limited, not experience.

Do you see what I am saying?

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James,

Well !!! Because it is remembered! and hence translated into knowledge.

By bringing in “senses”, you are complicated an issue that prevents you from seeing the fact that all experience is limited. PERIOD FULL STOP. Do you really want to see that that?

Wrong, you are trying to blame “thinking” as a limiting factor, by separating something that you call “presence” of thinking. Face the fact, that knowledge is limited, instead of trying to find alternate rationalizations, extraneous factors. You see, they are all interrelated. Separating or distinguishing different factors becomes an issue in itself. You are creating issues when there were none.

One has one experience, what you call an “initial” experience. You remember it. Then you “forget” it. Then you have a similar experience, and without realizing it, you compare (i.e. you think about the “initial” experience), you remember it. The entire process is an accumulated “experience”. It is done so quickly, that there is no realization that the initial experience wasn’t complete ENOUGH, so one adds memory upon memory. This is how the brain works.

Look, I want a shower, and am taking off. They sky is blue, no rain! *S Catch ya later, alligator!

68

Charley, I honestly have no wish to offend, but are you aware that you sometimes appear to be impatient during these conversations?

You apparently impute to me bad motives of some kind. But is this fair?

I am not attempting to be perverse, or to annoy or upset you. :slightly_smiling_face: I am just sharing with you an issue that I see (which may just be a matter of language, or it may not).

Can you mention anything - anything - in experience apart from thought and knowledge?

I can. They are called the senses. This is why I bring them in - in an attempt to understand what is meant by the word experience.

If by the word “experience” one merely means comparison, recognition, memory and thought (which is knowledge), then why use the word experience as though it pointed to some separate thing?

I don’t know what you mean here? Am I “blaming” anything? And is thought not a limiting factor? (I am not “blaming” thought for being limited). And further to that, is not thought generally present when we experience things (and so potentially limiting)?

I am not denying that knowledge is limited. You seem to think I am saying that knowledge is unlimited. I don’t know why you think I am saying this, but I am not saying this.

When you say “they”, what do you mean? If “they” are interrelated then they are distinct, aren’t they? Only two or more things can be interrelated.

Thought, memory, knowledge and comparison are all active in ordinary experience - right? So what are they “interrelated” with? - Thin air? Nothing at all? More thought, knowledge and memory?

I completely accept that thought, knowledge and memory are probably all interrelated aspects of the same thing: broadly speaking thought (or knowledge).

But is experiencing something that involves only thought?

As I said, if it involves thought and nothing else, then why use the word experience?

I am highlighting an issue that I think is worth looking at (even though you may not).

To repeat, what is involved in experience before it is remembered? If it is only thought (memory, recognition, comparison, knowledge), then why use a different word for the same thing?

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James,

A wonderful shower *S.

This is a double negative. (smh!!) You are not seeing that knowledge is limited. You see, were you to say “it is limited”, and mean it, you wouldn’t go on and on.

there is no “but”…You do not see, the “I” cannot see anything past its nose, therefore, there is no seeing that knowledge is limited.

Everything inside is connected, if not, one is diagnosed as schizophrenic. Right?

The realization that knowledge is limited is not an experience.

Take someone who has never been in a pool, let alone a bathtub, and is introduced by moving to a faraway country to a pool. He stands and looks into the water, and doesn’t know how to swim. So, he reads books on it, watches videos about it, talks to people about it, but he doesn’t jump in. Instead, he walks around the pool, in circles. Sound familiar? lol

So, actually sitting on the edge of the pool, and putting his/or her feet in the water, would appear to him as a defeat. A defeat to his pride. So, he never begins. As he looks at everything in terms of his having experiences, he sees this as a potential “initial experience”. But swimming isn’t an experience. Once one knows how to swim, one doesn’t think about it, one has learned. So, one just jumps in. However, one has to begin somewhere, and so it is wise to at least admit to oneself, that one can never “get” what it is like to be in water, until one sits on the edge of the pool, and at least put one’s feet in the water. He may never become a great swimmer, that’s the risk. He may only learn to float, and catch a few sensations about what it is to swim. But, what he fears the most is that it is what may happen, and so he will not be able to be seen by others as “special”. So, instead, he walks around the pool, and never moves into the water.

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70

Come on Charley - why do you say this? Is swimming really not an experience?

Why can’t we be simple, frank? To me, speaking in an ordinary way, using ordinary language, swimming is an experience.

Ok. Just to clarify here. We are writing on an internet forum set up for people to discuss Krishnamurti’s teachings, which is what I am trying to do here. I am not claiming to have ended all knowledge (which is perhaps different to you, because you seem to be claiming that you have had total insight - in which case you are here in the role of a teacher, like K).

I wasn’t saying it was.

Ok. I follow up to this point. You are speaking hypothetically, but everyone who learns to swim goes through a similar process.

?

What is the relevance here of saying that he looks at everything in terms of having an experience? Isn’t swimming an experience?

Surely the issue for this person is that swimming is an unknown experience - an experience he hasn’t ever had before? But as every teacher knows, the truth is that swimming - when broken down to bite size pieces - involves experiences that are already familiar, and so are capable of being assimilated to knowledge (swimming is not unknowable).

One knows how to walk (to tread water), to wave one’s arms (to keep upright in water), and given time and patience one will learn to move from a vertical swimming posture to a horizontal one.

All this involves one’s senses, one’s natural capacity for proprioception (bodily awareness), and a degree of natural buoyancy. Abstract thinking is not relevant to swimming, except in a wholly secondary way.

So what I am asking is, can there be an experiencing without the interference of knowledge and thought? - In which case, would such an experiencing be intrinsically limited?

I don’t think it would.

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From what I gather, it’s the difference between partial insight and complete or total insight. Check with James on this.

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It’s what I’d call right thought, what Krishnamurti might have called intelligence and Bohm proprioception. It might be where koans and meditation lead. It might also be a fairy tale of Enlightenment, capital E!

If the goal is to achieve right thought, the contemplation of brahman/God/Unity might not be very helpful, for the reasons you mentioned.

Both seem potentially useful to me, but both have their problems. The first is like a Catch 22: Thought needs to see its own limitations, but there can be no intention or motive to the seeing, and thought itself is almost entirely driven by intention/motive. The second is that brahman is unknowable, so that any attempt to “dwell within it” is doomed to ultimately fail.

73

?

Is intelligence (or proprioception) the same thing as thought?

Or is it intelligence that sees that thought is limited?

?

You mean to have thought in its “right” place? Right?

Why does thought need to see that it is limited?

Either thought is limited, in which case it is merely intelligence to admit this fact.

Or thought is unlimited, and so there is no requirement to see something that is not actual.

So the question we are asking is: is thought limited?

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74

Not conventional thought.

By right thought I mean something that ‘includes and transcends’ conventional thought.

Yes. But the right place of thought has at least one foot in the unknown, as I see it.

I was just responding to your two approaches, in the first you said “So Krishnamurti seems to be suggesting that thought must see its own limitations directly in some sense: thought must become aware of itself (directly), and in that awareness drop away or become silent.”

Conventional thought, yes. The ‘highest’ potential of right thought (as I’m using the term), who knows?

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Is there a difference for you between thought and “conventional thought”?

What do you mean by the unknown?

I mean by that word - “unknown” - something that thought cannot “know”. It seems you mean something different?

Is there a difference for you between “right thought” and thought?

76

I’m glad you asked, responding is making me think this through a bit more deeply.

I guess I see different types of thought, a bit like Gardner’s multiple intelligences. There’s mechanical thought, creative thought, rational thought, irrational thought, spatial thought, linguistic thought, conventional thought, inspired thought, genius thought. Each type of thought shares some essential features, or else it wouldn’t make sense to call them all thought. But they differ nontrivially.

Thought can’t be reduced to a formula or tagline. It’s alive, present, rich, complex, unpredictable.

(And, maybe, unlimited?)

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So what is the common thread of all thought, no matter what kind of thought it is?

We are just discussing it, right? We are asking (aren’t we?) what is thought?

There are multiple expressions of thought, but what is common to those multiple expressions (so that we can say of all them that they involve thought)?

Or is thought something too mysterious to even discuss?

Is thought unlimited?

Maybe if we could discuss what thought actually is, we could find out if it is limited or unlimited.

So what is thought - concretely, actually - to you?

78

Awareness senses stuff, eyes sense color and shape, ears sense vibration, nerves sense texture, mind senses mentation. Thought 1) parses the field of sensations into separate objects: cloud, thunder, rain. 2) Establishes a web of interconnection/intercausality between them: storm. 3) Acts (physically and/or mentally) on these objects: replays a fragment of a song about clouds, counts seconds between lightning and thunder, grabs umbrella.

Thought parses the awared into objects, connects these objects, and acts upon them.

Conditioning and memory play a huge role in all three of these steps. So much so that thought might not be possible without them?

There’s plenty about thought that’s eminently discussable. If there is a mystery to it, as I suggested, the problems that are inherent in discussing any mystery/unknown arise. Doesn’t mean we can’t try!

Steps 1-3 above resting on a foundation of conditioning-memory is a good start for a working definition.

You?

79

We have of course discussed this several times before, but I think you are attributing to thought here the function of general perception, which all animals have. This is not what I would call thought.

All animals, from the most basic to the most complex, are perfectly capable of perceiving external objects and relating themselves as sentient subjects to those objects. Space, time, sequence and causality are all presupposed in animal perception, and all happen instinctively. The senses imply sentience after all, just as sentience implies the senses.

What I am talking about when we discuss thought is that particular adaptation that many animals have evolved - and human beings have accentuated: the capacity to make abstract recordings of ordinary perceptions, and manipulate these abstractions (which are memories) through creative imagination.

So the root of all thought is abstracted memory.

Or, as you say, all thought rests

So what is memory to you?

Is memory something outside space and time?

80

Didn’t Charley’s recent comments nail this situation with thought? That it would rather “walk around the pool “ musing about ‘swimming’ rather than jumping in, which in the case of thought, means ceasing its domination of the psyche. That by becoming aware of the destructiveness it causes there, it would stop? So why after all this time of suffering and violence and brutality does it continue unabated? Is it because as she pointed out, if it assumed its proper role as inventor, organizer, calculator, troubleshooter, accumulator, etc, it would no longer be “special”? It would no longer assume the role of ‘I’? No longer be the ‘individual’ it erroneously and disastrously imagines itself to be?

But maybe if it is such that even in the face of what seems obvious, thought won’t, or perhaps can’t stop its own movement in the mind, the responsibility falls to as K called it, the “watcher”. It is the watcher’s job to not “choose “ thoughts as they appear. Not give ‘space’ to them as they arise. Else they will continue to “occupy” the mind and continue the present situation: the past continuously meeting the present.

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