What is the common hallmark of a Marxist, Islamist, Christianist(!), Buddhist etc.? Their brains are so filled with the ideas and tenets of their field of interest that there is no room for anything else. This has made them exclusivist and intolerant. Every experience in their lives is referred back to the wall of knowledge in their brains which then dictates their response. Do not the responses to experience of those who have studied K’s teachings follow the same pattern?
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Actually it may be even worse for K followers. 
Compared to other discussion pages like Qanon or youtube where we reserve our vitriol for the enemy - people in the opposite camp.
In the field of self-knowledge each person is a prophet with a hill to die on.
nb. I would put Buddhism and Krishnamurtism in a separate basket from Marxism, Islam and Christianity. The basket of ideologies based on an ideology/belief, and the the basket where the aim is to understand/free the believer/beliefs. (Unless we consider submission a kind of freedom from self re: Yahweh/Allah?)
PS - also, here we are lost and confused, and summoned suddenly to understand what confusion is. Trying to understand what understanding is, is a head twisting subject - especially as the only elements we have to work with is our own confusion
Obviously all knowledge is knowledge.
K’s teaching was not knowledge but serious inquiry with attention to what is, and finding out everything for oneself without authority.
All conclusions are also knowledge. Can we stop making conclusions and observations of the external, and put more attention in inquiry and learning?
My question is about K’s teachings becoming the screen through which experiences are processed, similar to the screening done willy nilly by all people who haven’t heard of him.
And honestly as far as I know anything about myself the attention etc. comes after the event when the screen kicks in.
As a theory it is really good to claim attention and event happening simultaneously and resulting thereby in the transformation of the consciousness of oneself (and hence of humankind) but as I write this I only see the screen engaging.
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Your last paragraph sums it all up. In response to the confusion we have erected another screen of K’s teachings but are wallowing in the same confusion with a few additional straws to clutch at and endless discussions on what all this means. But what else am I to do?
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Our relationship with knowing seems to be the culprit. We know that rocks are solid - this knowledge may be useful in certain circumstances, but is completely false, is an illusion - If someone tells us that we (our knowledge) is incorrect, we will fight to the death.
Rocks can apparently, as with all matter, also be considered to be mainly empty space (as demonstrated by physics and chemistry)
Roddonus, JP, macdougdoug,
You have touched on what, to me, is one of the fundamental questions, if not the fundamental question.
It is clear that the human being everywhere craves certainty - dominion, control, sovereignty over his life. And there is NO certainty to be had. Certainty is an illusion.
So in order to attain illusory certainty, the human being has fashioned another illusion - which is belief - and he then lives in accordance with the belief which he himself has fashioned or established. As I see it, to pursue any illusion is insanity — somewhat like Sisyphus eternally pushing the boulder up the hill or Tantalus eternally reaching for fruit which is eternally just out of reach — except that mankind’s painful endeavour to reach certainty is self-imposed.
So, like Sisyphus and Tantalus, we are condemned to eternally crave, hunger and thirst for the unattainable. Any certainty, control, conclusion, knowledge, and so on, that we (the human being) attain is merely another illusion. Illusion begets illusion, as I see it.
The question as I see it is whether we (mankind) can remain with uncertainty in the face of what is, or whether we are destined to eternally strive to reach for it.
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Are you sure of that?
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Physical security is impossible. However, psychological security was wonderful, and a sense of confidence amazing.
K’s teaching,
On this site, one has seen how some, having been into K (exposed to K - and Bohm…) for 10-20-30+ years - having acquired incredible knowledge of K’s words - so much more than oneself, who had only read 4 books in their entirety (“Awakening of Intelligence”, the two books with “Freedom” in the title, and later the Zimbalist book, ordered a DVD from the UK with all of K’s texts, and then used that to search and to build extensive excerpt files. Once the meditation began of itself (naturally and unconsciously), one lost interest in “reading” K per se - one had created one’s own mirror within, and went with that. So, one never experienced K’s teaching as a burden. Moreover, I would add, that I never saw K as an authority. I saw what he wrote and spoke just of as a friend talking…
One has always wondered, especially after contact with several K sites, why there are so many who have never gotten past 1st base, so to speak. And, one has wondered why that has happened. Obviously, the consequences of their behaviour may lead one to say that perhaps it was that of K’s teaching having become a “burden”. However, one has not mentioned the cause(s) …
So, one wonders, what are the causes? Could it be that even for those who have read and studied K’s texts - so much more than oneself - they kept one foot firmly planted in various interests, interests that K railed against - all of which such people were and are still well aware of? … whether it was politics (which is evil, whether of the right or the left), organized religion (which is also evil), whether their vested interests (family, money, job, career, materialism, etc. - maintaining attachment, whatever it was or continues to be considered as important for them; attachment to their predilections - thought, feeling, image-making. I find it so mind-boggling to see so many believe that one can keep one foot in the dark side, in a world that is so incredibly corrupt, and one foot in K’s teachings. Insofar as one sees it, it is this fence-sitting that is the rather painful source of all the confusion, of all of the misunderstanding, of all of the wasted and meaningless efforts, etc.
I will add one more thing. One wonders whether or not people “into K” have not met many or most of the criteria/requirements that K had mentioned (see my profile and my take on these requirements…).
So, what is now seeming to happen is that there are those that seem stuck with the idea of meeting people in some imaginary location; and, of course, there are those that actually have the idea/belief in “thinking together” - and there one wonders whether or not anyone of them has seen truth - not my truth or your truth, but the truth about anything at all.
To me, as a female, one has never been interested in debate. One has seen all of those nature shows on TV where one witnessed all those male 4-footed antlered animals butting heads - reminding one so much of what is wrong with society - the patriarchy…
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:o)
Is it necessary to say “it seems to me” or “as I see it”, etc, in every sentence in order to make it clear that I’m not speaking as, and not claiming to be, an authority?
The human mind craves certainty because it gives security. The human being (which I use to refer to the whole being) who does not identify with its ego, has no need for certainty. It has no psychological need at all, because there is no separation from the rest.
When we see actually the processes and structures and screens our mind has, the illusion is finished. As long as we only casually chat about these ideas and concepts, without seriously looking and finding out, we cannot do anything else. It seems many are identifying themselves with K and his teaching for pure entertainment value.
Circumlocution is more effective.
Are you certain about that?
It depends on what you’re stating unequivocally. When I say “there’s no security” or “no certainty”, I’m a heretic, since we’re all believers, believe it or not.
Thank you Huguette - great input as ever.
Is there a word for oneness with mystery? Surely not, because mystery is only mysterious from afar - when we are 2.
PS - Thankfully, I’m pretty sure this holds logically - so folks, please don’t accuse me of showing off how enlightened I am - rather ask me to produce a syllogism as proof.
:o)
I don’t believe it.
#12
I need to clarify for myself what I mean by certainty. I don’t see it exactly to mean security.
Perception of existing danger is the action of intelligence. When one’s physical house is on fire, when a stranger with a gun enters one’s home, when one’s car is skidding out of control on the highway, when there is an avalanche, and so on, the scope of the brain’s functions are immediately reduced, aren’t they. That is, where there is danger, the brain is not concerned with making lunch, going to work, doing the laundry, taking a shower, and so on. The heart beats faster, senses and alertness are heightened, and so on. These physiological responses are called fear and they are the action of intelligence.
The same physiological responses of fear are produced by the brain remembering the past and imagining the future, as I see it. This fear is the result of thought “perceiving” imagined danger. Imagined fear distorts perception and obscures intelligence, sensitivity and understanding. Where fear is produced by the remembered past and the imagined future — fear of death, of being a fool, of incompetence, pain, shame, failure, humiliation, loneliness, mediocrity, and so on — it is a reaction to a non-event, not to an actual “thing”. If that is so, then the same thought which produces the fear cannot then produce security from itself.
What I mean by CERTAINTY is “knowing” - being certain of - what right action is where action is needed, “knowing” what to do to solve the personal and world problems which are demanding immediate action. Man wants certainty regarding what is the right action needed to bring order to an insane world. But is there such a thing as certainty with regard to action?
For millennia, mankind has been talking, opining, analyzing, with respect to what should be done about brutality, injustice, greed, corruption, selfishness, war, and so on. Politicians, preachers, doctors, philosophers, economists, and ordinary people, have been talking and pontificating with the CERTAINTY that THEIR conclusions can produce the needed results.
But this certainty is based on knowledge of what should be done, isn’t it. Knowledge is a position, an agenda, a conclusion, a belief, a conviction, and so on, an illusion of certainty. As I see it, such knowledge confuses ideation with action. Endless blaming, endless analyzing of history, and so on, endless taking of positions and joining of movements have not brought about right action and a just society.
At this very moment, life is demanding action in the face of the global disorder, and no one HAS certain knowledge of the action that is needed. Certainty implies knowledge, doesn’t it? Isn’t it clear that right action cannot be founded on knowledge? How can frightened, corrupt, selfish, greedy, confused human beings know what the right action is?
So it is clear that there is no security in thought. And now it is clear to me that certainty is an illusion, and there can be no certainty regarding right action to be found in knowledge. Certainty is not needed. Every enquiry brings one back to awareness, attention, observation, as I see it. Isn’t it this alone which can bring about right action?
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Please produce a syllogism as proof.