Hi Dan
Indeed.
“then that state of not knowing is the first step of real inquiry into the unknown”
Paul,
You say: I am not so sure it requires anything.
…So let’s meet and face our crookedness and dishonesty first.
When we meet our crookedness and dishonesty it requires honesty, clear seeing, to ‘listen’ , to be aware of this, otherwise we see nothing. We begin and end at the same point.
Then it is pointless to demand honesty at the start. It is like asking the self to remain absent while we look at the nature of self. One doesn’t need to look far and long to see actually what we are in our relationships with other people. Mostly we are dishonest; mostly we hide from one another; mostly we have secrets. This is the fact. So it doesn’t require much to see this fact for ourselves. But how do we actually meet the fact? Are we trying to change the fact by looking at it? Or are we just looking at it? Then honesty and dishonesty no longer have a part to play; something far more important has taken over.
Paul
You wrote: " Then it is pointless to demand honesty at the start"
If you read prior to this, I wrote:
“when we meet our crookedness and
dishonesty…”
There cannot be a demanding of honesty ever.
I’m not clear by what you mean by “at the start”.
We cannot be aware of the honesty thats needed for this seeing, if there is not a willingness to inquire. We must be moved to, from a depth greater than our content, to this kind of inquiry; and this may or may not happen.
It cannot be made happen.
(that which demands honesty is the inquiry).
Paul, you wrote: “Then honesty and dishonesty no longer have a part to play; something far more important has taken over”.
This that takes over is seen by this honesty. It is Truth. By no longer being bound in the falsehood of our contents. When we are stripped of who we think we, are naked, vulnerable, empty, we are able to see the truth and the false. Here, there is the utmost honesty; unravelling us, until there is no longer a need to see truth, false, honesty, or…then we are free.
You say it requires honesty in order to listen and to be aware. I am questioning this. I suspect there are no prerequisites for listening.
Let’s put ourselves in the position of asking the question and find out. Are we looking at the fact of our own dishonesty? Or are we resisting the fact and trying to alter it?
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This kind of Honesty, as described, is necessary, for us to be able to truly Listen. Open, willing, fearless through intense inquiry.
What is the quality of your listening?
If your Listening does not offer the realisation or reveals in you a necessity for true Honesty, I understand then that your Awareness is different from mine, and it is entirely your prerogative to ask the questions as you have. I have no desire to change your mind. I have stated what I have come to know, as have you.
You go on to ask questions which include both “we” .
I can answer from here, by my own knowing.
I am not looking for/resisting or altering the fact of Dishonesty or Honesty. We are conditioned beings and to unravel this we each must go within. This is our choice. If we simply question the conditioned state of Honesty or Dishonesty on a surface level then our answer is there. The fact is there, that it is part of our conditioning state. Do we want go beyond this, or stay with facts?
We can play around with, talk endlessly on whatever part of our conditioning we wish to at this level of mind, I have no interest here.
The necessity for Honesty; that is the kind of Honesty that will be offered/ recognised through growing awareness of Truth, manifest through us as Truth: in the revealling of what binds us. To discover by this Truth, what we are not.
There must be willingness to dive deeply, to trust in inquiry. Through inquiry ‘questions’ arise. These questions which arise are the symptoms of our suffering. These are questions that do not seek an answer. I am not looking for answers, but only to be moved to a deeper level of Awareness by this revealling.
Here I will finish.
Thank you Paul, for sharing in this dialogue. Marie
That’s why questions are vital. We can’t have a dialogue based on what we have come to know.
Paul
Of course questions are vital in everday life. To suggest otherwise would be absurd. However, here we; perhaps just I, are speaking about Inquiry, where questions, as I have already written in previous reply, do arise. If they did not, there would be no momentum towards deeper awareness.
You wrote*:…*We can’t have a dialogue based on what we have come to know."
Everyday, for many years, Krishnamurti had dialogue with hundreds of people based on what he had come to know.
Questions for inquiry came from him, for their listening. Not for them to seek answers to the questions he posed: But to sense this knowing, by their own awareness state, as the ‘answer’ was revealed within each. By their ‘listening’ .
I understand that each one of us is unique, caught within the bounds of our conditioning. What we say, hear, need etc is flavoured by this. It is imperative, if we are sincere about self realisation, that we find inner space beyond the binds of conditioning so that, what we speak and how we listening, with questions or statements, is not satisfaction for the mind. That is, what is realised does not add to the conditioned state, but it is fresh, from deep within; uncontaminated. This movement, of course, can be extremely subtle and requires vigilance.
And so, this important QUESTION ever remains:
Are we, each one, willing to explore into this, or do we remain in our suffering?
Thank you, Marie
How do you know this? How do you know that he wasn’t starting from scratch each time? Surely, only then is it possible to learn anything new.
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The nature of suffering is attachment. What we have to look at is why we’re attached, maybe there is a virtuous cause or maybe we’re simply addicted to it for some reason. Each attachment is different and people are different from each other and over time. It’s one’s own responsibility to watch and find out, there’s no prescription. If it becomes too much of a burden, all one has to do is ask for professional help, not expect others to carry your burden for you.
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Of course it was fresh each time, each moment; he was already Free; from conscious content.
He spoke from pure Consciousness - without content. The point is he spoke from there; pure Conciousness, which was/is where the dialogue, the posing of questions arose in every moment.
This Space, Wisdom, Awareness of Self, from where he spoke, offered to others the opportunity to truly ‘listen’. Therefore there was the opportunity for inquiry, or as you put it, to learn.
Marie
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Then are we free from that same content of consciousness? Or are we waiting to be freed from it through the act of listening to another? Which would mean that we are not actually listening at all. And right here is our dishonesty, which is simple enough to see.
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Or maybe we are quick to find any answer which absolves us from looking.
Paul,
Maybe you’re right, it’s not an agency from outside that is going to say. What we know is that the cause of suffering is attachment, that’s what you have to watch.
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Paul, I cannot speak for anyone else as to whether they are free of content.
I can speak from here.
I am not waiting to be free, or depending on anything/anyone outside of myself to verify this in me. I am open and willing to deepest inquiry. There is a continuous movement within me that offers towards my Freedom.
K’s or anyones words will not ‘give us’ freedom. I have not said this in dialogue with you.
Listening, in the deepest sense, outside of thought, to K , or another who is Free, from where they speak and not only the words, offers us self awareness of that which blocks our Freedom. We share in that Space of pure Conciousness, offered to us by their state of Conciousness, Freedom.
We cannot depend on mere words for our Freedom from suffering. For anyone to think that we can be free from suffering from simple listening, thinking and gathering of what another is saying, is to say the least naive, and dishonest to ourself.
Marie
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But what we know makes no difference. It is not like a leaking tap where we know that the cause of the leak is a faulty washer. The suffering, the attachment and the knowing are all part of the same entity. So there is no cause separate from the entity that suffers.
But what if they are not free? Then you are just deluding yourself. Or we have projected an image of freedom on to them, which is even worse.
Paul, If we are not free then there will be suffering. If we are deluded then we may call our suffering something else, but it is suffering. It is for each to see that we are deluded/suffering or not. This requires deep honesty.
For others to projected an image of freedom onto another is indeed worse. It displays the deep suffering in both.
Marie
It may have nothing to do with each of us. That’s the point: this may be entirely the wrong starting place.
Have we ever looked at all?