If not what has prevented one to learn about the art of thinking ?
As far as I know K speaks against positive thinking and hope which most people suggest to the mental patience(depression, panic attack ,fear and so on). He said think negatively and reversely. Anybody has any experience in that field please share. Please donāt argue about symbols and words.
Firstly, Iām not sure K is proposing a methodology (sorry, this might be an argument about words?)
Secondly, it would be helpful to discuss an actual quote, rather than a broad statement about negation.
All that aside, one way of looking at it is that any hope of becoming a better person : more honest, less greedy, more likeable, etc can be abandoned as merely the wishful thinking of a conditioned person who has no understanding of what fear, desire and conditioning is.
What seems to be most misunderstood is that there is a movement of thought, and thought, by distraction and fragmentation, is using up simple living without effort. The movement of thought can be found partly in those familiar ruminations we have on the mind, our memories, and speculations. Carefully listening, watching, this story, this verbal mind activity, with no attachment, and alert to such a flow of thought, negates the waste of energy we put into this petty and emotional way of life.
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Dear Examiner,
Negative thinking:
āWhat is negative and what is positive? Most of us are used to being told what to do. The giving and following of directions is considered to be positive teaching. To be led appears to be positive, constructive, and to those who are conditioned to follow, the truth that following is evil seems negative, destructive. Truth is the negation of the false, not the opposite of the false. Truth is entirely different from the positive and the negative, and a mind which thinks in terms of the opposites can never be aware of it.ā
K, Commentaries on Living, Series II, Ch. 44, āPositive And Negative Teachingā
Negation is a constant state of discontent with all the mischief (everything that is false) going on in the world. So, negative thinking negates conclusions, speculation, etc. That is why K was constantly pointing out when speculation, conclusions, occurred, etc. On this site, Charley pointed speculation out a couple of times, with the result that only one showed a glimmer of intelligence re: speculation. Forget who it wasā¦ Discussed why speculation is false in a post on speculation. Charley pointed out conclusions several times, and those posts were entirely dismissed/ignored - seemed to interfere with the exchange of leader/follower. 
Oh well, ā¦ seems to run up against the comfort level of those attempting thinking together and dialogueā¦ This is why Charley did not post a thread on truthā¦ (lack of interestā¦)
As an aside, the Buddha also talked about negation, using the Sanskrit word ānirodhaā, one of the 4 Noble Truths:
SW (One of the participants of a small group discussionā¦: "If you read the yoga vasishtha, it says that the mind is full of thoughts, conflicts; and these conflicts arise because of desire and fear; unless you are able to resolve them, you cannot understand. It talks of negative thinking. Max Mueller and some others misinterpreted the word ānirodha ā. The word does not mean suppression; it means negation.
K, Tradition & Revolution, Dialogue 21, Rishi Valley, 23 Jan. 1971, āThe Guru, Tradition and Freedomā
I find this to be true. When there is attachment (identification?) to the flow of thoughts, the thinking process IS āmeā. When there is present this ādifferentā energy that sees (moves with) the flow of thoughts but is not āattached ā to it , there is a āfreedom ā. A negation of the thought flow. A negation of the thinker/thought duality. This āfinerā (?) energy of āseeingā is dissipated by the almost constant unconscious (?) identification with the thought flow.
Say one is asked to think about meditation in a classroom. how would you approach a problem that you donāt know anything about it?
You first refer to what you remember about the word meditation. But that is not the right way of thinking. Remembrance is not right way of thinking. Right way of thinking is to see false as false and truth as truth. And there is no system to think correctly or see the false in false.
In common parlance, meditation is just another method for getting something we want.
I practise meditation in order to be more calm, to become happier, to become a better me - like a buddha, or a fearless successful person etc
Meditation just becomes another expression of my fear and desire - just another trick that I can use - just another part of the movement of suffering and escape.
Here, (and in zen) we are told that there can be no goal (for that is the movement of escape) and that there is only one step to take (not a progression over time, but a realisation)
Meditation is freedom from thought - it happens moment to moment via awareness.
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As far as I know thinking correctly implies that one starts with the fact. The fact is I donāt know what meditation is or I donāt know what love is. All I know is bunch of words . . It is fear that prevents one to be factual. Thought produces fear and pleasure and prevents seeing the fact.
So says thought, but is thought to be trusted when it comes to talking about itself, especially about being free of itself?
Iād say you either trust what someone here says or you donāt. Thought is used to report oneās experience, how accurately that is done depends on oneās verbal ability. I find that when awareness of thought is present that thought lines up with the awareness of itself. It āalignsā itself with the presence of āintelligenceā which has awakened in the moment to the movement of the usually āunconsciousā thought process.
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Trusting that what someone says conveys their experience or view is not the same as trusting that what someone says is correct. For example, if Wolfgang says āThinking is a shoddy, limited tool for learningā you might trust that this is what Wolfgang believes, but doubt the truth of it.
Hello Dan and all. Does gut feeling have a role to play here? Kās teachings always rang true with me on more than a purely logical or intellectual level. You could almost feel the truth of what he was saying. Can gut feeling help us to trust and make sense of what is going on around us, on many different levels?
Take any addiction : cigarettes, heroin, sex, golf etcā¦
I can see the difference when I am dependant upon these habits/needs, and when I am free of them - and using thought, I can make sentences about my experience : I am thinking about cigarettes right now, and I am completely free of the urge to go out and buy a packet - 10 years ago, I wouldnāt have had any choice in the matter, I would have been obliged to smoke. It does seem to me that this self (macdougdoug) is free from the nicotine habit at least.
Of course, I cannot be 100% certain that what I think about myself (regarding the cigarettes) is true- I am still dependant on what my brain is telling me (I might be living in a simulation for example, doubtful, but impossible to know for sure)
It sure can - but isnāt it sometimes wrong?
So thought is trustworthy in some situations, less in others, and not at all sometimes.
How do we determine its trustworthiness in a given situation? How do we know when it hits up against one of its limits?
When thought is describing an experience (what it sees, what it feels) we can trust that it is describing an experience.
When thought is describing a belief, conclusion, hypothesis (about something with which it has no experience) we can trust that it is doing just that.
A problem may arrive of course if we cannot tell the difference.
What is confusing about this? What limits are you referring to?
I am interested in what thought is and is not capable of doing. Likewise, in what we are and are not capable of knowing. Both Krishnamurti and Bohm (expecially) seem to have used thought as a tool to explore thought and discover its limitations, a process that strikes me as problematic.
Whatās the main problem?
PS - Thought has brought us to the moon (and back) - we have studied the insides of our own brain and of atoms - we have not found the limits of thought yet - but psychologically, as an entity, it is the foundation of suffering and confusion.
Itās the eye trying to see the whole of itself problem. It canāt. Even with a mirror, all it can see is a distorted reflection of itself. Likewise, thought canāt see the whole of itself, so how can it find all of its limitations?
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