If psychologically there was only the now (no ‘future’ in which to ‘become’) what would be different in how we lived? No ‘time’ other than this moment psychologically?
Are they separated?
I don’t know - what is the problem specifically with how we do live? In this case the projection of suffering through imagined time.
Is it to do with the omnipresence and omnipotence of fear (in all corners of experience)? The exigent reality of I want?
Of course, some may say that we can amuse & tickle ourselves, which somehow makes everything ok.
Somehow I think the endless killing, brutality, environmental destruction…the greed etc, is tied to this imaginary ‘future’ of the self image? Awareness / fear of the possible happenings ‘up ahead’?
Yes. It depends on how aware the brain dares to be.
We can’t help but expect certain things to happen because certain things happen frequently and certain things happen unexpectedly, so for one to be oblivious of what can happen in any given situation would not be sane.
Doesn’t conflict arise from it?
Expectation is only a problem when your expectations are too unreliable to be taken seriously.
If you’re not expecting too much or too little, the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll be mildly disappointed or surprised.
That’s like asking whether the kidneys and the liver are separated. The answer is yes and no. They’re interdependent. They are parts of a system that can’t function if they’re not operating together.
And where does this seperation come from? Is this seperation the cause of what went wrong?
The problem isn’t that the brain and the mind (thought) are separate, but that thought is confused, incoherent. If you recall, K said that thought is separated into practical and psychological thought, and the fusion of these two kinds of thinking creates confusion. Unlike the liver and kidneys, these two things are not mutually dependent - they’re conflicted.
Thought is a tool to get practical work, survival work done. What is it about psyche thought that creates “confusion”, conflict?
There is “only the now”, as far as we can tell, but we project the future and review the past because one can’t survive without being mindful of what happens to those who throw caution to the wind and proceed carelessly.
Psychological thought is not practical because the conditioned brain is not wholly here and now, but in the future, the past, and the imagination. Practical thought is grounded - psychological thought is not.
I’m trying to get at the ‘danger of becoming’; the psychological becoming which K warned so much against.
I never thought he was warning us against “becoming”, or warning us about anything. He wasn’t guiding our steps along a path, cautioning us about missteps, detours, etc., along the way.
It seemed to me K talked about “becoming” to say from the outset that his teaching has nothing to do with “psychological time” (the time it takes to get from what I am to what I shall become), because when there’s complete attention ( to what he was saying), there’s no I, me, mine, no one attending, interpreting, reacting, which means one has undergone transformation.
His teaching began with the understanding that it takes no time to comprehend what he’s saying when one is not translating or interpreting his words, but directly perceiving what he’s speaking of.
K rejected all traditional ‘paths’ to ‘arrive’ at truth/freedom. But there is a prerequisite to freeing oneself from the known. That is that one has to put one’s “house in order”. That is done in time with awareness of what one is: one’s thoughts, habits, likes, dislikes etc. It is done by experimenting, by seeing how one escapes from one’s fear, by trying to replace one’s violence, anger, loneliness etc with its opposite. The ‘order’ is created in time, arduously,by the discovery of our disorder.
And hopefully one has the sensitivity, innocence and curiosity to see.
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Yes, but it isn’t done in the same spirit of becoming, but the urgent need of self-knowledge. K’s teaching awakens us to the fact that we really don’t know what we’re doing because we’re not completely attentive, but divided, fragmented, confused; desperate for a sense of direction and security, susceptible to follow whatever leads us on.
The ‘order’ is created in time, arduously,by the discovery of our disorder.
That seems a reasonable speculation, but I can’t confirm that it’s true. I would think it’s enough to be free from the need to believe or be assured of anything.