If it is true that, “The observer is the observed”
And it is not obvious to I, the observer,
The implication is that I perceive only what I choose to perceive;
That for I actuality is a matter of choice - not a matter of fact.
If it is true that awareness is choiceless
And I choose to make of awareness what I will
Will I not stop doing this
Until I am nothing but a memory?
Perhaps the reason that the brain can’t rid itself of the structure of the ‘I’ is that the energy it takes to perceive the structure or center in its totality, is that the energy needed for that perception is dissipated by the self’s desire to go beyond itself? Blaming itself for choosing and willing?
Self-knowledge is what the brain understands about the self, and until/unless the brain understands desire, yes, it is squandering (not gathering) the energy it needs.
The brain can’t rid itself of the structure of the ‘I’, the self, as long as it has some notion of what life would be like once rid of itself. So until/unless the brain has no notions, no hope, no idea at all about the future, it is not entirely here now, undivided, whole.
Hasn’t the brain been conditioned over centuries to accept the presence of the ‘self’ structure as being natural? As being ‘real’? K is saying, as I hear it, that it really has no place there. It is a kind of pollution. A pollution of past memories. Yet powerful like an addiction or a phobia. But it takes energy to actually see or totally perceive this situation. We live in and through its presence.
Yes…
K is saying, as I hear it, that it really has no place there. It is a kind of pollution. A pollution of past memories.
We can say and believe it [the self] has no place in the brain, but there’s no denying that we identify and act as individual selves, so what matters is whether one can be aware of what the brain is doing to sustain and perpetuate this illusory condition.
It’s like watching a master of sleight of hand perform a trick without ever seeing how he does it. The trick depends on how self-deceived the observer is to begin with. We’re pulling the wool over our own eyes while purporting to see ourselves doing it.
Thought feels that by analyzing the situation, it can get closer to the ‘truth’, that by ‘moving’ it will get closer to the truth…so it has already done the trick and moved away from the silent empty ‘now’ and is again in the stream of time and becoming?
And be aware without judgement.
Yes. Once Dr.Bohm put it beautifully in a discussion with K. He said the thief unaware that he is the thief assumes the role of the policeman & starts looking for the thief.
How do we get about that?-the ‘how’ here is inquiry, not asking for a system. K sometimes asked, 'Can thought see it’s own limitation?
Unless thought itself sees that it cannot resolve this issue, can this be resolved? Does this mean , does the intellect have an intimation into this-I know you would object to this-before the actual insight that the observer is the observed,
However this is not saying that insight develops from an intellectual intimation but unless thought stops juggling with itself, is going beyond possible?
In the practical world, thought’s ability, ingenuity, brilliance is unquestioned. But in the so-called psychological realm, it is just ‘noise’. It is what affords us our precious sense of individuality. Our personal noise. Now someone comes along and says the brain needs to be silent, quiet, empty etc. and thought takes it as a challenge to bring the ‘silence’ about through analysis of what is making the brain ‘noisy’! The analyser is the analysis. The thinker is the noise. Any movement around this is only more noise….so then the question: “Can the rhythm of thought come to an end?”
Thought doesn’t feel or decide anything any more than your computer keyboard does. It is just the mechanism by which the conditioned brain operates.
it has already done the trick and moved away from the silent empty ‘now’
Do we know that we were born with brains that were not bound to become conditioned by the pressures and temptations of our social environment?
What matters is that the brain is conditioned now, that it has been for millennia, and whether it cares to understand its conditioning.
When I say ‘thought feels’ that means ‘I feel’…
When I say ‘thought desires’ that means ‘I desire’
But since thought has projected a ‘thinker’, an ‘I’
Thought sometimes says ‘thought’ and sometimes says I’.
Which means the conditioned brain identifies with thought, identifies itself as the thinker, because it never stops thinking except, perhaps, in deep sleep.
So if there is no thinker - only thought - it isn’t obvious because thought never stops and the brain is faced with a fact it can’t do anything about, i.e., the incessant stream of consciousness which deprives the brain of the silence needed for choiceless awareness and direct perception.
But since thought has projected a ‘thinker’, an ‘I’, thought sometimes says ‘thought’ and sometimes says I’.
Yes, it’s a habit that sustains the notion that the brain’s primary purpose is thinking. But the brain knows there is more to being a brain than thinking, and knows how mistaken and intrusive thought can be.
Thought can’t see anything, but the brain that identifies with thought and never stops thinking can see that constant thought is most likely the problem.
The brain is aware that it’s problem is that it can’t stop thinking. So is there anything the brain can do to stop thinking, or does thinking stop because the brain is no longer wasting energy thinking about the problem?
I guess we’ll see?..
Can thought, a mechanical process actually see anything? What if all thought can do is believe or disbelieve, choose this or that?
Unless thought itself sees that it cannot resolve this issue, can this be resolved?
Once the brain realizes that thought can’t do anything more than correct its thinking and acknowledge its mistakes when the evidence is irrefutable, thought has ceased to be the problem. But as long as the brain keeps insisting that thought must do or quit doing this or that, it is blaming the tool for the way the brain is abusing it.
So the brain realizes that its conditioning is the problem, and there is no one, no thing, to blame for its conditioning. It must be honest and responsible enough to acknowledge that it can’t stop thinking because to do so would bring a complete and irrevocable end to what/who the brain thinks it is.
Not ‘knowing’ it if any or both of them are true or not, this…
…is just speculation.
So shouldn’t we begin this inquiry by acknowledging this, and start by seeing whether or not it is true that ‘the observer is the observed’ and ‘awareness is choiceless’, before we talk about the consequences of something we don’t ‘know’ whether it is or isn’t? 
At the center there is this sense or feeling of my own importance, my individuality, isn’t there? Even if I suffer and this sense of self-importance is the source of my suffering, I can’t imagine being without it. Is this the psychological counterpart of the physical body’s will to survive? The physical drive to survive has spread into the psychological? And the brain, conditioned to its presence, can not free itself from it. The brain can’t be as ‘nothing’ , empty etc, because it believes itself to be this ‘something’, this very special ‘me’?
When one reads this, one gets the feeling that the human being is condemned forever to only look at ‘the situation’ through thought.
Is that what you mean, Dan?
I don’t know if you are aware of it or if you have done it on purpose, but this question would close the circle on what you have previously said before coming to the question. Since… who wants to know by asking the question?
Who or what is this ‘one’ that could be aware of what the brain does? And in any case, is this ‘one’ divided from the brain?
No not forever but this has been the way it has been for us up to now… and the situation has become more dire because of the explosion of technology. Ultimately it may not matter how much pain and destruction we wreak here but maybe it does…I don’t know but I guess for radical change to take place there would have to be the perception that the ‘self’ is as much a myth as say, Santa Claus! 