It’s essential for the brain than knows it is pulling the wool over its own eyes.
It is not essential for brains that are seeking.
No, that comes with the insight that it is (essential) And that ‘seeking’ it is a fool’s journey?
I don’t know that insight is essential - I just believe it is because it seems that way.
Recognition requires memory. When any psychological disturbance or impulse gets labelled, memory is taking over. So this impulse itself is awareness. Please see this. Otherwise we cannot continue to inquire together. For what generally happens is to assume that a higher and more subtle form of awareness of the disturbance is what dissipates and resolves it. Then we get into arguments about the nature of this awareness. But what we are saying here and now is that any psychological disturbance or reaction - any impulse before it gets labelled as anger, fear, anxiety, jealousy, envy or whatever - is the only form of awareness. It is no different from just being aware of whatever now is in front of us as we are sitting here, all the physical shapes and colours in our immediate view. Those physical objects with their varieties of dimensions can be observed without any recourse to labelling or judgment, without the necessity of memory. In the same way, we can observe - without the observer coming in as memory - any psychological occurrence.
I hear your statement that awareness is awareness - that awareness does not become a different form of awareness.
So what is it that allows for observation without action from memory?
Why are most of us acting from memory, despite awareness of our own psychological states - and why would someone not recognise the contents of their experience despite the fact that they are experiencing a psychological state?
It seems paradoxical that one should be in a state of psychological confusion absent the known (ie. the content). Isn’t the the psychological state the movement of judgement? Don’t I and the separate objects have to be recognised for the psychological state to arise?
What do we mean by “choiceless awareness”?
Choiceless awareness is awareness that is not determined by the content.
We usually say that there is freedom from the known (ie. not determined by/subject to the content) because the whole process (and implications) of suffering have been seen.
I wonder if you realise what the question implies?
- Who sees/realises what the question poses?
- Who becomes ‘free of myself’?
Are you saying that it is the self that realises that it is the source of harm, so the one who refuses to be that source of harm is the self itself?
Nihilism is the greatest danger one can fall into when talking about emptiness… so let me ask you: what is the meaning of life and for whom,
in emptiness?
Psychologically is there a ‘who’? Or is the psychological ‘who’ a creation of thought?
There’s a brain and there are ‘thoughts’ and ‘feelings’ but is there a ‘who’ that is ‘having’ them? Isn’t that the source of confusion?
This reminds me of a passage in the New Testament:
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
John 3:1–8
Of course, one can say that this is simply a belief and so on, if one takes it to the letter. But if one is able to go beyond the words, one may find that these words speak quite clearly about being ‘not-a-thing’. Anyway, all this does not matter much with respect to the above words, which are simply that: mere words (like those in Krishnamurti’s books/audios/videos).
Sorry, but that question was not there to be answered independently of ‘have I realized/have I clearly seen that freedom from myself is essential?’, which @macdougdoug said was ‘THE question’. Otherwise, we’d be going on a tangent, which was not my intention when I posed it in my post.
No ‘who’. Only a brain producing thought and feeling in an atmosphere of something called ‘awareness’ or ‘intelligence’?
I don’t think this is important - we often ask this question because we are focussed on words and concepts - I’m happy to go with @danmcderm’s explanation
We could say that sometimes “I” or the “self” refers to the feeling of being this central most important character in our experience - that which allows for suffering via desire and aversion - but it can also colloquially mean you - or it can mean the mind or intelligence that understands - maybe it would be best to say “I don’t know” ?
Please understand that I don’t care - though I have tried to respond - if you have anything to say of importance on the subject I would like to hear it.
I don’t care mainly because it doesn’t matter in the slightest as far as I can tell.
I’ll also ignore Nihilism and the meaning of life as they are not my specialist subjects - If pushed to respond to the juxtaposition of “meaning” and “emptiness” I would say that “emptiness” is a synonym for “oneness”, not “absolute nothingness”
Emptiness is a useful teaching tool in that it questions the seemingly independant existence of the conceptual objects that we project onto reality - Absolute nothingness is a logically problematic concept that has not been shown to “exist”, (all of which moves us away from the question which we have already forgotten)
I see, our conversation is over then, right? 
Maybe I should state the obvious : The “I” in the sense of “the feeling of being the central character that must be protected” ie the basis of fear - is not the intelligence that understands (that “I” is just a feeling, part of the content of consciousness)
Sorry I’m over reacting, because this question comes up again and again, often deflecting us from what is being looked at.
But if this really needs to be addressed, does what I said above (stating the obvious) help at all?
Let’s make it as clear as possible. There isn’t anger and then awareness of the anger. A moment of anger itself is a moment of awareness. It ceases to be awareness when the observer comes in and labels it as anger, which places it into a linear framework with a psychological history attached to it and a psychological future mapped out for it. Therefore, an observation without the interference of memory cannot involve the observer at all. No memory means no observer because they are the same thing.
This is your assumption.
Memory is nothing new, but new memories are being formed constantly when the brain is aware of how old and misleading a memory may be. The conditioned brain is insecure and it’s false sense of security is its dependence on its beliefs, conclusions, theories, and assumptions, i.e., memory. But when the brain is aware of how it escapes from uncertainty and insecurity, memory serves its purpose without serving the illusion of self
You’re saying that memory is the cause of our confusion and conflict because this is your chosen way of escaping responsibility for your confusion and conflict.
If you kept your means of escape to yourself, no one would have to know how you deceive yourself. But when you try to seduce others to use your pathetic escape technique, you’re attempting to deceive others as you have deceived yourself.
Okay - this is not clear to me at all. The first time you said it, I thought you had misspoken.
I hear what you are saying about naming or recognition being the movement of memory and judgement - thus not awareness itself.
But how is anger (or any strong emotion) awareness itself? Do you really mean that?
Or do you mean that we are always aware of our psychological states?
This reminds me of the statement that “emotion is a misplaced sensation”. Rather than awareness, it’s the sensation that gets recognized as ‘anger’ and labeled as such with all the memory and trappings. And rather than just subsiding, the sensation recognized as ‘anger’ is prolonged by thought?
Anger feels justifiable and appropriate when it flairs up, but the flair-up is often regretted and apologized for because, as upsetting as bad behavior can be, a violent reaction to it is just more bad behavior.
And the reverberations (ripples) of thought go on until they exhaust themselves…and then the sensation of ‘remorse’ (or not) …until that settles down. All of it being justified in one way or another?
“She/he made me angry!”