The reaction is yourself. The anger is you. The greed is you. The violence is you. The reaction is you. There isn’t another entity behind the reaction who is going to look at and learn about the reaction. This is the whole point. It is only the observer who is interested in why he reacts; he wants to control and contain future reactions. But the reaction itself has no observer within it. Therefore we are asking if the observer can keep out of it altogether. The observer seeks illumination, revelation and love. But all those things exist only in the state prior to the observer coming in. The observer chases after a dreamlife where there is no anger, no greed, no violence. But it is much more important that there is no observer. Then it is possible to talk about love.
This might well be true. However, as I understand it, in order for this to actually mean something it has to be discovered. Weren’t K’s teachings all about discovering together? In order for that to happen, doesn’t there need to be communication, mutual interest, mutual respect, curiosity? Understanding something intellectually and actually discovering the truth of the thing for yourself are surely very different, aren’t they?
Do you feel listened to, so that someone is listening what you sayed. whether wright ore wrong .
We are doing it now - at this very moment we are discovering all sorts of things. Don’t say, ‘It might well be true.’ Find out directly. First, there is your immediate reaction to these very words. Stop there. Wait just until tomorrow morning before you allow the observer back in. Then none of this is theoretical.
If you want the theoretical approach there are plenty of others who will go at it with you, but, unfortunately, I am not one of those people.
The “entity” is the brain…what it sees about its conditioned behavior.
It is only the observer who is interested in why he reacts; he wants to control and contain future reactions.
Yes, and you don’t see how this applies to your behavior because you keep repeating it.
The observer seeks illumination, revelation and love. But all those things exist only in the state prior to the observer coming in.
You know nothing about “all those things”. You’re bullshitting, as usual.
This is a good example of your Krishnamurti impersonation. Listen to yourself!
If you want the theoretical approach there are plenty of others who will go at it with you, but, unfortunately, I am not one of those kinds of people.
No. You’re worse than “those kinds of people”.
The brain is totally conditioned. What it sees about itself must invariably be also conditioned. That is why we said quite a few days ago that the brain is not needed for any of this, that it is the most unreliable instrument. Just to see the behaviour is enough, without the brain having to do anything else about it. Just to be aware of one’s anger, confusion or conflict with another, and with no effort to change it. The brain cannot change a thing. But the thing itself - the ‘what is’ - can undergo tremendous change when the brain leaves it alone.
Perhaps now we are starting to understand why all of this is put as it is in bold italics. There is no-one to listen to. There is nowhere to go to find out the truth of these matters except right here and now. Krishnamurti won’t help us out with this because he’ll just tell us exactly the same thing.
I’m afraid you are either not listening to me or you don’t understand what I wrote.
Firstly, I think we can all agree that none of us here “want the theoretical approach”. The point I was making is that the truths which K pointed to need to be discovered and not just intellectually understood. As I understand it, K talked a lot about discovering together and the conditions required for this to happen. Surely listening to each other carefully with mutual respect is crucial if there is to be any real communication.
I’m not sure about the “we” here. The bold italics are still a complete mystery to me.
Awareness reveals actuality, and the brain interested in self-knowledge is aware of its reactions, and that self-knowledge makes it a very different brain than the brain that reacts to its reactions.
The brain cannot change a thing. But the thing itself - the ‘what is’ - can undergo tremendous change when the brain leaves it alone.
More of your bullshit.
Self-knowledge changes the brain because it is more interested in what it is actually doing than in what it is conditioned to want/not want.
But the thing itself - the ‘what is’ - can undergo tremendous change when the brain leaves it alone.
This may be the goofiest thing you’ve ever said. Why don’t you tell us all about it?
Agreed. And we are discovering them now. That’s all. That is one reason why we are putting this into bold italics. They are important truths we are discovering. Others are reacting to this in different ways. Find out first how you react to this before trying to find out anything more about the motives - deluded or otherwise - behind the words of the speaker. In order to find out the exact nature of your reaction it is important that you do not allow the brain to provide a commentary upon it. The commentary is conditioned by what you already know and what you expect of the world around you. The commentary, which is the past, then absorbs the reaction into its theoretical understanding of the world. Instead, however, it is possible for the reaction to remain alone and unjudged, unexplained, unjustified. This has a profound effect upon the commentary and upon the nature of observer who lives within it.
Perhaps you have never heard of choiceless awareness. Maybe we could recommend some books by J Krishnamurti…
K: What I am trying to point out, sir, is that any movement of a conditioned mind is a movement away from it and therefore it cannot solve it. The mind has to live with it. Do you understand? The mind has no escape from it. The mind cannot say, ‘Well, I will leave it alone, something will solve it.’ The mind has to be with it, look at it, you know, immovable. I wonder if you understand all this. And because we cannot do it we invent the ‘me’ different from the thing observed. If you see the truth of this - the logic, the truth, the reason of it, which is the whole of the mind is the content which is the conditioning, any movement as the observer wanting to change the conditioning is still part of that conditioning - when you see the truth of that there is no movement away from that fact. There is no movement away or to transform ‘what is.’ Then what takes place? You understand? That is the problem…
The mind realises, after observing the world, the world of Europe, America, Asia, Russia, China, the various systems, the various philosophies, the various teachers, gurus, saviours, the various scientists that are concerned with technology, and the pure scientists, and the medical profession, all that, observing the whole of that, in seeing that the mind is aware that it is part of it. That is ‘me’ and ‘me’ is that. The world is me and I am the world. There is no difference. Therefore, I am not fighting the world because I am the world. And this culture, which is the world, this culture with its… - you know what this present culture is: historical process, a growth, democratic, or so-called democracy, tyranny, all that - that is the culture in which the mind has lived, grown, assimilated and is. That mind is conditioned by this culture. And this culture says, ‘There is in you something different from the culture’. And I accept it, as they do in India and elsewhere. And when I look at it, when the mind observes it, it says, ‘There is only one thing, total conditioning, in which all these fragmentary things exist.’
And that conditioning is the result of time. Can the mind observe it, live with it without any movement away from it? You can only live with it totally if you do not want to go beyond it, escape from it, change it. And the mind will find it tremendously difficult to live with ‘what is.’ Either it becomes neurotic, as it generally does, psychologically distorted, or it escapes from it, and so it finds devious ways and means of avoiding actually ‘what is.’ And to remain with it, without any movement, without any distortion requires great energy. And that energy comes only when you don’t dissipate it.
Public Talk 2, Saanen, Switzerland - 17th July 1973
and how can one answer this question ?
How do i find out .
if you repeat my words , is one thing .
When i say " i don’t understand " is also some listening .
when i say " yess ore true " there may be memory that fits in opinion .
so is there ever understanding and listening between us .
is understanding outside the thinking only ?
i mean if we look at something , like each other , realy attentive, both way same time now . what it is . in this moment . you see ?
I think it would be helpful just to say where we think we are and what we’re doing now to check if we’re on the same page.
I think it’s important to acknowledge that neither of us are Krishnamurti, and neither of us have gone through the same kind of radical transformation that he seemingly went through. Do you accept this? Having said that, we both share a common interest in what K pointed to and perhaps we both have at least some understanding of the teachings. You rightly point out the importance of being highly aware of our reactions when faced with what someone else writes, or really any situation we might come across in everyday life. I think that most people on this forum have read and listened to what K said about choiceless awareness, so we are now faced with the challenge of being choicelessly aware in our everyday life.
Do you see things this way?
Hello Hermann. Are you talking about being listened to on this forum or in general? Some people listen to me much more than others, and I probably listen to some people with more attention than others. In general, I would say that listening attentively is something quite rare. How do you see this?
Hello Sean !
nice to meet you
Somhow there is a feeling for it . Here in this forum and outside .
i also feel resistance to listen and see some action , to flee from a situation i don’t want .
do we feel the attention when it’s given to us ?
do we give attention easily only to the so justified “worthy” and ist there a kind a selection and fight going on .
is it rare because there is somthing preventing us from listening .
what is instead of " i listen to you " ?
Transformation is now. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be radical. And, once again, we are asking you to pause right here. First, to note that there is an immediate reaction in the brain when you read such a statement as this; and then to do absolutely nothing at all about this reaction. Then we can talk about transformation as a fact without any confusion or theory because you will see for yourself what happens. When you read the statement, “Transformation is now,” there is a response to it on several levels, cognitively and emotionally, based on everything that has come before, all the books you have read and the videos you have watched as well as everything you have built up in the form of images about the speaker. The truth or the falsehood of the statement is itself quite irrelevant for the moment. The reaction is to more than just three bare words written down; there is a history to them. It is this psychological history that reacts. And we are experimenting with and exploring the possibility that this reaction from history can remain completely alone without any other interference from the same source of history, which is the observer, the self, the ‘me.’ The first immediate reaction is the ‘what is’ and anything after that is an escape from it. Do you accept this?
Yes.
Let’s say that life challenges me with any of its many daily challenges: I go to the doctor for a certain pain and the doctor diagnoses me with cancer, or someone tells me “you’re stupid”, or a family member or friend is assaulted, or I lose my house and am forced to live on the street, or a violent and destructive hurricane suddenly appears on the horizon, etc. That provokes an immediate reaction (whatever it is), which we can call “what is”. If in that moment attention is present, awareness will arise and will be able to observe it without any interference, opening the door to an actual change.
On the contrary, if I lose attention, an extra layer is added to “what is” that ends up taking things out of context, creating a parallel reality totally distant from “what is”.
What’s next?
What you are describing, as far as I can see, is what Krishnamurti called choiceless awareness.
Observation without thought rushing in to label, judge, interpret or analyse may be a theory or it may be a reality to some. Whether it is looking at a cloud, a tree or the face of someone on the underground as you travel to work, the “what is” is always there, all around us. The challenge for all of us who have read or listened to K is to have sufficient interest to experiment with this and to see what happens. Is this not so?