Insight and memory

From Saturday’s dialogue two related questions come to mind.
First is : Does insight need some form of memory to be effective …later in chronological time and not dependant on thought to retrieve it ?
Second is: Is there a form of memory ,that is different to the memory and response stored in the brain cells -that thought retrieves it’s information from?

On the 1st: Thought is necessary for inquiry, would you consider this memory? or are you referring to the actual happening of insight?

On the 2nd: Are you suggesting the possibility of memory stored outside the brain and/ or collective memory?

I’m starting from insight.
However the common experience is that one has insight … which is when thought has ended. … so something has ended … but for the way of reacting,for example, not to re occur I’m suggesting that when the situations that prior to insight occur … that from the insight is a form of memory that the body including the mind , on its own without thought arising, has instantly recognised the danger and so doesn’t react.
I feel this may be correct on the realisation that absolutely everything is interrelated and interconnected —with memory and intelligence ( which are not separate) pervading everything.
With the dialogue question of ‘is there a relationship after one has left the room’etc . Everything is always related… only the quality etc of relationship may change and vary etc.
In the natural world we can see memory acting outwardly… as a daisy turns to the sun etc. Intelligence and memory.
I think it’s related to what scientists call ‘proprioception ‘ … a kind of built in memory ( I’m not a scientist or academic!) that needs no thought or thinking to operate.

Are you suggesting that learning through insight creates a memory that is stored and connected to intelligence, a memory aware of the danger so it does not react?

Or that learning though insight actually led to a mutation in the actual fabric of the organism that now the reaction of the past is nothing but an insignificant memory that does not control the mind?

Instinct?

Is insight not obfuscated when we make an effort to be insightful? When it is raining and we perceive it to be raining, is that not insight? No effort to see clearly or transform belief is at work.

Time, insecurity, agenda, control, effort. This genre of thought is what blocks ‘seeing things in the present for what they are’. Is it not considerably more vibrant to perceive reality as it is - in our case, the expression of belief and opinion - than to clamor after insight. In vivo.

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I don’t know where Clive’s question is coming from. It could be that he is operating from a different place than the common man and in that sense the question could have its own vitality which ‘I’ cannot touch for the moment.

But, is it possible for 2 people to meet and see what happens? I personally cannot say that I am anywhere close to insight. Although I ‘have’ some understanding around it. Same thing when people discuss the mind, I have never found myself able to discuss such a thing authentically, so far.

However, my questions/ input in this thread is to support a friend’s quest. Which he can disregard my input if its not inline with where he is operating. I mean it. Haha, no offense would be taken :slight_smile:

Some interesting comments following my post. Perhaps to talk about another time.
Is thought necessary for inquiry?
Thought being a response of memory.
In the absolutely practical field , that is usually the case… I need to fix a machine, I need to remember how it’s put together , or what tools are necessary etc,
The problem initially nay be in not understanding what is not practical? What is ‘psychological ‘ thought and memory ?

I totally see that! The practical and psychological were dealt with in the same way. Yet now, I have to differentiate between the practical and psychological. That differentiation is the act of thought. Choice, duality. The duality K followers experience might often go through I imagine.

In this sense. Are we asking: Is observation capable of placing the psychological and the practical in their respective places/ domains?

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This was the main question that I had at the end of the first dialogue I attended at Brockwood Park, Krishnamurti Centre.
I did understand that I’d have to find out for myself.
I’m not sure but maybe ‘observing ‘ may be more helpful than ‘observation’…observing implying more in the present perhaps ( verb rather than a noun)
So, the challenge may be to stay with that question, with the understanding ( which at first may be theoretical as knowledge ( or not) ) that as knowledge…which is the tool of thought ( memory and the past)cannot ‘observe’ in the timeless present. It divides and obstructs ‘seeing’ / observing.
The problem may be resolved/revealed when one remains with the question and thought falls away …not by any effort, but by seeing actually that it cannot provide the answer. It usually will try !
Don’t worry about whether this is helpful or otherwise. We each have to discover for ourselves.

So what is the problem we have at our hands? If not, would I still observe?

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I’d say that ‘observing’ is a possible ‘key ‘to seeing whether one needs some object/ subject to observe.
As we know Krishnamurti said “The Observer is the Observed” . I think in understanding that, the answer to your last question may be resolved.
I’m guessing, but is it that there is a sticking with the idea that without knowledge a question or problem can’t be resolved… or remained with? That would be a very ‘common’ thought/ knowledge movement of escape( not staying)

Partial observing/ attention is the case for most of us. Quite possibly why it takes ‘time’ to deeply understand something = partial insight.
I don’t know how insight takes place. But what is clear that if the observing is partial AKA conditioned, then there is no room for insight. So I’d ask am ‘I’ in conflict with the knowledge and thinking that ‘I’ am?
I asked a question on another thread which could fit here as well I believe: Does listening to thought, now, manifest them in the future? Also, am I afraid of my thought or of what thought is showing me?

I maybe mistaken , but I see all this as being the intellect clinging on to knowledge via thought after thought after thought . Why not simply remain with the question … now many questions back ? Please don’t answer with words !

I’ll try. I think what I am trying to say: Is there a need for a question to remain with what is?
(Not meaning that questions are not necessary). Does this connect with your initial inquiry?

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I understand your question here.
But not how much it relates to what may have been said previously.
I think that curiosity may be essential to any real learning. Sadly ‘my’ conditioning is to accumulate ‘knowledge’, isn’t it?
Do I understand that knowledge is what has been stored in the brain as memory ?
Do I understand that all knowledge is limited?.. have understood fully why/how it is so . Etc.?
That thought is the response of memory… the knowledge stored there?
So , knowledge,memory is all the past… including all ideas it may have about anything… future,past, truth, love etc… all limited and all of the past…ok.

“ Can knowledge show me , actually , what the present is… what it feels like , it’s essence “?
Watch what happens as one deals with that question. … let it remain while seeing what arises and / or leaves ones awareness .

We meeting so far

However, I don’t know if this is the right question to ask. Because it’s answer is explained by what you wrote earlier in this message. Maybe try another question or a further question with the same invitation

This video ( around 20 minutes)
Addresses all that should be needed.
I won’t add anything further to this thread.

:smile:. Plus 20 characters to satisfy the software!

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Haha, Thanks Clive, but I thought this was a joined examination and exploration (or at least I assumed that). This way it seems more of an exchange, if not a transfer, of knowledge which I am interested in to some degree yet didn’t expect it on this thread and also it goes against the thread theme itself.

You know, I kind of understood your point and your aim from the beginning, to be honest, with my own language. But, if I can’t explore with a new way, different language, a language I am yet to use. Yet to know about, Yet to discover. Then maybe the understanding was not there at all, only an idea of it.

We all keep on repeating and repeating, most of the time. I don’t know if there is understanding there or not. I sometimes ask myself: Am I blocked by that which I already have heard, calling it memory and not insight? Is my knowledge calling whatever is being heard as mere words with no substance?

K himself have, on a few occasions, mistaken that in ppl when they reply.
Also, K’s, as all of us’s, flaw is the limitation of expression. Not the words used, but the approach itself.

K grew up differently than us, really differently. It’s up to us to get the most we can get from his legacy and work the residual understanding. And go further and further more from there.

I wonder if we can, but what I know for sure is that it is so much fun.

The video is great, just finished listening to it

See you on the next dialogue :slight_smile: