So what part of you is agitated? Doesn’t it have something to do with memory?
Without the imagined future and the remembered past, fear doesn’t exist. Thinking about the future or the past is not being present; you have moved away elsewhere.
Paul,
What difference can be discerned between the experience of “meditation” and the experience of fear made most acute? Isn’t the crescendo of fear, felt as “panic”? But then, isn’t there a fascinating experience at this juncture? For, is it not so that at the moment of acute fear as panic that we feel deprived of all choice, that all imagined futures collapse, that the remembered past is abolished, that all time stops, that all cherished values are cancelled, and all senses become acutely sensitive as we are overtaken with a sense of urgency without choice? Isn’t that identical to how Krishnamurti would describe “choiceless awareness”? After all, if you could choose, then wouldn’t you choose to be delivered from panic and restored to serenity, rather than surrender to potentially being eroded away and dissolved into its wind like a sand dune in the Arabian steppe?
There is much fear in relationships between people. Even this conversation between you and me can go off the rails when we don’t stay together at the same place. The onus is on me to be where you are. I am constantly in fear.
The fact that you are putting quotation marks around the word ‘meditation’ means we cannot pose any questions about it until we are both clear what we mean by this word. The experience of fear seems to have its own continuity because it relies on the past in order to seek control of the future. I am not sure meditation is an experience at all, if we are considering it from a K perspective. So that may be one difference. But what is meditation? I think that’s the first thing to resolve.
Why do you call it fear? Be simple about it.
Can you clarify what you mean by ‘part of you’. I don’t think of myself as being made up of parts. The feeling of ‘me’ is one of an integral, permanent entity.
Fear does derive from memory, yes. For example, fear arises if something occurs in the present that gives me cause to worry that in the future I will be without something that I fundamentally depend on for peace of mind. Memory is used to envision and evaluate that future scenario.
Then no wonder you are agitated. Because an integral, permanent entity wouldn’t be touched by fear.
Fear is the feeling of unease in the face of uncertainty. It arises when there is intent in achieving harmony. It is very easy to have a falling out in human relationships. Let me give you two personal experiences to show you what I mean.
Once, when I was playing the game of golf for the first time, I didn’t know that I must stay still while waiting for my turn to hit my ball on the tee-box. I couldn’t even shift my weight from one leg to the other without irritating my golfing partners when they were addressing the ball.
On another occasion when I was a college student on a work assignment at a home for mental inmates, I caused a riot when I turned off the TV in the recreation room. No one was watching and everyone there was either looking out the window or nodding off in the wheelchair. Who knew that the sound of the TV was the ambience they were all immersed in?
Here I am, trying to be together with you at the same place to inquire into the possibility of living entirely without fear. Although your thread title is a question, you were not posing a question. You seem certain about the possibility. And I am afraid to challenge your position on this.
The permanent thinker - permanent only in the sense that it is not transient like individual thoughts and feelings, perhaps persistent is a better word? - still has preferences for its environment. Anything contradicting those preferences produces agitation.
Why do you say the thinker wouldn’t then be affected by some change to this preferred environment?
Hi sree.
Shall we inquire those two situations deeply?
You can see that there is ‘responsibility’ in those two situations. But to happen/not happen is not in our hand. Everyone fails in being responsible one way or the other.
But what makes one to be ‘fear’ of those situations? - if you observe, you can see that - it is because of thought that “will this situation brings a bad image about me and will I be thrown out of school/University, and if I thrown out - what happens to my dream/career/life?”. This is the fear one goes through at that time.
So, can you see that - and shall we inquire about this deeper?
There is no actual place other than here and now, the present. Being distracted by thought is not being elsewhere - it is being here now, incompletely, distractedly.
I would rather not, Viswa. Those two situations are not worth investigating. Paul wanted to know if there is any place for fear in human relationships. Of course, there is. All the time. The reason is that socializing has inherent pitfalls. It’s like walking through a minefield and fear makes us do it carefully.
Human nature is what we are. Is there one place in this world where there is no human conflict? The real issue and the real danger are not fear. It is people.
I think that’s just word parsing over something that isn’t even the main theme and question being presented. K would often term his form of meditation as a “choiceless awareness.” I’m sure you’re already familiar with his use of these terms as well as their difficulties. What is being put into question above is the temporal structure of fear (past projected into future) and not “what is meditation.”
To be sure, anticipatory fear (what might happen in the future) is something that we all feel and experience. I think that’s clear and I wouldn’t dispute that it takes place nor would I dispute K on that matter. K is correct. But, however, there might be a problem in absolutizing and saying that fear necessarily and always is an imagined future out of a remembered past. For example, the experience of panic, which is most certainly fear taken to the extreme (especially if you’ve ever experienced a panic attack or know someone that suffers from panic disorder) is a sudden, immediate and very present feeling that all hope of any future has collapsed and any remembered past has presently been destroyed, as if they have died. For example, the hope to rescue a once very close relationship (future projection). Or the memory of a father’s love and the security it brings (remembered past). But then presently it is realized that in actuality what was remembered as genuine affection was actually a continuous apology for failing to love. So, the hope of any future has been abolished and the security of the past has been destroyed. Security and hope are gone and what follows presently is not necessarily absence of fear, but perhaps its present consummation as panic without choice.
This certainly does not refute the notion that fear such as anticipatory anxiety are governed by projections into the future out of a remembered past, but it does problematize speaking of it as an absolute; as always so and without exception. That may not be true at all.
Sree, there is fight between humans - which is the real issue - you can see that right? - don’t stop there- continue to investigate ‘why people acts like this?’ - then you may see that - it’s because of ‘fear’ they hold on to ‘images,ideas,beliefs,attachments’ and they fight others who differs from their images,ideas,etc…
It’s true that fear drives people - but don’t make it an answer - continue to inquire - ‘why this fear arises?’
This fear is born out of thoughts which is limited and so fear has ‘side effects’ - but when there is no fear - in this ‘responsibility’ you can see much more efficiency.
It means, if we work normally (with images,beliefs) at 50% efficiency and we work at 75% efficiency (when there is fear) with side effects. But if there is only responsibility - we can work at 100% efficiency with beauty of living every moment.
And if there is any situation you wish to investigate which is worth to, feel free to bring it on.
Thanks
Yes, but why do you call this feeling fear? After all, it is a feeling, a sensation. Why are you giving it a name?
What has happened to the notion of an integral, permanent entity? It has already started to break up. Right? So the ‘me’ itself is the cause of the agitation, not because it is integrated and permanent, but because it is fragile and transitory, yet inventing itself as different from what it is.
Yes, distracted by the past, which creates the future, which is fear.
I see what you are getting at. Panic about what?
Well, if indeed you are following, then what do you think that might be?