Could it be that we are all escapists?
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I’m not sure, 07007, how serious you are about inquiring into this question, seeing as how, at the end of August, you opened a thread entitled We are not here to see who can open the most blogs in one month…; since when you have opened 21 ‘blogs’ in 2 months?
In that blog you wrote
If you start a blog please stick to it and come to some kind of understanding before you open another blog…
So maybe you can remain focussed on this thread before opening another one?
Anyway, as to the question itself, maybe I can ask you, what do you consider to be the world’s present crisis?
Is it the present war in Gaza between the IDF and Hamas which has seen more than 1400 Israelis killed (most of them civilians) and around 8000 Palestinians killed (most of them civilians)?
Is it the present war in Ukraine which has seen around 10 thousand Ukrainian civilians killed, nearly 100 thousand Ukrainian soldiers killed, and probably more than 100 thousand Russian soldiers killed?
Is it the ongoing violence in Myanmar (over 11 thousand killed in 2023), or in Sudan (over 11 thousand killed in 2023), or the Islamist insurgencies across Africa (over 11 thousand killed in 2023)?
Is it the Yemeni civil war which has left over 21 million people (more than half of them children) requiring humanitarian aid?
Is it the multiple ongoing crises in Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan - from wars, floods, earthquakes and political violence - which has created tens of thousands of casualties, displaced people, and refugees?
Is it the ongoing Climate crisis which is bringing all kinds of devastating changes in weather, climate and sea-levels across the globe?
Is it the rise of AI, and the devastating capacities for targeted misinformation that this opens up for state actors as well as private citizens?
Is it the prevalence of authoritarianism in China, Russia, Iran, parts of the USA, Hungary and Turkey?
Is it the ongoing arms race between big nuclear nations, with smaller countries like North Korea and potentially Iran adding to the ever-present risk of nuclear catastrophe?
Is it the destruction of natural ecosystems, of habitats for for wild animals and plants, the pollution of rivers, etc?
Is it the 60 billion land animals are killed annually in industrial animal farming? - or the 1000 billion marine animals that are killed annually for human consumption?
Which of these, in your view, is the true present crisis the world is facing?
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We could of course group most of the examples of wars into one group, and maybe call this the problem of inter-human conflct or tribalism.
A second group about the problem of human desire and lack of care for the systems we evolve in : the problem of survival and fear leading to harm (which is very much the same as the first problem)
And maybe a third issue regarding fear based on imagination - with regards to either potential future catastrophes or the present issue of post truth/confusion regarding narrative.
So we could say that these are the main issues discussed here on the forum? aka suffering/conflict & freedom from the known
Yes humans, if not all, most, living in the ‘darkness of division’ is how I saw it this morning. Each of us inflicted with the ‘I process’, ego, self etc…Pernicious in that it gives us a sense of an individual, personal, reality which though illusory (there is no such person) obscures the fact that we are all basically the same and are in fact ‘one’ not many. It seems evident from James’ listings that unless this ‘self illusion’ is totally dispelled through “understanding” as K was careful to point out, we won’t as a species, have a chance of a decent survival.
We can’t do much about earthquakes and natural disasters (although man-made climate change is creating more of them); but wars, religious/nationalist/ethnic ideological conflicts, the despoliation of nature, the epidemic of misinformation, etc, are all created in the human mind.
So, as K said, the crisis is not ‘out there’, the crisis is in human consciousness.
Yes. The central issue seems to be the brain’s reflexive identification with thought - the thought that makes up the psyche, the self, the ego - which creates self-centredness: leading to divisions between people/s, between people and nature, as well as resulting in terrible misuse of humanity’s technological achievements.
Is the problem with us homo sapiens bad conditioning or (psychological) conditioning period?
The former seems fixable, not 100%, but enough to make a difference individually and globally.
The latter seems way less fixable, at least in the short run (lifetimes rather than millennia).
Haven’t we touched on this over on the ‘Conditioning’ thread?
Conditioning in animals and humans is part of nature, part of physical and evolutionary survival.
But where conditioning moves inwards, resulting in a thought-created psyche with new thought-created threats and needs/desires, the problem begins.
The latter may be “fixable” (in the sense that it is something our natural awareness, intelligence and insight may be capable of resolving/dissolving).
That’s why I added (after you quoted apparently) the “(psychological) conditioning” to my post. I’m talking about the conditioning that works on the psyche. There is what you can call good and bad (the terms are to be taken relatively/descriptively, not absolutely) psychological conditioning. Good fosters love, empathy, peace, compassion, tolerance. Bad fosters hate, violence, war on all levels. The problems arising from bad conditioning can be addressed and mitigated by better conditioning, which is what I think Krishnamurti did with his innovations in education. But the deeper problem of psychological conditioning itself, the problem with the psyche, is, I think (and obviously I could be very wrong) waaaaaaaaaay harder to address, especially species-wide.
I’m not sure how much it helps to split up conditioning into good and bad?
Good conditioning at a societal level would be - what? - Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark? They are all affluent democratic countries with a high degree of social and institutional trust. This looks nice, but Scandinavian countries are the way they are because of multiple factors that we can’t go into on a thread like this; and how replicable are they across the world as it is at present? Secularism, democracy, the welfare state are all good things, but will these by themselves resolve the central issue of human self-centredness?
So, whether or not humanity is capable of doing anything about it en masse, the central issue still seems to be the ‘wrong turn’ of psychological conditioning itself, rather than so-called good or bad conditioning.
I agree that the root is the ‘wrong turn.’ But I wonder^ if RealLeben (equivalent of RealPolitik in the ‘real life, real living’ realm) doesn’t call for an approach that is more realistic, takes into account how tremendously (perhaps insurmountably) difficult it is to change the root for most people? An evolutionary rather than revolutionary approach?
^ Note I said “I wonder” and that I am not concluding, preaching, or attacking. I’m looking.
I understand what you are saying, but - realistically speaking - isn’t this what progressive individuals within every society are already attempting to do? Whether they live in China, Iran, America, India or Europe, there are (some) people trying to bring about those very economic, social and educational changes (i.e. reforms) that will benefit society in the long run. But the problem is that the anti-progressive forces are often the most dominant. - For example, in both Palestine and Israel the current Hamas and right-wing Israeli governments have been democratically elected. In Russia Putin acts with great consent from ordinary Russians. The Islamist resurgence (ISIS, etc) across Africa wouldn’t have the strength it has if millions of people weren’t at least somewhat attracted to the Islamic faith. Social media wouldn’t be such a cesspool of misinformation if the majority of users weren’t tacitly encouraging sensationalism over actual facts. Etc, etc.
So while reforms are important and necessary (social, economic, educational, institutional), they do not address the central factor of psychological conditioning, the thought-created ego - which is the source of all these other crises.
I think I miscommunicated. Thought I was all clever using Realpolitik/Realleben, but just muddied the waters! I’m talking about addressing the Biggie, the egoic I. I agree that’s the root, or perhaps the main fruit of the root (attachment). The difference is I’m suggesting we take baby steps^ rather than go for the brass ring (ego transcendence). Krishnamurti’s pointers are (often, not always) to the brass ring, as I see it. And that’s amazing, beautiful, thank you Universe for giving us a man like that! He provides a sane, insightful, revolutionary non-way out of the worst humanity has been offering for so long. And that might work well on the individual level. But when it comes to the reality of planet-wide transformation, revolution is, in my opinion, far less likely to ‘work’ than evolution, slow change.
^ That implies path, and that goes against one of the cornerstones of Krishnamurti’s teachings, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth exploring, ja?
slow evolution of societal structures okay - but as for the psyche : what does slow evolution mean?
Good question. For the individual change may happen quickly, for the group it’s unlikely. Makes sense, the individual is a single mind^, the group is a collection of many different minds, and these minds would have to be in some kind of sync to change as a whole. ?
^ Though the argument can be made that a single mind is a ‘society’ of many sub-minds.
I’m with Douglas on this one. Societal change (by which I mean widespread social progress across a whole range of factors - education, equality between the sexes, social mobility, reduction of violence, etc) is inevitably gradual. A group cannot act immediately as an Individual can.
(I see you have just mentioned this fact - but talk of a group mind in sync sounds a little idealistic to me: the individual mind has to change first for any group mind to be affected).
But psychological evolution means what precisely? Having a better educational environment, more care in one’s upbringing, exposure to other cultures, contact with nature? - all this is necessary, but it does not touch the egoic root cause of our global predicament.
Are religions dealing with the thought-created mind? - I don’t think they are. So who is dealing with the egoic mind directly? And is the dealing with it of a gradual nature? - And if so, what is this gradual nature of transforming the thought-created egoic mind?
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Think murmuration: Perhaps the mind-brain of the lead bird needs to change (new direction) before the entire flock changes. But after the first mind changes, the group kind of changes as a whole organism with a mind of its own. Emergence?
So who is dealing with the egoic mind directly?
Eastern religions and Eastern/Western philosophies?
And is the dealing with it of a gradual nature?
Sometimes (various paths), sometimes not (sudden enlightenment traditions).
And if so, what is this gradual nature of transforming the thought-created egoic mind?
Paths? Development, evolution through a series of levels or milestones?
Yes, I am familiar with the concept - Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic resonance, etc. But first of all there need to be ‘lead birds’ who actually change! Right? - The assumption in group-mind/morphic resonance is that it gets easier for others to change once a critical threshold of transformations has been reached. But are there so many people who have been transformed that we can then speculate about what might happen if they do transform?! - This is called putting the cart before the horse.
Is this so? Isn’t most philosophy (Eastern or Western) merely engaging people at the level of their conceptual thinking? And aren’t most paths merely excuses for people not to face themselves without the consolation of superstitious beliefs, rituals, promises, dependence on authority, magic, etc?
I’m with you if by ‘the individual mind’ you mean ‘at least one individual mind.’ Not all individual minds in the group need to change before the group changes. Some minds may be unchanged, but go along with the group momentum. (Btw I’m not sure what to think of morphic resonance, I love the idea, but there are alotta ideas I love that have one foot in the realm of magical thinking!)
You asked about who is dealing with the ego directly. What do you mean by ‘directly?’
Did you mean to say, “there so many people who have been “transformed” that we can then speculate about what might happen if they do transform?!”
I don’t know what you’re saying here.
This may be true of social change, but I doubt that it is true of psychological mutation. Perhaps the threshold number of people who are able to make the leap to insight may make inquiry (and so insight) easier for other people… But first of all this is a massive PERHAPS, and second of all each individual consciousness still needs to undergo a mutation. This is not the same thing as merely adopting a new social more, such as accepting a non-white politician in a mostly white populace, or women’s equality, the marriage equality act, etc. Mutation will always be an original act, requiring creativity and insight within an individual’s brain. It cannot ever be taken for granted or assumed for the sake of argument - as you seem to be doing here (which is itself a form of magical thinking, right?).
Well this is the question. Religious people of various stripes claim to be dealing with the thought-created egoic mind directly, but are they? What they claim to be doing, and what they are actually doing, may be completely at odds with each other. And what they believe to be the direct approach may be false. - This is why it is incumbent on those of us who are interested to ask ourselves what it means to deal directly with the psyche. This would require proper discussion and inquiry, but my point was that one cannot assume that there are somehow millions of people doing this, because this is simply not the case (imo).