No - I was asking (Rick) a question: is it a fact that there are already so many people who have been transformed that we can begin to speculate about group-mind mutation events? - I don’t think there are. And so speculating about group-mind mutation events seems to be just - speculative.
According to the group-mind theory, if one individual brain transforms this makes it easier for others around them to transform (or, according to Sheldrake’s morphic resonance theory, even at a distance from them). But this whole group-mind theory depends on some individual brains actually transforming - and this is the whole point of the thread: namely that there are so few, vanishingly few people who have been transformed. Which is why the world is in such a mess. So to speculate about what would happen if what hasn’t yet happened somehow did happen seems incorrect.
So you find this blog irrelevant. That is why you have to resort to the past comments which are dead , gone, cleared up at their time.
I don’t write too much. The number of words that I have written in this forum is one tenth of the number of words that you have used. So it is useless to focus on each other’s flaws.
Maybe. I don’t think we know how large-scale transformation would work or if it’s even possible. And that’s what we’re talking about, right: global(ish) transformation, the ‘setting right’ of the wrong turn.
I’d say there are quite possibly millions of people who are passionately interested in coming to an understanding what makes the ego tick. But most are probably not exploring the ego directly, in the sense I think you are using the term. They’re studying it in a subject/object way, which seems more the indirect rather than direct way in.
Let us agree to this. Moving on from that, what are your thoughts on the questions people have raised so far on this thread?
What do you consider is the world’s present crisis? Is it any of the things that were mentioned in the first reply to the OP? Or is it all of them together?
Or do you feel perhaps that the chief crisis (i.e. the one we can most readily address in ourselves) is in human consciousness itself rather than in any of the external happenings in the world?
Right. So rather than us asking (speculatively) about how a multitude of transformed minds may or may not affect the group-mind, we perhaps ought to begin by finding out what may (or may not) be involved in the transformation of a single brain. Right? I think this is logical.
Leaping all the way to global transformation would be an act of almost pure speculation. Exploring transformation for the individual seems like a logical start. A next step up might be to explore the enlightenment patterns within a small group of likeminded individuals, monks in a monastery?
It’s important, I think, to keep in mind that the awakening of a single person may or may not mean higher probability for the awakening of other people the awakened one is intimate with.
I don’t know what this means? I don’t assume that monks in a monastery are closer to enlightenment than you or me who are not in a monastery.
I was thinking more simply - perhaps to begin by asking what it is that we are saying needs to be transformed (when we talk about a single brain being transformed)?
As we said, we are putting the group-mind issue aside for the time being.
I just don’t want to make extravagant assumptions - such as saying that I know what enlightenment is, etc.
Putting aside the gentlemen and ladies in the monasteries who are on their journey to enlightenment, I’m asking what do we, the two of us, understand by transformation?
When we say that a single brain needs to be transformed, what is it that we are thinking needs to be transformed?
Yes human consciousness is the core of crisis in the present world as K pointed out. Because consciousness is divided by thought as Arab consciousness verse Jew’s consciousness . American verses Russian consiousness , Republican consiousness verses democratic consiousness and so on.
The only solution I see is to have right kind of education for the next generation. The present education which is based on competition and comparison has to change or the next generations will be as violent and ruthless as the present generation is.
Right. So in order to change human consciousness we need better education, which means we need different schools and educators - which means we need individual human brains, not dissimilar to those of us on Kinfonet (and elsewhere), to be transformed/changed.
So the question for us all is, what will make us change/transform? And, what do we mean by change/transformation? (i.e. transform from what to what?)
Obviously imo what needs to be transformed is the egoic tendency in human beings. The thought-created ‘me’ - with all its contents of conditioning.
Do you agree with this? If we are able to meet in the middle about what needs to be transformed, then we can begin to examine the next step. I.e.
But there’s no point in discussing transformation as a process in time (or not as a process in time) unless we can agree what it is that we wish to see transformed. Is that not fair?
I am going to take the ‘we’ to heart and not say what Krishnamurti meant, rather what I mean. The ‘we’ will come in later when we start to compare notes.
What do I mean by ‘transformation of a human brain?’
Well I am not a neuroscientist or brain specialist, so I can’t talk knowledgeably about the anatomy and physiology of brain transformation. I could speculate, but would rather not.
That said, for me, a transformed brain is a brain that has either 1) acquired new and ‘better’ patterns of thinking and behaving (enlightened self), or 2) has become free from patterns (no-self). I mean patterns driven by the self, not practical patterns like how to use the Internet. 2 is deeper but way harder to arrive at. A mix of some degree of 1 and 2 is possible, I’d think.
Thank you Rick. I don’t know though if you have answered the question of what it is that we are wanting to transform when we talk about transformation?
You have said what the result of transformation ought to be (or could be): either 1) a better self, or 2) no self.
What is the self to you (when you talk about either/both 1 and 2)?
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away.
– William Hughes Mearns
Sorry but I couldn’t resist, thought you might appreciate.
What is the self to me? It’s the question, isn’t it, worth revisiting o’er and o’er.
My answer for today, now: The self is who-what I feel I am. I realize that’s vague and minimal, but hopefully it’s enough to get the exploration started.
Inspired by reports of a ghost of a man roaming the stairs of a haunted house, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, the poem was originally part of a play called The Psyco-ed , which Mearns had written for an English class at Harvard University, circa 1899.[2] In 1910,
In order to develop this in a bit more detail I will respond to this on the ‘What do we mean by self’ thread, because this may be considered off topic (so far as the present thread is concerned).
For fun I asked GPT what the consequences would be if the % of people free from attachment to the ego ‘I’ would increase from its current level which I estimated at about 1% to 10%. Here’s its response (GPT provided explanations for the consequences that I edited out):
Positive Consequences:
Increased Empathy and Compassion
Reduced Conflict and Violence
Enhanced Global Cooperation
Improved Mental Health
Greater Environmental Awareness
Ethical Political and Economic Systems
Enhanced Innovation and Problem-Solving
Negative Consequences:
Potential for Naivety
Social and Cultural Disruption
Resistance to Change
Loss of Personal Identity
Potential for Apathy
Uneven Distribution
Misuse of Influence
So, a reminder that this thread is about the present world crisis (or crises), and that apart from all the terrible crises in the world right now the source of these multiple crises is in human consciousness itself - something has gone wrong in human consciousness. What has gone wrong is that this consciousness has become egoic, self-centred. So it is this egoic consciousness that needs to be transformed.
