“This demands that you WORK…either you work HARD…” I was reminded of the famous commercial for Nike sneakers…“Just Do It!” In sports that means, be the best…hit that home run…win the game for the team…that kind of thing…succeed at all costs. Or alternatively, if you’re too tired to keep up your training routine…if you want to quit and take a rest…the coach says 'whether you’re tired or not, Just Do It!" Why is K talking like a Nike commercial or a football coach in this short video? Effort is of the self and of time isn’t it? You have a goal in mind and you work hard to achieve it, right? This is an action of the ‘me’, no? Does anyone else find that this ‘working like hell’ to achieve some kind of change or transformation only creates division and strengthens the self image? “We don’t change because we don’t want to. If you want to do something, you do it!” Oh really? If you want to do something, that’s thought…an idea or image of what you want…will…self. Sorry, but it appears that K is taken over by ideas and ideal here.
We are aways “just doing it” - what changes is which “it” it is that we are doing.
If we really want to investigate fear, anger or loneliness etc - we must be really interested in seeing what fear is, what it is, its source etc - This means that we must not be dependant on what we know - nor be aiming for any particular conclusion (the known actually leads to conclusions - so this is really the same thing)
True curiosity is therefore already freedom from the known - freedom from habit - which requires energy.
This is also known as the “flow” - when you are truly into something, (music, art, philosophy, gardening etc) there is no effort because “you” are absent.
In some talks he claims ‘no effort is necessary’ if I recall correctly. And that will is the ‘me’. He also claimed that trying to free oneself/‘me’ of the me is like trying to lift oneself by one’s own bootstraps. Yet, here in this video he’s saying ‘just do it!’ This is an absurd contradiction, no? It can also create a feeling of guilt or shame when I fail to ‘do it’…due to a comparison of poor little old ‘me’ with this (superior) guy who has ‘done it’. “He says I should ‘do it’, and I can’t. What’s wrong with me?” I think. He’s also creating a ‘should’, isn’t he (though he always spoke against such ‘shoulds’)? Listening to the video don’t I feel that he’s telling me that I SHOULD do it? Obviously most of us cannot do it if you look around you…all the violence and depression…drinking, drugs, murder and mayhem in the world. And many actually follow the ‘teaching’ closely and still cannot do it. He himself said it…‘no one got it’, I think were his words on his death bed.
Yes, of course. I’m a musician and when ‘in the flow’ the music just…well, flows…with no effort at all. It seems like the music is playing itself. This is when improvising…playing jazz or even blues. I’m a guitar player for many years. However we come up against a barrier to the flow when there’s great fear or conflict. I’m not actively resisting the flow of music or trying to change it (unless I’m judging what I’m playing), but when fear is present I resist or try to eliminate it. Well, most of us do don’t we? If we stayed with it, we’d all be free…and happy. But we’re obviously not. We’re only happy when we’re experiencing pleasure or fulfillment of our desires…or expecting fulfillment. What do you mean when you say that freedom from the known…from habit…requires energy?
We are lazy - creatures of habit. Energy efficiency is a thing that evolution has adopted for obvious reasons. We avoid using extra energy as much as possible - only if we really, really have to. This is why a Republican votes Trump. Changing world views requires effort and concentration - and opportunity (ie context: education, circumstance)
The paradox comes in with meditation - which is the decision to make the effort to be non-dependant on effort , and motivated to let go of motivation - K would say because we have realised what effort and motivation is.
Ha! A paradox indeed. Any decision is from ‘me’…from desire…will…motive…goal. And I can decide to be free of all that? Or perhaps I can simply observe what I am…all that… without trying to be free of it?
Absolutely - by trying to be free of it, you have missed it.
No point trying to be free of me, before seeing first what me is.
The only motivation must be to see what I am - the only effort must be against the idea that I know.