How lucky we are that’s not allways at the same time 
I’m an outsider to this conversation, so I don’t know how you both (Paul and Rick) arrived at this point - but I think this issue of our relationship to any particular content (or reaction) of consciousness (in this case sorrow) is worth looking at a little.
When Paul writes that
I can understand why Rick might find the language confusing (at least the part about ‘sorrow questioning sorrow’) -
However, I take Paul’s statement to be more poetic than literal (though he can correct me on this). What I take him to be saying is that the reaction (of sorrow) is not separate from oneself - and so any further exploration into the meaning of this reaction (sorrow) cannot be done from a point of view which purportedly stands ‘outside’ of the reaction. The reaction itself (sorrow) must do the exploring - poetically speaking. That is - if we accept that the reaction of sorrow is not separate from ourselves, then we ourselves (in that moment) are sorrow.
This is probably the point that is not clear, hence the confusion.
But if one is the reaction (sorrow) then it doesn’t make sense to ask questions of that reaction from a separate space in the mind - as this will only put space and time between the questioner and the reaction it self. I think this is what Paul was meaning.
A little further up the thread Rick mentioned that
I think this is on the right lines. However, the question in this case is not a verbal question, but the reaction of sorrow. So what happens when the reaction (sorrow) is able to ‘stand on its own’, unattached to any separate questioner?
That is - to put it differently - what happens when one sees that sorrow and oneself are not two different entities, two separate movements, but (in the moment of reaction at least) the same unitary event?
Surely, then there is an opportunity for the reaction itself (sorrow) to tell its own story (poetically speaking). The sorrow has its own ‘story’ to communicate, to unfold - if it is permitted complete freedom to do so: i.e., if the observer is the observed.
So is this the issue - the question of whether sorrow is oneself?
That is definitely clearer, thanks. Paul, is that what you meant?
Again, way more clear, but is it what Paul meant? That’s the liability with poetry when used to communicate, right? By its nature it invites interpretation. And everyone interprets differently.
I dunno. It seems like a stretch to me. A sleight of linguistic hand! On the one hand Krishnamurti says that “I am nothing.” On the other this says: “I am sorrow.” Those statements are incompatible. If you leave the I out of the equation, it reads better: There is sorrow. But it’s not got as cool a ring to it.
Definitely. If anger rears its head when I’m getting reviewed by my boss, I want to have the wherewithal to keep it hidden. Ditto for all manner of inappropriate thoughts and emotions.
Wait a second! 
You are comparing two different statements made by Krishnamurti which have two very different contexts.
The statement (made by Krishnamurti) “I am nothing” is a statement that he can make, but a person who is in sorrow cannot make.
So, for example, if you look at a discussion he had with Pupul Jayakar titled - Why are we frightened to be nothing? - it is clear that this nothingness is the result of a deep insight into the mind, in which the mind has been completely emptied of its psychological content (as suffering):
If the structure of time and thought ends the now has totally a different meaning. The now then is nothing…. You see, I am talking of the fact of a realisation that there is nothing. The psyche is a bundle of memories - right? - and those memories are dead. They operate, they function, but they are the outcome of past experience which has gone. I am a movement of memories. Right? Now if I have an insight into that, there is nothing. I don’t exist…. That is, the ending of the movement which is the psyche…. The ending of that is to be nothing. Nothing then contains the whole universe - not my petty little fears and petty little anxieties and problems, and my sorrow with regard to, you know, a dozen things.
After all, Pupulji, nothing means the entire world of compassion - compassion is nothing. And therefore that nothingness is supreme intelligence. (2nd Conversation with Pupul Jayakar, “Why are we frightened to be nothing?”, Brockwood Park 1985)
So the person who is truly nothing, is full of compassion and intelligence - not the person who is in sorrow.
In the case of the statement “I am sorrow”, this is still a content of the mind, a content in consciousness - aka a ‘thing’ (not nothing).
So when Krishnamurti says “I am sorrow” or “I am fear”, he is taking the part of a person who has the reaction of sorrow or fear (not the mind of someone free from content). This is why he often talked about our reactions (of sorrow or fear, etc) as being jewels that should be observed with care, with love - to give a poetic sense of what the statement “I am sorrow” really means.
For example:
Have you ever held fear? Hold it. Not move away from it. Not try to suppress it, run away from it, or transcend it, or do all kinds of things with it, just to see the depth of the fear, the extraordinary subtleties of fear. And you can only be aware of all that when one is looking at it without any motive, without trying to do a thing about it, just watch it… Fear is an extraordinary jewel… And if you can hold it and look at it, then one begins to see the ending of it. (Public Talk 2 Brockwood Park, England - 26 August 1984)
It is like having a marvellous jewel in your hand, the more you look at it, the more the beauty of that jewel is revealed. Similarly if you look, if you hold sorrow, never move away from it, then you will see how immense it is, not just sorrow, the pain, and the anxiety, but in that observation of sorrow, passion comes. (Public Talk 3 Chennai, India, 5th January 1985)
And here, for Krishnamurti, ‘passion’ means compassion.
So for Krishnamurti the very observation of fear or sorrow - as intrinsic aspects of our own psyche (i.e. without the division of an observer separate from the observed content) - is synonymous with the ending, the emptying, of those contents. Only when the mind is empty of sorrow or fear can it truly say “I am nothing.”
Do you see the difference?
Yes, that’s right.
That’s also right. I am sorrow. So any attempt to do something about it again separates the observer from the observed.
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Yes, this is also clear. While the mind seeks to act upon sorrow or act upon fear it is acting as an observer of its own observed self.
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Is what is pointed to by I in “I am sorrow” different from what is pointed to by I in “I am nothing?”
In other words: Is there an essential I/self/identity that I, in all its forms, ultimately points to?
Is this question useless, speculation-masturbation? Or the most important question of all?
I am nothing = there is no entity to be found that can be called the I
I am sorrow = sorrow in the moment of sorrow is the manifestation of I, in that moment there is no me that is happiness etc… In that moment there is nothing other than sorrow that you can point to and say : I am also that.
I am sorrow/nothing is language being used to point at something. What it is pointing at is a pattern formed by causes and conditions, when sorrow becomes aversion to sorrow, or desire to observe sorrow, the pattern has already changed. Wanting to pin down the pattern and say this is it, is bound to be unsuccessful. Go pin down the eddies in the local stream.
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Does the I exist as in
“I am, but am not findable”
or not exist as in
“I am not”
?
I is a process - a pattern in the stream of life - a feeling arising from the brain
So it exists, along these lines, it is real rather than illusory. ?
It is an illusion that really exists - we feel it. It is an actual, powerful illusion. People dying of thirst in the desert really do see mirages - mirages exist - but there is no water.
There is no center separate from what it sees.
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As macdougdoug points out, the statement “I am nothing” is a façon de parler, a figurative manner of speaking.
The word is not the thing, right? (as Krishnamurti endlessly pointed out). So there is no ‘I’ in nothing.
Whereas sorrow is the very essence of the ‘I’: the ‘I’ is itself suffering. So when suffering ends, so does the ‘I’ - and vice versa, if the ‘I’ ends, suffering ends with it.
Expressed literally, there is no ‘I’ that is suffering, because the ‘I’ is suffering itself.
So the language Krishnamurti uses is merely a façon de parler pointing out what is to be realised directly by the mind.
A mirage appears to be a body of water, but is actually just a visual artifact of air and light and heat.
We know what I appears to be: me! And we know the drill: The I is an identification with perceptions, sensations, and memory, blah blah blah. But is that all there is to I, does it reduce to a tidy formula?
The jury’s out on that one for me. 
Remember on the other thread we discussed the distinction Krishnamurti made between reality, actuality and truth?
Illusions are powerful realities created by the mind, but they are not actually real - they are realities (in K-speak).
In his discussions with Bohm Krishnamurti called suffering an “actuality in the field of reality” - because suffering has an actuality, as pain, agony, which exists irrespective of how it got there (it is the creation of reality, in K-speak).
Whereas what nothingness points to is the truth (in K-speak).
We have a perfect saying in France in response to this statement : “Quand le sage montre la lune, l’idiot regard le doigt”.
The tidy formula is just the finger pointing - and as I’m saying it, I must be the wise guy 
This could be very wise if it means “I don’t know”
However, before we become enlightened nobodies, we can examine the evidence : some of which includes the current scientific models.
So not “I exists, but is unfindable” rather “I doesn’t exist.” ?
That would mean “There is sorrow” is more accurate than “I am sorrow.” ?
It means for me: I don’t know for sure, though I have a gut feeling about it. The jury is split, maybe 2/3 to 1/3, and the discussion rages on.
What makes you think there is a center separate from what it sees?
You are not allowed to say : “it feels like I am” because thats what is being discussed (circular confusion aka fallacy of circular reasoning)
I am sorrow is more specific and useful for the subject at hand. We want to see what sorrow and I is