So we mean the state of not knowing then?
Too much “I don’t know”, as in stepping in front of a moving bus because “I don’t know”. 
A state of allowing for various possibilities beyond the known.
We shouldn’t allow for too many unsubstanstiated possibilities? That would be “too much scepticism”? As in maybe the world turns pink when no one’s looking?
As in allowing for the unknown to play out rather than let our thought(conditioning) distort it.
Hello Drax. I’m not sure I agree with you here. In my experience, one generally never has enough scepticism and doubt. We tend to pontificate, feeling and sounding so sure of what we say, when in actual fact we know very little at all. Here is K speaking about scepticism and doubt:
From Public Talk 10 in Saanen, 28 July 1963
“To look, you must have deep scepticism and doubt. Doubt the organised religions and doubt everything that you discover in yourself in your exploration. You cannot accept a thing that religions and society have imposed on the brain, nor all the reactions we have because we want something permanent, stable, certain. That is the craving, and when there is craving or desire for certainty or permanency, you have every kind of experience. With that experience, one is satisfied, contented, and remains in stagnation. But if there is, from the beginning, a questioning, a doubting, a scepticism in which you observe, feel, see, then that very scepticism, that very doubt brings about skill. That skill is absolutely necessary for a mind to explore something that it cannot possibly conceive or formulate.”
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Charley wasn’t explicit about what she meant by “free speech” in her post, but I took her to be referring to the dogmatic assertion of certain persons on the political “right” (in the US in particular) that they must be free to say anything or share anything they wish without censorship - including hate-speech, threatening violence, sharing ‘fake-news’, conspiracy theories, etc. This is obviously an abuse of the “freedom of speech” provision that most democratic countries have written into law.
However, when you say that these (and similar) “freedoms” (or rights) have no natural genesis, I wonder what you mean? All human beings wish to be free from violence, unfair treatment by others, tyrannical impositions by others, etc. The desire for freedom is a natural, healthy human demand. All animals have it, and humans are also animals. So while one can agree that the specific ways in which this demand for freedom have been codified by different countries has its basis in thought, the demand for freedom itself goes back to our animal genesis, to our humanity. No sentient creature wishes upon itself violence and imposed confinement - and will, if healthy, rebel against such treatment.
Intellectualism is a subtle thing, like belief. It can afflict a person even when they feel themselves to be completely free of it - sometimes especially when they feel themselves to be free of it. This is because the intellect is not merely a matter of reading books: it is our unconscious assumptions about ourselves and each other, about the world, about truth. These assumptions can hide under ‘spiritual’ rocks, claiming not to be assumptions; this is why doubt and scepticism remain important even for those who feel that they have seen truth (especially for those who feel they have seen truth).
I think skepticism and doubt lead to freedom. So why put the dog on leash ? The house is on fire, the world , my world is on fire. They are killing people. Doubt and questioning leads to freedom from authority and fear which is the essence of “me”.
Hi Sean, James, Examiner
I am not saying at all that don’t be sceptical. Healthy, right kind is scepticism is absolutely essential to discover the truth. Otherwise belief , delusion takes over. But if we are too sceptical usually end up going in circles as scepticism, questioning etc can and is used frequently for protecting our own biases and conditioning. We can keep on questioning something which doesn’t appeal to our deep inner preferences/beliefs.
A few quotes from K regarding this……
Flight of the eagle p 62
”Perhaps now you would like to ask questions and so go into this
matter, bearing in mind that it is very easy to ask questions, but to ask the right question is one of the most difficult things. Which doesn’t mean the speaker is preventing you from asking questions. We must ask questions, we must doubt everything anybody has said, books, religions, authorities, everything! We must question, doubt, be sceptical. But we must also know when to let scepticism go by and to ask the right question, because in that very question lies the answer. So if you want to ask questions, please do.”.
4th public talk, Ojai , May 10 1981
“So please observe yourself, your environment, your society, and your own thoughts with considerable doubt. And also listen to the speaker with doubt, with question, demanding of yourself. You are doubting all that you have thought, observed, learnt, so that a mind, the brain is free to observe. And also doubt must be kept on a leash, like a dog. If you keep a dog on the leash all the time the poor animal withers, you must know when to let it go, run, chase, jump. Similarly one must hold doubt on a leash, and also one must learn the subtlety when to let it go.”
18th Dialogue with Dr Anderson, feb 1974 San Diego
“A: This is extraordinary in terms of the continuing return to question. It seems to me that it’s only in the attitude of the question that there’s any possibility even intuiting from afar the possibility of the silence, since already the answer is a noise.
K: Ah, yes. So, sir, just a minute, there is something very interesting. Does this come up through questioning?
A: No. I didn’t mean to suggest that questioning generates it. I meant that simply to take a step back from the enthralment and enchantment with answers is in itself a necessary step.
K: Of course.
A: And that in itself has its own terror.
K: Of course, of course. So I’m asking, is silence, is the sense of the immeasurable, does that come about by my questioning?
A: No.
K: No.
A: No.
K: No. Perception sees the false and discards the false. There is no question, it sees, and finished. But if I keep on questioning I keep on doubting. Doubt has its place but it must be kept on a leash.”
My point is West has codified these things as some sort of absolute, inviolable laws of mankind, whereas these are nothing more than codified thoughts of the thinkers of that era. These have not evolved from some holistic observation of the world. I mean liberty, equality, fraternity etc are no doubt noble and lofty principles based on thought but not on ‘what is’.
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Hello Drax. Thanks for posting this. I suppose it’s a question of where we all draw the line with doubt. Letting it off the leash and letting it run free now and again seems very healthy though.
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Drawing the line,
-
Nobody believes in anything anymore - thank the Lord! Which has its misfortune, because doubt is a good thing - doubt, but it must be kept on a leash. And, to hold it intelligently on a leash is to enquire, but to doubt everything has no meaning.”
J. Krishnamurti, Brockwood Park, 4th Public Talk, 17th September 1972 -
“…if you doubt all the time, then it doesn’t lead anywhere, but know when to release and when to hold it in check. That requires intelligence. But to doubt when you release, why you release the dog, your acceptance, and so on”
J. Krishnamurti, Bombay, 3rd Public Talk, 30th January 1982
So understanding where to draw the line between allowing the dog to run free and doubt and when the hold it on a leash requires intelligence.
Please recall that intelligence just means to “read between the lines” (both K and Bohm). And a large part of K’s message was that of awakening intelligence in his listeners, for which he made it quite clear that the only way to do that was to realize that because knowledge is limited (K) - that is never complete (K) - and that knowledge generates thought (psychological thought) - again (K), that psychological knowledge must be dropped (put aside) - again (K). And psychological knowledge is that which tries to understand the human condition, as differentiated from technical thought (such as found in engineering, science, medicine, etc.)
And while intelligence, like compassion (which literally means “love for all”) both exist outside the field of thought, outside the brain, they do not mean the same thing. Having one thing like intelligence does not necessarily mean that one has the other (compassion) within oneself (or vice versa).
Drax, if one looks at human history, one finds that wherever complex societies have emerged - in the form of cities, city states or empires - the codification of ethical laws, parameters of fairness and justice (aka “rights”), have followed. There is no civilisation in history that lacks some form of codification of law.
From what we know of the Rigveda of ancient India (composed sometime between 1500 and 1000 BCE), there is already a recognition of natural order (Ṛta), which seems to have been the basis for later Hindu codifications of conduct in the Dharmasastras (600–200 BCE) and the Manusmriti - or laws of Manu - (200 BCE - 200 CE). In the Buddhist world, which continued the principle of natural order (Ṛta) - through its upholding of the notion of Dharma (law) - a notable secular codification took the form of the famous Edicts of Ashoka (268 BCE to 232 BCE), while the the monastic rules codified the conduct of monks and nuns from very soon after the Buddha’s death.
In ancient Babylon the famous code of Hammurabi (1755–1750 BCE) upheld principles of fairness and respect for the rule of law; while the Hebraic covenant law (740–640 BCE) and the Deuteronomic Code that followed it (621 BCE) represent similar codifications for the ancient Israelis.
In Greece, especially Athens, the codification of law began from at least 600 BCE, and gradually evolved into explicit notions of political order (such as the proto-Democratic order for which it is most well-known). While in China the Analects of Confucius (475–221 BCE) set down the expected ethical conduct for rulers and family members for over 2000 years, and whose influence continues in modern China to this day.
As I mentioned before, humans are animals, and all animals have their own order, their own natural “codes” of conduct. At one extreme these orders can be very crude, but in pro-social mammals (such as apes and cetaceans) these orders are often quite subtle and complex, even though they are not written down in documents or justified by rational argument.
In human society these orders can be even more rarified. As we know, a unifying ethical principle across ancient Indian religions - including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism - was the concept of Ahimsa (meaning “non-harm”, or “non-injury”). This notion was rooted in the feeling that all living things share the same essential life force. It is, in essence, a declaration of equality at the level of life. As the early Buddhists put it:
All tremble at the rod,
all hold their life dear.
Drawing the parallel to yourself,
neither kill nor get others to kill. (Dhammapada)
This feeling of ahimsa (non-harm), combined with a perception of natural order that all societies have had, arguably underpins many of the principles of fairness and justice, equality before the law - including the language of “rights”, etc - that civil society has evolved over centuries.
So while I completely accept that the codifications themselves are fictions, myths, elaborated through thought, I question whether they are not shadows of some very basic perception of the world that our ancestors (both human and nonhuman) had from the very earliest of times:
- that we live in relationship with each other (and so are not to cause unnecessarily harm to one another); and
- that the universe has an order, and that we are part of that order.
Krishnamurti was well aware that there are people who become sceptical for scepticism’s sake, who become cynical, who become nihilistic in their doubts (dismissing out of hand the possibility of virtue, love, the value of life, etc), or merely sophistical (doubting everything that another person says as a means of argumentation). There are people who cast unnecessary doubt on the existence of the world; while there are others (conspiracy theorists of different kinds) who doubt the veracity of clearly historical events (such as the holocaust, the moon-landings, etc), or scientific facts about nature (e.g. the effects of global heating). So doubt, in the wrong hands, can be a poison.
However, Krishnamurti was very clear that doubt - used correctly - is a vital part of human inquiry. He often contrasted the dogmatism of the Abrahamic traditions with the sceptical approach of the ancient Hindus and Buddhists, for whom doubt was seen as something positive. He said that “people of the book” tend to become very narrow and dogmatic, while doubt, scepticism, is a cleansing fire that burns through falsehoods.
As with all things, one has to use sensitivity and basic intelligence (or common sense) in using doubt. But the greater threat to mankind is dogmatism, not doubt. It is the dogmatic followers of the great religious and political teachers and leaders who have caused the most destruction on earth, not those who have been sceptical. And we must also be aware of those who want to turn K’s teachings into a new dogmatism. K said to reject authority in spiritual matters, and one cannot reject authority without first doubting it.
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Yes, of course social codes indeed are formed over time in various cultures. But these social codes till now have largely evolved naturally to conform to those social environments rather than some ideas/concepts being conjured out of thin air by the thinkers and then bring declared as universal values and imposed wholesale all over the world.
This means there were fewer psychological structures which meant less strife in the society.
Unfortunately thought is worshipped in current society and thinking and analysis is the basis to solve all the problems which complicates the situation and creates further problems.
Being an Indian I am well aware of of enquiry/doubt being bedrock of eastern and especially Indian religions and western religions being dogmatic etc. In K work obviously doubt gains even more prominence.
And nowhere did I say otherwise just with the caveat of going overboard with doubt.
As far as I am aware the concept of universal values goes back to the origins of all the major religions and cultures, most likely born out of their own relationship to the cosmologies of their time.
More specific codifications of what we might call international law began with trade and peace agreements between city-states, such as between early Mesopotamian city-states or Greek city-states etc (with similar treaties and agreements being adopted in China, India, and Rome).
In Europe, a major motor for the realisation of international law was the attempt to limit the destructiveness of war: the treaty of Westphalia (1648 CE) concluded two major wars in Europe, and forced European societies to recognise and respect national sovereignty. A couple of centuries later, the evolution of a cosmopolitan and more internationalist outlook developed, in part because of thinkers like Kant, but for the most part driven by political necessity - until the 1st and 2nd World Wars (particularly the Nazi atrocities) created the context for a broader recognition of international rules of law, with specific “rights” articulated in the non-binding Universal Declaration of Human Rights document of 1948 (parts of which have since been ratified by all 193 members of the United Nations).
These rights - as with all legal codifications - are fictions, but they represent society’s best efforts to date to accept an agreed upon set of norms and guidelines that delimit human conduct and responsibility globally. They have not been invented out of thin air.
In earlier cultures thought( which divides) not being put on a pedestal, there used to be some love and compassion to various degrees.
How I see is(and I could be wrong) Western reason, thought era started as a reaction to the extreme Christian dogmatism. from thereon the social values like liberty, equality etc and the various fundamental rights were thought out giving individuality of each person prominence. So the whole jargon of human rights, this right that right etc started.
This individuality is what is causing maximum strife currently, the way I see it. Once each person separates himself from others love/compassion disappears and conflicts and psychological problems on a mass scale are inevitable isn’t it.
I find it of value to see in oneself this ‘fury’ called ‘hatred’. Its force is terrific! Always there ready to erupt. But covered over and repressed , covered over by ‘goodness’ and ‘kindness’ etc. Areal jewel like K’s ‘anger.
I see what you are saying Drax, but reason (or thought, thinking) is not Western or Eastern is it? - all human communities have operated using thought. If we take India for example, thought was obviously responsible for creating the caste system. The separation of communities was most likely initially a means of maintaining harmonious relations between the new Indo-Aryan Vedic arrivals from Iran, and the Dravidian and aboriginal Indians who predated them, and kept tensions to a minimum. But over time this stratification of society required the sanction of authority and religion, which involved thought and reason, with lasting consequences for all the communities involved. All societies - in China, Babylon, Egypt and ancient Greece - have employed thinking to justify the cosmology or ethical practices of the period, the political and religious reasons for governance and belief, etc. So thought is human, not a particular speciality of one human community.
And within this broad expression of human culture, it is certainly the case that some cultures have emphasised the importance of the collective over the individual - this is true of India and China for instance. While other cultures have emphasised the importance of the individual (e.g. modern Western culture). These are important cultural differences.
Behind all of these differences, however, is still our common humanity. At some level, all human codes of law are merely the reflection - no matter how distorted or tangential they may be, and no matter how different they may be from each other - of a basic human valuation of life, or the value of human life per se (sometimes including animal life). That is to say, all human beings (not just Westerners or Europeans) want to be secure from war and violence, to have some freedom to live and marry, and to improve their lives economically. It is the function of any government and any society to bring this about for the community.
So while it is true that the particular language and history of “human rights” comes out of an individualist Western approach to law, the values these “rights” are attempting to protect denote the value (and dignity) of human life - whether this is articulated using a collectivist language (with more of a socio-economic valence) or using the language of individual protections from harm.
Remember that the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were responses to the terrible war in Europe in which millions of Jews died in a brutal holocaust, and where the concept of crimes against humanity (and later genocide) came to be articulated in response to these atrocities. They were an attempt to regulate the power of the state in perpetuating these and similar crimes.
So at that level, I don’t see the attempt to recognise the dignity of human life as an East-West dilemma. All cultures recognise the value of life (ahimsa being one of the earliest principles to articulate this).
History is a set of lies agreed upon."
Napoleon Bonaparte
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