During the walk, I suddenly appeared to have produced a big smile to which my partner inquired about the source.
We call this a forest here but in fact it is a collected quantity of trees planted by monks some 150 years ago.
We recently drove along the forgotten highway in New Zealand in a natural forest that is different cake. So when those people there hear the word forest they have a totally different picture in front of them.
If Krishnamurti thought it was not possible he wouldn’t have spent his life talking to conditioned brains.
What will end this? Is there sthg that will end it?
I don’t know, but my understanding of K’s teaching is that it can’t happen without interest in and acute awareness of what thought is doing and why.
Better to die while inquiring into why you live the way you do than to die full of conclusions you never questioned.
I don’t know, but if there is nothing the conditioned brain can do to address its condition, Krishnamurti wouldn’t have talked about it.
In the moment I’m rereading a book by David Bohm “On Dialogue” and I find it very helpful what he says about “Observer and Observed” Chapter 5, p.79 - 82.
This is a link to the pdf : david-bohm-on-dialogue-2004-.pdf — Are.na
Mantra or not, is it true? We know the conditioned brain is limited, but we may not know that it imposes and establishes its limits for fear of living in the world as it actually is, in favor of living in the world as it should/should not be. That is, the conditioned brain chooses to live in the world on its terms instead of living choicelessly with what actually is.
But if this isn’t self-evidently true, it’s just a mantra, just words to recite. Are you not aware of how the brain’s limits are chosen, self-imposed?
It is only when the mind, which has taken shelter behind the walls of self-protection, frees itself from its own creations that there can be that exquisite reality. After all, these walls of self-protection are the creations of the mind which, conscious of its insufficiency, builds these walls of protection, and behind them takes shelter. One has built up these barriers unconsciously or consciously, and one’s mind is so crippled, bound, held, that action brings greater conflict, further disturbances.
Krishnamurti
And what about the ambiguity of the knowing? I.e. i use the word ‘ambiguity’ because i know the word and what it means (which is thinking, no) but at the same time it gives me a sense of being a kind of intellectual, which is highly appreciated in our society ,which gives me a certain feeling that I matter.
So, there is a practical thinking (which is born out of our memory ) and which is extremely useful and there is this other kind of thinking which causes me a lot of problems and comes from the memory as well which is also knowing.
You might suggest to delete that part which causes the problems but in this suggestion there is a ‘me’ that will or can do the job.
I wonder whether this lead to sthg at all?
Your call.
yes, I’d say practical knowledge is usefull, knowledge about me (self/observer) is problematic.
After finding it very well presented here, let me offer a quote:
“Normally we don’t see that our assumptions are affecting the nature of our observations. But the assumptions affect the way we see things, the way we experience them, and, consequently, the things that we want to do. In a way, we are looking through our assumptions; the assumptions could be said to be an observer in a sense.
When we observe we forget that, and we are looking without taking that into account. But this “observer” profoundly affects what it is observing, and is also affected by what it is observing – there is really very little separation between them. If the emotions are what are being observed, then the “observing” assumptions are profoundly affected by the emotions, and the emotions are profoundly affected by the assumptions.
On the other hand, if you say the emotions are the observer, and are determining the way things are organized, then the assumptions will be the observed. Either way, the observed is profoundly affected by the observer, and the observer by the observed – they really are one cycle, one process. The separation between them is not very significant.
If, on the other hand, I observe a chair on the other side of the room, what’s going on in me is not very much affected by the chair; and what’s going on in the chair is not profoundly affected by me. We could say in that case that the observer is significantly different from the observed. But when looking at your emotions or looking at your thoughts, that cannot be the case. Similarly, when looking at society or looking at another person, what you see depends on your assumptions, and you will get an emotional reaction from that person which enters you and affects the way you see.”
David Bohm, “On Dialogue” , The Observer and the Observed, page 110
No. Look it up.
You might suggest to delete that part which causes the problems but in this suggestion there is a ‘me’ that will or can do the job.
The problem isn’t that there is a “me”, the agent of action, but that there’s only the illusion of me that the conditioned brain can’t see while it generates a constant stream of confusion by fusing practical thought with psychological thought.
The brain, conditioned by its fear of what it doesn’t know and its delusion of knowing more than it does, interprets awareness instead of choicelessly observing. To put it simply, we are wearing glasses of our own design to spare ourselves the shock of seeing what we’re actually doing.
Sir, believe it or not, but i know what ambiguity means (and ofcourse it is not thinking)
Is the me an illusion? I don’t know.
It seems real but that what an illusion is all about, no? How to find out?
The only thing that comes in my mind is the effect that the me has in our daily life.
Society has been build up by the billions of me’s and look what society has become.
Need i say more?
The urgency to change will not come from the me, illusionary or not.
If the illusory nature of the “me” was obvious, that would be the end of it. I say it’s an illusion because despite being too confused to see clearly, the fact that I can believe I am whatever/whoever I choose to be in the moment (regardless of evidence to the contrary) demonstrates that I am The Arbiter of Truth for as long as I can believe it. And the truth about I is that I can believe whatever sustains or advances my imagined identity.
The urgency to change will not come from the me, illusionary or not.
I wouldn’t be too sure. For all we know, the ego can be as suicidal as it is determined to “live”.
Is it about believe we are talking? The strenght of one’s belief? The belief that I can choose, whatever the circumstances are? Because I believe (excuse for the word) that there are circumstances where there is no choice and only action is required. So belief in sthg might be very erronous, no?
Why don’t we stop believing?
Hello - I feel the need to address the use of the word “choice” that is being used in various conversations here.
Do we choose our beliefs?
@Inquiry you have made various statements in this and other threads where you seem to oppose the idea of choice to the idea of “choiceless awareness” - I get the impression that since “choiceless” is good, then we must be doing the opposite : choosing.
Not sure the self is actually choosing anything in practise - more of a mechanistic process that just “chooses” what has been determined by the process.
It seems to me that - in what i am doing - most of the times it is the result of a choice, hence thinking.
Nevertheless there might be an action (and i am very carefull of mentioning this) that is not the outcome of choice (or thinking for that matter).
You know - when action is required-. I might even suggest that the action acts …
Has this anything to do with ‘choiceless awareness’? Is there any action at all then? When the observer is the observed?
I question it, because I do not know. I might have an idea of what choiceless awareness is, i might have experienced it, but as far i can see it, all this is in the past.
And, again as far i understood it, choiceless awareness can only happen (if it happens at all) now.and we can not lay hands on it . Unfortunately, we want to. Why?
Because our brains are conditioned to operate by deciding what is true or false and choosing what to believe and not believe; to be dualistic rather than wholistic.
The wholistic brain takes everything into account and leaves nothing out, allowing what’s significant to show itself in its own time, whereas the dualistic brain decides what is significant and chooses what to do about it too quickly to question it. The dualistic brain operates by deciding and choosing reactively, whereas the wholistic brain is infinitely patient because it is timeless.
Aren’t “the self” and the “mechanistic process” the same thing?
When we act spontaneously it’s a reflexive, reactive conditioned response - not choiceless but automatic.If the result of the action is perceived as a good and necessary response, one might want to think it was intelligence, and not conditioning operating.
We want what we can imagine, and we imagine we can be free, selfless, because we can’t see that we are the antithesis of freedom and selflessness.
Does all what we are saying ,pretending, comes forward out of knowledge, experience? If so, then the dialogue has little meaning.
By questioning i am not looking for an answer because i am not always in a position to judge whether an anwer is what it is.
How can we know or perceive or see whether knowledge is acting via the self, the me? Is this possible?
I can only see that when this kind of knowledge is acting (wherever and whenever), enters the corruption ( which is a broken up).
Might this be a good question?
If you’re asking whether the conditioned brain can discern the difference between practical thought and psychological thought, I don’t know the answer, but it seems to me that if thought can allow for greater awareness and be more inquiring than reactive, that the reactions of psychological thought would be seen for what they are. But this is just speculation.