So without motivation, without wanting to listen to the river, you just listened. Do the same when someone is speaking, just listen. Can you do it, you do it with the river. See what happens. Is there a difference when there is no motivation, no wanting to understand?
What motivates me to tell someone (or myself) to listen without motivation? Isnāt I, the motivator, the problem? And isnāt the solution beyond anything I can do because I am the problem?
Can I be trusted to do the right thing, to act intelligently, if I can only do what Iām conditioned to do? What ever I decide, choose, to do or not to do, itās almost invariably the wrong thing, so what hope is there for I?
I has got to go. How do I know this? How can I be sure this is true? Doesnāt awareness make it obvious what I is and what I is doing? If not, thereās no hope for humanity.
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This is Iās conclusion, shutting the door on learning to listen to yourself. Listening to yourself is an āartā, an act of caring. An act of love?
I think thereās every hope for humanity to survive. Weāre too clever and calculating to go extinct, at least for the next few thousand years.
But the idea of humanity moving towards Krishnamurti-type intelligence might well be a fairy tale. Think how hugely difficult it is for an individual to become intelligent, then multiply by 7 billion individuals, millions of groups and cultures and tribes, many at odds with each other.
The notion that the universe is moving (slowly) towards an Omega Point of enlightenment, itās a lovely story, but I donāt know if itās anything more than that.
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Unless Iām mistaken, Krishnamurti wasnāt talking about ābecoming intelligentā. He was talking about realizing how the conditioned brain limits itself to thought, the intellect, and how upon this realization, the brain comes into contact with intelligence which is beyond the brain.
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Yeah, forget I said it.
Listening to yourself is an āartā
Nobody becomes adept at an art without working diligently over time, so I donāt know what K meant when he said this.
It seems to me that listening is complete attention to what Iām hearing and my reactions to it. Like everything else, itās a matter of being mindful of the whole field of awareness.
When I say āwe become more intelligentā (Krishnamurtian sense) I mean we see things more as they are. I am not talking about psychological becoming. āCome into contact with intelligenceā also means see things more as they are, doesnāt it? Unless youāre saying intelligence is a kind of force that human beings might ācome in contact with?ā
Alexander Calder sculptor said and I think relates , donāt wait for inspiration to come; work and āinspirationā may come.
Work at listening to your thoughts, work at it and maybe ālisteningā will come.
If Iām not mistaken, K said that intelligence is beyond the brain and that only the silent mind, a brain in which thought is not operating, can come into contact with it.
Above my pay grade. I have an intuitive sense of what heās saying, but I might be utterly wrong.
Did something happen to the European brain during the renaissance - in terms of trusting strangers and rational thought for example? Its success slowly instilling Humanism and Rationality into the worldwide human brain (over hundreds of years - work still in progress).
If compassion and freedom of intelligence (freedom from fear/the known) can provide a demonstrable increase in wellbeing, that would be how it takes hold.
Crina, did you listen to the question? Can we explore the process from reading (listening to) the question to your written response? You read the question, then what happened?
I think that the same can be said of ālisteningā.
Its tricky stuff. And sometimes the more we talk about it, the less sense we make.
I think that freedom from suffering, which is an essential part of the art of listening, needs to be nourished from an early age.
It needs to be part of our psyche, so that it can be part of how we function. I think it needs to be a part of us by the time our adult brain blossoms. Innocency needs to blossom as part of the adult brain.
I say this because the energy available, for psychological death is not unlimited, and the young mind is more malleable, less calcified.
The theoretical understanding of suffering and self must be addressed from a young age, and the practical side (meditation, self awareness) too to some degree.
Ja! Thatās true for pretty much anything, right? If X increases yum (or decreases yuck), X can take hold. Most humans are āproof is in the puddingā types. Show us the money!
The question begs itself: Are compassion and freedom of intelligence demonstrable wellbeing amplifiers?
According to Krishnamurti, the conditioned brain is too limited to know what ācompassion and freedom of intelligenceā are. Such things are beyond its pay grade, as you would say.
Listening to my thought is transformation. Not the ātransformationā that self imagines. It reminds me of the R Maharishi mantra: Iām not this body, Iām not my thought; what am I?
It takes energy to remember that you are not your thought, that is the energy of listening. It comes and goes and itās picked up again. True a young brain may have a greater possibility in listening to its conditioning but the older brain may have a greater urgency?
Time will tell.
One way of looking at it is by popularity : is the idea of meditation gaining traction? If so, this would mean that the idea (even if not well understood) is entering the mainstream psyche, as something believed to be necessary.
Another is logically : freedom from suffering is necessarily an amplifier of wellbeing.
Not sure this is the case, consider the urgency of adolescence, the urgency of the young parent.
Urgency for an empty, silent, unoccupied mind?