Hi Peter,
Do you see any division in the original post ?
It’s an observation of facts taking place without condeming any of the partaking parts and my feeling of it.
Don’t underestimate the power of suggestion.
Please go into it. It is deeper than a personal perception. Race, nationality, politics, issues, morality, all this is a division.
That’s fragmentation. It all stems from the same thing: egocentricity
Hi Peter,
Isn’t it the question if it is a personal perception or a fact of live at this instance?
The only peronal is maybe the remark that it is a ‘disgraceful behavior of humanity’ but even that could be a fact.
Division as the source of this, do we see this because of knowledge of the teaching ?
Can we undo this knowledge or is this based on
the alternative is not known because we’ve read K. and did he opened our eyes or colored our minds and if that is the case is that a problem ?
I think it’s all of them. Politics or social reforms and so manifestations will never solve the basic problem of human behaviour. “Stay away from politics” said K. but even without K. any person who has opened his eyes knows that politics is utterly futile and destructive because it’s the outcome of the ego. Essentially politics -or political movements- is a battle for power even when it’s considered the “right side”.
I’ve discussed with an American supporter of “Black lives matter” in a different forum and I told him, you don’t want justice you want revenge. Political revolutions or social battles never created justice, yet we still think that fighting for justice will solve the problem. I remember K. was very critical about Gandhi and his battle. He once said (more or less if my memory is good): nothing has really changed in India, before you were exploited by the British now you are exploited by your politicians.
I think that the basic problem with black people in America is that they cannot identify themselves with a country which was created by the whites. All the reference figures, historical personalities, scientific discovers, etc. are mostly white. And that’s why now they are trying to find supposedly black inventors or as such - Today Biden said that the light bulb was invented by a black person who worked with Edison - and once I read the affirmation of a black activist who said that Beethoven was black. All that shows their need to have a reference figure with who to identify themselves. This desperate necessity of identification brings a destructive behaviour which is evident in the extremist movements. It seems we are not capable of creating a society without the process of identification and so without conflicts.
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That the mind can be empty of all this desire to be, to attain, to become, etc. and still maintain a harmonious relationship with thought when it is needed, when it is useful, is the message K. brought, I’d say. That the mind has been ‘usurped’ by thought / time. It happened “because it could” as Bohm, I think, put it. No other animal had that possibility.
The most reactive elements on the one team identify with the oppression of others and are fearful at not getting to bring that oppression to bear still, and the other team and their supporters cannot identify with something based on their oppression, and which seeks it still. They can never be sufficiently quiescent, never be servile enough to guarantee their life. They are to be killed if they complain, and they are to be killed if they do not. So how is the fear of Team Kill to be dissolved when no innocent activity, no degree of compliance can stop the desire to kill anyway, because, better safe and shoot, than sorry. And when I see how extremely dangerous self is, what is my own response to being self?
If the mind can be empty of all desire and carry on a relationship with thought, what is the mind’s function? What do you think the mind is, if not thought, with all its faults and malfunction?
It seems to me that K’s message is that thought is incoherent because, after creating the illusion of the thinker, I, it got confused and began mistaking itself ( a function) for the person it created, forgetting that it is its creator and sustainer. This notion of an empty mind just adds to the confusion.
To put it simply, the mind, thought, created the myth of I, the person, and, seduced by the drama and entertainment of its creation, forgot what a humble, fallible process it is, and identifies with its creation.
I don’t know what is wrong or right here. The impression I got was that the ‘empty mind’ is different in some way from the mind with its ‘contents’. All we know is the filled , noisy mind…not the silent mind. I copied this from the Huguette post: (bold mine)
K. “… To find out what is sacred the mind must know the total content of itself. And its content makes consciousness. You understand, sir? Consciousness is its content. If there is no content there is something else, isn’t there? If my content of my mind is worry, resentment, wanting to fulfill, bitterness, anxiety, fear, afraid of so many things, wanting to do this and that, that is the content of my consciousness. When the content is not - you understand? - there is something entirely different. And we try to make one of the contents into the sacred thing.”
My own response or reaction would be that of escaping to some secluded and far out place where I could live in peace. I know it would not be a real solution but even K. during second world war retired into the woods in California. If you are not identified with any of the sides in conflict and so you don’t take sides you’ll be the target of their hate as well.
But you ask: “to being self”. Should I be in conflict with myself? I cannot be anything else but a self. This is a fact and I stay with that fact.
Yes that is so, but what I mean is, I can see something of the trouble self in other is, but I can have a tendency to think that while self in other is problematic, my self is not, or at least not so much, and that if self were just myself, then self wouldn’t be as much of a problem, and it would be safe to carry on.
Yes, you are absolutely right. That’s the attitude I/we have. We can easily see the danger of the self in others but don’t see this danger in ourselves. This I think it’s a serious problem. I think I’m OK (in the same way even Trump thinks “I’m OK”). What can we do? We cannot produce the insight which will free us from our self and our vision is limited.
One personal question: you talked about this desire (or reaction) to kill in others, did you ever discovered this killing attitude in yourself?
I often let thoughts flow uncontrolled and many times strange and even violent thoughts or images came out. They scared me and I supposed they are not “my” thoughts but thoughts in the common consciousness of humanity. So I think K. was right in saying that in our inquiry we should consider that we are humanity and have to see ourselves not as individuals.
What is you experience of this aspect?
Yes without a doubt. And not just a thought, but an urge, and a powerful one at that, like a possession, but one not physically realised. I have never taken any step towards such a thing, such as being in the military, and I am not part of a gun owning society, having always had a powerful inhibition around such, though I am not a pacifist either. As the self I am violent still, regardless of the fact I inflict no physical harm personally, and am a lifelong vegetarian, and all the madness of the self belongs to me as surely as anyone else. Every aspect of self can grow ever other aspect, so I am the solution to nothing.
Ah! Now your previous question “And when I see how extremely dangerous self is, what is my own response to being self?” acquires a very strong meaning!
I don’t feel that urge or possession but I suppose that giving the “right” occasion I might react in the same way. Nobody can say to be immune unless having ended the ego. I strongly feel to be influenced by the collective hysteria or fears sometimes even if rationally I reject them. That is why I try to be as long as possible alone in nature, I don’t feel that mass influence there and there is a genuine peace in me. But as long as I’m back to town I’m again under the spell of collective neurosis. I’ve experienced this thousands of times and I’m pretty sure of it but I’ve never heard of someone else feeling the same thing. There is no sanity in our citites and our neurosis are the neurosis of our society. The thing I regret most is that those solitary places in nature are getting more and more fewer and when there will be no possibility to isolate ourselves we will be bound to live in that inferno.
But your question is a good one, what will it be your response?
Our way of living subjects all of us to violence of one kind or another, not just physical. There is economic violence and there is the myriad ways violence is done to our spirit, and our sense of justice, besides out and out physical violence, all of which can leave us deeply affected.
How do I respond to the danger my self constitutes? by watching it like a hawk, both inside and outside of myself in the shape of others, who I see as being myself just as much as the contents of my consciousness in particular.
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Yes, this is, by the way, a biological approach. We have divided religion from biology but actually the problems of humanity derive from his biological evolution. Religion, seen through this perspective, could be a way to improve this evolution or to extend it further.
That is what I try to do myself. Yet there is something we are missing, the resolving factor, i.e. the observation without the observer. As you said: " I am the solution to nothing."
Have you ever thought about this thing? It’s a paradox (or a Zen koan) in order to end the ego we must observe without the ego. So to end ego there must be no ego! That is our basic problem!
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Is it possible to see the seer - and in that moment let go?
How can you see the seer? it’s impossible, thought cannot see thought. We can only perceive proprioceptive sensations like muscular tensions, temperature, internal pain and so on, but we cannot perceive the producer (the nervous system) of those perceptions. The only way I can make sense of the insight K spoke about is to have a sudden glimpse of the whole pattern. The pattern of the observer, not the observer itself.