I can’t say. It is observed that I’m either aware or not aware.
I/consciousness suddenly becomes aware that I have been off in la-la-land, in fantasy land, actively pursuing thoughts and time. When I am in la-la-land, is there anything that can make me realize it and say, “Oh I must not stay here, I must not do that, I must not engage in trying to solve action or relationship”, and so on? When I’m NOT aware, inattentive, can I know it in the very moment and still BE inattentive? When I’m inattentive, I/thought/self is fully and actively in the inattention. Does the state of inattention realize it is inattentive. If it does, it is no longer inattentive or unaware, is it? Suddenly, there is awareness and it is not the result of a choice. No?
So I can’t say how attention comes about. It just does, doesn’t it?
It seems that when a topic brings too many answers and counter answers, we may lose the initial sense of the discussion.
Or maybe it’s me who don’t understand the logic of your speech here.
Allow me to examine it step by step and tell me when and if my reasoning might be wrong.
Yes, of course. But our discussion started from your affirmation that Dominic’s question was an abstraction, to which I objected. So, we have fear, which is a fact, and then we have the question: can the mind be free of fears? Which, as I stated before, for us is an abstraction. I said this because of your affirmation:
“If I fear, my response comes from that fear, and so my response is the response of the fearful mind. This can be observed. To ask what is the response of the mind free of fear is going off into abstractions and ideation.”
So we are bouncing back and forth between the actuality of fear and the “abstraction of asking what is the response of the mind free of fear”. Honestly I don’t understand what you want to point out.
I have to stick too to my initial statement that if you consider that an abstraction, THEN also many questions K. used to ask (sorry I can’t quote anything now) about what will it be our behaviour in such a case, or how do you meet violence in another, etc. is just an hypothetical question and could be considered an abstraction. To me it seems only a matter of trust, you accept every thing K. says because you trust him, but you disagree if an hypothetical question is asked by a common person. And to me the reason of your criticism lies in the fact that Dominic brought that argument to confute your defense of violent action of abused people. Am I wrong?
And you may feel now that you and Dominic are not opposed but when you wrote that sentence you disagreed.
We cannot be sure of anything, but in my view the freedom from fear is an unalienable part of K.’s teachings which is strictly connected with his central discourse about thought and intelligence. If you discard that then you have to discard also the rest. I’m suspecting that the misunderstanding here has to do with the kind of fear we take into consideration. I can see that there is a confusion just above in this thread about this point. K. has stated clearly that one can be free of psychological fear, which is a creation of thought and which deals with ideas, projections, of what might happen in the future (and which we should better call anxiety). Being a creation of thought, the moment you understand the nature of thought – and are free of its deluding power, you are also free of fear.
Instead in this thread I can see discussions where only physical fear is considered, the natural response of the organism when faced with a real danger. That cannot be eliminated.
Yes, but as I explained in my reply to you, that is not what I and Dominic meant.
Humm… it’s seems too complicate. My mind refuses to enter into it.
I think we should stick to simplicity. I don’t know when I am aware but I can know, immediatly after, when I was not. No need to do acrobatics.
It’s quite obvious that the future is an idea, right? It’s an idea based on the past, and the possibilities that we might be able to “think up”. So, then it is possible to see that the past is also operating as an idea, apart from our memories of the facts. And to go even one step “further,” “In the very moment,” “to be in the now,” is also operating as an idea. What K refers to as “naked awareness,” or “choice-less awareness,” might be some kind of perception when one sees how ideas are used to interpret “reality”. Before you react to this, watch how our idea of “the self” uses past memories to try and defend yet another idea.
“Creation is not for the talented, for the gifted; they only know creativeness but never creation. Creation is beyond thought and image, beyond the word and expression. It is not to be communicated for it cannot be formulated, it cannot be wrapped up in words. It can be felt in complete awareness. It cannot be used and put on the market, to be haggled and sold. It cannot be understood by the brain, with its complicated varieties of responses. The brain has no means to get into touch with it; it’s utterly incapable. Knowledge is an impediment and without self-knowing, creation cannot be.”
Krishnamurti’s Notebook
I see your experience while sailing as making the point I was trying to make, which is, is there in fact fear in danger, or is fear a movement of the past meeting a here and now and effectively preventing the response needed. When one looks at the biological response of the animal when there is the perception of danger, and the so-called fight or flight response, which it must be noted is itself a human construct, there can be a tendency on the part of an observer, who is psyche, who is fear, to ascribe fear to the animal in that situation, and to think fear is necessary when there is danger. Lasting fear, trauma, neuroticism are all responses of humankind, and mistreated animals can exhibit what we think is similar, but if danger needed fear, and you had fear as distinct from adrenaline when at sea, what would the be outcome?
From the public talk in Saanen, 14th July, 1977:
‘I’m going to investigate something totally new, and I hope you will have the kindness and the seriousness to listen, not agreeing or disagreeing but thinking together logically, sanely, rationally and with a certain sense of humility.
Skill becomes all important in life, because that is the means of earning a livelihood. Our universities, colleges, and schools are directed for that purpose. When one is totally educated for that purpose, that skill invariably breeds a certain sense of power, arrogance, and self-importance. What is the relationship of skill to clarity? And what is the relationship of clarity to compassion? (…) Clarity is denied when there is any form of fear. Most human beings have a great deal of fear -which denies compassion. Fear in any form, both physiological as well as psychological, distorts clarity; therefore a person who is afraid in any way has no compassion. (…) Fear also has many branches, many leaves, many expressions of fear that breed their own flowering and their own fruit, which is action. So one must go to the very root of fear, not take various forms of fears but the root of fear (…) When there is fear, there are many kinds of neurotic action. Most of you are lonely, and so you seek companionship, escaping from loneliness. Companionship becomes very important, and if you have no companionship fear arises. Or out of that loneliness you build a wall around yourself.(…) There is fear when there is measurement. (…) I hope you have clarity. Clarity means there is no centre from which you are functioning.’
So fear is a cause of isolation and violence and these are the main cause of the theme of this thread. Schooling directed to skill has a lot to do with it, and modern society is based on that.
I’m not sure to understand what you want to say here. Fight or flight response is a fact not a human construct. It happens with us and it happens with animal. The difference in us humans is that thought can interfere with this elemental response and so pervert the response.
But it’s not only that, to be alert in case of danger (thanks to adrenalin) does not assure us safeness. Intelligence is not an omnipotent faculty, and it can do nothing when the danger is much stronger than us (like for instance when you are attacked by a lion of by a terrorist). In this case the only intelligent thing we can do is face death without fear, if we are able to.
Then there also could be a faulty perception of the danger, and so also in this case our response will be not appropriate. We must realize here once again that K. had to simplify his speeches and explanations, so he didn’t embrace all what is implied in fear. And he had not any scientific background. His approach was a very simple one, maybe too simple in this case. His aim was that of dealing with fear in the context of spiritual and psychological deliverance. Fear (but only psychological fear) is one of the things which prevent intelligence, so getting rid of future, of anxiety, is functional for the awakening of intelligence.
I stated quite clearly what the outcome would have been in the last part of my account.
I see you are still using an imprecise terminology here. Physical fear is a wholly different thing from anxiety (or psychological fear). Awareness of danger produces fear. If there is not interference of thought (future and past) it doesn’t dumb the mind but -as in my case – it improves our faculties. You are supposing that danger does not need fear because you (and often me too) are thinking fear in the terms of anxiety – which is neurotic fear – or panic.
This apparently contraddicts my statements about the difference between physiological (which I called physical) and psychological fear. Thank you for posting it.
I have seen more than once K. wincing or leaping up during a talk when a sudden noise or something of the sort showed up. This is physiological fear and we cannot eliminate it, we can only observe it and let it go.
Then there is also physiological fear in presence of a real danger, like for instance a terrorist attack. Here too we cannot avoid the insurgence of it, but like for wincing, we can observe it and let it go.
A physiological fear will not constitute a real indrance to clarity and intelligence unless it continues unnecessarily.
When you say “it may be possible to meet danger without fear” you are talking about fear created by thought, that is psychological fear. And this can be done once you have understood the nature of thought.
The perception of an actual danger produces an immediate and natural response which we cannot avoid. It’s an automatic response of the nervous system and it’s genetically programmed. You may not call this fear, but according to science and to common sense too, it’s fear. Fear, in the original sense of the word, is a protective and defensive response, and so it’s embedded in our DNA. It becomes neurotic when it involves the sphere of the self.
As I see, you are using danger and fear as a metaphor for reality and illusion. Questioning the perception of a thing as danger corresponding to questioning the nature of objective reality. What I see in your writing is a consistency of philosophy reminding the eastern traditions, say similar to Advaita Vedanta, are you seeing K’s work through the lens of a philosophy?
Fear existing as an instinct shouldn’t be denied (though there is whole lot of variants of it which implies corruption via mediation of psyche). Instinctual response is then that part of reality not in conflict with the general harmony prevailing in what is perceived as nature. But I see your point about situations where instinctive response needn’t be ‘only’ response so to speak, however, then the pointer is not implied to a general/commonplace mind, but an ascetic one which operates in a background of continual silent and stable awareness and also capable of indulging in ‘miracles’ which in the last analysis is a distraction?
This discussion about fear has been a chance for me to explore anew this field – without sticking to the words of K.
We often forget not to make an authority of K. even if he often warned us against this danger. So because K. said that “Fear in any form, both physiological as well as psychological, distorts clarity” we take for granted that it is so and never go and make an independent exploration.
First of all, we must keep in mind the context of K. teachings, his aim and horizon. He claimed to have attained psychological freedom, that is: freedom from all psychological conditionings. Without this freedom here and now there is no possibility to find out what is sacred and what is there after death. So it’s a religious or spiritual context, even if very different from the organized religions.
And surely fear is a conditioning factor which limits our freedom and prevents intelligence and so the possibility of discovering creation and the nameless. Also thought, being a response of the past, constitutes another hindrance, but that does not mean we must stop thinking. Thinking is very useful for practical purposes in life and so is fear, at least a small amount of natural fear, in some practical circumstances.
Essentially the feeling of being afraid is a sensation of insecurity. There is a precipice or a fire, and the perception of this danger makes me feel insecure and so wanting to escape the danger and find a physical security again. The climber who is without fear, might at first have some advantages because he will face climbing walls which other more fearful (or prudent) climbers will avoid thanks to his sense of security. But as mountaineers know well, this sense of security will make him commit fatal mistakes sooner or later. While the conscious climber will have a constant watchfulness, which is the only real security against the danger of falling down.
Same thing with sailors, you need to fear the sea if you want to sail safely.
So, my point is that we should not talk about fear as if it was negative in all cases and for all purposes.
Voyager,
Maybe we can compare fear to an alarm system. It isn’t the alarm system that is going to face the situation which caused it, the way we act when we hear the alarm sound is what matters. Krishnamurti doesn’t deny that fear is part of our life, on the contrary, he knows how deeply it is rooted in our actions, the important thing is that we don’t let fear rule our lives because fear as he said doesn’t let us see the actual situation with clarity.
Yes, that is what is implied in my speech about good and bad fear.
Fear IS an alarm system in my view, the reaction to that alarm could be dominated by thought or by perception of what is actually happening. It seems that we have no choice. I’ve seen people paralized by panic when sailing in difficult situations while others kept their calm and acted intelligently.
Coming back to the topic of this thread, one must stress that in the case of political upheavels such as B. L. M. or Blue L. M., fear is always a bad advisor.
But is Fear the driving force? do we see the posible power of one individual acting different, one sane living individual could have saved lives by stepping out of the crowd or as the quote of the day is making clear; breaking the wall of it’s own builded prison.
"You see man imprisoned by innumerable walls, walls of religion, of social, political and national limitations, walls created by his own ambitions, aspirations, fears, hopes, security, prejudices, hate and love. "
Ojai, California USA | 7th Public Talk 24th June, 1934
Yes, of course. This is the point which I and other people too raised at first. Then the discussion focused on fear…
You and I are taking into consideration a different possibility. Huguette objected to this saying:
“that framing the question of freedom on how the mind that is free of fear responds is necessarily going off into abstractions and speculation.”
You see the point? She said that we were judging the situation sitting in an armchair and that nothing can be said unless one finds himself/herself in that situation. Of course that is true, but then we should not discuss that topic just because we are not in that situation?
