Somewhere along the line the brain identified itself with the group, the band, the tribe… similar to other animals, mammals and our primate ancestors. But somewhere along the brain ‘identified’ itself with thought as a ‘thinker’, as a ‘me’ and what is exclusively ‘mine’. This identification is so entrenched in the brain that it is rarely if ever questioned.
But without that identification or ‘absorption’, the ‘thinker’ is not who ‘I’ am.
Somewhere along the line we accepted the division imposed by outer. Somewhere along the line people outside said I am separate. They transferred their separation to me, like what happens in the TV news media. They propagate American is separate from Russian, Hindu is separate from Muslim, Left is separate from Right. They created the other and me as they separated themselves too. So conditioning got transferred. For them thought is the most important thing, I also accepted that and then separation arose in me.
If I don’t give importance to thought, all the conditioning imposed from outside is not given importance. Who cares what the left says or right says, then that distinction drops off. If I hold the opinion of left or right, then the other is created
The evolved brain saw that ‘things’ die and disintegrate. It realized that would be the fate of ‘my own’ body and it recoiled from that obvious fact. That I/ fear bred the ideas of gods, and higher powers above us. The idea of ‘immortality’, heaven, karma… the ‘switch’ that K turned in the midst of all that fear and confusion was: “you are nothing (not-a-thing)”…”you are the world”.
I can only tell about my psyche. In childhood there was no feeling of separation. Then separation arose because becoming was imposed from outside. What should be was imposed from outside
I think that is what happened with all of us.
The way the conditioned brain operates, it is the thinker because it never stops thinking. Silence reveals that there is nothing but awareness, but the constantly thinking brain never has this revelation.
It is not that mind that will see, but the absence of that mind will see.
Or to put it another way, what “sees” is the brain relieved of its false identity.
Can there be seeing of the mind without creating the opposite, can there be seeing of the mind without judgement
‘Quieting’ the mind in order to ‘see’ is not intelligence, it is ‘judgement’; the judgement that a quiet mind is ‘better’ than a ‘noisy’ one. Can we see ourselves without judgement? Which K is saying, is “the highest form of intelligence”.
If you’ve ever had to listen to someone who speaks more loudly than is necessary, or music that is too loud, you know that quiet is better than noisy. It’s not a judgement - it’s a fact…unless you’re hard of hearing.
If it’s possible for the brain to slow down and make more quiet its stream of consciousness, it’s the sensible thing to do.
But I get your point which is that it’s just a modification of one’s conditioning.
Right. I think what K is getting at is a freedom that we don’t or can’t understand? We can’t help but see it as a freedom ‘from’ something…he rejected that as I recall…(he did use the phrase though, “freedom from the known). Freedom was ‘flight of the eagle, leaving no trace’. It’s a “state”, the state of freedom? Beyond judgement? A state that would bring about order, not chaos? Not incoherence. Not violence. Not fear etc.
I think what K was trying to convey to us was that we can’t see what he’s saying until we see how we are resisting what he’s saying.
Krishnamurti was telling us we don’t want freedom; that we want more or less of what we know because we can’t want what we can’t imagine, and we can’t imagine not wanting.
What is your perception of this?
Why not?
This is a really good point, although I wouldn’t say “resist what he’s saying,” but rather “resist what we see through what he’s saying.”
This could be an interesting read on what you say.
If you mean “resist what we think he’s saying”, I disagree because if we weren’t interested in what we think he’s saying we wouldn’t keep listening…we would just move on to some one else.
We’re attracted to what we think Krishnamurti is saying because thinking is all we know, but at a deeper level, we are resisting what he’s saying because it threatens everything we know. So we’re in a love/hate relationship with the teaching. The love part is conscious and the hate part is buried deep.
From the point of view of the ‘system’ and many of its ‘reflexes’ , all of what K says is a threat, a threat to the whole psychological built up structure, isn’t it?
Yes. We’d rather die than lose/abandon everything we have been.
No, I meant exactly what I said.
Anyway, could you please explain how someone can threaten “everything we know” if we don’t see what he means and how it affects the life we have lived up to that point and the responsibility that comes with it?
If everything K says is a threat to the whole structure we have built psychologically, why should we go and listen to him? What do we expect to find out about the life of constant conflict and frustration we live in order to understand it and change its course? A magic pill that will prevent us from the work of having to be responsible for ourselves once and for all?