I’ve got a definite yes/no answer for the question: “Can Cognition (or thought) lead to clarity and Psychological freedom?” - But unfortunately, thats not what you’re asking.
But I’ll try to address what you’ve laid out : Where there is attention, thought and conditioning leave no trace and there is nothing to be missed. Where there is awareness, the self and its activity are no where to be found; there is no one there to pick and choose how to react. When I am not there, no errors are to be found and no delusions to believe.
Can the mind understand itself? I don’t know what that means.
Then why go on about awareness, attention, and the absence of “I”? Let’s stay with what you don’t understand about the mind understanding itself. We’re here to go into these things.
In that case, it was not something you said yourself. A Krishnamurti discussion, like love-making, is directly between the living. You can’t do it by proxy; especially, asking the other party to go dig up the corpse you are using in your stead.
Contrary to some comments here on Kinfonet, I am usually unable to observe my thoughts.
Whenever I look, they are nowhere to be found.
Unless of course I find some thought to be really clever, or if I am obsessing over something - In which case the thought is repeated again and again for my pleasure (or horror)
But usually thoughts are like the floaters in my eye : they avoid my gaze.
Even more silence occurs when there is an awareness of the observer.
Not to be confused with the just as confusing : “The Observer is the observed”
Which simply means : all we can see is ourselves. What we think of as “the stuff out there” is just our brains telling ourselves stories.
For example : What we think of as “a truck rumbling by over there” is in fact my brain’s interpretation of vibrations in my ear drum (and/or colors on my retina) based on past interpretations. Its all me.
How about observing more grosser aspect of matter, which are actions of the physical? And taking it from there, we come upon thoughts, reason being that most actions are thought/desire driven.
Are you suggesting that I should watch myself doing stuff?
Whilst I am doing it? Or after?
Sounds like a disease. What would this achieve?
Maybe you mean that if we can see why we do stuff, we will gain some understanding about ourselves and our motives?
The question then becomes : can we trust our own interpretations and conclusions? Aren’t they just some more thought? Just another action of the self?
That’s almost a paraphrasing of Fyodor Dostoyevsky who said ‘to be overly self conscious is a sickness’.
But yes, while one is doing it. I understand that the natural flow from feeling to action will be influenced once an observer is set in for observation, and therefore the K insight that there is no observer separate in observation. But that doesn’t imply there is nothing left for observation, on the contrary that one is choicelessly aware.
This might be because by becoming 2 : the watcher and the one being watched - we become a halfling living a half life. 2 selves is worse than 1.
If you watch Joy, it dies.
Why is taking the path of disease, as a path to wholeness, reasonable?
How does splitting ourselves in 2 make us whole?
In Zen this is called : Putting a head on top of a head. If I am suffering due to my confusion, should I rely on my judgement and interpretation?
Observation changes what is being observed - In this case self consciousness changes the self into a parody of itself for itself - this is a sickness.
We are not gathering a perspective from such observation, therefore no judgement or interpretation.
This is correct, the more we observe, the more we can subject parts of ourselves too in observation and therefore what is observed constantly changes depending on our sensitivity.
This is not what is implied.
observer is an integral part of observation.
Isn’t that a wrong question? Let’s say mind, as in that which undergoes constant transformation.