Krishnamurti said there is no method, no path to what he is pointing at.
Let’s discuss what is method or path
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Is dialogue a method, a path? What do we hope from dialogue? An answer to follow? or is dialogue a natural interaction as relationship.
Is this forum a tool as method?
Is sitting silently and looking at thoughts and feelings a method?
Can the conditioned brain do anything that is not methodical, not a means of (a path to) acquiring, accomplishing, achieving, arriving, avoiding, escaping, etc.?
Unless the conditioned brain can be free of intention, motive, determination, seeking, etc., it can’t do anything that isn’t a method or a technique.
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A method is some procedure or attitude I adopt in order to arrive at a specific goal.
For example : If I believe that some prize (happiness, peace) may be gained by doing this and avoiding that.
The main indicator that we are using some method is the occurence of “choice” or “effort”.
If we are happy with the definitions, it follows that if we are doing x in order to achieve y then we are indeed using a method.
So is dialogue a method? It depends.
If we are listening to someone because we want to hear what they have to say; if we are communicating in order to exchange ideas, then no, its not a method.
Is sitting silently and looking at thoughts and feelings a method? Not if your goal is to observe yourself whilst sitting silently.
But is this ever the case? Why am I wanting to look at my thoughts? Am I making some effort with some hope of attainment in mind?
Personally I set aside some time to sit everyday. Just sit. With the goal of just sitting. Not even any goal of silence or any interest in what I’m thinking about. With the idea that this moment outside of success or failure is essential.
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Wanting to hear what someone has to say and communicating to exchange ideas, by your definition, are methods because one is doing x in order to achieve y.
Personally I set aside some time to sit everyday. Just sit. With the goal of just sitting.
How can you have a goal (x) without (y)?
Listening and hearing may be different words but they are synonyms, they are both x.
Communicating and exchanging ideas were words used with the same intention on my behalf - I was trying to point at synonyms.
Listening in order to use what has been heard for some further purpose (eg. social, intellectual, entertainment, power etc) is doing x for the purpose of y.
Is this question still relevant? If so please explain, because I don’t get it.
Is it the same as asking : what does it mean to have a goalless goal?
How can you have a goal with no intention of achieving it?
Not sure how we got here.
My intention is to sit down, and I sit down.
And I sit there with nothing to achieve, not bothering with all the seemingly essential goals that my brain constantly keeps trying to tell me that I should be dealing with.
Because I believe that my brain is just making up its selfish little reality based on fear.
Because I believe that my brain and the world that it is constantly imposing its fear upon, deserve a break.
re: “Let’s discuss what is method or path”
Method is something that can be practiced and path is something that can be followed. Awareness can’t be practiced or followed.
Awareness can be directed as in body awareness. We can practice becoming more aware of our surroundings, our behavior. As @Sean suggested, we can try to become aware of the image we’ve formed of another, etc. There is directed awareness and choiceless awareness?
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I did wonder why you left out the concept of an objective in the definition for “method” - but I suppose my main question would be : what would increase the incidence of awareness ? With regards to its provoking silence and freeing from experience.
Thought can be directed but awareness cannot be directed - it can only be distorted, denied, and dismissed. What we do to awareness only does harm to ourselves and every living thing.
Every living thing is aware because awareness is life. The human brain, however, can choose to have an adversarial relationship with awareness. The human brain can imagine itself powerful enough to decide what is true rather than simply be the integral part of the whole truth that it actually is.
We can practice becoming more aware of our surroundings, our behavior.
We are awareness embodied, and the brain chooses to block and alter awareness in accordance with its desire/fear, so we are “more aware” only when we are less determined to alter and deny awareness, and we can’t choose to be less determined. Our determination falters only when we’re aware of what we’re doing.
I was thinking of the Feldenkrais Method.
That isn’t directing awareness - that’s directing attention to awareness.
Attention is a function of the brain. Awareness is not.
For all we know, awareness may be outside the brain.
That’s my opinion, it’s like space, it’s in everything and everything is in it.
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Yesterday in heavy traffic, it occurred to me that I am almost constantly judging the world. The judgement being the stream of consciousness of thinker. Then I wondered why this is the case. Thought is active, judging because it has separated itself from the world and is struggling against it. For thought observer is not the observed. There is separation. It believes it is separate from the world and is judging it.
But then comes Krishnamurti who questions division and says observer is the observed, you are the world. If this is the case, then thought no longer needs to struggle, judge. Then the mind is naturally silent in compassion as there is no division as struggle against the world.
Thought is also ignorant of the complexity of the brain and as a result of that ignorance, the ‘thinker’ (me) believes that ‘I’ control what happens, my decisions, behavior, etc. That’s why thought doesn’t give way, who would be in charge if not me? Astronomically, thought once believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe!
Yes, but only “if this is the case”, which it is not for the believing brain. And the only reason the brain believes that what K said is true is that the brain chooses to believe it. Choosing between belief and disbelief is all the choosing brain can do…except when it honestly does not know what to do.
Then the mind is naturally silent in compassion as there is no division as struggle against the world.
Which, again, is what we believe/hope will happen, even though it hasn’t.
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No, it is not belief, thought believes it is separate. That is the belief on which thought functions. Generally we believe in separation, Hindu, Catholic, Muslim, American, Indian. All those are beliefs of separation, beliefs of thought. Thought can only believe in itself as separation