But I am not suffering - this is the point. There is nothing to see. I have never suffered pain, psychologically. I have always done something about it.
Okay - so the next time some pain comes up, we should not try to avoid it (which is the continuation of self avoiding self) and see what happens?
Mimicking some authority,
āIā do not know precisely which authority is being mimicked. How can āIā know that, eh? However, having said that, it is obvious that there is most definitely some authority being mimicked.
So, having said that, one is aware that there is a common knowledge circulating in the world regarding the word maya. And that idea has come down from organized religions, such as affirmed in Buddhism as well as Hinduism. From what I understand, it suggests that everything in the world is maya - illusion - i.e. playing with things that are not real. Now, the people on this site are not illusions, one must be clear about that. Human beings are not illusions !!! But, one suspects that such ideas - such as maya, etc. have so infiltrated and poisoned the consciousness of so many people, that unconsciously such ideas have become a sort of inner authority. So one can see, that this particular idea has become a premise with which some people start - i.e. that the self is an illusion. Not saying here that this is true or false, but that starting with the idea that **the self is an illusion is mimicking someone elseās statement". Therefore, it is always legitimate to question authority, first and foremost the inner authority which people are using (whether consciously or unconsciously), and hence, mimicking.
You see, one looks outside first to see what beliefs exist in the world, etc., which affect and condition our conscousness, because they become the āinner authorityā. One looks outside first to get a handle on what is going on in the world - the violence, the corruption, the brutality, the beliefs, etc. - all the horrors which seem to be constantly increasing. That is always the starting point. Then one moves inside to see what is happening within as regards to our reactions (using attention and awareness). This is the correct approach. Like watching the ocean, the waves come in and then the waves go out or the breathes we take, breathing in and out, always back and forth, back and forth. Even the heart beat - diastolic and systolic pressure, blood flowing into the arteries and then moving outward. This is the rhythm of life. You see, in doing this seeing outside, then moving inside, one is waking up. Waking up to oneās own intelligence. When one sticks to only one approach - such as intellectual thought, one is blocking oneself to waking up intelligence.
Not only that, when one is solely using one approach (such as the intellect), one generates conflict, divisiveness. And, that is what almost everyone is doing on the planet. Almost everyone on the planet is using the intellect to function in the world, to survive. And we see the results, and they are terrible.
So when one sees here on this site, someone said: āI am natureā, that too is an idea that has also come down from organized religions, such as Hinduism. It is a false idea, btw. One is not the tree !!! You see, the idea that one is nature ignores the fact that nature existed prior to human beings existing. One did not create the trees, nature, the sky, etc. This is how attachment to other peopleās ideas become the inner authority, which must be questioned, firstly.
The whole point of being here is to discover reality, and to uncover the conditioning. That is freedom.
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First, do we see right now that we have never suffered pain? This perception now is all that matters, not what we may or may not do later.
I agree with much of what you say here, but I just want to address the final section where you write
I think the statement āI am natureā can be understood more generously than the way you have interpreted it here. It may of course be that this person intended the statement to be understood in the way you suggest, but one ought not immediately conflate the Indian expressions āI am Brahmanā, āI am Thatā, āThou art Thatā (tat tvam asi), etc, with the sentence āI am natureā.
Why?
Because Brahman is a religious concept, something pious Hindus are supposed to believe in. But nature is a neutral term, roughly meaning all matter, energy, biological life, the physical universe, etc (its etymology simply means ābirthā, by which I take it to mean everything that is born, manifest).
So when a person says āI am natureā, they may simply be drawing attention to the fact that every atom in our bodies, every cell, every neurone, comes (is born, is manifested) from nature. Our organs evolved from prehuman animals - our hearts, our livers, our digestive tracts - and the atoms that make up our bodies evolved from stars. All thought is matter, all emotion is matter, all sensation is matter, and all matter is nature.
Nature is both the whole of nature and every individual phenomenon, every particular manifestation, whether that be a fly, an orchid, a tree, a human being, or a solar system.
So when you say
it is not clear to what this is a response. The tree is also nature (that is, everything it is made of comes from the natural world). Do you see what I mean?
Nature existed both before and exists at the same time as any of its phenomenon. That is, the universe existed before there was life on earth, and obviously before there were human beings; but the universe also exists now that human beings are here. Both human beings and the universe are part of nature.
So again, when you write
it is not clear to what this is a response. Human beings did not create the trees, the sky, but human beings are manifestations of the same nature that also manifests as trees and as sky. So human beings are nature (or part of nature, if you prefer).
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Yes, in that suffering includes the movement away from itself.
It is painful to look at the world. For example, to look at the war in Ukraine, which we see in the news, or a beggar on the streets, whom we see in our immediate neighbourhood. What do we do with this pain? It is the pain of the world and yet we are making it our own. What is this pain when we donāt act upon it?
It is either fear or compassion.
The word is not the thing & identification,
Words are only referants. The danger is that of identification. Once the āIā the āselfā, the āegoā, the psyche, (whatever word one uses to ascribe to the centre, the āmeā) identifies psychologically with what it sees outside, that is the problem. It is a fact that, biologically and physically, the same molecules that make up what is within is also that which can be seen without. That is a fact, well known as a scientific fact. Then again, when the āIā states anything, that is thought, that is the āselfā, the āmeā, so when the āIā states āI am natureā or even āIā am part of nature, that āIā is making a statement that is both psychological and physical, and this is a conclusion, a false conclusion, because it tends to also include the psychological, which of course reinforces the āIā, and anything that reinforces the āIā blocks discovery, blocks discovery of what is true and what is false. That is all one can say. Either one sees this or one doesnāt. So again, the body, the shell is part of nature, but it is isnāt true to say āIā am part of nature.
The statement āI am natureā can of course be interpreted as meaning a fixed, dogmatic psychological identity. This is clearly the way you have taken it.
But it can also simply be understood as a poetic indication of our profound relationship to nature, which is the way I understood it. In this latter case, the āIā in the statement has no particular relevance, because whether it is I, you, the bird or the tree, we are all part of nature.
If you want to argue that we ought never to use the word āIā in this sense, thatās up to you. But your brain and body, like my brain and body, and like the trunk, roots and branches of a tree, are all part of nature. Sometimes we forget this, thatās all, which is why I think the person was pointing it out.
Being part of nature doesnāt mean that one is free from self, free from suffering, free from āIā. Thatās a different matter (requiring a different enquiry).
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Order,
Nature, the universe works, functions in complete order. The shark has no malice when it hunts and feeds. The flower doesnāt think of itself when it blossoms. The āIā, on the other hand, is conflict, is divisive. The āIā is disorder. When the brain cannot discern or distinguish psychological understanding from technical understanding, that is the cause of all the disorder in the world. No doubt Putin really likes being photographed in nature, riding horses, feeling he is a part of nature, with all that he understands and interprets how nature operates. But he is in complete disorder, and refuses to acknowledge that disorder. The shock would kill him. When the āIā asserts anything, that is always thought, so it is not a different matter. There are always those that choose to blind themselves to such truths, and that is why they never have insights. They can spend decades studying K and never get to first base, because they refuse to abandon their inner authority, or even question that authority.
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Thanks Paul for confirming what I shared is accurate. That speaks of your integrity here.
Regarding names, I also prefer proper names, even if only a first name or something easier to identify with rather than silly names like Examiner, Inquiry, Conditioned, Pilgrim, Nobody, etc. I just feel silly saying hello to āNobodyā for instance. But this is minor actually, no big deal.
Just like on zoom dialogues, I prefer people to be on video, it is easier to communicate with them, but it is also okay I feel if they choose to just stay on audio. In one group I go to, about 1/3 of the people are on audio and I just have to deal with it. When they speak, I have to pay more attention, listen more, since it is a black screen there instead of a face.
So yes, I have preferences and certain things make communication easier, however what is more important is sincerity, honesty, interest, vulnerability, open mindedness, tentativeness, friendliness, etc, rather than a persons name or if they are on camera or not, etc.
Oh Charley, I mean really?! Putin?! - You are comparing me or whoever made the statement you have taken issue with to the butcher of Ukrainians, Georgians, Syrians, Russian opposition leaders?
As far as I can see it is you who have decided to interpret the statement (made on another thread where it would have been more helpful to post a response) like this, and it is you who have held to that interpretation despite what another has attempted to share with you - so it is you who are are the one creating disorder here, as far as I can see.
K has talked about the importance of a relationship to nature many times. I shared an extract with someone else recently, and I will share it again with you.
It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth. If we could establish a deep abiding relationship with nature we would never kill an animal for our appetite, we would never harm, vivisect, a monkey, a dog, a guinea pig for our benefit. We would find other ways to heal our wounds, heal our bodies.
But the healing of the mind is something totally different. That healing gradually takes place if you are with nature, with that orange on the tree, and the blade of grass that pushes through the cement, and the hills covered, hidden, by the clouds.
This is not sentiment or romantic imagination but a reality of a relationship with everything that lives and moves on the earth. Man has killed millions of whales and is still killing them. All that we derive from their slaughter can be had through other means. But apparently man loves to kill things, the fleeting deer, the marvellous gazelle and the great elephantā¦
If we could, and we must, establish a deep long abiding relationship with nature, with the actual trees, the bushes, the flowers, the grass and the fast-moving clouds, then we would never slaughter another human being for any reason whatsoever. (Krishnamurti To Himself)
But, as seems often the case with your approach to Kinfonet, you canāt seem to help yourself from a constantly belittling judgementalism about others, implicitly claiming to have insight while others do not.
Why do you do this I wonder? Is it insight that says these things you write? I very much doubt it. You do not seem to see that it is your āIā that is asserting things, using thought to do so (all the while accusing others of exactly what you are yourself doing). How strange, no?
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As long as the āIā exists, this āIā is responsible for all that is happening in the world. So, for those who would hold onto, remain attached to their beliefs, to their ideas, to their intellectual understanding of the world, to whatever they hold onto so dearly, such people are creating complete and utter disorder in the world, no matter what else one part, one fragment of themselves believes. We are the world, and the world is us. One wonders what on earth people who do not get that are doing on this siteā¦ after all, this is a K siteā¦
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Compliance stems from the self.
Defiance stems from the self.
Neutrality stems from the self.
Freedom stems from ā¦
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All that you write here is correct Charley, but you seem to be completely unaware of the way you interact (or fail to interact) with others on this website. You are rarely considerate or generous in your replies to others with whom you take issue, your mind is almost always made up even before the discussion has begun, and you use Krishnamurti as a dogmatic weapon with which to protect yourself from all dialogue, all relationship, all mutuality. Why? Do you not see that this is itself divisive? Do you not see that by taking a word or a sentence completely out of context and taking such a fixed, dogmatic view on it, that you create division? One wonders why you yourself do not see this, seeing as you continually berate others for having no insight into Kās teachings? You must be - somewhere in your consciousness - aware of this discrepancy?
This whole thread is about mimicking K. Why do we do it? What is wrong with our brains that we have become so dogmatic, so robotic?
K often had the appearance of dogmatism, hauteur, arrogance, dismissiveness, judgmentalism - so people imitate that. But why do they not also imitate his humility, his compassion, his generosity towards others? Why only the thorns and not the roses?
Is the K conditioning really a matter of becoming slowly less and less human, more and more robotic, more and more arrogant and dogmatic? Why havenāt we been touched by Kās scepticism, his affection for other people, his curiosity about the world?
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This is where we have to be very careful because every single word we have used so far has been manufactured by thought to describe as accurately as possible something that may never be within the scope of thought at all. The word āpainā is vague enough when it is used to discuss a physiological condition. Most psychological pain has accompanying physiological effects directly upon the body. What is psychological pain when we donāt act upon it? Before we pose any answers to the question, have we ever been in this position where we have not acted upon it? The answer is there, nowhere else, surely.
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Thank you for sharing this. I feel this is one of the most important nuggets that has been shared in this thread and everyone should reflect on this.
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To have a relationship with nature, with anyone, one must be whole, i.e. holy, i.e. it means having a religious mind. It means that the self is no longer, that the āmeā is not. Do it, and find out what that means. 
When one steps out of the stream, one is no longer responsible for all the horrors that are happening in the world. When there are those who expect one to kowtow to certain damaged and broken men (could be women too), and the Doomsday clock says 1 sec to midnight, and the catastrophe that K spoke about and foresaw is already upon us, donāt expect Charley to sit by and āplay niceāā¦For godās sake, life is not a popularity contestā¦