Observer/observed/observing

Kinfonet Discussion
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What is the nature of the relationship between the observer, the observed, and observing?

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well, apparently there are 3 separate “things” happening or nedeed, in the attemp to connect with reality; so, these three support each other in this attempt.

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Afaik Krishnamurti suggested observer/observed/observing are not separate entities, but are rather interdependent and interconnected parts of a larger whole. Make sense for you?

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In any experience, three elements appear to be involved.
#1. The Subject (the “me”) in various functions: as a seer/hearer/touch-er/smell-er/taste-er/thinker/story teller
#2. The Object: the seen/heard/touched/smelled/tasted/thought/the story
#3. The Action: seeing/hearing/touching/smelling/tasting

K suggests that The Subject & The Object are the same, and only The Action facilitates contact with the “what is”. (Interestingly, when The Subject & The Object are seen as the same they both are out of the above list)

Going back to your question: “What is the nature of the relationship between the observer, the observed, and observing?”

The observer & the observed support each other, in their role to create a story about the “what is”, in order to store information about the “what is”. They are the story teller and the story about reality.
So, my answer to your question is: #1 & #2 need each other (in the imaginary world of thinking), and #3 is independent of #1 & #2.

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“Observing” is what the observer does, so these three words apply to one thing: the brains’ conditioned response/reaction to actuality, the antithesis of observation.

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Are we the seer or the seen? K suggests that the observer and the observed are one and the same. Our perceptions and biases work together to create a story about reality. The truth is in the eye of the storyteller?

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Observing is not the same as observation; it is a conditioned response that shapes our perception of reality. The relationship between the observer, the observed, and observing is a tangled web of bias and subjectivity?

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Rick, you ask
Are we the seer or the seen? The truth is in the eye of the storyteller?

I have a sense that what I call “seeing” you call “the seer”. Is that right ?
I use the word “seeing” to remain in the limits of K language, but you can replace “seeing” with “seer”, if this seer you are referring to is not of the past.
So, yes, there is only the seer who is actively seeing the “what is”.
Or, I can say, there is only seeing of the “what is.”

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Within seeing, the seer and seen dissolve, leaving only pure perception?

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yes…
when there is seeing, there is “no room” for the seer and the seen in which they can deposit the past
Seeing is the what is in movement, while the seer and the seen are stagnant

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Isn’t that what I said?

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With what K called, “seeing” (and “observation”), there is no seer.

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Yea, it seems I created confusion
I am aware of K’s statement.

I attempted to express K’s “seeing without a seer “ as: a seer that is not left behind it’s seeing, a seer that sees only the “what is”.

Anyways- you can ignore, it is not aligned with K’s language hence this twist is not helping the dialogue

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Yes, I restated what you said in agreement.

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Is the state of “no observer/observed, only observing” always present, but we experience it only at certain times: when meditating, in nature, in love, in the flow of a task? Is it the heart of what-is?

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Is the “what is” prior to it’s story ? :wink:

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As I see it Rick, the observer is me, the accumulation of the past. That me is continuously brought face to face with this present moment, the Now. The me is the ‘known’ and the Now is ,always, the ‘unknown’. The present is never observed ‘as it is’ (unknown). There is always me observing and ‘me’ is the past. I am the observer apart from what is being observed. And that will be the situation until ‘I’ am no longer here.

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Just to add, I think K early on saw this situation of man trying to find a way or a path to get out of the past to ‘reach’ the unknown, and saw the falseness of it. Saw that it was a ‘wrong’ direction because the unknown, the ‘what is’, is always right in front of us! We are IN it. We ARE it.
As I see it, the ‘edge’ is always right there in each moment. And as has been said, the past cannot be brought into the present. The known can’t enter the unknown.

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Good question. I guess it depends what ‘what-is’ means. Per my understanding of what-is, it exists both along with its story and prior to it. If that makes sense, I apologize. :wink:

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The term “what is” is confusing. A lie or a distortion is no less “what is” than the truth, so for the brain that is conditioned to deny or distort what is true, “what is” is mostly untrue.