…that very energy of urgency is its own response.
How do we know that it burns up the self? Is this an observation from direct perception of what happens or is it just a theory and therefore another form of hope? The intellect is the core of the self. Therefore we cannot leave the intellect out of it. So can the intellect put a question that overrides every other question? Because once the question is clear, all our work is done.
Insightfully, the intellect is left out of it.
That question has been asked, but we don’t listen to that applause from the one-handed person.
we only talk about it.
We’re confronted with the fact…and facing the fact of the ‘house being on fire’. It’s not an intellectual question at that point, but confronted with the truth that the fire is raging all around us there is silence…knowing that the noise is the gasoline fueling the fire. And when the fuel is gone, the fire is extinquished.
So our question is: Is there total silence throughout the entire structure of the brain? Or there is just the idea of such a thing and not the actuality. Intellectually, first of all, we are putting the question because this is a dialogue between six or seven different people and without the intellect nothing we do will make much sense. Without the intellect we wouldn’t have got this far. And we have to be clear about the meanings of the various words we are using. But we have come to the point in our enquiry where we are asking the same intellect that has brought us so far along in our dialogue now to be completely quiet. Can the intellect stop altogether? That’s the same question put in different words.
Now is this our question all together? Or do we have other and better questions or comments to throw into the pot?
The intellect uses language purposively, and the intellect is a formulation of the past, of memory. There is also language used insightfully, inspirationally, inventively, creatively, and not with a purpose in mind. To look at the world with choiceless awareness, the language is not directed, managed, organised, and has no motive.
Who’s asking the intellect ‘to be completely quiet’? It cannot be quiet until it’s realized that it’s the gasoline for the ‘fire’ in our house. Without that realization we’ll go on trying to put out the fire by pouring gasoline on it and the questioning will have no effect on the fundamental problem of the intellect and how it divides.
We have said that. The intellect can add further fuel to the fire, but it cannot put out the fire. Its only option is to stop, to put itself out of action. Can it do it? If we wait for realisation, we shall wait forever.
It can’t ‘put itself out of action’. Only understanding will end the ‘me’. It’s out of our hands…‘our’ meaning ‘us’/mine.
Then you haven’t put the question. Do you see what is happening? Understanding comes in time. So instead of coming to a natural and quiet end, the intellect demands something else to happen which will take time. But if it says, ‘Can I stop?’ it has to find out without recourse to time. The finding out is far more important than the answer. A quick answer to a question like this must inevitably come from the past, from some prior conclusion. Therefore, in disregarding both the ‘Yes’ and the ‘No’ as a viable response to our question, there is only then the question itself with all energy gathered therein; and the real answer lies within the question. It is then all about a mind enquiring, not just jumping from one conclusion to the next. But if we have other questions, other worries, other concerns, that energy gets broken up.
We usually do. And that can’t be wished away or denied. So let’s deal with facts…as K often encouraged us to do. “A good businessman deals with facts”, I think he once said. Our energy gets dissipated throughout the day due to these worries and conflicts and it’s not available for deep inquiry. At the end of our work day the body demands rest. And for most of us, our free time on our days off from work is spent in search of entertainment or fulfillment. K himself enjoyed the entertainment of a good adventure film or mystery novel. It’s out of our hands, where life takes us. I was fortunate in that life led me to K. though at the time, I would have much preferred to spend my days on the beach or involved in music. But life had other plans and finally, I was forced into a corner where I had to face myself. But during all the years previous to finally confronting conflict in ‘me’, the ‘teaching’, I feel was preparing the way.
You state this as if you know it for a fact, but you’re only repeating what K has said. Why not make that clear instead of implying that you know what you really don’t know?
What are we doing now? Are we breaking the habit or reverting to it?
If you’re referring to me personally, I’m busy working. Using thought to take care of a lot of essential issues…essential to the physical well being of myself and family. Yet, I’m aware when thought goes off into areas where it can only create conflict…when the ‘me’ gets into the picture.
You want different words? I had to go way back in this thread to see where you got it. I was responding to Douglas: “so in order to be free of the self we are being encouraged to be free of the self? The solution is the solution?”
That sounds like an impossibility. If the ‘self’ is ‘darkness’ , it can’t ‘free’ itself from its self. It is what it is. It can’t bring the ‘light’ of insight. Only the light can dispel the dark. That is out of the ‘control’ of the self. Insight is the ‘seeing’ of the working of the self. It is a ‘blessing’? Grace? Without it, it seems, there can be no change. No light in the darkness?
And when it occurs, it is a fact.
Who makes myself and my family important if not thought? Therefore the most important issue here is not to give thought a lot of other things to do but to find out first of all whether or not thought can be totally silent. Can it? We keep putting the same question; however, I wonder if we are truly sharing it. If there is a more urgent question, let’s put it; but I doubt that there is. Thought will come up with a hundred reasons for delaying its own demise.
Are you speaking from your experience or paraphrasing K without attribution?
Yes Inquiry, I am…from experience and right now…have you not had insights into yourself?
Well, we do want to survive physically and want our children to thrive and be healthy. I’m not implying that me and my family are more important than any other human being, however. But when there’s not enough food to feed the family, we don’t think about silence, but use thought as a valuable tool to find food. That’s a simple example of how thought can improve one’s chances of surviving physically. And if one has kids, they must be fed, so we go to work…we don’t stay home and stay silent, nor walk in nature silently observing the birds and the flowers. We go to our place of work where thought is necessary, no? Necessary, whether we program computers or repair automobiles, or help heal the sick in a doctors office or hospital. Can our daily work be done silently? Without thought? I don’t know. K always said that thought had its place in practical matters…but was problematic when it entered the personal or psychological field…the field of the self.
I wanted to come back to your question again, Paul. Asking whether thought can be silent is no different than ‘me’/fear…a frightened person…asking whether fear can end. Is there any real value in fear asking such a question? Or in ‘me’/self asking if self can end? Now we very well may ask, but the asking is rather meaningless because without self knowledge, fear will not be understood, and without understanding fear will continue.