The intellect is still the only tool we have. This is a vital consideration. Outside of the intellect there is no other tool we possess, except what the intellect projects as a future possibility. So there are many imaginary tools that appear in consciousness as idealistic solutions. Therefore it is not a question of finding something better than the intellect or better than thought. Maybe it is a question of intellectual excellence.
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Through an intellectual understanding of its own limits?
Go on. Can you expand upon that point? Itās not clear what that would amount to since the intellect is based upon knowledge and memory only, isnāt it? How can memory and time/thought/knowledge go beyond itself and reach the timeless? It canāt. As mac said, maybe itās all about thought realizing itās limitation? Isnāt the movement of the intellectā¦the inquiringā¦probingā¦questioningā¦a bit like the dog chasing its tail? Or can the questioning bring the intellect to its limitsā¦to the point where it knows it can go no further?
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āAll ideals are illusoryā¦speaking psychologicallyā ā¦from video I linked to above with K and Bohm. And āself improvement is something thatās so utterly uglyā ā¦like trying to move from violence to non violence ā¦or from fear to inner peace?
There is no such thing as intellectual understanding. There is only ever intellectual misunderstanding and distortion. Outwardly, thought has a practical application because it can generate the most precise, accurate measurements and solve the most difficult practical problems. Inwardly, however, any movement of thought always creates a disturbance around problems that it tries to deal with because the movement of thought creates a false division between the observer and the observed. Therefore thought isnāt the tool to deal with our psychological problems; and yet there is no other tool.
Therefore, what is the problem? Up to now, it has been about finding the best solution or the best tool for the job. But there is no such tool. So what has happened to the problem? Having eliminated entirely the time it takes to find the best answer, what has become of the problem? Was there ever a problem at all, other than the search for an answer?
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Or digging for a bone? The question that comes up for me is about the āenergyā that is needed to do this āsimpleā thing of observing oneself choicelessly. The seeing of oneself without the āminding what happensā? Does it take a, (as I think he said to Bohm) ātremendous energyā for this to occur, the observation of the āstream of oneselfā without any āfilterā , without any resistance, judgement, condemnation, etc to what is seen? To not āmind what happens.ā K has said in a talk with Bohm that the energy needed for this seeing comes from the ending of the āwastageā that occurs when the observer is separate from the observed. When the thinker is separate from the thought, etcā¦Is this the ādifficultyāā¦ that there isnāt sufficient energy to āobserveā the self choicelessly because of the momentum and āforceā of the conditioning? (All these thousands of years)
One reply could be that it is all delusion made up by me - but thats also incorrect.
Our delusion is part of reality. There is a game to be played, challenges to face up to.
The challenge is being able to flow with the delusion with an open heart.
āwe human beings have been given the capacity to think, and we think wrongly. To know how to think requires a great deal of penetration, understanding, but to know what to think is comparatively easy.ā From the book, āThink on These Thingsā chapter 3
I donāt think itās just that, Dan. We have tons of energyā¦at least when weāre young. But the energy is spent in endless pursuit of pleasure. And energy gets used up in endless conflict as well. So the energy needed for seeing just isnāt there as long as weāre worn out from conflict and from staying out late nights pursuing pleasure at the bar or pub or sports arena. Plus weāve thousands of years of conditioning that causes the mind to immediately judge and condemn what it sees. Energy alone wonāt free us of that conditioning will it? I mean Olympic athletes have tremendous energy yet even if they desired it, could they apply that energy to āseeingā free of the filterā¦free of conditioningā¦free of judging? I think not.
Do you see another cause that keeps one from breaking through besides a lack of interest and or, a lack of energy?
Fear. FEar of punishmentā¦fear of suffering of some sortā¦fear of losing our spouse or our job. Economic fearsā¦of being brokeā¦not being able to pay the mortgageā¦losing our home or car. The whole of our consciousness is centered there. Wrapped up in conflict. So we have no energy to look outside of that realm. If weāre struggling all the time we use up a llot of energy, right? Then weāre exhausted after work and have a few beers and watch footballā¦as a relaxation and an escape. Weāre always mulling over one problem after anotherā¦or escaping through TV or moviesā¦sportsā¦drink.
But Iām talking about people who are interested in Kās ideas and are conflicted etc . What keeps them from breaking through besides a lack of sufficient interest and enough energy to be choicelessly aware?
But Iāve been interested in K for over 40 years and I suffered most of that time with terrible fear, conflict, all that I mentioned above. So that remains my answer above. My energy was constantly dissipated in conflict. Or ambition ā¦and pursuit of pleasure. Just like the non-K folks.
Is it, as has been said, the fear of being ānothingā? That rather than ābreak outā out of āthat realmā, itās better than the āunknownā? That the known sufferings / attachments are better than what would happen if all that was let go? I doubt we can keep the psychological attachments and get rid of the fear. Itās probably the whole āenchiladaā or nothing. But it could be that, knowing what we know, moving out of that ignorant realm of fear and sufferingā¦is actually now our responsibility and obligation?
We are conditioned and because of the conditioning we run our perceptions past memory and memory projects into consciousness the memories that closest resemble the perceptions and we react to these impositions into our consciousness.
Our perceptions do not reach the area of the brain that would be responsible for understanding the perceptions so that area lays dormant.
When conditioning is dropped then our perceptions could activate the area of the brain that was previously inactive and it could be that the perceptions reaching this area is an awakening and maybe K was describing that awakening as a mutation in that the brains cells are now responding as they previously have not been responding.
However this would not explain the pain that K endured and the supervision over his physical body that was required as this āprocessā was occurring as K was often in a comatose state.
This āprocessā that K was experiencing took place over a period of years so there is no instantaneous change.
What K went through is not what the teaching is about
And this division between observer and observed is the cause of the problem in the first placeā¦ALL psychological problems. How can that which caused the problem be the solution?
āthere is no such tool.ā Now thatās a powerful statement, Paul. In other words there is no solution at all? Is that what youāre saying? And in realizing that there is no solution, the problem is no more? Not sure if Iāve got this. Any attempt to solve the problem is actually a movement of the problem itselfā¦so only perpetuates and prolongs the problemā¦because āIā am the problemā¦thought/consciousness as we know it, is the problem. Anyone else?
Can you examine your own consciousness. And if thereās any motive for the examination, there will be distortionā¦distortion in the looking. So can you examine your own consciousness without distortion? This is what K was saying in the video Iām watching this AM.
Examination free of distortion
The issue Iām up against is that thereās ALWAYS a motive when I suffer. I want to be free of suffering. So I always examine with a motive, no? Does this make senseā¦the impossible question K is posingā¦ācan I examine myself free of distortion?ā ?
The first step as he said in another talk with Bohm is the realization is that you are the suffering, the anger, the sadness, the greed, etc., etc. Once that is realized that you actually are those āqualitiesā , then conflict ends. The observer is the observed, the thinker is the thoughtā¦then there is no āsecond partyā, āyouā / āmeā, trying to take any action whatsoever against āwhat isā happening. And with this realization that you and the āqualityā are one, this frees energy from the brain which has been in a constant struggle as a result of the false duality and this is the energy that is necessary to see our ourself without motive, without choice. Self observation or self knowledge then is this āchoiceless awarenessā or āattentionā to our reactions in the moment. We donāt need to go āfurtherā than that, do we?