Are we taking a wrong turn now?
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Well Paul - should a wrong turn have been taken, and the fact of that wrong turn has not been seen and rectified, then mankind has ended up in the wrong place. Surely!
What is the right place?
Paul - isn’t it important to understand completely, and be responsible for, where and what we are as human beings and all the implications of that, rather than try to invent a ‘right place’ and then delude ourselves that we can get there by becoming?
Dealing with ‘what is’ - not inventing yet another ‘what should be’.
Exactly. Our dialogue is the right place to be; and all sense of resistance is gone.
Paul - So do you then opt for Inventing a ‘right place’ (ie: someone else’s method of ‘socio-therapy’) so that we all ‘delude ourselves that we can get there by becoming’?
K refused throughout his life to provide a ‘how’ - a method. And he dismissed therapy and analysis.
So let us not beat about the bush here. It appears that the process of ‘dialogue’ that takes place at the Wednesday discussion group is regurgitated Bohm dialogue, of which he himself said:
“If I had known what the Bohm dialogue process would become I would stop it all. It may be too late. There is a serious misunderstanding of dialogue in my name.”—David Bohm, 1991
I signed up for a Krishamurti Discussion Group. But it appears to be a Bohm dialogue play group, using a misunderstanding of Bohm dialogue methods, (and frequent ‘Bohm-speak’) - of which Bohm himself stated that he regretted ever instigating.
And please - where is the teaching of Krishnamurti in all this?
Patricia - as you yourself state, Krishnamurti provided no ‘how’, no method for the discovery of reality or truth. - He simply pointed out that without self-knowledge humanity is doomed; and so encouraged us to questions ourselves, to inquire into the nature and movement of our thought/conditioning (the psychological ‘what is’ of consciousness).
Now as far as understand it, all that we are doing during these dialogue meetings is attempt to inquire into ‘what is’.
We do it clumsily, chaotically - oftentimes insensitively - precisely because we are not following a fixed recipe laid down by anyone. Most of us (perhaps all of us?) are interested to find out what Krishnamurti’s teachings mean in our lives; and yet we come from different backgrounds, different age groups, using language in subtly different ways, with different expectations - and these factors cause us to clash, misunderstand, and confuse each other. Some participants claim to have all of the answers (which begs the question why they are participating in dialogue inquiry in the first place), while others are resistant to exposing the contents of their own conditioning. This is part of ‘what is’ for us as a group.
What we are discovering is that there is no simple solution for this difficulty: it requires each one of us to be responsibly attentive to our own reactions, as well as to the question under investigation (whatever the question might be) - without leaping to premature (and therefore inadequate) conclusions.
Turning to last Wednesday’s meeting: as I recall it, 2/3rds of the way through the dialogue one participant used the word “proprioception” (a term employed by Bohm in his dialogue proposal) to try to look at the relationship between the movement of thought (as “intellect”) and the self-awareness (proprioception) of the body. They were asking (as I understood it) whether we could have the same awareness of our own thought processes that we have - instinctively - of our own bodies. It was a reasonable question to ask as far as I could tell. Nevertheless, far from the group being animated by this “Bohmian” term, no one else in the group actually took up this question. On the contrary, another participant reacted so strongly to the way they thought the word (proprioception) was being used to critique people with a habit of intellectualism, that no-one mentioned the word proprioception again!
So, if I may ask you Patricia, what do you think dialogue ought to be? How do you think we are to meet the challenges and difficulties we face as a group communicating with one another? - Remembering that there is no authority, no leader, no-one who can claim to “know”, no method etc…
No. There is nowhere else to go. That’s all. We have to look at what we are and where we are now. There is no option; and therefore no resistance comes in. It is only when we think we should be somewhere else, doing something else, that our relationship sours.
“When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind.” Excerpt from The Core of the Teachings; October 21, 1980
Will this do?
In our dialogues together we are watching the movement of our own thoughts. We may all be completely confused to start with and relying on our limited knowledge to gain some clear ground, but that doesn’t matter. Because if we are willing to watch ourselves carefully, we’ll see the link between our knowledge and our confusion; and then comes the possibility of a different kind of relationship. We haven’t invented a thing. It is simply that this is the right place for all that to happen.
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The question is asked “Where is K in all of this?” One I have asked myself often whilst sitting in the seemingly endless misunderstandings which arise in our efforts to communicate clearly, yet with respect and care. It is quite a lonely experience to be with others and yet disconnected, as confirmed by the word disagreement.
So, yes, looking at the separation between thought and thinker is critical.
I suggest that disagreement is what K meant by inattention. That is the thinker is reacting such that perception of what is actually being said by the other cannot be comprehended fully or even accurately.
If we are to quote K : “ Opinion and the exploration of opinion is not truth… it is opinion and belief which prevent the observation of what is… there is no intelligence if there is no sensitivity of body and mind. Sensitivity is attention, which is intelligence. It has nothing to do with knowledge or information.(“The Only Revolution” p118)
Of course we can all go on quoting from Bohm, K and others endlessly.
In the midst of dialogue we are challenging ourselves to be attentive to a perception of the whole… self, other, the group as a whole… Harder to do when on line. Yet wherever we find ourselves, the interplay of challenge and reaction seems to travel at warp speed leading inevitably to conflict and separation. Overt or covert.
Is it possible to slow it down enough such that we can directly ‘see’ the (conditioned)reactivity of the thinker?
This is then a human group, presently representing all of humanity, and needs no qualifying label or adherence.
Lynne
PS I notice that I write/speak as though I know what I’m talking about. ( Higher education teaches us that.)The dialogue experience shows me that I do not. There is humility in this. Every time.
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Bohm dialogue rules.
The group agrees that no group-level decisions will be made in the conversation. “…In the dialogue group we are not going to decide what to do about anything. This is crucial. Otherwise we are not free. We must have an empty space where we are not obliged to anything, nor to come to any conclusions, nor to say anything or not say anything. It’s open and free.” (Bohm, “On Dialogue”, p. 18-19.)"
Each individual agrees to suspend judgement in the conversation. (Specifically, if the individual hears an idea he doesn’t like, he does not attack that idea.) “…people in any group will bring to it assumptions, and as the group continues meeting, those assumptions will come up. What is called for is to suspend those assumptions, so that you neither carry them out nor suppress them. You don’t believe them, nor do you disbelieve them; you don’t judge them as good or bad…(Bohm, “On Dialogue”, p. 22.)”
As these individuals “suspend judgement” they also simultaneously are as honest and transparent as possible. (Specifically, if the individual has a “good idea” that he might otherwise hold back from the group because it is too controversial, he will share that idea in this conversation.)
Individuals in the conversation try to build on other individuals’ ideas in the conversation. (The group often comes up with ideas that are far beyond what any of the individuals thought possible before the conversation began.)
Bohm’s concern expressed shortly before his death:
Ring any bells?
Dear Paul -
Isn’t this a continuous moment-to-moment solo activity - taking place in every daily relationship and every encounter, in each silent deep contemplation?
So why is a group required to watch the movement of our own thoughts? Need for applause? Approval? Someone to hold our hand and encourage us? Week after week?
Dear James -
A group of serious people come together in a discussion forum, and there is an excellent facilitator in Jackie.
Surely we are capable of establishing a fresh, new and honest ground for enquiry.
A ground in which we can understand, with compassion and care, the very real issues that confront us all as human beings.
Because we are very good at deceiving ourselves. After all, relationship is not a solo activity. Therefore, if there is something deeper, something sacred in human affairs, can’t we share it together?
Of course not. But observing the movement of thought is. Why then is there an audience required?
The implication of your question is that the human brain is in order. It is not. It is in complete disorder, so how can there be ‘something sacred’ to share?
Patricia - I wonder whether the chief danger to dialogue is not the fact that a few participants may have given consideration to some of Bohm’s writings (such as the value of “suspending assumptions” and being “open”), but rather the nascent appearance among us of a proto-fundamentalist mind-set?
A fundamentalist mind-set includes the following characteristics:
- Belief in an authoritative sacred text
An “us and them” mentality
Aggressive reactivity
Policing purity of doctrine
Or, as wikipedia puts it:
“A strict literalism as it is applied to certain specific scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, and a strong sense of the importance of maintaining ingroup and outgroup distinctions, leading to an emphasis on purity and the desire to return to a previous ideal from which advocates believe members have strayed.”
We are of course familiar with Christian, Muslim and Hindu fundamentalisms across the world, and the destructiveness these cause society; but we may be less aware that this same fundamentalist mind-set can equally co-opt the teachings of K (or Bohm) as it can Billy Graham or the Qur’an.
There is a good Zen-Buddhist proverb that speaks to this danger: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” - I think K would approve of this proverb, as he was careful to always stipulate that nothing he taught was to ever be accepted uncritically, and that even K’s teaching ought not to be used as authoritative on spiritual matters.
For evidence of this, I attach a few quotations from K’s teachings below:
“To be a light to yourself you must deny every other light, however great that light be, whether it be the light of the Buddha, or X Y Z.”
“Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.”
“You must know for yourself, directly, the truth of yourself and you cannot realise it through another, however great. There is no authority that can reveal it.”
“Any acceptance of authority is the very denial of truth.”
“Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery.”
“When all authority of every kind is put aside, denied, then you can find out for yourself.”
“All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing.”
What do you think? - Is this a fair concern that I’ve raised?
When we are together as a group of people, even as just two friends, thought operates differently from when we are alone.
In looking carefully together at our own disorder, isn’t this the genesis of order? We are not telling each other a thing about it; we are just looking, sharing what we see; and making sure we are both seeing the same thing at the same time. This quality of looking may be the most sacred thing of all for a humanity that has always been conditioned either to look away or to look elsewhere. Then we can throw K, Bohm and all the other authorities out of the window; because anything borrowed or followed is an authority.
Paul - The movement of thought is the movement of thought is the movement of thought.
K never asked to be followed. He pointed out the fact of human disorder and asked only that we discover firsthand for ourselves the fact of human disorder, and our own responsibility for it.
A fact discovered requires no authority. The fact itself acts.
Absolutely James. Your concern regarding authority is totally shared here.
But have you missed something?
A group of serious people gather together for the first time in a discussion group.
There is no consultation about the manner of discussion, or the matters of concern that would be interesting to explore. They are not afforded the courtesy of any input at all.
Rather than that, a bunch of Bohmian formulaic rules are imposed upon the group, and it is very clearly evident that anyone who steps outside those rules will cause ‘conflict’ for the others in the group. Will be the big problem.
And everyone just follows along like lemmings off a cliff. So entrenched is the Bohmian Doctrine that there is no capacity to even question it.
So when Bohm himself said shortly before his death -
he was right on!
And thirty years later, all genuine enquiry is dead. All dynamic enquiry is dead. There is a formula and IT WILL BE CONFORMED TO!
And the really sad thing is that no-one seems to even notice what is happening. All the people concerned so much with not having an ‘authority’ just unquestioningly go right along with it.
So - is this a fair concern I have raised James?
The movement gets challenged in our relationship. That’s what we are doing now.
So what is the fact of human disorder? You and me. Right?
Patricia - I may be mistaken, but I feel you are conflating two different things. The fact that some participants may be familiar with aspects of Bohm’s writings does not make the dialogue “Bohmian”. We may just be talking about dialogue “etiquette” - Right?
I lived and worked for a number of years at Brockwood Park, both in the school and the centre - and many of the staff and mature students (as well as some students) had read, or were familiar with, some of Bohm’s writings around dialogue. It may or may not have influenced the overall culture there - after all Bohm was an original trustee of the school, and held many important dialogues with K from the 50s through to the 80s, many of them attended by staff and students at Brockwood.
This influence notwithstanding - when we dialogued at Brockwood, it was just “dialogue”. And dialogue - no matter who we are or what we’ve read - always demands a minimum of what we might call socialisation (an ugly word!).
That is, it requires a certain degree of alertness, a certain degree of care for others, a capacity for reflection and self-questioning, a degree of sensitivity. - And of course, it requires a degree of intellectual clarity and passion.
Now these qualities (and others that you could probably add) are necessary for proper dialogue. Without them dialogue descends into conflict, anarchy, collusion, or flaccid opaqueness - wouldn’t you agree?
Yet, as qualities, they can can be described in different words (naturally).
Perhaps because Bohm was a scientist by training, one of the words that Bohm used to point to the importance of this quality of self-reflection (or self-questioning) was the term “suspension” - a word that has significance in chemistry (suspended in chemical solution), biology (suspended animation) and mechanical engineering (a suspension bridge).
Now, K did not commonly use that word, which is why you seem to have reacted to it. But the literal meaning of “suspension” is simply to (temporarily) cause to hang, to suspend - in this case for the purposes of looking at our assumptions or reactions. K’s language for this was “holding”, or “staying with”, or “remaining with” for the purposes of “looking at” and “inquiring into”, etc. K was very critical of people who just “blurted out” their thinking without considering what they were saying, or without having “taken time” to inquire into their own responses and reactions. “You just react” - he often said to his audience.
So, in our dialogue meeting - as with the dialogues I attended at Brockwood - we are encouraged to be aware of our (private) reactions as we explore into a (public) question of interest to the group. Whatever word you are comfortable with to describe this self-awareness or inner reflectivity, this is part of what makes dialogue possible. No? - Otherwise our inquiry has no awareness, sensitivity, and we are liable to become harsh, inflexible, obdurate.
This doesn’t mean (naturally!) that we will always be able to act in this self-reflective/self-aware manner (I am as guilty as anyone in this regard); and it certainly doesn’t mean that it’s never appropriate for us to “jump in” and challenge what someone is saying - K did this all the time as we know. - But we have to remember that we are not K: that is, we have to accept that often times we really are just reacting and not acting (out of intelligence).
It is part of humility to admit this, right? - Then we are simply equals, inquiring into the common problems of humanity. With care and mutual respect.