Yes. Something like that. If religious language was just treated as poetry, then we could use its language more freely. But, as things stand, we have to be careful when using religiously significant words - even words that sound subjectively poetic (as they often do to me).
Returning towards the theme of the thread: It takes energy to awaken, to overcome the inertia of being asleep. Where does that energy come from?
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It has been suggested that by remaining with the fact of suffering - not avoiding it or rationalising it or running away from it, etc - the energy of suffering is transformed into the energy of passion.
By ‘understanding’ that the self-center has tied up energy in its conflicts, fears, likes and dislikes, beliefs, etc; by understanding that, staying with whatever is there, that energy is freed. That ‘disorder’ becomes order aka silence?
Sounds promising, worth finding out whether it works that way for us. I’ll make an Experiment.
That sounds harder to work with, demands deeper and wider understanding.
Just the opposite, with the realization of my conditioning, ie.,the totality of it, the awareness or understanding has to have a lighter more delicate touch? It has to be free to see, not with a motive , just to see. This is not trying to get rid of the bad, the uncomfortable and keep the good…Self improvement is part of our conditioning. We like the good in ourselves and dislike the bad. Keep one and get rid of the other.
As I understand it what Dan is saying is that the energy that is currently occupied with the various reactions in consciousness can be released (as energy, passion), if we are able to remain with these reactions as they surface.
For K understanding doesn’t mean intellectual understanding, but direct awareness, seeing, perceiving, attention:
It is like looking at that sunset with your mind, with your heart, with your eyes, with your nerves; it is then you understand. And to understand jealousy, envy, ambition, cruelty, violence, to understand them [you must] give your complete attention at the moment anything happens, at the moment you feel envious, angry, jealous or full of hate, or feel dishonest in yourself.
(The Awakening of Intelligence)
Or that they are “both” the same thing mistaken for opposites by the confused, conflicted brain.
Thinking is all about things, “thinging”, so to speak, and every thing has its opposite. So the PC brain which is limited to thought, is all about opposites like good and bad, whereas awareness (when choiceless) makes no such distinctions. There are no opposites when there is no thought. Krishnamurti called it “the corridor of opposites”, which is what the PC brain is confined to.
Dan and James,
It’s way harder for me to “‘understand that the self-center has tied up energy in its conflicts, fears, likes and dislikes, beliefs” than to “remain with the fact of suffering.” But in some ways my brain works differently than most.
I accept that Dan’s language here is maybe a little bit more complicated, but one can see the gist of what he is saying: by self-centre he means our psychological conditioning, the problems we make for ourselves through thinking about ourselves in a habitually self-centred way - ‘ego stuff’ as someone might say.
This ‘ego business’ has created the various psychological states we call psychological fear, hurt, jealousy, envy, frustration, boredom, irritation, anger, suffering, etc - and all this ties up our energy, binds our attention to a narrow confined space.
When one remains with any of these psychological contents, there is an opportunity for the energy bound up in a particular reaction (of fear, hurt, loneliness, anger, etc) to be liberated, released - as expansive energy, attention, awareness, passion, etc.
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Sounds like you’re saying (that Dan’s saying that) both alternatives involve simply staying with with is there within the mind at the moment it is there. If that’s true, then neither is harder, because they’re both essentially the same: Stay with what’s there. But that’s not what Dan’s saying to me, because he talks about understanding, which is a whole different cognitive ballgame!
This was why I shared the extract from K explaining what ‘understanding’ means in this context:
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Aha, thanks. It’s not my (or the conventional) understanding of understanding. Normally observing and understanding are seen as interdependent, though nowhere near synonymous. Most of the things Krishnamurti talked about resonate with me, I find myself nodding in recognition. But not here. The kind of ‘understanding’ he’s talking about bears little resemblance to the understanding I know. From the quote you provided, his understanding has a kind of mystical vibe about it. And faced with the mystical, my Doubter tends to kick in hard. (Except when the opposite happens!)
Not as I understand it (no pun intended). To understand something implies seeing the whole of something - seeing the situation as a whole.
There is intellectual understanding, that’s one part of it. Intellectual understanding implies seeing a concept as a whole (as distinct from other concepts for example).
But self-knowing implies non-verbal understanding at the level of self-awareness, or what could be termed emotional intelligence (eq). To grasp one’s psychological situation as a whole.
But one cannot see one’s psychological situation as a whole, if there is no seeing, no attention, no interest or passion to look.