Are you saying that you don’t think it’s possible to use words to convey anything that’s going on within? When you talk to me I’m not taking all of your words literally. I’m listening to the meanings riding on the words, and the subtleties of what’s being suggested, realizing I may not be understanding exactly what you mean, but listening for some sense of the truth of what you’re saying. By talking back and forth and questioning each other can we perhaps get closer to what each of us means to convey, despite the limitations of the words? that seems to me to be a discovering of the inner directly. How can I know what’s going on with my girlfriend if i don’t keep asking questions and listening and not getting hung up on the words she’s using? And observing directly my inner world and sharing it back. I understand that you can’t actually know my inner. I don’t even know my inner. But something about my inner world can be conveyed if you’re willing to listen. None of this excludes an inner silence within which observation and communication happens. I hope I’m not responding to something you didn’t mean.
It is ok as long as we know words are not real but just means of expression. We can connect with each other in dialogue irrespective of words as listening or caring is not about words.
I don’t mind reading someone’s “book” of themselves if it isn’t self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing, self-pitying, boring, or poorly written. But I guess that eliminates most books of ourselves, though, doesn’t it?
That is very funny LOL
It’s almost a miracle that we can share that passion, and we can really listening each other. Talking about listening; my friend in Spain sent me this:
“The world is as full of opinions as it is of people. And you know what an opinion is. One says this, and someone else says that.
Everyone has an opinion, but opinion is not the truth, so don’t listen to a mere opinion, no matter whose it is, but find out for yourself what is true. Opinion can change overnight, but we cannot change the truth.”
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
Everyone has an opinion, but opinion is not the truth, so don’t listen to a mere opinion, no matter whose it is, but find out for yourself what is true.
There is fact and there is opinion. Until and unless we can look at things factually, looking at the various expressions of thoughts and feelings amounts to so much self-analysis, or else piling opinion upon opinion, it seems to me.
There are people who feel they are able to see things in an unadulterated fashion. I do not count myself among them. There are times I think I am beginning to see but for the most part things are going badly. Perhaps that is the difficulty. Some are ready to read the book of themselves (or listen to other people read theirs) while some of us are still pondering and are deathly interested in what it means to read. Or perhaps more importantly, what it means not to. Could that be the disconnect? Our interests have diverged. The irony being that having an interest of any kind might be antithetical to actual neutral observation as it engenders a personal agenda. Silence has no interest. Silence is non-selective.
I think it is enough to realize that I am memory and thoughts, like everyone else. From there the division ceases, and everything related to the psychological field is understood, or it falls into place.
I’m listening to everything you said Dev. This has come up before - the level of scrutiny and doubt. I don’t have that level of doubt. I would say i have some level of doubt about everything. But there’s also trust.
When you share this the level of energy it must take to question that deeply is palpable.
I have questions about the part about opinions. Somebody starts talking about something. To me it sounds like an opinion. But how can I know whether it’s a fact for them or an opinion? It’s a fact when someone says something. It’s a fact that I think it’s an opinion. Everything else is opinion because we can’t really know what’s inside another person’s head. Maybe we can get close to what’s inside someone else’s head if we spend enough time talking back and forth with them.
Yes, we are the world of humanity, each one of us in our own cage of memory and thoughts within The Prison of Memory and Thought.
Humanity has imprisoned itself, and after thousands of years of imprisonment, prisoners who see the futility of escape, do nothing because everything a prisoner does sustains the prison.
Both of which have their limits, John.
Thank you for clarifying that because it’s not what I thought you were saying.
Maybe that’s what this forum is for.
John, as the past is what is inside, does trying to get inside someone’s head block one from meeting them now?
I do understand what you are saying. It is rare to find someone who will just listen without judgement. It is something I ask myself, do I just listen. We are surrounded by opinions, in media, in relationships, in work, a mental pressure which each one is putting on another. It is rare to have someone who listens, does not have a mental reaction. If that happens that is silence, that is space, that is non-division, it is compassion as there is no separation. Mental aggression is encouraged through thought, through media.
But then the question of listening is something I ask myself, I don’t see the point of demanding it from another as it is for each to discover and understand. Krishnamurti had a deep listening. He kept sharing even though perhaps most of his audience could not listen. His listening was a sort of sharing that was not dependent. So this is a question I ask myself.
Does the self listen in the moment? Does the self only access memory, which is the past? Does the self really ask self if it’s listening? Is demanding it from another a desire? A desire to control? What is there to understand about listening? Isn’t that the self just gathering knowledge about listening which then is turned into a concept, an idea?
Thank you for expressing this honest, salient question which i can now ask myself as well.
The self, the conditioned brain, is unable to listen without prejudice, bias, because that’s the effect of conditioning. With self-knowledge, the conditioned brain has no illusions about what it can and cannot do. Thus, it is free from the hope/desire/belief that it can do what it cannot.
For the self-aware conditioned brain, the only question is what keeps it bound and determined to continue, and the only answer is itself, i.e., will. Where there’s a will there’s a way to persist and continue in spite of every reason to cease and desist.
Again I apologize for my awkward wording. By “getting close to what’s in someone’s head” I mean listening through the words to understand what the person means, asking questions to clarify what they mean, understanding what they really mean, right now. I wish I knew how to speak in a way that others understood what is meant despite the words being used.
I think I see what you mean Blanca. Is it that the realization now (which is observation, witnessing, passion, love) is not of the prison?
I don’t know if the disconnect is because of language or what is actually meant. But yes, I think you hit on where the disconnect is. So these are my questions.
Do you mean halting listening to a person to inquire into questions about reading? The reason I’m asking this is because when the focus goes to the reading itself, then I’m not listening to the person any more and for me that’s what’s most important; that is, our relationship.
Can there be a listening of a person that simultaneously takes into account the “deathly interest in what it means to read. Or perhaps more importantly, what it means not to.”
Are you using the word reading to mean me reading and therefore interpreting or some subtle filtering getting into the listening? When questioning the very reading, is it a matter of taking another step back to ask something like: Can reading the book of me or you be listened to with the understanding that reading may not be free of me reading, and therefore without reading at all?
I don’t want to stop with that question, but consider it while listening. This is because what my preference is, and what I’m really interested in is listening to you and not letting the interpretations and biases i’m trapped in getting in the way of our relationship.
I’m wondering if when K used the word 'read", he didn’t mean me reading, but did he mean something like unadulterated listening or observing. So are we understanding the word “read” the same?
For me, to realize the currupability doesn’t mean abandoning the act of listening, observing, seeing… It means listening to everything being exchanged including the likelihood of misinterpretations, biases, deceipts and so on. Again, can there be listening purely, openly? A listening that takes into account the “deathly interest in what it means to read. Or perhaps more importantly, what it means not to.”