Isn’t anything one does intended? Whatever I do, how ever mindlessly or reflexively, regardless of whether it turned out to be the right or the wrong thing to do, it was intentional, though unpremeditated.
What about the intention to find out what choiceless awareness actually is? If it’s possible to be choicelessly aware, it’s possible for awareness to be without me, the actor, the agent, the one who is doing it.
Can I discover what it is to be powerless, incapable of doing? Or is there discovery only when I is seen for what it is?
Yes, by definition, but is it real or just a concept?
When we go to a park, any scenic spot , do we ‘intend’ to look at a flower, a bird and then look at them?
Or do they just catch our attention? Just come into the field of vision and then catch our attention. Is there an intention there?
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Thank you for sharing the story Inquiry. I’m sure everyone has a recollection of getting physically lost, and there is no template for what happens next. It all depends on circumstances.
When you realised that you were lost, you stopped. Although part of your thinking was taken up with your concern about the search party being assembled to find you, it seems as though you found a reasonable response to your predicament (given the circumstances). You had a memory of the last clear marker that you knew punctuated the end of a trail, so you circled your location like a radar (in a “widening spiral”) until you located that marker, from which you then knew you could follow a trail all the way back to where you started.
Of course, one ought to remember that getting geographically lost is only an analogy for what can take place inwardly, so one ought not be too literalistic about the similarity. But the point is that when one realises that one is lost, confused, unclear, the most intelligent thing to do is to stop and become aware of what is going on - if only to avoid becoming even more lost and confused (which is as true inwardly as it is outwardly).
I don’t understand this Rick? I feel I have presented a reasonable step by step account of ordinary awareness, which you are free to disagree with at any point. So it would be helpful - in terms of our discussion here - for you to make explicit which step in my account you take issue with. Then we can circle back and tackle that specific step with which you disagree - rather than just lumping it altogether and saying “you are repeating yourself” - right?
Perhaps because you do not interact closely with other people’s replies, it takes more effort for your interlocutors to pin down exactly what you are disagreeing with or not understanding, and so the elaboration in greater detail of what one has previously said is an opportunity for you step in and be specific about what it is you actually disagree with.
I assume you don’t disagree with the fact that people are not zombies - so we are both tacitly accepting the fact that an ordinary person (you or I) are somewhat aware of the inner and the outer world. You can disagree with this if you want to, but I don’t think you would do.
So we both accept that superficial ordinary awareness is taking place, consciously or unconsciously, all the time.
Now you seem to be saying (without being explicit about it) that all awareness is intentional, right? You haven’t stated this clearly, but it is implied from what you have written. Would you agree with this assessment of your position? Or are you allowing for the possibility that sometimes awareness is not intentional?
Maybe we ought to be clear about this first?
So what do you mean by intentionality? Usually that word implies having an end in mind, a goal. So are you saying that every moment, every second of awareness is structured by an implicit end or goal?
So when one is sitting under a tree on a sunny day, and one becomes aware of the shade of the tree, the sunlight falling between the leaves, the colour of the grass, are you saying that each and every moment of this awareness is structured by a clear end or goal? Maybe. But as Drax says,
To be constantly intentional about every second of existence is surely exhausting and fruitless. There is clearly a time when explicit intentionality is required, such as when catching a bus or a train, when ordering food in a restaurant, when exchanging money at a bank, etc. But when one is walking down the street (and one has leisure), is there clear intentionality at work in every single moment of seeing people walking past, noticing the colour of their clothes, the impression of their faces and postures, the impression of the shop windows and the shapes of doors and buildings? Or, as Drax says,
Is there an intention to be aware when I stub my toe, or is there just awareness of pain in the toe, followed very quickly by mental activity to manage the pain, to evade the pain (through displacement activities of blame, cursing, anger, etc)?
Maybe for you intentionality exists all the way down. Maybe that is your basic assumption with regards to awareness, which is why you object so strongly to the possibility of choiceless or passive awareness.
But even if it is the case that every second of awareness is structured by this intentionality, is it possible for us to become aware of this pressure of intention? Can the mind be aware of the background movement (or force) of continuous intention? Wouldn’t this be a reasonable question to ask?
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I don’t know if you are aware Rick (I guess you probably are) but there is a whole school of thought in European and American philosophy - called Phenomenology - that uses this language of intentionality. But even the school’s founding fathers (Brentano and Husserl) didn’t believe that all human experience is intentional. For example, they said that sensations and sense data are not intentional.
We feel the warmth of the sun on our skin, we sense the bright impression that the sunlight makes on our eyes, we hear the movement of the leaves in the breeze. Is any of this intentional?
One might say that all thought, all thinking, is structured by intentionality. And this would be correct up to a point, because thought is a ultimately tool created by the brain for the organism’s continued survival. However, even there one can question whether the movement of thought is actually intentional: do we always choose or intend our thoughts? Or is thinking just going on, whether we like it or not, whether we choose to be thinking or not, whether we want a certain thought to be there or not, etc?
So I question whether every aspect of our lives is intentional in the way you seem to have suggested (without your explicitly saying so of course).
And if you honestly feel that everything we do, everything we think, everything we feel or sense (or are aware of), is always intentional - then can there be an awareness of this fact (if it is a fact for us), just as a fact?
This seems like the right approach to me, assuming we’re talking about the ‘pure’ version of choiceless awareness where the choicelessness applies to the whole process rather than the more limited mindfulness version. What is choiceless awareness, do I ‘experience’ it, does anyone, what brings it into being, is some form of it always there?
Right, awareness must be able to exist sans chooser = doer = psychological self = me. This seems to be true, as demonstrated during deep sleep, in which a trigger (unusual sound, touch, movement) can waken us, something only possible if awareness was there the whole time. In this sense, we are being choicelessly aware all the time, 24/7. But is this what Krishnamurti meant? I doubt it. I think what he meant was deeper, more profound, subtler.
If that’s what’s being communicated then its being mis-communicated!
(Request: It would be helpful if you guys could learn to read my mind. (Warnung! Warnung! Entering my mind is not for the faint of heart!))
My feeling (and observation) is that awareness awares, in the same way that a radio picks up signals. It’s what awareness does/is, no intention is needed.
If this is what Krishnamurti meant by choiceless awareness, thumbs up!
So then, you are allowing for the possibility that our awareness - at least occasionally, sometimes, etc - is capable of “aware-ing” without any particular choice, intention, end or goal.
Aka being choiceless.
So it seems to me that you have an idea about what K meant about choiceless or passive awareness that may be interfering in our discussion about choiceless or passive awareness. Could this be the case?
So when you talk about
this “pure version” may simply be your own image, your own mental construction of what choiceless awareness actually is. Right?
Or you may already know what choiceless awareness is completely, and so it is not just an idea for you, but a fact. But my sense is that it is mostly an idea. When you use the word “pure” it becomes an idea, because nothing is pure. There is only what is actually taking place.
When you say
it seems to me that you are projecting an idea of perfect, “pure” choicelessness, and making this an idea which is then a block to actual awareness.
This is not to say, of course, that there are not dimensions of awareness, degrees of choicelessness, depths of attention that are possible for the mind that we haven’t been looking at here. But one cannot go far without starting near, and what is near is whatever we are aware of presently, whatever it may be. And to be aware of whatever we are presently, means being aware of it for itself, whether we choose it to be there or not.
I think it is that simple.
I think choiceless awareness, selflessness existence, is the natural state of the brain from which our species deviated, took a wrong turn.
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Rick: the ‘pure’ version of choiceless awareness where the choicelessness applies to the whole process rather than the more limited mindfulness version
James: this “pure version” may simply be your own image, your own mental construction of what choiceless awareness actually is. Right?
An image based on what I’ve heard from Krishnamurti and others who presumably understand Krishnamurti. I’m sure I could find Krishnamurti quotes that would ‘back’ my image of his ‘pure’ choiceless awareness. So to say it’s ‘my mental construction’ is misleading, it makes it sound like I conjured it out of thin air! It’s my attempt to fathom what Krishnamurti meant.
R: I think what he meant was deeper, more profound, subtler
J: … it seems to me that you are projecting an idea of perfect, “pure” choicelessness, and making this an idea which is then a block to actual awareness.
I’m just trying to understand what Krishnamurti was pointing to when he spoke about choiceless awareness.
I’ve been asking this question for 20 years, to myself and others (again, those who presumably know Krishnamurti well), but have never felt fully satisfied with the responses. Mebbe trying to use thought to understand choiceless awareness is as much a fool’s errand as trying to use thought to understand brahman. If so, the appropriate response for “What did Krishnamurti mean by choiceless awareness?” would be something like: He meant shut up and watch!
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That rings for me, ‘choiceless awareness’ as a pointer to selflessness.
Speculating: When self is absent, choice is absent, and since awareness is there 24/7, voilà: choiceless awareness, the real ‘pure’ kind, from the ground up!
I think the selfless human is always choosing, but never choosing to interpret and distort what actually is. Just as there is practical and psychological thought, there is practical and psychological choosing.
I wouldn’t call practical choice “pure” because its just mundane rather than insane.
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Krishnamurti on choiceless awareness:
You see a lovely tree with its leaves sparkling after the rain; you see the sunlight shining on the water and on the gray-hued feathers of the birds; you see the villagers walking to town carrying heavy burdens, and hear their laughter; you hear the bark of a dog, or a calf calling to its mother. All this is part of awareness, the awareness of what is around you, is it not?
Coming a little closer, you notice your relationship to people, to ideas and to things; you are aware of how you regard the house, the road; you observe your reactions to what people say to you, and how your mind is always evaluating, judging, comparing, or condemning. This is all part of awareness, which begins on the surface and then goes deeper and deeper.
Awareness isn’t something mysterious that you must practice; it isn’t something that can be learned only from the speaker, or from some bearded gentleman or other… Just to be aware—what does it mean?
To be aware that you are sitting there and I am sitting here; that I am talking to you and you are listening to me; to be aware of this hall, its shape, its lighting, its acoustics; to observe the various colours that people wear, their attitudes, their effort to listen, their scratching, yawning, boredom… their agreement or disagreement with what is being said. All that is part of awareness—a very superficial part.
Behind that superficial observation there is the response of our conditioning: I like and I don’t like, I am British and you are not British, I am a Catholic and you are a Protestant. And our conditioning is really very deep. It requires a great deal of investigation, understanding. To be conscious of our reactions, of our hidden motives and conditioned responses, this also is part of awareness.
You can’t be totally aware if you are choosing. If you say, “This is right and that is wrong,” the right and the wrong depend on your conditioning…
To be aware is to be conscious of all this, choicelessly, it is to be aware totally of all your conscious and unconscious reactions. And you can’t be aware totally if you are condemning, if you are justifying, or if you say, “I will keep my beliefs, my experiences, my knowledge…
Being aware of your conditioning, you must watch it choicelessly; you must see the fact and not give an opinion or judgment about the fact.
What do we mean by ordinary awareness?
I see you and, in watching you, looking at you, I form opinions. You have hurt me, you have deceived me, you have been cruel to me, or you have said nice things and flattered me, and consciously or unconsciously all this remains in my mind. When I watch this process, when I observe it, that is just the beginning of “awareness, is it not? …
So, through awareness I begin to see myself as I actually am…
Being watchful from moment to moment of all its thoughts, its feelings, its reactions, unconscious as well as conscious, the mind is constantly discovering the significance of its own activities, which is self-knowledge…
We cannot maintain total awareness all the time. How can we? To be aware from moment to moment is enough.
If one is totally aware for a minute or two and then relaxes, and in that relaxation spontaneously observes the operations of one’s own mind, one will discover much more in that spontaneity than in the effort to watch continuously. You can observe yourself effortlessly, easily—when you are walking, talking, reading—at every moment.
Don’t be aware all the time! Just be aware in little bits. Please, there is no being aware all the time—that is a dreadful idea! … Just be aware for one minute, for one second.
If you are aware of outward things—the curve of a road, the shape of a tree, the colour of another’s dress, the outline of the mountains against a blue sky, the delicacy of a flower, the pain on the face of a passerby, the ignorance, the envy, the jealousy of others, the beauty of the earth—then, seeing all these outward things without condemnation, without choice, you can ride on the tide of inner awareness.
Then you will become aware of your own reactions, of your own pettiness, of your own jealousies.
From the outward awareness you come to the inward… when you are aware of your thoughts, of your feelings, both secret and open, conscious and unconscious, then out of this awareness there comes a clarity that is not induced.
The what is is what you are, not what you would like to be; it is not the ideal because the ideal is fictitious, but it is actually what you are doing, thinking, and feeling from moment to moment. What is is the actual.
Understanding comes with the awareness of what is. There can be no understanding if there is condemnation of or identification with what is.
If you condemn a child or identify yourself with him, then you cease to understand him.
So, being aware of a thought or a feeling as it arises, without condemning it or identifying with it, you will find that it unfolds ever more widely and deeply, and thereby discover the whole content of what is.
To understand the process of what is there must be choiceless awareness, a freedom from condemnation, justification, and identification. When you are vitally interested in fully understanding something, you give your mind and heart, withholding nothing.
But unfortunately you are conditioned, educated, disciplined through religious and social environment to condemn or to identify, and not to understand.
To condemn is stupid and easy, but to understand is arduous, requiring pliability and intelligence. Condemnation, as identification, is a form of self-protection. Condemnation or identification is a barrier to understanding…
There is understanding only when there is stillness, when there is silent observation, passive awareness. Then only the problem yields its full significance. The awareness of which I speak is of what is from moment to moment.
Does not effort mean a struggle to change what is into what it is not, or what it should be, or what it should become?
We are constantly escaping from what is, to transform or modify it…
So, effort is non-awareness.
Awareness reveals the significance of what is…
So, awareness is non-effort; awareness is the perception of what is without distortion.
If one understands the implications of awareness, one’s body not only becomes highly sensitive, but the whole entity is activated; there is a new energy given to it. Do it, and you will see. Don’t sit on the bank and speculate about the river; jump in and follow the current of this awareness.
Awareness is observation without condemnation.
Awareness brings understanding, because there is no condemnation or identification but silent observation.
If I want to understand something, I must observe, I must not criticise, I must not condemn, I must not pursue it as pleasure or avoid it as non-pleasure. There must merely be the silent observation of a fact. There is no end in view but awareness of everything as it arises…
Awareness begins with outward things, being aware, being in contact with objects, with nature.
First, there is awareness of things about one, being sensitive to objects, to nature, then to people, which means relationship; then there is awareness of ideas…
Awareness demands constant pliability, alertness. This is not difficult. It is what you actually do when you are interested in something, when you are interested in watching your child, your wife, your plants, the trees, the birds. You observe without condemnation, without identification; therefore, in that observation there is complete communion…
This actually takes place when you are deeply, profoundly interested in something.
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Ja, natürlich! I was talking about psychological choice, self-driven choice.
“… choiceless awareness is a state of mind that sees what is actually taking place, factually, without any condemnation or justification.” – Krishnamurti
A good and clear and simple description of choiceless awareness. The issue raised for me: What is the ‘state of mind that sees what is actually taking place … without any condemnation or justification?’ It’s the state of no-self. Any hint of self will bring in judgement/choice.
Substituting terms you get:
“… choiceless awareness is a self-free state of mind.”
The question is: Are we ever truly self-free? It seems to me that the feeling of self, in some form, is omnipresent, sometimes consciously, sometimes (often, I’d say) unconsciously. It is this self-less choiceless awareness that I wonder about, is it actually ever possible?
The answer is ‘yes’ or ‘I don’t know’ but in either case, something has to be ‘done’ about it.
Hi, Dan. 
Could you elaborate please?
You see, this is why I feel that this has just become an intellectual idea for you Rick. You have made choiceless awareness into some intellectual trick, when it is just something completely natural and simple. You seem to have separated it off from just ordinary awareness, and so made it into a fable like the yeti or the Loch Ness monster.
Read through the following highlighted sentences, and tell me if you need to be completely selfless to be aware in the way that K is suggesting?
You see a lovely tree with its leaves sparkling after the rain; you see the sunlight shining on the water and on the gray-hued feathers of the birds… All this is part of awareness, the awareness of what is around you, is it not?
Coming a little closer… you observe your reactions to what people say to you, and how your mind is always evaluating, judging, comparing, or condemning. This is all part of awareness, which begins on the surface and then goes deeper and deeper.
Awareness isn’t something mysterious… Just to be aware—what does it mean?
To be aware that you are sitting there and I am sitting here; that I am talking to you and you are listening to me; to be aware of this hall, its shape, its lighting, its acoustics; to observe the various colours that people wear, their attitudes, their effort to listen, their scratching, yawning, boredom…
To be conscious of our reactions, of our hidden motives and conditioned responses, this also is part of awareness.
What do we mean by ordinary awareness?
I see you and, in watching you, looking at you, I form opinions. You have hurt me, you have deceived me, you have been cruel to me, or you have said nice things and flattered me, and consciously or unconsciously all this remains in my mind. When I watch this process, when I observe it, that is just the beginning of “awareness, is it not? …
So, through awareness I begin to see myself as I actually am…
If you are aware of outward things—the curve of a road, the shape of a tree, the colour of another’s dress, the outline of the mountains against a blue sky, the delicacy of a flower, the pain on the face of a passerby, the ignorance, the envy, the jealousy of others, the beauty of the earth…
Then you will become aware of your own reactions, of your own pettiness, of your own jealousies.
So, to summarise in case it is a chore to read through these statements:
- there is awareness of trees and leaves
- of one’s reactions to what other people say
- of one’s incessant comparing and judging
- of the person sitting across from one, and of oneself sitting
- of the building in which one is sitting
- of what clothes other people are wearing
- of what other people are doing
- of our own motives
- of forming opinions about another person, both pleasant and unpleasant
- of oneself as one presently is
- of a blue sky, a mountain, a flower, a face
- of what other people display emotionally
- of one’s own pettiness and jealousy
Does one need to be selfless to be aware of any of these things? Was K suggesting that we have to be selfless before we become aware of these things? Or are you simply making an idea of awareness which has become a block to being aware?
K: Awareness isn’t something mysterious
A selfless state may occur in the course of being aware, but one does not need to be selfless to be aware.
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