No, to live together first and then talk about it makes sense. Setting out conditions beforehand is itself a form of cheating. So what does it mean? Are you going to remain a slave to the past? Imagined or otherwise, it has all gone nonetheless. What facts are there in the present moment? Psychologically, it is possible to drag in anything from anywhere else, which is our habit. But to be alone with the present, what happens?
There are many people living together who can’t talk about living together because all or most of them want to live together according to their ideas and beliefs about how we should live together. They are all, according to you, cheating, and you are one of them.
You are so sure you know how to live together, how to “meet” each other, that all you can do is keep preaching your belief, just like everyone else. You are all cheating because that’s all you know.
I am interested only to find out what it means. It is rather stupid to say what it is or what it is not without having gone into the question thoroughly.
When I want to find out what it is, what it takes to live together, I don’t talk about it - I just do it and find out. And I’ve found out that each one of us lives with each other the way they choose, and this is no less true of you than anyone else.
You’re more interested in treating a symptom of our conditioning than in our conditioning itself. You’re lonely and crave a soulmate, seek attention, and come here to get it. The rest of us here, I’m pretty sure, are more interested in self-knowledge and fathoming what Krishnamurti was saying.
First of all, is there anyone on earth who is not your soulmate? You have avoided this question once already so I am putting it again, sorry to repeat it. This question is at the heart of what K is saying. He doesn’t put it exactly this way, perhaps; but he does say that basically we are all one, which is expressing the same feeling. And yet K also says that human beings are terribly lonely, caught in sorrow. So there are two facts here, apparently contradictory, that we are all one and yet we are lonely, unhappy creatures.
In the same way, there is contradiction in what you are saying about finding out what it means to live together. According to what you have said, you don’t talk about it, you just do it and find out. But how do you do it without talking about it? How is it possible together to do something without interacting with any other person? It’s rather strange, isn’t it? And perhaps this explains why you have arrived at the equally strange conclusion that each one of us lives with each other the way they choose: in other words, by choosing not to talk, not to explore together, not to enquire together, but to remain concerned only with what you call self-knowledge and fathoming what K was saying. Yet K was saying all through his many years that life is relationship. Therefore, it seems that it is you yourself who are sowing the seeds of loneliness and craving, the seeking of attention, by failing to address this central issue of the Teachings.
Someone is reaching out to you. That’s all. He is a complete stranger. So it is only a complete stranger that can adequately respond. Therefore our self-knowledge is utterly useless. I wonder if you get any of this.
This from K came to mind. I don’t know where it’s from;
"You should never be here too much; be so far away that they can’t find you, they can’t get at you to shape, to mould. Be so far away, like the mountains, like the unpolluted air; be so far away that you have no parents, no relations, no family, no country; be so far away that you don’t know even where you are. Don’t let them find you; don’t come into contact with them too closely. Keep far away where even you can’t find yourself; keep a distance which can never be crossed over; keep a passage open always through which no one can come. Don’t shut the door for there is no door, only an open, endless passage; if you shut any door, they will be very close to you, then you are lost.
Keep far away where their breath can’t reach you and their breath travels very far and very deeply; don’t get contaminated by them, by their word, by their gesture, by their great knowledge; they have great knowledge but be far away from them where even you cannot find yourself. For they are waiting for you, at every corner, in every house to shape you, to mould you, to tear you to pieces and then put you together in their own image. Their gods, the little ones and the big ones, are the images of themselves, carved by their own mind or by their own hands.
They are waiting for you, the churchman and the Communist, the believer and the non-believer, for they are both the same; they think they are different but they are not for they both brainwash you, till you are of them, till you repeat their words, till you worship their saints, the ancient and the recent; they have armies for their gods and for their countries and they are experts in killing. Keep far away but they are waiting for you, the educator and the businessman; one trains you for the others to conform to the demands of their society, which is a deadly thing;* they will make you into a scientist, into an engineer, into an expert of almost anything from cooking to architecture to philosophy.
Keep far, far away; they are waiting for you, the politician and the reformer; the one drags you down into the gutter and then the other reforms you; they juggle with words and you will be lost in their wilderness. Keep far away; they are waiting for you, the experts in god and the bomb-throwers: the one will convince you and the other [show you] how to kill; there are so many ways to find god and so many, many ways to kill. But besides all these, there are hoards of others to tell you what to do and what not to do; keep away from all of them, so far away that you cannot find yourself or any other. You too would like to play with all of them who are waiting for you but then the play becomes so complicated and entertaining that you will be lost. You should never be here too much, be so far away that even you cannot find yourself."
You do it by living with others. Talking about it only strengthens what you believe about how to live with others and influences others.
it seems that it is you yourself who are sowing the seeds of loneliness and craving, the seeking of attention
I’m here talking about Krishnamurti’s teaching and what it means to me. Apparently this isn’t enough for you. You keep pleading for “meeting”, etc. Why do you come here for that? If you want intimacy, go to a dating site.
by failing to address the central issue of the Teachings
Tell us what you think “the central issue of the Teachings” is.
Someone is reaching out to you.
And I find him annoying and a pest. Why doesn’t he “reach out” to someone who will appreciate his reaching?
He is a complete stranger
Hardly. He is a well known Krishnamurti impersonator who will say anything to lead someone on, and is now pretending to be an Indian.
Therefore our self-knowledge is utterly useless.
Self-knowledge is never useless, and your contempt for it says all one needs to know about you.
Self-knowledge is useless in this instant - that’s all I am saying. In this moment here and now, what place has self-knowledge of any description? Again, I wonder if you get this. It is one thing to be annoyed; it is another thing to stop and look at the very source of the annoyance. For the only pest in one’s life is oneself. You are the source of your own frustrations, are you not? This is the same for me and for all of us. One might even call it a simple law of self-knowledge. But of what use is any of this when it gets ignored so quickly?
So I come back to the question of meeting a complete stranger. If it annoys you, stay away.
Your problem is that you don’t know what self-knowledge is…and why would you, since you’re obsessed with getting what you want.
Self-knowledge (like everything else) is now and only know. It is not accumulative. It is realizing, for the first time, something never realized about one’s conditioning, and that partial insight brings about a change in the way the brain operates.